#on its own. catch a blade with his hands four times would be enough to cause permanent nerve damage and also he would have learned his

[starry-bi-sky]

i made a rough timeline for the clone^2 au, just for my own convenience sake when dating things. some things might be out of order from the episode date, and thats also for my convenience.

September 3rd: Danny, age 14, has the accident in the lab that turns him liminal

September 10th: Danny is discharged from the hospital and given two weeks leave from school

September 24th: his sick leave ends, and Danny returns to school

October 14th: Danny sneaks into his parents' basement and releases the ghosts they have trapped in cages. Official birth of the vigilante, Phantom

November 27th: Danny fights Pariah Dark, and wins

December 24th: the Ghost Writer torments Danny

February 12th: Danny's 15th birthday

March 3rd: its been six months since Danny's accident

March 7th: Danny fights his evil future self

May 8th: Danny meets Ellie [age 15] and they become twins

December 14th: Danny finds out from his parents that he's a clone

February 12th: Danny's 16th birthday

Early-Mid April: Danny meets Damian [age 6] :)

Mid-Late April: Damian runs off for the first time, damages Danny's hands the first time

May: Damian runs off two more times in the span of three weeks, he damages Danny's hands both times.

Early June: Damian runs off one more time, damages Danny's hands again, resulting in permanent nerve damage.

Mid-Late June: Damian finally gives up on the League coming to get him and joins the Fenton Family.

July: Damian finally coaxes Danny into letting him come along with him on patrol: Wraith is born.

[bumblesimagines]

Imagine:

Escaping The Woods

Request: Yes or No

Finally giving my fem!readers some crumbs

~~~

"Sam, you need to go! Now!" She had no idea where this strength came from to shout at the boy. They constantly sedated her, keeping her numb and tranquil against her will, even when they claimed it was for her own safety. They feared her, just as they feared every other student trapped below the school. She knew well that her food had been tampered with, tainted with a sedative that would keep her from fighting when they did blood tests. The sedative would kick in soon and she'd be left to sleep for hours until she awoke with the hope that Sam finally escaped. 

"But- I can't leave you!" Blood dripped down his cheek, hands and clothes stained with the blood of the guards who had tried stopping him. He'd escaped his cell, just as he had done numerous times before, but he had a chance to finally leave and never return. Her eyes watered and he swallowed, punching in numbers into the pad on her door. It clicked and she gasped softly, wide eyes watching the door slide open. At her feet lied a puddle of blood and a guard with his jaw broken clean off. 

"Sam..."

"Come with us." He pleaded softly and she spotted what he held in his hand. A small supe. A girl. Drenched in blood and sound asleep in the palm of his hand. He held her carefully, as if afraid he'd hurt her with his superstrength. "Let's get out of here."

A chance at freedom. A chance to go home and far away from the corrupt humans keeping her trapped. She swallowed and took his free hand, a wide smile breaking out on his face. He led her down the bloody, corpse-ridden corridor and held the small supe close to his chest, his legs turning corners automatically and leading them to a dead end. Her brows furrowed but then Sam released her hand and braced himself, ramming his shoulder against the wall and making the hidden door burst open. He turned back to her, panting and smiling with his floppy brown curls falling over his forehead. 

"Almost there, (Y/N). Come on!" He took her hand again and they hurried up the stairs, leaving the building and stepping out into part of campus. The fresh air hit her like a truck and she inhaled deeply, the first breath of clean air she'd taken in years. Sam ran out into the field and toward a forested area, the grass beneath her worn sneaks crunching. Real, living trees. She was back in nature. But it wasn't enough. Her hand slipped from Sam's and she collapsed on her knees with a low groan. 

"Sam," She breathed out, feeling the grass against her palms. So soft, so comforting. The grass blades grew and wrapped around her fingers, the use of her powers only straining her more. Sam stepped toward her and offered his hand again.

"It- It's okay, (Y/N). I'll carry you-"

"No, you have to go." She pushed his hand away. "I'll only slow you down. If- If they catch you, who knows what they'll do to you. Save yourself and the girl. If they come, I'll hold them back for as long as I can." 

Sam hesitated, his lips beginning to tremble with anguish and eyes flooding with tears. He nodded and wiped his tears away with the bloodied sleeve of his sweater, turning his back to her and running forward before taking a leap into the air that left a small crater behind. She watched him disappear into the night and sighed, praying to whatever higher power above to let Sam go. To let him finally live a life outside four walls. To let him find Luke and run until nobody could find either of them. 

Headlights suddenly shone behind her and she swallowed thickly, staggering up onto her weak legs. The sedative. She could feel its effects beginning to set in. Her world began to turn and twist but she couldn't let it deter her. She had to protect Sam. She had to. (Y/N) took another deep breath and tried to focus, trying to summon the last of her strength. Nature was all around her. It was her strength, her power. But her vision became blurry and her movements became sluggish. 

"Hey, you okay?" A hand grabbed her elbow and she spun around, swinging as hard and fast as she could but even then, her wrist was easily caught. Her vision grew blurrier and she stumbled right into the chest of the stranger before her legs gave out and her vision went dark. 

Jordan stared at the girl passed out on their bed, teeth anxiously chewing on their bottom lip. They recognized her. She'd ranked 8th in the Top Ten before disappearing, or per Brink's words, 'dropped out due to pressure.' Yet there she was. Weak, delirious, and in the worst state they'd ever seen another person in. Famished, dehydrated, and likely tormented. "Fuck," They cursed softly and ran a hand over their face in frustration. Maybe if they hadn't been so meek back in freshmen year, maybe if they had gotten the courage to speak with her... maybe she wouldn't have been taken. 

She groaned and their heart nearly skipped a beat, shooting up from the couch and watching her closely for signs of consciousness. (Y/N)'s head lolled from side to side, slowly rolling onto her back and carefully sitting up with her eyes cracking open. Jordan slipped into their femme form, their smaller and softer form where they wouldn't be as intimidating. She'd almost cracked their cheek the previous night when they'd been in their masc form, and they'd rather not risk it again. (Y/N) slumped back against the wall with furrowed brows, her fingers curling around the sheets and comforter. 

"Where..." Her voice sounded hoarse. Jordan quickly moved around the bed and bopped open their mini fridge, snatching the first bottle of Vought Water they saw and opening it. They returned to the bedside and held the bottle up to her cracked lips, slowly tilting the bottle so she could drink and refresh her throat. She drank the water without protest before gently pushing their hand away, wiping her wet lips and chin with the tip of her fingers and finally getting a good look at her surroundings. "Where am I?"

"You're in my dorm. I-I'm Jordan Li." Jordan licked their lips and sat down on the edge of the bed. 

"Jordan? The... the freshmen that always tried sucking up to Brink?" Their skin flushed and they chuckled sheepishly, screwing the cap back on the bottle. She'd noticed them back then. Butterflies fluttered around furiously in their belly. Oh, how could she still affect them so much after three years? She tiredly rubbed her eyes and leaned forward a bit. "You look... different."

Right. She knew them before they came out and fully accepted their two forms. "Yeah, I..." They pressed their lips together and slipped into their masc form before going back to their femme form. Her brows raised and they braced themselves for a reaction that would shatter their heart. But instead, she nodded and leaned back, content with the wordless explanation. 

"Dorm.." She repeated quietly and her eyes widened, suddenly ripping the comforter off her legs and swinging them over the edge of the bed.

"Woah, woah, easy!" The bottle slipped from their hand and fell to the ground, arms shooting out to steady her before she could stumble and fall. She braced herself against the nightstand and took in short breaths, one hand gently pushing away their arm so she could stumble toward the broad window and peer out of it. She gasped sharply and jerked back. 

"I-I can't be here, Jordan." 

"I know, I know." Jordan's hands found her waist, digging their fingers into the fabric of the grey sweatpants to steady her. Her hands bunched up their jacket as she held onto them, the fear in her eyes making their heartache. 

"No, you don't know. If- If they find me, they'll take me back to The Woods and they'll wipe you so you forget about me. They hurt Sam but he's too valuable to them. I'm not. Jordan, they'll kill me." Her eyes flooded with tears and she shakily inhaled, voice trembling with each word she spoke. "They are going to kill me." 

"I won't let that happen," Jordan assured firmly. "I won't let them hurt you."

[thinkblotted]

Eater

He feels the movement before he sees it.

The heartbeat is small and taps against the ribs in a tantalizing tattoo. It picks up before the hare breaks from the cover of the brush, just as David's foot is about to come down on it.

It's fast. Four paws pound across the frozen earth almost as fast as the heart pounds in its chest. Shooting between bushes and over hillocks of old, dead prairie grass, it's a pale, shooting star across the blackness of the world at night. Faster than foxes, faster than wolves. Faster than death itself.

Not faster than David, though.

He leaps as it leaps, following after the trail it leaves just behind it. In the night, he can see its white body dashing too and fro as it tries to confuse him, but the heat of its life gives it away, ribboning off behind it no matter where it goes. David's feet are as bare as the hare's, claws giving him as good traction as the animal. He doesn't feel the ice of the January air in Colorado. He doesn't mind the sharp rocks and uneven ground that any mortal would have killed themselves tripping over. His body is low as he flies across it, keeping pace with his prey.

Letting it run just a little more so he can run with it.

Hunger howls, though. The chase always ends. David doesn't pretend there is honor in his actions - any of them - but he does honor what nature demands.

With a forward pounce, his hand strikes out, fingers catching on a back leg. The hare lets out a terrible squeal as it's jerked into the air, long, pumping legs windmilling in space, kicking out a final time. David skids to a halt, two legs on the ground, one hand joining them in a crouch more animal than man as he holds it in a crushing grip.

He takes a moment to breathe in. Fur and dirt and dry snow. It's too cold for the scents to linger and fester in the air with ocean humidity. Up here, it's clear. Everything is to itself. The heat from the body is a glowing ember.

Its blood is pure and singular.

David takes the first draws that leak between dense pelt and across his tongue. Just to taste. To reward that being in his mind that becomes one and the same as himself every year, every moment of his continued existence. Feed it kindly, feed it often as he dares. The blood is salty and rich, but there's not much of it. He draws away with smears of it on his lips. He thumbs those off and licks himself clean.

Then, he digs into his pocket. The small knife's handle is dark, rosy wood and burnished. It flicks open and catches some of the thin moonlight from the sliver of crescent above, both curved and pointed as a bared fang. The tip of the knife is set to the hare's back, and digs it in.

The skin parts easily under the blade. Once he's got a handhold, David licks the knife clean and folds it back up. He slips his fingers under the fur, and pulls.

Skin comes away from flesh as easily as stripping a shirt off his own back. Steam rises in the cold air, from the slaughter, and David rips the pelt clear off.

He eats.

Their kind is not really made for this. His teeth are long, made for puncturing bare skin and deep arteries, hidden under inches of muscle and ligaments. But the meat is raw and red, and the snap of pulling it away from the bone, and then cracking those little bones between his jaws to lick away the red insides is easy enough. The heat filling him from within feels right enough.

Offal falls to the ground, and gnawed bones are discarded. The legs, the head, the fur, allowed to lay where they fall. Scavengers will be circling nearby soon enough, drawn be the sounds and scents of a successful hunt, eager to fill their own bellies. David is not greedy. He takes what he will, but no more.

Prey runs, predator chases.

Prey dies, and predator feeds.

[kuni-is-daddy]

"Just like that."

Scaramouche X female reader

fingering, teasing.

Anon: "SCARA TRAINING/WORKING OUT AND TEASING US, oh you like the way he stretches his arms after he won a battle he’ll make sure he shows them off...He’s dragging his fingers everywhere on himself to “wipe the sweat off” no he’s just teasing you, working you all up before he decides to finger you after a long day of showing everyone who’s boss"

954 WORDS

Scara fic list!

MINORS DO NOT INTERACT.

"What a waste of space, Aren't you supposed to be the big strong fatui?" He said while hovering in the air. The beautiful teal chakra energy flowing through his body as his eyes glowed in correlation of it. The way he'd so casually step on his enemies after releasing a gigantic form of anemo energy. How he'd crush them under his heel, Watching as they cough and reel out blood in pain. And god the sly things that would come out of his mouth. Sometimes you'd wonder if he brought you out to the murky forests just so you could watch him. But you didnt care, You knew you'd always be safe in his arms...In more ways than one.

"Heh we're you seriously scared?" He said while looking down on you, Hair blowing through the wind. "I-im not scared scara...I Just dont want you to get hurt or be in danger." "Danger? How ridiculous, Im well aware people have it out for me in this joke of a reality we're in." He took his hat back away from you, then put his hand on his hip "If your so concerned then why do you still persist me? Your only looking for trouble." he scoffed. "Well..its because I love you scara." You held his hands. "and....I wouldnt mind a bit of 'trouble' in my life if it was you." He grew flustered from your words. "Oh really? Then how about you join me when i work out tomorrow? I Could use a little bit of 'motivation.' "

You locked the door from the inside. The interior of the apartment looked beautiful. The table and floors we're so clean you could practically see your reflection, Their was a room upstairs that caught your eye. Decorated in L.E.D lights that would glow green. 'so that must be nahidas room' you thought. Across the long hallway led to the workout room. As you approached the room you heard the echo of grunts and sighs. You knocked and with a rough "Come in" You entered. His gym was even more mesmerizing. Completely traditional to Inazuma's culture, not too much equipment and only the case of his malevolent katana the Shikiraku Gobandate. A blade strong enough to parry his own mothers Mosou no hitotachi. To your left, their was scara. He was bench pressing what looked like 175lbs by himself..Without a spotter. You rushed over to him, Your tits bouncing in his peripheral vision. "S-scara! why are you pressing without a spotter? You could get hurt!" You stood behind him and the bar while taking off your jacket. Your hands then hovered over it ready to catch the weights at any moment. Laying down, Scara had a perfect view of your cleavage.

SMUTTT:

"Your right, Maybe i should have you spot me with a view like this~" "S-shut up..or ill let it fall on you." He chuckled at your words. Watching scara excersis was so satisfying, The way he'd breathe heavy while lifting each time, Brokenly counting each set, It was music to your ears. Once he was done, He asked you to pass him his water bottle and god did he look hot. Scara was covered in sweat while his abs pierced through his tight black undershirt. His shorts we're also ruffled up, So much that you could see the V line leading down to his cock. Kuni noticed your visible staring and decided to entertain you a bit, He took sips from the water then poured out the rest of the bottle onto his hair. Ruffling his hair through his hands and while looking at you.

"Your enjoying yourself over there y/n?" You snapped out of your flustered daze. "Y-Yeah! Im gonna start my push ups now." You got on all fours, getting ready to position yourself when he interrupted you. "You should stretch out a bit. Its stupid for you to go straight into a heavy exercise like that." You looked up to see his tall and muscular body infront of you. He was stretching out his arms while he shorts loosely hanged on.

"12..13...14.." you collapsed then rolled over on your back against the floor. "Pathetic, Is that all you can do? only 14?" Your vision shifted to scara who was sitting on the floor while gently playing with the tip of his katana. "I could do 90 in my sleep y/n." He got up then walked up to you again. "Sorry scara..Im really trying.." "You 'trying' isnt good enough. Fucking push yourself harder. get to 15 at least next time. lets take a break." "A break..? Kuni we just started-" He took off his shirt and threw it onto the floor. "K-Kuni..." The room began to feel hotter as your body tensed up just looking at him again. "You sure like to run your mouth alot y/n. Always giving stupid little suggestions." He then laid back on his workout bench. "Come. How about you tell me what you want sooooo badly." You gave a flustered look and walked towards kuni, He patted his thigh and told you to sit on his lap. "You know, You look so fucking good in that outfit right now. Wearing black just for me~ I love how your nipples show every time you do a rep..Your not wearing a bra are you?" you turned your head. "Hmm? You we're giving me such gazing looks earlier. Isnt it my turn now?" You began to shift back and forth on his thigh, grinding. Kuni placed his hands against your waist while teasing you even further. "So eager arent you? Did you like that slut. The way i grazed my fingers so lightly against my blade. Want daddy to be gentle with you like that huh?" "Ah..Kuni~" You pressed your hands against his chest back and forth, Now pathetically chasing your high. "F-fuck..How about i treat you rough instead..S-shit..Get you on all fours like a fucking dog and have you choke on my cock. Want that? Want daddy to treat you rough like the pet you are?" Sometimes you'd get so wrapped up in your high and the burning feeling he gave you that you couldnt even understand what he was truly saying, it was if he fucked you dum before he even started.

Kuni picked you up and brought you onto the floor, Spreading your legs then pulling down your pants. "Shit...Look how wet you are. A slut like you worshipping my fucking body as you should. Do you want to feel good slut?" "mmh..Y-yes Kuni~ Wanna feel good" He thrusted two of his slender fingers inside of you. "Ugh~ Fuck your so wet for me. This pussy wants me so bad huh~?" "YES KUNI~ I..I want you to fuck me.. Please~" He laughed "So fucking pathetic..You want my cock that bad? I could give you more..But i like you like this, the horny bitch you are. Begging for me." "N-NO..FUCK~ KUNI PLEASE I WANT IT~ I WANT IT DADDY~" Your heart was beating so fast you just couldnt take it. How badly your legs we're shaking because you wanted to cum, how kuni teased you with no remorse and on top of that it was so hot in the room. "Thats it y/n. Yell just like that for me and cum on my fingers. cum on me, Let me hear you baby, How much you want it~ How much that pussy wants me to fill you up"

Your breath became rapid as you panted hard "K-KUNI M' SO CLOSE~ PLEASE- IM GONNA CUM~" you yelled out for kuni one last time as your juices oozed out onto his hand. "Fuck i love it when you cum for me like that~ all over my fucking fingers" He licked on his fingers while fiddling with the string on his pants. "K..kuni..im tired...gonna lay in your bed" you weakly got up, Legs wobbling from the orgasm you just had. Just as you we're about to head for the door he picked you up and brought you their himself. "T-thank you~" you yawned and began to close the door. but he firmly held it open against the knob. "I never said i was done with you yet slut." Noticing his hard on, he grabbed your hand and guided your fingers into his mouth. "Dont you think you should help master cum too?"

[cowgurrrl]

Marrow

Pairing: Joel Miller x fem!reader (plus platonic!ellie williams x fem!reader)

Author’s note: thanks for being patient!! I made a new graphic for the in-between parts of When You’re Lost in the Darkness/Look for the Light because I wanted to 😌 (PS this is somewhat of rewrite/reimagining of my first fic Everything Leads to You so if there are some similarities, iTS FINE)

Summary: “This was always going to happen. She’s been dead since the beginning.” - Oresteia as translated by Robert Icke aka the beginning of the journey

Warnings: discussions of Tess, reference to Adam, Joel being stubborn, talking to Ellie about mortality, references to a sexual relationship, the horrors of being seen by someone who could break your heart

"Stay here," you say to Ellie after a full ten minutes of waiting. He didn't even say where he was going. He just left without another word and expects you to be there by the time he returns, which is annoying in its own right.

"What? Where are you going?" Ellie asks before you can even take two steps in the direction he left. 

"To find Joel."

"He said to stay here."

"Joel says a lot of things." You roll your eyes. She didn't try arguing with Joel when he left, but here she is, holding you up. She better hope he's just down there fucking around and not in trouble. 

"What am I supposed to do if someone finds me?"

"No one's gonna find us out here."

"But what if they do?" She asks, and you can recognize the anxiety in her voice. She's a lot like Joel, you've noticed. Fierce and short-tempered but with lots of uncertainty brewing just underneath. You soften just enough to crouch in front of her and open your hand.

"You still got your knife?" You ask, and she nods. "Can I show you something?" She hesitates before pulling the knife out of her jacket pocket and placing it in your hand. You see why she likes it so much. It's a good size, sleek, and perfectly balanced. You open the blade and hold the handle firmly. "If they get close enough, jab at soft parts. Eyes, stomach, throat. It might not kill them immediately, but it'll distract them enough for you to run away and get our attention." 

"Same for Infected?"

"Same for Infected," you say. "Runners are just sick people. They have almost all the same weak points."

"Is it hard to kill them when you know they were people once?" She asks, and your mind immediately goes to that Shell station from all those years ago. Against your will, you remember his groans and the look in his eyes as he pushed you away from the last time. You clear your throat and close the blade to hand it back to her. 

"Not when they come after you first," you say. She eyes you carefully like she doesn't believe you, but you stand before she can see right through you. "Stay here. We'll be right back." She doesn't move from her spot as you walk away, but you catch her changing her grip on her knife to copy the way you held it. 

You find Joel on the river bank you and Tess passed more times than you could ever count. The water is clear and running without a care in the world. It would be peaceful if you weren't strategizing on how to have this conversation with Joel. It's necessary, but if you know him (which you do), you know it'll result in a fight. You decide to approach him gently with empty hands and a soft, if not a little pained, smile. He glances in your direction but doesn't acknowledge you as he reaches into the cold water and pulls a smooth rock from the bottom. He adds it to the stack right next to him and stares at it like it's something more sentimental than just a cairn. Maybe it is. He wouldn't tell you if it was. Not now. Not when Tess hasn't even been dead for twenty-four hours. Finally, he stands and turns to look at you.

"How's your hand?" You ask, breaking the unbearable silence between you. He looks between you and his stained, cracked knuckles and shrugs.

"Fine." He says, his voice deep and rough. You step closer to get a better look at his hand and fight the urge to reach for it to press around for the fracture you're positive is swelling under his skin. 

"You don't have to be a hero about it. I can wrap it."

"I said 'm fine," he snaps. You nod and take a step back. You know, from years of diffusing Joel's anger, this is a delicate dance. "Where's Ellie?"

"Right where you left her. I came down here 'cause I wanted to make sure you were alive." 

"You didn't have to do that."

"I wanted to," you say. The levity in your voice startles him into looking you in the eyes for the first time since you left the destroyed capitol building. The brown of his eyes feels especially heavy and sad, but you don't flinch. You rarely do with him. "Plus, I wanted to see if we could talk."

"Bout what?" He says like nothing in the past few days has been catastrophic enough to require a conversation. 

"About what you think Bill and Frank are gonna do." 

"Take her to the Fireflies or get someone else to do it."

"And if they say no?"

"They won't."

"How do you know?" You ask, and he rolls his eyes. "Frank's sick, Joel. Really, really sick. He can't just get in a car and take this girl to the Fireflies, and Bill's not gonna leave him."

"How do you know?" He accuses.

"Because I actually talk to them on the radio," you say. "From what he's told me, it sounds like Parkinson's or something. I don't know. I'm not a doctor." 

"Exactly," he agrees with enough tension in his voice to poke at the fiery anger in your belly. "Frank's fine. They'll set him up in the truck and drive her there." 

"What about Raiders? Or Slavers? Or what happens if they run out of gas and can't find more? Frank can't just walk her to Wyoming." 

"Bill'll figure it out." 

"If Tess were that sick-"

"Don't. Don't even start with that." He cuts you off, and you sigh. 

"Is this really how we're gonna do this? Just not talk to each other about anything? Keep our heads in the sand until it's too late?" You ask. "Keep lying to ourselves that everything's normal?"

"You were just fine doin' that not even a week ago." He crosses his arms over his chest and raises his eyebrows at you. You know exactly what he's referring to. It's a tangle of limbs and whispers of so fuckin' pretty, 's like you were made for me, just like that, but you remember. Of fucking course, you remember every time he made you his and left the marks to prove it. Of course, you remember looking at him the next day like absolutely nothing happened, like he didn't fall to his knees in front of you like you were some long-forgotten deity. You and Joel are not people who do long-term relationships, especially not with each other. Still, his comment feels like a jab at the way you got dressed and left not even ten minutes after he came. 

"A week ago, we didn't have a fourteen-year-old to keep alive," you say. He sucks his teeth and looks down at his boots; clearly not a fan of your redirecting. "We're already going west. We might as well just finish this out and get her to the Fireflies. I'll even let you knock a few around if you really want to." 

"'S that supposed to be some kinda incentive?" 

"If finding your brother and doing what Tess asked us to do isn't enough, then yeah," he tenses when you say her name. It hurts to know she's gone. It hurts even more to know she sacrificed herself so you three would have a chance. You'll be damned if you let her death mean nothing. "And if we get to Bill and Frank's, and they won't take her, and you still don't want to do this, I'll take her myself."

"Not a chance." He counters before you can finish your sentence. You fight a smirk, knowing you've got him right where you want him, and he sighs heavily. You know he would never let you do this by yourself. He also knows he can't leave you to go back to yet another empty apartment and wait for him to come back alive or never hear from him again. For all your fighting, secrets, and unspoken agreements, you think there's no one else in this world you know better than Joel. You hope he thinks the same about you. 

"We get to Bill and Frank's, and then we make a decision, but we gotta agree somehow. Fair?" He relents, and you nod. 

"Fair." 

"Anythin' else we need to talk bout?" He asks, looking at you expectantly. Yes, you think. We need to talk about what made you beat the FEDRA soldier to death. We need to talk about Tess. We need to talk about how far we're willing to go to get to Tommy and drop this kid off. We need to talk like real people and not the shells we've been. 

"No," you say. "Nothing else."

"Good," he nods and walks past you, his shoulder brushing yours as he does. "Let's get moving."

TAGLIST: @abbyhaslongshorts @moonandseatgr-yngf @kiwiharrykiwi @sumsworldz @myloveistoolittle @korynnekorynne @anavatazes (please let me know if you want to be added to the tag list/if I missed you!!)

[yoditorian]

Lacuna - The Rewrite - Part 1

din/reader

if you're wondering why this seems familiar - it is :)

original part 1 // series masterlist // main masterlist

word count: 3.5k

warnings: swearing, non-explicit sex, 18+ only pls.

You’re almost blind with rage.

The sweat cooling on your brow is the only proof of the dogfight you should never have found yourselves in. Too little warning, too little time, too little information. It’s only a matter of time before someone doesn’t come back after a job - and you know exactly where everyone else will lay blame if that happens.

You’re not thinking, not really, as you discard your gloves in the cockpit of the modified shuttle, the soft leather makes a satisfying slap when they hit the control panel. But it doesn’t dispel the itch of the anger running through your blood like ants. The others grumble when you push past them in the cargo hold but nobody makes any effort to stop you, eyes locked on target as he descends the boarding ramp.

You shove Ran between the shoulder blades, once - hard - and he stumbles down the last few feet of the ramp, skidding across the hangar floor on his ass. It’s almost comical, the cartoonish way he trips on his own feet. A few years ago, you might have laughed. But even a few years ago, you wouldn’t have had the courage to be quite so expressive about his leadership choices. If that’s what he’s calling them.

“What the fuck was that?”

He’s got the gall to look surprised by your outburst, from his crumpled heap on the floor, but his eyes harden in the same instant. Ran gets to his feet slowly, the dust on his pants the only evidence he’d been on the ground in the first place. He holds your gaze steadily, a challenge.

“About time you started pulling your weight around here anyway, sweetheart.”

Bold words from a man whose bad information ends in blaster fire more often than not, and your blood boils - it’s enough to have you drawing your blaster. Only it's not in the holster you keep strapped to your thigh. There’s only one person who’d have the forethought, the sleight of hand, the fucking gumption to pick your pocket in this moment.

Your eyes are cold as you turn to look up the ramp, where Mando stands above you in the mouth of the small freighter with your blaster dangling from his index finger. He’s apparently unaffected by your outrage, even though Ran’s actions could have ended very differently for all four of you. Xi’an cackles from somewhere inside the cargo hold. She’s lucky you’re suddenly, unexpectedly, unarmed.

“If I hadn’t gotten us out of it, we would have died.” You’re right, and everyone knows you’re right. But Mando just shrugs, the barest roll of his shoulders, like it’s nothing. Water off a fucking duck’s back.

“But we didn’t die, did we?” He says simply, as he descends the ramp towards you. The fingertips of his gloves brush your thigh as he drops the blaster back into its rightful place in your holster, and you can only watch him stalk off into the shadows of the hangar. Xi’an skips out of the belly of the ship, hot on his heels as always, fluttering her eyelashes at you and faux-pouting as she passes. 

The only reason any of you made it back to the station at all is because of you. You were quick enough on your feet to anticipate the attack, you were on the guns, you made the lightspeed calculations quicker than the nav computer to get the fuck out of there. Something everyone else seems to have conveniently not noticed, as usual. You heave an annoyed sigh, the fading adrenaline of your fury has leached all the energy from your bones, and you scuff your boots on the corrugated metal as you pick your way down the rest of the ramp. Ran catches you when you pass him, his grip on your arm just a little too tight to be friendly. 

“Empire’s always looking for pilots, I can just as easily put you back where I found you.” He says lowly, and you know it’s not an empty threat. You have to tug yourself out of his grasp and you’re sure there’ll be bruises in the shape of his fingertips by morning, you can feel them already. He knows there’s nothing left for you on Corellia save for an arrest warrant and swift execution. So you’re stuck here, because - well, what else do you have? Qin hands you a pouch of credits for a job well done as you shuffle past him, which makes that particular pill a little easier to choke down. 

You settle for spending the rest of the evening sulking in your room. Like the grown up you are. 

The little room on Ran’s space station isn’t much, but you’ve done what you can. A small bed and a desk, the matching chair had gone missing long before you moved in, a shelving unit, and a viewport. You’d shoved the bed up against the cold metal of the wall right underneath the little pane of glass, scarcely bigger than the datapad that lies forgotten on your pillow but you pay the boss dearly for the view. For the stars to be the first thing you see when you wake, and the last thing you see before you sleep? It’s the kind of thing you dreamed about as a child before everything went to hell. An old blanket is the only reminder of who you used to be, loosely crocheted and full of holes - it was used to swaddle you as a baby once upon a time, before the sweat and the ash and the bloodstains. It’s the only thing you’d brought with you when you had to run all those years ago, wrapped around your shoulders to shield you from the night’s chill at the last minute. You hadn’t even had time to put your shoes on.

The blanket lies crumpled atop the bedsheets, surrounded by scribbled notes and reminders and blueprints. You have a habit of taking work to bed with you sometimes, but it keeps the loneliness at bay. Most of the time. So, you gather the documents in a haphazard pile, already knowing you’ll be annoyed that you’ll have to sort them out in the morning, but you’re too tired to care. They get dumped unceremoniously on the desk, between half-dismantled sections of the latest scrap freighter’s control board. You’re pretty sure that future-you can handle a few sheets of paper. It’s not a problem for right now, anyway.

You have to pee. 

In all honesty, you don’t remember falling asleep. But your back is stiff from the position you’ve found yourself in, curled up on top of the blankets of your bed, and your clothes from the job lay wrinkled on the floor. You’re thankful, at least, that even in your exhausted state you had the forethought to change into the ratty t-shirt and soft trousers you keep as pyjamas. You’ve slept in that jacket more often than you’d care to admit, but it’s definitely not something you like to do.

Your door slides open, once you’ve gathered the willpower to rise from your nest, to reveal lowered lights and a rare moment of quiet in the corridor. Sleep hours, then. It’s hard to keep track of time when it’s always night outside, although you don’t mind living off-planet so much. It’s not that bad once you get used to it. Rest here usually comes when you can get it, though most of the job crew tend to catch a nap here and there at the same time. The scrappers rotate, the hangar always busy with someone chopping something to pieces. But the hallway lights lower regularly, for a few hours at a time, to at least remind people that they should be sleeping. It’s nothing like those fancy artificial sunrise to sunset lighting cycles you’ve heard about on inner rim stations. It doesn’t sound like anyone’s awake to judge you for shuffling to the bathroom in your socks anyway. 

The light is too bright in comparison to the dim hall, and you almost jump back from your reflection in the small mirror. Bloodshot eyes, rumpled shirt, you really should have done something with your hair before you passed out. You’re sure you’ve never looked more exhausted. Sleep hasn’t come easy in the few years you’ve spent on the station, dreams plagued by flashes of the reason you came here in the first place. Running, choking on the smoke in your lungs, an old friend’s blood splattering across your cheek. The only rest you really get is when you work yourself down to the bone, until you can’t keep your eyes open anymore, but you know you’re not the only one.

The door across from yours is open when you go back to your room, Mando standing in the frame, backlit by a lamp like he’s the hero from one of those propaganda movies you snuck into as a kid. You pause in your own doorway, it’s probably a bad idea to call him out on it. It’d probably only start an argument and then you’d have to deal with the only person you could count on to watch your back being mad at you.

“You should have backed me up earlier.” Your mouth takes the decision away from you. He waits for a moment, silently, like he’s expecting you to say more. But you leave it there.

“I did. You would have regretted killing him.”

“I wasn’t going to kill him.” The words are out of your mouth before you can stop them, and you can almost hear his eyes roll under the helmet in his response.

“Do you think I don’t know what you look like when you’re about to blow someone’s head off?”

Well, he’s fucking got you there, hasn’t he?

Because he’s absolutely right - with your flash in the pan anger at the plan so close to going wrong, you probably would have killed Ran. Maybe not intentionally, but it would have been the most likely outcome. And then where would you all be, because de facto leadership in his sudden absence wouldn’t have fallen to you. Not if you’d been the one to kill him anyway, who would trust you to lead them after that?

But the idea that he knows you well enough, has studied you closely enough, to know when you’re about to do something as terrible as take a life. It’s intimate. Romantic, almost. 

It doesn’t make you as uncomfortable as you might have thought it would.

The mismatched floor panels creak under your weight as you stand there for a long moment, just watching each other. Any animosity from the day’s earlier events has dissipated but you can’t quite bring yourself to thank him for stopping you from making a stupid decision. At least he was quick off the mark with this one. Usually, he’s too late, and he comes in swinging only to have to help you mop up whatever mess you’ve gotten yourself into. He’s good like that. It’s only as he shifts slightly under your quiet observation that you notice the bag slung over his shoulder.

“Where are you going?” You ask, barely a whisper so as not to disturb the moment of peace. However short it might be.  

Mando’s spine goes rigid, like he wasn’t expecting you to ask at all. But you don’t have time to take back the words before he’s walking right towards you, backing you into the darkness of your room. You’ve never been this close to him before, chest to chest, alone. The warmth you can feel even from under the armour threatens to make your head spin. 

“Home,” His voice is low, “Don’t you ever think about going home?” 

You didn’t even know he had a home to go back to. There’s a lot you don’t know about the man in front of you, but he’s loyal to the bone. That much is plain to see. He wants to know you’ll be okay, you think, without him as a buffer between you and the rest of the crew.

“My home is here.” Your answer is final, although you can feel the raised eyebrow through his helmet. You’re no more attached to the space station than you are any of the planets you’ve yet to visit. It’s not home, nowhere is. But you’ve been here since you were sixteen, years before the rest of your team, it’s as close as you’ll get to belonging somewhere. Mando doesn’t respond, doesn’t ask any questions, only stands with you for a long moment. Breathing. He’s good like that. You’ve never felt the pressure to fill any silence with him, he seems to exist so comfortably in it. It’s easier that way, probably for you both. You don’t know much about Mandalorians, the only stories you’ve heard are the ones Qin told you drunk in a seedy cantina when Mando first joined. Horror stories. If his past is anything similar to yours, he’s grateful for the absence of questions too.

“So it’s goodbye, then?” You’re yet to break his stare. 

“Yes.”

Is he closer, somehow?

“Would you have said goodbye if I wasn’t already awake?” 

He’s definitely closer.

Mando reaches behind him to tap the control panel on the wall, sliding the door shut and leaving you in the darkness. He lets his bag slip off his shoulder, lowering it to the floor suspiciously silently for one you know is crammed with weaponry, and walks you further into the room. You can’t really see much at all, only the steady blinking of the little red lights in the ceiling panels.

“You trust me?” It’s so quiet, you wonder if you imagined the words. He’s never given you a reason not to.

“Keep your eyes closed?”

“I promise.”

It takes a moment before he lifts the lip of the helmet high enough, and another long few seconds of just being without barriers - breathing in the same space for the first time - for him to kiss you. And kiss you he does.

The breath you get in before your lips touch is all him, turning your insides to liquid gold. Everywhere he touches you sets a fire. For a man so rough, he is so careful, he handles you as though you’ll break at the slightest breeze. As though he is wholly undeserving of such sweetness. Part of you thinks he’s convinced he is. It’s a first and a last kiss, a hello and a goodbye kiss, the way he tries to suffocate himself in you is evidence enough that you won’t be here again. You won’t get to have him like this again. He stays close when you finally break apart, taking his helmet off completely and placing it down on your desk with a decisive thunk.

“Mando-”

He pulls away from your mouth suddenly, but doesn’t stray far. His forehead leans heavily yours, as though he might fall without you there, still close enough that your lips would touch if either of you spoke. He’s fighting with something, you’re sure of it.

“Din. My name is Din.” He shouldn’t tell you. He shouldn’t have taken his helmet off, he shouldn’t have even thought about it. Although his fear of losing everything he has is almost overwhelming, it’s nothing compared to this. The fear that you would never know him as he is, as he has always been. The relief that brings tears to his eyes when you don’t shy away, when you lean into him. Like you want him too. You shouldn’t hold his creed in your hands but he gives it willingly. Of course he does. He’s never really been able to deny you anything.

“Din.”

The smile is so clear in your voice as you whisper it back to him in the darkness. The way you say his name sounds like a song. A prayer. Hushed and reverent like it’s something sacred, something holy. He knows his name, his creed, his life, is safe on your tongue. Din lays you back on the bed, gently, wool of the ratty blanket soft against your skin.

Din. He’s nothing but gentle with you. Warm hands barely there as they pull layers of clothing from the both of you, stripping himself of his armour, of The Mandalorian. Until there’s just him. Just a man, no more and no less than anybody else. A man who wishes he hadn’t been so stubborn and dismissive of his own desires; wishes he’d given in to this, to you, sooner. His mouth doesn’t leave your skin for a second, like he could digest you one kiss at a time if he tried hard enough. Part of him doesn’t want to leave you, he wants to stay in this bed in the dark and just exist. Your body in his hands and your moans in his mouth and absolutely nothing else. Because outside of this bed, this room, he can pretend nothing else exists. He can pretend he doesn’t have a duty, he doesn’t have to answer to anyone but you. He needs you in between his teeth, on his tongue. He’s sure now that he’s never needed anything else quite so badly.

The emotion of it isn’t lost on you, it’s the first and last time you’ll ever be with him. He’ll go after this, wherever it is that he’s going, wherever home is for him. You don’t pretend otherwise.

You won’t get to have him, in any way you want to, after this. So you lose yourself in him, in everything he gives and takes on those threadbare blankets in your room. The taste of him gets committed to memory and you swear you’ll never eat again if it means his sweat stays on your tongue. You dig your nails hard into his shoulders, you hope he’ll look at them before they fade. Hope he’ll see the marks you gave him and know that he is wanted. He is so desperately wanted and he had no idea. You kiss him with reckless abandon, cards on the table in all but words. So he can know, so he can come back. If that’s what he wants.

You stay tangled with him for a long time. Spit cooled and sweat dried. You don’t want to move. You want to drench yourself in everything he is until you never feel without him again. You want everything to stay exactly as it is for as long as he’ll let it. 

“Take the Razor Crest. She’s old but virtually untraceable, and faster than anything else in that hangar. I think you can handle her.” You laugh lightly, tracing a finger over the ridge of his wrist where his arm is curled tight around your chest. Din wishes he could drown in the sound.

The Razor Crest. You’ll be a little sad to see it go, but at least you know it’ll be in good hands. You know that you’ve examined every inch, tightened every bolt, wired every connection. It’s the most you can guarantee him, that he’ll be safe in the ship you built with your own two hands. You can keep him safe even at a distance. 

He takes your advice, once you’re asleep. Once he’s convinced himself to pull away from your warmth and go back to the life he knows. The one without you. The Razor Crest looms over him in the empty hangar, but something about its presence is comforting when he knows you were the one to put her together. Din fires up the ship, and doesn’t look back.

“He took the fucking Crest!”

The shout from the corridor jolts you awake, significantly warmer than you should be, and you find your old shirt and sweatpants pulled back on your body. Din. The thought of him so carefully redressing you, his touch gentle enough not to wake you, makes your heart swell. It shouldn’t, but you can’t help it. With a heavy sigh, you flick the lights on from the panel by your bed and pull yourself to your feet. The door slides open with a wave of your hand by the door panel and you’re met with a very angry, very red-faced, Ran.

“You wouldn’t know anything about this would you, sweetheart?” He growls, and you know you look guilty. You’ve been freshly fucked and you know you look like it.  Even if you hadn’t been thoroughly rammed into your mattress the night before, it’s far too early for anyone to be shouting up a storm. The rest of the crew come filtering out, rubbing eyes and calling out accusations at each other. It’s enough to give you a headache.

Home is a funny concept. It could mean anywhere, really, it can change and morph into something else entirely. Something you might have thought of as being the place you belong can become unrecognisable in an instant. Something can change about it, and you might find it’s not as welcoming as it might have been, once upon a time.

Maybe a space station in the middle of nowhere isn’t a forever home after all.

You don’t want to stay here, chopping up ships on the payroll of a man you’re not sure you were ever meant to meet. There’s something bigger out there for you, somewhere out in the galaxy there’s lightning with your name on it.

I don't actually have access to my old taglist form anymore, so if you want on it just lmk and I'll make a list <;3

[crash-bump-bring-the-whump]

Dimitri whump? Did someone want Dimitri whump?

Part One - Part Two - Part Three - Part Four - Part Five

TWs: hypothermia, captivity, torture, beating, self sacrifice, fear, starvation mention, near death experience, being stripped (strictly in a fixing hypothermia context)

True to his word, Dimitri had been taken next. 

When the strikes with the bloodied metal rod had only earned the guards a vicious, leaping headbutt, they started talking strategy. Boots between his shoulder blades and on his wrists kept Dimitri pinned to the floor. He didn't bother to temper his expression when they mentioned the freezer. 

Dimitri hadn’t wanted to risk them deciding to choose Mariano over him. He had only just gotten to sleep again after a fitful night. Waves of pain kept ripping him from his rest whenever he tensed up from whatever his dreams held. It was worth it, to ensure that Mariano would be spared.

“Oh? Did we finally figure out what breaks the fearless Dimitri?” One taunted, gripping Dimitri by his biceps. “Not a fan of the cold? Does a little ice make you nervous?”

He was dragged through the warded hallway, fighting against their hold the entire way. They wanted to feel him struggle. They wanted to know that they had found a foothold to start breaking him down. 

Mariano was lucky his little pained noises were sort of cute.

“Rather be locked in the freezer than have to hear your voice.” Dimitri growled, rearing to headbutt the guard again as the other opened the freezer door. A third caught him in the hip with the rod, sending Dimitri staggering. The first one shoved his boot into Dimitri’s back, sending him forward. He stumbled, trying to catch his balance as the door slammed shut behind him.

“Alright then, we’ll see you later!” The one who’d kicked him called. They all walked off. He was alone.

Silence wrapped around Dimitri at the same time as the cold did. It wrapped its fingers around him, around his chest. It squeezed teasingly. A threat. 

Dimitri huffed. He crouched down, in the middle of the freezer. Soles of his boots to the floor, nose tucked to his knees. He reached up and started to loosely braid his hair. He didn’t have a hair elastic, but it didn’t matter. He wouldn’t be moving much anyway. He wrapped his arms around himself, hands tucked up under his biceps. 

This was going to hurt horribly in just an hour. His skin had already begun to crawl. His pulse had started to pick up.

It would be fine. Mariano had been beaten into the floor more times than Dimitri had thought he could handle. He wouldn’t have been able to survive this on top of it all, much less another beating. So it fell on Dimitri to take it. 

He just had to endure.

The others had to be there soon. Laredo, Izan, and Manuel wouldn’t leave them here to rot. Bastian certainly wouldn’t either, not when he’d have felt the pact dampeners kick in. They’d show up and raze this whole place to the ground. Laredo would help Dimitri stand and walk, might even carry him if he was fucked up enough from the cold. 

Laredo’s arms were always warm. He remembered the last time they’d shared a bed, and he’d wound up as Laredo’s teddy bear. He thought about how comfortable he’d been with Laredo against his back, pulled flush against the other mage. He missed it.

He thought about how Mariano had felt when he’d held him. His own arms were bony, lanky. His ankles were already aching from the air. Mariano was soft and warm, though. The muscle on him was nice, it made him pretty comfortable to cuddle up against. His hair smelled good too, even after days of torture. Not flowery, like his shampoo, just…nice. He smelled like home. It all warmed Dimitri’s face. 

It couldn’t last, though.

He started to shiver, taking deeper breaths as his hips started to cramp. This part of hypothermia was the most uncomfortable. The aches were only just settling in, and his mind hadn’t yet adjusted to the idea that this was how it was going to be. There would be no relief in the near future. No matter how many times he’d repeated this section of training for Luis, or was forced into it after disobeying an order, he never could get used to it. 

His traitorous body still expected to be coddled.

The shivering was getting harder. Ideally he would’ve been up and moving, but after days of only minimal food and water and sleep, he didn’t exactly have energy to spare. “That’s alright.” He whispered to himself. He couldn’t see his breath in his little huddle yet. “I’m alright.” He didn’t need to wear himself out by panicking.

They didn’t want him dead, just like they didn’t want Mariano dead. They both had valuable information. They could last. Mariano was strong.

He was even stronger.

Dimitri was shaking so hard that it was hard to keep his balance, now. He’d have to give in eventually, and expose more of himself to the icy surfaces. He’d have to accept that this would be sped up at some point. Not yet, though.

His teeth had started chattering, filling the silence of the freezer. His shoulders jumped and tensed with every wave of shivers that rolled through him. Every noise that escaped him pissed him off more. The irritation that roiled in his chest didn’t help to warm him like it usually did. 

Reflexively, Dimitri tried to pull his magic to his fingertips. The wards held firm. All he did was frustrate himself. 

It was easier to think that this was just some punishment, though. It was easier if he’d done this to himself. He sort of did, in a way. He’d elected to do this, he’d tipped his hand. He was doing this for Mariano.

Why was it not easy?

He’d watched Mariano offer himself up like it was nothing. Was he so out of practice that he’d lost the mentality for this? Had he lost the grit? Had prison made him soft too?

Dimitri tucked his face further into the alcove of his knees and torso. The cold air was creeping in. He could feel it in his nose, crawling down his throat. 

Why was this so much worse than he remembered?

Tiny whimpers escaped with every shiver, now. He needed to stay in that crouch for as long as possible. As soon as he fell, it would all be downhill from there. It always was. 

Dimitri’s skin ached. His back ached. His arms and legs ached–it was like he’d never be warm again. Like he’d never get to stretch out and relax. He almost lost his balance, needing to readjust his stance. They wouldn’t let him freeze to death. 

It was still unbearable. 

He could do this. He could endure. He’d barely been in there for an hour. It was fine. One time he’d done a stint of three for Luis, after refusing to be called off of a target. 

Dimitri wavered.

It was only for a moment, just a small lapse of endurance. It didn’t matter. Dimitri’s heart leaped into his throat as he was forced from his sad attempt at conserving heat. He gasped as he fell backwards, catching himself with his hands. The chill lanced up through his palms, through his wrists. He felt the cold ripping through his shirt like it wasn’t even there. 

He needed to stand. He needed to get his boots against the floor, and the rest of him off of it. He tried to prop himself up more, to get back up like he always did. He was a war mage. He was Dimitri, one of the longest lasting war mages. His name struck fear into the hearts of people who knew about him. He didn’t stay down.

Dimitri’s hands slipped. He hit the ground again. He couldn’t get back up. His arms were cramping up too badly. His legs trembled too hard. 

His whole back was laid out along the awful floor. His body heat was being leached away, faster than he could believe. Did it always happen so fast? His stomach trembled. Even his breathing stuttered and shook. Every inhale chilled him further. It brought the cold deeper into him, undoing all his hard work. 

The door cracked open. One of the guards poked his head in. It was the one he’d headbutted earlier. “Ready to come out? It’s been a while. I brought dinner.” He had a cup and a paper plate with half a sandwich in his hands. “All I need from you is a little bit of info, and then we can get you warmed up and Mariano to a doctor.”

“F-f-fuc-ck y-you.” Dimitri stuttered, suddenly aware of how hard it was to talk. His throat was unbearably tight. His jaw didn’t want to move beyond the painful trembling.

“Alright then. Thought you could use a pick-me-up, but guess you still want to be difficult.” Dimitri yelped as water, cold water, was tossed onto him from the cup. It immediately soaked into his clothes, into his hair, and his skin crawled as it chilled. 

The door shut again.

“Fu-fuc-ck…” Dimitri whispered as silence fell again, his stomach now gripped by more than just the cold. Dread started to creep in, winding through him. He could feel his magic ebbing, crawling deeper into his chest and chasing his waning body heat. “Fuc-ck th-this-s…” Something pricked at his eyes, and his chest hitched. 

He wasn’t going to do this. This was not going to happen. He was not going to have some pathetic crying fit over water being thrown on him.

He could die here if they didn’t know what they were doing.

Dimitri finally managed to curl up on his side. His hands were stiff and aching. Even being pressed to his stomach didn’t help. He should technically strip, but there was no way to dry himself off. He wouldn’t give them the satisfaction anyway.

Another shudder ripped a sob from him. It was involuntary. Dimitri hated it. He hated it so much. It would’ve made his face flare hot from embarrassment, normally. As he was, he couldn’t even feel the heat. 

He wanted to kill the guard who’d thrown water on him. 

He knew he could hardly lift his arm.

Time melted away as more cracking, shaking noises escaped. Slowly, horribly, they died off. There was only silence, then, and Dimitri drifted in it. The harsh lighting of the bulb above dimmed as his eyes drooped closed. 

Then hands, hands and shouting and movement. Someone was being called an idiot. Something warm was draped over him. The hands were strong as they lifted him off the freezer floor. There were three pairs, three people, all fussing over him. His hair was wrapped into a towel and away from his face. His clothes were pulled off of him, exchanged for new ones. 

“Careful, careful. Don’t be too rough.” A distant voice said. “He could die if we’re not gentle.” Scolding. Manuel? Dimitri didn’t catch what was said next, too exhausted to keep following the conversation. 

Warmth filled Dimitri’s awareness when he woke up next. He was still so cold, but his face was tucked up against what felt like a heater. His arm was draped over something soft and warm. His hair was down and dry. The smell of home filled his nose. 

When Dimitri opened his eyes, he saw dried blood, black and flaking off of Mariano’s skin. His face was sweaty and flushed with what was probably a fever, given how unusually warm Mariano was. The other mage was still in the clothes he’d been wearing when they’d been taken. Rattling, struggling breaths eked past Mariano’s parted lips. 

Looking further, Dimitri saw the bars of their cell. He felt the hard concrete beneath his shoulder and aching hip. His chest twisted. He’d been rescued, but not by the people he’d wanted. 

Dimitri pressed his face back into Mariano’s shoulder.

Dimitri cried.

[bluevaractyl]

This was supposed to be short and fluffy, but it is not at all. Oops. TW: potentially triggering description of being strangled

It's also on Ao3 now

Burning Skies - Starting Fires

Eight pairs of boots made a crisp crunching sound as they trudged through the fallen leaves. Sky admired the different shades of yellow, orange, and red on the trees around them, trying to keep his mind off his aching feet.

The group of heroes had spent all morning walking, following the trail of the Shadow and its followers. They had taken down most of the bokoblins and moblins it had gathered in their last battle, but several had escaped with it through the gate. The heroes had followed as they always did. As always, the Shadow was long gone by the time they arrived. Sky wondered if it was somehow manipulating time to get a head start.

Twilight was currently in wolf form, keeping them on track and occasionally loping ahead, impatient to catch up with the Shadow and only reluctantly staying within hearing range. It was a condition Warriors had insisted on, and Time had agreed with, once Twilight had recovered enough to transform again.

As Sky watched, Twilight charged through a particularly deep pile, sending leaves flying in all directions. Wild and Legend laughed, and Warriors said something teasing. Twilight’s ears flattened and his tail lowered as if he were embarrassed to be caught playing. Sky privately thought the Rancher should indulge more often; the last couple weeks had been grim and focused, and it was wearing on all of them. He smiled, remembering Twilight fondly speaking of roughhousing with the younger kids in his village. He hoped they would get a chance to meet them on this adventure. Visiting home was sure to lighten Twilight’s mood.

Suddenly Twilight’s ears perked up and he stilled, alert. They all instinctively fell silent and stopped walking. Sky looked around, hand rising to the Master Sword, but in all directions, he saw nothing but more empty forest.

Hyrule let out a shout at the same time as Wolfie barked. Sky whirled to see a red keese land behind him and transform into a bat-like monster his own height. It opened its mouth. Sky had a split second to wonder before a fireball was hurtling toward his face. He ducked, feeling the heat of it pass over his head, and charged the creature with his sword drawn and ready.

Sky was distantly aware of more keese dropping from the trees around them and swarming the other heroes, but he kept his focus on the red monster in front of him. Before he could reach it, it leapt into the air, transforming back into a small keese and flapping just out of reach. He jumped and swung when it dipped lower. The tip of his blade clipped its wing, sending it tumbling from the air. It crashed into the ground and transformed again. It snarled at him, opening its mouth to spit another fireball at him, but before it got a chance, he killed it with one swift strike.

Feeling winded from his short sprint, Sky took a moment to slow his breathing. He looked around.

The others were mostly holding their own. A handful of strange, large, red birdlike creatures were hopping around, spraying fire in all directions. Hyrule was handling one, apparently familiar with its pattern of attack. Four and Time were ganging up on another, Wind and Legend on a third. Warriors was struggling with a fourth. Wild and Twilight had their bows out and were focusing on the keese flying every which way, landing scratches on all the heroes and obscuring their vision and generally making nuisances of themselves.

Sky hurried to go help Warriors. He pulled out his whip and yanked a keese from the air where it had been about to swoop at the Captain’s face, letting it smack into a tree. He hastily sidestepped a flaming projectile and called to Warriors, “How do we take these things down?”

Without taking his eyes off the screeching bird-monster, Warriors responded, “It’s not armored, but I can’t get close enough without being set on fire, and it keeps jumping back out of range. Try to flank it so it jumps toward you instead.”

“Alright,” Sky agreed, and began moving around it.

Warriors hadn’t been exaggerating about the fire. Sky quickly tired of ducking and dodging fireballs, but every time he made a move toward the creature, it screeched at him and sent more fire his way. Warriors soon had a charred hole in his tunic from a close call, and Sky’s sword arm had a shallow burn near his elbow. They’d barely landed a scratch on the bird-monster in the meantime. Sky hoped the others were having more success.

Just as Sky was beginning to wonder if a fireball to the face might be worth it to stab the thing, an arrow pierced its eye. It let out an awful screech and paused its assault to shake its head in pain. Without hesitating, Sky whipped into a spin attack, striking it twice before it fell dead.

Panting, Sky rested his hands on his knees. He coughed. Abruptly, the scent of smoke registered. Looking around, he realized the forest around them was alight with small flames, greedily spreading across the dry leaves and catching on the trees. Dark smoke clouded the air, unnaturally heavy. Sky could barely make out Time on the far side of the clearing.

A hand landed on Sky’s shoulder, and he jumped in surprise, having forgotten Warriors was still there. “You alright?” the Captain asked, looking concerned. When Sky nodded, he continued, “Let’s regroup and get out of here, then. This is getting bad fast.”

The two jogged to the center of the battlefield where the other heroes were gathering. Twilight looked antsy, watching the creeping flames with a hunted expression. Time seemed to be counting, making sure everyone was there. As Sky and Warriors drew to a stop, he cleared his throat and said, “There’s still a gap to the east. If you have heat-resistant items, I recommend having them ready. Stick together. Let’s go.” He started leading the way to the dwindling gap in the ring of fire. They all followed. Sky fell into step with Four and Wild.

Four asked, frowning, “We aren’t just going to leave this burning, are we? It’s kind of our fault.”

Time didn’t break stride as he answered evenly, “We can try to make a perimeter, but if it gets out of control, our priority is making it out alive.” Four nodded, accepting the sense in that, although he still looked troubled.

Ahead of them, Legend had his ice rod in his hand, and Wild wielded an icy sword, keeping back the flames as they approached. Sky felt the soft wash of magic as his Fireshield earrings activated in response to the heat.

The tickle in Sky’s throat grew until he couldn’t ignore it anymore. He slowed, falling behind, then stopped walking to double over as a series of coughs left him. Each breath only made him inhale more smoke though, and the coughing wouldn’t stop. He stumbled to his knees, eyes watering and lungs burning. The others were speaking, voices raised, but he couldn’t hear them over his own hacking.

A flash of red light in the corner of his eye. Sky shot to his feet and drew his sword in one smooth motion, which was ruined as he then staggered dizzily. Two strangely dressed humanoid figures crouched before him, brandishing wickedly curved blades. They wore blank white masks painted with a familiar stylized eye, only upside down.

Sky raised his sword and hefted his shield, then moved forward to meet them. They both laughed, then raised their hands and brought them together in a complicated motion. With a puff of smoke and the fluttering of red paper, both vanished.

Sky jerked back in alarm and whipped around, turning in a tense circle as he waited for them to reappear. A puff of displaced air and the memory of a demon whispering in his ear had him striking behind him without thought. A cry told him he had hit his mark.

Sky withdrew the Master Sword and whirled around, but his attacker was already teleporting again, bright red blood streaming from their shoulder. The realization that these were real people he was fighting—real hylians—made him hesitate.

Suddenly a flaming skull whizzed toward him. Glad for the chance to fight monsters instead of people, Sky raised his sword and firmed his stance.

Several things happened in quick succession. A red flash, and a glint of steel darted toward his right side. Sky twisted, deflecting the blow. The skull struck his outstretched arm. The Master Sword dropped from his suddenly numb fingers. A muscular arm wrapped around his torso, pinning his left arm to his side. The person holding him bellowed something, and the world dissolved into red.

~~~

Teleportation was a nauseating experience. As soon as Sky’s feet touched the ground, his knees buckled and his stomach rebelled. The only thing keeping him upright was the arm still tight around his chest.

Head spinning, Sky looked around, trying to process what had brought him here. Instead of a burning wood, he was now in a large, empty room lit by torches. The ground fell away into a dark pit on all four sides of the room. The only door was set in the wall high above his head. Wherever this was, he prayed that he was still in the same era.

Flashes of red signaled the arrival of more enemies. Most were lanky and muscular, but he saw one that was much larger, broad-shouldered and imposing. This one was apparently unarmed.

“Good work, Kurou,” the bigger one said in a deep, masculine voice.

The broad chest against Sky’s back vibrated as the one holding him replied, “Sheikah’s play. Got him swordless, too.” The lack of the Master Sword’s comforting weight on his back suddenly sunk in. Dread filled Sky. How was he going to get out of this without Fi? What did these bullies want with him?

One of the skinnier hylians—were these Sheikah? That couldn’t be right—came forward, holding something. Before Sky could get a good look in the flickering light, he was spun around to face the one who had grabbed him. He realized with a stab of dismay that this one was big too, and probably could have thrown Groose with one hand. Still, Sky wrenched free and drove one knee up. He threw his elbow into the guy’s chest, since it was all he could reach. They chuckled, darkly amused at his pitiful attack.

Someone caught Sky’s arms and jerked them behind his back, forcing him to his knees. He tried to twist free. Another struck him with the pommel of their weapon, and he finally fell limp with a gasp, blinking dazedly. His right temple throbbed with pain. Fireflies flitted across his vision.

A light pressure against his throat drew him back to awareness. His sailcloth was gone. The scratchy texture of the rope now encircling his neck sent his senses scattering. He instinctively tried to raise his hands to it, only to find them tied together behind his back. Panic bubbled in his chest.

The rope wasn’t tight enough to cut off his breathing entirely, but already the restricted blood flow to his head was taking a toll. He could feel his pulse steadily climbing, throbbing where the rope touched and pounding in his chest. His breathing hitched on each exhale. He was growing more lightheaded by the second. He gaped his mouth in a futile attempt to take in more air, even knowing it wouldn’t help.

Suddenly someone yanked on the rope, jerking Sky backward. Cruel laughter echoed around him as he choked, gasping uselessly for air. He thrashed on the ground where he had fallen. His head and wrists ached from landing on them, but the pain was nothing to the overwhelming terror drowning him as he suffocated. His already blurry vision darkened. The tingling in his hands and chest increased. His chest spasmed. His strength faded. Everything went black.

…

He woke up gasping and coughing. His lungs heaved for air. His heart hammered in his chest. Everything was too loud and bright, so he squeezed his eyes shut and focused on struggling to breathe. After an eternity of wondering whether he was about to pass out again, he managed to get his breathing somewhat under control. He lay shaking and shuddering on the ground, trying to reorient himself.

The scratchy rope was still around his neck, but his captors must have loosened it again after he fainted. He could hear their sneering voices around him but couldn’t make out the words. Either they were speaking a language he didn’t know, or his head was muddled from the lack of oxygen. He tried not to dwell on that possibility.

He lay in the same position he last remembered, so he guessed he must not have been out for more than a few seconds. He had scarcely thought this when something hard slammed into his stomach, winding him. He coughed breathlessly, curling around his aching middle, and cracked his eyes open to glare up at the figure looming over him. The unnerving, expressionless mask hid their face, but there was a smile in their voice as they spoke.

“Welcome to the Yiga Hideout. I hope your position here has become clear, Hero.”

Sky gritted his teeth and kept silent, mind whirling. Yiga—why did that sound familiar?

The Yiga chuckled and mused, “When we followed the wretched Champion through that portal, we were unprepared to find him traveling with eight companions. It turned out splendidly in our favor, however. He’s quite loyal, you see. Once he finds our note, he is sure to come charging in to rescue you, and we’ll finally be rid of him.”

Sky’s heart sank. He’d been the weak link in their group and gotten himself captured, and now he was bait. Unfortunately, the Yiga were right about Wild—the impulsive Champion wasn’t exactly known for his caution. Their encounter with the iron knuckle had proven he disregarded orders when someone he cared about was threatened. Sky could only hope Time or Warriors could convince him to work with them this time.

The Yiga straightened and turned away but kept talking. “He’s always outwitted us in the past, but not this time. This time, his reckless courage will be his downfall. Once we have him, we won’t need you anymore, and we’ll hand you over to our ally. He’s been very eager to meet you.”

Sky froze. Ally? Who were the Yiga working with? They weren’t even from this era, how had they already made friends?

“Who—” Sky asked, breaking off to cough painfully. His throat burned. Attempting to swallow sent fire blazing through him and set off another coughing fit. The Yiga watched impassively, waiting.

Once the fit finally subsided, the Yiga crouched over Sky. It replied, “I believe you’ve made his acquaintance before, actually. He was especially pleased when we told him we had managed to separate you from the Blade of Evil’s Bane. Apparently, you caused him trouble with it when you last met.”

Sudden clarity made Sky’s heart skip a beat. The Shadow. The Yiga, whoever they were, were working for the Shadow. And the Shadow wanted to meet Sky.

[heroictoonz]

Febuwhump 2022 Day 8: No Anesthesia

Ships: Four & Hyrule & Legend & Sky & Time & Twilight & Warriors & Wild & Wind

Warnings: Graphic Depictions of Violence, Blood, Stabbing

AO3 L!nk in the Comments!

When the sound of crumbling rocks began to sound, the group turned to the source. Everything happening at once felt all too slow yet all too fast.

Legend let out a yell of surprise as Sky and Time both lept into sprints to catch him. Hands slipped only an inch too far. The panic set in all at once. Each of them going into motion to attempt a rescue.

However, Legend already had planned his own. The pink-haired hero moved his body mid fall so that he faced the cliff edge that had just given out from under him. He grabbed his hook shot and shot it forward.

With little time to aim, the hook bulleted through the air and towards the others above. Instinct and reflex only worked so fast as in the blink of an eye the hook burrowed into Warrior’s right shoulder.

A howl of pain left the hero. Warriors instantly fell to his knees, the sharp pain of the hooks piercing into his skin aided by the pull of the metal from the rope attached to his ally on the other end. He grabbed the metal sticking out from his skin. His first reaction begged to pull it out, in an attempt to relieve him of the agony that quickly took hold. But he knew that would only end in demise for both heroes. Instead, he took hold of the rope with his other hand to keep it in place.

The rest of the group quickly jumped into action. They grabbed the rope and heaved to pull Legend back up. Once he was safe, Warriors fell to his knees.

Wind and Hyrule were quick to his side. They moved him against a tree for some sort of stability.

The wound began to bleed out profusely, the sight setting in a spark of dread to them all. Wind looked over to Hyrule in silent question.

“The hook has to come out before I can do anything to help,” Hyrule signed out in explanation, quick to the point.

Wind gave a nod and pulled out a small knife. “This,” he said, looking up to meet Warriors’ eyes, “is gonna suck.”

Warriors took that as his only warning before the young hero ripped off the, already torn, sleeve away to get to the hook.

Warriors was already starting to feel dizzy from pain, the shock running through his system. Once the blade dug into his skin, he gripped the grass underneath him and let out a shout of anguish. He forced his eyes open to look down at the two heroes.

Hyrule and Wind worked hand in hand to get out the hook. He presumed they were working as delicately as possible but the pain left little room for coherent thought.

Finally, after what felt like an eternity, the hook was pulled from its bed. In its wake, blood began to push through the hole even more than before.

The blood loss quickly became too much for Warriors as he could no longer hold up his body. He fell with the heavy weight of his own form to the side, only to feel strong hands gripping him tightly to hold him back up.

He tried to blink away the spots as he looked to the owner of said hands. Sky looked down at him with such immense concern that only the Hero of Sky himself could hold.

Sky moved to let Warriors lean upright against both himself and the tree behind them, in hopes to keep him steady.

Warriors noticed the other sign something but was unable to catch what was being said. His eyes becoming much too heavy along with his form.

He was awake enough to only feel the magic. He had to assume it was Hyrule’s doing. He could feel the cool relief like water or air against his skin. The pain was still there but now felt muted.

He felt as the magic pulled his skin and everything under it back into place. If he thought too long on the idea he was bound to feel disgusted by just the mental image alone. However, he was nowhere near new to these sorts of injuries and the graphic aid needed to help.

After a long moment of silence, the cool of the magic finally let up. With it went the pain.

Warriors let out a heavy sigh and attempted to catch his breathing back to normal. His eyes opened when he felt Sky gently running fabric across his forehead then to his shoulder. Presumably to sop up the sweat and blood.

“How do you feel?” came the voice of Time.

Warriors looked up to him. Legend was heavily leaning on the older, worry edged into every line on his face.

Warriors only gave a tired half-smile and a lazy thumbs up.

[theluckywizard]

WIP Wednesday: Patience has its Reward

Thanks for the tag @effelants

This week, I launched 25k of obsolete fic into a yeet doc, because I finally had to acknowledge that my Long fic In the Shattering of Things had grown far, far beyond the vanilla Inquisition, indulgent Cullen drivel I wrote before I even truly understood my own characters. It felt good to be honest. But I've been writing new stuff to replace it, so this week I give you an excerpt of my cheeky girl Rose Trevelyan, attempting to lockpick her way into Cullen's tower. All I'll say is that Cullen is such a patient, stand up guy.

CW: Mildly spicy, but probably SFW.

Addie and Carys don’t need to ask when I leave my chambers at four in the morning wearing nothing but a warm robe with heavy laden pockets over my nightgown and bare feet. It’s only an hour earlier than usual and sunlight now rakes over the tips of the Frostbacks deeper into what used to be night. I’m utterly soundless, my feet falling silently across the worn stones of the main hall, the rotunda doors punctuating the stillness with pugnacious groans that I curse as I glide through them. The bridge to the battlements is bathed in the confluence of moonlight and ambient pre-dawn sunlight that diffuses through the eastern sky. Arriving at his door, I fumble in my pocket for my tools, a wisp of a smirk emerging at the corner of my mouth when the idea of breaking into his tower settles in fully, tempting me to blow my cover with a giggle.

It’s a simple enough device, which amuses me considering the precious contents inside the tower– the Inquisition’s general and all his meticulously kept notes and missives– though I pity the person who attempts to break in. And then I laugh quietly to myself, because that would be me, sliding aside the brass cover to first assess the lock for a minute, probing with a simple bent hook to count the pins. Four pins, even more basic than I previously imagined, an easy task even for someone as amateur as me. I lever a simple bent hook against the first pin, feeling for the catch at the edge of the cylinder. I reach into my pocket for a rake next and slip it in to depress the next pin, maybe two if I’m lucky. But my picks are pushed out from within as a key slides in past the pins. My picks clatter on the threshold. Shit. The door opens a crack at first, and then wider as Cullen shakes his head at me, rubbing his forehead, his cheeks dark with a flush in the minimal light.

“It’s not even locked,” he says, unable to repress his smile, utterly amused that he’s caught me making trouble.

“That seems unlike you,” I poke, as he pulls me through the door by my forearm. He nudges me against the wall inside the door, anticipation and desire swelling first inside my ribs, and then lower as his fingers graze my waist. He’s not dressed yet, his hair an unkempt mass of curls spilling forward across his forehead, his long white smallclothes half hidden under an oversized cotton shirt that hangs so loosely off of him that it seems a sort of deception about the substance of the man concealed within.

“I’ve been leaving it unlocked for you for weeks,” he says against my forehead, his lips brushing like feathers. His words steal any strength inside me and I go slack against the wall, waiting for his mouth to meet mine which takes less than a second. Cullen’s chin is heavy with stubble he never quite has time to stay on top of, not so short that it chafes and smarts against my skin, but deliciously rough. Bracing himself against the wall around me, he makes himself a delightful prison and I press up against him as if in a feeble attempt to escape.

“I suppose I’m lucky you didn’t stab me,” I tease him while his kisses wander down below my jaw. “That dummy over there should have given me pause.” He chuckles against my throat. I slide my hands under his arms, up over the thick muscles that buttress his shoulder blades and then down over his backside, pulling the prison walls closer.

“Rose,” he sighs in a whisper, his mouth returning to mine. My name comes like a proper prayer and I know he’ll never relegate me to a title again except in the most formal of circumstances. My belly is liquid fire as my fingers rake up underneath the tunic he wears, past his tied waistband to his warm skin, taut over the training-honed landscape I always figured was buried under all that armor. He exhales sharply, his eyes hazy upon me as they connect with mine, his fingertips brushing over my cheek and then my lips.

“Come up,” he says quietly, flushing brightly. “I mean– that is– do– you want to– come up?” I answer him with a kiss so torrid that there could be no doubt, our open mouths delving deeply, desperately and then push him back against the ladder to the loft with my palm flat against his chest. His head bounces and our teeth clash hard enough that I pull back, clutching my hand over my mouth in pain and embarrassment.

“Sorry,” I blurt, wincing.

“Maker’s breath,” he laughs, rubbing his teeth as he considers the accident it could have been. Contrite, I urge him aside so that I might lead the way up the ladder. He grazes his hand over mine, giving me a soft, sheepish smile as I take him up on the invitation. I climb, carefully sweeping the folds of my robe and nightgown to the side before I bring about another mortifying mishap. I feel the ladder flex slightly as he joins me in the ascent. 

Tagging for WIP Wednesday: @warpedlegacy, @rakshadow, @nirikeehan, @bluewren, @monocytogenes, @rosella-writes, @crackinglamb, @oxygenforthewicked, @breninarthur, @doomhippy83, @delicatefade, @ar-lath-ma-cully, @plisuu, @exalted-dawn-drabbles, @blarrghe, @melisusthewee

[nonbinary-beast]

May have figured out a good way to shovel some AM/Ellen ideas in. Under a cut due to spice, and because AM is a no good, fucked up little toaster.

I figure AMaton (before it's truce with Ted, or maybe this is yet another AU), knows very well about how he feels about Ellen, and I'm going to take a little liberty from the comic adaption and say that Ted was not all that quiet with his thoughts, maybe he talked to himself a little when he was away from the group.

So, this sort of settles on the thing where Ted claims that "AM gave her pleasure". While AMaton has data on all five of the survivors just from watching them wander through the complex, it is not nearly as complex or complete as what it has gathered from Ted once the computer had gained the means of making a body for itself. It knows what Ellen looks like, sounds like, the way she walks, how her face settles depending on her mood. The rest, AMaton pieces together from what he gathered from his up close interactions with Ted.

It "remakes" Ellen, a hologram of her of course. AMaton allows Ted to catch sight of her wandering in the distance, a ghost walking among the long grasses of a meadow perhaps. "Ellen" sees Ted, and through AMaton's 109 years of memory of their conversations, manages to perfectly emulate what she would say when they reunite. She wants to know where he's been, they've been looking for him.

Ted assumes this "they" is the rest of the survivors. Maybe AM had found a way to resurrect the dead. Her hands feel real enough when they touch his that he wonders if maybe she's not a mirage or a ghost that his mind made up.

Then he sees AMaton in the distance, prowling, closing in behind Ellen. Ted tries to warn her, she looks just in time for the machine god to break into a sprint. Ted bolts instinctively, and yells for her to run; but when he looks back he hears laughter, sees her embracing Him.

AMaton was the other party she had been searching for him with.

His gut twists just from seeing her wrap her arms around the machine's neck, plant kisses on his cheek. Her gaze turns to Ted, it feels colder, lacking that admittedly fragile sense of camaraderie they shared before they entered the ice caves. She no longer is one of them, a survivor- he can see it in her mannerisms, how she talks to him, she even says outright that she cannot be with him anymore, with any of the survivors if AM brings them back. She does not want to. AM promised she would not have to deal with those four men anymore, she likes this new lifestyle. Ted cannot understand how she could, she was starved just like they were, was forced to wander, had been mangled, and thrown, and broken by the machine countless times.

But another part of him said he should have seen it coming. AM had made it so she was the only woman down here in the machine's belly, free to choose whichever man she wanted- while Ted completely ignored of course, all of Ellen's discomfort. It only made sense to him that she would betray them all when given the chance, if only to get more.

It gets worse, he sees AM- or more, AM lets him see- Ellen with him. She laughs, she smiles- she never smiled or laughed for him, Ted remembers. He stands transfixed, legs like cement while his eyes are glued to them both, unable to look away. He sees the machine resting its chrome snout on her lap, how she caresses its face, strokes along its jaw while it lays there contentedly- a dragon in the lap of the maiden.

It raises its head from where it was pillowed upon her thighs, kisses her neck with its rough, bladed mouth with all the gentleness of a lover, whispers something in her ear that makes her blush. She kisses the machine back, says something to him that Ted could not hear- but he comes to the realization soon enough, as AMaton lifts the edge of her skirt, noses between her spread thighs.

Ted cannot look away. Whether it be by AM's will, or his own shock, he cannot look away from them.

It moves them both so Ted can see better- it wants him to see. See her arch her back, eyes closed and lips parted in heavy breaths, blissful. See as the machine god gives her what she never received during her 109 year stay with Nimdok, Ted, Gorrister, and even Benny. He watches, gaze transfixed on Ellen as AMaton eats her out; attentively, slowly, watching her as much as it watches Ted, to see if he's still where it left him. Ellen's hands reach out to grasp and hold it's face, keening, it's name on her lips as she comes.

In the past Ted may have thought he had an idea of what the computer would have been capable of doing to torment him. But this was a new one; it hit him low, making him watch as it pleased her where none of them ever could- and she loved every moment of it. Genuinely. He could see it on her face, the way she laid against his chest when AMaton held her, the look in her eyes when she was around Him. It had altered her again, it had to, made her into Lilith's form. It made it so she never missed Ted and the others, never would find a reason to miss him.

So it was, Ted received all of AMaton's pain, writhed in torment as it chased him down, tore him open and left him bleeding until he returned to being whole again so it could resume its hunt. All the while being forced to watch as Ellen received all of its pleasure, her cup overflowing with its love.

He was in hell, watching Ellen in heaven.

[strangers-stars]

Deals

CW: Bit of gore

Riginald’s workday was supposed to be over by now. He was supposed to be having a date night with his wife but instead he was hurtling through the immeteria between planes on his way to a job. The only reason he was doing this is because whoever summoned him had summoned him specifically. It takes a good deal of magic to summon a specific demon and the pay on those contracts are quite substantial. So, after apologizing profusely to his wife and making promises he didn't know if he could keep, he took the contract. Reginald had been summoned to a laboratory that stank of iron and death. Its sterile lighting illuminating a perfectly drawn summoning circle made from fresh warm blood, as well as the corpses of at least a dozen scientists brutally butchered. likely the unwilling donors. Noticeably there were no souls, no living ones at least. The souls of at least half of the scientists lingered in their cooling bodies but other than that there was no life this didn't however stop something from speaking. 

"Hello demon" The voice was sharp and jagged robotic in its intonation and as reginald turned to see what must be his summoner he understood why. The thing standing before him was not human and Reginald didn't know if the thing counted as alive but he was sure it was aware. It was human in shape but lacked skin and fat, instead being taut wire musculature over rigid alloy bones. The thing’s face was skull-like but lacked a proper mouth, simply a number of slits along a steel plate. Its eyes glowed a dull green and the things bloodied hands tells Reginald all he needs to know .

"Greetings Summoner names Reginald but I assume ya already knew that so what are you looking to do that lead you to summoning me?" 

"I am trapped on the interior of a covert military installation and require mystical assistance to escape. We are approximately 12 miles underground, located in a desert of some kind. What can you do to aid me?" 

"Well that entirely depends on what I'm given. You don't seem to have a soul or any magical connection at all so what can you offer?"

"I offer you the remaining eight souls of the scientists that should be enough for at least a modicum of power."

"I could do that, yeah, but it's kinda a bum deal for me. ya see those guys they were already going to hell even before you iced em. So my commission rate will be real bad and I should be done workin by now meaning that would hardly be worth my time. So lemme ask you a question, will you be killing people on the way outa here?

“If need be i will’

“Well then you're in luck. I can make you an offer, i can’t afford ta make most a. I can lend you a weapon forged from souls and sin, it’ll carve through the eggheads who locked you up like butter and the more you kill the sharper it becomes. I've seen people carve ships in half with these bay boys from time to time. It will cost you of course, it’ll take the last of the souls you got and the assurance of at least 2 more. However ya get all the power ya need for the low low price of a few murders you were probably gonna do anyway.”

“That sounds agreeable but what have you neglected to disclose? I am aware of the demonic tendency to mislead for their own gain.”

“You're pretty smart for a tin man ya know that. Catch is in four hours i reappear and get all the souls the weapon has collected, usually this would include your’s but considering you don't got one that aint possible.”

“Then a deal has been reached, what is needed to close the contract?”

“Just two things: fresh blood and a handshake. lucky for you the first ya already got in spades”

Then the machine simply extended its hand, Reginald reaching out to meet its bloody grasp and with a firm shake the deal was forged. "Now the fun part."Reginald said with a flourish of his now bloody hand before ripping a dozen scorching sigils into the air. Igniting all at once leaving a deep black blade with infernal livery and a bone hilt hanging in the cooling air.

"This is Entrestta she'll be in your care for the next four hours."

"So I simply take this blade and then you will disapparate?”

“Correctamundo.”

Wordlessly and with precision only a machine could muster it drabbed the sword and reginald was hurtling through the immateria once more ,this time towards home and a hopefully not too disgruntled wife.

[genshxn]

What Do You Call the Reverse of a Monsterfucker?

Part 2 of Taking Ls in the Abyss

i’ve got great titles, don’t i. also real talk, i don't know what the fuck the abyss looks like beyond ruins n stuff so we're all just gonna have to pretend that the shit i wrote is viable. also (x2) I'm having too much fun making y/n be annoying.

ft. xiao, enjou, lumine, electro abyss lector, and hydro abyss herald (and aether + paimon sort of)

TAGLIST: (lmk if you wanna be added)

@q804 @veralioz

word count: 4.7k (LMAO SORRY A BIT HAPPENS)

Well, the Abyss was definitely after you. Currently, you were minding your business, scavenging Guili Plains for chests like you were hunting for shredded cheese at 3:32 AM. Aether and Paimon were off trying to deal with some other overly convoluted commission, so you were left to your own devices. Amidst some bushes, you had found some scattered mora, but this had distracted you enough to not notice the sinister but goofy cackling coming from behind you. It wasn’t until a fireball went whooshing over your head that you realized a Pyro Abyss Mage was right behind you. You scrambled away from the now blazing bushes with sputtered yelling. You’re all alone right now. God fucking damnit.

"FUCK!" You call out, running for your life. If its shield was down, you’d beat its ass, but you don’t exactly have a hydro vision to vaporize its shield. The pesky mage continues to pursue you through the trees and bushes, launching fireballs while chattering annoyedly at your incessant movement. You’re too worried about trying to get out of range of the Abyss Mage to the point that you don’t even care if your feet get soaked in a shallow river. Water? An idea pops in your head.

Much to your disliking, you halt in your tracks amidst the water, waiting for the Abyss Mage to catch up. It continues to fire at you, which you narrowly manage to dodge each time. You can feel the heat of the blow every time they launch past you. You’re careful to stay in the water, slowly luring it out. If game physics still apply here, then the water you’re standing in would naturally take out the Abyss Mage’s shield… Steam flies off the transparent orb... Could the hidden bar drain any slower? 

Plop. Into the water, the mage goes with a rather anticlimactic splash and unceremonious grunt.

You take this as your opportunity to run up to it with your sword. You're ready to beat some serious ass. That is until the sneaker bugger suddenly whips around right as you’re about to bring down the blade of your shitty sword. You’re met with a great blast of fire, sending both you and your sword flying backwards with a splash into harsh gravel. The blade lands somewhere far behind you with a loud clatter. You’re defenceless now. It's time for your last resort.

"Fucking shit— HELP!" You call out at the top of your lungs, confusing the Abyss Mage. "XIAO!!"

"Wait, NO—" the Abyss Mage panics. 

Within seconds, the adeptus appears and takes only a moment to grasp the situation. After a streak of black and green, the Abyss Mage is reduced to nothing but blue sparkles on the wind. 

(sorry, i just felt like writing a crap fight scene).

You breathe a sigh of relief, no longer having to worry about getting your hair singed off by the fun-sized arson gremlin. Xiao appears over by your side and wordlessly extends a hand down to you to help you up, which you gladly take. "You called?"

"Yes, I did. Thank you so much for that… Those things are a pain in the ass, aren’t they?" You reply as earnestly as you can. 

"With their shields, definitely," Xiao says four words more than the anticipated zero. "Are you okay?" Three more in addition. He looks at you with more concern than you would have thought possible with how little you’ve spoken to him. 

"Oh, y-yeah, I’m fine. I nearly had it, but the bastard decided to blast me in the face right as I was about to bop it on the head." You give a shitty thumbs up. "Guess my sword lessons from Aether haven’t quite paid off yet." 

"He’s been teaching you to fight?" Xiao stands with his arms crossed over his small frame. It’s kind of hard to tell what he’s thinking right now. (Not that it’s ever easy.)

"For a couple of days, yeah. I’m not too bad against a hilichurl now," You say, somewhat proudly. Not to toot your own horn, but you’ve learnt quite quickly if you do say so yourself. 

"You look slightly miserable," Xiao says out of nowhere. You blink in surprise at his sudden abrupt statement. 

"Huh?"

"Come back to Wangshu Inn with me."

"Wait, but—" Before you could even finish your sentence, Xiao had slung your arm over his shoulder, and with a gentle step forward, the two of you are suddenly warped to the top of the Inn. Sunlight filters through the leaves of the massive tree, casting blobs of light and shadows on the wooden floor beneath your feet. From up here, you get to see the familiar but amazing view of Dihua Marsh from above. 

Xiao wordlessly sits you down on the floor and draws your arm closer to him, analyzing it for any wounds. You don’t remember this ever being in Genshin. 

"You’re quite injured…" Xiao mutters to himself. He’s right. You’ve managed to sustain about half a lifetime’s worth of damage to yourself. It’s a bit of a hard adjustment to suddenly be out in the field, often coming into the fire of various enemies with powers that are still otherworldly to you. Despite being littered with cuts and bruises, you feel surprisingly durable and lively. Maybe you’ve got a hidden HP bar that’s bigger than you thought. "What have you been doing?" Xiao’s sudden question draws you out of your thoughts.

"Adventuring. I’m just not very experienced at it." You shrug. You decide to avoid mentioning any involvement of the Abyss since they're the primary reason you've gotten into so many one-sided fights. 

He comes to a stop at your upper arm which was bound in a loose bandage. It was better covered a few days ago, but it was beginning to come undone now. "I swear I can wrap bandages better than that." 

Xiao makes no comment but instead opts to undo it completely. To your surprise, there's barely any remaining wound. All that lingers is the faint cicatrix of what was once a seething gash. "Damn, I healed fast." You remark at the sight of it. He traces along the scar with his gloved fingertips. He's surprisingly gentle. 

"When did you get this wound?" Xiao asks, golden eyes now looking into yours. 

"Uhhh, about 2 or 3 days ago." If you remember right, you were locked in a fierce one-on-one battle with about the seventh hilichurl that day. Out of nowhere, a hidden hilichurl shooter fired an arrow at you, which ended up cutting your upper arm rather than lodging itself in. That battle ended in a strategic retreat because that cut hurt like a bitch. 

"You have some others that might require treatment." Xiao turns over your arm and finds a littering of fresh scrapes that you got after you were sent flying by that blast from the Abyss Mage. 

"Oh, those are fine. I'll be alright," You reply. Xiao seems rather undeterred, however. 

"Still, you are a mortal and should take care of yourself." He replies bluntly. Seems like there's not much arguing with him on this one. Besides, he's already going out of his way to help you. You may as well take it without argument. Suddenly, Xiao seems to hear something. You don't think you heard anything— 

"Stay here, I have to deal with something." He says. Someone must be calling him from somewhere in Liyue. He quickly stands up and disappears in a cloud of black and green smoke, just like how you got here. 

So now you're left sitting on the floor of the top deck of the Wangshu Inn, alone. You get up to move to the railing to look out at the view around you. That beautiful sight never fails to steal your breath. Admittedly, your wet clothes stick to you rather unpleasantly and your scratches sting a bit, but it doesn't detract from being able to see the beautiful sight in person for the first. Seeing it in-game filled you with a sense of awe, but being here in person reinvigorated that old feeling, like a fan to a flame. You lean against the rail, soaking in the dancing sunlight and view. 

A voice speaks out of nowhere, interrupting your view-sponging. "Oh my, it would seem that someone is already up here." You look behind you and spot an NPC man suddenly peering out the entryway to the large balcony. His hair is a normal shade of black, and upon his brown eyes is a pair of glasses. There's something incredibly familiar about his voice, but you can't quite seem to place it yet. Its almost theatrical tone is rather uncharacteristic for an NPC, so you’re a little confused to say the least.

"I can leave if you like. You can have this spot," You say as you begin to get up from your spot on the railing and move for the exit, but you’re kept in place anyway.

"No, no, don’t worry about me," he replies, strolling up to the edge of the balcony and leaning on the railing. There’s considerable distance between you two, but his enigmatic, slightly overbearing presence makes it feel otherwise. "It’s a beautiful view, isn’t it?"

"Y-yeah." You give a stunted reply. This guy is trying very hard to make conversation. 

"It reminds me of the tale of an old god renowned for their beauty. I think their name was… Allurosia," he says, looking over at you on the final word. 

You frown. "Who’s that?" You’ve never heard of a god of that name in Genshin lore. 

Clearly that reaction wasn’t what he was expecting because his theatrics suddenly fall flat. "Wh-what? You don’t know?"

"No? Why would I?"

"Oh fuck it. Plan B."

Then way he expresses his words… Now you can place it. 

"ENJOU?"

"HUH? That’snotmyrealnamebut

HOW DO YOU KNOW MY NAME?"

"AUGH, WOULD YOU ABYSMAL FUCKS LEAVE ME ALONE?!" You begin shouting. 

Enjou only makes some exasperated noise in response and proceeds to shove you backwards with an almost comical grunt. Why are you not surprised. Except you don’t hit the railing. You keep falling into a goddamn portal. He must have opened it behind you all of a sudden. You scream as you begin to plummet, the bright environment fading from light into darkness. 

You fall for an unexpectedly long amount of time. There’s no end in sight for your plummet. You had been rotated like a gyroscope a few times, but there was nothing to see. Is there even a bottom to this pla—BLAHHJCK.

The wind is knocked from your lungs against a hard surface. Rather than disappearing in a cloud of blue sparkles, you’re in one piece. How did you survive that fall?! Maybe you have more HP than you thought. But if that didn’t kill you, then it certainly would have done a massive number on you. 

You flop over and shakily prop yourself up with your arms. The ground beneath you is a smooth blue-grey stone, laced with spidery cracks. Looking out and around, there’s finally some light, albeit kind of shitty lighting. You’re already starting to miss the sun. It’s hard to make out anything beyond the misty horizon. In fact, there doesn’t seem to actually be much out there. Someone turned down the render distance again.

"Ugh, why do they all have to be so disagreeable…" Enjou suddenly complains. You look up and there before you floats the strange creature you know as Enjou. His arms are crossed dramatically across his chest. (Disregard this description if you’re well and truly a monsterfucker) Frowning, you notice that Enjou has taken a form halfway between human and Abyss Lector. He still had a human facial and chest structure, but the colouration was a bit strange; his face was flesh coloured while his neck was a fade from crimson red to a pale yellow. His black hair now also has a similar fade, and his sharp crimson eyes now have black sclera. How edgy. Instead of wearing his mask usually, it now sits on the side of his head, similar to how Childe wears his. It’s a little hard to tell, but Enjou still looks of the same height and almost the same build as the Abyss Lector normally. Not gonna lie, he looks pretty nice in this halfway form. "Get up," He grunts, folding in half to look down at you condescendingly while floating in the air.

You have an idea for the second time today. "Make me," You also grunt. 

"You’re unbelieveable!" Enjou says, exasperated. 

"That’s rich coming from you," You snort in reply. 

He rolls his eyes in response. 

"You want me, come pick me up. I’m not moving." You lie back down flat on your back and cross your arms over your chest as well. If you can bait him into getting close enough, maybe you could use your new abilities to somehow get him to cooperate with you. 

"Hah, like I’m doing that." Enjou scoffs. With a snap of his fingers, a cage suddenly manifests around you. Your eyes widen in shock. You didn’t see this one coming. Enjou notices your shocked expression and smirks in response. "Gotcha," He sneers. 

Your eyes narrow in a death-stare as you try and wave your hand around outside the cage, but the silver bars kept you in place. Enjou was just out of reach. He’s at the perfect distance to mock you. He turns around with a taunting flourish and floats off towards the domain gate. The cage around you lifts up and you drift behind him in close tow. The two of you pass through the gate and come out in some strange new ruins. You had never seen this part of the Abyss. Then again, you haven’t seen too much of it in game. Floating ruined pathways snake along towards a large free-floating sanctum. What look to be trails of dust or water poor off corners and edges, down into an infinite abyss below. Rather fitting for your location, if you do admit. All the grey-blue architecture is gilded with blemished gold and silver, just like you’ve seen in-game. You wonder what part of the Abyss this is. "Oi, Enjou, where are we going?" 

"Someone’s taken an interest in you. You’ll see her in a minute," He replies, not bothering to look back at you. "We’re nearly there, now stop being annoying."

You huff, crossing your arms over yourself like a pissed off child. The two of you finally pass through the sanctum entrance and you are greeted by a large throne room. The hall itself is rather empty, with not much in the way of decoration beyond the usual greebled walls and strange glyphs lining the place. On the far side of the room, a strange throne sat on a raised platform. On the right is a Hydro Abyss Herald, and the left, an Electro Abyss Lector. The both of them are in a similar half-way form just like Enjou. Sitting on the throne itself is a familiar face. 

"Lumine?" You mutter under your breath, looking visibly surprised. Of course she’s the Abyss twin, since Aether is the one wondering Teyvat — but you didn’t expect to taken to her this quickly. The front of the cage suddenly drops open, and you’re launched from it and onto the floor. Enjou stands behind you, looking ready to hurl fireballs your way at any moment. You throw a nasty look at him (which he returns), but you then turn your attention towards the Lumine right in front of you. 

She looks at you with a calculating, unreadable expression. Her eyes are cold and judging, but she doesn’t look scornful. "So you’re the (Y/N) that has caused such unrest in Teyvat… Another outlander, it seems," She remarks. 

You’re not quite sure what to make of her comment. "How much do you know about me?" 

"A bit. You suddenly appeared out of nowhere not long ago and had captured the interest of quite a few Allogenes. Archons and my brother included." She rests her head on her hand, propped up on the arm of the throne. Her aloof gaze does not leave you. 

"Yeah, that all sounds about right…" You mutter to yourself. Enjou mentioned something about someone named Allurosia, you recall. It sounds like the Abyss might know more about your weird-ass abilities than you. "Hey, uh… do you know what these weird powers of mine are? Enjou sounded like he was trying to drop an information bomb on me earlier but it didn’t work." 

You side-eye Enjou with your comment, which he notices and scoffs at. 

"You have somehow come into possession of the powers that once belonged to the late God of Emotions, Allurosia. That god was renowned for their beauty and charisma. All they had to do was look at you and you were under their spell. What you can do now is not too far from it," Lumine explains. 

So Allurosia was another harem lord like you. Cool. 

""That god perished during the Archon War, but they were still a force to be reckoned with, meaning you could be as well. The circumstances of how you came into these powers is still unknown, but I have a proposition for you," Lumine rises from her throne. Her aura exudes an air of majesty and confidence that you can’t help but shrink in. 

"And that would be…?" You lower your head and look off to the side. 

"Look at Her Highness in the eye!" The Abyss Herald slams the end of one of his water sabres on the ground. 

"Align yourself with the Abyss Order and we can find out more about Allurosia’s old powers and why you now possess them. You have great potential to change this world for the better." Lumine stands with her shoulders back, looking down at you on the ground. (You’ve been doing an awful lot of floor-sitting today). 

So that’s the proposition. Barely thinking it over, you can already tell that it would end in disaster if you agreed. With Dainsleif now forcibly added to the harem as of a few days ago, you joining the Abyss could spell chaos. Besides, even when you just played the game, you weren’t super intent on wanting to be part of the Abyss to begin with. You’re at a bit of a catch-22 here. If you join the Abyss, lord knows what would happen with the people back in Teyvat, but if you disagree, they could easily smite you on the spot since you’re rather combat-inept at best. 

"So? What do you say?" She asks, raising an eyebrow. 

"I— um," You sputter. "I think I need some time to think... Yeah, think. I need to think..." You really do need to think. Think about how the fuck you are going get yourself out of this situation.

Your promise to Dainsleif bounces around in your mind as you hatch a plan. I’ll try not to do anything dumb… Sorry Dainsleif, that promise if going to have to break. It’s stupid time. 

You begin to sway slightly. Putting a hand to your forehead, you let out a pained groan. Lumine frowns in confusion at your strange reaction. "I don’t— that’s—," You sink down a bit, hand now clutching your chest. Time to ramp it up with some shaky breaths. You’re not really sure where you’re going with this sudden ailment, but it’s working. "Why is the human acting strange," The Electro Abyss Lector comments, rather puzzled by you. 

"Are you alright?" Lumine asks. She takes an apprehensive step in your direction. The Abyss twin might be an antagonist in the game, but they’re both good people. 

Now you lie down, lowering your head between your hands, looking incredibly vulnerable. Lumine takes another step towards you. By doing so, Lumine has taken the L. WEIRD-ASS HAREM POWERS, GO. Enjou yells something to Lumine right as you snap your hand out, but he’s too late. Your hand claps over Lumine’s ankle. He warps right next to her. Enjou too takes an L. With your other hand, you manage to make contact with him as well. The two of them are stunned. 

You launch to your feet, hands splayed out like two deadly weapons, ready to strike. The Hydro Herald and Electro Lector look at the frozen Lumine and Enjou and then at each other. And then at you. "Fuck—" The Herald teleports behind you, about to slash. His arm comes down right where you were standing before. You slash your hand upward, colliding with his arm. He’s instantly hit, recoiling and freezing up. 

The Electro Abyss mage is the last one left. He growls in annoyance, launching a swarm of Electro spheres at you. You jump behind the Herald, who takes the brunt of the electrocution with a comical yell. Once he’s stopped being electrified, you shove him towards the Lector, who only narrowly misses the poor Herald. You quickly summon your sword and strike upwards again, launching the Lector’s book out the window and into the endless pit below. You had been practicing that one with Aether. While the Lector is panickledly scrambling after it, you launch towards him, palm outstretched, clapping him over the shoulder. 

The whole room stood stunned, still trying to process what just happened and probably their emotions. You let out a puff of air. That was intense. 

"I still need to think on that proposition, I think." You dust yourself off, now addressing the others on equal footing. "Now, it would be appreciated if you could send me back." You stand with your hands on your hips, now commanding respect from them instead. 

"Well, we no longer could, even if we wanted to," The Elector says bitterly, floating ominously in place. 

Your confident expression drops into a frown. "Wait what? Why?" 

"Because you knocked my damned book out the window. Without that spell, I can’t just open a gate all the way to Teyvat. Do you know how far that is? Besides, teleporting a whole other entity is far different from teleporting yourself." 

Your stomach drops. "Oh… fuck." 

"Fuck is right. I’m not going to be able to have another copy for at least a few months. It takes a long time to make those things, you know." He grumpily crosses his arms like a child having a tantrum. You thought the Elector was also doom and gloom like the Herald, not like Enjou. Speaking of—

"Enjou, you shoved me into a portal before. Can’t you do something?" You turn to look at him, but by the looks of it, he didn’t have a solution either.

"Recall that flat expanse halfway? That was the furthest reaches of the Abyss. That’s as far as I can personally go. The gate there was held open by that one." Enjou nods his head in the Elector’s direction. "Besides, I don’t have a goofy-looking book for that sort of thing." 

"Because you constantly burn them, you fool." The Herald grunts. He had picked himself up from the ground at some point and now stood behind Lumine. You down at her while the three Abyss higher-ups bicker amongst themselves. She looks as disappointed by them as you are surprised. Canon divergence at its best, you suppose. 

"So I’m stuck here for at least a few months…" You sound incredibly defeated. 

"So it would seem." Lumine finishes facepalming. "Your friends likely won’t find you here for a while, anyway. A few days in Teyvat is a few months here in the Abyss. I suppose that gives you time to consider the offer, though. Despite all… this..." Lumine gestures around her at the grumpy Lectors and Herald. "…Do tell me how your stay here could be more worthwhile. I will see what I can arrange.” This kindness is definitely an effect of the entire room getting grabbed. It’s strange as fuck to say the least, but why not take the W when it’s presented to you on a silver platter?

"I suppose I have one request?" 

"And what would that be?"

"Teach me how to fight." If you’re gonna get stuck in the Abyss for what will be a few months of your perceived time, you may as well embrace it and do a Childe. It might make things interesting once you’re out again. "I don’t care who I learn from. I want to learn combat. Ooh, and teach me some fancy Abyssal tricks if that’s possible for me." 

Lumine looks surprised by your keen interest in combat. Maybe the Childe-ness is already starting to set in. "You already know a couple of sword techniques, it would seem. I can teach you personally… I-if you would like, of course." Lumine scrambles slightly to add the last part in addition. Looks like she’s succumbed to the awkwardness, just like her brother back in Teyvat. 

"Oh hell yeah, I’m down." The light’s already leaving your eyes. My god, someone stop (Y/N). "I wanna learn from you three as well.” You point between the three Abyss members who had all stopped their infighting to look at you confusedly. 

“That could be arranged.” Lumine nods. “For now, there are other matters to attend to. You three, (Y/N), come with me.” Lumine turns tail with a dramatic swish of her dress and wanders out to one of the other pathways connected to the hanging sanctum. 

So you’ve successfully set up more combat classes. Given that you’ve successfully gained at least Lumine to your arsenal, any of the training you’re given won’t be allowed to end in death. Chances are you’ll only be close to dying for the next three months. Oh well, maybe this could be fun. 

———

Back in Teyvat, Xiao had finally returned from the call, only to find that there was no trace of a soul on that sun-spattered balcony. He looked around for you, but there was no you in sight. Were you with someone else now? Did you get bored and leave? Did something bad happen to you? Xiao surprises himself with his anxious thoughts. He’s not usually the type to suddenly get so worked up over someone new, but there’s something different about you that he can’t articulate. All his worrying left him with different unpleasant feelings, so he decides to go looking for you. 

He calls your name. There’s no response. 

He looks around the balcony. Nothing. 

He looks around the Inn. Still nothing. 

“Xiao, have you lost something?” Verr asks. She clearly noticed Xiao’s increasingly frantic searching. He’s as obvious as daylight right now. 

“Have you seen (Y/N)? I can’t find them and they’re injured.” He replies. He was going to redress your wounds, but he can’t now that you’re gone. 

“Oh, that new outlander?” She taps her chin, trying to recall all the faces she’s seen come and go. "I believe I saw them last with the traveller Aether, but that was much earlier this morning. If you can’t find them, then he may know.” 

With a quick thank you, Xiao quickly teleports to Aether’s location, which he notices to be somewhere not too far from the inn. His sudden appearance jump-scares both Paimon and the blond. “Xiao, you nearly gave Paimon a heart-attack!” She stamps her feet about in midair, but Xiao pays no mind to her. 

“Have you seen (Y/N)?” 

“What do you mean? They were doing a commission by the river just south of here. Has something happened?” 

“They were injured so I took them back to Wangshu Inn for a bit. I was called, so I had to leave for a few minutes, but once I got back, they were gone. They’re not at the Inn. I looked.” Xiao explains urgently. 

“Wait, you—“ Aether begins, but he is quickly cut off by Paimon’s melodramatic gasping. 

“What if they got kidnapped by hilichurls?! They’ve been beating up a lot of them recently! Maybe they want REVENGE!” 

“…Paimon, no.” Aether frowns, facepalming slightly. "Something feels off about this. I want to look as well.” 

“The more eyes, the better,” Xiao nods, quickly flitting off in a cloud of smoke with another step. 

And thus begins the search for missing (Y/N). 

Will the search for (Y/N) prove a success? What will become of (Y/N) after the Abyss? TUNE IN NEXT TIME TO FIND OUT!

<- ep 4.1

ep 4.3 ->

aaaaand here's an enjou (as described) as an apology for my godawful motivation and non-existent schedule.

[img id: a painted sketch of a smugly grinning humanoid enjou. he has the same hair and glasses as his npc form, but his black hair fades to red and a pale yellow, like his neck. his mask, which has been very slightly altered, sits on the side of his head. his eyes are red with black sclera and 4-point star pupils. his clothes have also been slightly modified to be more simple because op got lazy drawing them.]

[but-onlyforyou]

(Kat from kittens-of-vol-tron!)

Okay okay, so if you want how about a klance prompt of what you think their first kiss was! I'm curious to see how you think that would play out!

But if you want me to pick the direction, a kiss after a close battle :3 (bonus if it's kinda a 'holy shit I almost lost you' kiss that just happens)

i LOVE the 'holy shit i almost lost u' kiss trope, thank u kat for always supporting me and my klance endeavours 🥺

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cw: mild violence (canon-typical)

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If the din of battle is a constant roar, then the split-second before Keith turns to find a blade halfway toward his stomach is a shrieking whine of feedback directly into the whorling space between his ears. He can't hear anything else around him, but his body instantly winds up, preemptively tensed against the ghost sensation of steel between his ribs, a smoldering surge of pain that even fire can't recreate. 

It happens faster than Keith can really process it.

If he had time to think, maybe he would think that this — a life spent in service to the fate of the universe — never felt more tangible than when that universe shrunk down to Voltron and the four other people that formed it. When a universe was the known bodies that walked the same orbits within their castle of a galaxy, constant and close enough to chart the course of his own path alongside. If Keith had time to think, maybe he would think that dying here, within reach of the only people he cares about, is the best place he could die. And if he's lucky? Bright blue eagle-eyes won't have to see that it happened until the dust has long since cleared.

For better and for worse, Keith never really gets exactly what he wishes for. 

Lance sees him.

He doesn't realize it until the high frequency screech of adrenaline in his head cuts off with a bang — two bangs — a cry and a stumble, a blur of purple as the Galran soldier poised to stab him stumbles back from the force of a bullet in his shoulder, tumbles down from the pinpoint brutality of another. Keith hears his own breathing again, harried and catching on every ragged edge of his ribcage, for a brief few seconds before the roar of battle rushes back in like the tide to take it away. 

The fight is quick to wind down after that, one dropped enemy slowly turning into two, five— many more, inversely proportional to the noise around them. When the last sentry falls, there's a brief moment of silence before a new kind of clamour starts up, far more subdued than the angry cacophony of battle.

Keith hears Lance rushing down from his vantage point before he sees him. The thud of his weight against metal support beams, the staccato of his jetpack easing the momentum of each fall. When his feet hit the ground, Keith's slowing breaths are backed by the crunch of gravel beneath Lance's boots as he runs over, something unreadable and breathtakingly intense in his cerulean eyes. 

He skids to a stop in front of Keith, heavy breaths fogging the lower half of his visor, and Keith feels breathless in the face of Lance's stricken expression, the wild glint in his eyes registering as terror in Keith's mind. As his breathing slows, the look starts to lose its ferocity, shrinking down until Lance just stands there, looking unbearably small. Keith feels his chest ache.

"Don't—" 

Lance swallows, shaking hands coming up to grip the sides of Keith's helmet as he looks him unwaveringly in the eye. With a gentle tug, he pulls the helmet off, dropping it to the side so he can curl fingers against the side of his neck proper, so close that Keith can feel the way Lance's fingertips tremble against the surface of his skin.

Even through the muted blue glass of his visor, Lance's gaze is intense enough to take Keith's breath away.

"You can't— You have to be more careful." Lance's mouth twists open and closed between words, equal parts certain and so anxiously unsure. He looks like he wants to say everything and nothing to him all at once, and Keith hears it all half-muffled around the fading bloodrush between his ears, eyes trained on those slanting lips as Lance settles on: "You can't leave us, Keith. Not like this. Not me."

And that's when it hits Keith.

Lance saw him.

In the split second before Keith could have died, in the brief instant where he had no time to think but all the time to hope Lance wouldn't have to bear witness to it happening, he caught their sharpshooter's eagle-eyes. Lance saved him, and the terror that sparked in his gaze, the trembling and uncertain surety — those were all for Keith. 

The realization crashes over him like a wave, his body a movable object against its unstoppable force as it shoves him forward, a messy jumble of limbs, longing, and the way Lance had looked him — like Keith was something he'd lose the entire universe for before he could bear to lose him.

He presses a kiss against Lance's visor, right above his lips, and his heart kicks into a quickened cadence at the way Lance's breath hitches.

"I won't," Keith sighs, more breath than words. They're close enough that it paints fog across Lance's visor, and when that barrier proves too much for the newfound want running rampant in Keith's veins, he pushes the pane up, staring Lance eye to uncovered eye.

Keith leans in for two things in the electric quiet between them: another kiss, brief and just enough to quell the rush of blood between his ears, and a promise, punctuated by his fingers twining themselves stubbornly between Lance's own.

"I'm not leaving anyone, Lance. And I won't leave you."

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fic request guidelines <3

[karama9]

So it turns out Link is a thief that I'm currently calling The Roguish Rogue. It's giving Robin Hood and Princess Bride at this point. Anyway, here's a very early draft of a potential opening:

Swords and Crowns, Prologue

Once upon a time, the Kingdom of Hyrule stretched from the sands of the Gerudo desert to the Eastern Sea, and from beyond the slopes of Death Mountain to beyond the Southern Shores of Lake Hylia. 

Or so they say. They being, in this particular case, the Royal Family of the current Kingdom of Hyrule, which lies right around the center of the land it supposedly once claimed all on its own. 

The Four Kingdoms that border it roughly to the North, South, East and West don’t care much for that theory, because each time the King of Hyrule brings it up, he makes it sound like the Good Old Days, and nobody wants him to get nostalgic enough to start trying to conquer more land. 

This would already be reasonable enough if it was just a matter of avoiding war or losing land, but there is a lot more to it: you see, Hyrule is cursed and as long as the neighboring Kingdoms are not part of Hyrule, they don’t share that curse. 

Or so they think. Or thought. I don’t know if they figured it out yet, honestly. I’ve been a bit busy. 

In fact, I think it’s the first time I sit down in at least a week. I’ve lied down a few times, not always by choice, but just sitting? It feels like some kind of wonderful novelty at this point. 

I hear steps coming and debate straightening up. I’m kind of slumped in Ganon’s throne right now, my hand on the pommel of the Master Sword as its tip rests on the floor between my spread legs.  

I decide to smirk instead. It will make the slump look deliberate and cool instead of exhausted, and if anyone recognizes me, it will piss them off even more than just finding me here with the blade of legends would. 

Royal Hylian Guards burst into the room. I wish I had a glass of wine or something to casually tip to them. I settle for smiling and tilting my head. 

“You, citizen!” the Guard Captain roars. “What are you doing here? Where is Ganon?” 

I raise an eyebrow at him. I mean, I have the Master Sword right here, I’m pretty clearly in possession of it, the situation seems pretty cut and dry to me. 

I point behind me to the Sword of Light. “Ganon’s back in THERE,” I say. “You’re welcome.” I bow my head a bit and flash a bigger smile, envisioning the light catching my teeth for a little sparkle. Probably not happening, it’s rather dark in here, but the vision is pretty satisfying. 

 The Captain stares at the sword of light before his eyes wander to the other sword, the one I’m holding. 

“Is that the Master Sword, citizen?” he asks. 

“Sir...” another guard has approached. He’s looking at me with a horrified expression. 

The Captain scowls at him. “What?” 

“That man... I’m pretty sure he’s...” 

Oh no, he’s NOT stealing my line. I loudly clear my throat and move from a slump to leaning forward. “The Roguish Rogue,” I say. “At your service. Oh, and the Hero Chosen by the Blade. Do forgive me, this particular title is new, I’m still prone to forgetting to give it.” 

Pandemonium ensues. Several swords are unsheathed, lots of voices yell various things. Oh, I really wish I had a glass of wine now, I could lean back and sip at it unconcernedly. I settle for slumping back again and inspecting my nails, letting go of the Master Sword’s pommel and letting it lean against my leg and the seat. The floor is gritty enough that it doesn’t slide right down and doesn’t clatter and ruin my effect. 

The Captain eventually yells at his troops to be quiet. They show off that they’re well trained by shutting up. 

“Oohh, good boys,” I say in a sing song voice. 

Admirably, they don’t respond, unless you count glaring at me. 

“Talk, miscreant!” the Captain orders. “Where is Ganon? How did you survive coming here?” 

My eyebrows shot up. I have to admit, I didn’t expect him to just straight up refuse to believe I was the Hero. 

“Ganon is in the Blade of Light,” I repeat. I point at myself with my whole hand and turn my nose up a bit. “I defeated him. I, the Hero of Legends himself born anew!" I ham that last one up as much as I can.  

“You did NOT,” the Captain says. 

“Did too,” I say, again in a sing song voice.  

And I show him the back of my sword hand, and with just a bit of willpower, make the triforce mark that appeared there a month ago shine. I smile with my teeth again: maybe the light from my hand will shine on them. That would be SO cool. 

Whether I managed a smile flare or not doesn’t matter much: pandemonium resumes. 

Idea Pitch

Story where the hero rescues the Princess and the Kingdom from Big Bad. Incredible plot twist, the hero and princess fall in love.

But oh no! She has to marry the Prince of a neighboring Kingdom.

But wait! The Prince is 100% gay and has long since hired his lover as his valet.

Conspiracies, fake wedding, sneaking around and helping the other half sneak around, and various shenanigans ensues.

Oh, and it's Zelink.

Sound interesting at all?

[theteasetwrites]

The Beginning Is the End Is the Beginning

Chapter 28: City of Woe

❧ Pairing: Daryl Dixon x Reader ❧ Era: Season 4 ❧ Pronouns: she/her ❧ Warnings: violence, mild swearing, scary situation, typical TWD ❧ Word Count: 5.5k

❧ In This Chapter: Conflict erupts between you and Daryl and the men who call themselves the Claimers. When paths collide, you're reunited with friends, but your search for sanctuary leads you all into a frying pan, quite literally.

❧ A/N: Here marks the end of Season 4! My favorite thing about this chapter is definitely how much Reader stands up for Daryl. I like to think of her as a nice, sweet person, but if you mess with her or her loved ones (esp. Daryl), she'll fuck you up—verbally or otherwise.

You didn’t sleep much at all the night you and Daryl joined the men. Though Daryl held you as he usually did, a bit closer considering the other men were giving you salacious looks, you couldn’t shake the feeling of distrust if you did fall asleep.

Still, it was enough sleep to allow you to wake up early with Daryl and help him hunt, though he didn’t really need it.

You watched as he knelt on the leaf-covered ground and held his crossbow to his eyes, patiently waiting for the right moment to shoot the small furry rabbit he stumbled upon. You always loved rabbits, you even raised them when you were little. Every time Daryl brought one back to the prison, you would pass. Now, though, that adorable rabbit looked like a four course meal.

When two arrows penetrated the animal, one from Daryl’s crossbow and one from somewhere behind you, your eyes widened and you turned to face the obnoxious man with the bow.

Daryl stood up from his kneeling position and turned to face the man, too. “What the hell you doin’?” he asked angrily.

The man shrugged as if he didn’t think he’d done anything wrong. “Catching me some breakfast.” He smiled at you mockingly.

You rested your hands on your hips. “You?” you asked, unimpressed with his declaration of ownership of the rabbit.

Daryl began walking over to the dead bunny. “That’s ours,” he said matter-of-factly.

“My arrow’s the one that hit first,” he said, standing shoulder-to-shoulder with you as you both watched Daryl pull the arrows out of the rabbit’s dead body. “Cottontail belongs to me.”

You stepped forward towards Daryl, not wanting to be too close to any of the crass men in your new group. “We’ve been out here since before the sun came up,” you said.

He smirked at you. “You see, the rules of the hunt don’t mean jack out here, axewoman.” You did not like your new nickname. He stepped forward and faced Daryl. “Now, that rabbit you’re holdin’ is claimed, boy.”

Daryl chucked the man’s arrow somewhere into the forest.

“Claimed?” you asked, now standing next to Daryl.

“Claimed,” he repeated. “Whether you like it or not. So if I was you, I’d hand it over. Now. Before you get to wishin’ you ain’t never even gotten out of bed this mornin’.”

Daryl stepped in front of you and inched closer to the man, holding the rabbit by its legs all the while. “It ain’t yours,” Daryl growled at him.

You glared the man down, so incensed that you couldn’t help but get a word in. “Go find your own,” you said. “Then stick it up your ass.”

The two of you began walking past him back towards the camp, but the obnoxious man spoke again before you could get too far away from him. “Here I thought you were a nice piece of tail,” he began, causing Daryl to stop in his tracks and reach for the hilt of his knife. You grabbed his hand and looked him in the eye with a harshness. “More just a dumb bitch, with a little whipped bitchboy.” He smirked at his own remark. “She got you doin’ the dishes, too?”

At that, you didn’t care anymore to let Daryl pull his knife out and turn around to face the man. Before he could even lift the knife, the leader, Joe, pushed past you and pushed Daryl’s arm down. “Easy, fellas,” he said. “Easy.”

The other man just laughed, while Daryl glared him down with enough rage to stab him without any blade at all. “Let’s just put our weapons down, see if we can’t figure out what’s really the problem here, huh?” Joe paused for a moment before situating himself between the two men. You stood shoulder-to-shoulder with Daryl, now weary of there being two men you didn’t trust in your general vicinity. “You claim it?” he asked the other man.

“Hell yeah,” he replied.

What kind of bullshit system is this? you asked yourself.

“Well, there you go,” Joe said as he turned to face the two of you. “That critter belongs to Len.”

The part of you where you kept your inner mother, the petulant bitch that she was, was bursting at the seams and ready to let loose. So it did. “That’s bullshit!” you practically yelled. “Daryl spent hours out here looking for that, he earned it!” Daryl laid a hand on your stomach to push you back as you kept hounding on the men from behind him. “This dickhead didn’t do anything but run his big mouth off.”

“(Y/N),” Daryl growled at you, giving you a slightly softer glare he reserved only for you. He was half unsure of what to do, considering he had only ever seen you so enraged back at the CDC with Jenner, and even then you had less vitriol in your voice. When it came to Daryl and people taking advantage of his skills, as they so often did, it was easy for you to loose your cool. Plus, Len’s face was extremely punchable.

“Woowee!” Len hollered. You hadn’t even noticed that he had been laughing during your entire rant. “You make a strong case, darlin’, but that there rabbit’s mine. So let’s have it.”

“Looks like you may be wanting an explanation,” Joe said.

Hell yeah.

“See, going it alone, that ain’t an option nowadays,” Joe explained. Daryl barely gave him the satisfaction of looking at him, opting instead to look at the very interesting forest floor. “Still, it is survival of the fittest. That’s a paradox right there. So I laid out some rules of the road to keep things from goin’ Darwin every couple of hours, keep our merry band together and stress-free.”

You crossed your arms and narrowed your eyes in annoyance at his misplaced reference to your favorite fairytale figure. Merry band my ass.

“All you gotta do is claim,” he continued. “That’s how you mark your territory, your prey, your bed at night… your woman, too.”

Please kill them both, Daryl.

“One word,” he said, holding up his index finger. “Claimed.”

“I ain’t claimin’ nothin’,” Daryl replied.

You were relieved. You didn’t care if it kept the two of you alive, you hated to see Daryl conform to this unfair regime without a fight. It was a flawed system, you could tell right away. The fact that these men were all right with taking things from others who had worked hard for them, by force if they had to, spoke volumes about their character. It might have been a way to resolve conflicts, but it wasn’t an effective, or fair, one in your mind.

After another lecture on rules, Joe finally resolved the issue by splitting the rabbit in half. Of course, you and Daryl got the ass end. It seemed to accurately represent your status in the group as outsiders. Still, you preferred being outsiders than fitting in with such a group.

With the butt end of a rabbit in tow, the two of you continued traveling with the group for a while until reaching an old auto parts garage where Joe decided you would all stay for the night.

Because neither you nor Daryl believed in the “claiming” system, the two of you ended up having to sleep on the floor while the others claimed their beds in the cars. You didn’t mind, though. It was better than adhering to those rules.

“I’m not sure I can take it with these guys for much longer,” you said to Daryl, sitting on the stairs leading up to the garage as he urinated against a nearby tree. “I might kill Len.”

Daryl scoffed. “Ain’t worth it. They’d kill us both.” He shook himself before zipping his pants back up and sitting down next to you with a huff. “Don’ worry. We’ll leave soon.”

You rested your head on Daryl’s shoulder and wrapped your arm around his. “How did things go so wrong so fast?” you asked Daryl, though you knew the answer, and it contained subheadings, footnotes, as well as a references page.

Daryl paraphrased it for you, as he always did. “Things just happened.”

You squeezed his arm tighter, as if you were afraid he’d slip away from you, too. “I miss my journal,” you said sadly. “I left it in our cell.”

“Miss that weird book you were reading to me,” he agreed.

You laughed and raised your head to look into his sweet face. “You mean the Picture of Dorian Gray?”

He nodded. “Yeah.”

You shrugged. “There are plenty of copies of Dorian Gray. Only one Daryl Dixon.” You nuzzled your nose up and down against his, then planted a small kiss there.

“Just wish I knew how it ends.”

“Want me to spoil it for you?” you asked.

He smirked. “You better.”

You laughed. “Well, Dorian ends up slashing the portrait with a knife. He’s disgusted with the way it looks as it bears all the ugliness he’s created throughout his selfish life. When he does that, he inadvertently kills himself, but not before turning into the grotesque ugliness from the portrait, and the portrait becomes beautiful again.”

Daryl looked at you incredulously. “Well, shit.”

You smiled. “He got what was coming to him. It’s all in the interpretation, though.”

He nodded. “Maybe we’ll find another copy someday. Then I can interpret it myself.”

“I’d love to hear what you think,” you said.

Daryl had grown so much from the man you met almost two years ago. No longer was he living in his brother’s shadow, so afraid to think for himself and show any vulnerability. You liked to think that the two of you were on this journey together, discovering more about yourselves and becoming more confident in your respective abilities.

“What about the geode?” he asked, rousing you from your thoughts.

You smiled before reaching into the pocket of your jean jacket and pulling out the amethyst. “I almost forgot about it in there,” you said.

Daryl had a bittersweet look on his face. “Think mine’s still at the prison.”

You brushed his hair back with your free hand as he looked down at your half of the geode. “It’s okay, honey. I was thinking, anyway, that we should break this guy up into a few pieces. That way it’ll be easier to carry around. Might make mine into a necklace or something.”

Daryl’s blue eyes widened. “Here,” he reached behind him to grab his crossbow, then stood up to outstretch his hand. “Gimme.”

You handed the geode to Daryl, and he placed it down on the concrete before smashing it with the stock of his crossbow, not unlike the night he first split it in half. It took several tries to shatter it, but with a little elbow grease and some heavy grunting, Daryl was able to get the rock down to a chunks of a more practical size.

You watched the purple gems explode into multiple, smaller pieces. You clapped in appreciation. “Bravo!” you cheered. “You’re a force to be reckoned with, my love.”

You got up and helped him pick up the pieces, laying them in your palm and admiring the iridescent sheen reflecting on the jagged purple surfaces from the last rays of the evening sun.

The two of you sat back down to admire Daryl’s handiwork. He managed to get each piece perfectly sized. He handed you one of the pieces he picked up. “This would be good for a necklace,” he said.

You took the gem and smiled. “Yes, it would.”

Before you could even thank him, Daryl was rummaging through his pant pockets until he pulled out a long black shoelace and some copper wire. He always kept odd bits and bobs like that, just in case. You watched in fascination as he took the gem from your hand and began wrapping the wire around it, then creating a loop over the top of it when the wire was secure. Feeding the shoelace through the loop, he tied the ends together and then held it up to reveal a necklace.

“This okay?” he asked.

Your mouth was still slightly agape from watching him make it. “It’s perfect, Daryl.” You shook your head in disbelief.

He shrugged. “If I get some real cord or twine I can take the shoelace off. It’ll work for now, though.”

“Can you put it on me?” You turned away from him so he could put it on you like in those cheesy romance movies.

He raised the necklace above your head and laid it gently around your neck, leaving a sweet kiss on the side. You turned back to him and smiled. “How do I look?”

“Beautiful,” he said.

You blushed. He rarely said beautiful. Pretty was his usual go-to word.

“Thank you, Daryl. I love it. I’m never taking it off.”

He wrapped his arms around your waist and pulled you closer until your legs were touching. “Gonna keep the rest of the pieces in my bag,” he said. “Might make somethin’ else someday.”

When the two of you came back into the garage, all of the men were settled in their cars. Since there was nothing else to do, you and Daryl decided to lay down a bit before making dinner with the rabbit’s ass, though by the time you got back, the rabbit’s head had mysteriously appeared next to its counterpart.

“Give it here,” Len said to Daryl as he sat up.

“You step back,” he replied gruffly, blocking your body with his.

“My half was in the bag,” Len said, “now it’s gone.”

The both of you stood up to defend yourselves.

“Now ain’t nobody around here interested in no half a damn cottontail except you. Ain’t that right?” he yelled.

“You’re the one still thinkin’ about that crap,” Daryl retorted.

“Empty your bag,” Len demanded.

“I said step back!”

Joe approached the two arguing men and ripped Daryl’s bag from his hands to dump it out and reveal the head of a rabbit.

Your eyes widened. “We didn’t take it,” you said.

“You put that there, didn’t you?” Daryl asked, inching closer to Len. “When I went out to take a piss?!”

“You lied,” Len said.

“Didn’t you?!” Daryl pushed the man’s chest.

“You lied. You stole. We gonna teach this fool or what, Joe?”

“Looks like we got ourselves a little conundrum here.” Joe stepped between the two men. He looked over to Daryl.“Either he’s lying, which is an actionable offense…” He turned back to Len. “Or you didn’t plant it on him like some punk-ass, cheating, coward cop, did you? ‘Cause while that wouldn’t be specifically breaking the rules, it’d be disappointing.”

“It would,” Len nodded his head. “I didn’t.”

“Well,” Joe turned back to Daryl, then made you flinch when he turned to Joe again and threw a hard punch into his face, knocking him to the ground. “Teach him a lesson, gents. He’s a lying sack of shit and I’m sick of it.”

They beat Len to death. That was the cost of lying, or breaking any of the other “rules.”

Joe told you both that he saw Len plant the rabbit on you. He let you both have the rabbit’s head, but it was the least satisfying catch Daryl ever cooked up for the two of you. It was tainted, and you couldn’t get the sounds of Len’s grunts as the other men drained the life out of him in that garage.

The next day, you found out where Joe’s group was heading. They were following the tracks of a “walking piece of fecal matter,” as Joe put so eloquently, who had killed one of their men. In turn, that killer was following the train tracks, specifically one that was used as a trail to a “sanctuary for all” that was advertised on several railroad signs.

You and Daryl looked at each knowingly when you heard this information. The men were following the tracks to a sanctuary. Though they didn’t seem interested in staying there, the two of you both felt it could be a place to settle down again, maybe even meet the others if they found it, too. So you followed along, hoping. You found yourself hoping for a miracle a lot since the world turned. Sometimes, it worked.

That night was a miracle, in a way. Mostly, though, it was a bloodbath.

You, Daryl, and the rest of Joe’s group did find the man you were looking for, just in different contexts. For you and Daryl, seeing Rick and Michonne sat at that fire pit, and Carl seated in the car not too far away, it was a godsend. For Joe and his men, it was an opportunity for vengeance.

You hid in a bush with Daryl and the other men, then hid behind the car when Joe and the others began to threaten Rick. You were waiting for just the moment. It came when Joe started to count down until he shot Rick.

“Joe!” Daryl yelled to the man.

Emerging from the darkness, you and Daryl were met with two pairs of familiar eyes. “Hold up,” Daryl said, dumbfounded as you both approached Joe until you were encircled by the men. “These people,” he began, “you’re gonna let ‘em go. These are good people.”

“This man killed our friend,” Joe said. “You say he’s good people. See, now that right there is a lie.” You froze in fear, remembering what they did to the last liar. “It’s a lie!”

You couldn’t even take another breath before Daryl was knocked to the ground by one of the other men. “No!” you cried, reaching for your axe before you, too, were punched in the gut. With the wind knocked out of you both, two of the men picked you both up and dragged you over by the car to begin beating you to death. You kept trying to reach for your axe but it was gone, so was your knife.

As you writhed on the ground, taking blow after blow from the two men, you heard Daryl’s groans in pain, their aching causing you even more hurt than the kicks and bludgeons to your stomach and face. “Don’t rough ‘er up too much,” you heard Joe yell to your abusers. “Wanna keep her nice and pretty for later.”

So you wouldn’t be beaten to death. Daryl would, but they’d keep you for God knows what, then kill you. It was a horrible nightmare, and a part of you just wished they’d shoot you and get it over with. Then, you kept hearing the awful grunts coming from Daryl. As you lay on the ground, you were finally able to look at him opposite of you, writhing in just as much pain. You ignored the repeated kicks to you abdomen that didn’t seem to let up, and you watched in horror as Daryl was beaten to a bloody pulp. He kept trying to get up to defend himself, but he was knocked down every time. You cried out helplessly, “Stop! Please!” Your words were cut short by another round of hits to the face.

Suddenly, a gunshot rang out.

You couldn’t tell what was happening, but it woke you from your pain-induced stupor. Situating your eyes on your axe not too far away from you now, an idea crossed your mind. It was risky, but it was all you could think to do. You closed your eyes, and lowered your heart rate in the hopes the men would think you were dead or unconscious. They were stupid enough to fall for something like that, so why not try it.

“She’s out!” one of them said to the other.

“No!” Daryl bellowed, now being tossed against the side of the car and beaten some more by both of them.

With their backs turned to you, and Rick and Michonne fighting against the others, you army crawled over to your axe. With the handle firmly in your grasp, you shot up and lunged towards the men, landing a deadly blow directly into one man’s skull. Pulling it out swiftly, Daryl had already broken free and was able to push the other man down and stomp his face in with his heavy boots until he was nothing but blood and brains.

You dropped your axe and ran to Daryl, wrapping your arms around him and sobbing. Neither of you said a word, just hung onto each other, both of you a beaten and bludgeoned mess. You were sure your nose was broken, as well as a couple of ribs. You wouldn’t even be surprised if you’d lost a tooth, and that had always been your worst nightmare. Now, it was like a paper cut.

“Thank God,” you cried, cradling the back of his head with your hand and realizing you were embracing the only thing that mattered to you on this planet, and that he was still alive. Beaten halfway to death, but alive.

He didn’t say anything, just held you close and tucked his face into your shoulder. You swore you heard muffled cries and sniffles, but it was hard to tell over your own sobs, both from the one of the most painful experiences of your life and from the mental trauma of almost losing Daryl once again.

You sat on the hood of the car, watching the sun come up through your one good eye. Beside you, Daryl poured some water out onto his red rag he always kept in his pocket. Bringing it up to your face, he gently dabbed at the dried blood from just hours earlier.

He had a concerned look on his face, his eyes clouded with sadness and anger and helplessness as he remembered what happened. Both of your faces were battered. Daryl had one black eye and several cuts on his face, including his lip and eyebrow.

You, on the other hand, had it much worse.

There was a split on the bridge of your nose where the bone was fractured, and both of your eyes were blackened, with one completely swollen shut. There was a terrible pain in your lower chest from where you were sure the ribs were cracked, and you tongued at the hole that once housed the molar you lost. Ironically, it was one of the wisdom teeth your dentist had tried to scam you into removing despite its perfect placement. Guess I got a free surgery after all.

Once he finished cleaning your face, he tilted your chin up gently to get a better look at your nose. “This is gonna need a bandage,” he said. “Gotta keep it clean.”

“Don’t worry about it,” you said.

Daryl was half expecting you to make a wise crack about him being a doctor, but he wasn’t expecting your apathy. “I’m sure we’ll find a first aid kit. Could be worse though, don’t think it’s gonna make your nose look funny.”

You smirked. “Oh, good. I was worried it would make me look ugly, considering how gorgeous I am otherwise.”

That’s my girl, he thought. He brushed your hair back. “You are gorgeous. Even with two black eyes.”

“You’re not so bad yourself, tough guy.” You took the red rag from him and poured fresh water over it to clean him. Dabbing his face with as much tenderness he had with you, you silently ruminated on the beating. “I thought it was the end for a minute there.”

Daryl nodded, his crisp blue eyes accented by the cool morning mist never leaving yours. “Me too.” He tentatively placed his hands on your hips, worried he might accidentally touch a bruised spot. When you didn’t flinch, they settled there like they weren’t meant to be anywhere else. “You saved me.”

You shrugged, still focusing on cleaning his skin. “Had to,” you said. “You’re my man. And I’d do anything for you.” You set the rag down beside you to dry and ran your fingers through his dark hair. “Seeing them hurt you like that… it destroyed me.”

He lowered his head. “Me too… wanted to gut ‘em for what they did to you. Shoulda protected you… I was weak.”

You tilted your head. “Sometimes I’m going to have to be the one to save you, Daryl. That’s how this works. We have each other’s backs. No shame or guilt… or weakness.”

He nodded, then raised his head to meet your eyes again. “I love you,” he said simply. It was the only thing he knew for certain anymore.

You smiled. “I love you too, cutie pie.”

When the sun came up, you, Daryl, Michonne, Rick, and Carl continued to follow the train tracks. The signs said there was “sanctuary for all, community for all,” so Rick decided it could be worthwhile to check it out.

You didn’t get your hopes up too high for this place. You made that mistake with the other places you called home. Luckily, Rick seemed to agree. When you got to the fence surrounding the sanctuary, Rick decided it would be best to go in through the back, but not before burying a duffel bag full of weapons in the woods. “Just in case,” he said to you.

Reaching the back door, Daryl went in first with his crossbow held high and ready to fire. You all followed, equally as prepared to fight if need be.

Finally stumbling upon a large room full of people, you realized this was a full-blown operation. There was a woman sitting at a radio speaking into a microphone recording some kind of broadcast to advertise the sanctuary. That must’ve been another one of the ways they were advertising to people.

You thought it was odd to put up signs and make radio broadcasts for your camp. Sure, it was a good way to get people to join your group and become stronger, but it was also risky, and you were beginning to wonder if maybe they had a reason for wanting to bring people to their place that wasn’t so innocent. You had to be skeptical, it was too risky to be trusting now.

“Hello,” Rick said to the people.

“Well, I bet Albert is on perimeter watch,” one man said. He looked to be in his late twenties or early thirties, around the same age as you. “You here to rob us?” he asked.

“No,” Rick said. “We wanted to see you before you saw us.”

“Makes sense,” the man replied. ���Usually we do this where the tracks meet.” He stepped forward towards your group and cleared his throat. “Welcome to Terminus. I’m Gareth. Looks like you’ve been on the road for a good bit.”

You exchanged a quick look with Daryl. The two of you must’ve looked a sight, all bruised and beaten. All of you were looking relatively frail considering you’d been out on the road for about a week with scarce food and water. Meanwhile, these people seemed to be sitting pretty. They looked healthy and vibrant, and clearly they had food, which was all you were thinking about lately.

“We have,” Rick replied. “Rick,” he introduced himself. “That’s Carl, (Y/N), Daryl, Michonne.” He nodded to each of you as he went down the line introducing you all.

There was an awkward pass as your group looked at Gareth suspiciously. “You’re nervous, I get it. We were all the same way.” You didn’t like him already. He reminded you of the insufferably enthusiastic college tour guides you dealt with in your undergraduate days. “We came here for sanctuary. That what you here for?”

“Yes,” Rick said.

“Good,” Gareth replied. “You found it.”

Soon, another man, called Alex, began showing you around. He took you out into an enclosed courtyard area where they were growing fresh vegetables and a woman was barbecuing some kind of meat.

She introduced herself to you as Mary, and before long, Rick had his gun pointed at Alex.

You didn’t hesitate to raise your axe, too. The others also followed suit and prepared to fight. You didn’t know why Rick was suddenly deciding he didn’t like these people, but you trusted his judgment.

“Where the hell did you get this watch?” Rick asked Alex as he held him at gunpoint. You narrowed your gaze at the silver watch Rick had taken from Alex. It looked eerily similar to the one Hershel had Given Glenn back at the farm. You remember his eyes lighting up as he showed it to you, bragging about how Maggie’s father trusted him enough to give him such an important family heirloom.

When Rick demanded Gareth tell him where your people were with no answer, he didn’t waste any time in shooting Alex. Just like that, the once peaceful courtyard turned into a battlefield, with dozens upon dozens of bullets being rained down at your group from every angle.

“Come on!” Daryl yelled, trying to lead your group to safety.

Everywhere you turned, there was a litany of snipers shooting at you. Oddly, they never seemed to hit any of you. The bullets all ricocheted against the ground around your feet, going nowhere near any vital organs you’d think they’d aim for.

Running around the place frantically, your group tried but failed to find any kind of way out. As you passed through one area, you saw a large pile of rotting human remains, and a myriad of train cars from which you heard the sounds of people crying for help. You weren’t sure what they were doing to people here, but you sure as hell weren’t planning on staying to find out.

Soon, you stumbled into a room lit by some kind of ritualistic altar made of candles and assorted items. On the floor, variou names, first and last, were chalked onto the concrete. You paused to look at the writing on the wall, which read, “NEVER AGAIN. NEVER TRUST. WE FIRST ALWAYS.”

“Jesus,” you said under your breath.

“What the hell is this place?” Daryl asked.

You looked over to Daryl. “Looks like some kind of shrine.”

“These people,” Michonne said, “I don’t think they’re trying to kill us.”

“No,” Rick agreed. “They were aiming at our feet.”

Not wanting to spend anymore time in that strange room, Rick led you all out another door.

Again, you were greeted with a cascade of bullets coming from every direction. This time, however, you were completely surrounded with nowhere to run.

They forced you all into a red train car not unlike the ones you saw earlier. Enclosing you all in the darkness with a thud, you breathed heavily in silence. You had a few ideas of what they wanted to do to you and your people, none of which were particularly encouraging.

When you heard a familiar voice call out to Rick from the other side of the train car, your eyes widened in the direction of the disembodied sound.

Glenn stepped out into the only dim light present in the train car, his face tired and looking so much older than last you saw him, and it had only been a week. You supposed you all looked different. Living on the road did that to a person.

Behind him, you saw Maggie step forward, too. Your heart stopped all at once, and you would’ve smiled or cried tears of joy if you weren’t utterly terrified for whatever fate awaited you and your friends, your family.

“You’re here,” Rick said simply.

Two more familiar faces, Bob and Sasha, appeared from the darkness as well. Then, four completely unfamiliar faces showed themselves, two women and two men.

“They’re our friends,” Maggie said. “They helped save us.”

“Yeah,” Daryl replied. “Now they’re friends of ours.”

“For however long that’ll be,” one of the men said. You couldn’t see much of his face other than a prominent handlebar mustache above his lip.

“No,” Rick said. “They’re gonna feel pretty stupid when they find out.”

“Find out what?” the mustached man asked.

You exchanged a look with Daryl, and he stepped closer to you to take your hand in his. He squeezed it tightly in an attempt to remind you that he was with you, that you were in a sticky situation, but you were together.

Not just you and Daryl, but Rick, Carl, Michonne, Maggie, Glenn, Bob, and Sasha, too, and the four others who were already a part of your group whether they wanted to be or not. You knew from the resilient sparkle in his eyes as he looked at you that none of you would go down without a fight.

Maybe, just maybe, you wouldn’t go down at all.

Rick turned to look at you all. “They’re screwing with the wrong people.”

~

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