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sojournerstales · 9 months ago

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Lauralette is Hungry

It is the tail-end of a long, hard week. Lauralette’s bones ache, her breath tastes stale, and there is a sharp pit in her stomach. Lauralette is hungry and she has been trying not to deal with it. Methods to that end include a diet of red meats, idly thumbing the on-off button of her phone, pacing the main room of her apartment, leaning forward with her forehead on the wall and her eyes closed, keeping halfway busy with chores and errands that are quickly given up on, and then thumbing that button on her phone again.

She isn’t going to make the first call, but the person she is waiting on hasn’t either.

Frustrated, Lauralette tosses the phone down face-up on the table. It reflects the dark grey sky through the window. Moon-haze, all clouds and no stars and a glare of red from the lit sign outside.

BLOOD

ROCK

MOTEL

Lauralette owns the place and her living situation is a small two-room affair above the main reception and office. She doesn’t need a lot of space and if her ego needs a shot she can embellish things by claiming that in actuality 22 rooms are hers.

Right now Lauralette is in the dining room which is the living room which is the kitchen. She’s trying to keep down a greasy, somewhat undercooked burger, but it’s already tasting stale at two bites in and the cheap-as-shit chair is uncomfortable and her jaw aches from clenching.

“Fuck it.”

From slouched to upright to standing, her bones creaking all the way, Lauralette rolls her shoulders and massages that space between her neck and clavicle. She ignores the twinge of pain there which carries down from her neck and the top of her spine. She hisses whatever curse she has for it and drags herself through the bedroom to her bathroom.

The light here is a cold green-blue from the cheap lino and wall tiles. Lauralette peels out of her clothes and leaves them discarded over the corner of the towel rack. Her skin is grey, her eyes are dark and sunken. In years past her dirty blonde hair had looked more vibrant and she had put the work in, given it volume and sheen and she had blushed herself, and painted her lips red. She is older now and less interested in putting the effort in. Truthfully she hasn’t had to put the effort in for a while.

Lauralette pushes herself into the shower and washes under cold water. She had put on some mass since her glossy blonde, red lipped days, and then let it go again. Well worked musculature was left behind, along with nicks and scars and calloused knuckles. The water feels good down her back and for a moment she can forget everything aches. Only a moment.

The idea of clean and presentable had shifted over time. These days a shower is body soap and two-in-one shampoo, water splashed on her face and then quickly rinsed off. Clothing then has turned from sparkling black dress and heels to old jeans and a black t-shirt. She hand-combs her hair after drying off and by the front door Lauralette pulls on her bomber jacket and stuffs her hands in her pockets to find her keys.

Lauralette locks up the upstairs apartment and heads down. She is lost in her own head, mind filled with bad ideas, operating on autopilot as she moves through the reception, out the front door, almost bumping into a man.

“Oh thank God someone is here!” He sounds relieved.

“Uh?” Lauralette is trying to remember how to talk.

“Sorry, I know it’s late. I’ve been driving all night, I got totally lost on my way to– Nevermind that, sorry. Do you have a room?”

Lauralette stares at the man. He needs a shave and he’s sweating and his hair is a little greasy and he has thick rimmed, thick-lensed glasses. He looks warm in the literal sense, she knows nothing about him to gauge the other sense. He is also travelling alone. The man is easy pickings. She could take him to a room and rip him open.

“I can pay, obviously. Cash or card. Whichever is easier.”

The man’s saving grace is that he is simply not Lauralette’s type. Neither is it a good look if people go missing so close to the motel. Lauralette makes an irritated sound and heads back into the motel reception, “Fine,” She grunts, “Come in.”

The man’s relief is obvious and immediate. He follows Lauralette inside, who has quickly rounded the front desk, and almost fumbles the catch when she tosses him the key to a ground-floor room.

“Pay me tomorrow,” Lauralette says, already leaving the front desk, “Can’t be asked to open the register.”

“Oh. Oh, well. Okay then! Thank you.” He isn’t certain what to do with himself.

“Uh-huh.” Lauralette brushes past the man and heads out into the night air. She sucks on her teeth, tongue pressing against a sharp fang.

“Thank you!” The man calls out again. He is left to inspect the key given to see if it has a door number attached.

. .

Far flung from the small town she lives at, Lauralette pulls her truck into the parking lot at a roadside bar. Here there are stars in the sky. Lauralette pays them no mind. She climbs out of her truck, boots crunching gravel underfoot, and rolls her shoulders to work out any lingering stiffness from the drive.

She’s about an hour from home.

Hands stuffed into her pockets, Lauralette approaches the bar. It has a neon open sign that contradicts the painted lettering above it.

OLD MASTER’S ARMS

OPEN

Lauralette nudges the door open with her boot and sidles on inside. She catches the scent of tap beer and nicotine and sweat, then someone’s cologne, more than one strand of floral perfume, some kind of chlorination also. Underneath it all is the age that clings to the walls and the wood. Lauralette is hit with noise also – the mild din of conversation underneath a louder voice backed by terrible speakers and microphone pops. It is quiz night from the look and sound of things.

Lauralette licks her top teeth and sucks on a fang. The sharp point digging into her tongue focuses her from the sensation of the world packed into this bar and she scans the space. No patron looks isolated, it’s the sort of night where everyone arrived with a group and are unlikely to break off from each-other. They all look like they are getting along, any falling outs will be lubricated by alcohol and taken in stride.

She is scowling even though she doesn’t mean to. It’s just how her face rests, if rest can be considered as a frown and a knit brow and narrowed eyes. Someone once told her about how her crows’ feet would clench into fists. Scowling then, Lauralette walks to the bar. Most seats here are empty, anyone coming up intends to take their drinks away.

“You all good, hun?” The barmaid asks. She’s pretty enough, that’s the first impression. Warm skin, full lips, big brown eyes. Her hair is pulled back into a tight, black ponytail and the way her apron is tied pulls her whole outfit snug to her figure. Hourglass.

Lauralette reads that with a long look that drags up until finally meeting the barmaid’s gaze – the barmaid wears a knowing look there – and Lauralette says, “Yeah.” A single word typically isn’t enough to lay a line, so she gives the mildest form of elaboration, “Long week.”

“I hear you,” The barmaid’s name tag says CAM in neat handwriting. Cam is cleaning a line of shot glasses with a bit of torn cloth. There is someone else behind the bar with her, he’s name-tagged PAUL and seems to be pulling more than his own weight. This means Cam can be busy with those glasses and with Lauralette’s company and not worry about much else.

“Mm,” Lauralette leans on the bar after sitting and gestures with a nod across the room, “Weekly? Monthly?”

“Few times a year. Look like your kind of thing?” One glass is stacked under the bar, the next is picked up for a polish.

Lauralette scoffs, lip curling, “No.”

The MC cracks a joke at the same time and the whole pub floor breaks out into a mixture of laughter or just polite chuckles. Mostly polite chuckles.

“Bad night to come if they aren’t your thing, then.” Cam says, “Not from around here?” She leans forward, elbows on the bar, glass and cloth still in hand. At this angle she is bent at the waist and Lauralette is unsubtle in dragging her gaze away from the crowd, craning her neck to look behind the bar, behind Cam, Cam’s behind.

“I don’t mind the noise,” Lauralette says, sounding absent, the question goes ignored. Her eyes have darkened, though her gaze is not quite perverse it is altered somehow. Shark-like. Blood in the water.

“You checking me out?” Cam leans to one side and intercepts Lauralette’s gaze. Here she demands they meet eye-to-eye, though her expression is amused rather than offended. Her smile long and lop-sided, one brow raised, eyes narrowed with playful suspicion. She is used to playing this sort of thing off, but Lauralette isn’t the same kind of breed as the good old boys Cam is used to.

Catching Lauralette’s gaze is a mistake.

Her eyes are black pits, abyssal and falling forever, and though eye-contact is momentary the feeling will last. Lauralette calls this her certain something and that’s something she used to say with a coy tone of voice and an easy ‘gotcha’ smirk. These days she hardly says anything about it, little effort put into the social side of affairs. At a certain point it became easier to act as hook rather than bait.

She spares idle thoughts for the concept of catch and release. A back-of-the-mind reminder.

It is Lauralette who breaks eye contact and the experience leaves Cam blinking, staring into space. She glances away and tries to remember herself, what she was doing, asking internally if someone had just given her an order to fulfill.

“Got a light?” Lauralette asks.

“Uh. Yeah. Sec.” Cam stands up straight and then leans back to pat down her apron pocket. Tied around her waist, but not over her shoulders, she has to rummage to find what she’s looking for. “Here.” Cam slides a translucent pink lighter across the bar.

It spins into Lauralette’s hand. “Cheers,” She mutters and pockets the lighter. “Got a cig, too?”

“… Yeah.” Cam obliges again. She is feeling stupefied, malleable, though the feeling is quickly starting to fade. She hands Lauralette a cigarette and adds – voice empty – “You gotta smoke outside.”

“Sure.” Lauralette pushes away from the bar. Cigarette balanced between her lips, she heads for the exit to the pub garden.

. .

Outside is relative quiet. The bar still thrums with the energy of a busy night, though that energy is hitting its peak with a round of clapping, some cheers and jeers, and the muffled unintelligible announcement of the winning team. Moments later, a handful of people step outside into the garden to light up before heading home.

So the smokers smoke, chat, comment on the cold, and one by one snuff out their little lights and head back inside to re-couple with the others they came with.

Lauralette watches this from a corner of the building, one which joins the beer garden and the back wall to a side-alley between the bar and old wooden fencing. There is a dumpster there, garbage bags piled up, a door into the kitchen or some such back area. She is outside of any cones of light from the bar or the garden lamps, marked instead by an ember pinpoint. Smoke curls from between two fingers and then her lips.

She waits.

Time passes.

Lights inside the bar go out, the main floor cleared. Lauralette slips from her corner position to deeper in the alley. Action had managed to push down a certain feeling, but now it bubbles back up from the pit of her stomach, carves a line up through her chest, and grips at the back of her throat.

Hunger.

Lauralette knows that Cam will come out here. It comes from a certain type of intuition gleaned during their brief eye-contact. It’s only a waiting game before the barmaid delivers herself to Lauralette. Cam will come out here, she will find a pleasing shape in the shadow, she will allow herself to be lured deeper. Her mind will ignore the litter, the rust of the dumpster, the horrid scent of it, all in favour of a kiss and hands on each others’ bodies.

Lauralette imagines taking Cam by the neck then, dipping her low while clutched tight. Then there her fangs will sink into skin and Lauralette will be able to drink deep.

Lauralette knows this from both sides. For the giver it is a mix of hot-and-cold. First ice where the skin is pierced, the sensation running through the giver’s veins until seizing and slowing their heart. Then in their head they swim with feverish heat. Their vision blurs with blots of inky darkness. The corners close in.

For the taker it is the base euphoria of a vital need met after too long. Water in the desert. Warm hands in the dead of winter. Food, actual food, after a lifetime of starvation. Satisfaction is reached only when the taker drinks deep of the blooded well and it takes only a moment for it to turn deadly. Only a moment for the giver to take hold of a small strand of their sense and try to push away. Only a moment for the taker’s feral instinct to kick in, like an errant twitch on a hair-trigger.

Only a moment to go from control to a dead woman slumped in blood behind a rusty dumpster.

Images of it all flash hot in Lauralette’s mind.

Door opens, door closes. Cam steps into the night holding a garbage bag in each hand. She mutters something to herself about getting no help and dumps the bags as best she can into the dumpster and it’s then that she hears a sound – movement just out of sight.

“Hey.” Cam’s voice has a shrill quality when met with cold air, “That you, weird hot lady?”

Nothing responds, nothing is there.

. .

“FUCK!” Lauralette slams her hand on the top of her steering wheel once, then twice more. After the third time she grips with both hands on top and rattles her arms, “Fuck!”

She is driving too fast down narrow winding roads, each turn is taken too hard. That feeling of speed, the g-force on each bend, the sight of the world whipping by on either side, none of it is enough to truly distract her from herself.

She had very almost made a terrible, terrible mistake. Though she knows to call it a mistake is part cowardice and would not truly characterize what could have happened. She almost gave into her hunger in the worst possible way, all because she has been avoiding a phonecall.

Her stomach hurts. Her own body is angry at her.

Lauralette slams a cassette into the center console of her truck. She hits play and cranks the volume and the entire vehicle is filled with bone-shaking garage metal.

Another sharp turn with no loss of control. The straight-away ahead is empty and so – screaming along to the wave of sound – Lauralette slams her foot down.

. .

BLOOD

ROCK

MOTEL

The light of the signage casts a red glow about its immediate area.

The dusty road leading two ways to and from the motel – one way goes towards town, an errant collection of shops, businesses, two tourist traps, and a sprawl of mostly single-floor houses. The other way goes elsewhere.

The front of the motel’s lobby. The glass of the windows and door reflecting the sign at odd, conflicting angles, glaring over the signage posted on the window interiors. Rates, lobby hours, local businesses.

Further flung, from the other side, the motel pool is tinged red only if the night breeze catches the surface just right.

Right below, the step that leads up to the lobby doors. A young woman is sat with her knees up looking tired and bored. Without thought or intent she focuses her gaze on the whites of her trainers turned red by the light above.

She sighs. Her name is Dina and she is not sure how long she is going to continue waiting out here. She had called ahead, she had knocked on the doors, she had walked back to the side of the road to expertly toss a small pebble at what she knows is the bedroom window. Only after all that did she walk around the side of the building to see that Lauralette’s pickup truck was gone.

Dina hears a distant engine approaching. The trope ‘speak of the devil,’ might apply in some fashion, but Dina has been trying to manifest Lauralette’s presence for a while now. What this is – the truck fast approaching down from the road towards elsewhere – is coincidence. Good or bad remains to be seen.

Dina braces herself because she truly does not know what state Lauralette is going to be in. Just underneath the sound of the engine and then as the truck draws closer overpowering it, the sound of Lauralette’s rage-out tape. It isn’t an unfamiliar nose and it tells Dina very little about what to expect.

Lauralette parks the truck opposite where Dina sits. The windows glow red from the motel sign, but through that red Dina can see Lauralette. Lauralette is staring straight ahead. She takes a few moments to compose herself and then with a forceful thump she cuts out the music. Dina pushes herself up to her feet and Lauralette exits her vehicle. Neither women say anything to each other just yet, instead they hold eye-contact over the few feet between them.

It’s a game of chicken. It’s a game of who will blink first. It’s a game of Dina staring Lauralette down under the red haze and wondering if she’d see any blood. Lauralette with her hands stuff into her pockets, pulling the jacket taught and encouraging a slouched stance. Dina with a long narrow satchel over one shoulder, her hand steepled on the end of it, stood up straight to force Lauralette into meeting her gaze.

Lauralette blinks first. She bows her head, steps forward, and then steps past Dina entirely. She takes the step up to the motel lobby, opens up the door and says, “Alright. In, then.”

. .

Red glow, lunar grey-blue, dark shadows where the windows can’t reach. Lauralette sees just fine in darkness, though she’s familiar with home enough to navigate blindfolded. Lauralette winces when Dina hits the light switch behind her. The space still isn’t brightly lit by any measure, the bulbs are old and take a while to warm up and the furnishing harkens to an era where beige and muted greens were the fashionable thing.

Dina has said before the space needs an update, Lauralette always tells her it is the way she likes it.

“Tried calling you,” Dina says. She sounds distracted while looking around the front room of the apartment, looking for clues as to how Lauralette spent the week since they blew up at each other.

Lauralette shrugs off her jacket and tosses it over the back of the sofa. Then with the attitude of stepping into an old routine she pulls a chair from the table and sits slouched, legs parted, fingertips balanced on a surface. She looks up at Dina who is still in the middle of the room, “Didn’t take my phone with me.”

Dina had come here telling herself she wasn’t going to play caretaker, but still she sees that old plate on Lauralette’s table with the going-stale food and she feels compelled in some way to take it to the kitchen.

Tap-tap. Fingertips on the table. The chair creaking when Lauralette leans back, head turned to track Dina, tentative, curious, too-satisfied, hunger roils and it feels too easy to think this is how her week ends.

When Dina returns Lauralette makes sure to smooth her expression to something less shark-like.

“You fuck up?” Dina asks. She stands at the end of the table and looks down at Lauralette.

“Not all the way.” Lauralette is clean. No blood on her lips or her chin or her collar and sleeves. Hungry as she is, hungry as Dina knows she must be, she hadn’t tasted blood tonight. “Want to talk about it?”

“Nope.” Dina folds open her satchel on the table. It’s a knife-roll, though hardly a standard kit. Rather than the tools of a butcher there is a scalpel and a wooden stake and zip-ties and gauze and adhesive bandages. Lauralette had helped her put it together more than a few weeks ago and she had called it a Bloodletter’s Kit. “Hands behind the chair.”

Lauralette obeys. She sits up straight, reaches her arms behind her, and watches carefully as Dina prepares. Earlier she had felt like a predator. If she’s still an animal she wonders what sort this makes her. Dina rounds behind her and binds her hands, the zip-ties looped through the spindles of the chair. Dina pulls them extra tight and Lauralette just barely hisses at that.

“I feel teeth and I stake you,” Dina warns. It’s nothing new, but Lauralette doesn’t roll her eyes, doesn’t take any of it disingenuously. So many aspects of her – her boredom, her attitude, her confidence – they get washed away and replaced with need. Hunger. Blood is close.

“Yeah,” Lauralette answers because she doesn’t want to fuck this up. Her eyes catch the glint of silver and she licks her lips when Dina raises the scalpel to her own wrist. Dina cuts a small, thin line without flinching.

The line of precious red. Thin but thickening. Terrible in its inches out of reach, almost enough to make Lauralette lurch.

“Please,” Lauralette gasps.

That seems to do it, the plea. Dina holds the cut to Lauralette’s lips and instinct takes over from there. Lips to skin, tongue over the red line, then eyes closed she suckles from the wound. Dina holds the back of Lauralette’s head, fingers in her hair, ready to yank her away if needs be, but until that might occur only cradling. Not a drop is spilled.

This isn’t their first time doing this. The sensation is familiar to Dina. Cold up her arm, hot in her head, a silent bee-swarm sensation that buzzes throughout her body and rocks the world from left to right. For Lauralette it is a vital heat that floods into her, flushes red in her cheeks and her chest. Nothing can replicate this, nothing comes close. Not from an animal, alive or dead. Not from a donor bag, lacking a pulse. The pulse is important. Lauralette drinks to the rhythmic throb pounded out by the beat of Dina’s heart.

Then it is over. Dina pulls her arm away and stumbles backwards until she is able to catch herself by the edge of the table. Lauralette lunges forward. The chair creaks. She gasps, teeth bared. Animal. The zip-tie bindings dig into her wrists and she remembers herself.

“Ugh.” Dina grabs the gauze and turns to sit heavily on the floor. She puts pressure on her wrist and keeps the limb raised.

The room is hot. Sweat prickles at Lauralette’s skin. Her mouth is wet and that void in her stomach is gone. She sits herself up and stares up at the ceiling and feels animal instinct abate and subside. She can’t look down at Dina, not right now, not while she is too painfully aware of how warm that body is, aware that the cut on her wrist hasn’t fully closed yet.

Time passes with silence between them. The buzz of the lightbulb, the heat of their breathing. Eventually the floor groans and Dina picks herself up. Lauralette catches her in the bottom of her vision – Dina looks tired and pale, but there is less red on the gauze than one might expect. The cut is already healing. Through some property of Lauralette’s mouth, wounds close quickly, but Dina still bandages up her wrist.

“Can I?” Lauralette’s voice comes out wet and sated, but the question itself is pathetic. She’s staring at the gauze, at wasted drops of blood.

Dina’s expression curls. She’s amused and disgusted and a harder to read third thing. It’s this strange third thing that has her indulge. She shoves the bloodied gauze into Lauralette’s mouth.

“You good?” Dina asks.

Lauralette nods. She can still taste blood all over her mouth. Metallic and warm. There are precious few drops left, soaking from the gauze to her tongue. She knows how it looks, she doesn’t care.

Dina waits a beat just taking Lauralette in. This woman who had drifted into her life with supreme confidence and unsaid history and some kind of raw magnetic power. This woman who is now very much bound and at the mercy of Dina. Dina, someone who really has no idea what she would want to do with power. Dina shakes her head. She kneels down behind Lauralette and with a deft hand she cuts the ties that bind.

Lauralette slouches immediately. She folds forwards and rubs her thumbs against her wrists. “Mn.” She takes the gauze from her mouth and uses a clean side to wipe her face before tossing it across the table.

“See you tomorrow, Lette.” Dina has already packed her things away. She is shouldering her satchel and getting ready to leave.

“Wait.” Lauralette sits up, one hand on the table and the other about to reach out.

“What do you want?”

“It’s late,” Lauralette says. “You should stay.” It’s impossible for Lauralette to sound innocent here. Even sated there is a wet hunger to her voice. Blood itself makes her feel whole, but she is always, always left wanting more.

“Ugh,” Dina scoffs and shakes her head, “You’re just fucking horny because I fed you.”

Lauralette takes Dina by the wrist, leant forward almost out of her chair, “That a problem?”

Dina snatches her wrist back. She’s starting to remember clearly why she stormed out last time, why she told Lauralette to go fuck herself and tossed the spare key she had been given at the vampire’s face.

“Sorry.” Lauralette says the word like it physically pains her.

“See you tomorrow, Lette,” Dina tries again. This time she leaves without interruption.

. .

The next day, about seven in the morning. The world is dusty yellow and orange and the colour blue strikes through all that in a big rectangle shape. Lauralette is standing poolside with a big net. She has a wide-brim hat and large shades and a short sleeve floral print shirt and the heat of the sun only mildly stings and the brightness of the summer morning atmosphere is not enough to dampen her mood.

It is quiet. Soft breeze and the glug-glug of the pool’s water filter and the splash whenever she swoops the net through the surface to catch more dead leave and the occasional cigarette end.

“Oh, hey!” Some man’s voice in the distance behind her.

Lauralette squints at something odd in the water. She has to lean to reach it with the net, but an expert’s hand swipes it from the water.

“Hey!” He’s getting closer. The man is loud, but trying not to sound threatening.

Lauralette pulls a face when she has to touch the net to get the strange bit of litter free. It must be some type of business card, but the ink is all run and ruined.

“Did you know the ice-machine is broken?” The man asks her. He’s not just a few feet away.

Lauralette doesn’t want to deal with all that. She swoops the net back into the water. She will pretend not to hear him for at least six seconds longer. It’s going to be a good week.

. . .

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savebatsfromscratch · 1 year ago

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No.8 It’s not working-!

Ao3 link: https://archiveofourown.org/works/50671891

Words: 1,135 Cws: A wide range of injuries (Just want to point out that that includes self harm cuts), death Notes: Okay, so, basically, the concept is that all the dexholders get hit by some sort of attack that brings back an injury from their past. :3 Prompt: No. 8: “I’ve got soul, but I’m not a soldier.” Overcrowded ER | Outnumbered | “It’s all for nothing.”

Yellow’s hands shook with exhaustion as she pressed them into Red’s stomach, hoping to do anything she could to save him. All around her were screams of pain and horror, and the ones coming from Red’s battered body were no exception. Yellow bit her lip, trying to extend the reaches of her power beyond herself and Red, but the magnitude of what she was dealing with was too much, and she found dizziness filling her eyes whenever she tried.

She couldn’t believe they had lost.

But what else would you call this?

Yellow’s own ribs, even as he power worked to heal them, ached with the pain they had when she’d broken them all those years ago, and based on the familiarity of the injuries she saw on her friends, she was sure that they were actually broken again. This was insanity! All around her, trainers powerful enough to knock down buildings and tear apart the very earth itself, all writhing in agony from injuries they had long since recovered from.

Beside Yellow was Blue, breathing hard and doing his best to soak in Yellow’s power. His entire shirt was torn in half, leaving a deep tear across his chest which blood spewed forth like some sort of awful geyser. He was clearly trying to keep calm, he had survived this injury for several minutes last time, but Yellow could tell that he was struggling to believe that he would be that lucky now. He wasn’t as young as he once was, would he spring back the same way?

Again, Yellow tried to increase the strength of her power, but the threat of passing out kept her from it. Without her power, now, Red was going to die. Yellow’s breath came hard and fast, and she tried not to focus on the horrific flashes of her friend’s pain she had seen before her own had hit.

Crystal’s arms twisting horribly as she screamed. That flash of recognition in Pearl’s eyes as a burn suddenly covered the left side of his body. The skin on the inside of Blake’s hand ripping away and up into the air like fleshy confetti. The horror on Moon’s face when she realized she had been poisoned, but not a clue from what, or how to treat it without knowing for sure. The blood that seeped into Ruby’s eyes as the scars under his hat opened and stained the fabric it found there. The terrifyingly normal expression on X’s face as blood slowly dripped out from under his sleeves and off his fingers from under his sleeves.

Yellow was trying very hard not to cry, she knew that her powers would only flicker weaker if she lost focus, but it seemed to be entirely too much to ask from her as her body began to shake with sobs.

Maybe it was the shock of knowing that all of her friends had dealt with such pain in the past, many without even giving a hint that it had ever happened at all. Maybe it was the agony in her own injured body. Maybe it was the horrible laugh of the commander of the attack that had rolled such an awful dice.

Or maybe it was that, no matter how hard she pushed her magic, the wounds on Red’s stomach did not seem to close. His breathing was shallow now. So though Yellow fought her hardest, she feared that it would all be for nothing. The man she loved was slipping away, all from a stupid injury that he had already survived before.

Yellow looked at the wound, and there they were. Three perfect puncture wounds in his gut, each spraying blood onto Yellow’s shaking hands as she pressed her fingers against his sticky skin.

She took a deep breath, and closed her eyes.

She wouldn’t let the fading pain in her ribs hurt her. She wouldn’t let the terrible screams of her friends disturb her focus before she could help them. She wouldn’t let sleep take her away from him. She could do this, for Red.

“Please,” she thought, willing the dripping guts back into their correct places, willing skin to close over the deep cuts she traced her fingers over. She let the glow of her power spread further and further, and in her mind, she could almost feel the injuries on the bodies around her fading away.

Blue’s breath lost the gasp as the slash across his chest began to sew itself back together, again hiding the ghastly sight of his ribs. Scars that ran up and down X’s arms began to close up, fading into the pale skin that lay under those blue sleeves. Pain left Pearl’s face as the redness on his skin began to fade. Blake’s twitching fingers began to slowly still as the skin returned back to its place. When Ruby wiped away the blood, it actually stayed wiped away. Crystal’s arms cracked back into place. Moon began to slow in her mad search for an antidote as she realized that the effects were leaving her.

Yellow focused her power, spreading it to every injured figure in the room. Friend or foe, she found she could heal them in her sudden blast of calm. Those that had managed to keep fighting dropped their weapons as the glow hit them, confused as their bruises faded and their scratches stopped leaking blood onto the earth. Pokemon, left fainted where they had fallen by the evil that had commanded them, slowly began to wake and look around.

Yellow couldn’t see herself, but if she had asked a friend later, they could have told her that she was glowing near golden with the force of her magic. Yet, she didn’t feel tired, only fulfilled as her power jumped from one to the next, stopping the fighting as an overwhelming feeling of peace reached every person in that room.

And then the next.

And the next.

But under her fingers, Red was not changing.

“It’s not working-!” She gasped, her eyes snapping open to a room entirely different from that which she had closed her eyes in. Everyone was staring at her, thankfulness glowing in their eyes at what she had done, but all she felt was dread.

Everyone was looking at her, everyone except the one that she had truly aimed to save.

Red, now horribly cold under her fingers, lay still on the bloody ground. His beautiful eyes, once bright and lively, were now only half opened to the ceiling, their shine gone.

Yellow’s breath came hard as she stared down at him.

She couldn’t heal this.

Even with all that she had done, with everyone that she had saved, with every section of the battle she had so simply ended, it was all for nothing. He was gone.

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violetswritingg · 4 months ago

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Only in Darkness

Jason Todd X OFC!

Description:

"Only in Darkness can you see the stars."

Marlowe Knight stumbling upon a girl prophesied to end the world and going on the adventure of a life time.

Rating: M (Blood, cannon typical violence, sibling rivalry, scars, torture, trauma, angsttttt)

Want to read the other chapters?

Click here

Detroit, Michigan

2018

Bleary eyes cracked open, deep as the Pacific Ocean in winter and blood shot. Waves slowly sliding around the dark room and newspaper covered windows. A sense of dread and panic slowly building as her confusion grew.

"Hey sleepy head." Every hair on her exposed arms stood on end, gooseflesh plaguing every inch of open skin. Automatically trying to move away from the bouncing echo pulled at the tender flesh of her bound wrists. The old rope burning her skin red with irritation.

"Everything's okay. I promise." The warm voice, the loving tone she had forced herself to forget ripping through her ears like claws. Drawing blood and demanding attention. A whimper involuntarily fell from her lips as she continued to pull, more violently now, at her restraints. The chair's back digging into her spine just like she remembered, exactly like she had done her best to erase from her head. But not even the most extreme compartmentalization could save her from this.

"He lied! Our entire lives he lied; how could you side with him?!" The voice was paired with a face now, one so painfully familiar she could feel her stomach wanting to empty it's contents all over her shoes. A boy standing at six feet even with midnight black hair and hazel eyes with thick lashes most girls would be jealous of. Darkness crawling in at the edges of his blurry figure, the edges of his waist and shoulders atomizing and reforming over and over.

An armored body suit the color of pitch clinging to the built muscles he had gotten from training since he was barely a teen. Poison green stripes going down the sides of his suit, with matching gloves and mask. Paying homage to his roots and deciding what side of the story he would be on.

The snarl on his chapped lips causing his nose to flair, something that only happened when he was really upset.

"I'm not taking anyone's side. Please Kyle-" Her voice sounded without her moving her lips as the memory audio played out. Her at the mercy of the past. The chocked sob ripping from her throat silently as she was subjected to her own personal hell.

"I should have known, why would the perfect princess want to go against daddy dearest huh? Even with knowing what kind of person he truly is. God! I'm so stupid." The betrayal rung out and sharp, boiling hot tears ran down her face. Knowing what came next and feeling as if she was suffocating. Her chest filling up with a pressure she associated with holding her breath underwater for too long, burning.

"This is going to hurt."

The pain was indescribable.

Her voice box tearing itself to shreds, blood curdling screams filling the otherwise empty warehouse. Her every atom under his bare fingertips being ripped apart and mixed up into a misty version of herself. Being mixed around, tossed, and put back together without a care.

Sirens wailed, flashing red and blue lights filtering in harshly through the newspaper covered windows.

"You're okay. You're okay. Dad's got you. You're okay."

Marlowe's eyes jerked open; face covered in a sheet of ice cold sweat. Choking on an invisible substance as she shot up and out of the computer chair. Muffled chattering entering her ears as she tripped over her feet and fell back onto the ground. Eyes wide and filled with terror as a black and green figure approached her, hands held out and reaching for her.

No, no, no, no.

The Cosmic Staff ran through the mirage, the intense glow burning her eyes almost as bad as the computer screen had done all night. The living weapon swooped down, nudging their wielder and letting out comforting clicks and shifts of light. With her chest heaving Marlowe shakily grabbed onto the Staff's body with a clammy palm and let them pull her to her feet. The Staff holding most of her weight as her knees shook.

"Thanks Cosmo." She breathed, squeezing the Staff appreciatively. "I can always count on you. Huh?" The Staff let out an indignant sound of agreement. Attuned to her every emotion and thought, just as she was to theirs.

The mental-emotional link being formed through intense training, time, and trust. "What time is it?" She let out a breath, looking to the screen on the wall that rivaled the flat screen in the living room. Seeing a bright set of numbers displayed in the corner. A groan passing through lips quietly at the early hour, Marlowe just now realizing how raw her throat was.

She had been screaming again.

That hadn't happened in a while. It only seemed like her nightmares were getting worse the farther the Mist got from her. She had been at a disadvantage from the start but this was the farthest she had been from him since the beginning of her man hunt, her bookstore lead being worthless. Leaving her with hours of footage that was almost a week old, of him doing nothing but eating muffins and working on his laptop.

Picking up the overturned computer chair, she set it on its rolling feet and plopped down into the seat. The Staff across her lap, letting out more sounds of comfort.

"Any ideas Cos?" She asked futilely, knowing she had hit another dead end. Her frustration causing the Staff to bite at her and heat up in her hands. "Sue me, Cos. Fuck." Letting the Staff rest in her lap she brought her hands up to her blood shot ocean eyes and rubbed at them, the dark bags underneath big enough to swallow her face whole.

What now?

~~*~~

When Dick answered his phone on his usual morning commute to work, he didn't expect where it would take him. But being a cop, walking onto crime scenes was normal. However, one in a book store – where seemingly nothing was stolen – and with two uniforms in the hospital... it was safe to say this wasn't a normal crime scene for him.

Not in Detroit at least. Gotham? Just another day on the job – an easy day.

"What happened?" His question was clipped and to the point, the officer running point returning the same curt energy.

"Silent alarm was tripped, two officers responded. Called in backup soon after along with a robbery in progress but the offender took them down and fled before back up units could arrive." The Sargent, all grey hair and stocky shoulders, stopped at the mouth of the hallway leading into the part of the store meant only for employees. A dried puddle of blood at his feet, another smaller one down the hallway, outside an open door.

"The officers?" Dick asked, taking in the dried blood.

"The altercation, as far as we can tell, started over here with Officer Greenway after she interrupted whatever they were doing with the computers. Techs are still going through the hard drives back at the precinct." The Sargent walked down the hall to the slightly smaller pool stain, Dick following and taking in every smear of blood, dent in the wall, or scuff on the laminate floor.

"There was a struggle, the offender took Greenway down. The paramedics rushed her to the hospital, something about brain bleeding. It's not good." A heavy breath of guilt passed through him, the aging man bringing a hand up to his five o'clock shadow. Dick looked back at him from his spot by the open doorway as his spoke again, words muffled by his thick fingers, but still discernable, "I put them on this beat."

"It's not your fault." Dick spoke, eyes softening from the detached air they had, for a split second. But as soon as it happened it was over and he was back to analyzing the scene. "What happened next?"

"Greenway was down, there was a knife wound in Jones's leg. CSU was thinking the offender threw it from here," The Sargent motioned to the pool, turning to the mouth of the hallway with a shake of his head, "Ripped it out on their way out, though Med couldn't tell me if that was before or after they broke two of his ribs and fractured his jaw." Dick, after giving the computers in the room one last glance walked over to stand beside the Sargent. Calculating the distance in his head, his eyebrows shooting up in mild shock.

"Where did the knife land?"

The older policeman looked at Dick like he had a few screws loose but answered anyway, "In his leg... like I just said."

"Where specifically?" Dick clarified, walking over to the larger dried pool of crimson.

"His thigh, I heard one of the EMT's say something about him getting lucky it missed an artery. Lost a decent amount of blood but not enough that it would kill him."

"And they pulled out the knife when they left?" Dick asked, more to himself than anything. Automatically profiling the offender in his head. The mix of aggression and restraint confusing him though.

"Yeah, Greenway's gun was found next to Jones, so I'm thinking the perp got a hold of it in the struggle. Used it to pistol whip Greenway while she was down." The man's teeth grit together in building rage, "It was found beside Jones, no evidence of it going off though." Dick's head tilted slightly, something not sitting right with him.

"Prints?"

"Wiped clean. I hate it when they're smart."

Possible criminal record.

"Not that smart." He muttered under his breath; the person who did this didn't catch the silent alarm. They were either in a rush or just sloppy, but that didn't mix with the sophisticated aspects he was seeing.

They were skilled, there was no denying that. A precision knife throw, from twelve feet, solely meant to incapacitate - in the dark no less - was not an easy feat. He would know. On top of the skill that it took to take down two armed police officers, with the force that had been exerted...

Whoever they were, they've had training.That much was clear to him.

"CSU did find some blood by the wall they believe to be the fucker's who did this. They took samples."

Dick's eyes met the Sargent's, "The offender was hurt?"

"Yeah, Jones was able to get a shot off, GSR on his hands and his gun missing a round confirm that." The Sargent nodded, "We already put out a notice to all the hospitals in the city to look out for GSW's coming into the Emergency rooms."

Trained but borderline incompetent.

"If they aren't dead already." Dick said and the Sargent scoffed out a humorless laugh. His tired cobalt eyes steeling with malice.

"One can only hope."

Dick forced a tight grin and finished up at the crime scene, the Sargent promising that all the relevant files and evidence would be sent his way. Dick's mind consumed with thoughts about what someone would want with whatever was on the computer of a mom and pop book store.

~~*~~

Food.

Laughter and the bell like clinking of spoons against tea cups mixed with the smell of freshly baked blueberry muffins and croissants. Assaulting her senses. A Parisian vibe that hit a little too close to home in the set up and soft music playing overhead. The color scheme a calming combination of sage green, crème, and dark brown. The nostalgia bittersweet, with a hurtful aftertaste. Ghosts dancing in front of her eyes as she approached an indoor table.

Four people, two adults – parents with their kids. One of the children distinctly older than the other, a boy and a girl respectively. The mom the odd one out with her mane of ginger locks in a sea of raven black. Even though Marlowe knew it wasn't real, a chill went up her spine.

"Maybe leave some of the gold medals for the others next time yeah?"

"Oh, leave her alone Jack. We're celebrating remember?"

Marlowe had almost forgotten how much she missed Sadie's - Her mom's - voice. Guilt for ignoring the woman who helped raise her ate at her. Sadie hadn't really done anything to deserve it like her dad had, but for some reason it still hurt to think about her. Bubbly giggles that belonged to her past-self echoed around her head, feeling like sandpaper on skin.

"Miss?" Marlowe's head snapped to the side, where a waitress stood with concern in her eyes. "Is everything okay? Can I get you anything?" Her French accent was a pleasant surprise. And Marlowe automatically responded in the language that had surrounded her almost as much – if not more – than English her whole life.

"Juste en prenant dans l'espace. Cela me rappelle la maison." Marlowe plastered on a soft grin, sitting at the table and ignoring the hallucination atomizing and leaving the table empty. (Translation: "Just taking in the space. Reminds me of home.")

"Ah! Êtes-vous de France?" The waitress got excited.

"Non. Ville d'Opale. Louisiana. Born and Raised." Whether she knew it or not, a spark of warmth flickered in her ocean eyes. Her smile a little less forced. The waitress recognized the name and nodded, her smile and excitement dimming slightly but not leaving entirely.

Opal City, the well know sister city to New Orleans. It's French ties something the city celebrated just as much as New Orleans did theirs. That wasn't what made the city infamous though.

"Have you ever seen Starman?" The waitress asked quietly, leaning in like they were exchanging a secret. A child like glint in her eye.

Starman, it was a name that left Marlowe with a bitter feeling in her chest. And apparently it showed on her face as well. The waitress – Clementine – instantly becoming more reserved as she leaned back and wet her lips nervously.

While the dark aura shocked the server, she could see there was a tiredness there. The girl's shoulders sagging, as if the name Starman was the sky and the girl the cursed Titan forced to carry it.

"A couple times." Marlowe forced out and Clementine didn't push the subject. Quickly taking the teen's order – A double espresso and their breakfast special – and disappearing to the kitchen. Marlowe's eyes trailed out the window beside her, glazing over the street, cars, and pedestrians walking by the corner store across the street. Looking to the sky on instinct, as if she would see the signature golden streak. A sight she used to find comfort in, knowing her dad was there watching over her.

Starman, Jack Knight, her dad, was Opal City's protector once upon a time. Flying around with the Cosmic Staff, welding goggles, and an oil covered black leather duster jacket.

There had been other Starmen before him. Two in fact, neither of which she had met.

The first Starman, her grandfather, Ted. He dressed up as if he was the physical embodiment of Christmas – as in bright red body suit with a gold star on his chest, neon green superhero undies on the outside and everything. The old time photos of him from the forties gave Marlowe some serious second hand embarrassment. But he was the one who created the Staff his successors use to this day, so...

The second Starman was her uncle, David, who took over once her grandfather retired. He donned the obnoxious suit for all of two weeks. Until he died.

Until he was killed.

A final act of revenge by The Mist, Ted's archnemesis that David inherited when he picked up the Staff. Though The Mist hadn't been the one dolling out the bitter pill – the sick fuck made his kids do his dirty work – he made sure it had been swallowed before he himself bit the bullet and went totally senile in his old age.

The man leaving behind his two children a son and a daughter, Kyle and Nash, to whatever fate had in store for them – which was nothing good considering they're both dead now.

It could be argued that they did more damage than their father ever did to the Knight family, but that was a debate for another time.

David's death wasn't where the feud between the Star people and The Mist had started, not by a mile, but it was a defining moment that irrevocably changed her family's future in ways no one could have predicted. The ripples of the event still able to be seen to this day, with her and the newest iteration of the Star people's number one most wanted.

Halfway through her breakfast, something in the air changed. Approaching sirens could be heard, followed by the pop pop pop of gun fire that made most of the patrons in the café jump and look around. Marlowe's eyes however were glued to the corner store across the street. If you weren't paying attention, you'd miss her exit.

The girl quickly throwing down some cash on the table and taking off out the back exit and into the alley as she shed her jacket and sweatshirt.

~~*~~

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greatloss · 4 months ago

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@umare. . . 𝙻𝙸𝙻𝙰 𝙿𝙸𝚃𝚃𝚂.

❛ it’s okay to be afraid. fear can be good. use it. ❜

a hollowed - out hysteria has taken hold of this body, age - softened, almost paternal how it cradles him ; familiar. familial. it smells of scorched earth and tastes like rust, red and flaking, an old scab picked loose to reveal the scarred skin waiting patiently underneath. an old man's flesh and bones, emaciated, the walking dead ; five hargreeves, bad person and a worse brother, here lies— lives, always lives. fucking hysterical. “ fear can be good ? ” bubbles out of him almost as a laugh, strangled 'round the neck, the head, the hands, blue - less and gnarled and grasping at nothing, always nothing. he feels rabid, suddenly, possessed, like he could tear out her throat with his own teeth if she were anyone else.

the image itches, curdles low in the stomach, and he takes a step back as if the motion will tear the air between them in two before it can manifest. “ fear clouds the mind, lila. fear never did anything for anybody short of making shitty situations even shittier. ” i'm fucking trying, he doesn't say, watching instead those hands clench and un - clench in a quick rhythm, palms up and far too soft to rip space apart and crawl through it, too young and six years domesticated. he thinks of the old and grizzled form laid out alone on a table, choking on his own spittle just warn his past self against saving the future. five should have fucking killed him himself.

you're never getting out of here.

he lets his hands drop like dead weights, a sigh softening the rest of him, now, turned down and away from the scorch of her gaze. “ if we're gonna get out of here. . . ” he begins, as if to interrupt her, himself, anything. he has no idea. he has no fucking idea. “ i'm— i'm trying. alright ? ”

#umare #𝐯⠀:⠀𝚒𝚌. . .⠀⠀give me time / i must be well.#well.#sorry this got so long he got very angry and then very tired very quickly #a little space - time labyrinthian moment. as a treat <3

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a-reader-and-a-writer-for-all · 3 years ago

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Seeing Red (Alt. POV)

Fandom: DC, Batman, Batfam, Superman

Word Count: 2443

TW: Whump, Pain, Reader Death, Angst, Mind Control, Drugged

Note: Thank you to @lanatheawesome for requesting the Alternate POV!

Part of Seeing Colors: Seeing Red, Seeing Green, Seeing Blue (Coming Soon)

Bonus: Seeing Red (Alt. POV)

Everything had seemed to pass in a blur. One minute, Clark had been investigating Luthor’s latest laboratory, and then….. nothing. Now, all he can remember after that are flashes, tinged in a burning red glow. As if trying to shake off a dense fog, he blinks a few times as he tries to recall what happened and where he is. As his eyes come into focus, he finally notices you just about a foot in front of him. The look on your face sends a wave of terror and concern through him. It is one he has never seen on you before, especially not directed at him. Fear, uncertainty, and, most of all, pain. So much pain.

Your mouth moves slightly as if trying to gain the strength to speak and he can see blood spilling out from between your lips. Then, slowly, painfully, you choke out, “Cl-Clark?”

“Y/N?” he responds, still unsure what is going on or where the two of you are. He glances down and his heart freezes. No! “Oh my god! Y/N!”

You are hovering hundreds of feet in the air, which isn’t that concerning given his powers, but what is concerning is the manner in which youare staying in the air. Clark’s arm is currently jammed into your chest so far it disappears almost up to his elbow. He can feel your heart as it gently beats against the back of his fingers and, to his absolute horror, he can feel it gradually slowing down. As gently as he can, he tries to dislodge his arm from your chest, but the sobbing howl of pain that rips from your lips at the movement stops him immediately. And even when he freezes once more, a low, continuous moan sounds in your throat and it tears Clark’s heart in two.

Suddenly, it all comes rushing back. Someone throwing a glass vial at him in Luthor’s lab, the feeling of the red Kryptonite taking over his system, tearing through the city as he destroyed everything in his path, slamming Jason into a brick wall as he attempted to hit Tim with his laser beams, then you…. You had offered up yourself to save your brother and you had gotten Clark’s fist through your sternum for your bravery. He remembers, as if in slow motion, the feeling of his knuckles contacting the Kevlar of your suit. How it offered no resistance to his superstrength. Neither did your flesh or bones as his fist continued through the armor into your chest. And yet, through the pain and the betrayal, you had never given up on him. You somehow managed to find the strength to smash the antidote against his face. You had saved him even as you were dying by his hand.

As gently as he can without jostling his arm, he pulls you into his chest. He can feel a slight tremor traveling the length of your body and he flinches. He cannot even begin to fathom the amount of pain you must be in at the moment, yet you are somehow managing to not completely fall apart or freak out. But then again, Clark expects nothing less from you. You are too much like your father. Bruce. Oh, God. How is he going to be able to handle this?

Slowly, Clark floats down to the ground, holding you as still as possible. As you return to earth, he lays you softly in the grass. Your head falls weakly to the side and as your eyes focus on something in the distance, Clark sees tears welling up in your eyes for the first time. He glances at what you are looking at and spies the rest of Bruce’s kids standing a few hundred feet away.

Dick has his arm wrapped around Jason as the other boy struggles weakly against him. Jay’s busted red helmet lay at their feet and Clark can see blood drying where it had flowed down his face, probably from when Clark had thrown him against the wall. Even from here, Clark can hear Dick murmur softly, “There’s nothing we can do for her, Jay. And going over there will just upset her. And you’re hurt too. Stop struggling and think about what she would want.” Clark watches Jason still slightly at his brother’s words and softly nods.

Shifting his gaze to Tim, Clark thankfully notes that he is on the comms calling Batman. Frantically, he cries, “Bruce! We need you here. NOW! She… I don’t… It’s bad. Please, you need to get here now!”

He rests his hand on his youngest brother’s shoulder, but Damian doesn’t even seem to notice. His gaze is locked firmly on your face and he barely even blinks as he takes in the sight before him. Tim finally notices and gives his shoulder a squeeze. “She’ll be okay, Dami.” His voice is shaky and filled with uncertainty.

“No. She won’t be.” The youngest boy replies bluntly. Unlike Tim, Damian’s voice is firm and stoic as there is no doubt in his tone that what he said was true. Clark knows Damian had seen and experienced more in his young life than seasoned heroes twice his age and he recognized death when he saw it.

Clark turns his attention back to you. Your breathing has slowed significantly since he first came to his senses and it is growing more rasping and labored with every inhale. Using his super hearing and x-ray vision, he quickly notices your lungs are filling with blood. And as he is assessing what can be done to stop or at least slow the bleed, he hears you softly mutter, “Dad…. where’s my …. dad?”

Once again, Clark’s heart breaks. Suddenly, he doesn’t see the brave warrior laying before him, but the tiny six-year-old he first met all those years ago clinging to the back of her father’s cape. He vowed that night to always watch over you and care for you, yet here you were, your life draining away because of him. Choking back tears, he runs his hand over your hair like he did when he was trying to put you at ease back then as he whispers, “He’s on his way. Just hold on.”

You must have heard the regret and sorrow in his voice because as you nod, you mutter, “Not you- don’t blame….”

It was the final straw. The tears he had been holding back slowly spill down his cheeks. Even through all your pain, you still were looking out for others. You had every right to condemn Clark for what was happening. He might not have been in control of his actions, but it was still his fist currently residing within your chest. And yet, you were using some of the last of your strength to make sure he knew you did not blame him for this. He is about to respond when a movement out of the corner of his eye steals his attention away. Bruce has arrived.

Your father races through the alleyways until he bursts into the opening where the rest of his children are standing. He falters slightly as he sees your prone form on the ground with his best friend’s arm thrust through your chest. His eyes flicker up to meet Clark’s and the Kryptonian just hopes that he can see the sorrow and regret that is etched on his face. Clark watches a myriad of emotions flash across the bottom half of Bruce’s face before he steels himself and rushes to his daughter’s side.

As soon as he is close enough for you to see, Clark feels you perk up slightly beneath his touch. There is a hint of a smile in your voice as you whisper, “Hi….. Dad….”

Bruce kneels down and cups your face in his hand. Ignoring Clark completely, he rubs his thumb across your cheek as he murmurs, “Hey, babybat. It’s going to be okay. Help is on the way.” His tone is soft and soothing in a way Clark has only heard in the direst of situations and only ever directed at one of Bruce’s children.

You must have been thinking the same thing because you say in a labored, slurred voice, “Wow, thing….not good.…if you using tha- tone.” The chuckle at the end quickly morphs into a ragged cough as your body convulses violently. Clark tries to hold you still as gently as possible, but your moan of pain returns, louder this time.

Yet, when you regain some of your composure, you reach up and touch the edge of your father’s cowl. Bruce rips it off and Clark gets an unobstructed view of the pain and heartbreak that is radiating off him. Clark turns his head to give the pair of you as much privacy he can while his hand is still lodged in your chest. But he can’t help but overhear you whisper, “Please…. take… care of…….. them…. They’ll need….. you…..” Always the most caring and thoughtful big sister, even at the end.

Suddenly, the emergency vehicles that someone had remembered to call, came rolling up. Bruce looks to Clark and in a low voice, so you hopefully don’t hear, he mutters, “How do we do this? Do we have them take her to the hospital with you still….-” he can’t bring himself to say the words so he just moves on “- or do you remove it first?”

Clark closes his eyes and takes a deep breath as he tries to find the words to tell his best friend the reality of the situation. “Bruce… I am so sorry but… There’s nothing…. They can’t- No one can fix this. I can see the damage, I can feel it, and it’s…. it’s too great. I don’t even know how she’s still-”

Clark and Bruce’s attention immediately snap back to you as you tap your thumb once on your father’s face. He bends down closer, gathering you in his arms as much as he can without hurting you further. A fresh line of blood trails from the corner of your mouth as, in a voice that is barely more than a last gasp of air, you say, “Thank you…..for….the life….you gave….me. I don-don’t…. regret a sec– of it……..”

As you choke out the final word and your head falls to the side, Clark feels your heart slow to a stop against his fingers. Horrified, he exchanges a look of alarm with Bruce before your father turns back to you, clutching your face and begging you to look at him. But your eyes have already turned glassy as they stare blankly ahead. As Bruce crumples down on top of you, pressing his forehead firmly against yours as he continues to plead with your still form, Clark slides his fingers over and begins squeezing your heart with his hand. He knows it is a futile effort, that even if he can get it restarted manually, the blood filling your lungs would make it impossible for you to breathe. But he tries anyway.

And he doesn’t stop as he hears a shout, and a small figure appears at your side. Somehow, it doesn’t surprise Clark that Damian is the first break and come to you. As much as the boy tries to stay aloof and keep a distance between himself and the rest of the family, he knows how much his sister means to him. But instead of reaching out to you as he expected, Damian gently places his hand on Bruce’s back. The man turns his head slightly to look at his youngest son, silent tears streaming down his face. And then, he wraps his arm around Damian and pulls him into his chest.

In seconds, Dick, Jason, and Tim arrive. Dick just stares down at you in disbelief. His permanent smile and joyful light in his eyes are gone, replaced with disbelief and pain. Jason is glaring hate-filled daggers at Clark, and truthfully, Clark can’t blame him. Even as he continues to try and restart your heart, he knows that each and every one of them should hate him. Just as he hates himself. Every one of their reactions just adds to Clark’s regret and sorrow. But Tim…. Tim is the most heartbreaking to see.

He collapses to the ground a few feet from your body, sobs already racking his lean frame. Dick tears himself away from you and bends down to comfort his brother. Even with his super hearing, Clark can only just make out Tim’s words through his wails, “It’s all my fault. She was just protecting me. It should have been me.” Clark didn’t think he could have felt any worse at that moment, but hearing this proved him wrong.

Softly, Clark whispers, “Bruce… I’m-”

But the other man cuts him off. “You need to go. We’ll talk about this later but for now…. Just go.” His voice is wavering and thicker than usual as he tries to speak past the pain in his chest. And as much as Clark wants to stay and comfort his friends, his family, he knows Bruce is right.

With one final squeeze to your heart, a final goodbye, Clark removes his arm from your chest. Part of him was expecting some sort of reaction but of course, there was none. Corpses don’t have reactions.

Clark glances at everyone one final time and then takes to the sky, putting as much distance between himself and this nightmare as he can. In moments, he arrives in the Arctic just outside the Fortress of Solitude. It was the only place he could think of to go at the moment. But as he raises his hand to open the door, he sees your blood still coating his arm up to his elbow. The thick, crimson liquid streams down his outstretched hand and he flashes back to the look on your face as he punched through your body.

Dropping to his knees, he buries his fist into the snow, desperately trying to remove your blood from his fingers, from the grooves in his hand, from underneath his nails. But after a moment, he realizes that it feels just the same as when his fist was buried in your chest, and he yanks it out as quickly as he can. Still kneeling in the snow, tears begin to roll down his face as he stares at the hole he created. And as Clark mourns the loss of a person he loved like family, he watches as your remaining blood drips from his hand onto the snow until he is left just seeing red.

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milliedazzledust · 4 years ago

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If A Look Could Kill (Bucky Barnes imagine)

Words: 1429 words

A/N: this is literally a blurb from a scene in the 2nd episode of fatws when they're all in the car after they fought the supersoldiers

They had been in the same car for no more than ten minutes and Y/N was already holding herself back from punching the smug smile on the man pretending to be Captain America. Both fake heroes had showed up in the middle of their fight, throwing around Steve’s shield, acting like the world owed them anything.

Earlier that day, inside the comfort of the apartment she shared with Bucky, she had watched the cocky man parading in front of cameras, standing in a stadium. She had heard him talk about Steve like he knew him, like he had fought along side with him. And when he had compared Steve to a brother, when she had seen the look of hurt and betrayal on Bucky’s face, her heart had shattered.

She knew that sometimes grief could come like a runaway truck, that despite seeing it careening down the highway, we might not have enough time to get out of its way. And she had seen it that morning, that grief smashing Bucky right in the face when he had least expected it. She didn’t know the man the government had chosen to replace the Captain, but she already hated him for causing her lover pain.

"If you guys joined us we could …" The man pretending to be in charge started as the military vehicle was moving.

"No." Bucky hostly cut him.

There wasn’t a lot of space between the five of them. She had been forced to sit next to the man with the shield while her friends were in front of her.

The tension was almost palpable. Sam had his arms crossed and his lips pursed and Bucky was visibly clenching his jaw. Their patience was hanging by a thread and only she seemed to have notice.

Ignoring the conversation they were having, she exchanged a knowing look with her boyfriend. He had a short temper and habits he had picked up from his alter-ego that could potentially get him to explode. Judging by the side glances Sam kept giving him, she guessed she wasn’t the only one worried.

"What do you say, Y/N ?" She heard the man sitting next to her talk.

Unwillingly, she turned around to look at him.

"What was that ?" She asked him.

His smirk alone was enough to make her roll her eyes.

"We could use a … woman like you" He told her suggestively. She didn’t miss the way he looked her up and down, neither did Bucky.

"A woman like me ?" She repeated, raising an eyebrow and tilting her head to the side.

"Yeah, you’ve got potential, babe. So what do you say ?" He said in a seductive voice. "Interested in joining us ?"

A quick glance at her boyfriend was enough for her to tense when she saw him going from annoyed to seriously pissed off. He was scowling at the man with all his old ferocity, looking everything like the assassin he had once been.

"Does he always stare like that ?" Battlestar inquired, nodding toward Bucky.

"You do know your friend is disrespecting Y/N in front of her boyfriend who also happens to be one of the most prolific assassin on this planet, right ?" Sam ironically told him.

The woman narrowed her eyes at the man sitting next to her, irritated by his behavior.

"At what point did you decide we were close enough for you to refer to me as ‘babe’ ? Because I think I missed the memo between the need to punch your face and the craving to shove your ego up your ass"

Bucky’s chest swelled with pride at her comeback and he sniggered. He knew she was a strong woman and had always loved that feisty side of her. She was fire and he was ice, a perfect combinaison yet dangerous association. Even Sam seemed pleased when he noticed Walker growing uncomfortable next to her.

"Look, we know you don’t like us" The other soldier known as Battlestar answered.

"That’s an understatement" Sam muttered under his breath.

"We’re on the same team here" Walker added.

"No, we’re not" Bucky glared at him.

The soldier with the shield sighed. He pursed his lips, thinking for a moment before glancing at the men in front of him.

"I’m not trying to replace anyone" He started to explain.

"You couldn’t if you tried" Y/N mocked him.

"My point is, I know I’m not Steve and I’m not trying to be. But I am Captain America"

"Like hell you are" Bucky scornfully stated.

"It takes a lot more than knowing how to throw a shield to become a superhero" Sam reminded him.

"I am what the world need right now" He insisted.

"What the world want. Big difference" Sam continued.

"You were getting your ass kicked back there" Battlestar told them, helping his friend’s case. "We saved you"

"Should we say thank you ?" Y/N ironically threw at them.

"This isn’t up to you. Why are we even arguing about that ?" Walker was getting annoyed.

"Because you’re not even half the man Steve was yet you keep parading like a clown pretending to be someone you’re not" Bucky aggressively spoke with a cold voice. "You don’t get to mention his name, Walker, not when you’re destroying all he’s ever work for"

"Bucky…" Sam called him with a cautious tone, trying to get him to calm down.

The former assassin shut his mouth, refraining himself from saying anything more.

"Obviously there’s some issues you still need to work on" Walker spoke with a grin on his face. "But my offer still stands. We’d work better together"

"Keep on dreaming" Y/N expressed, rolling her eyes.

"If we’re being honest here, the only thing I dream about is you out of that suit" He forcefully flirted, looking down at her superhero outfit

She cringed at his useless attempt of seduction and missed the way Bucky’s expression turned dark in the split of a second. He clenched his jaw so hard his veins were visibly noticeable and his blue eyes were boring into Walker. If a simple stare could kill, he’d already be dead. He looked as menacing as can be with that hostile glare and his anger was reflecting itself through the way his muscles were bulging, ready to attack.

"Don’t do anything stupid" Sam warned him when he realized the man’s patience was running low.

Bucky growled and before any of them could react, the super soldier watched his newfound nemesis casually placing his hand on his girlfriend’s thigh. His entire body tensed and his blood ran cold.

"If you don’t take your hands off me in the next two seconds, you’re gonna lose both of them, Walker" Y/N threatened him.

"I’d take her word, Captain, ‘cause you’re about to be eaten alive" Sam advised him.

The soldier dismissed him and laughed, which only seemed to anger the woman and her boyfriend.

It all happened too fast for anyone to react. Just as Y/N was about to assault the man, Bucky decided to let his rage speak for himself and reached for Walker’s hand, twisting his fingers. He could almost feel the bones on the verge of breaking and his skin had started to turn red as the former assassin applied more pressure. The soldier grunted loudly in pain, trying to release himself from the tightening grip.

"Stop the car !" Bucky shouted.

The vehicle slowed down and he menacingly leaned toward Walker.

"If you so much as glance at her again, I will rip you to pieces"

Maybe it was the tone in his voice, or the serious promise of death he could see in his eyes, but the soldier bit back the lump in his throat, unable to answer. He looked terrified.

"Told you" Sam shrugged as Bucky released the man.

They both stepped out of the car, waiting for Y/N. The woman, still angry, turned to stare at the soldiers in blue and red.

"One more thing" She tilted her head.

Without notice, her fist collided with John Walker's jaw. The loud impact with his face was enough to almost knock him out and she smiled. Pleased with herself, she got up and followed her friends.

"Was that really necessary ?" Sam joked and they started walking.

"Oh c’mon, you know you’ve been dying to punch the guy" She smirked.

Bucky placed his human arm around her shoulders and a sweet kiss on the side of her forehead, secretly satisfied.

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mysticalrambling · 3 years ago

Text

Ending It All Part 2 (C.E)

A/N: Here you go guys. Much awaited part 2 is here. I am so in love with this particular fan fiction and hope you guys like it. If you want me to write any blurbs related to this series, do let me know.I am open to requests.

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Part 1

Chris Evans Fan fiction (Fan fiction Masterlist)

Summary: Chris regrets divorcing you and he tries to mend the relationship. However, you have already moved on with Tom Hiddleston and are quite happy. He has to just stand back while you and your children become closer to Tom and it is all his fault.

Warnings: Angst all the way.

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“Coming in?” Chris turned his face towards you with a questioning look in his eyes.

“No, I have some work. Just wanted to drop the kids off myself.” Your ex husband’s house was on your way so you just saved him a trip.

“Not even for coffee, darling?”

“Sorry but I will have to say no.” You still got flustered when he called you with nicknames. You had once decided to tell him to stop calling you with all these terms of endearment but you couldn’t build up the courage to do it.

It has been over a year since your divorce and the moment you think you are over him, he is right there to bring those feelings back. You were a mess when he moved out and you had to see him on the weekends for the kids. It looked like you were drowning and you couldn’t come up for fresh air. It was exhausting but after several months, it didn’t hurt that much. It didn’t feel like your heart was tearing into shreds. You felt numb but that was better than feeling like your heart was being ripped out of your chest.

“That’s fine. See you Sunday?”

These were the only few sentences that were spoken between the two of you since the divorce. This was your new normal and you were starting to adjust to it. “Yeah, bye.”

“Who wants pancakes?” Sighing, he turned around and asked in a fake, cheerful voice. He didn’t get to be disappointed. These were the the seeds that he sow and he had to reap the results.

“I do.” A collective chorus came from the living room as they had already started to play with Dodger. Dodger was adopted from a shelter home about two weeks into the divorce. Loneliness was a destructive force and Chris hadn’t come to that realization until he was sitting in his home at eight, all alone. No laughter, no mess, no companionship. He went out that day and got a new dog. The apartment was eating him alive because it was a reminder of his ‘new life’. More like his ruined life.

“Daddy, you goin’ to be there for my match?” Jace looked up at his father and hoped that he wasn’t going to say no. There have been too many occasions this past year where he was not there for his children like Easter or Mia’s first day of school. He was either too busy with his career or he couldn’t bear to be with his family knowing that he wouldn’t be going home with them. He wasn’t strong enough to handle that truth.

“I’ll be there but I have work afterwards so I can only be there for half time.” The apologetic tone was all too familiar to the kids now so they just stayed quiet.

Chris noticed their disappointed look and continued, “When I get back, we’ll go to Disneyland for the whole weekend.”

“Mommy and Tommy will be going as well?”

Stopping in between making the pancakes, he asked with a venom laced tone, “Tommy who, Jace?”

“Mommy’s new friend. We like him.” Your son continued petting the dog without realizing the damage he is doing to his father. “New friend” was always a code for boyfriend and Chris didn’t know what to do with that information.

He knew that you had gone on a few dates with Tom Hiddleston because of the paparazzi. But he didn’t know that you both were serious. Your kids knew about him so it was pretty damn serious.

“He won’t be going with us.” Speaking with finality, he resumed cooking. You were his and that was not going to change. He knew he was being unfair but when it came to you, he lost all rationality.

“But he is our new dad.” Mia whined from her place and Chris just looked at her with a wounded look. His babygirl was putting someone else in his place.

His voice boomed throughout the house and both the kids looked at him with tears in their widened eyes, “I’m your only dad. Don’t you ever say that.”

“‘m sorry, daddy. Didn’t mean to make you mad.” Her chin wobbled and Chris was quick to realize his mistake. It was not your children’s fault. It was not your fault. It was his fault.

“Not your fault, baby. But you only have one daddy and that’s me.” Kissing her forehead, he wiped the single tear that managed to escape her blue eyes.

“’kay.” The kids got distracted again but Chris did not forget. He was still seething from the inside because Tom may have taken you away from him but he damn well couldn’t take his children.

They all get ice cream afterwards and the kids fall asleep in their rooms that Chris built from scratch. It was a lengthy process because he just kept remembering the times when he decorated their nursery with you. Such a beautiful memory and he was ruining it. The guilt ate him up inside when he realized that he may not get to ever decorate a nursery for your children again. He may not get to expand his family with you again. Again, it was his fault.

“Sorry, ‘m late. Work was hectic today.” Everything was so busy today because your boss signed up a new contract and he has been impossible to work with. You just wanted to go home and sleep for the whole week.

“It’s okay. They’re sleepin’ upstairs. Listen, we need to talk.” He was too consumed by anger and hurt to notice that you were too exhausted for everything.

“Go on.” You urged him, figuring that he might say that he won’t be able to make it to your son’s match. This was what most of your conversations were based on; him saying that he is too busy to be present at occasions related to your children.

“Why are my children referring to your boyfriend as dad?” He nothing but spat that sentence.

“I- I didn’t know about any of this. I’ll talk to them.” Stuttering, you tried to mediate the situation but nothing seemed to get through to him at the moment.

“No need. I already did that but for next time, keep your boyfriends away from my children.”

“Our children and I don’t let anyone near my children. We are serious.” You were offended by his crude tone and you weren’t just going to let him walk all over you.

“You can’t be serious with him. As a matter of fact, you can’t be serious with anyone.” Your ex husband declared it like it was a law. He didn’t know how to react to what you said. All the pain was converted into anger because that was his current form of expression.

“Are you serious?” This was all too much for you to handle. How could he say that?

“Yes. You only belong with me. I regret it so much (Y/N).” Chris’s expressions told you where he was going.

“Oh, stop. You can’t just do that. Can’t come bargin’ in my life and mess it all up again. I am happy.”

Chris reached out his hand but you took a step back. He was not allowed to touch you anymore. “I was mistaken. My career is not above you, darlin’. Never was.”

“You made me feel worthless. You made me feel as if I was the reason our marriage ended. Won’t allow myself to get sucked back into this relationship.”

“I know I broke our family. I tore us apart and didn’t even apologize for it properly. I’m so fucking sorry, baby.” There was a stream of tears running down his face and you wanted to wipe them away but you resisted.

There were still times when you wished that you were still happily married to Chris. That you still had your perfect, little family. The divorce made you feel worthless and lonely. There were times when you couldn’t even look at your children because they were the exact replica of your ex husband. You once adored the fact that they were his carbon copy. However, now you couldn’t help but get angry. How could he leave little pieces of himself behind and think that you could move on with your life.

It was all because you were with another man. He never said all these things when you were alone and you suffered from depression. There were days when you couldn’t get out of bed to get your kids ready for school. You knew that Jace had informed him because he was really worried about you and he always shared his troubling thoughts with Chris. But he didn’t do anything about it. He stayed quiet and you had to pull all the pieces back together yourself. It was all tape and glue. Your ex husband didn’t get to come back and dismantle your progress. You wouldn’t let him.

“You can’t do this. Can’t come back. I am with Tom now so stop trying to fix things that you already broke.” Your face was red with anger and all the energy was drained out of your body.

“Please, just give me a chance.”

“No!” You couldn’t choose Chris again. You had to choose yourself. You chose to think about your needs and your feelings for the first time in seven years. That’s why you agreed to go on a date with Tom. He surpassed your expectations the first time and you knew that he could be your partner. No one could compare to Chris but Tom made his own place in your heart and you were glad about it. You continued on, “Tom is good for me so please don’t ruin my happiness again.”

Tom was great. He was good with the kids and he was slowly becoming an integral part of your life. You still missed Chris because that man was the love of your life for seven years and those feelings can’t just disappear with a single piece of paper. You were glad to have Tom in your life and you knew that as time would pass, you will love him with your whole heart. However, a small part of you would never forget Chris and would always wonder about the what ifs. What if you were still together? What if you had more children? What it you got to grow old together? Broken dreams are what hurts the most.

“I don’t want to be a cause of that. Not again. But I want to make things right.” He unintentionally came closer to you, “I’m sorry I wasn’t there for you. Sorry I wasn’t there for our kids. Sorry that I broke you, baby.”

“A sorry doesn’t fix anything.” His chest was hallowing from inside out but he didn’t want to back down. Not now. Not ever.

“Just answer one question for me. Are you truly happy?” A tremble was prominent in his voice but you tried to ignore it.

“I-I am. For a long time, I wasn’t but I am now.” You spoke with such conviction that he knew you were over him.

You would always love Chris but now it was time for you to move on with your life. It was time to leave the past and delve into the future. Chris would always own a piece of your heart but you are going to allow Tom to have an opportunity as well. You will open your heart again to love. You were sure now.

“Okay. I will get the kids for you.” He backed off like he promised he would. You knew at that moment that it was all over.

Watching you drive away with his kids was heart breaking for him and he just watched helplessly. Chris still wanted to cry, beg and apologize. He wanted you to take him back but it was all his fault. He ruined you once, he couldn’t do it again. He couldn’t interrupt your new life. It doesn’t all revolve around him but he was okay to remain on the sidelines while you enjoy your life. He will be there for you if you needed him.

You are happy and that should be enough for him but he wants to be selfish again. He wants to fight for you but it’s all too late. You were with someone else. He lost his chance.

Wednesday rolled in pretty quickly and Chris dreaded going to the match. You were going to be there with your new boyfriend but he didn’t want to miss his son’s game. He could only be there till half time already so it wouldn’t be that awkward.

“I just wanted to be here for Jace. Won’t cause any problems.” Chris took a seat beside Mia when he saw you shifting uncomfortably. The seat that should have belonged to him was currently being occupied by your boyfriend but Chris just bottled up all his feelings. It was not right to still think of you as his wife.

“It’s okay. Let’s just forget about everything.” You wanted to move on and did not want anything to hold you back.

“Okay. Mia, you want Kit Kat?” Offering her a large chocolate bar, he started talking with his daughter so that he could distract himself from you and Tom.

“What is happening, love?” Tom questioned when he saw that his former co-star did not even glance at him properly.

Chris and Tom were not the best of buds but they were still good acquaintances. He thought that dating you wouldn’t be a problem because Scarlett had informed him that Chris was the one who asked for divorce. However, this situation made him realize that Chris was jealous. He still had feelings for you and Tom didn’t know how to react to that.

“Nothing of importance. Let’s just focus on my baby boy.” Saying that, you cheered for Jace as he made his first goal. He was an exceptional player like his father and you knew that he would pursue football as his career. Jace was really passionate about football. If Chris didn’t become an actor then he would have definitely tried out for football.

There were times when he used to take you to the park so you would play with him. It was your thing. Maybe he had replaced you with someone by now as well but what you didn’t know was that Chris had stopped playing football altogether. Like many things in his life, it reminded him of you and it was just too much to bear.

“You are doing great, buddy.”Jace immediately asked Chris to pick him up as you gave him his Captain America water bottle. It was half time and Chris had to leave for shooting. He was getting late but he couldn’t bring himself to leave.

“Thank you, mommy. Ollie doesn’t listen to me that much so coach is angry at him.” Babbling on, he rested his head on his father’s shoulder.

“Okay, buddy. I have to leave now but I will call you when your game is finished.”

“Won’t be going with us to Chick-fil-A?”

“Uhh-” He cluelessly glanced at you because he didn’t know what his son was talking about.

“I wanted to give him a treat after the match.” Tom butted into the conversation to prove that he was a part of the kid’s lives as well.

Chris could have actually made it to the restaurant because he would be free in an hour tops. However, he decided against it. He had to take a step back for you. Of course, he would be there for his children but Tom should be given a fair chance as well.

“I won’t be able to make it buddy. You enjoy with Mommy and Tom. I’ll take you and Mia to Disneyland this weekend as I promised.”

“Okay, daddy. Love you.”

“Love you too, baby.” Giving him to you, he turned to leave. It was hard for him to do this but it had to be done. Chris wiped his eyes discreetly as he saw you all laughing together. This was his fault and he would have to bear the consequences.

Hope you guys enjoyed it!!

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A/N: This story had me in tears from the very start. I cried when I was writing it. Again, I am open to blurbs for this series and other requests. Tell me if you want to be added to my tag list.

Tag list: @peculiarpenman, @kalopsia-flaneur, @justile, @iguessweallcrazyithinktho, @jessyballet, @caanyoonmoon, @coldmuffinpartycloud, @marvelfansworld, @agnesk, @lauracontisstuff, @deepintothenature, @xcaptain-winterx, @nostxlgia18, @sophiaedits , @luckyladycreator2, @mrspeacem1nusone

Like, comment and reblog.

P.S. If you want blurbs and epilogue related to this series, please send in requests. I will need some ideas.

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harry-writings · 4 years ago

Text

The Happy Years

- The one where Y/n is unhappy in her engagement and finds an escape with her former lover

Part 1

Masterlist

(A/N) IM SO EARLY IM SORRY I KNOW I SAID 9PM BUT IM DONE SO MUCH SOONER THAN EXPECTED OKAY IM SORRY LOVE YALL <3333

Three years later.

The heaviest of thunderstorms hit the city of London by early morning, the loss of the sun and the gloom of the day leaving Harry bedridden for the first time in weeks.

He always tried his best to avoid days like this — trapped within his home, caged in memories that make every step he takes heavier than the last, wishing for just the smallest taste of salvation — because it’s when he’s left alone between these walls that the darkest parts of him come out, ravaging, feeding off of what’s left of him.

Rain reminds him of the day Y/n left. Thunder reminds him of Malibu. Malibu reminds him of all the things he ever used to do with her — on the bed, on the couch, in the hallways.

There’s no escape from what he’s done.

But when the time hits two in the afternoon and Harry still hasn’t gotten up from under his blankets, he decides that doing even the bare minimum with his day would be some sort of accomplishment.

He decided to get the mail.

And what a terrible decision that was, Harry thinks, as he sees an envelope addressed to him in unfamiliar handwriting by an unfamiliar name. Something about it upsets his stomach and throws him off key, knowing in his heart that he shouldn’t open it, but it’s heavy in his hands and he can’t ignore the temptation of it all.

Another terrible decision he’s made.

Please join us for the wedding of Alfie Lexington & Y/n Y/l/n.

Saturday, September 25, 2021 at 3:00 PM.

Dartmouth House. Mayfair, London.

The downpour feels like a drizzle compared to the cries Harry lets out as he reads the wedding invitation, his worst nightmare playing out right before his very eyes and if he wasn’t already so fucked up, he’d try his best to ignore it.

Y/n played her move. She wants him to strike back. She wants to win and watch him lose more than he already has. That’s all she has left of him.

His lips tremble as he sniffles, the invitation shaking between his palms as he lets reality sink in.

Y/n is getting married.

Y/n is happy.

Y/n is going to spend the rest of her life with somebody other than him — somebody that was once his friend.

It's unfathomable to him. The connection him and Y/n shared was unlike any other. They were drawn to each other instantaneously, their feelings of infatuation never once dying down because it was simply incapable of doing so.

They put each other first. They made each other better people, helped each other grow through all the droughts and winter days, and continuously found ways to become closer to one another. They were so comfortable and confident in their company, and so every day they spent together within those four years had never been anything less than pure happiness.

They were meant to be. He didn’t see it then, but he sees it now, and now that’s all he sees because everything he sees is her.

To know that it’s no longer the same for her kills him from the inside out, because now she really doesn’t belong to him.

He lets out a sound that can only resemble what would be a whine and a groan made together, sobbing as he flips the invitation around, only to find another saved date he just doesn’t have the heart to see — an engagement party for all the invited to join.

He’s so overwhelmed with devastation that his brain becomes fogged, his body disassociating from itself as he rips the invitation apart, growling and screaming and wailing as he just keeps ripping it and ripping it and ripping it.

He’s destroying it in the same way it destroyed him until he gives up, slamming his fists down upon the counter, losing control of himself beneath all his pain and regrets. This wasn’t how any of this was supposed to happen. This isn’t what was supposed to come from this life.

He’s barely surviving as it is.

And he just needs to see her again.

But he doesn’t know how he’d react once he does. Whether he’d want to kiss her, to hate her, to love her all over again, he doesn’t know. His entire world is collapsing and he doesn’t know how to save it from falling apart. He can’t take any more risks when it comes to her.

But what is love without fear and danger? What would it say about him if he were to walk away from this now instead of trying just once more with her?

So with a heavy heart and a sobbing chest, he doesn’t take his chances.

And Y/n simply just couldn’t believe the sight in front of her.

Harry is standing at her doorstep, soaked head to toe, shaking in his bones. His lips are a light shade of blue and his eyes an alarming shade of red, somehow wetter than the rest of him. And as the thunder rumbles beneath her feet and nearly sends her to her knees, it goes to show her that he really is here, standing at her doorstep, and it’s not just a dream.

And she must have been struck by the shock of his presence because her tongue is suddenly tied, her throat dry, her lips fallen open yet forgetting how to breathe.

She just looks at him, soaking him all in, trying to understand what exactly led him back to the biggest mistake of his life.

“Harry?”

“So that was your way of getting back at me?! After three fucking years?!”

Her mouth falls open in disbelief, her eyebrows furrowing in defense. How he could possibly accuse her of something she didn’t even do — considering she hadn’t made any attempts to reach out to him since the moment she left Malibu — makes her feel even more betrayed than before.

He should know her better than this. He should know her from the inside out at this point, but she supposed three years really is a long time, because she’s never seen this side of Harry before. He seems so different to her now.

“Don’t you dare come to my home and try to make an ass out of me! Since when have I ever been the kind of person to get back at somebody?!”

Harry stutters for a moment, his anger and jealousy and hurt blinding him from the truth that Y/n never goes out of her way to get even. Her heart is too big, but he can’t shake this feeling that the person who sent him the invitation was out to do him harm.

And nobody had more of a reason to hurt him than Y/n.

“So the wedding invitation, then? You had nothing to do with that?”

He speaks it condescending, as if he didn’t believe a word she said, but that’s not what it comes down to. It comes down to the fact that she has moved on and found herself somebody so much better than him, and he has no one.

She shakes her head as if to gather her thoughts, confused about how he even found out about the wedding considering Harry quit the firm just hours after he left Malibu, leaving him with no contact to anybody that had any string tied back to her.

“Of course I had something to do with the wedding invitations! I’m the one getting married!”

She pauses then, her cold demeanor dropping into something Harry wants to say resembles a hint of relief, but it’s much more cross than that, much more serious, and he doesn’t expect what’s coming next.

“That’s what this is about, isn’t it? Me getting married?” She speaks it through a small, bitter laugh. “I should have known the only way you’d fight for me was by being with somebody else. You never could stand being second to me, as ironic as that is.”

“I could give two shits about you getting married.” He lies through clenched teeth, his stomach sick at the mere thought of it. “But I do have an issue with you inviting me to your wedding after walking out on me.”

Her head snaps back up to him.

“Wait, Harry, what are you talking about?” She frowns, trying to make sense of it. “I didn’t invite you to the wedding.”

Why would she?

They are no longer friends, no longer much of anything, so for her to take time out of her day to sabotage anything but herself wouldn’t feel right to her. Besides, it was her decision to never speak to Harry again, she wouldn’t ever take her word back.

Harry frowns then, too, because she isn’t faking her emotions. She’d always been terrible at doing so, and the way her eyes scream and beg for answers can’t go ignored. He, again, feels like the absolute worst person in the world.

“Then who did?” He whispers.

There’s only one possible answer.

Seven months ago.

Alfie insisted that he and Y/n had a New Year’s Eve party. They’d never had one before, as Y/n much preferred staying in with a bottle of champagne and celebrating with a lobster dinner and late night reruns of The Honeymooners.

But Alfie was persistent. Very persistent. Too persistent. So persistent she had no choice but to give in, and she just didn’t understand why.

She didn’t understand it as days passed and all Alfie talked about was the stupid party. She didn’t understand it when he rented out one of the most expensive venues. She didn’t understand it when he laid awake the entire night before, too anxious to fall asleep. She didn’t understand it when he asked her to wear his favorite dress.

She wished that she did the moment it happened.

The clock was ticking.

“Five!”

Alfie reached for Y/n’s hand.

“Four!”

Y/n noticed something shift in the air.

“Three!”

Alfie reached his other hand into his pocket.

“Two!”

Y/n knew what was coming.

“One!”

Alfie dropped to one knee.

“Happy new year!”

It was every girl’s dream — the fireworks, the balcony, the view, the prince charming that would whisk her away to spend the rest of eternity together — yet it couldn’t have felt any more like a nightmare.

It wasn’t what she wanted. Not then, not ever before, not once during the span of their relationship, and time seemed to have stopped moving forward.

There she was, in the center of the universe as everybody stopped and stared, gasping and gushing at the sight of a man on his knees for a woman. An act of vulnerability, of love, of submission, yet it didn’t feel like any of those things.

It all felt so wrong.

She began to cry.

To everyone else, it seemed as though she was crying from happiness. Her devoted boyfriend of two years finally asked for her hand in marriage, to be the mother of his children, to spend the rest of their lives tied together by a vow, unable to be broken. So it was no surprise when everybody let out an awe of endearment, nobody (not even Alfie) knowing her well enough to distinguish the difference between her happiest and saddest cries.

Harry would have known.

And that was all it seemed to come back to in that very moment in time.

Harry.

What she would have given to feel his hands on her waist, blocking her body from view with his, taking her away from all the unwanted eyes on her fragile body. He would have done it in a heartbeat because he always did — he always found a way to help her escape her horrifying realities, even the sweetest of ones.

What she would have given for it to be him kneeling in front of her… this all would have been so different.

Her lover of two years was promising her a future, yet all she could think about was somebody stuck in her past, yet so heavily prevalent in her present.

But she couldn’t say no. How could she when everybody expected the answer he was looking for, ready to toast to the bride and groom? How could she when phones captured the beginning of the rest of their lives, ready to share for all to see?

But she couldn’t say yes, either.

She settled for a nod of her head.

The crowd cheered, some clapping, others clinking their glasses, lovers kissing. She only caught a glimpse of those celebratory moments before everything around her drowned in her tears, voices of congratulations so distant beneath her heavy, hyperventilated breaths.

Alfie embraced her, then, and she felt his laughs of euphoria rumbling in his chest as hers met his, and she couldn’t even pretend.

She rested her chin on his shoulder, her expression void of everything that she should have been feeling. And her eyes went blank as they caught a reflection of her through the balcony windows — the last time she ever saw herself for what she truly was.

That same day.

Y/n was a mess waiting for Alfie to get home.

Seeing Harry again filled her with so many different emotions, she didn’t know which one to start with. She wanted to cry, wanted to scream, wanted to destroy everything and everybody that dared get in her way, she wanted to disappear. Yet she had done none of it. All she could manage to do was pace around her bedroom, biting at her nails and getting lost in her scrambled thoughts, her mind and body moving at a million miles an hour, unable to be tamed.

This is precisely the reason Y/n never wanted to see him again.

He does things to her, he always has. She hardly has any control over herself whenever it comes to him and she fucking hates it. No matter how sad, how mad, how hurt or how upset, there was something about his presence that made her see past all of that. It saddens her how much she used to love it.

But her moods swing at her relentlessly, the sadness turning to anger because yes, she is angry. She’s angry that he still has this much of a hold on her, especially after everything he’s done, and she’s even more angry that he hasn’t yet apologized for it.

Because it was all getting better. The constant wondering about what he’s doing or who he’s with and the continuous string of thought always leading back to him was all finally falling into its place. She was finally finding her place.

And then her fiancè did this.

When she hears the bedroom door open, she hardly gives Alfie any time before she starts a fight, wishing nothing more than to take it all out on him.

“What the fuck is wrong with you?!” Y/n fumes, everything tainted red with anger as she looks into his eyes and feels nothing but hurt and betrayal. “Inviting Harry to our wedding behind my back?! Do you not remember what he did to me?! Do you not realize what you just did?!”

He frowns, not sarcastic or menacing, but he genuinely seems upset that she’d ever even ask him such a question.

“Y/n…” Alfie sighs, and she suddenly hates the way he’s always managed to remain calm in the most heated of arguments. She wants to start a war with it, to go for the kill, to make him crawl and beg and bleed for her forgiveness. “Of course I remember what he did to you, which is exactly why I did it.”

Her hands turn to fists.

“Are you kidding me?!”

“I wanted to hurt him for hurting you! God damn it, Y/n… after finding out what he did to you all I could think about was ripping him to pieces and that urge never left me, especially after we got together.”

He slumps himself down at the foot of the bed, loosening the tie around his neck, almost too aggressively. And if she wasn’t so out of her mind enraged, she would try her hardest to understand his side.

But there is no excuse for this. There’s no excuse for any of it.

“So now you use our marriage as a way to get back at him?!”

Y/n may not love Alfie the right way, but she had never stooped so low to treat her marriage like a weapon, ready to strike at any moment in time. It wasn’t something she used to inflict pain onto anybody else but herself, no matter how hard it had gotten.

And though she once believed their engagement meant more to him than it ever meant to her, she can’t help but feel as if that’s just another lie she’d been forced to live with.

He went behind her back deliberately to hurt somebody even she never intended on hurting. He knew what was to come of this and yet here he is, letting it all happen for satisfaction’s sake.

It feels like all she will ever be is used.

“Is that what this is to you?! A point on your scoreboard?! A big ‘fuck you, i won!’?”

“Isn’t that what this is for you?”

“Don’t you dare turn this into my problem.” She spits through clenched teeth, punching at the dresser beside her with the side of her fist, face burning with fury. “I’m not the one sending him our wedding invitations!”

“And I’m not the one staying up past midnight scrolling through pictures of him on my phone!”

Her mouth shuts then, her hard and pressed features softening at the unexpected turn of the conversation.

She had been looking at pictures of Harry almost every night since Malibu, she just never expected to get caught. She could physically feel Alfie fall asleep against her, so she always waited thirty minutes before she took her phone out, looking back at everything that once was.

It was the only thing she ever truly wanted.

It’s what she kept going back to — a habit that came as naturally as telling her best friend about her day, about her perspectives on the world, about the lack of guidance in her life — like a phone call at the end of the day as a way to unwind.

She had make believe conversations with him as she scrolled endlessly through her favorite photo album, the thickness of his accent engrained in her mind as she thought of everything he’d say to her if he were still around. And if that wasn’t enough, she’d live vicariously through the memories they made together and replay those moments all night, until they lulled her to sleep.

“I told you from day one that —”

“That you’re never going to let him go, I know. I know that he was the love of your life at one point but this is just pathetic now, Y/n. Absolutely nothing short of pathetic.” She frowns, his choice of words making her heart sink because he knows exactly how to do it. And he sighs, rubbing his hands up and down his face as if he were in agony. “I didn’t know this was the kind of shit I was signing up for.”

Her eyes brim with tears but don’t offer anything more, only upset that he couldn’t find a way to understand her when she’s trying so hard. But he never has and he never will — not in the way she needs him to and not in the way that could ever make this work.

“I’m not sorry for what I did.” She confesses sadly, her bottom lip between her teeth and fingers picking the skin around her nails as she tries, yet again, to make him see. “He was my best friend before he was anything else to me. There was a time in my life where he was all I had.”

And though her heart is still with Harry in every aspect of every way, it’s true. He was her best friend and that’s what she misses the most. There was so much to him that meant so much to her and none of it could ever be replaced, not even by Alfie.

“You know I love you but you also know I'm not the same woman you fell for in Malibu. I’m my worst self when I don't have him around and your favorite parts of me don’t exist without him. Don’t pretend like you don’t see that.”

His hands twitch against his lap, his shoulders slumping because it’s true. The most lively and brightest parts of herself had died the first step she’d taken away from him that night. Sure, she’s still the most resilient and beautiful woman Alfie had ever known, but she’s never been the same since then.

She’s still in love with him and there’s nothing for him to do about it. He didn’t see it until he saw the way she sulked over Harry that night, all those years later, with a diamond ring on her finger that just seemed to weigh her down even more.

None of this means anything to her.

“It’s been three years, Y/n. Just find yourself a new best friend and move the fuck on already. I’m getting sick and tired of this.”

What he doesn’t understand is that she is, too.

Two weeks later.

Y/n shouldn’t be this alone at her own engagement party, but it’s the impossible things that always manage to find their way to her.

The party consisted mostly of Alfie’s friends, considering Y/n is much more of an introvert than he is and the small number of friends she does have seemed to have disappeared within the sea of unfamiliar faces. She felt lost for a moment, but when she finally found her fiancè, he had been too invested in his own friends to spare her a single one of his glances, and it soon became disheartening to wait for him to acknowledge her when the thought of her never once crossed his mind.

So she ends up on the steps of their back porch, sipping on a glass of champagne, overlooking the garden, breathing in the silence.

She closes her eyes and succumbs herself to the summer breeze, wondering what she has to do to find a single glimmer of happiness. Her life is just so sad, a labyrinth of betrayal and hurt and heartbreak she can’t ever escape.

Darkness is all she sees when she thinks about her future. There is nothing for her to look forward to. Every day will come and go the same way it has been — unwanted, dreaded, wasted, another failed attempt of contentment. It all seems so hopeless to her now.

The champagne doesn’t stand a chance when it comes to a lonely Y/n, and it isn’t nearly enough to curb her mood, either as she huffs at her empty glass, wishing she had taken another.

She sets it down next to her, placing both her elbows on her knees, getting lost in her world of sorrow, long forgotten by her lover.

Harry is the first one to find her.

He had parked his car across the street from her shared home with Alfie, and even from his distance he knew Y/n wouldn’t be inside. He knows her too well to know she wouldn’t find her place in crowded rooms where the attention is all on her, even if it was all in the comfort of her own home.

And the fact that Alfie didn’t know her senses of belonging well enough to accommodate them made him seeth. She is an independent, a lone wolf, a woman who moves solely in her own way and anybody who’s ever loved her knows that above all else.

He doesn’t care for her.

And he doesn’t need to go looking for her because he can feel her, as if the universe somehow bent its laws of gravity and pushed him straight to her back porch steps, where he finds her all alone.

She nearly jumps out of her skin when she feels a hand fall softly on her shoulder, but immediately sinks into comfort when she sees that it’s Harry moving to sit beside her, his hand refusing to pull away.

Finally, she has a friend.

“Hey.” She says softly, one of the corners of her lips turning slightly upward at his unexpected visit. “I didn’t think you’d come.”

He smiles briefly at her before he overlooks the garden, his fingers squeezing at her shoulder before resting his palms over his lap. And there’s something about being next to her again that makes everything around him fall back into place. This is where he’s meant to be.

“Honestly, neither did I, all things considered.” They both let out a chuckle, the atmosphere between them so horrifically sad yet so incredibly right. “But I just really felt like I had to be here for you tonight.”

Despite the years that had passed and everything that drove them apart, Y/n remains who he loves most in this world. His connection to her never died, so the sudden gusts of off and disturbing feelings Harry used to get whenever Y/n was troubled had never left him. He felt it all just as strongly — her anxieties, her fears, her tears and everything in between. And he’s glad that part of them never died because the look in her eye tells him everything he needs to know.

She’s absolutely miserable.

She sighs, the corners of her lips falling as she stares at her engagement ring, her thumb and pinky twisting it around her ring finger, itchy and heavy no matter which way it's worn.

“Me and Alfie aren’t doing so well.”

She didn’t have to say it because he can already see how treacherous they are together, but that doesn’t make it any easier for him to hear.

He lost his right to be selfish with her in Malibu, and though he does gain a sense of happiness knowing he may have a chance with her again, it’s significantly outweighed by her sadness. Nothing had ever pained him more than that.

“I’m sorry to hear that.”

She shakes her head, her fingers reaching up to tuck fallen pieces of hair behind her ear.

“Don’t be. I don’t really know why he decided to do this, anyways.”

Harry’s lips fall.

“Marry you?”

Y/n’s leg begins to shake, her greatest and most absentminded nervous habit. And Harry had always been quick to place his hand over her thigh and rub at the surface, meeting her eye halfway and taking a deep breath in, to which she would always follow. He hesitates to do so tonight, but settles for it anyway.

She looks appreciative beneath it all.

She’d forgotten about Harry’s subtle favors over the past three years, so to feel it all again when she has been so low and neglected feels like a blessing to her. It feels like somebody finally cares for her, and that’s all she had been wanting all along.

Harry, she feels, is the only one who ever truly has.

“We just never talked about it. It was this big, ginormous, unavoidable, life changing question thrown at me with no warning at all.” Her forehead falls to her palms, as if humiliated by the memory. “In front of everybody.”

Harry’s heart crumbles from within him because nothing Alfie has given her has been anything she’s wanted, and that’s not what she deserves.

He remembers it so distinctively now — the way she poured her heart out to him just a few months before Malibu. It was the third Valentine’s Day they’d spent together and Y/n got so drunk, she spent nearly the entire night venting to him about everything she’d feared when it came to her future relationships.

With her head on his shoulder and her leg slung over his hips, Y/n’s thoughts were so destructive, she couldn’t bear to entertain them any longer, so she decided to let it all out.

“And what if my boyfriend proposes to me in a room full of people? I’d drown in sensory overload. And what if I want to say no? Or maybe? Or yes, just not right now? With all those people looking at me? I think I would pass away.”

Harry looked down at her in subtle curiosity, his fingers playing with her hair in the way they always liked. She was the only thing in his sight that wasn’t spinning out of his control.

“So how do you want to be proposed to?”

She hummed, as if contemplating her answer. But she knew. She already knew.

“In bed, probably. It’s so intimate and private there. So non-traditional. You’re the most done down at your first hour and something about someone wanting you at your worst, forever, is so poetic.”

She looked up at him with doe eyes merely seconds after.

“Will you make sure he does that for me, please? Promise me you’ll try.”

He smiled the best he could at her, pressing his lips down to her forehead. They lingered there for a moment, and Y/n’s breath was taken away.

“I’ll make sure of it.”

What makes the memory even worse was how much he really did love her and how blinded he was to it. He kissed her. He held her. He played with her hair. He slept beside her that night. He kissed her again goodnight. He brought her breakfast in bed the next morning. He did it all over again.

It couldn’t have been any more obvious.

But there’s something about the way she hasn’t expressed any of those concerns with Alfie that doesn’t sit right with him. It just doesn’t make any sense to him.

“Been with him for how long now, two years? And you really didn’t expect him to propose to you? Have you met you?”

She sulks herself deeper into her knees.

“I don’t know. I guess — I guess I just never really thought about it.”

Never thought about it?

“But you’ve always wanted to get married.” He says it more like a question than a statement, genuine concern and confusion in his tone of voice as his eyebrows furrow, trying to comprehend it.

She looks up at him with a void, empty expression.

“Yeah, but never to him.”

Her eyes linger on Harry’s for just a beat longer — just long enough to catch a glimpse of the way his lips fall and the way his face drains of color — before she blinks away from him, turning her gaze back toward the garden. The flowers have never looked so lifeless.

“Y/n… if I had known how you felt, I —”

“It wouldn’t have mattered.” Y/n shakes her head, looking back down at her trembling hands, tears now burning in her eyes as the sudden sadness of the conversation starts to weigh down on her. “You had four years to feel the same for me and you never did. My feelings would have done nothing to yours.”

“And I never did?” Harry asks incredulously, his voice low and faltered behind the heaviness of her words. “Is that really what you’ve been living with the past three years?”

Loose tears begin to fall down her cheeks because yes, she has been living with his unrequited love for six years and no, it’s never gotten any easier. It’s pathetic and ridiculous and the most unexplainable form of grief she’d ever carried, but it’s the most devastating kind. “How could I think any differently?”

“Because it was real, Y/n. Fuck.” He lets out a strangled, dry chuckle upon his words as he runs his shaking fingers through his hair. He’s nervous, absolutely terrified because if he fails to show her how deeply he feels for her now, he may never get the chance to again, and losing her is no longer an option for him. Not when she’s so close. “Because you know me better than anybody else and you know I wasn’t faking it with you. How could I have been? You would have seen right through me and you know it. You always do.”

Perhaps the love blinded her. Perhaps her heart was so invested it deceived her to see only the things she wanted as a subconscious form of self-preservation. It’s not an impossible possibility, and it’s certainly one she believed in throughout all this time, but a part of her can’t help but find a hint of truth stuck somewhere between his words.

The kissing, the touching, the tasting, the laughing and the loving did feel real to her. It felt real when she saw the way he smiled after every one of their kisses, and the way he reached for her when it was just to two of them, like he couldn’t get enough, and the way he moaned against her, and the way he told her he loved her, like he meant it.

She knows all of his movements and all of his habits — knows all the signs of his stress, his sadness, his tension, his ease. She knows the emotions he wears and the ones he doesn’t, notices everything he does and doesn’t do, and never once did anything he did with her seem anything less than genuine.

She hates that it’s taken her so long to see that, but it doesn’t fix all that he had broken now that she does. She wishes that it could, this life would be so much easier for her to live.

“You really hurt me.” Her voice quivers, low and quiet as she speaks her truth, and it breaks his heart all over again. Never has he heard her sound so sad in his life, and it’s all because of him.

“You think I don’t know that? I hate myself for everything I put you through because you didn’t deserve it. You didn’t deserve any of it.”

He pauses, waiting for her to say anything else, but it doesn’t come. All there is for her to offer are her silent cries and waterfall eyes.

“That night with Lydia… nothing happened. She caught me off guard and I panicked because how could I not? She was giving me everything I thought I wanted yet all I could think about was how I wanted it to be you.” Y/n’s breath falters then, a knot forming in her chest as she revisits the sight of that horrific night. “I tried so hard to talk it out with her, but she wouldn’t let it go. She kept persisting and persisting and she didn’t give me the chance to explain myself before you walked in on us.”

She didn’t truly know what happened between him and Lydia, but she had her ideas. Whether they kissed, touched, confessed their love or crossed bases, the truth would have only made it worse for herself. Ignorance was bliss when it came to them.

But she didn’t think nothing happened, either, especially when the first words that Y/n heard Lydia say to him that night was I love you, too.

Too.

Like he said it first.

She really hopes he didn’t, but she’s so afraid of his answer that she doesn’t ask.

But she doesn’t say anything else, either, because there’s so much more she needs to hear from him but she doesn’t know where to start. She doesn’t know what to do, yet she wants to know everything.

“You were all I ever wanted and I’m so sorry for the way I had to find that out. I’m so sorry that I had to hurt you to realize how ridiculously in love I am with you.”

And how ridiculous it’s gotten.

“It haunts me. It follows me everywhere I go. Every morning, I think about the way you slept beside me in Malibu and how perfect you looked before you even had the chance to wake. I still reach for you even when I know you’re not there just so I can say I tried. Every time I walk the street, I somehow convince myself that I see you walk past me and I always turn back just in case I missed you. Then I spend the rest of my day wondering where you are and how much happier I’d be if you were with me.”

And it’s all so true.

She is around him at all times. Her spirit lingers in the air he breathes, her shadow alive in every ray of sun that touches his skin, unable to be soaked away. The ghost of her is everywhere he is, always, and it pained him just as much as it comforted him.

“I come across all these women and go on all these dates in hopes to find someone that makes me feel half the things you do, just to go home hours later and watch all the stupid videos and photos I’ve taken of you throughout the years because it’s you that my heart is after. Nobody else.”

She melts into herself at his confession.

To know it wasn’t one-sided — the longing, the missing, the wanting so bad that he couldn’t help but look back at all their memories together. Whether he was beside those women or not, she had done the very same thing, and it’s almost as if those hidden moments of desperation were a silent call to one another.

He reaches his hand to her thigh again, his skin warming her to her bitter core, setting a fire in her that had burnt out many years ago. And she doesn’t stop staring at it.

“I love you, Y/n. I love you more than I’ve ever loved anything else in this world. I love you so much that it drove me crazy to think about you spending the rest of your life with somebody else because I couldn’t imagine spending the rest of mine without you. But that’s my heartbreak to live with, not yours.”

But it is. It is because he’s the only one she’s ever wanted and living her life with someone else was once unimaginable. It still is. Even through her relationship with Alfie and everything they’ve built together, it wasn’t ever the same.

And it’s not a matter of her not loving him, because she does, just not in the way she loves Harry. He is a high she constantly fiends for, an intoxication that keeps her wild and free, an addiction like no other. Being without him makes her feel sober — in a constant state of withdrawal, falling down deeper into her urges, dependent solely on her relapses — and Alfie is just the mild distraction.

All of this is her heartbreak.

His fingertips rub softly at her leg.

“You’re the best person I’ve ever known. I don't know how I’m ever going to find a way to move on from you, and I don’t know if I ever will, but at least I had the chance to tell you everything you deserved to know. I didn’t think I’d ever have it.”

She still doesn’t answer him, but he didn’t expect anything more.

He wishes he could stay with her for just a bit longer, but he doesn’t want to overstay his welcome (if he could even call it that). And he starts to cry as he thinks about leaving her alone again.

She’s forever going to be his hardest loss.

“I have so much more I want to say to you, but this is your night with Alfie. I don’t want to be the one to hold you back from it.”

He squeezes the top of her thigh, dreading the let go. This may be the last time he sees her or speaks to her for a while, and that in itself is enough to make this so much harder on him.

“I’ll miss you everyday.”

He can’t even look at her as he says it.

His eyes are flooded with sadness as he stands from where he sat beside her, shaking fingers wiping at his tears, his heart the emptiest it’s ever been yet his chest heavier than ever before.

It suddenly dawns on her that she never wants to see him walk away from her again. She doesn’t want to go another dreaded day without him beside her, or go the rest of the night thinking of everything she could have said, but didn’t.

She wants him. She loves him. And she doesn’t want him to go.

“Wait.” She grabs his hand in both of hers before he can make it too far, her eyes wet but the brightest he’d ever seen them. “The party doesn’t end for a while and — and Alfie hasn’t come looking for me since it started, so…” She hesitates, his hands still in hers, and everything is right in the world again. “Do you want to take a walk with me? It doesn’t matter where just, please stay here with me?”

And how could Harry ever say no to her?

He lifts her up from where she sits, the first real and genuine smile he’s seen out of her since they’ve reunited spreading on her lips, and he wouldn’t trade this for the world.

They stray further than expected, catching up on everything they’ve missed throughout the years. It all feels so easy and so right, as if time had hardly passed between them, yet they’ve never felt more apart. Never once did they expect to live in each other’s world through late night storytelling and clandestine getaways.

They laugh. They cry. They reminisce. And they don’t let go of each other’s hand the whole night through.

Y/n returns to the back porch a couple hours later, grabbing the finished champagne glass she’d left on the top step to seem as inconspicuous as possible. Not that she necessarily has to, she doesn’t feel as though she’s done anything wrong, she just couldn’t imagine what would come from this if Alfie was to find out.

She slides the back door shut quietly behind her, the remaining guests only giving her a small smile of acknowledgement, none at all suspicious. Some offer her hugs and mingle with her, congratulating her as if it were their first time doing so, telling her how perfect of a marriage she and Alfie are going to have.

If only they knew.

But it isn’t until the last of the lingering guests make it out the door that Y/n and Alfie are left alone — the most dangerous place for them to be. And neither of them speak a word to each other, just meeting eyes for a brief moment in time, as if avoiding everything else that came with the night.

The air is heavy, the chill brutal, but it’s what Y/n is so used to. This is her normalcy.

“I’m glad you had fun tonight.” Y/n says plainly, gathering all the littered champagne and wine glasses floating around the kitchen.

In any other circumstance, she would have stood her ground much more strongly, but the bitterness inside her subsided to something much sweeter after her time with Harry. The weight of the world is gone, it seems, the moon and sun and stars aligned perfectly in her universe. She is weightless, floating, her spirit dancing along the edges of her own personal heaven.

The silence Alfie responds with doesn’t strike a nerve like it usually would. It rather goes unnoticed, only furthering her into her illicit dreamland.

Harry’s touch lingers on her skin and she can feel it all the same even though he’s gone. A shiver runs down her spine as she thinks back to the way his lips pressed against her cheek before parting ways, muttering the quietest goodnight, lovie against her skin, leaving her breathless.

She is endlessly hypnotized by him, forever under his spell, as if his lips were made of magic.

And Alfie’s heart sinks when he sees the look on her face. It’s been years since he’s seen it, yet it’s all so familiar once he does. It’s the same look he fell in love with when he first met her in Malibu.

It’s all so clear to him now.

“So we’re just going to pretend that you didn’t leave our engagement party with Harry?”

Y/n lifts her head to look at him properly for what seems to be the first time tonight, his question catching her off guard since she had so rightfully assumed he wasn’t concerned about her whereabouts, and Harry didn’t make his presence known to anybody but her.

But she doesn’t fight it, doesn’t deny it, doesn’t try to scrape for excuses that’ll only dig her in deeper because she doesn’t regret what she did or why she did it. She has no reason to.

“And we’re just going to pretend that you didn’t completely exclude me from our engagement party?”

Alfie’s hands slam against the kitchen counter, a bitter and sarcastic laugh falling from his lips, as if she had said something untrue. “So I don’t give you attention for two minutes and you decide to run off with some other guy?”

“Two minutes? Try two hours on a night that was supposed to be for us.” It’s her turn to slam her hands down, except hers land on her thighs. “I was sitting on our back porch all night and nobody, not even you, came looking for me.” She sits down on the island stool with burnt-out eyes and heavy shoulders, drained from the reality of their relationship, tired of trying for somebody that’s never held her heart the right way. “Harry was miles away and even he found a way to find me.”

And just like always, it all circles back to Harry.

She’s never been one to compare — verbally, at least — so there is a gloom that hovers over her after she says it, the guilt settling in her bones, but it’s the reality of their situation. An old lover held his hand out to her while Alfie refused hers, and it ended up exactly where it had always belonged.

“All you had to do was ask me to be with you.” He sighs, depleted, because it’s true. He would have been there the second she called his name. It’s the fact that she didn’t that shows him how incompatible he is with her wants.

“I shouldn’t have to.” She frowns, fingers fiddling with the skin around her nails as she contemplates what there is to say next. “Is that how this marriage is going to work? Me begging you to be there for me all the time? Because I’ve never been that kind of person. I will never be that person.”

Alfie breathes heavily in response but doesn’t know what else to do or say to get her to stay. She’s slipping right through his fingers and he can physically feel it — can feel the way she feels for another man, can see the way her eyes refuse him, as if hiding away from something.

But this isn’t about him, it can’t be because it was all going so well, so much better than ever before and nothing ever pushed her away, until Harry.

This is all him.

“You know he doesn’t love you, right?” Alfie breaks the silence, her heart along with it, because she needs to be reminded how badly he had done her wrong. She wouldn’t be turning him into the villain if she did. “He lied to you. He used you to get what he wanted. He —”

“He does love me.” She interrupts him because she doesn’t want to hear it. She doesn’t want him to talk her out of this, no matter how much she should. But it’s on the tip of her tongue, almost breaking from its resistance, and she can’t swallow it back down now. “He was there for me more than you were tonight and he’s not even the one I’m engaged to.”

Another deafening silence.

“What the hell is that supposed to mean?”

He understood her, loud and clear, but she’s speaking between the lines. There’s a part of her that’s holding back from something and he already knows what it is, he just needs to hear her say it.

So she does.

“I’m in love with him, Alfie.”

If the confession of her disloyalty wasn’t enough to tear her apart, the choked back sob she heard from Alfie undeniably did so.

She shuts her eyes, pained, unable to take it.

He doesn’t deserve this, but she’s left with no choice. She’ll only hurt him more if she stays.

So she doesn’t.

The morning after.

Harry didn’t know what was to come after he confessed his love to Y/n — whether it be a new day of a new life away from her, or the beginning of something so beautifully timeless, he had no idea.

The closure warmed him enough to lull him to sleep, to keep him deep in a dreamstate where all he envisioned was sunny days and the touch of her hand in his. He had never felt so light, so free, so liberated from the cage of guilt and unspoken truths that even if he were to never see or hear from Y/n again, it would have been okay.

He said what he needed to say, she heard what she wanted to hear and that’s all he could have done without interfering with her relationship.

But what he wakes up to is far from anything that ever crossed his mind.

Seven missed calls and five text messages. All from Y/n.

H, please tell me you’re awake. I need you.

I ended it with Alfie.

I don’t have anywhere to go and you’re the only person I want to see right now. Can you meet me at the coffee shop? I really need to talk to you.

Please wake up.

Harry sits himself up in a state of panic, his eyes jumping between the time she had messaged him last and the time it is now. And he springs himself out of bed when he realizes that he hasn’t missed out on her yet, planning to get to her as fast as he can as he throws yesterday’s outfit, not at all caring about how it makes him look.

She ended it with Alfie.

He’s the only person she wants to see right now.

She needs him.

That’s all he can process as he scurries down the street, thinking of everything he has left to tell her to try and win her heart again. He knows he’s undeserving of it, and she does too, but that doesn’t stop him from loving her the way that he does.

His life is meaningless without her, so dry and bleak and depressing he can’t live another day like it. He can’t and he won’t because he’s going to fix this. He has to fix this.

And it doesn’t take him long to find her because there she is, sitting at their usual outdoor table, a large hot tea held between her hands, her leg shaking, her eyes distant. It's such a heartbreaking sight, and he suddenly wonders if she ever sat there after their breakup, waiting for him, hoping he’d do the very same.

The thought makes his head twitch to the side and fingers twist with guilt because no, he never did. He never went back to that coffee shop since the goodbye. It would have hurt too much, it would have reminded him of everything he’d ever done wrong and he couldn’t bear to face the person he once made of himself.

That person died along with her.

She stands from her seat when she sees him walking toward her, exhausted mentally and physically enough to nearly fall from her feet in the process. But her heart is racing a million miles an hour, her stomach fluttering as he grows nearer, her senses of anything but the love she has for him disappearing to nothing, as if it were just the two of them.

And she just needs to know if it feels that way for him, too.

“Y/n —”

“Did you mean it?”

Harry hesitates then, stopping in his tracks, his head tilting at her in curiosity but his features are softer, sadder, as if the question somehow broke him down further than before.

She doesn’t need to elaborate because he already understands what she’s asking. It was his mistakes and his selfishness that led her to question all his intentions, to doubt every sentiment he’s ever given to her, to wonder what was real and what was pretend.

But he doesn’t know what to start with, he doesn’t know what she needs to hear from him to be satisfied with his answer, or know if what he doesn’t say is what breaks this relationship.

“I need you to look at me and tell me that you meant it.” Y/n demands when he fails to answer her, tears flooding yet her face pressed and hard, committed to hearing every last bit of truth he has left. “Because I gave up everything I had for just the smallest possibility that you did. And that may make me weak, that may make me pathetic, and I may hate myself for the rest of my life knowing I made that decision but I can’t help feeling the way I feel for you.”

This is his last chance.

The window of opportunity is open and he is more than willing to dive head first out of it, but he can’t get ahead of himself. One wrong move, one wrong word, one wrong anything and he will have to endure an eternity of misery without her.

So he gives her more than she demands.

He grabs her face between his two hands, gently stroking her cheeks with the pads of his thumbs, his gaze set on hers so that she can see how deeply he feels for her and how desperate he is for her forgiveness.

“I meant it.” He breathes out, his lips so painfully close to hers, she can feel his breath as he talks and it makes her legs shake from beneath her. “I’m in love with you. You’re all I think about. You’re all I want.” He leans in closer, ever so slightly, just so the ghost of her lips can meet the ghost of his. “There’s never been anybody but you. Just you. Only you.”

Her breath stammers, quivering and cracking as she flutters her eyes shut at his words, unforgiving tears pouring down her cheeks. And she doesn’t know why she’s reacting this way — the love of her life is giving her everything she’s ever asked for and yet all she can manage to do is break down from everything she’d been keeping inside for so long.

He knees buckle as a particularly violent sob nearly takes her down, and if it wasn’t for Harry’s strong hold on her, she’s sure she would have collapsed to the floor.

Her tears, his shirt, his hands, her back.

This is the closest they’ve been to each other in so long, his heart nearly shatters along with hers. He missed this more than he missed anything else in this world.

“Don’t cry, baby. It’s alright. You’re alright.” Harry shushes her, his lips settling on the top of her head as he presses chaste kisses on it, his fingers combing through her unbrushed hair. “I’m with you, okay? I’m never leaving you again.”

And he holds her for a while, tying her together as she falls apart in his arms, vowing to her over and over again that this is all over. All the pain is over. Everything will be different now.

And it was.

It felt different when Y/n and Harry spent the rest of the morning sitting in their favorite coffee shop, at their favorite table, drinking their favorite lattes. It felt different when Harry reached his hand over to hold hers, this time with no ulterior motive.

It felt different when she held his hand back, and when she smiled down at where they were intertwined, as if they were an extension of each other.

And unlike the last time they were there together, he doesn’t have to let go.

#harry styles imagines #harry styles fanfiction #harry styles imagine #harry styles one shot #IM EARLY I KNOW IM SORRY BUT I FINISHED SOONER THAN EXPECTED #WHOOP WHOOP #LOVE YALL

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lo-55 · 3 years ago

Text

Beyond Dreams of Avarice

The first time Kisuke meets him, he’s barely a hundred years old, and Ichigo is a stranger with an ocean of power with two blades to his name. Which does not explain why he looks at Kisuke with a heart broken fondness, or why he always seems to return.

UraIchi Time Travel with a mild twist.

The first time Kisuke meets him, he’s barely reached his first century.

Kisuke is all skin, bones and ragged clothes he’d ripped off drying lines years before. There’s bruises peaking out from his torn left sleeve, in the distinct shape of finger prints, but his stomach doesn’t hurt with hunger so much from the prize he’d won at the cost of them. The bread had been dry and brick hard, but it was better than the nothing he’d had before.

The nothing he had now.

Kisuke can recall roughly ninety years, or what he thinks is ninety. Time tends to blur when he’s focused solely on the years of survival. He was a child when he first found himself in outer rukongai, newly dead with puppy fat rounding his cheeks and curiosity that nearly got him killed in his first decade.

Now he’s coming into adolescence, not yet big enough to be a gangly teenager but no longer small enough to be a child.

Kisuke is at a strange precipice when he finds the river. And the stranger who sits at her banks.

The river is not so remarkable that he would remember it later, besides as a source of water that is cleaner than most in these upper districts. There doesn’t look to be filth floating through it, or carnage from Zaraki tinting the waters red and pink.

Enough for him to remember the location of clean water. Not enough to really make an impression.

The man is.

He’s sitting by the water, a very young man with hair that burns like candle light in the broad day sun. His Yukata, a blue so dark it was nearly black, hung loosely on his body. Kisuke thought he might have been a shinigami. He had a sword at his side, and Kisuke could see a smaller dagger tucked into his clothes.

There’s something about this man that doesn’t belong here. Not a horrible wrongness, or a threat that would make Kisuke’s hair stand on end. It’s like seeing the moon in a daytime, pale in the blue sky, and knowing that that is not where it’s supposed to be.

It takes Kisuke a minute to realize he’s been caught staring.

Brown eyes. They should be plain, but they’re nearly fathomless, the darkness of the night somewhere within them. It feels like looking into a ravine and not knowing what waits at the bottom. A river? Stones? A bed of clover?

Kisuke takes a step back.

The half smile, tinged with sadness that crosses the man's face stops him in his tracks.

There’s not a lot of things that can stop Kisuke from running when he feels he must. He hasn’t lived this long by being stupid, or by being so stubborn that he won’t duck out when he’s outmatched.

It’s still, to this day, his curiosity that gets him in trouble. His mouth which always asks ‘why?’ and ‘how?’. Now he has a million questions and he doesn’t know how to ask a single one, just by looking at this man.

Why is he here? Who is he? Why does he carry a sword? Why is there also knife? Why does the air around him ripple like the street in the summer heat?

Why does he look at Kisuke with fondness?

No one does that.

Kisuke is just another skinny little shit from the rukongai. If anyone looks their way it only means trouble, as he knows all too well.

There’s nothing threatening about this man.

Even though he’s armed, even though Kisuke and physically see the power trying to leak out from his pores, nothing about him makes Kisuke want to run away and save his own skin.

Maybe that’s why.

Or maybe his curiosity, his want to know all there it, to pick things apart by their threads and drag the answers out of the seams of the world, finally overtakes his common sense.

He walks forwards. Towards the river.

The nearest settlement is a half days travel to the east. If anything happens, no one will hear him scream.

Not that they would help if they did.

“I was wondering if you were going to sit with me,” says the man, turning a smile of incomprehensible fondness towards Kisuke.

He tries to understand. He does.

But he can’t. The closest he’d ever known was the leering of older men when he strayed too far towards the redlight districts. This holds none of the oil-on-his-skin feeling, it does not make the threads in his chest stitch up and his fingers itch for a knife to drive between their ribs.

This is what Kisuke imagines friends look at eachother like.

“I don’t even know who you are.” The words feel strange on his tongue. He does not know this man, but this man looks like he knows him. Had they met before and Kisuke couldn't recall? No, he would remember that flaming hair and the power that threatened to sear Kisuke when he came close enough. He stopped just shy of the heavy air that sunk around the stranger.

The smile grows sadder.

“No. I guess you don’t. I’m Ichigo.”

“Ichigo,” he turns the name over. It’s a girls name. He doesn’t say as much to the man with two blades and a blanket of power around him.

“How did you know I was there?” Kisuke asked then, those dangerous questions burning across his tongue. He waits, tense and ready to take a blow that doesn’t come. Ichigo’s eyes, plain brown compared to his brilliant hair, catch the tension in his shoulders and the hard lines in his legs. Ready to bolt, like a deer.

“I could feel your reitsu,” Ichigo says. “You have a lot of energy, you know. You could be a shinigami.”

“How can you ‘feel’ someone?” Kisuke frowns, trying to puzzle it out.

Ichigo shrugs. “I just do. I’m not sure how to explain it. It’s like…. Hearing, and smelling, and feeling something against your skin all at the same time.”

Ichigo’s head cocks and something pushes against Kisuke. A weight of some sort, the heavy press of darkness on summer nights. It’s not cold or oppressive or the fear of the dark.

Kisuke swallows thickly. The weight settles across his shoulders like a blanket.

It disappears after just a moment.

“Did you feel that?” Ichigo asks.

Kisuke can only nod mutely. His stomach tightens. The stale bread is gone and his limbs feel weak without the blanket of power pressing down on his bones.

“Good. That’s what I could sense with you.”

“You could not,” Kisuke snaps immediately, and bites his tongue as soon as the words are out of his mouth. He knows he doesn’t have as much power as Ichigo does, he knows because Ichigo looks like a wolf and he a rabbit at his side.

“Could so,” Ichigo says. It sounds so normal that Kisuke gapes at him. Ichigo cracks a faint smile.

“Not that much, no, but you have the potential to be powerful. It’s there. Trust me.”

“Trust is for fools, blinded by faith.”

He can’t fathom why that makes Ichigo look so terribly, horribly sad.

“Maybe.” Ichigo produces a loaf of flatbread from a handkerchief in his yukata. Without even seeming to think about it he breaks off a piece and hands it to Kisuke.

Kisuke freezes for all of a second before he snatches it from his hands.

(Sword calloused, long fingers, every single aspect of him speaks of power)

“We didn’t make any deal,” he says swiftly, before shoving the bread into his mouth. It was the softest thing he’d ever tasted, and it makes the hard brick he’s scrounged up earlier even worse.

“Nope.” Ichigo agrees. He turns his attention away from Kisuke to look out over the river while he eats. On anyone else Kisuke would be irritated by the fact that Ichigo thinks him so little a threat he’d turn his back on him. On Ichigo, it’s not an insult. Kisuke would turn his back on a butterfly too.

The wind changes, and Ichigo stands slowly. He brushes his dark clothes off and looked back at Kisuke over his shoulder.

“I’ll be seeing you.”

Kisuke watches his walk off into the shadows of the trees.

He’s not wrong. They will see eachother again.

Kisuke is nearly grown when he comes across Ichigo again.

He’s different now, Kisuke is, dressed in the uniform of the Shihoin clan, and the onmitsukido who serve them. The dark clothes cover every inch of his skin save his eyes, and a small flash of pale bangs. Shihoin Yoruichi, the princess herself, sees something in him. She beats him into the ground daily, tosses him into walls and laughs at him where he can’t keep up with her.

Yoruichi is a whirlwind and too casual for decency, but there is a wall between them that Kisuke can never let himself cross, that she won’t let him cross either, even though they’ve known each other for almost a century now. Flashes of smiles, teasing pokes on the cheek and slaps on the shoulder, but she is still a princess and he still-

Well.

Perhaps Kisuke is not so different as he imagined himself, for he strikes down hollows with instincts learned in the rukongai not in the Shihoin household, dodging and hitting weakpoints without the fluid control and perfect angles he’s expected to know.

His instructor would beat him bloody for it.

His instructor lays dead behind him, along with two thirds of the little group that he’d come with.

They’d been sent to Hueco Mundo, to hunt a particularly devious hollow, one that can multiply itself, and now he stand surrounded by a half a hundred copies, and more on the ground at his feet, while his fellows steadily fall.

Then the sky goes black.

The moon vanishes entirely, like a blanket had spread across the entire world. The white sands fade to grey and Kisuke and the hollow both freeze in their tracts as an ocean falls upon their shoulders.

It curls around Kisuke, familiar and flowing and it teases at the strings that hold his chest together. Benihime hums in his hand, shining red in the darkness. She is a riot of blood against the black of night.

Deeper red curls closer, visible to him now, and familiar too.

Kisuke follows the threads of energy to his left, where they lead to a flash of orange hair and a dark black overcoat that trails behind its owner.

It’s impossible to mistake those brown eyes.

“Ichigo.”

“Take a step to the left, would you?”

Kisuke complies, breathless and exhausted, but it fades into exhilerations when the black-red energy spikes past him. The hollows evaporate into nothingness, shards of energy that vanish, and Kisuke is left standing between two canyons in the sandy floor.

He’s the sole survivor now, and Ichigo grimaces when he steps over the bodies of Kisuke’s fallen comrades.

“I was late. Sorry about that.” The sword in his hand is dark and hollowed out, and he holds it as if it isn’t half as long as his body. Kisuke looks down at his fallen comrades. He didn’t know their names, they all operated in code, and he is too old now to have cared for them. Grief cuts deeper than swords, and Kisuke keeps both at arms length at all times.

“Where did you come from?” Kisuke asks, looking at Ichigo. A small creature, a six legged dog with a hollow mask, bounces at Ichigo’s heels and nips at the edges of his coat, as if Ichigo hadn’t just slaughtered fifty some-odd of it’s own kind in a blink. Ichigo doesn’t seem to notice, or mind the creatures presence.

“Here and there,” he says vaguely, waving his free hand. The hilt of the knife he’d had all those years ago sticks out of his overcoat.

“That’s not an answer,” Kisuke shouldn’t push the man that just saved his life, he knows that, and he treats Ichigo to a glare that even Yoruichi would chide him for but-

Kisuke is not afraid of this man.

(Is a man or a monster in human skin? He’d killed them all, his power is dark and heavy and it wraps around Kisuke like it had all those years ago, cool and warm equally somehow, like sunlight in winter)

Ichigo cocks half a smile and lays his sword across his back.

“You’d get bored if I gave you all the answers at once, you know. C’mon,” he taps the air beside him and it splits neatly into the gaping maw of a garganta. “I’ll take you back to the seireitei. Unless you’d like to stay here longer?” A fiery brow raises and Kisuke shakes his head.

“I should return.” He doesn’t tell Ichigo that he is tempted to accept that offer. He’s curious by his own nature, he still wants to unravel the threats of the world and find all their secrets, and that includes hollows and this desert that he has barely seen. But Kisuke had just suffered a brutal reminder that though he is one of the most promising trainees, and though the Shihoin heiress herself has taken a vested interest in his future he is still green, he is still young, and he cannot survive here on his how.

(Which begs the question, how does Ichigo? Does he? Or was he just in the right place at the right time? Only hollows live in hueco mundo)

“Are you a shinigami?” he asks when they step into the gap between worlds.

Ichigo doesn’t answer immediately. He makes a sound like he’s thinking very hard about what to say. The hollow dog is still at his heels, trotting amiably beside him. It’s the most docile creature Kisuke has ever seen.

“It’s complicated. Do you want me to tell you?”

“Yes.”

“I was a shinigami. And I will be again. But I’ve never been only that.”

It’s not an answer at all and Kisuke feels jittery in his skin. Ichigo has just handed him a riddle and challenged him to solve it, and the flash of a smile tossed over his shoulder says he knows exactly what he’s done. It’s gone a minute later. The smile come like spring rains, swift and gone a second later.

Ichigo still looks at him with that strange fondness, and it makes Kisuke’s stomach tighten again, but it's not hunger there this time.

They step out into the rukongai.

The river they’d met by rushes past.

“I’ll see you around, Kisuke.”

Kisuke watches Ichigo step back into the inky blackness of the garganta, and he knows now that it’s the truth. Even if Ichigo does not come to him, Kisuke will find a way to meet again. He wants to know Ichigo, and why Ichigo acts like he knows him too.

~ ~

The first time Kisuke meets Shiba Kaien he nearly has a heart attack.

He’s two paces behind Yoruichi, his head dipped up instead of dipped in a way that borders on insubordinate and they walk into the Shiba compound together. Kisuke has met Kukaku Shiba dozens of times, would even consider her to be a friend of sorts if he was pressed (as much as he has any friends, in any case) but those were all at Yoruichi’s behest. Now they come to call on her, the middle daughter of the clan head, with a rather official invitation to a party for all of the Great Clans and several of the smaller ones.

The paper the invitation is written on is thick, the ink sparkles like it was written in actual gold, and just one sheet is worth more than anything Kisuke has ever owned in his life.

He lays Benihime carefully on a rack of other zanpakutou when they enter, and walks behind Yoruichi unarmed. It wouldn't stop him from fighting, or killing, but let the Shiba think they had blunted his teeth.

Kukaku greets them in the courtyard, her wild hair tied back while she pours something that smells like blackpowder and pepper into a firework.

It’s not her who catches Kisuke’s attention though.

Sitting on the other side of the courtyard with their young brother, Ganju, and a sweet looking woman, is a familiar face.

The coloring is all wrong. Black hair instead of fiery orange, crystal blue eyes instead of calm brown, but the resemblance is unmistakable and impossible.

“Ah, little Kisuke,” Kukaku grins at him. “Are you admiring my big brother? And in front of his wife, no less!”

Kisuke startles out of whatever trance he’d fallen into, feels heat rush across his skin and wishes it wasn’t so stark a contrast.

“Forgive me,” he bowed, like he was supposed to, and it was no surprise when Kukaku slapped his shoulder.

“Forget it. All Shiba are too pretty for our own good, don’t you know?”

Kisuke offers her a helpless smile and resigns himself to the fact that Yoruichi is going to tease him for the rest of the decade about him.

“Do many look like your brother?” he asks, swallowing his pride and ignoring the way Kukaku howls with laughter at him.

Still, she humors him. “He’s got the main branch look, so yeah a good few of us.”

And that.

Can’t be right.

But it explains a lot.

Ichigo was a powerhouse, and the Shiba are known for it. He said he “was a shinigami. And will be one again.” So perhaps a Shiba sent out on some specialized assignment? Or a deserter from the main branch?

Even a bastard would explain quite a bit.

Yoruichi pokes Kisuke’s cheek suddenly, snapping him out of his thoughts and he goes still lest he accidentally lash out at her.

“Awe, I think he’s got a crush. He sure looks like it.”

Kisuke ducks his head, sheepish and just a little stung when the pair of them laugh like its the cutest thing they’ve ever heard.

(Why wouldn’t it be? Kaien is the married heir to one of the greatest clans in their world, and Kisuke still had dirt under his nails and rukongai blood)

~ ~ ~

#Bleach #bleach fanfiction #ichigo kurosaki #BAMF!Ichigo Kurosaki #yoruichi shihouin #Urahara Kisuke #bleach urahara #UraIchi #urahara x ichigo #time travel #hollow ichigo

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totebagchiqbarista · 4 years ago

Note

can we have a chat noir x reader x ladybug where chat and lady are constantly trying to out due in battles each other for the reader’s attention, even in school with adrian and marionette

a loving feeling

Pairing: Adrien/Chat Noir, Marinette/Ladybug x GenderNeutral!Reader

Here's the first request I got! I literally love this idea so much oh my god. I hope you like it :)

“Adrien, dude, go talk to them. Now’s your chance!“ said Nino, reassuringly patting his best friend on the back. Adrien’s palms sweat just because of the thought of talking to them. It had been so long since he felt anything other than platonic love for somebody and was losing his mind. Adrien knew he wasn’t the only one who saw Y/N as potentially someone who was to be more than a friend. How could he be?

“Go! Now!“ Nino pushed him closer to the infatuating dream of his best friend. Disappearing in a split second he rebounded with his girlfriend.

Adrien made a few steps. It has seemed the person of his dreams was way too far away from him. Fear grew with each step and his heart was now beating in his throat, unable to catch a breath. Yes! They are so close! He can see them, just a bit more. He is already there, just hanging by the tip of a finger... And suddenly he was in a broom closet.

“Oh, Plagg I chickened out again“ Adrien cried, clenching his fists against the wall. The kwami flew around his head in an attempt to catch his gaze.

“Honestly Adrien, you could only talk to them when you were Cat Noir. But when you’re...well you, you lose your mind!“ he spoke “You see, cheese doesn’t do that to a person“

“You’re a kwami“

“My point still stands.“

Adrien banged his hair against the wall. It’s true, he could always talk to them when he was dressed in black. “I'm going to talk to them, today!”

“You go to the same class, you talk to them every day “ Plagg rolled his eyes, getting tired of the same old story his owner has been playing over and over

The blonde boy shook his head trying to talk to Plagg on a serious note “You know what I mean”

Upon entering the class, Marinette stumbled over her thoughts. She had decided she will talk to them today. She had no idea how, but she had put her mind to it. She is doing this.

"Hi, Marinette," said Y/N when they saw the bluenette deep in her thought.

Marinette's eyes widened in surprise, her breath hitching in her throat. She had to process what is happening before she could open her mouth.

"O-oh, hi, Y/N. Are you how? I mean, how you are?" she felt embarrassed by the inability to speak as she tried to collect herself "How are you?"

"I'm good, thanks. Do you want to sit next to me today? Nino and Alya sat together." they questioned, pointing to the couple in love, sat in the second row.

Marinette's face lit up in joy as she shook her head in approval "Yeah, I will". The two sat down in the first row, waiting for the class to start.

"So, Y/N, tell me, um do you- want to-" Blue-haired girl started as the duo collected their bags and headed towards the door. Y/N watched the girl carefully until she was interrupted by a loud cheer behind them.

They turned around, meeting eyes with a pair of green ones that lit under the blonde hair. "Hi, Adrien!" they waved in response.

Marinette's face reddened. It wasn't just because of the Adrien himself who too, made her blush a little. But it was because he could not have found the worse time to come by...

Her fingers twitched as she watched him smile sweetly and sly to the person she was just about to ask out. He had a kind, heart-warming smile on his face, and he was talking so softly to them. His fingers twirled in his blonde hair as he...

Marinette's face widened at the realization. The guy was stealing her date!

"Actually, we were talking you can come back by later" she interrupted blushing Adrien, taking Y/N's hand in hers and walking off. Without thinking, Adrien reached out, grabbing Y/N's hand. His fingers wrapped around their wrist. "Why can't I join you?" he blurted.

"Of course you can!" Y/N exclaimed

"No, you can't. Don't you have a fencing class to attend to?" Marinette fought back, crossing her hands on her chest.

"It got postponed"

"It never does"

"But today it has so I have an hour of free time"

Y/N watched as the two held a strong eye contact filled with rage and jealousy. Their bodies came closer and closer as they fought back and forth for their attention.

Suddenly, the door of the school burst open, shrieks fulfilling the building. A woman dressed in black entered, her ripped dress falling to the floor. Silver hair of hers flowed in the wind as she wrapped her fingers tighter around the machine in her hand. Two rat ears grew on the tip of her head and a tail that followed the theme.

She walked around, shooting every random passenger and turning them into...rats?

"We have to hide!" Y/N exclaimed as they took both of their hands, leading them into a classroom.

Marinette stuttered, ripping their hands apart even though that was the last thing she wanted to do. "I forgot my bag in the other classroom, I have to get that, it's important, you guys go hide now!"

Y/N nodded, running again, leaving Adrien to follow along. "Locker rooms! We can hide there" he said, grabbing them by the hand and running to the secure place in school.

"Chloe! Where are you Chloe!" the rat lady yelled, leading her way through the corridors of the Françoise Dupont High School. "Hide here," he said, showing them a safe place in one of the lockers.

"You too." They said pointing to the one across. Adrien only nodded in response and faking it once they were completely safe. The blonde's legs carried him to the bathroom by the speed of light.

Closing the door he took a moment to take a deep breath and rest his back against the wall. His kwami reappeared in front of his face, waiting for a word. Something. Anything.

"Don't you have a significant other to save, Adrien?"

Adrien got himself on his feet, away from the daydreams. Plagg was right, he did everything better when he was Chat Noir, so saving them should be as easy too. Maybe then he can finally talk to them without interruptions or his own fears.

The blonde nodded. "Plagg claws out!"

Although they knew they could be in danger, Y/N couldn't take being locked up in a locker anymore. She stepped out, only to be met by Adrian's open locker. The rat lady must have got to him.

"Stupid" they hummed to themselves as they looked around, figuring out what to do.

Suddenly, the door to the locker room opened and the infamous black cat costume appeared before them, taking their breath as always. "Well hello I guess we're stuck in danger together," he said flirty "Might as well make the most out of it" he bowed down before them.

"Poor kitty, and where's your lady?" They said, teasingly to the cat boy who so desperately tried to get under their skin.

"Said she will be right back."

And just on queue, the lady in red stormed into the room. Taking a look at Chat Noir once she sighed. "I'm sorry to do this, but it's important. Multimouse, I need you." She handed the already well-known miraculous box to them as they nodded in response.

It was safe to say Chat Noir was losing his mind. His eyes widened at the sudden information, as he stared at them in amazement. "You're Multimouse?!" he squeaked. Thinking back on the previous times Multimouse came to help and he did nothing but flirt with them. There was something that stood out about them and he never knew what. Now, it all made sense.

Then yet again, he wonders how whenever Multimous was around, Ladybug also got way more talkative and goofy and eager for their attention. He remembers all the fights over Multimouse he and the lady had led. It all came together now.

"Of course I am," they said, tying the necklace around their neck and meeting with Mullo, once again.

"I've missed you Y/N," Mullo said, happily flying around.

"I can say the same" they responded, ready to transform "Mullo, get squeaky!"

"Wow," both of the Paris' superheroes were smitten. Stealing a dirty look from each other for one last time they created a plan with Multimouse to defeat Ninkilia. As Ladybug said, she is completely sure the Akuma is in her hand machine.

"That's the plan, just follow my lead" she finished her speech

"As you wish my lady" Multimouse chimed in before Chat Noir could say anything. Ladybug's hot cheeks were prominent through her mask, and the cat looked nothing but jealous.

"R-right, let's go" the girl with spots exclaimed, her cheeks still burning red.

Jumping from the roof, Multimouse teased the villain. "A mouse? No!" Ninkilia yelled. "If you can live in the garbage now, why can't you do it in a form of a true rat itself" she cried as she shot around random people on the street.

"We have to get to her hand machine quickly," Chat Noir said fighting the lady in black. "And maybe then we can go somewhere just the two of us."

He winked at Multimouse who only laughed, and earned a look of pure hatred from Ladybug. Expecting a comment on his own behalf, Chat Noir was surprised by the lady's response. "You don't want to go with him trust me. I know the best ice cream in town."

Multimouse only laughed "Let's get rid of this rat lady first," they said "Multitude!"

"No, not the mice!" Ninkilia desperately tried shooting the little mice around her as they climbed up her legs. Ladybug's yoyo wrapped around her, pinning her to the ground.

"Chat Noir!" Ladybug exclaimed.

"Cataclysm"

The Akuma has been purified and the trio has once more, saved the day. "Pound it!"

"It has been a pleasure working with you" black cat smiled sheepishly, taking the mouse's hand and kissing it softly. "Will I have the pleasure of seeing you again soon?"

"We'll see," they said, signalizing Ladybug it's time to go.

Ladybug pulled them close, taking them by the waist and already feeling her heart beat faster. Multimouse, or precisely, Y/N placed their head in the crook of her neck and sent shivers down her spine. Soon, they were flying through the air, holding just by her yoyo.

"Thank you for choosing me," they said, as they scootched closer to her body, clinging in fear of falling down.

"How could I not?"

Marinette's heartbeat raced faster as they shared a soft smile. If it were up to her, she would like to fight alongside them all the time.

#miraculous marinette #miraculous ladybug #marinette dupain cheng #adrien agreste #chat noir #chat noir x reader #marinette x reader #ladybug x reader #miraculoustalesofladybugandcatnoir #adrien x reader #mlb #mlb adrien #plagg #tikki #mullo #imagine #one-shot #fanfiction #miraculous

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writing-on-the-wahl · 3 years ago

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Writing Snippet #16: Songbird

Part 2

So @im-a-wonderling had a fantastic plot idea... and I added wings.

(Collaborating with her on this one was so fun! I don’t normally write angst so it was new for me and she was an incredible help/inspiration!)

TW: blood, implied violence, general angst

———————————

Villain leaned back against the stark white wall. In fact, aside from his own dark blue attire, everything in the hallway of cells was white: the floors, ceilings, doors, even the metal bars were painted white.

Supervillain had always preferred things nice and clean and white.

Not the best color choice for the dungeon of a brutal supervillain. Villain wondered how they cleaned away the bloodstains.

Supervillain’s minions had been courteous enough when they brought him in, not that he’d been able to put up much of a fight after a sniper shot him with a power suppressor mixed with a sedative. He’d been barely conscious when they dragged him into this cell and left him alone.

That had been hours ago, and he still couldn’t feel his powers. Not the most ideal scenario. Especially considering the reason he was here.

Supervillain’s missing device. Her masterpiece. Prize of her collection. Peak of her creative genius. First of its kind.

And only, Villain thought smugly. He and Hero had stolen the device last week. And Supervillain was notoriously paranoid about her technology being stolen and never wrote anything down. She might be able to recreate the device, but it would take a few years.

He didn’t know how Supervillain knew he’d been involved. She was sure to demand the return of her invention, which was, unfortunately, currently in a thousand pieces at the bottom of the ocean.

Villain had anticipated a double cross from Hero, had thought the Hero Agency would insist on saving and using a machine that could duplicate superpowers and create new heroes, but Hero had been just as determined as he was to see the machine destroyed.

Personally, he knew what would happen if Supervillain managed to duplicate his powers, knew the destruction she would leave in her wake.

He wasn’t exactly sure why Hero had been equally as passionate, but he hadn’t been able to resist grinning at her enthusiastic smashing. He could have destroyed the device with a flick of his fingers, but watching her take a sledgehammer to the metal had stirred something in his chest. Admiration turning towards something warmer.

The door at the far end of the hall banged open, and two guards burst into the room, dragging a limp form between them.

Villain’s heart skidded to a stop.

The figure in the middle was small and slim, with oversized wings that dragged on the ground as the guards carried her forward.

Villain would know those wings anywhere: a blue so light it was nearly white, with feathered tips that looked as though they’d been dipped in the midnight sky.

Hero.

Villain stiffened, hands curling into fists.

They drew closer, and his breath caught.

There was blood dripping from a wound on Hero’s temple; the fair skin of her face and arms was already beginning to bruise.

The guards hauled her past, and his nails bit into the flesh of his palms at the sight of her wings, one wing hanging at a horribly wrong angle as it dragged on the ground behind her, spatters of red dotting the light feathers.

Fury pounded in his chest as his eyes stayed fixed on her mangled wing. If his powers were working, the entire prison would have been obliterated.

Hero didn’t stir as the guards threw her into the cell next to his.

His heart stuttered as logic warred with panic.

They wouldn’t lock her up unless she was alive...

Right?

Villain gripped the edge of the hard metal cot, the sharp corners digging into his palms as the guards strode by.

He offered a sardonic raise of the eyebrow as they glanced his way. One of the henchmen paused.

“The boss will be by soon to release you. She was given new information that revealed the true thief of her device.” His eyes cut to Hero.

Villain hummed disapprovingly as he leaned back, though every muscle was tensed, ready to spring. “I told Supervillain I was innocent of her allegations.”

Henchman blanched at the threat of retribution in his tone. “Yes yes. Hero confessed to everything.”

Villain closed his eyes briefly. Even though he had been the one to approach her. His idea. His plan. His fault.

And now here was his beautiful songbird, bleeding on the cell floor.

Villain studied Hero, taking in every bruise and cut and drop of blood.

His face was an icy mask as he faced the guard. “Yes. I can see that.”

The guard had the audacity to smile. “Oh, no. She told us the moment we brought her in. Yelled about how it had been her and her alone who took the device.”

Had she done it to protect him?

The guard waved a hand carelessly at Hero’s crumpled form. “That’s what happened when she told the boss she’d destroyed it.”

He was laughing as he walked away.

The henchmen were beneath him. At least, that was what Villain told himself as they continued down the hall. It was the only thing that kept him from murdering the two lackeys through the bars of the cell.

He couldn’t afford to reveal his connection to Hero. Couldn’t reveal how much he cared. Not yet.

As soon as their backs were turned, he studied Hero. She was on the ground, injured wing partially beneath her. Her other wing had fallen across her body when they dumped her to the ground, and he couldn’t tell if she was breathing.

He reached for his powers to rip the prison walls apart— to get to her—but that part of him was still numb.

His own breaths came in fast as his mind spiraled. He watched the blood dripping from the cut on her head, dark red spilling on the bright white floor.

Please be alive.

Please.

When the door clicked shut and they were finally alone, Villain dared speak.

“Hero.” He hissed. “Hero!”

She didn’t stir.

Villain thought that he could see the movement of breath, but that could just be the A/C ruffling her soft feathers.

He found himself holding his breath, waiting for hers.

The next moments were agony.

Lightheaded, he closed his eyes and took a large gulp of air.

When he opened them again, Hero was watching him, eyes wide, pupils dilated.

“Hero!”

She dropped her gaze, arms trembling as she struggled to push up out of the tangle of her wings, whimpering as the movement jarred her broken wing.

Villain ached to plug his ears, to block out each tiny heart-wrenching sound of pain, but he had no right.

Every mark on her was his fault.

Had they captured her after they brought him in? If he had confessed…

“Hero, they said you told them...” he trailed off as she deliberately twisted away and flared her wings to block him from view. A cry of pain accompanied this action, and her shoulders curled inward as they began to shake.

Villain slid to his knees, fingers uselessly clutching the bars between them.

“Hero! Are you ok? Please, talk to—”

He cut off abruptly as the far door burst open once more, and he forced his voice to go cold as he rose to his feet, praying Hero would understand.

“...nothing more than you deserve you filthy—”

“Ah Villain!”

The cheerful voice fanned the rage burning in his chest, and he didn’t try to hide it as he stepped towards the front of the cell.

“Supervillain.”

“Now, now, Villain.” She laughed as she straightened the cuffs of her fresh white lab coat, but she still had blood under her fingernails.

White hot fury ripped through him. It took every ounce of self control he possessed to school his features as she continued.

“I know you’re a little upset at my bringing you here.”

He growled.

“But as you can see, I’ve caught the true perpetrator, and I’ve come to offer my sincerest apologies.” She cocked her head and offered a smile filled with false cheer.

“And compensation for the inconvenience, I assume.”

She frowned briefly, then nodded. “Of course, of course. What is it you want?”

He offered her a sharp smile. “Let’s just say I’ll collect what you owe me later.” In blood.

Villain was the one powerless and behind bars, but Supervillain was the one who stepped back.

A guard approached at her signal, a pair of shackles in hand.

“Just a precaution,” Supervillain explained, “until you are off my base.”

Villain kept his protests to himself as he extended his hands through the bars and allowed them to be cuffed together.

He reminded himself that even with his hands unbound, there was no way he would be able to free Hero without his powers, trapped as they were at the center of Supervillain’s base, surrounded by hundreds of her people.

He filled his voice with bored curiosity. “What will you do with the thief?”

Supervillain smiled. “I had a canary once. Made a marvelous little pet.”

The memory of Hero soaring through the clouds, winds extended, glorious and free, flashed through his mind, and his stomach churned at the thought of her in a swinging cage, wings folded in, trapped and alone.

The cell door swung open, and Villain cast one last look at Hero, who now met his gaze with glassy-eyed terror. It was a look that would haunt him all the way back to his lair, where he would immediately send for Sidekick and make plans for a rescue against the most secure base in the country.

“Naughty thing kept trying to escape though.” Supervillain slammed the empty cell door shut for emphasis.

As Villain followed a guard down the hall, Supervillain’s bright voice echoed behind him, words that froze his heart and shattered his careful mask of composure:

“Had to clip its wings.”

——————————

*** full credit to @im-a-wonderling for the line, “And here was his beautiful songbird, bleeding on the cell floor.” The queen of beautiful tragedy, everyone.***

#songbird #wings #protective villain #injured hero #hero x villain #heroes and villains #villain #hero #my writing #snippet #write #writeblr #writing

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redrobin-detective · 4 years ago

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sleep like the dead

“And now, I, Technus, shall finally have my electronic vengeance on you, ghost child and conquer this puny human world!” Technus shrieked, exiting the portal in a suitably dramatic fashion. The various weapons around the lab shook and trembled from his power and static from his core crackled, raring for a fight with his favorite enemy. Only the Phantom didn’t appear.

“Hmm, maybe I wasn’t loud enough,” Technus mused before starting up again. “Pathetic Phantom! You can only hope your miniscule half human strength will be enough to take on my squiggling mess of the tangled wires of terror!” He threw back his head and cackled loudly, waiting for his nemesis to show and the battle to begin. His laughter petered out after a bit and the lab became silent once more.

“Well, now he’s just being rude,” Technus fumed, floating up through the ceiling. “Don’t ignore my threats, child. I know you’re here, I can feel your cold core.” He stopped once he reached the ghost boy’s human lair, hovering a few feet from the bed where his rival was sprawled out, sound asleep.

“Come ghost boy, it’s time for fisticuffs! I have some new moves and some great catchphrases I’m ready to try out on you!” The technology ghost exclaimed in excitement, miming some punches. Phantom didn’t answer, just kept laying there barely moving save for his soft, shallow breaths. Technus watched as his breath fogged with each exhale, his core’s ghost sense but it still didn’t awaken him. “Child? Have you expired?”

He leaned forward and gently poked the boy’s cheek. It was squishy but firm unlike a ghost’s exterior and he could feel the dense bone underneath. Phantom didn’t so much as twitch. Technus drew back his hand, unsure of what to do. He’d surprised the child while he was in bed before but he always woke up and they fell into the usual routine. But now he’d changed the script and if there was something ghosts didn’t like, it was change. He flew back down to the portal and sped into the Ghost Zone at top speed, searching for someone who would be able to help him understand.

“Wow, baby pop whooped your butt that fast? Either he’s getting better or you’re getting more pathetic, my bet is the latter,” Ember teased as she strummed to herself from a floating rock near her lair.

“The ghost child won’t wake up and fight,” Technus said in a rush. “I went to the human world but no one answered my challenge. I went to his human lair and he was just lying on his bed thing and he wouldn’t move, even when I touched him.”

“That’s not like him, he’s usually more hopped up and ready to fight than a groupie on coke,” Ember frowned, setting aside her guitar. “Well come on, sparky, lets go check the kid out.”

They developed something of an entourage making their way back to the human portal. A few of the locals had heard that the infamous half ghost child was behaving differently and well, curiosity didn’t stop when the cat was killed. Skulker chuckled menacingly under his breath, Youngblood bounced around the adults. Johnny and Kitty had been going to the real world anyway and decided to tag along.

“Were his folks or Jazz home?" Johnny asked, riding his cycle slow enough to keep pace with the group.

“Who?” Technus questioned, “er no, the annoying children always with him were not around for once.”

“Annoying yes but they don’t live- uh occupy the same lair as the brat,” Johnny explained. As a younger ghost who’d held onto his humanity more than some, he had a better grasp of human culture. “His parents, the crazy ghost hunters in the blue and orange jumpsuits. Or his sister, Jazz. She has red hair and is kind of a know it all. They’re his family, they live with him.”

“Oh those weirdos,” Youngblood said wrinkling his nose. “Always loud and shouting about ripping apart ghosts. They’re not even good hunters.”

“Obviously, they haven’t noticed they got a ghost living with ‘em,” Ember added with an eyeroll.

“It’s a very stressful situation, Danny was worried about what they’d do if they found out,” Kitty frowned before sticking her tongue out at Johnny. “Danny’s a good guy, at least he talked to me about things that mattered.”

“Good target practice, you mean,” Skulker declared as they entered through the portal. Instinctively they all looked up to where the ghost boy’s core was humming but sensed no movement. “Alright, I will admit that is weird. Let’s see what the whelp’s up to.”

It was a bit cramped, the five of them crammed into the small room especially when they were keeping their distance from the room’s only living occupant. He had not moved since Technus had last been in here. At their entrance, his breath fogged again and he shivered for a second before settling back down.

“Well, he’s alive at least,” Johnny shrugged before leaning in close to examine him. “Kid looks wiped though.” He picked up the boy’s bony wrist which had been dangling off the bed, his fingers brushing the floor and held it up before dropping it. His knuckles rapped against the ground but he didn’t stir.

“Johnny, leave him alone, he’s trying to sleep,” Kitty hissed, yanking her boyfriend back by his ear.

“Come on, I’m not doing anything bad,” Johnny defended. “But, come on, how often are we gonna get a chance like this?”

“Hmm is human sleep that interesting that the ghost child would ignore all of us?” Technus asked, floating over and laying himself down on the bed. He laid there on the bed next to the boy for a few moments. “I do not believe I’m doing this correctly.”

“Nah you gotta close your eyes and go off to dreamland,” Youngblood said, grabbing a sock off the floor and then some papers from the desk and began stacking them on the half ghost’s head. The boy still didn’t react in the slightest.

“Is dreamland close? Another pocket dimension like the Zone?” Technus, ever the scientist, asked curiously.

“No, you idiot,” Ember sighed before tentatively reaching out and laying a hand on Phantom’s chest. “Yow, man that’s weird.”

“What?” Skulker asked, having been mostly content to watch until now. Youngblood had now piled several more items on the ghost boy’s head but he slept on, unawares.

“It’s just,” she scrunched up her face as she looked for the words, “I know what ghost cores feel like and I’ve been around enough humans to know the signs of life but he’s got both at once. His core flares and fades opposite his heart beat. It shouldn’t work but it does, somehow.”

“He is a most curious specimen, I rarely see Plasmius in his human skin so it’s hard to compare,” Skulker commented. “Of course Plasmius I can understand. He acts like a ghost, thinks like one. But the child, he’s certainly a ghost but he’s also decidingly... human.”

“That’s why we should be leaving him alone,” Kitty frowned, plucking Youngblood out of the air and moving him away from the sleeping teen. “If Danny isn’t waking up with all of us causing a racket then clearly he’s exhausted. We bother him enough, let him rest and fight him some other time.”

“But I wanted to fight now,” Technus whined, rolling over on the bed and resting one arm over the ghost boy’s body. “The Phantom surely wants to hear my latest monologue on how I’m the supreme ruler of everything electronic and beeping.”

“I know I don’t,” Youngblood shrugged.

“Me neither,” Johnny scoffed.

“Or me,” Ember muttered, putting her hands on her hips.

“Just let him rest,” Kitty said shooing the others back and gently brushing some of the kid’s hair out of his face revealing sallow features and dark marks under his eyes. “It’s hard enough being human much less a ghost on top of that; between fighting us and trying to have a normal life I bet he hardly gets any sleep. The least we can do is give him a break before he breaks.”

“I suppose it’s not sporting to kill a sleeping prey,” Skulker pouted. “And it’ll make his defeat more meaningful if he’s well rested and not uh,” he gestured to the Phantom’s general state of disarray.

“Better appreciate it,” Ember sulked for a second, kicking away some pajama pants from the floor. “His stupid human life. I’d give anything to sleep again, just for a minute.”

The ghosts sat in quiet contemplation for a moment, the dead looking enviously and curiously on the silent, sleeping boy, on a world they could only watch but not engage in. The moment was shattered by the front door slamming open.

“DANNO WE’RE HOME AND WE BROUGHT CHINESE!” Resonated through the house. Startled awake, the ghost child leapt out of the bed and hovered about a foot above it for a moment before sinking back down.

“Darn it Dad, I was napping,” Danny grumbled before he opened his eyes and saw several of his ghostly enemies standing awkwardly in his room. Out of the corner of his eye, he spotted Technus lounging on his bed. “What the-”

“Oh good, you’re awake!” Technus tittered happily, leaning into his personal space. “Ready to hear my spiel?” The temperature in the room dropped rapidly as his core ramped up and spilled over into his eyes which were no doubt glowing a fierce green.

“Get out of my room!” He shouted, reaching over to grab his emergency under the bed thermos but a sock falling from his hair into his face distracted him.

“Hey, just stopping by but we were just on our way out, sleep well, Danny sweetie!” Kitty said dragging the whole group through the floor. His core thrummed in agitation until he felt them cross the portal into the Ghost Zone. He sat there for a moment, shaking and panting from the adrenaline rush before he decided he really didn’t want to know. He flopped back onto the bed and reached over on his nightstand for the bottle Jazz had given him the other day.

“The heck is in this stupid sleep aid?”

#danny phantom #another flash is the pan DP fic #just something about Danny being so tired (also ODed on Nyquil) that he just misses his ghost sense going off #and the ghosts being there and without all the threats of death #just kind of hanging around #looking over him curiously snooping #how often do they get to like see him up close?#he's a freak! lets look him over also stack shit on his head!#and the weird space where you just cant remember being human and what sleeping is like but also being so envious that you cant do it anymore #((also just a note that Danny had all his enemies in his room and slept soundly but woke up in a jolt when his parents got home))#((take that as you will))

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andilovetowrite · 4 years ago

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Webs and Awkwardness P.P

Peter Parker x Bestfriend! Reader

Summary: Walking into your best friend’s room to find out he is Spiderman is terrible as it is, but what comes after is even worse, when Peter rips your t-shirt in the process…

Based on this prompt

Warnings: A couple of bad words (Mostly from May) and a little suggestiveness. Supportive Aunt May, and flustered Peter ;)

Word Count: 1.9k words

Posted May 2, 2021

Here is my Masterlist, in case you wanted to check it out :)

“Hey Aunt May!” you greeted, walking into the apartment. She smiled, hugging you.

“Good evening Y/N!” She gestured over to the pile of books in your arms. “Studying for a test?”

Nodding tiredly, you answered. “Physics...and Peter is probably the only one in the class who is passing. So I desperately need his help.”

Aunt May laughed, pointing to his room. “Thank god he is still doing his work, with being cooped up in his room all the time. Not to mention being so distant after getting that internship from that Stark guy.” She shook her head, primarily to herself. “I don’t like him too much.”

You smiled, thanking her before making your way to Peter’s room, knocking softly. There was no response. You did it again but figured Peter might be too engrossed in making something. So you went in.

And you will never forget the shock that went through your body. In the middle of the room, standing half-naked with only his boxers, was your best friend, Peter Parker. But that wasn’t what shocked you. What made you gasp was the clothing that pooled at his feet. Red and blue. Black lines crisscrossed over it. But even then, you wouldn’t overthink about red and blue clothes. The mask in his palm,, though said everything.

“It’s not-uh not what it looks like!” Peter shouted, haphazardly throwing the mask to the side. It didn’t help his case because the second he threw it, a light red light illuminated the ceiling, showing the iconic logo we all knew. “I’m uh, not- I promise it is not- this it just a- Oh god”,, Peter rambles on, kicking the suit back so harshly that it hits the wall hard, making a small dent before it crumples to the floor.

You could feel your eyes widen, looking at Peter in amazement and then the mask. Almost comically, you come closer, observing his face and then shamelessly looking up and down his body, eyes zeroing on his abs.

“You’re Spiderman. Peter Parker is Spiderman. My best friend is Spiderman.” You say slowly, trying to get it into your head. Peter nodded, trying to judge what you were going to say or do.

“I-”

“It all makes sense now!” you exclaimed, sitting down on the bed, knowing if you kept standing, you were going to pass out or something.

“What?” Peter asked eyebrows scrunched up. Out of all the possible things you could’ve said, that was the least expected one. The most expected one was a hit to the face,, and maybe then you would run out of the apartment.

“It’s- uh- now I understand. How you magically got rid of your glasses,”

“I got contacts”, Peter interjected, biting his lip.

“-no,, you didn’t. I asked May where you got your contacts from,, and she told me you didn’t have any.” Peter looked down, knowing that story went for a toss.

“Then how you also got abs overnight, as well as your overall muscles”, you said, gesturing to his body. Peter became bright red but made no move to put anything on.

“After that, you would never answer my calls in the night. For a bit, I thought you were ignoring me or at some girl’s house-”

“I wasn’t!” Peter shouted, then looked back at the door to see if his aunt heard him.

You nodded, thinking of other things. “Plus, you never speak about the internship, even though it was what you did most of the time.”

Peter hung his head down, now feeling bad about not telling you. “I’m sorry I didn’t tell you. I just couldn’t let people know who I am and then if they saw Spiderman coming into your house-the-they might start targeting you-an-and you might get hurt. I-I couldn’t live with myself if that happened to you be-because of me.”

You nodded, the seriousness of the situation hitting you suddenly. But in real life, it hit Peter. Well, you hit Peter.

“HOW COULD YOU NOT TELL ME? BAD GUYS TARGETTING ME IS BAD AS IT IS, BUT THEM TRYING TO KILL YOU?! YOU COULD HAVE ASKED ME FOR HELP! I SWEAR TO GOD PETER PARKER, YOU WOULD WISH THAT THE BAD GUYS HURT YOU AFTER WHAT I DO TO YOU!” you walked closer threateningly. Peter’s eyes widened. No matter who he went against, even if it was Captain America, no one would be more frightening than you when you were mad.

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry”, Peter mumbled, moving back further. He didn’t even realize that he was halfway up the wall at this point, his face touching the ceiling.

“Get down here Parker!”

“Okay”, Peter squeaked, jumping down with impressive skills. “I’m s-” He went to apologize again but was cut off by you.

“Come here”, you said softly, pulling him into a bone-crushing hug, feeling his warm skin touch yours.

“Oh, this is nice”, he mumbled, hugging you back.

“You know how I would feel if someone came and told me my best friend died because of saving a city? Do you know how much I would stress out each night about you being Spiderman and fighting people twice or thrice your age?”

“Yeah”, Peter whispered against your skin, lips tickling your neck. “That’s why I didn’t tell you.”

You sighed softly. “But do you know how much it would hurt to know that you got hurt when I couldn’t help you? Just because I didn’t know that you were Spiderman?”

Peter stayed quiet, but his grip on you tensed up, clutching you tightened.

You pulled back, looking him in his chocolate eyes. “Please don’t keep things to yourself. Not with pressure like this. I know the Hulk or Iron Man might be there to help you, but tell me you’re alright. Just every now and then?” By this time, you could feel your throat closing, as you can feel tears prickling the sides of your eyes. Peter nodded, pulling you back in his embrace.

“I will. Plus, who will you come to to get Physics answers if I die?”

“Shut up!”, you laughed, leaving the hug but keeping your arm around his shoulder.

“So Mr Spiderman, how do you stick to buildings? And shoot webs? Do you make webs? Oh my god, are you part spider? Do you grow legs when you are outside fighting crime?”

Peter looked confused, listening to you babble on and on, but then chuckled. “With my suit that Mr Stark made. I make my webs. No I’m not part spider and of course not!”

“Wait, can I see the webs?”, you asked, curiosity blooming in your chest.

Peter shrugged. “Sure” Going over to his desk drawer, he opened it, pulling out a couple fancy technology gadgets. “Here, just press on this button.”

Gingerly taking it from him, you touched the button, not expecting such a light, featherlike touch to make it go on. Suddenly, a white stringy web hit Peter’s hand, jerking him towards you.

“Woah!”, he exclaimed as he banged into you.

“I’m sorry!”

“No probl-” he began, as he pushed himself off you, but one part stuck. His right hand was situated right on your chest, stuck with his web.

“Peter! Get your hand off!”

His mouth opened and closed, looking like a fish. “Uh-I’m sorry, you just- I grabbed onto the first thing, I mean, I didn’t try and grab your boob, oh god- I just-here let me-damn it, two hours.”

“What are you talking about? What’s two hours?” You asked, trying to concentrate on anything but Peter’s calloused hand on your thin shirt.

“Uh, I don’t know how to tell you this but uh-”, Peter looked incredulously at, his hand, quickly glancing at the ceiling. “The web takes two hours to dissolve. And I just ran out of web dissolver…The only one left is on the roof”

“Seriusly? Pete! You can’t...- your hand is on my boob!”

“I’m sorry, I promise, I can’t feel anything. Well, no, I can feel something, but that’s not what I meant! Um-”

You sighed, looking up to see Peter’s face close to your’s. “You’re Spiderman! Just pull your hand off or something?”

“Uh-ye-yeah sure”, he said hesitantly. Giving a couple small tugs, nothing came off, but then he got annoyed, and yanked his hand back.

Not the best decision.

Instead of his hand coming off the shirt, the shirt came with him, tearing off your body. Gasping, you threw your hand to your chest, covering yourself up. “Peter!”

“Oh god, oh my god!” Peter blushed hard, the pink going all the way across his body as he looked at the cut up cloth in his palm. As you tried to find something to cover yourself up with, Peter’s ears twitched.

“Shit!”, he whispered, running over to me. “May is coming here!”

“How the heck can you hear that?”

“Super-hearing…”

“Of course”

“Y/N! May can’t know I’m spiderman! She won’t allow me to do these things otherwise…”

You stuttered, looking around the room. “Quick! Hide the suit.”

Running over to his mask, you grabbed it, throwing it under the bed, while he jumped up and hid his suit in the small slot on the roof. Hearing her footsteps now, you ran over to Peter’s hoodie, but it was too late.

May opened the door. “Hey guys, you want some Indian for dinne- What are you doing!?”

You couldn’t blame her. It looked bad. Peter without any clothes but his boxers on, and your shirt torn open, revealing your red, lacy bra underneath.

“We-we aren’t doing- any-anything May!”, you half yelled, embarrassment flooding your body.

“Yeah, no, we are not- she doesn’t-uh”, Peter said, looking at my torn shirt as he quickly pushed me behind him, not wanting to show his aunt what I wa wearing.

“Um, okay. Kids, I don’t know what’s happening, but just, uh, use protection and don’t be too loud-”

“MAY!” Peter said, hands covering his face. “We aren’t doing anything!”

“Uh huh. Sure….”, she said. “With how much you talk about how beautiful Y/N is, I can’t believe it took this long for you to tell her. But maybe don’t sleep on the first date? I mean, I know you are 19, and it’s your decision.. ”

“NO MAY!” Peter said, glancing back at me, cheeks flooded with pink.

“Also, perhaps lend Y/N your shirt or something. Considering you ruined hers? And wear some clothes when you get out.”

With that, she left the room, winking at me and mouthing to Peter, “It’s under the bathroom sink…”

Peter groaned, falling on his bead, head still in his arms. “I’m so sorry for May! I don’t know what- I didn’t mean to- your shirt-”

You laughed, pulling Peter’s midtown hoodie over your ripped shirt. “It’s honestly fine Pete. Let’s go eat some food. And maybe after that, you can ask me out on that date you’ve been meaning to do?”

Smirking slightly, you walked out of the room, kissing Peter on the cheek and taking pride in leaving him behind in his room, stuttering a nervous “Yes”.

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I hope this is good, and I did the story justice anon! Thanks so much for requesting this, and I would love to have a couple more to write since you all have such good ideas :) Until next time!

#peter parker fluff #peter parker x bestfriend reader #peter parker x reader imagine #peter parker angst #spiderman #aunt may #tom holland #peter parker x reader smut #angst #smut #lime #confessions #peter parker x reader headcannon #peter parker x y/n

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