#non-consensual drugging

[uuuhshiny]

Vladimir Verevochkin in Double

Later that day

I guess you didn’t get me correctly. I will not take no for an answer

Next

[dont-look-me-in-the-eye]

@melda0m3 more Aegen stuff (i love torturing this poor fuck <3)

diversity win: this evil torturer woman is bisexual

[evenfallwriter]

devils come out when the sun goes down - chapter one

AI-less Whumptober 2023 - Day One : Drugging || @ailesswhumptober Flufftober 2023 - Day One : "I've got you." || @flufftober Bad Thing Happen Bingo - G1 : Tampering with Food/Drink || @badthingshappenbingo LGBTQ Bingo - O4 : Silenced || @lgbtqbingo AFG Dark Bingo - B4 : Paranoia || @anyfandomdarkbingo

Fandom: All For The Game - Nora Sakavic || Word Count: 2,005

Summary: The upperclassman, Katelyn and the monsters go to Eden’s on Halloween during Neil’s second year. Everything that can go wrong, pretty much does- but when the nights reaches an end, and it dawns on Neil that it could have been much worse, he decides that maybe it isn’t that bad.

Relationships: Neil Josten/Andrew Minyard, Katelyn/Aaron Minyard, Neil Josten & Katelyn & Aaron Minyard

Characters: Neil Josten, Andrew Minyard, Katelyn (All For The Game), Aaron Minyard, The Foxes | Palmetto State Foxes Member(s) (All For The Game)

Trigger Warnings: Date Rape Drug/Roofies, Non-Consensual Drugging, Passing out.

Additional Tags: Halloween Costumes, Hurt Neil Josten, Neil Josten & Katelyn Friendship, BAMF Katelyn (All For The Game), Angst and Hurt/Comfort, AI-less Whumptober 2023, Day 1: Drugging, Flufftober 2023, Day 1: "I've got you.", ailesswhumptober2023, Any Fandom Dark Bingo, Bad Things Happen Bingo

[fifthnailinstevesbat]

thinking of a new steddie fic/au hmmm.

It’s just the classic, Steve buys weed from Eddie in season 1 era, he and Tommy meet him at the bench in the woods behind school. Steve and Eddie have some playful banter and clearly get along, but it’s dismissed as just a drug deal and they go on about their lives.

Next time they meet is when a frantic Steve comes and finds Eddie after he’s just fought off the demogorgon for the first time. He’s rattled, and skittish, wearing a nasty black bruise on his eye, and just overall not acting like himself. He snaps at Eddie multiple times to just ‘hurry up’ and ‘get him his stuff’, and sure he’s being an asshole, but more than anything Eddie is just concerned. He has never seen The King Steve Harrington lose his cool like this. So Eddie cautiously gives him the weed, making sure not to give too much, and lets him go about his day, but not before asking if he’s alright. Steve clearly wasn’t expecting this and brushes it off defensively, but that doesn’t mean he’s not thinking about it for the rest of his week. How the hell did Eddie Munson notice something was wrong, when his own parents didn’t? Nor his “friends”?

They cross paths again a year later, the beginning of season two. Steve is still with Nancy and has freshly dumped his old douchebag crew of superficial friends. He is still sitting quite comfortably on the higher ranks of popularity, but there is no denying his status is not what it used to be. He comes to buy weed from Eddie in the first week back at school, and it’s a casual interaction. He’s still as charmingly stuck up as he ever was, but now without Tommy there to judge his every move, he seems a little more at ease when making casual conversation with Eddie. Eddie doesn’t mention the year before and Steve is so glad for it, secretly very embarrassed that he went to Eddie for some refuge after arguably his most traumatic experience to date. He gets his stuff, giving Eddie a smirk when he notices he’s dropped the price significantly for Steve when it’s just him alone. Eddie gives him a challenging smile back, almost daring him to call it out, but he doesn’t. They both just laugh and part ways.

The next run in is tina’s halloween party. They notice eachother when Steve first arrives, making eye contact and giving a polite nod. Maybe Eddie lifts his drink up to Steve in a silly salute. They don’t speak at all or make any effort to hang around eachother. That is, until Steve storms down the stairs in a rage after he’d gone up there with Nancy Wheeler. But then are those- tears? Eddie was standing on the front porch smoking a cigarette, trying to discreetly hide from one Billy Hargrove to avoid having to sell him anything, but staying visible enough that he won’t lose all chances of making any money tonight. Steve storms right past him and hits his shoulder. Eddie whips around and is about to call him a dick before he sees who it is.

Steve tries to quickly wipe his face, he won’t make eye contact with Eddie, and he’s clearly trying to get out as fast as he can. Eddie doesn’t let him, though, since he’s obviously not thinking very clearly and is most likely about to do something emotional and stupid. He asks if Steve’s alright, and his answers are all short and rushed, so he’s definitely not. They’re not really friends, but Eddie’s not an asshole.

— “Did you drive?” Eddie asks

“Yeah”

“Well, you’re drunk, Steve. You can’t get behind a wheel right now. And if I knowingly let you, then that makes me an accomplice. I’ll take you home.”

Steve tries to protest, attempting to push past him, but Eddie interjects. “Yeah, yeah, alright! Don’t thank me yet, Steve’o. This is not for you, see, I’m not trying to get a criminal record, here. I cant go to prison, Steve. Do you know what they’d do to a pretty guy like me in prison? Nope, let’s go hot stuff.” —

Eddie takes Steve home. They don’t talk much. By the time they reach Steve’s drive way and Eddie has put his van in park, Steve is making no attempt to exit the vehicle just yet. Eddie doesn’t know what to do, he didn’t really plan this far, so he’s just tapping away awkwardly at his steering wheel while Harrington stares down the dashboard so clearly lost in thought Eddie fears his head might explode. Steve tells Eddie what happened, says it’s ‘relationship troubles’, and he’s not quite sure what compelled him into being so honest with Eddie Munson, but he’s blaming the alcohol. Eddie wasn’t expecting that. They chat for a bit, Eddie makes Steve laugh and considers the whole night a success after that. Then they start cracking jokes about their shared hatred for Hargrove, and Steve looks and sounds a bit more ok to go inside. He thanks Eddie, quite sincerely actually, and it throws him a bit. He stutters a ‘yeah, for sure. It’s no problem.’ And Steve goes home.

After that, it’s a little different. Steve, doesn’t actually really have anyone, anymore. When they go back to school he’s now greeting Eddie here and there in the hallways, making conversation when they find themselves alone together, in the lunch line or at the bathroom sink. He doesn’t approach Eddie when there’s too many people around, though. As much as he’s grown, Steve Harrington still carry’s some prejudice in him about how certain things may make him look. But it doesn’t bother Eddie too much. It’s not like they are really friends, they’re just like, strange acquaintances. And Steve would never deny that they get along, that really Eddie’s ‘not so bad’. So that’s a win.

Steve finds Eddie again not long after the party to buy some more weed, a plan that sparked purely out of boredom. Eddie says yes, of course, but tells him if he wants it today he will need to wait till after school and meet Eddie at his place, since he was busy. So Steve takes a trip to the Munson trailer to make his deal. Eddie invites him inside and they sit together on the couch as he gets Steve’s bag ready. They end up making quite pleasant conversation, joking around and ultimately finding they are really enjoying each other’s company. They enjoy it so much so, that Steve ends up smoking there, with Eddie. So now they are kind of like, hanging out? And it’s fun, so they do it again. Still they’re not, friends friends, they just get along. Eddie just sells Steve weed sometimes and they keep it civil.

He doesn’t hear from Steve for a while, and the next time he sees him it’s from a distance, in passing. The man has the most roughed up face Eddie has ever seen, bruised and swollen in multiple areas, stitches and bandages all over. It’s really, concerning? completely metal, but alarming. This is the second time Eddie has seen the guy all beaten up like that. He knew that boys fight, but surely not that bad? As worried as he was, Eddie doesn’t approach him to ask questions, because they don’t know eachother like that. So he goes on about his day, and he doesn’t see Steve again after that for quite some time.

Then it’s summer, Eddie isn’t graduating again, and he’s not really sure what to do with himself over the break. The new mall has just opened up, and there’s a cool music store up on the second floor that he likes to visit sometimes with his band friends. And wouldn’t you know, working at the Scoops Ahoy located directly across from his favourite store, is Steve Harrington. The guy hasn’t come to Eddie for any weed since last year, and then there was that sighting where he looked like he’d just fallen face first into a flying fist or two, so it’s been a minute since Eddie’s seen him. And he’d be lying if he said it wasn’t a nice surprise. He only goes into scoops once. He’s curious, okay? Sue him. And, he knows the girl who works with him, Robin. So he plays it off like he had no idea he’d see Steve there. And to his surprise, Steve actually acknowledges him. He doesn’t act like Eddie is a total stranger just because they’re not in school anymore. The interaction is quick, they make very casual conversation, Eddie says hi to Robin, grabs his milkshake and goes home. That’s all. He doesn’t go back, and he doesn’t really plan to. Steve’s nice, and he knows Eddie’s around if he needs to buy from him again, and that’s really as far as their relationship goes. That’s all it ever was. It’s been fun getting to know Steve Harrington a little bit better, even if it was just for a short time. Eddie liked having the chance to see in past the quaffed hair and pressed polo shirts to learn that Steve was really just a person under it all. He never thought he’d say it, but Harrington wasn’t so bad. It was a nice little eye opening experience for Eddie.

Eddie was ready to write off his little blips of interaction with Steve Harrington as a thing of the past, no hard feelings, and move on with his life. That is, until he gets a knock at his front door in the middle of the night afew days after the big mall fire. And it’s Steve on the other side. And he looks awful, his face is the worst Eddie’s ever seen it. And he wasn’t really knocking, more like pounding. He says he needs Eddie’s help.

What the fuck?

[dice-n-slice-bitvh]

Hah! Fuck you single bitch, imagine being single.

I'm dating someone, go fuck yourself.

-✂️

Damn, didn't know that toys counted as a sentient being now- Wait, nevermind, not even a preschool toy would want to date you. Stop with hallucinations before you're sent to the Asylum again.

[skyward-floored]

Whumptober Day 4: Hallucinations, “You’re still alive in my head”

Sky and Twilight took the reins and this got longer than it was originally planned to be. But that’s okay that means more angst :)

Warnings: poisoning (kind of), non consensual drugging (sort of), hallucinations (ish).

Ao3 link

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Sky didn’t really like caves, but at least this one had plenty of light.

Glowing mushrooms dotted the walls in shades of blue and purple, smaller orange ones interspersed like tiny stars of amber. Every room they’d been in was a little different, and though Sky was tense and chilly from the location, even he had to admit it was pretty. It felt a lot like Skyview temple, honestly.

But luckily without the spiderwebs and skulltulas, he thought with a grimace. Worst part of that place, minus Ghirahim.

Sky gave a pink mushroom a cautious poke, and small waves of lighter pink rippled across the cap like a pond, Sky watching in fascination. Twilight looked up from where he was sitting, and watched the colors shift as well with an interested look.

“You think the others’ll be along soon?” Twilight asked as he stood and stretched. Sky shrugged. Half of their group had gone down a different tunnel, and they’d agreed to see if they met up later. The room they were in now had what looked like a side passage, so Sky, Twilight, Warriors and Hyrule had decided to pause here for a bit and see if they showed up.

“I’d bet they will,” Sky replied, poking the mushroom in two different spots. That made little waves of color go out that rippled against each other. “And if not, you can always sniff them out.”

“Should you all be touching those?” Warriors asked, an eyebrow raised as Sky poked a blue mushroom, glowing speckles winking all along the cap.

“I don’t see why not,” Hyrule said from across the room. He was tapping some smaller mushrooms that changed from orange to gold whenever they were poked. Twilight oohed in fascination, and got up to stand beside him and poke a few himself.

Warriors sighed, then gave a green one beside him a hesitant touch, the glow it gave off dimming slightly, and revealing stripes that weren’t visible before.

Sky and the others kept this up until Twilight heard footsteps from the tunnel, ears pricking as he reported it was the others. Four came through first, and Sky’s relief quickly turned into worry at the look on his face.

“Smithy? What’s up?” he asked, and Legend huffed as he came out of the tunnel behind him.

“Wild, that’s what,” Legend said. It came across as grumpy, but Sky could hear the worry in it as well. Twilight’s eyebrow raised in question.

“He and Wind were messing around, and Wild got smacked into this weird mushroom and all these spores went up,” Four reported with a frown. “We thought it was fine, but then Wild started acting all... weird.”

“Weird how?” Hyrule asked.

Time emerged from the tunnel with Wild’s arm slung around his shoulder then, the champion’s eyes wide and... worryingly blank. Twilight quickly went over to him, but Time waved him back.

“Best you don’t get too close, he already gave our sailor a bloody nose,” he warned, but Twilight still hovered nearby as Time gently set Wild down, keeping his head resting against his shoulder. “He’s quiet now, but when we first found him he was just...”

Wild gasped suddenly, and Time quickly put his arm around him in order to stop him from getting up when he lunged forward.

“W... wa-it...” Wild stammered, staring at the space in front of him. “Wait, wait for me, I-I’m...”

A shudder wracked through him, and he fell back against Time, shivering slightly. Warriors got to a knee beside him, carefully tilting Wild’s head around and studying his eyes and extremities, then hummed.

“I think it’s acting like a toxin of some kind,” he said, voice worried, but not overly concerned. Sky was rather alarmed at the use of the word toxin, himself. “Not life-threatening though, he’s not showing any signs of it being severe. He must just be reacting badly to the spores. An allergy, maybe. We’ll need to keep an eye on him, but it should just need to work through his system by itself. Is Wind okay?”

“I’b fine!” the sailor replied as he emerged from the tunnel as well, voice somewhat stuffed. “I didn’t breabe id in like Wild did.”

“Maybe get Hyrule to look at your nose, though,” Sky suggested with a wince, and Wind nodded.

The sailor skipped over to Hyrule, and while the traveler made sure nothing was broken, Sky cautiously moved over to where Wild sat, still shivering against Time’s shoulder. Wild didn’t react to his presence, but Sky noticed that when he shifted around, Time winced.

He looked closer, noticing that Time was holding his arm a bit gingerly, and Twilight obviously noticed as well.

“Did he just get Wind’s nose?” Twilight asked suspiciously, and Time sighed.

“He struggled a bit as I was pulling him away, but I’m fine.”

“Well then you won’t mind it if Hyrule looks you over just to be sure,” Warriors said flatly, and shooed him away as Twilight shifted Wild to his shoulder. Time hesitated, but at the sight of Wild immediately huddling up beside Twilight, he gave in with a sigh.

It was decided they’d make camp in the large cavern for now so they could monitor Wild, and hopefully give his body time to work through what it had been exposed to. Warriors wasn’t expecting it to take too long, but in the meantime... Wild only got worse.

He shivered and babbled nonsense nobody could make out, eyes catching on nothing. He felt feverish when Sky brushed a hand over his face, and coughed occasionally, looking miserable. All they could really do was keep him comfortable, but Wild only seemed to get worse, his mumbling growing louder, his eyes growing more wild.

Time’s arm turned out to be sprained, rather badly, and he was banished to the other side of the cave with Wind. The others tried to help with Wild, but after he nearly clocked Legend in the eye, Warriors decided the less people nearby, the better. Sky couldn’t bring himself to leave though, not with way Wild whimpered and thrashed, and he stayed beside him, wiping sweat from his brow, and wrapping his sailcloth around him when his shivering grew worse.

And nothing much changed for an hour or two, until Wild suddenly stiffened, and stared directly at Sky.

Sky blinked, and Warriors drew up beside him, prepared to step in if Wild tried anything. They all watched anxiously as Wild’s gaze flicked between the two of them, Twilight holding a little tighter to the champion, and Wild’s eyes rolled upward to look at him. Then his expression suddenly turned almost childlike with hope.

“Father?” he said in a small voice, and Sky’s heart fell down to his boots.

Twilight breathed in sharply.

“No, no Link, I’m not your father,” Twilight tried to explain gently, expression agonized. “None of us are, he’s not... here.”

“B-But you.... wh-where is he?” Wild asked, filmy eyes fixing on Warriors’ face. “I thought he... is he okay?”

Warriors froze, and Twilight exchanged looks with Sky. “I...”

Sky swallowed, and gently took Wild’s hand. “Link, he’s... he’s busy right now, okay?”

Wild blinked at him, then shuddered, his eyes clearing a moment and filling with grief.

“No. He’s not,” he whispered.

He let out a soft whimper, and to Sky’s dismay a tear fell down his cheek, its trail erratic due to the way Wild was shaking.

“I can’t r-remember— I miss him, b-but... I don’t kn-know if— you’re here, but y-you’re not— I saw you,” Wild said with a sharp inhale, eyes suddenly taking on a different sort of blankness.

“Oh no,” Twilight breathed as Wild’s shaking suddenly stilled, his blank gaze fixing on Sky’s face. “Please no, not now, don’t show him one right now...”

Oh Hylia, a memory, Sky thought in horror as Wild fell still. Please, let it be a good one.

Sky kept holding Wild’s hand, and Wild continued to stare at him, sweat-soaked hair falling in his face.

“He’s fighting...” Wild whispered, mouth the only part of him moving. “He st-stayed to fight... protect the... king. We saw, Zelda, she saw, when Cala... Calamity... the g-guardians...”

A shudder wracked through Wild, another tear slipping down his cheek.

“King’s dead. Everyone, they’re all... nobody left, D-Divine... p-papa...” he choked out, and suddenly his eyes cleared, and he lurched forward with a wail, head knocking against Sky’s collarbone.

Sky quickly stopped him from falling over, and waved Warriors and Twilight back when they tried to intervene, Wild clutching at Sky’s shirt with a terrible desperation.

“Father I failed,” Wild choked out, and Sky ignored how his heart was breaking, and ran a hand over Wild’s hair. Wild sobbed into his shirt, and Sky held him tightly, not even knowing where to begin with untangling this mess.

He looked at the others helplessly, and saw Twilight looking like he was either about to cry or hit something, and Warriors’ face looking much the same, expression holding a quiet grief.

“Link, it’s okay,” Sky tried, soothing him as he rocked a little. “You did your best. You saved Zelda.”

“She h-had to wait a-a hundred years,” Wild cried, voice muffled by Sky’s shirt. “I made her w-wait, s-so long, and y-you—”

Wild’s voice broke off into another sob, and Sky looked helplessly at Twilight. He knew the basics of Wild’s adventure, but not everything, and he didn’t know how to comfort him through this.

Wild had latched onto him though, and passing him off wouldn’t end well, he was sure. It was up to Sky.

He swallowed.

“Link,” he began softly, but loud enough that Wild could hear him over his crying. “I’m your father, aren’t I?”

Wild nodded, and Sky swallowed again, mentally apologizing to Wild’s father for impersonating him, and to Wild for lying about his identity.

“Then believe me when I say that I’m so proud of you,” Sky said, voice still soft. Wild let out a gross sniffle, and raised his head a bit so he could see Sky’s face. His eyes were still filmy, but Sky couldn’t tell if it was because of the memory or not. Was he out? “You did your best, you saved Zelda, and beat the Calamity. You avenged the people who died. You’re a hero, Link.”

“But I couldn’t save— I s-saw, saw you,” Wild hiccuped, still clutching Sky’s shirt. “You had— you weren’t, w-weren’t, moving, a laser, I saw you...”

“Oh Link,” Sky said thickly, and Wild pressed his face to Sky’s neck, a hiccuping sob coming out of him.

Twilight abruptly stood, shoulders tense as a bowstring.

“Captain. Do you have anything that would knock him out until the spores are out of his system?” Twilight asked quietly. Warriors nodded, and Twilight turned away. “Give him that. I’m not going to sit here and watch him be tortured by hallucinations any longer.”

“You want us to drug him?” Sky said in disbelief, and Twilight shook his head.

“We’re sedating him. It’s different.”

Sky didn’t know about that, but he didn’t argue as Wild sobbed again. This needed to stop.

Warriors didn’t add to the conversation either, and dug through his bag a moment before retrieving a small pouch of leaves. He got up and retrieved a cup from one of the others, pouring water inside, then crumbled up some leaves and stirred them in to the sounds of Wild’s sniffles.

He heated the mixture with his fire rod, still stirring, then blew on it and held it out.

“There. It’ll knock him out for a good ten hours,” he said quietly, and Twilight nodded, taking the cup.

“Hey Link,” Sky said softly, running a hand over Wild’s head. Wild shifted a little, and turned his head up. “We have a... medicine here for you that you need to take. It’ll make you feel better.”

“Really?” Wild asked in a small voice.

“Really,” Sky said, and Wild sighed thickly, going still against Sky’s shoulder.

“Okay,” he whispered, and Sky ignored the sting in his throat at the lie. Twilight came forward and crouched beside him, his face briefly conflicted, and Sky propped Wild up so he could help him drink it.

Strangely enough Wild didn’t resist at all, and drank most of the tea without fuss. He finished most of it before his eyes began to droop, and Sky adjusted his hold on him, making sure he was comfortable.

Wild sighed sleepily, and looked at Warriors and Twilight, then up at Sky.

“I m-missed you papa,” he whispered, and Sky swallowed back the lump in his throat, not missing the glassy look in Twilight’s eyes.

“Try and get some sleep, Link,” he managed to reply, and Wild finally closed his eyes, face looking more at peace than it had all day.

Warriors waited to be sure he was asleep, then stood and went off to the other side of the cave, likely to inform Time and the others of what had happened. And probably compose himself. Twilight remained beside Wild, his face conflicted, and Sky rested a hand on his arm, Twilight looking away and closing his eyes.

Sky sighed, looking at Wild, then held him close as he gently wiped the tear tracks from his face.

He really didn’t like caves.

[whumporama]

Whumpee who is a very powerful person, (magical or just strong and dangerous), and needs to be held captive. To keep them down, their captors keep them drugged.

Whumpee, who would normally never give in or back down, who keeps fighting even if they're restrained, is now unable to even lift a finger to stop them. It breaks them. They can take anything, if they can fight. But this? They're constantly confused and feel like their mind is in a fog. Their body doesn't feel theirs anymore, they can't move and they can't think and they can't resist.

---

When they're rescued, they're in a pretty bad state, and taking care of their wounds will hurt.

But Whumpee refuses the sedative Caretaker offers. They just got this control back, and even though they know they can trust Caretaker, they don't want to go back to that.

So now they're trapped between two evils. It hurts like hell to get their wounds cleaned, and they've had so, so much pain and are so tired. But the relief comes with going back to that state, and they can't.

Does Caretaker respect their wish? Do they try to convince them? Do they force Whumpee to take it? Do they inject it, and Whumpee only realizes when it starts to kick in?

[sloppysequinz]

Is there any better feeling in the world than getting a brat with an attitude problem to let down her walls and relax? To feel her drop the spiny exterior in favor of slumping against your chest? To feel her sigh as you cuddle her and you feel her tense limbs unwind to drape over your soft body?

So what if I use drugs to get her like this. She needs it. Mommy knows best.

And even if she says she’s mad about it later, even if she acts angry, she doesn’t stop accepting food and drinks I make for her. What is that other than an invitation?

[aziraphales-library]

Hi! I’d love to recomend “What doesn't kills me, makes me more insanely in love with You” by GreediLadyFoxie if it hasn’t been recommended already.

I was wondering if you folks had anymore fics with grillt either being poisoned/ using drugs/being drugged for angsty reasons (ideally a happy ending but I’m not fussy) thank you so much for all you do for the fandom :)

Here are some angsty fics featuring poison/drugging. Mind the tags!...

Beacon by EdosianOrchids901 (M)

Taken captive by humans, Crowley manages to get a message out. Aziraphale rushes to the rescue, but Crowley has been poisoned by holiness. Will Aziraphale be able to save his beloved?

Dans les Bras d'un Démon by bleuberry (E)

After the failed Apocalypse, Crowley and Aziraphale are living together peacefully. Until, old enemies return again to exact revenge a second time. Or, Crowley is drugged with a demonic enhancer and feelings are confessed. But, first a chase.

Sacrificial Lamb by ShesAKillerQueen98 (M)

Crowley finds himself in a very dangerous situation when he's captured by a religious cult. Without access to his powers, his only hope is that Aziraphale hears his pleas in time.

Paradigm Shift (Or, What it Means to Heal a Demon) by rattatatosk (T)

Aziraphale stared down at the demon's limp body, wringing his hands as he desperately tried to figure out what to do. No, that wasn't quite right. He knew what to do: he needed to heal Crawly. The question was, how? Everyone knew you couldn't heal demons with divine light. Or-- well. He supposed that wasn't quite right, either. No one knew it, because no one would have ever bothered to try it. He was an angel; they didn't heal demons, they smited them. But he couldn't-- he couldn't just leave Crawly like this, helpless and alone. He had to do something. If he didn't, no one else would. And yet the question remained-- how?

Choices by Most_Loved_Tragedy (E)

Two years after the failed apocalypse, Crowley and Aziraphale think they're free. Free to love, free to get married and move into their cottage in the South Downs. But Heaven and Hastur aren't exactly ready to move on.

And the one you mentioned...

What doesn't kills me, makes me more insanely in love with You by GreediLadyFoxie (M)

A.K.A. five times Crowley took a poison (for fun) and one time he really thought he would end his life forever

- Mod D

[babybunbuun]

Anon is back 🤭

As well as a tip jar is available, every tip earns your special lewdies for your inbox🩷

[rocoutlaststuff]

So I’ve got a request a Franco Barbi x reader where they were his lover from before he was captured but now they’ve ended up in the trials as a reagent (assuming they can even remember each other) maybe some angst/hurt/comfort as a imagine or one shot whatever would be better for you!! ♥️♥️♥️

One request coming up! I got carried away with this, and you've officially turned me into a bit of a Franco fan which I did not expect. That's what listening to dialogue for an hour straight will do to a person, I guess. Regardless, I hope this is what you were looking for!

Presently in the Past (Franco x Reader) [Requested]

🐑 ♡ I lost the footage to make a Franco gif, anyone wanna play to get it back ♡ 🐑

You can't remember anything about your past, but your past remembers you.

Explicit, Graphic Violence, F/M, M/M, Other/M, Tag(s): Trauma, Human Experiments, Non-Consensual Body Modification, Drug Use, Needles, Memory Loss, Angst, Hurt/Some Comfort, Blood, Violence, Death, Explicit Language, Obsessive Behaviour, Possessive Behaviour, Pet Names, Cuddling, Flashbacks, Oneshot, Ambiguous Gender Reader, POV Second Person

Find it on ao3 ♡ WC: 6,432

Disclaimer: Easterman's introduction to the trial, and the first paragraph of the story were written by Red Barrels. I recommend reading Barbi's comic first if you haven't already!

Thank you to an anonymous user for requesting this! This is very much my first time writing Franco - hope he's written well ��

CIA ASSET AT A BAR SOUTH OF MIAMI CONFIRMED FRANCO BARBI'S INVOLVEMENT IN AGENCY ACTIVITY IN CUBA. FRANCO DEEPLY ENTWINED WITH EXPAT/COUNTER-REVOLUTONARY CUBAN COMMUNITY IN FLORIDA.

STATEMENT FROM LAST KNOWN FROM CUBAN-COUNTER REVOLUTIONARY ASSOCIATE CONFLICTS WITH CIA ASSET. FRANCO IS HINTED AT LEADING DOUBLE LIFE BETWEEN ROMANTIC INTEREST AND CAREER.

ATTEMPTING TO CONFIRM.

“Maybe he didn't expect someone to like him,” Clyde muttered. 

His attention hadn't left the shot of Wolf’s Milk that had been made for him. The mere thought of sickly sweet taste forced his insides to turn. Like the wild goose hunt he was on, he wasn’t about the forget it any time soon. And just when he thought he had some semblance of understanding, it had come out that Franco was attempting to hide his involvement with a potential lover. 

He had done a good job too, despite him running his mouth in supposed privacy.

Finding said lover was useful if they could, yet Clyde was close enough to Franco that he preferred the time and resources went towards his target. 

“You can say that again. Looking like that I'd give up, but that man… He's got tenacity. If you want to call it that, anyway.” The agent put down the freshly cleaned glass with a sigh, and he waved off a patron. 

“I can chase up that lead for our mystery friend if you need, but the shop’s closing soon, so it's best that you're leaving. Good luck finding your guy. Nasty piece of work that one.” 

Atropine. Benzedrine. Chloropromazine. LSD. Nitric acid. Glass. Knives. Needles. Drills. 

So many things had dowsed, punctured, and been absorbed by your skin.

If you could take stock of how much abuse your body had suffered, you would have died many times over. Yet the cocktail of drugs that flowed through your veins mixed with the very same abuse to create a near perfect blank slate. 

You knew who you were. You were one in the same with the person in the mirror. You shared your history with that reflection and no one else. 

Yet sometimes when you looked at yourself, you felt like someone else. It was only ever a brief flicker of emotion - a feeling that you replicated in the decor of your space - but you held onto it when you felt it. 

Hell, you encouraged it when you could. 

Waiting to go into a trial was not one of those times. 

Your focus remained on the reagent who sat in the lobby with you. Whereas you sat on one of open tables, he sat on the floor by the stairwell. His hands flit about his body which rocked back and forth from the repetitive tapping of his feet on the ground. The cries of other unfortunate souls beyond your rooms sent him further beneath the stairwell to the point that he was nothing but a shadowy figure. 

You suspected he was new.

It was a horrible fate for someone new to be stuck with you too. While the others took their sweet time waking up, you had checked every room. There were four of you in total still within your lobby. The other twelve had left to go to their own trials. So you were left to decide whether you asked the newcomer if he wanted to follow you into the depths of Hell. 

Doing trials alone was not the answer. It was rarely the answer in the facility, and the people you saw alone were alone for a reason. They scared you more than some of the freaks they released into the trials.

Your trio was one man short.

Yet you were experienced, and experience meant more pain.

“Hey,” you called out. 

A muffled yelp. 

“Hey, it's okay,” you soothed as you rose from your table. Each movement was slow, and you held up your hands. Before you even reached the stairs, you crouched to make yourself smaller to him, skirting your hand along the floor to steady yourself. 

“Who are you?” the stranger barked at you. His voice was fractured. It never settled on a pitch, nor could one emotion truly determine the tone.

Even in the darkness, enough light reached him to caress the edges of the tears that fell down his face. 

You told him your name then asked for his while you sat beside the stairwell. With your hands crossed over your knees, you hugged them tight and waited for him to respond. He eyed you from his hiding spot perfectly still as opposed to how he had been a few short seconds ago.

“I don’t remember-” he choked. “I don’t remember my name.” 

There was not much you could do except watch him repeat that statement over and over again in floods of tears. When he started to hyperventilate, you guided him with his breathing to the beat of your fellow reagents coming down the stairs. When they saw the scene, they agreed to take him with you. 

Sure, it took a lot of convincing to have him step into the shuttle with you, but he did.

And you gave him a nickname: Franco.

He seemed happy with it, and you were grateful to get the name out of your head. The others knew that was what you called the soft toy you kept on your bed, but you didn’t care. It was one of those silly things you fixated on - one that was better than some of the things other reagents found comfort in. 

Like cattle, you were herded into the chairs without any other thoughts about what you should have been doing. It was a routine. One that you explained to Franco. You warned him about the clamps on the chair. Then you warned him about the TV and the gas. 

How could you tell someone to brace for the torment you were about to endure though?

"You are the surgeon's knife, and where you meet flesh, blood and pain must follow. We are the surgeon's medicine, who regulate pain and death. Poison the supply of those who would ease pain, and we will let you out."

There were no words shared between the group, only the terrified whimpers of Franco beside you. He cried out at the images that manifested in the fog. The suffering was unique to the reagent, and you stared forwards in disgust with bile in your throat. It was impossible to drown out the sheer panic beside you. 

Instead, it became part of your nightmare. 

A woman staggered towards you. Her body was outlined in the needles that clothed her skin. They touched every part of her, bouncing to the irregular rhythm of her steps. She tripped, tumbled, and fell into your lap - your eyes shut in an instant to block out the sensation you knew wasn’t there. You told yourself that the weight that hit you wasn’t real. 

It wasn’t real. 

It wasn’t real.

She wasn’t really there.

Franco’s cries were a white noise that tore through your skull like the nails that dug at your tattered slacks. It was too much. Unable to help your morbid curiosity, you allowed your eyelids to flutter open. 

The pulse that pounded within your chest threatened to cease. Tension gripped at your body, and a man held your legs with a similar zeal. Chipped nails belonging to the pasty skin sunk into you. Bloodshot eyes met yours, yet they didn’t seem to hold any hatred. They watched you with a warmth you hadn’t seen since you entered the facility and a smile to match.

You felt like you were looking in the mirror again. Familiarity swelled within your chest, and frustration compelled you to tears the second your wrists crashed against the metal restraints. 

He was gone in a blink. 

The shuttle stuttered and ground against the rails, coming to stop. You mustered up a brief smile for one of your fellow reagents at the concerned look she shot you. She still asked you if you were okay though while the other checked in with Franco. 

“I'm fine.” 

You were. If you didn't know why you were so upset by your vision then there was no reason why you couldn’t be fine. If anything you were good. Maybe even great. 

Despite the way your guts churned, and a dull ache beat against your head, you were exhilarated. 

You recognised that man. You didn't know who he was, but you recognised him, and he was a part of whoever you were before. 

He was your answer.

The first thing you noticed was the water. Amid the boxes and televisions, you were lost to the sound of water lapping against something. It seemed you weren’t the only one who noticed it too. 

“What is that?” your friend asked. There was no telling if he was talking to himself or not as he passed by you. Franco lingered by your side while your group headed to a nearby set of railings.

“I knew it!” your friend exclaimed. “It’s water. They got water in here.” He proceeded to laugh at the sight before him when he turned to see a pier extending beyond you. 

“Fuck - this is…” you watched as he looked around the walls plastered in the image of a distant city, and you noted the way his expression strained under the weight of his thoughts. “It’s too real.”

Nothing else was said. He continued onwards past the viscera not a few steps ahead of him. You allowed yourself the chance to peak over the railings, and the water seemed hypnotising in the way it calmed to near stillness. Something must have fallen in seconds prior to your arrival for it to have made a sound. 

You decided you weren’t going to stick around to find out what that something was.

Franco twitched when your body collided with his. He’d frozen. Fight or flight’s third sibling had no place in the trials, however, and you felt your heart sink at the sight of his vacant stare. You weren’t sure if he had clocked out for good already when he probably hadn’t seen a dead body up close yet.

A once over of his attire led you to almost regret bringing him along as you leant down to remove your shoes. The action caused Franco to return from the depths of his mind, and he watched you with intense focus. 

“Put these on,” you told him. 

With two shoes placed before him, he did so with ample tenderness. Maybe he'd suffered from splinters already. It was a thought that repulsed you given you now had no protection against that fate. 

“Thanks.” 

You nodded at him and took his hand to guide him along. 

“Ignore what you see. Focus on what we're doing,” you said. 

Enforcing this yourself, you closed yourself off to the world around you. It didn't matter that the wood bit at your soles, nor did it matter that blood that wasn't your own caressed every pinprick sized wound you endured down there. There was no face you made when you felt something compress under your weight and burst with a squelch. 

You continued - plain and simple.

There was little in the way of danger along the pier. Just a couple of stragglers that muttered to themselves. Nobody disturbed them. When you drew near the gate, things changed, and your steel willed determination waned at the sound of nearby pleading. 

“Salvatore Cargo,” you parroted from a sign in a bid to soothe yourself subconsciously. 

The pleading only grew louder as the gate was lifted. One by one, you slipped underneath to find the source of the cries. Two men hung above you like the countless decaying fish strung out to dry long ago. Except they were very much alive and terrified. 

Their fear was your own as you knew the sound likely drew attention, and sure enough a shoulder connected with you. 

So it began. 

Your friend collided with you to prevent an ex-pop from gutting you on long talons. You were forced back into a crate, and you acted on impulse. Around you, your friends scrambled to fend off the attacker. Franco froze once more. 

Taking his hand, you snatched a bottle from a shelf and launched it at the ex-pop to distract them. It gave your friends enough time to run, something that was feral and frenzied when lives were on the line. 

Your heart pumped. Unable to keep up with your pace, Franco staggered behind you. Directions and quick observations sounded out from your friends like gunfire. 

Without them, you would have missed the safe zone. 

You threw Franco into a slot and pushed your way into another. As the click resounded, you nearly fell out the other side. Franco knelt on all fours beside you, and you wrapped your hands around him to pull him up. There wasn't anything going through your head as you dragged him to his feet towards the nearest desk.

All you wanted was for him to be okay. You pulled him down into the cramped space beneath the desk on instinct. He was hyperventilating again. The sounds of movement around you let you know that the others were on their way upstairs. 

Meanwhile, you held Franco close to your side. 

Each shudder of his body shook your own. ‘Calm’ wasn’t exactly the state you could describe him falling into, but he fell silent soon enough. It was just in time for you to catch the latest disturbances upstairs. 

A voice different to your friends sounded over the now frantic cries of the hung men. The first gunshot made Franco smack his head against the table in fright. The second was cause for concern as you realised that you had in fact heard a gun. 

The screams were silenced, and the voice was too muffled for you to make out what was being said. 

It belonged to a man. That much you knew.

You peered over the table to survey the scene. The safe zone was still in tact. The lockers beside you didn’t seem disturbed, and the partition was still up. A third and fourth gunshot rung out, however. 

Whatever was happening wasn’t finished. 

The shill scrape of metal on metal filled you with dread - the partition nothing but a memory in the span of a second. You were being told to continue.

“Come on, hey. We’re going to make it through, but we need to move,” you told yourself as you grabbed Franco’s arm and pulled him from his hiding spot. Your friends all but fell down the stairs in their panic to tell you what you already knew: whoever was stuck in the trial with you had a gun.

It was a point of debate as you manourved through the environment towards the next stage of the trial. Even as you hauled pounds of drugs from a cart between one another - the gun outweighed any opinions or thoughts on your given task. How did you combat a gun? Could you take it from the unknown assailant? Were the ammo stashes anywhere?

Nothing useful came of your frantic whispers to one another, and while you took time to search for resources, you decided to help Franco out. It changed the subject at least to something more productive. 

“Battery packs go in like this,” you explained, showing him how to work his ESOP. “As for this, if you ever step on a mine and there’s gas - or you’re gassed because it can happen, one puff. That’s all you need. It’ll take it all away.” 

You snatched a brick for safekeeping, but no explanation was needed for Franco. He understood its use the second it was in your hand. It seemed he learnt quick too, repeating back what you’d said to him on the way back to your rendezvous by the drug cart. 

“I’ve got this,” your friend said. He took out a thin tube you recognised all too well and placed the needle to the edge of his arm. It sunk beneath the surface. You were ready to move again.

Things were going smooth for such an advanced trial. 

That’s what you thought as the cart was heaved along at a brisk jog. You eyed the surrounding area from the boat to the fish market, and you agreed with your friend. It was getting very real. 

Too real, in fact. 

The stench of rotting fish and past reagents left you nauseous. 

“Right this way, please.” The mannequin pointed you in the direction of a weird tool, and the group immediately fell into disarray. 

“No - geez, another fucking thing we can’t deal with right now,” one of your friends hissed. The other picked up the unfamiliar device. She pressed the switch on the side, yet nothing happened.

“Symbol decoder, it says - look,” Franco managed, “aim it at the uh, at uh-” he trailed off as he waved his hand in the direction of yellow paint nearby. The first attempt didn’t work, but as you crammed around the corner, everything became clear. You had to line up the image. 

The device whirred as the roulette of potential combinations locked in far too slow for the sense of urgency you all felt. 

Eight, seven, four.

You were left with Franco as the other two rushed over to the vault and input the code. Nothing could have prepared you for what happened next though. 

“It’s mine. It’s God damn mine, and I’ll skin, salt, and fuck any ruptured scumbag who tries to take it!”

You weren't in the trial. For a second too long, you were somewhere else. In your head, on a dock, you didn't fucking know. All you knew was that the voice stirred something within you. Somewhere - you'd heard it somewhere before. Where? You couldn't remember. Maybe you hadn't even recognised it, but the strength of the familiarity was enough to shake you. 

Somewhere. Someone. 

In the blank space of your head that you could feel, you knew he was there. It made you want to claw at your scalp and peel back the flesh. If you shattered your skull then everything would spill out. Or would you end up dying in a disappointing pool of black tar instead?

What if you forgot everything? 

“-you alright?” Franco asked, and your attention snapped towards him. 

What did you do to deserve to be taken away from everything you knew? 

You didn't say anything, nodding instead. A hand wrapped around yours, and he gave you the best smile anyone could muster in your circumstances. Fake and pained. 

“Let's go,” he said. You nodded again. 

Your friends caught up, and you were given an extra decoder. The space before you led to multiple darkened passageways. 

Cattle cars displayed the symbols you needed to find like some sort of messed up children's game, and you were left with Franco. It was decided as a team. You went left. They went right. With a mental note made of the symbol you needed, you beckoned to Franco to follow. 

So began your search.

All the while, you searched your mind for memories attached to that voice.

Franco gasped from the pain his night vision goggles caused him when he pulled them over his eyes. Thankfully, it was a pain you had forgotten, but you could sympathise with him. The section beside the train was incredibly narrow with no visibility. He had no choice but to wear them if he wanted to see.

You navigated around a corner with no luck finding a star. Then you navigated around another corner to find nothing useful either. But then a light from another cattle car caught your eye. Yellow paint lit up like fireworks the second you lifted your goggles.

The star was there. Part of it anyway. Both of you moved towards the part of the puzzle you had found, and you glanced around for its missing half. It had to be in front of you if needed to line them up, but where?

The answer was on a barrel. 

“Got it-” you breathed, holding up the decoder. It sprang to life, and you jolted when Franco bumped into you. 

You were going to ask if he was okay when he told you he had heard something. Against the buzz of the device, you had failed to listen for anything else. How could you when your attention was divided between some stupid star and fragments of your past? But when you focused you could hear it too. 

Breathing. It was heavy. Strained. It had to be him. Unless it was another ex-pop there was nobody else it could be.

He wasn’t getting any quieter either, and you looked back at the decoder to see it had stopped on one number. You waved it in front of you, desperate for it to work. You were so close to being able to leave - you could get it before whoever it was making their way towards you reached you.

They could turn and leave. It was a gamble that you were willing to take. 

If you stayed you could see him.

“Go hide-” you snapped, and Franco hesitated. “Go.” 

“Who is that?” That voice. You froze when Franco finally moved, and he brought you with him onto the car much to your dismay.

“My dad send you? Think I'm fuckin' scared of you?” Franco guided you to a barrel and instructed you to get inside. 

You did, albeit you were slow. The voice lulled you into a trance, and you wanted to know who it was. His face was all you needed. Just one peek. That was it. Fingertips rounding the edge of the barrel, you peered over the top to see Franco cross the train towards a barrel on the other side. 

He ran right past the opening and fell in unison with a bang. 

The sound of the gunshot continued to ring in your ears, and you stared in horror at Franco. He was alive -  a strained groan spilled from his lips as he rolled over to grip his leg. The bottoms he wore were red already, but the blood began to seep from between his fingers. 

“Found you, fuckin’ rat-” the voice cooed. “Try fuckin’ runnin’ now, cocksucker.” 

The stranger came into view. As he stepped into the light you could see everything. It was him. 

He was the man in your vision.

Your answer.

And still nothing made sense. Even as you took him in, you couldn't place him in your memory. But you could see the situation was dire. 

“Gonna cry? What a fuckin’ coward,” the man said, and you shot up from the barrel. With a blind rig, you weren't much use, but the brick in your pocket was. 

“Franco - move!” you cried out. Both men looked at you, and you launched the brick at the stranger. 

It was a perfect shot. 

“Shit - my fuckin’ head!” 

You leapt from the barrel and almost careened over with it as Franco threw himself to his feet. He cried as he did - falling down when he tried to make the jump from the car. 

When you landed beside him, you didn't get very far. A hand snatched at your neck, and your body was pulled back against the car floor behind you. 

“Must be one of those roaches - the fuck do you think you are usin’ my name like that? You-”

He was Franco.

You let out a whimper at the sensation of your spine being pulled against the car's floor and upwards. As if it couldn't get any worse, a gun pressed to one side of your head, and a face the other. The proximity forced you into stillness at the feel of the real Franco’s breath against your ear. 

“Ain't no fuckin’ way,” he huffed beside you, and you looked at the Franco on the floor who was trying to crawl beneath the car.  

“One of a God damn kind,” your assailant said. 

The aggressiveness he held in his voice shifted into something more joyous. He carried an excitable air around him as he let go of your neck, and he jumped from the train. The mood was shattered when he landed on an injured leg, and the shriek that erupted from beneath the train must have been heard trial wide. 

“Shut your whore mouth!” 

What were you meant to do? 

As two shots fired off into the Franco beneath the train, you were faced with the Franco who had inspired the nickname. And he had killed a man. There was nothing else you could have done but run. You were a credit to your own survival as you did, but you mourned two losses. 

One of which tailed after you.

“Where do you think you’re goin’? Are we playin’ games? Kiss and chase?” 

You sped towards the drug cart at breakneck speed. It seemed Franco had a hard time keeping up with you as his breathing became more laboured. He shouted after you and began to talk to himself when he lost sight of you.

There wasn’t any time for you to explain as you crashed into your friends. 

“Did you get the drugs?” one of them asked, and everything came crashing down around you. They asked about Franco. You felt yourself slipping as the thoughts struggled to form on your tongue.

“Gone, no - he’s gone. Franco got him.”

“What do you mean Franco got Franco?” You didn’t have a response to the question as you fumbled for anything. Each word that unceremoniously left your mouth felt like chewing on dirt. Franco killed Franco. Franco was the name of the ex-pop they had seen. 

The silence that fell after you finished spoke volumes. 

You could see it in their body language. The way that they didn’t move, yet their eyes danced across you. Muscles tightened like coils ready to spring. They didn’t say anything, but you felt their judgement. 

While you tried to convince yourself it was just guilt, you knew why they would take suspicion with you.

You understood why. 

“C’mon out, orsacchiotto, I wanna make sure it’s really you,” Franco called out. His tone was playful despite the weasely undertone of something else that dripped through. Whatever it was was primal. “You got more friends you want to introduce me too? I’ve somethin’ for ‘em too.” 

A metallic bang erupted from one of the trains as if something hit a wall, and you flinched. 

“I know where the code thing is, I got one of the numbers before Franco appeared - I can lead you to-” you were cut off by a hand against your mouth. Your friend had lunged forwards and covered it with his head turned. He let it slide down, and ran a hand over his own face, refusing to step back.

Then he gestured behind you. “Go on, lead the way.” 

You did - going back in the way you came. At the same time, it seemed Franco hadn’t given up his search, and his words damned you beyond the judgement you had already suffered. 

“D’ya remember those cold, cold nights when I used to keep you warm?” You weren’t sure if you wanted to remember.

“I’d give anythin’ if you’d come cuddle up to me. Baby’s lonely.” Whatever you were to him was more than a friend.

“I know what you want - zuccherino for my zuccherino - too bad it’s locked away. I thought your mommy taught you good manners… All you gotta say is please…” Yet there was a bite of hostility in his voice. 

“Don’tcha miss me?” 

You did. Deep down inside, despite the way your body screamed at you in all the confusion and pain, you missed him. 

You wanted to stop running.

With a shaky hand, you held the decoder up to the star symbol. 

Nine, three, zero.

You stared at the void between the floor and the cattle car knowing there was a fresh corpse there. Your friend went to the vault to open it up, and you waited beside the edge of the car. 

But it wasn’t silent.

Your name spilled from nearby. Close. It was close, yet you couldn’t see anything. The sound of shuffling and debris being pushed out the way forced you back into the cool steel of the cattle car. From the safety of your light, darkness opened up before you. So you let the goggles slide over your eyes. 

There, opposite you, was Franco. You were witness to him as he crawled through an opening in the wall on all fours. He was swift to his feet and quicker to train both barrels of his shotgun on you. A broad smile decorated his sunny expression, and laughter bubbled from his throat at your reaction to him.

“Bang!” he exclaimed. “Caught you.” 

There was movement inside of the car.

“And another fuckin’ rat,” he muttered. “Am I not enough? You gotta bring these dumb fuckin’ fucks into my work? My house?” 

Your heart was in your throat, and the lack of sound from the train alerted you to the fact that your friend had stopped moving. He was playing it safe. He wasn’t going to leave you was he? He was going to leave you with Franco. 

Regardless of if your friendship still existed or not, you were going to try at the very least to let him do that.

You were fine. 

“Wait,” you blurted out. “I don’t remember Franco, I don’t remember anything at all.” He stopped dead in his tracks. You glanced at the way his finger toyed with the trigger on his shotgun, and then you met his eyes.

“I don’t remember anything at all,” you repeated as everything began to unwind into sadness. “They put this fucking thing on my head, and they force me to do things I don’t want to do.” 

You gripped at your night vision goggles, the bolts embedded in your skull. Franco’s head lolled to the side with narrowed eyes, and you had his full attention.

“Who?” he asked.

“Who what?” 

“Who the fuck is making you do anythin’? Is it those scumbags that are runnin’ around?” You shook your head. “Nobody fuckin’ tells you what to do. You’re not some fuckin’ whore…” 

Franco’s expression contorted as his fist tightened in on itself. He shook his head and strode over to the car. You watched as he slammd the butt of his shotgun against the train, cursing each time. Each sound sent shockwaves through your poor nervous system, and you felt feint from the amount of adrenaline that coursed through your body.

“Fuck!” Franco repeated. “Why the fuck is nothin’ makin’ sense today? Shit’s so confusin’. Give me strength, somebody.” The gun was pointed at you in a casual gesture far too dangerous for your liking.

“Baby’s got to put on his big boy pants. I’ll be comin’ back for you, oh, don’t you think I’ll forget, but first…” 

You couldn’t stop him from leaving. He hopped onto the train, and when he left it, it wasn’t long before you heard the gun go off.

Lupara. 

That was what he called it. You remembered.

Unable to control your tears, you let them stream down your face like you fell to the floor. When there was a scream from near the drug cart, you cried out louder in unison. Knees brought up to your chest, you buried yourself into your own makeshift darkness. 

Nothing could reassure you as your head pounded from the memories that tried to break through into your conscious mind. 

It hurt. All your friends were dead. 

And the man who murdered them came back to you with a spring in his step.

Apparently, one summer before Franco had to leave for Cuba, in the light of the rising sun you’d both gone to the docks together. Nobody else was really up at the time, and only the waves disturbed you both. Nothing had been planned, it was more of a spur of the moment thing, but you enjoyed it none the less according to him. 

He explained to you in great detail how you’d made plans together to get ice cream and spend the whole day lounging there. Nobody was going to move either of you unless you decided to go yourselves. It was something you wanted to do, and he was happy to oblige since you were willing to give him everything he wanted in return. 

You would hold his hand and drag him around to show him all the things you loved, and he would tell you that he loved you. 

Love was a word that felt like choking up sawdust when he said it. Love never worked out for him. It wasn’t his thing, but he said it anyway. He recounted how you were so innocent to him. 

He never told you how he pictured the shoreline coated in red. Intrusive thoughts flashed the image of you lying before him all mangled and pretty with your face stained in blood. You never needed to know because he couldn’t do it.

No, you were different. 

There was nothing but joy on your face as he’d followed you along that beach. It was hard for him to explain, but ever since you had settled into something together, he’d chased after that feeling of being wanted like he chased you along the sand. 

You humiliated him in your own way by making him think he truly belonged.

And you’d done it again.

Still in the same spot that you had fallen to beside the car, Franco sat with you. He waved his feet back and forth, swaying his body side to side while he looked at you. You hadn’t come out of your self imposed cocoon yet, but you had a single eye on him too.

Things had been ironed out to some degree. 

Obviously he’d asked you what you remembered before he told you a few bits about your past, and while you couldn’t be certain what was true or not, you wanted to believe him. At the point you were at, you prayed that it was true. Something about him soothed the ache in your head.

He was undeniably charismatic, and you weren’t going to deny the fact that you felt drawn to him. 

Then the important question of what you were doing in his territory with the others came up again. There was little he could have done to hide the irritation in his voice as he spoke about you being around them. He wanted to know why you were helping them. If you were anybody else he would have killed you, yet you had a chance to explain.

Franco understood to some extent, despite being frustrated.

He told you that he felt great - better than he’d ever been - but things were off. Seeing you made everything that much sweeter, yet that didn’t change the fact that he too was having issues with his memory.

Déjà vu he called it. It felt like the same shit everyday with different faces.

When you’d told him you were kept by faceless men in laboratory coats and given orders, he mentioned he’d seen some people like that behind glass. It was clear the worlds you were living in were very different. To him, the docks were real. To you, it was an experiment.

Things had gone quiet after that while you pieced together the shards of your past until a hand found your arm. Fingers walked up it and poked at your cheekbone. Franco shifted himself into a kneeling position with his body turned to you, and you lifted your head at the way he searched your soul with his gaze. Without even speaking, he was searching for something in you.

“Not gonna leave, are you?” he asked.

“I don’t know. I don’t want to leave, but I’ve never tried to stay in a trial before without doing what I’m told. What if they come to get me?” 

“Then they’re fuckin’ dead. Think they got a chance against my Lupara?” Each word was spat with pride like he could see them cold already. “Hey-”

Your pulse quickened as Franco pulled your arm from your leg. He supported it in between his hands, and he brought your knuckles to his mouth.

“You’d never leave me,” he hummed against your skin. “No - no, I knew you wouldn’t. You wouldn’t abandon your baby.” 

The contact left you flustered as your mind raced over the implications that you were very much his old partner. You didn’t even know if you’d ever separated. Most likely not, if he was going to treat you the way he was. It was strange to feel his kiss against your hand. Not unwelcome, but it was strange.

As he told you that he wanted to feel your arms around him, you crossed your legs and opened yourself up to him. Surreal was an understatement to have him crawl onto your lap without the need to be prompted, and you were delicate in the way you pulled him towards you. 

When his head rested on your shoulder, you decided to stop trying to process everything. 

“Back where I belong…” you heard Franco sigh. 

The weight of his body kept you grounded in the moment. An overwhelming sense of comfort washed over you at the contact - something you had sorely missed - and you let it happen. There was so much you wanted to ask Franco, but for the time being, you savoured the affection he showed you.

He made everything feel better.

“Well shit,” Clyde sighed as he placed down Easterman’s report. He bet Avellanos was going to have a field day with the information they had been given. It was a small world, but even he hadn’t been able to track down Fraco’s supposed partner in the height of his investigation. 

Turns out all they had to do was pick up people from the streets, pluck them from their homes, and they’d get lucky.

THE PREMATURE END OF THE TRAIL WHICH RESULTED IN THE DEATH OF THREE REAGENTS WAS BOTH DUE TO FRANCO’S OWN AGGRESSION AND THE NATURAL FLOW OF THE TRIAL. YET THERE WAS A CATALYST. 

WE FOUND HIS OLD FLAME. THE FOURTH REAGENT BEING FRANCO’S ROMANTIC PARTNER CAME AS QUITE A SURPRISE, AND I THOUGHT YOU’D BE INTERESTED IN SEEING OUR FRIEND IN THE FLESH. I HAVE RECONSIDERED THEIR POSITION AS REAGENT MOVING FORWARDS, BUT WOULD LIKE TO INVITE YOU TO DISCUSS THESE OPTIONS FACE TO FACE. 

UNTIL THEN, FRANCO AND THE REAGENT HAVE BEEN SEPARATED.

[henrysglock]

High Existence and ZeroSpace: The First Shadow and NINA May Be Massive, Immersive Drug Trips

The blurb in last Friday's video from TFS sounded familiar, but I couldn't place it. I found a lot of sites quoting The Alchemist about the universe conspiring to give you what you truly want (which is similar and it's probably what I was thinking of when this blurb registered as familiar), but I couldn't find this exact quote:

Well...not at first, anyway. I decided to stick every word I could make out here ^ into my search bar...and I found where the blurb comes from:

This blog post is quite literally the only source I could find for it, and the whole damn thing is directly lifted.

Right off the bat, the site fucking jump-scared me:

And it doesn't end there. Let's dive in, because this rabbit hole is a trip unto itself...no MDMA​ ​required.

1. The Fucking Website...#1 (HighExistence.com)

High Existence is a sort of drug-induced-spiritual-trip centered self-help site.

It's got blog posts and podcasts and all that jazz. Here are some of the highlights:

Wow! That was...a lot. A lot of words from the word show, too:

Wholeness, heroes, ancient aliens, prisons of politeness, and the fucking Shire, too, I guess. Why not?

(An Aside: I've included the VR in here too because of the sheer similarities between Henry's experience with the Shadow in VR, El's experience in NINA, and The First Shadow in general.)

Like fuck it, why not keep going, these posts date back to at least 2017:

And don't let me start in on that Creel boy and Faust...

[Jason voice] "[Eddie] made a deal with the devil and now he has his powers!" (Also we get it, one of them is neurotic and the other is psychotic. I've been saying this since like...forever)

Of course, all that insanity aside, the Russian base arc has just...an insane amount of ST4 and TFS stuff packed into it in general:

(And this isn't even all of it. I know others [cough] Stav Heroesbyler [cough] have covered it even more...but bro it is THERE)

But most importantly for the NINA arc:

Three things: Dialogue doubling (there's the one I showed, plus a) Robin yelling "Wipeout!" at Steve which has the pipeline -> "Wipeout!" at Rink-O-Mania -> 002-005 bullying El in a very similar manner and b) Steve's "that's amazing" line about the water fountain -> "This is amazing!" not only from Alice irt the Creel house but also from Mike irt Will's painting on their way to save El from NINA. Again, these are just a few of MANY instances), makeup doubling with the bloodshot eyes, and my beloved: set/prop doubling.

I love that beautiful framing on the nearly-identical square clocks. I have so much to say about that clock, but specifically:

The clocks being set 9 minutes apart, which happens to be the exact length of time from the end of Vecna's voiceover in 4.07 to the start of the fight sequence in 4.07 (aka the length of One's frozen-clock monologue).

Not only that, but the clock isn't even right. It says it's 3:55, but it's definitely not 3:55 AM (see: movie theater scene) but it's also not 3:55 PM:

(And why do we have a clock in an elevator anyway? That's the real question. That thang only exists to deliver subtext, baby! It exists to connect the two scenes further!)

Anyway, as you all likely noticed, this site mostly deals in psychedelics, stimulants, and empathogens.

link

Hell, you could even pull One's bit on the ecosystem into it, since he's describing connections between beings that are being disturbed/destroyed by humanity.

Anyway, the site tends to center specifically on DMT and MDMA...so let's talk about those:

MDMA & DMT An aside: Interesting to me that psychosis here can be counteracted with sedatives. Makes me wonder if whatever happened in 1979 could have been halted if they'd just tranq'd One. Hm.

First off: Did I read that right? Piggy-backing? Damn, son. 4.09, The Piggyback, is pictured in that paragraph. So is Brenner's candy bit with the children -> "candy flipping" vs LSD use in Brenner's lab.

Second: Ah, how nice. Intravenous/injectable. Just like how El is constantly being shot up with...something...to enter NINA.

Now, nearly all psychedelics can induce psychosis, but especially so if they're combined with other psychoactive substances and/or if the user has a history of psychosis (either themselves or in their family).

However, MDMA specifically has been posited as a treatment for PTSD and retrograde/traumagenic amnesia:

link Like...wow. Okay, I guess!

tl;dr: One seems to have been tripping fucking balls during the monologue. Literally every fucking version of him. El likely is as well. Funny how that works. Was any of that real? [smash cut to the way blood pours down the walls and the dead children dance around in the VR version of NINA] And either way, Henry in TFS isn't far behind with his hallucinogenic moments.

The connection? Whatever the hell is going on in Hawkins Labs...and symptoms of drug use.

I was not expecting to get this much out of a single rabbit hole. But...that's life with this show, isn't it? And this is only Part 1.

2. The Fucking Website...#2 (Futurism.com)

The guy who made that original post that TFS lifted the blurb from (Jordan Lejuwaan) runs a couple different websites. The most interesting one is Futurism, which is basically an online version of the Weekly Watcher:

It won't let me filter by date, but it seems to have been founded in 2017, stemming from an infographic subreddit. (Now, it says it's a trustworthy news source, and maybe it is, but... Do your own assessment of that. I'm not your mother, yknow?)

Jordan Lejuwaan was also involved in something far more interesting irt Stranger Things...

3. Zero Space

Jordan co-founded an immersive, interactive theater experience called ZeroSpace back in 2018. As we all know, TFS was just in the beginning phase of its creation around this time.

So...This was like a brick to the skull:

"Alice in Wonderland" (don't get me started: rabbit fuckery, DRUGS!!!!!, clocks/being later, Alice Creel, Fringe connections (Through The Looking Glass and What Walter Found There being the episode about the pocket universe where 20 years passed in 5 days...and also wherein we find out about him hiding away an Observer child that he will later time travel with to save the world from the Observer takeover...erasing himself from time/the timeline by doing so...there is SO much) not to mention the "one pill makes you larger/smaller" vs teen El and baby El...it's too much to try and fit in this post), "ALIENS AND LASERS", "stretch the perceived reality of the sense", "art, actors and your own mind converge to prompt MORE QUESTIONS THAN ANSWERS" (which was a common complaint about TFS: it leaves people with more questions than answers).

("See you on the other side" being an in-show line from Henry in the lab to Patty in the void, but this image is ripped directly from the same promo video that the High Existence blurb appears in.)

Here's a little taste of what ZeroSpace is like, but I suggest going to the actual page to see it in action:

It's heavily heavily reminiscent of TFS, even just in the content warnings...

Not to mention the actual show content SFX:

However, the goal of TFS isn't to stretch our senses. We're just watching. We are not the volunteer seeing the other side.

For most of the show, that person is Henry (except the first 5 mins, when it's Cptn. Brenner and his crew literally experiencing the other side). Henry is doing the experiencing. He's the one breaking the fourth wall by picking at/breaking the sets, the one running through the audience and leaving out the theater doors (only to end up right back on stage just like El in the Rainbow Room in 4.05).

With each bit of info I find out adjacent to the play, the more convinced I am that this is some secret third boy's experience in a NINA-like simulation.

Overall—

a) TFS most likely isn't wholly real, and it seems very likely that it's the same kind of simulation as NINA.

b) El was probably drugged up with some kind of empathogenic psychedelic going into NINA, likely with the goal of setting her up to form emotional connections quickly and deeply only to rip that deep connection away in order to bolster her abilities.

c) NINA is not, then, wholly based in truth. Parts of NINA (staring at the bullying from 002-005) may have been generated from El's memories of the outside world.

d) With NINA and TFS seeming so similar, I wouldn't be shocked if parts of it are just one massive empathogen trip (staring at how quickly Henry and Patty bond, similarly to how quickly Henry and El bond in NINA).

e) Whoever is in NINA with teen El is also tripping balls, most likely, and may have gone off the rails in that regard. However, that's in a simulation...hard to assign guilt or blame for things done in a fictional/unreal world.

f) Whoever was with baby El in 1979 may have been in a similar situation "moving chess pieces"-style instead. Read: drugged in order to put him in a situation where he would bolster El's latent abilities...and it went wrong (see also: Walter Bishop's orchestrated/fake massacre meant to bolster Olivia's latent abilities.)

g) Richard Brenner having been the head of narcotics makes me question which Brenner we're seeing at any given time: Martin, or Richard?

[elwenyere]

First Player to Break Hearts (Inception, Arthur x Eames)

Word Count: 2.8k

Rating: T

Tags: Torture, Non-Consensual Drug Use, Sleep Deprivation, Hallucinations, Minor Character Death, Hurt/Comfort, Angst with a Happy Ending

Author’s Note: A very happy Whumptober to all who celebrate!!! This fic was written for the prompts for day 8, Sleep Deprivation: Isolation Chamber | Forced to Stay Awake | "Leave the lights on."

.....

“Ready to talk?”

They’ve had Eames for about six hours, and aside from a bit of customary rough handling in transit from the bar where they grabbed him to the harshly lit room where they’ve got him strapped to a metal chair, they’ve barely touched him. So while Eames isn’t surprised to see Peter Browning walk in, he’s mildly offended to hear he expects Eames to give up the goods on the threat of violence alone.

“You remember me,” Browning says. “So you know why you’re here.”

Eames does. He’s here because some green extractor with more ambition than common sense had whispered the word “inception” in Browning’s ear last month at a conference. He’s here because that little talk had gotten Browning thinking about Robert, who’d always been so shy and tractable as a kid, and who’d become so unaccountably mulish after Maurice had died. He’s here because an architect who owed Arthur a favor had tipped him off that Browning was running a deep background check on the personal assistant who’d come and gone in the days before Fischer-Morrow fell apart. 

And most of all he’s here because when Arthur had showed up at the flat where Eames was staying in La Jolla to tell him to lie low and let Arthur handle Browning, Eames had slipped a mickey into his drink and dropped him off at Cobb’s.

“What the fuck, Eames?” Cobb had demanded. “You drugged him?”

“Bit of a glass-houses situation, wouldn’t you say?” Eames had asked.

Read the Rest on AO3

[gnome-adjacent-vagabond]

Doing a compromise and posting an EXCERPT of the Johnny and Einstein fic. Trigger warnings will be up here and in the tags; the story will be under the cut. Please let me know if I miss any!

A little context first: Jonathan and Einstein have been hiding out in a motel in South Bend for a long while, and they killed the motel owner (well, not killed, per se...he died of pneumonia). This is a moment of reflection from Einstein's pov in the wee hours after Jonathan has fallen into a very heavy sleep.

Trigger warnings: nongraphic violence, blood mention, surgery mention, drugging (noncon), non consensual touching, murder mention, crime in general, toxic relationship, obsession. This fic's content is looking askance at somnophilia but it isn't TECHNICALLY somnophilia.

Saving Face (working title)

Einstein liked him best when he was asleep.

That wasn’t to say he wasn’t in awe of Jonathan Brewster when he was awake—he was! His purposeful gait, his burning eyes, his frightful and inquiring mind…the man was a terror and a wonder, but one to be observed from afar like a tiger in a zoo. It was incredible that he let Einstein get even this close to him. When he was asleep, though…well, that was a different story altogether. Einstein could get as close as he liked.

The moments when his companion actually closed his eyes and rested his mind were few and far between; Johnny slept infrequently. When he did, he slept light at best. At worst, he was half-awake, his heavy lids fluttering as he dozed in whatever corner they had tucked themselves into for the night. That said, his dreams never appeared troubled. He was ever so still, his breaths slow and steady with only the occasional sniff or sigh. He never snored, he never shifted—it was as if he died every night. The peacefulness of his slumber had been unsettling at first, especially that first time in London when they hid out in the abandoned tenement building. They’d been on the move without rest; Einstein hadn’t slept for two days. Yet Johnny had settled down in a moldy armchair and gone out like a light. After everything that had happened, he just went to sleep like it was nothing and woke up in good spirits the next day.

Einstein remembered fixating on the relative stranger’s hands in those forty-eight hours: They were long, curious things like great pale spiders at the end of either arm, ever restless and roving when he was awake. They were strong, too, as Einstein had seen when Johnny choked the life out of that poor young officer. He would later see they were also dexterous with a knife. During the night, though, they laid still and perfect in his lap or the arms of the chair, and Einstein had crouched at his side and gazed at them in admiration. These were what had made him stay—the chance to see those clever hands at work again was an intoxicating prospect. Now, five years on, he had watched them perform miracles over a hundred times.

Over the next half a decade, when the nightmares kept him from sleep or he was on first watch, Einstein stared at Johnny for hours, admiring his slack features as an artist admires one of his own paintings. Very little had actually changed about Johnny’s face, in his opinion, which was the result of meticulous effort on his part. Skin had been added and removed, stitches administered here and there, lips widened and shortened, but Einstein could still see his Johnny under all the other masks. It was most apparent in sleep, when the face and body were freed of pain and stiffness. Something remained of the aristocratic nose, the puppyish chin, the impish mouth. The mouth was most recognizable when Johnny smiled, rare as that was. He hadn’t done it often to begin with, and the constant facial reconstructions didn’t make it easy. Einstein had accomplished something great with every face—well, almost every face. He had always wanted Johnny to stay himself. He fought with him about every surgery, every change, and when he was inevitably shouted down he went to work with the intent to preserve, not to erase. The eyes, arresting in their intensity, were most important; Einstein couldn’t bear to alter such a captivating gaze. He turned Johnny’s features into a tribute to his soul, a work of art in which the centerpieces were two darkened windows. He strove to carve new odes into his muse each time he took the scalpel in hand, never repeating a previous modification and never failing to frame the eyes that were so dear to him with the utmost reverence. Johnny, whose aesthetic preferences were limited to shades of red and sanguinous pink, was none the wiser.

Sometimes, on the quietest nights when there was no chance of sirens jerking them both out of their dreams, Einstein would caress Johnny—never on the face, for that would wake him for sure. It was always the chest or arms. It was a surefire way to get himself hurt or killed—if he was ever caught he was sure he would wish he’d never been born. But, he reasoned, there was no safer time to be near the man to whom he had given his life, except perhaps when he was under anesthesia. Every so often he would slip Johnny a little something in his food or drink, just so he could actually hold him in his arms, cradle him and stroke his hair without worrying about the beast stirring. Johnny never found out, of course; Einstein wouldn’t be alive now if he had. Usually he woke up groggy and in high dudgeon a few hours later, angry that he’d overslept. Einstein would then depart, giddy and fearful until he got a few drinks in him. Johnny had all the fun, after all, and Einstein had been so loyal, so devoted…he deserved a reward. It wasn’t so much to ask, was it? To be held and pretend he was loved back.

It wasn’t a perfect arrangement by any means. The fear of waking him tainted his tenderness with caution and often shook his resolve so badly that he fled the area after only a minute. Even now as Einstein lay with his head against Johnny’s chest and their fingers interlaced, he trembled at the memory of those poor men in Chicago. Liars, traitors all three of them, but Johnny hadn’t had to use the Melbourne Method on the first two. He could have just snapped their necks. Einstein knew he could. But no, some things were personal, and Johnny liked a little fun now and then.

Einstein shivered and nestled further into the crook of his sleeping companion’s arm. He’d run out of schnapps about an hour ago, and though it had calmed his nerves somewhat he could feel that familiar chill creeping back to him. It was hard not to think about it when he had himself wrapped up in the very same arms that not two weeks ago had been wrist-deep in a heaving stomach. Einstein, his hands coated in bile and viscera from helping, had sat down and wept until Johnny boxed his ears so badly that one of them bled. But it wouldn’t do to think of these things now! It was quiet here, and relatively clean—they’d found a motel in South Bend, a rare treat, and Johnny had deemed it safe enough to sleep in.

[wildlife4life]

WIP Wednesday

Tagged by @exhuastedpigeon @spotsandsocks @spaceprincessem @fortheloveofbuddie @steadfastsaturnsrings and @daffi-990. You are all so wonderful and I cannot wait for all your upcoming works! Mwha!

Super excited for todays snippet share. Not only is it from NFL Buck, but I have finally got to work on one of the best scenes from the show itself. Dosed! So I present to you, LSD Eddie (and Ravi!) Enjoy!

The pollen is just so pretty. Glimmering in the beams of sunlight and making beautiful dance moves. Eddie knows how to dance.  He’s tried teaching Buck a few times, but for a man who’s footwork is so flawless on the field, he has two left feet when it comes to moving them to a beat. Eddie doesn’t care though. He loves to dance with Buck because he smiles so big and bright and oh, he laughs so loud that it vibrates Eddie’s entire being. He wishes he could dance with Buck now, show him how the pollen moves and see his boyfriend glimmer among it. Tears burn in the corner of Eddie’s eyes and for what seems like the 100th time today, he rubs at them. “Man allergies are going crazy today.” Eddie lies because he can’t tell the others he’s crying over his secret boyfriend. “Yea you too huh?” Ravi remarks next to him. Okay, now Eddie thinks it may be allergies and not the thought of his too beautiful Buck. “The index wasn’t elevated this morning.” Probie relays, “Think it’s a new kind?” “New kind of what?” Eddie is really confused now. “Pollen.” Ravi responds. Can Ravi see the pollen too? Oh god, can he read Eddie’s mind?! He looks away from the younger firefighter and at his hands, hoping it would keep the kid out of his inner thoughts. Whoa, now the pollen is weaving its way between his fingers, making them tingle. “A new kind of pollen?” Chimney questions from across them. “You’re not feeling this Chim?” How could he not? It is everywhere, seeping into every pore of his skin. Eddie peeks at Ravi, whose eyes are drifting around the truck cabin.  Ravi can see it, Eddie isn’t alone. Chimney gives him an odd look, “No I do not.” He answers. Eddie looks out the window, sees more glittering puffs twirling in the wind, “I can see the pollen.” “I can hear it.” Ravi comments. And oh! That’s what that sound is! The pollen sounds just like Christopher and Buck’s laughter. It’s wonderful.

Hehehe. I am having so much fun writing this, especially since I have the dosed clip pretty much on repeat. Anywho, hope you all enjoyed! Everything NFL Buck can be found here.

Tagging (no pressure): @wikiangela @lover-of-mine @disasterbuckdiaz @jamespearce9-1-1 @athenagranted @eddiescowboy @rainbow-nerdss @evanbegins @elvensorceress @jesuisici33 @giddyupbuck @malewifediaz @hippolotamus @thewolvesof1998 @911onabc @911-on-abc @bekkachaos @loserdiaz @hoodie-buck @try-set-me-on-fire @theotherbuckley @ladydorian05 @bigfootsmom @watchyourbuck @eddiebabygirldiaz @thekristen999 @shortsighted-owl @spagheddiediaz @monsterrae1 @rogerzsteven @eowon @princessfbi @honestlydarkprincess @vampbuckley @bitchfacediaz @buck-coded @housewifebuck @glorious-spoon @buddierights @prosperdemeter2 @gayedmundodiaz @lemonzestywrites

[thedeafprophet]

"Consider it an honour. Consider it my gift."

Nobody look at me okay