#skinless is too long a word to think every time so it has turned into naked which is......something

[wzyxz]

melt.

pairing: mission impossible x child!reader angst 2 fluff summary: two bad men kill your parents, so you’ve been stalking them ever since. one day, a team of people kill the bad men and take you to their base. that’s basically it. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

In the rubble of an abandoned and run down building, two men with guns have a hostage in the seat between them. It squirms around like a worm. I can see it, I can watch it all unfold and do nothing, or I can intervene. I’m a wuss, so obviously I sit still and quiet like a statue. My breaths are balancing carefully.

The men don’t see me. The men are bad. I remember watching them before, killing my parents and leaving me to rot and die slowly and hungrily. That is why I watch, to study their patterns and then get the sweetest revenge. I know I said I was a wuss, but I’m working on it, okay? 

Concrete surrounds me like a cage, but I cannot move or else I will be noticed and shot down immediately. One man begins to shout. “Where are they? I thought they would be here with the money by now!” The other man listens, processes, and squabbles back, “Alright, who do you think I am, Sherlock Holmes? How should I know where these dudes are? I’m just as upset as you are!”

They continue on about this for a long time. A long, long time. Every word that slips out of their mouths is laced with anger, frustration, and maybe even a bit of rage too. These dudes are ugly, though. Unshaven beards, messy hair, and they smell like sweat. Apparently, they’re holding this dude named Micheal hostage, and they’ve called the FBI or something to come and collect him for money. Like, a lot of money. Like, a billion dollars, a lot of money. 

Honestly, I dunno who this Micheal guy is, and no offense to him, but he’s probably not worth a billion dollars. 

As they squabble, the door opens slowly, softly, quietly, and three (I think) people step into the room. One of the bad men takes notice, cocks his gun and points. “Take another step and you get turned into a cherry slush.” In an instant, the room is silent and unmoving as if it had frozen solid.

Poor Micheal has suffered through so much. I see his fingers are skinless and raw, stripped down to muscle almost, due to his attempts at escape. Not to mention his breaths are uneven, a telltale sign of indescribable fear. His head bobbles slowly through the stillness.

Probably, he is shaking and scared. I’ve been shaky and scared many times. I’ve been like him before. I wish I could say I haven’t. 

These men, these terrible men, took away everything from me. Everything, from my food to my family to the bed I slept on, taken away just like that. Like wind had blown below me and carried everything that was mine far, far away. Smells, tastes, experiences come rushing back to me like a waterfall, and it’s almost sickening. My mind is overflowing and I think I’m starting to cry. But I can’t, because that is wuss behavior, and I am not a wuss anymore. At least, I’ll try not to be. While I think, I remember to watch. And now, I can see the fight. Apparently, I’d gotten so caught up on thinking I’d missed the entire fact that there was a WHOLE DAMN FIGHT going on right in front of me. A man in all black beats up bad man number one, throwing him to the floor and causing him to spit up violet red blood. Another dude in just a suit just stepped on bad man number two’s frickin face and CRUNCHED IT? Dear lord. Ew.  There’s blood every where, and even more is splurting out because mystery dude in all black keeps beating the crap out of bad man number one, no breaks and no breaths taken. Eventually, bad man number one’s ribs break and he dies or whatever, leaving a girl to take the shroud off Micheal’s head and lead him out of the room after cautiously inspecting him for any serious injuries. Black-wearing mystery dude tells other mystery dude “D’you think we should check to see if there are any more hostages here? These sssickos could be keeping millions in here for all we know.” He slurred his words lazily, exhausted from the amount of hard work he had gone through just then. “Sickos?” The other mystery dude replied. “Is that what you call kidnappers and mass-murderers? Jesus, Ethan, call them what they are for once.”  As the two search behind boxes and rubble, I realize my head has been throbbing the entire time. My vision begins to blur and my eyes start closing. This can't be happening. Although I try to fight it, the drowsiness begins to wash over me like the waves at the beach wash over sand.  Before I completely pass out, I see blurry figures move rubble out of the way to discover my limp, curled up body sprawled on the hard floor in absolute agony.

Waking up, I feel the floor shift and rumble below me. As I turn my head to look down, my forehead begins to sting so badly I want to cry. “Hey, no, no, don’t move your head a lot. It’s a bit messed up right now,” I hear a familiar voice speak softly to me. Just then, a warm, gloved hand slides under my chin and pulls my face up. Upon feeling the warmth and seeing the man’s face, I melt. It’s the same man in all black who’d crunched bad man number one’s ribs. Oddly enough, I get some strange sense of comfort that sizzled as if it were bacon on a frying pan. It runs throughout my veins and creates a system my life almost relies on. It feels like a warm hug, nice soup, a fluffy blanket, all those things oozing into each crevice of my mind. I try not to look at people in the eyes, though, because it makes me uncomfortable. “My name is Ethan Hunt, but you can just call me Ethan. I promise you’ll be alright, because you’re under the care of the best.” He winks at me, attempting to lighten the mood. “Is everything alright back there?” A deep voice called from the front of the car. “We’re good, Luther. They just woke up.” Again, Ethan turns to me with the softest expression ever, and yet again I melt.

So apparently, there’s this whole government agency or whatever going on called IMF, or Impossible Mission Force. These dudes who rescued me, Ethan, Benji, Ilsa, and Luther, are all apart of this agency and had been sent on a mission to take down the bad dudes and save the hostage. So, on the way to their safe-house or whatever, I had to tell them my tragic anime backstory. Unfortunately, they are concerned about my mental health. I hate it when that happens. Sure my parents were brutally mauled right in front of my poor, young eyes and I was left to die in an empty, cold house, but that isn’t necessarily bad, right? I’ll get over it. On the bumpy ride, I figured out I only melted when I looked at Ethan, which was weird and yet understandable. He gives me a very protective dad kind of vibe. Everyone else I’m not so sure about. All of the rest, I believe, have hints of poison covered by the masks of their smiles. It’s not that they are rude or evil, I’m just not sure about them.

Now that we’re in the base, Ethan holds his hand out to me. Slowly, my fingers wrap around his and I sigh, knowing I shouldn’t trust a stranger like this. But he’s the only thing I have. I miss being held in caring arms, tucked in a warm embrace. Instead, all thats left for me is the feeling of hunger. Hunger for the love of another person. As he leads down a hallway, Ethan reminds me to keep my head straight. My shoes pad softly against the floor below, not making a sound. I guess that’s why the team nicknamed me “Ghost,” because I’m usually so quiet nobody hears me at all. That’s what a year of spying on evil men who’d shoot you at once if they heard you speak, breathe, or make any noise in the slightest does to you.

We make a turn to the left, stepping into a room neatly decorated in mostly white. The bed, which has light grey covers, is carefully made. A nightstand sits right next to it with a Himalayan salt lamp placed on top. The walls are decorated in plain ivory tapestry and wooden shelves with knickknacks lining them. A bean bag chair, the color of a perfect night sky, laid idly in a corner of the room next to a bookshelf filled with lengthy and sophisticated-looking books. At least, lengthier than what I usually read anyways. The decor was immaculate, and I slowly began to realize this room was for me. “Okay, this is our guest room. You can stay here, make yourself at home. Take off your backpack and put it down somewhere. I’ll be out here, looking up your records and telling my agency about your arrival.“

When he closes the door, leaving me inside the room, I remember my backpack. I always keep a backpack with me, containing medical supplies, art supplies, and small rations of food and water. That’s just how it is when you’re traveling everywhere alongside two dudes who don’t know you still exist.  My hands reach to my shoulders, pulling off the sleeves of my backpack from my back. Placing it down on the floor next to the nightstand, I remember how little sleep I’d gotten in the past week. Deciding to go to sleep, I crawl weakly into the bed and immediately drift into the sweetness of near unconciousness.

Cold hands wrap around my sides. I feel it and yelp out. My eyes shoot open as small beads of sweat begin to form on my temples. In front of me, I see Benji, holding his hands out in confusion. “Sorry, Ghost! I- uhm- we were starting to watch a movie and then- uhm- Ethan told me to come get you and take you to the living room where we were so that he could make sure you were okay. I didn’t mean to disturb you!” He apologizes profusely and I just stare at him with a nervous expression. “Well, maybe, you’d like to join us for the movie…?” I weigh the options in my mind. I could get some more sleep in this comfy bed, which would be pretty nice honestly, or I could watch a movie with a man who I think might be a new dad to me, which was also nice. Maybe I should spend time with Ethan and the team, I might be here for a while. Plus, it might get that weird feeling of mine out of the way. The one that makes me feel like Ilsa, Benji, and Luther are all untrustworthy liars. So, I nod my approval and begin to get up. “No! Ethan said that he didn’t want you messing up your head walking there, but since it doesn’t seem like I’ll be close to picking you up any time soon, I’m just gonna go get Ethan.” Benji began trotting out of the room, again leaving me alone in an awkward, impatient silence. Ethan is the only touch I feel comfortable with currently, since I am beginning to know it so well. My brain starts drifting off into sleep mode when suddenly Ethan walks into my room. “C‘mon sleepyhead, up you get!” He whispers softly. I felt my body being lifted into the air and then a sudden warmth being pressed against my side. The entire world started to shift as everything blows past me.  Before I knew it, (probably because I started to doze off) I was on the couch facing a wide TV. Ethan was sat down next to me, patting my head and smiling. He turns to the movie, which movie I do not know, partly due to the fact I am so, so tired. Slowly, slowly, I realize I kind of just want to sleep. Against most of my better judgement, I curl up against Ethan, my head beginning to nestle into his stomach. The amount of joy I feel rivals all of my survival instincts, but then everything was starting to sluggishly melt away like pouring honey. “Goodnight, guys,” I thought to myself as the world around me faded into black.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ haha this took me so long??? anyways tysm anon for requesting this it was super fun to write! hope u like it!

[zkretchy]

Every now and then when I go through my Gwent cards I remember Kiyan isn’t with the rest of the cats in the scoiatel camp but instead in the Northern Realms (you get tortured into madness by some mage in Novigrad and suddenly you are in another faction than the rest of your peers, smh)

Funnily enough I do actually have all the Cats...except for Kiyan (to be fair I rarely glance at NR <-<”)

[spvce-cowboy]

a strange beauty

chapter 1 of i’ll be here in the morning (the mandalorian x fem!reader)

next-ch.2: “gentle things”

rating: Explicit

5.8k words

summary: The Mandalorian crashes on an unknown planet. Severely injured, he follows the sound of singing until he, literally, lands in your lap. A trained medic, you begrudgingly decide to help the bounty hunter in order to continue evading a dark past.

warnings: Violence, descriptions of gore, masturbation (m), brief panic attack description, hurt/comfort, angst/fluff, suggested sexual assault, canon divergent (post-season 1), slow burn, eventual smut

a/n: i wrote this after reading the Rough Day series by @no-droids​  as well as @cptnbvcks​ ‘s fics. i continue to be inspired by their work so i must give credit where it is due ! my first reader insert/mando thing so let's see how this goes !! thank you for reading <3

**

What he hears first is song.

It’s nearly night on the unfamiliar planet. At first he thinks the sound is some kind of bizarre hum of wind. He’s crash landed and between the hole in his chest and the blood in his eyes, he can barely stagger forward, let alone think things through, as he stumbles out of the smoldering Crest.

It stuns him, for a moment. On the verge of it all ending, the pain vibrating through his body, and he literally falls into some kind of melody so haunting he can’t help but think he’s already in some cruel kind of afterlife. Underworld would be equally fitting, he deserves that more.

He tries to pull in a breath. The sound that leaves him could only be described as a gurgle. It’s followed by a cough. Something hot and metallic tasting comes up with it, coating the inside of his mouth and dribbling over his chin.

Maker, he’s screwed.

He hadn’t realized how much worse it was going to get until he was finally safe in the Crest. In a daze, he opened the med-kit only to find the last Bacta treatment in a shattered mess. In the fresher, he tried to stuff some remaining gauze into the gaping hole on his right pectoral. He really tried not to pass out. He wasn’t successful. He wasn’t sure if it was the exhaustion or the knife wound, but every breath exited in a fluttering wheeze he was barely able to push through. It must have punctured a lung. Fucker was able to get right up under the armor.

Delirious with blood loss, he could barely register the one-handed climb into the cockpit and typing in whatever coordinates first come to mind before he blacked out again. It was in and out from there. He thought he entered Naboo, somewhere safe and familiar and not teaming with others who’d like to do much more and worse than he had already weathered, but a glance at the red-orange slicked control panel told him he was quickly approaching an uncharted planet. His hands were uncontrollably shaking, covered in his own blood and who knows who else’s. He had no idea if the Crest has the ability to dampen the landing but it was too late to start asking favors of some higher power now. 

“Sorry, kid.” It’s all Mando could think to say, voice barely registering over the modulator.

The child was fast asleep already. He had to mend Mando’s spine in order for Mando to drag himself back to the Crest once the smoke of the battlefield had settled. 

Mando’s entire body was still vibrating from the energy of it, probably the only thing keeping his heart beating. He was barely conscious long enough to slide the shields shut on the child’s cradle before impact.

It had been a long day.

He woke, miraculously still breathing—if the futile gasps trying to be made around a collapsed lung could be called something like that. He swung his heavy head around, blindly grasping the child’s cradle and pulling it behind him. The child was still asleep—unharmed save for a dent on the side of his crib that sputtered with an occasional spark. It took Mando a moment to register the alarms blaring, the flashing lights and acrid smell of scorched plastic and metal.

He doesn’t remember staggering out of the Crest. Just that now he is in a field of some sort, staggering forward with the kid’s cradle following close behind.

It is only then that he hears the song.

An idyllic hillside stretches before him, tall grass dotted with small, yellow wildflowers reach to meet a light fog. In the distance there’s the shadowed suggestion of mountains. If he didn’t know any better, he would really think this was Naboo. Mando can’t even begin to comprehend how his brain is able to process any of it. Really? You’re about to take your last handful of breaths and you’re taking in the flowers of all things? Though maybe he isn’t, if he is able to. His head begins to fill with a kind of static where nothing makes any sense.

He can hear, at least. Very well. Well enough to recognize that there is some kind of singing, some kind of song, reverberating through the sensors of his helmet loud enough to bring him back to reality.

 A song isn’t necessarily the right word for it—there are no words, or, at least, no words Mando could distinguish. Sound, more like. Melodious sound. Long, whooping notes of crisp sound. A siren’s call. So he follows the singing.

Mando doesn’t know how long it takes to reach its origin—between his quickly blackening vision or the equally disorienting fog, it is hard to navigate the expanse of green before him, let alone determine the time it takes to see the slight silhouette in the distance. Once he does, it’s a stumbling, panting race to reach it before his legs give out. Mando falls once, then pushes himself up. He doesn’t have the ability to call out around the useless, deflated bag of tissue leaning against the right side of his ribcage, so he keeps pushing forward. And it’s like he’s running in a dream, the pace as which he lurches forward, trailing blood and gore behind him. And he’s trying to move but he keeps almost falling and the figure is getting closer but it isn’t moving and he’s half certain he’s hallucinated it all and this is it. It’s over. All this for almost nothing and what about the kid. What about this kid if it’s over and. It’s over and. And.

And it’s you. Standing there. A long dress lifting slightly with the breeze. Your back is to him, hair swept over and through itself in an intricate braid. When you turn, your face is already contorted in shock.

And still, you are the most beautiful thing he has ever seen.

The Mandalorian falls to his knees, colliding with the ground before he can even process losing feeling in the lower half of his body.

**

He can’t stop having dreams about a skinless figure.

In it, he is Din again. For the first time in a long time. He knows this in the way one just knows things, in dreams.

He can’t stop having dreams about a skinless figure.

He is kneeling before it, in defeat or prayer he does not know. It is one in the same, either way.

He can’t stop having dreams about a skinless figure.

It touches his face gently. When it does, he vomits ticks or leeches, depends on the day. They spill into his hands and he is left there. Staring at them. Writhing, they slip through the fingers of his cupped palms. He always wakes before they reach the ground.

**

On waking, the first thing he notices is that the grass is trying to reclaim the house.

He knows that he is in a house because of the soft mattress beneath him, pressing up and into his body as if in some kind of forgiveness. It’s a single room cabin, a dirt floor, a single bed, a kitchen to the far wall. Incredibly bright with three windows of varied size above the sink. As he opens his eyes, the first thing he sees are sparse but tall green stalks brushing the leg of a sturdy looking olbio-wood table, a messy collection of bloodied bandages, glass bottles, and bowls resting atop its surface. A flower dots the top of only one of the stalks, its petals no bigger than the nail of his thumb. He hears two soft voices, speaking from somewhere above him. Darkness clouds his vision as soon as he realizes he is awake.

When his eyes open again he is already in the process of sitting up, holding his shoulder with a grunt. He fully gains consciousness in the middle of the action, in time to barely recognize a cry of surprise as something clatters to the floor. He swings his head around, right hand automatically going to his holster despite the burning pain the motion conjures. Empty.

He turns sharply and it’s you. It’s you, again, looking all the more surprised at his sudden waking than you had when he was dragging his half-dead body towards you.

Your hands are pressed against your stomach, the wooden bowl of some sludge-like salve at your booted feet. Your eyes are wide, frozen as if he had a weapon to draw. The skin beneath them is puffy and discolored with exhaustion. Your dress is now smeared with what he can only assume is his own rust-brown blood. The dress presses tightly against your chest with your heavy breathing. Mando’s gaze catches there, for a moment, in spite of himself, before traveling again to your face. Wide eyes, plush lips slightly parted--your hair is in a loose bun that has barely managed to contain itself, escaped pieces gently framing your face. You’re one of the most beautiful creatures he has ever seen. His resolve hardens immediately because of it.

You press your lips together firmly in annoyance, almost in tandem with Mando clenching his own jaw. You stoop low to snatch the bowl and pestle from where they lay at your feet, irritation radiating off of you in waves.

“You’re taking my bed, Mandalorian.” Your voice is steady for the most part, but falters slightly with his name. It betrays the fear in your eyes, nearly masked by the tightness in your tone. Regardless, you persist. Straitening with the bowl pressed between your hip and forearm, you  gesture with your free hand towards where he is still reaching for a non-existent weapon. “It is unbecoming to start our acquaintance with threats.”

“I was here with a… a companion,” his voice sounds absolutely ragged over the vocoder. Mando whips his head back around to scan the room, heart pounding. His shoulder feels like it is on fire. He begins to struggle to his feet. He fails.

“The little one is fine, resting.” You blow an offending strand of hair off your forehead with a frustrated, upward huff. “You’ve been out for days. We’ve been up every night trying to keep you breathing. Frankly, I could care less if you choked on your own tongue.” Your voice gets less biting when you’re facing him directly, as if the courage for your snark is dependent on not being able to see him. You continue, “Am’ile, however, is an old friend of an acquaintance of yours. You’d care to show her a little more respect.”

With another huff, you’re turning away and pushing through the piece of fabric that functions as a door. He watches you as you reappear through the wide window stationed just above the kitchen sink. Mando sags against the bed’s simple headrest.

There are little pieces of stained glass that have been strung from the tops of the windows, dripping down like raindrops. He watches them for a moment, clattering into one another. Mando swallows, shaking his head. He tries to take a few deep breaths before attempting to stand once again. He isn’t successful.

“I wouldn’t test that one, Mandalorian.” This voice is much older, slightly raspy in a way that automatically demands a lowered head or a knee pressed into the earth. A long-fingered hand pushes past the fabric still swaying from your exit. An elderly Bardottan woman enters, regarding him a moment. The child coos in the arm she cradles him with, his hands reaching out towards Mando. The Bardottan smiles, wobbling over to the bed and laying the child at his side. “She doesn’t like it when kindness is taken for granted.”

She turns, pulling out a chair from the table and sitting down with a sigh. He can tell her age by the halting way she walks, one four-fingered hand resting against her lower back, her leathered yellow-green skin’s pale stripes dulled by time. “Am’ile Dovalien of Naboo. I am an old friend of Caraynthia Dune, from her Republic days,” she takes her time with her words, and then even more to regard him. “You’re looking rough for wear, Mandalorian. I’d ease up on that shoulder before you put all the girl’s work to waste.”

An old friend of Cara’s. He doesn’t know why it’s surprising by any means. Cara’s discussed her time before the war enough, and it is not like she is… inhibited, he guesses, is the right word…by the Way. So of course she would have “old friends.” Good friends. Maybe it’s surprising because he feels like there are similarities between the two of them that he has not shared with anyone else, odd to think she is able to having something that he does not.

“Who is she? The girl?” The words leave his mouth abruptly, before he can think them through. They hang there for a moment before Am’ile answers.

The Bardottan says your full name, he’s noticed she has a habit of doing so. Between that and her syrupy accent, it lends anyone she mentions in the conversation a kind of regal stature that he can’t help but admire. “She is my student. I hope she didn’t… frighten you too much. It’s rare we get visitors from outside the local village. You’re the first of her kind she’s encountered in almost six years now.”

The child chirps, clambering onto Mando’s chest. The pain is sharp and immediate. The man makes a sound he can’t control, using his good arm to pull the kid off and tuck him into his side. “Thank you, for all of this.” He’s ashamed he didn’t manage to get it out sooner, his lips pressed together firmly under the beskar. “I… I had to retreat before I could complete the job. I don’t have many credits on me but—"

“Do not, Mandalorian,” Am’ile shakes her head. “I would be insulted if you do.” She stands with a struggle, using the edge of the table to help herself up and waddling to his bedside, extending both boney arms for the child. Mando does what he can to help prop him back into the crook of Am’ile’s elbow. “Keep resting, if today’s treatments take well, you can start repairing your ship by tomorrow morning. The locals are a secluded people, they do not like strangers staying for very long.”

“Thank you,” he says. She hums something low in her throat in affirmation, flicking her hand in Mando’s direction with her back already turned. The fabric of the door only stills after a few minutes of swaying.

**

After your first—well, technically second—encounter, you don’t really make conversation when you come in to check on Mando’s healing and clean up the medical station Am’ile and you had established on the kitchen table. It’s all matter-of-fact, from the tilt of your shoulders to the set of your jaw. When you do directly address him, he notices that you stare at the space just above his helmet, never into the t-shaped visor. Never right at him.

He deserves it, he supposes. Never one for talking unless necessary, he’s fine with the complete silence interspersed with: “Okay breathe in, breathe out,” as you check if his stitches can hold, or “try and stand up, walk around the table” hovering a few inches away in case he falls. It seems like Am’ile is the one who takes over the more internal matters, coming in to check on his lung capacity, if his ribs were healing in the proper place.

Apparently the child had to mend the worst of it, now all that was left over was a grinding, bone-deep soreness that comes with being put together from the inside out, as well as some particularly nasty scrapes, the surface remnants of the near-fatal stab wounds. The child had tried to heal those, too, later that morning, but Mando pushed his tiny hand aside, just as he had done the first time.

“No need to waste your energy, womp rat. Save that up for someone else,” he pats the kid’s head as he say this, placing him on the ground with a wince to toddle around the room in search of trouble.

You have your back to the both of them, washing a bowl once filled with Mando’s dirty bandages. You pause as he says this, head tilted slightly over your left shoulder as if contemplating turning around. After a beat, you seem to reevaluate and continue washing the blood out of the bowl, scrubbing at it with a brush heavy with soap. You’re wearing a different dress now, looser, cinched at the waist with a green-brown apron. You dry the bowl with the corner of your apron and start on the next object, a gleaming pair of surgical scissors.

It seems as if you’ve just come from a bath, hair wet and tucked behind your ears as you work. When you first entered, he thinks he heard you mention something about it, now that his condition had stabled. It was mumbled so quietly he almost believes he’s imagined it.

He wants to ask you where the glass hanging from the window is from, how you managed to string it up so perfectly that when the suns get to a certain place, as they were in that moment, it sent a kaleidoscope of colors onto the floor. A kaleidoscope of colors that dapple your face in such a beautiful pattern he half expects he’s in the middle of some torturous spice-dream.

When you turn to leave again, Mando turns his head to stare forward, feigning sleep.

**

When Am’ile confirms that the treatments have taken well, pointing out all the signs to you as you stand back with your arms crossed and nod intermittently, a diligent student. A part of him is okay with being a living anatomy model as long as it means you actually looking at him.

Once given the clear, he spends the next two days working on the Crest. It was, thankfully, in much better shape than he thought. A bit difficult to go about making the repairs the first day with one of his arms in a sling, but breathing is easier and the deep pain has been replaced with a dull ache that is less difficult to push aside for the time being.

You bring him meals and check his stitches at the crash site—you seem to continuously clarify that you’re only doing this because Am’ile’s hips cannot take the inclines of the hills anymore. Every time you hike up the grassy slope towards him you seem to get a little bit braver, looking him evenly in the eyes for short periods each time.

He’s grateful to see you each time. It’s been a long time since he’s eaten anything that wasn’t from a cantina or a freeze-dried bar. Even though he eats quickly, pushing his helm just below the tip of his nose to do so, he savors it all the same. You turn your back to him as he eats for privacy, playing with the child.

His third morning working on the ship, he gets up at dawn. He’s restless and wants to finish the build as soon as possible, get out of here before Greef Karga starts getting antsy with his absence. A very small, very weak part of himself also knows the longer he stays, the more he becomes a threat to a place like this. It’s too warm. Too gentle. He doesn’t belong here. Something about his presence is disruptive. He just knows this.

Mando still can’t bear the weight of the beskar against his bad shoulder. He pulls on the button-down tunic Am’ile had asked him to wear in order to get better access to his stitches with a wince. It’s a dark green kind of fabric, loose enough to fit both him and the bulk of his bandages comfortably. He’s still a bit light headed on his way to the Crest, but once settled beneath the hull he’s fine.

You come up with breakfast at around the same time as the previous day, setting it on the ground a few feet away from him as if he were some kind of cornered animal you were trying to lull into some sense of false security.

The child babbles something unintelligible from your arms as you turn your back and sit down in the grass. The child had been spending nights with you and Am’ile in the neighboring cabin, since Mando had taken the cabin you’d been sleeping in previously. Am’ile told Mando it was so he could get the rest he needs, without having to worry about the little one. One glance at the way you act around the kid makes it plainly clear that you’re absolutely smitten. It’s hard not to be.

Mando eats quickly, lowering his helmet and turning to give you the clear. You don’t respond, too consumed with attempting to thwart the child’s attempts to catch a hopping bug the size of your palm. You’re wearing a tank top and long, brown cargo pants, seated with your legs crossed and leaning forward every so often to plop the kid back into your lap every time he toddles too far.

There’s a moment where he allows his eyes to trace the elegant curve of your shoulders. Something in his throat tightens. Shaking his head as if to clear it, he pushes himself to his feet and resumes the task at hand. Leaning down to pick up a replacement panel, he straightens with a grunt.

“What are you doing?” Your voice surprises him enough to drop the paneling. It barely misses his booted foot. Small hands wrap around both his biceps, pulling him back. “Stars, stop that you’re gonna—”

And suddenly you’re in front of him, a whole head shorter yet already fussing over him like some family pet. You keep talking to yourself as you do so, maneuvering him to sit with his back leaning against the Crest, kneeling beside him as you pop the buttons of his shirt open. It’s like you started in a moment of complete vindication, and how have to keep up the act despite a deflating confidence. “I feel like the best bounty hunter in the galaxy could maybe use some common sense after getting fresh stitches, just a thought but you obviously could care less…”

You keep talking, he knows that because he sees your mouth moving, but after that last word your hands are against his chest, unwrapping the bandages to check the punctured skin underneath. Your bare hands, on his bare chest. Any possible thought he could have formed after the fact left his head instantly.

He couldn’t even remember the last time someone had touched him, especially like this. Before, when you and Am’ile started patching him up, he was out cold. When you checked on his healing wounds the day before, you had politely asked him to remove his shirt and bandages with an undeniable warble in your voice, standing with your hands clasped behind your back and only glancing at his chest before instructing him to refresh his gauze.

They are soft and a bit colder than he’d expected. So soft. One hand is wrapped around his right trapezius, thumb resting in the dip of his collarbone, and the other cupping his left ribs as if he was trying to get away somehow. Something in him instantly stills. You keep your hands like that as you observe the wound. You give another huff,

“Don’t move.” You turn away, scooping up the kid and walking back down the hill.

He’s not sure if it’s in obedience to you or pure shock, but by the time you return, mumbling something about Am’ile taking over babysitting, he hasn’t moved a muscle. You dab on another layer of ointment, rewrapping his bandages. Satisfied with your work, you sniff, placing your hands on your hips to look back up at him. “What do you need lifted?”

Mando blinks, pausing long enough that you narrow your eyes, chin raised. “Well?”

After a beat, he gestures to the panel he dropped earlier. You both work together, in complete silence, for the rest of the day. 

When both suns sit low and heavy in the horizon, you raise your hand to your to your forehead and squint at the place where they are held by the two ragged lines of distant mountains. “It’s a strange kind of beauty, isn’t it.”

He looks at you, looking at the suns. When he doesn’t say anything, you wipe at the sweat and grease smeared across your forehead with the back of your forearm. Wordlessly, you brush your hands off on your pants twice before turning back down the hill.

Mando continues soldering wires. He only pauses an hour or so later, when he hears the song again. He puts down his tools and sits in the grass with his back to the Crest, staring out and into the mountain range before him, the two rocky faces cupping two entangled suns, one indistinguishable from the other. The song is as sweeping and ethereal as when he first heard it, heard you. He takes off his gloves, closes his eyes, and runs his fingers through the grass. He curls them into fists.

**

Later that night, he has to stumble out of the house and into one of the fields in order to keep the thoughts silent. He has the dream again, it is always impossible to keep sleeping after. He’d been up for hours at that point, trying to breathe through bursts of absolute, vision-blurring panic.

Usually he rests in hour-long bursts, whenever the time allows. He’s gone days without it, to the point that it’s more comfortable to refuse it than give in. It always gets worse when he allows himself to sleep at night. Whatever it is, it always gets worse.

But there’s nothing to fucking do here but think.

It’s the bed. There’s something maddening about your mattress. He hadn’t been touched by another, skin to skin, in so long--the trails of fire your gentle hands left made something in his lower abdomen squirm, restlessly. Hopelessly. Without thinking, he lifts his cock from the waistband of his pants.

Nothing in him can keep the images out. The curve of your knuckles brushing his collarbone. His hand rises in a hard stroke. The low hum you gave once you pushed aside his tunic, unraveling the bandages. Eyes searching for damage. Another stroke, this one even more forceful than the last. The light from the glass against your skin, against the elegant curve of your throat. His thumb comes up to catch the head, already seeping with pre-come. Your gentle palm, dwarfed by the bicep it was pressed against yet steady and determined all the same. He’s so hard it’s excruciating and—

That first morning. The way your chest pressed and swelled against the tight fabric of your bodice, your breasts nearly pushing themselves up and over the gentle ivory neckline with each inhale.  

“F-fuck. Fucking sick,” he chokes out in horror as he finishes, his cock pulsing in his hand, his releases onto the damp ground before him. Shame settles itself in place of the writhing desire in his stomach. It is a much deeper feeling, he realizes, as he lowers himself with barely enough energy to tuck himself back into his pants, wiping his hand on the grass already wet with dew.

The girl is just trying to piece you back together and this is all you can think? But he really can’t remember the last time he was touched. With such kindness. Your hands were the softest thing to grace his body for as long as he could possibly remember. He already knows that this, whatever it is, will be devastating. Absolutely devastating. For this reason, something in him will cling to it for as long as he can.

The cold ground welcomes him, it’s the only measure he is given to realize his skin has quickly grown feverish. He almost falls asleep, right there on the ground. But there’s a gentle cry, from the neighboring house, just across the field from his—er, your—cabin. A gentle cry that quickly turns into an all too familiar hiccuping wail. From where he is curled on the ground, he can see right through one of the house’s windows as a lantern flicks on.

It’s just your silhouette, backlit by a warm orange light. You pace in small circles, bouncing the child on your hip, occasionally leaning your head down in what he could only think is to whisper something, just for you and the child. To press a kiss to the dip of his wrinkled forehead. He calms quickly afterwards, but you keep walking anyway. It’s a strange beauty, being able to watch your two forms, the way they bend and lean into the other, rendered indistinguishable by the lantern’s low light. Mando stays there for a long time.

**

“What is that sound?”

It’s almost nightfall again, the next day. Both Am’ile and Mando are seated at the table in your cabin. The Bardottan woman is playing a card game across from him that he’s been silently observing as they wait for one of his final treatments to sink back in. No bacta, here. Am’ile informed him on his first day. Too isolated of a planet. Her remedies are equally good if not better treatment, just needing some patience.

The singing has started again. It’s the only hint of your presence he’s gotten since the morning, when you unceremoniously plopped a plate of food at the food of his bed and told him you had informed everyone to steer clear of the cabin so he could take his time eating without “that thing on your head.” It was the best meal he’d had in a long while, sugared bread with a fruit jam and a piece of meat that tasted like some kind of mutton.

You start singing right as the healing muscles in his right shoulder have started to go warm and tingly with the salve Am’ile applied. When she doesn’t remove her gaze from her cards, he asks her again.

“What is that sound?”

Am’ile glances up, regarding him for a moment. She says your name, softly, turning her horse-like head towards the window to stare out into the gently moving grass, the empty orange of sunset turning the cut faces of the mountains a dull purple. “It’s a traditional song, from her home planet. It’s how they would call in the seasons, pray for the weather they needed to survive—the people here ask her to sing at nightfall. They say she summons a calm night. When she first arrived it… took some negotiating to allow her to stay.” Am’ile has the gentle, warbling voice of an old grandmother. There is another note from outside, long and slow and beautiful, ending in a sharp, high whoop that reverberates against the sides of the hills. “We look after their children when they go for hunts, it’s how we pay for our place here. This planet has been untouched for centuries, but the beasts are fierce. Would put any Endorian boar-wolf to shame.”

“And why is she here, with you?”

Am’ile is quiet for a moment. Her gaze remains fixed out the window. “She is escaping from a new kind of debt, Mandalorian.” The phrasing hangs in the air, static with its own weight. “The, ah… ex-Imperial officials who turned into warlords after the Civil War...” She looks like she does not want to continue any further. Mando waits in silence. She caves, they always tend to.

“The girl was a nursemaid, by label. They have drugs now, that tell your body you are with child. Lactation, pain of the body so deep it keeps you complacent. It’s a fetish for them, functional for their wives with babies they want nothing to do with. Miserable existence. Caraynthia Dune and I did much work trying to free as many girls as possible years ago, when she was still a soldier. I’d given up the fight, started this farm—began working as a healer for the locals, a peaceful people. The girl found me herself. I still have no idea how. She’s a fighter. Stronger than most any I’ve come across.”

Am’ile’s eyes grow sharp in a way Mando never expected they could. He’s taken aback momentarily, she can’t see his hands flex from under the table. “I have trained her to the best of my abilities, she’d be accepted as a distinguished medic at any Republic facility without a bat of the eye.” She doesn’t have to see Mando’s face to know that he’s in the process of rolling his eyes. “The girl is in danger staying here—they don’t care about what they’d consider to be former cattle as long as they don’t mock the warlords by staying sedentary. She may not be an engineer, but she’s professional--one of the best medics I’ve trained. Kindest, too. You’ll need someone to look after that lung,” Am’ile leans forward, resting a boney elbow against the table and extending a long forefinger to circle the space in front of Mando’s chest. She continues, “Amazing with children. Can hold her own well enough in a fight. Please don’t ever tell her I’ve told you this, but she has asked me to ah… propose this to you. Since the first night of your arrival she has asked to help on board. I know you’ve been looking for a… a… caretaker. The girl is it, Mandalorian. I know you’re an honorable man. I know you would treat her fairly, with kindness. It’s what she deserves. She’s all you could possibly ask for.”

The words hang in the air for a long time. Mando leans both forearms against the table, looking down at his loosely clasped hands. He takes five breaths, then looks back up at Am’ile. “One of the best medics you’ve trained?”

“The best,” Am’ile smiles to herself. It appears as if she already knows his answer. “Without hesitation, the best.”

“With that bedside manner?”

There is a beat of complete silence. Then Bardottan woman bursts into gleeful laughter, nodding her head as she does. The joy of it is enough to fill the entire room.

Mando looks down at his hands and allows himself a small, private smile. It was the closest thing to: yes. Absolutely, yes, that he’s brave enough to voice.

**

He can’t stop having dreams about a skinless figure. In it, he is Din, again. For the first time in a long time.

He can’t stop having dreams about a skinless figure. He is kneeling in prayer.

He can’t stop having dreams about a skinless figure. She touches his face gently. He reaches out to her.

[whothehellisyn]

Cat and Mouse | Ch. 1

Series Masterlist

Pairing: Dark!Quentin Beck x Female Reader

Synopsis: You found out who Mysterio really is behind closed doors. You’re about to learn just how dangerous a man seeking revenge can be when you get in his way. He’s a predator on the hunt. And you’re the prey.

Warnings: Unreality and use of illusions, graphic depictions of (illusioned) death, one unsettling monster, dubcon, Dark!Mysterio, predator/prey sexual dynamics, general violence

The way Quentin Beck regards you now is a cat to a mouse. Like a cat, he keeps picking you up and slamming you back down, blow after blow after blow, to stun you over and over again. Unlike a cat, he’s sadistic. There is no pleasure behind a cat’s capture of a mouse. It is basic nature. Every part of this torture, all of it, is derived from a sick sense of entertainment at your expense.

He was once the sweet widower who kissed the top of your head and accidentally called you his wife’s name one night and never forgave himself. He used to whisk you away to restaurants when S.H.I.E.L.D. paperwork got boring and your administrative duties weighed heavily on your shoulders. But not now. You wonder if he ever actually had been. If the sweetness was ever real or if he hated pretending to be so every second. At this point, hours and hours into illusions, you’d wish he’d just use his hands and finally finish you off. An ending to the glorious story.

A giant, skinless beast has been chasing after you, feet pattering on the ground. You’re not sure what it’s supposed to be, but its build is vaguely humanlike. The limbs are long, spindly and slender likes spider. The way it moves, as if it’s not meant to be on all fours, it’s hindquarters raised. It snarls as it pursues you, a gaping maw with teeth like nails gaining proximity to your body. It makes horrific screeching sounds, a haunting call for blood.

It’s been chasing you since the beginning, but Quentin gave you a head start, or so he called it. But he also threw in a myriad of horrifying illusions to slow you down, to add to the terror. You, at one point, watched Peter Parker bleed out from multiple gunshot wounds, face pale and pink around his eyes, which were full of tears and terror. His young little voice trembling and raw. The stench of iron assaulted your senses, and you threw up at least once trying to convince yourself it wasn’t real.

It wasn’t until the monster caught up with you and tore him apart with its teeth that you were able to start running again. Away from his screams. Away from the ripping sound. That was an eternity ago, you think. You stink of bile and blood. Your feet, long ago rid of their shoes, are blistered from running. It’s getting harder to breathe from the dehydration and panting.

“Are you getting tired, Y/N?” Quentin echoes from everywhere and nowhere at the same time. He chuckles softly, adding “Don’t let it catch you!” in a teasing tone. “We wouldn’t want the fun to end so soon.”

The tunnel you’re in is infinite, dark and wet and lit by white fluorescent bulbs maybe thirty feet apart and mounted along the wall. They aren’t buzzing, no comforting white noise to keep you sane. There are no exits or openings. It smells of mold and death. Part of you wants to just stop moving, maybe let the illusion completely and utterly destroy you. Another part wants you to keep running, the threat of a predator apparent.

It is gaining on you with every second. You can hear it’s weird, chittering respiration, you can smell the sickly-sweet breath it’s heaving onto your neck. When it moves a wet glistening sound emits from its joints.

You know you won’t be able to keep running at this pace, with your knees wobbling and muscles tired. You hope to whatever god is out there that you can keep going just a little longer.

“Why don’t we shake things up a little, huh?” He laughs, voice echoing through the tunnel.

The lights shut out. You trip over yourself in the darkness and collapse. Stupid. Clumsy. You flail desperately to get away from the monster that had been so close to killing you but the creature is gone. Maybe forever. It’s dead silent now. You can hear your pulse roaring in your ears.

A hand strokes the back of your hair, almost sweetly. Is it him? Is it real? Is anything real?

You’re too panicked to turn around, trying to catch your breath between swallowing spit to wet your throat. It’s too dry. It’s sticking. And it’s going to make you sick if you don’t drink something soon. You don’t want to throw up again.

“Poor, poor Y/N.” Quentin echoes, faux pity ever present in his tone. “So smart. So gullible.” The hand petting your hair grabs it by the fistful and yanks it, pulling you to the ground as you desperately scramble against the grip. It’s difficult with your legs being so weak from running so long. “Everything was almost perfect. And now I have to see that you make sure it still is.”

When you grab up against his hand to ease the pain in your scalp there’s nothing there. It’s gone just as sudden as it manifested. The loss of an upward force leaves you flailing on the ground, propped up on your elbow. You have to get him to see you. You finally break apart from the panic to hoarsely whisper into the darkness.

“Quentin...” You rasp, words catching in your throat multiple times. “Please, I’ll do anything.” It’s getting harder and harder to breathe. You gag once and try to keep from vomiting.

A circle of Mysterios surround you, each of them getting down on one knee. Every single one has a fishbowl clouding their face, and you don’t know which, if any, is the real Quentin.

“Oh,” They all say, with varying delay, “I know, honey.”

You let out a soft sob and one of them grabs your chin, but you don’t think it’s him.

“You’re going to be doing anything I want, when I want it soon enough.” Quentin says, voice behind you. “Or I’ll leave you here to rot. Let you get ripped apart by the monster in the tunnel, or maybe I’ll have sweet little Peter Parker miraculously rise from the dead and show you what your guts look like on the outside.”

Quentin speaks like he’s planning rather than threatening. You have no way to know what he’s capable of, but he may as well be.

“Do you want to die in here, Y/N?” He asks.

“No.” You whisper, in a little voice broken with tears.

Another Mysterio from your left grabs your face and forces you to look at him. This one is Quentin, you’re sure of it.

“How about you address me with a little more respect, huh?” The fishbowl dissolves and you’re forced to look him in the eyes. The same blue eyes that you wiped tears from just days ago. Were those fake too?

“No, Sir.” You respond, tears welling up. He still has you by your face, pinching your cheeks forward. He smiles victoriously and eases his grip on you.

His thumb slides over your bottom lip and you realize with a sudden anxiety that anything he wants entails a much, much more intimate demand. You brace yourself.

“Now, are you gonna be a good girl for me? Or are you going to die today?” He asks you, voice soft and dangerous. He’s looking at your mouth with a rather sinful glean.

“I’ll be a good girl, Quentin.” You manage to say. It feels dirty coming from your mouth. A white flag. He smiles at you, closed lips, and cups your cheek.

“That’s right.” He affirms. “But you’re not going to be a just any good girl. You’re going to be my good girl.”

“Yes... sir.” You whisper. You want to curl into a ball and die. You’re terrified by the thought of what he’s like sexually if he’s a fucking sadist on the daily like this. You wonder if maybe being gutted by a fake 17 year old is a better ending. You wonder how long he would have loved you as a widower or if he would have done this to you the first chance he got anyways. No use in pondering further now.

“Perfect.” He says, picking you up by the arm rather roughly. “It’s time for your first role. We’re going to play a game.” A little hologram lights up the darkness, a maze of some sort.

“You’re going to hide and run away from me. The point of this game for you is to not get caught.” A little blue figure hides, and when a green Mysterio rounds the corner, it runs to a new hiding spot.

“But if I catch you,” He says, as the virtual mysterio catches the virtual you, “I take you where you stand.” The Mysterio has you pinned against a wall, and it’s clear to you that what happens if he catches you is going to be damning.

“You have 60 seconds before I start looking.” He says, and the hologram becomes a timer counting down from one minute. You take a deep breath, and start running.

————

That’s the end of chapter 1! I’ve had this sitting on my desktop for months and figured I can post it now that the x reader tag for Quentin is dead now. I may update, who knows? I got time on my hands.

Edit: I fixed a bunch of continuity and grammar errors! I was tired as hell last night so forgive me.

[gideongrace]

Hi friend!!! 💖💗 Here is my formal request for the Song Prompt (which is so exciting and fun and genius) for #15 👀😍🥳☺️😋 Your writing is lovely and you're lovely and just thank you for all that you do!!

//Ahhh, thank you! You’re super lovely too and I’m so glad that you’re my friend! Also, sooooo this isn’t at all what we talked about but I think it’s sorta perfect for this song? //

There’s someone kicking at his foot and Billy looks up from his spot curled up into himself in his chair to see if it’s Eleven, but instead finds Henderson staring at him. 

Billy wants to say something mean, something sharp and biting but instead he just puts his head back behind his knees. He’s too tired for this. He can’t deal and Henderson can leave or he can stay but Billy is too tired to care right now. 

But for some reason, Henderson chooses to stay, hopping up on the chair next to Billy and putting a hand on his knee that Billy wants to bite off but again, he’s too tired so he just… sorta leaves it there. 

“So…” Henderson says dryly, “Steve’s in his room, bawling his eyes out, good job there.” The words have nowhere near as much bite as they should and Henderson still has his hand on Billy’s knee like he’s comforting him, like that’s something Billy deserves right now. Or ever.

There’s something deeply wrong with Henderson.

“What happened?“ 

Billy presses his face further into his knees and doesn’t say anything so again, Henderson asks, “What happened?” more forcefully this time. 

“Just,” Billy breathes out. “Don’t ask me, alright?” It’s hard enough on a normal day to keep the nastiness inside of him from spilling out, like it takes most of his effort on a good day, it really does and today he’s literally having to hold himself together to keep it all inside so he really, really cannot deal with this right now, like he’s really gonna fucking lose it any second and he cannot deal.

“Well, Steve can’t tell me, so you’re going to have to,” Dustin says and this time the words have some bite to them and it’s a bite that comes with a hard squeeze by the hand on Billy’s knee that’s just gone from comforting to commanding. 

“Fuck off, Henderson,” Billy says.

“No,” Henderson says, fierce, and if there’s anything Billy truly regrets in this life, it’s the day Henderson grew a backbone. 

Still, even as exhausted as he is and as tired as he is, he can’t just bow out of a fight, can’t just turn tail and run. “Fuck off, Henderson,” he says again. He drops his his feet to the floor but Henderson’s hand stays on his knee. He looks over at the kid and parts his lips just enough to show his teeth and not to smile. 

Henderson doesn’t take the bait, though, just keeps that hand on Billy’s knee, steady as anything and says, “Billy, please,” and Billy wants to scream at him, he wants to yell at this dumb kid that somewhere along the line became his friend, but then he looks down at Dustin’s hand on his knee and he’s sunk. 

“Fine!” Billy snaps. He takes a deep breath and works on pushing back the fire that’s still burning in his throat, the fire that’s been burning him alive ever since he ran out of Steve’s room. “I told Steve I loved him." 

"Okay… and?” Dustin says, like he’s confused, like he’s missing something, which he is. He squeezes Billy’s knee like it’s the trap door, secret trick way to force Billy into making sense.

“And then I ran away,” Billy says.

The temperature in the room feels like it drops a couple of degrees as Dustin spins to look at him head on, dorky hat almost flying off his head as he says, “You did what?" 

"I-” Billy starts but Dustin cuts him off. 

“No, I heard you,” Dustin says, shouting. If the kid had a face or a voice capable of sneering or snarling, he’d probably be doing both right now, but he’s long since learned from his mistakes and just goes with what he’s best at - loud, pitchy shouting. “What I meant was, why?”

Billy shrugs. “It’s complicated.” He drags his knees back up to his chest and buries his face against them so all he can see is blue. Again, Dustin’s hand remains on his knee, unmoving and unmoveable.

“Okay, well, then - you -” Dustin splutters, quickly running out of steam. He’s developed more of a spine in the past year or so, it’s true, but it’s also still a new thing and it doesn’t always last for all that long. “Just…” Dustin lets out a sharp hiss of breath and this time his hand drops away from Billy.

“Go talk to him or I’m dragging El over from where she’s sitting in the cafeteria with Max and I’ll get her to give you the sad eyes until you do it,” he says. Billy peeks over at him, sees his ridiculous, forced, sunshine bright grin and wants to just hide his face behind his knees for the next thousand years, until they’re all dusty, decayed, skinless, meatless corpses. 

He sneaks another look a second later and realizes it probably wouldn’t help anyway, even as a dusty (ha!), decayed, skinless, meatless corpse Henderson’s default state would probably still somehow include that stupid grin, forced or otherwise. 

No, he’s going to have to deal with this. 

“No need to sic El on me, Henderson,” Billy says, hands flying out from his legs and body unfurling. “I’ll go." 

He gets to his feet and Dustin’s still giving him that ridiculous, forced smile so Billy rolls his eyes and says, "You can cut it with the look, it’s pathetic, man.”

Dustin merely arches an eyebrow at the insult and points a hand towards Steve’s room. “Go already,” he says, tone not quite sharp enough to cut but definitely sharp enough to poke and to hurt.

“I’m going, I’m going.” Billy turns to face down the hall that’ll lead him to Steve’s room and in that instant he can’t help but feel a little like a man walking to the gallows, a man preparing for his death. 

Suddenly, there’s a hand on his shoulder. “It’ll be okay, man,” Dustin says quietly. 

“Thanks.” Billy doesn’t really believe him, but he says it anyway. He pauses another second, waits for Dustin to drop his hand, then finally starts walking back towards Steve. 

///

Billy enters Steve’s room to find him lying in bed with his eyes closed, just asleep probably, but he’s so still and so pale with the way the fading sunlight from the window is hitting him that it sucks all the air from Billy’s lungs like they’re just gonna shrivel up and die and deprive him of all oxygen until he himself just shrivels up and dies. Like Steve almost died. 

Because Steve almost died and Billy can’t draw a proper breath; he’s drowning, he’s capsized and he’s drowning and his lungs are filling with something and it’s not air and his heart is racing, it’s pitching a fit, screaming at him in retaliation for earlier, when it frosted over, then for the fire after that and now for this. Now there’s this and Billy can’t breathe and his heart won’t stop pounding, won’t stop screaming at him you did this, you did this. This is all your fault, all your fault, he could have gotten away but you did this, you keep him here and you keep him in danger. You did this. You did this. You did this. Your fault.

He slides into the chair by the bed and feels his heart pick up speed, faster and faster and faster, you-did-this, you-did-this, you-did-this, your-fault, your-fault, your-fault. Every beat sends the words crashing into his brain to explode there like fireworks until he has to close his eyes against the sharp sting of seeing Steve like this.

“I’m so sorry, Steve,” he says, quiet, somehow. Slow, even as his heart continues to go faster, faster, faster, you-did-this, you-did-this, you-did-this, your-fault, your-fault, your-fault. Billy wants to cry out with the pain of it, but instead he says, “You shouldn’t be here with me, you should’ve left town ages ago, if you were smart, you’d leave town, leave me. I’m not worth staying for and I really wish you knew that.” It’s a complete reversal of how he felt earlier, when Steve was looking at him and Billy told him he loved him and wanted to hear him say it back. It’s a complete reversal, but it’s also the truth. 

Because this is how he’d expected things to look when he was sitting in the emergency room with Eleven, this was how he expected things to look but he’d expected them to be worse. He’d expected, he’d played it out a thousand times in his head, that a doctor would come up to them and say, “You can see him, but there wasn’t much we could do,” or, “I’m sorry but he didn’t make it,” or, “We did what we could but we don’t know if he’ll wake up." 

And if Steve hadn’t woken up, if Steve had died, if he’d never gotten to see Steve smiling at him again, never gotten to look into his big, brown eyes and call him "Bambi” or “Pretty Boy” ever again, he doesn’t know what he would’ve done. But even this is too much. Even this should never have happened, which is a fact his heart won’t let him forget as it continues its non-stop assault on the rest of his body, beating out the words your-fault, your-fault, your-fault in an increasingly erratic pattern.

“I’m not worth staying for,” he says again, still so soft, still so quiet. “I’m not.”

This time, Steve responds. “Yes, you are." 

Billy opens his eyes to find Steve staring at him. Steve sits up in the bed a little and slowly raises a hand to Billy’s chest, setting his fingers over Billy’s heart and for the first time in what feels like his whole life he can breathe, like really, truly breathe. 

"Is this why you ran away earlier?” Steve says. “Because you think that you’re dangerous? Because you think it’d be better for me if I left?”

Billy can feel the fire inside him spark back to life and start burning up the edges of his throat again; he doesn’t trust himself to speak so instead he just nods. But Steve is right. That’s exactly what it was. It actually wasn’t any different, after all. 

And the thing is, nobody’s ever really bothered to understand Billy before. Nobody’s ever really even cared to try, but Steve, not only does Steve try, Steve actually understands him, sees right through him and all his bullshit in a way he’s still not used to, in a way he still doesn’t really know what to do with, in a way he might never really know what to do with no matter how long Steve is willing to put up with him for.

“Billy…” Steve sighs. “It’s the exact opposite. You saved me. Before you I was just gonna…” Steve laughs but it’s sharp, jagged. “Marry some girl, work for my father, settle in for the boring, average life that had been set up for me. Instead, I…” He gulps. “Instead I have you and this love I never thought I’d ever have and you… you saved me, okay? You did.”

Billy leans into Steve’s touch, so aware of everything it’s painful - he can’t look away from Steve, from his big, brown eyes, so soft in the now near darkness or from his cracked pink lips and he starts to feel his lungs shriveling up again, starts to feel his heart start to scream again and this time it’s saying you-still-aren’t-enough, you-still-aren’t-enough, you-still-aren’t-enough. The room feels impossibly small, overloaded with the weight of all of the emotion between them. Steve doesn’t shy away from any of it, just stretches his hand slightly to dip a finger inside the gold chain that’s still always around Billy’s neck before sliding his hand back down, pressing his hand and the chain to Billy’s skin, to his heart screaming you-still-aren’t-enough, you-still-aren’t-enough, you-still-aren’t-enough and for the first time, Billy doesn’t care. He doesn’t listen. His heart is wrong. The look in Steve’s eyes is what matters.

“I love you, too,” Steve says.

Billy’s breath hitches in his throat again and his heart stops its’ relentless wailing scream and instead starts to sing, Steve loves me, Steve loves me, Steve loves me. 

Steve loves me.

“I love you,” Billy says. “So much." 

Steve swallows and this time he looks… determined. "You’re not going to run away again, are you?" 

"No,” Billy says, voice raw. “I won’t ever run away from you again, I promise." 

Steve doesn’t quite look like he believes Billy so he says it again. "I promise.” He leans in. “I promise." 

He kisses Steve’s cheek, tastes the salt left there by his tears and silently decides to make a point of not ever again being the cause of Steve’s tears, not if he can help it. "I promise,” he says again as he moves to kiss Steve’s other cheek. “I promise.” He kisses his chin. “I promise." 

"I believe you,” Steve says, and Billy kisses Steve’s lips, then the bridge of his nose before saying it one last time. 

“I promise." 

Then he leans his forehead against Steve’s, closes his eyes and just… breathes.

// canon but gayer verse - part one - part two - part three +part four+ part five //

[profiler-in-courage]

They are killing me with their sexual tension. Creekmore Ch.7

I have big and scandalous plans up ahead.

Chapter 7

The first body since the two high school girls had been found. Judging from the decomposition it had been out there for a few weeks. 

When Emerson got to the woods on the edge of town, he saw one of the cops that had found her vomiting behind his patrol car. 

Once he saw the body he could see why. It wasn’t for the faint of heart. 

“Who is she?” asked Emerson, feeling like he was stuck to an anvil sinking to the bottom of the ocean.

The face was completely torn off the skull. Black holes where the nose and eyes were remained. Her blonde dreadlocks were filthy and matted with blood. 

“Her ID says Camille Glenn. Twenty-six lived in the mobile homes on Laramore Lane,” answered Burnham. 

No one had reported her missing. It was luck that Creekmore had heavy rain yesterday. It washed away the shitty burial job. 

The lazy burial job, thought Emerson. 

The killer wanted Camille to be found. 

The small forest was a popular place for morning runners and high school kids looking to smoke after school. If you wanted to hide a body there you would have to dig deep, not just throw a few shovels of dirt and debris over it.  

The sun was starting to peak over the trees. Birds began chirping. Life filled the air even though death was all around. 

“Footprints? Tire tracks?” asked Emerson even though he already knew the answer. 

Burnham clenched his jaw, tearing his eyes away from what was left of the girl. 

“Rain washed them away if there was any to begin with.” 

Emerson offered a curt nod. 

*****************************************************************************************************

As he drove back to the precinct, Emerson was deep in thought. 

He envisioned the evidence board him, Burnham, and a few others had set up. Pictures of the victims, names, locations, possible connections, he had memorized it. 

He mentally added Camille Glenn. 

His stomach hurt. This had been one of the most brutal murders he had ever seen. Normally it was a gunshot wound, a stab wound, blunt force trauma, but nothing like this. This was evil. 

He actually felt sick and he hadn’t felt like that after seeing a body since his first year on the job.

Emerson felt a darkness settling into his mind. Almost like a depression though he wasn’t depressed. His life was actually in a good place right now. 

Ever since their first date nearly four weeks ago, Emerson and Gwyn had seen each other almost every day. Most of the time it was dinner after work, sometimes their schedules only allowed for a quick coffee. But they had made time for each other. 

In fact, he was the happiest he had been in a long time. Then why the cloud of doom?

Emerson shook his head, trying to clear his mind. He pulled into the parking lot and braced himself for a long day. 

*****************************************************************************************************

When she wasn’t working on commissioned pieces, Gwyn worked at an art gallery downtown. Today they were switching the exhibits around so she had gotten there early. 

Paintings and sculptures that had been on display for over two months were taken out and replaced. 

She was trying to center a watercolor Impressionist painting when she heard her boss walking up to her. 

Nancy was in her 50s and looked like exactly the type of woman who would run an art gallery. Stern but approachable and very kind once you got to know her. She reminded Gwyn of the teacher you hated at first but grew to love. 

“Did you hear they found another body this morning?” she said, chewing at her maroon painted nails.

Gwyn’s eyes went wide, “Where?” 

“The woods. The Creekmore Bulletin posted about it a few minutes ago,” answered Nancy, staring at the watercolor as if to distract herself. 

Gwyn made Nancy pull up the article on her phone. As she read it her stomach dropped. Her first thought was of Emerson. 

Knowing he had seen that girl. Or what was left of her. Shockingly, The Bulletin hadn’t really censored details. 

Gwyn knew Emerson was a seasoned detective but still. Seeing something like that was bound to have an affect. 

She found her thoughts were of him most of the time. Where before they had centered around her work or other hobbies.

They had only spent a little under a month together but she was beginning to feel like she had known him a lot longer than that. 

He was potent. Was that the right word? 

Everything about him filled her senses. 

*****************************************************************************************************

Emerson grabbed his coat before Burnham or anyone else could say another word to him. He had been awake since 4 a.m. and he was ready to go home and take his mind off evidence boards and skinless faces. 

As he stepped out the precinct doors, his phone rang. 

“Hey cowboy, how does dinner at my place sound?” 

Gwyn’s voice floated through the phone providing Emerson with a boost to his mood and energy. 

“That sounds wonderful actually. I can pick something up on the way if you’d like? I’m about to leave the office,” he said. 

“I could go for some Thai food…” answered Gwyn. 

*****************************************************************************************************

Gwyn heard a knock on her door. She skipped over to it knowing it was Emerson. 

“Well if it isn’t the most handsome delivery man in town,” she said. 

Emerson offered a faint smile as he walked in. 

Something was off. Gwyn could already tell.

“It’s funny you like drunken noodles. That’s what my niece likes too,” Emerson said as he set the take-out on the counter. 

“She has good taste,” Gwyn replied, moving to hug him from behind. 

He turned to face her. His eyes looked exhausted. 

“I missed you,” she said softly. 

Emerson bent his head to kiss the tip of Gwyn’s nose. They were still somewhat shy around each other, sometimes hesitant to make the first move. Though today his mind was too concerned with other things to be filled with nerves. 

“And I you,” he replied. 

Gwyn clasped both hands around his neck, gazing at him. 

“I take it you don’t want to talk about work?” 

Emerson ran his thumb over her chin and shook his head. 

And just like that their moment was gone as he turned to plate the food that was sure to be getting cold. 

Gwyn glanced over at Emerson. He had been spinning the same section of Pad Thai around his fork for 10 minutes. 

“Is your food not good? You can have some of mine?” she said with a mouthful of noodles. 

Emerson shrugged, “I’m not that hungry. I had a long day.” 

Gwyn frowned, “Wouldn’t a long day mean you were starving?”

The detective’s eyes flicked up to meet hers, “Not in this case.” 

Literally, he thought. 

Gwyn took his plate from him and set both on the coffee table. 

“Are you tired? Maybe you should lay down.” she remarked, pushing him playfully onto his back. 

The soft leather caressed Emerson’s head. He closed his eyes. He felt Gwyn trail kisses along his jaw. 

He felt her body weight hovering above him and he reached to skim a hand through her hair. Though their moment was once again ruined as the image of Camille Glenn’s skinless face barreled its way into his mind. 

Emerson sat up and massaged his temples with three fingers. Gwyn sat up beside him. 

“What’s wrong?” she asked quietly. 

She could tell something was troubling him. Whether or not he was too stubborn to reveal it to her was still yet to be known. 

Gwyn gently rubbed circles on his back with her palm, awaiting his response. Though she already knew what it would be. 

The dead girl in the woods. 

He looked at her, his mouth covered with a fist. They sat in silence for a moment before he caressed the side of her face. 

“Nothing you need to worry about,” he said. 

As if she didn’t read the news. 

“Emerson….” she began, treading lightly. 

Their time to talk was over as he leaned over and kissed her. His hands began to roam. 

I guess I can let him off the hook this time, she thought as she sighed into his mouth. 

They had still not been intimate with each other. Hell she didn’t even know if they were an item. Was that a thing? 

Was acknowledging exclusivity a thing for people their age? 

Gwyn hadn’t been in a serious relationship since she was 28. The last remaining year of her twenties until now had been filled with flings, dates, friends with benefits and the like. 

It wasn’t until four months ago when she had turned 33 that she decided she wanted something more. She wanted to start building a life with someone. 

Did she want Emerson to be her boyfriend? 

Yes, she thought as goosebumps rose on her skin from his sensual kisses. 

How long was long enough to be official? 

She had been out of the relationship game for too long. 

Gwyn let Emerson move over her. She looked up at him. At the man who was fast on his way to earning her adoration. 

She took his face in her hands, momentarily preventing him from planting anymore kisses. 

He blinked slowly, saying nothing. 

Emerson studied her. He could see the cogs in her mind turning. She was thinking about something just as he was trying not to think of something. 

“What is it?” he asked. 

“Nothing I just like looking at you,” Gwyn remarked. 

He chuckled, turning his face to kiss her hand. 

Gwyn wanted him more in that moment than she had in any other. 

“Do you want to go in the other room?” she asked, feeling anxious as soon as she said it. 

Emerson held her gaze, “I do...but not tonight.”

He wanted their first time together to be special. He wanted to think of nothing but her in that moment. And if they were to have that moment tonight, his mind would be elsewhere. 

Brief disappointment flashed across Gwyn’s face. Emerson caught it. 

“Work was hard today. I can’t stop thinking about it. That’s all,” he reassured her.

She smoothed his hair. He was tired. She could tell. 

“Stay here tonight,” she said. 

“Gwyn….” 

She sat up, taking Emerson’s hand. 

“I think we have known each other long enough for you to spend the night. And sleep,” she added. “Relax.” 

She offered the last part as a joke to lighten the tension. 

“Sleep sounds nice,” Emerson said, a yawn escaping. 

Gwyn noticed how weary he looked. Today had been a long day indeed. He looked haunted. She wanted to help. 

“I don’t know...I am exhausted,” he said. 

Gwyn rolled her eyes, “Emerson. When I said sleep I meant sleep.” 

His eyes searched hers, “I know but…”

Gwyn undid the top button of his grey shirt. 

“But nothing. You're staying. We are sleeping. It’s settled.” 

Emerson couldn’t help but smile as he followed her to her bedroom. 

Ch. 1

Ch. 2 & 3

Ch. 4

Ch. 5

Ch. 6

[thevintagebluebird]

Unpinned - French Onion Chicken

Welcome back, my lovelies! Since we last met the entire world has turned upside-down. Everything has changed! Holding hands is from the BEFORETIME. Being in other people’s houses is from the BEFORETIME. Restaurants are from the BEFORETIME. I could go on and on about the darkest timeline we find ourselves in, but after losing all sense of self and purpose in this nightmare reality, one thing has become clear: we still gotta eat. On a recent Zoom call with dear friends (the bizarre irony of how we’d never met face to face until a pandemic was not lost on me) I was reminded of this blog. Bless their hearts, they had kind words to say about my ramblings. So I thought WHAT THE HECK, IT’S NOT LIKE I DON’T HAVE THE TIME! (Ha, time and any semblance of meaning are *also* from the BEFORETIME) so here we are. I cooked a thing and now I’ll tell you about it.

French Onion Chicken! From the folks who make those cute facebook cooking videos, Delish! I guess they have a magazine too. I get a little suspicious of any publication that claims the majority of their recipes are ‘TEH BEST EVAR’, but after this dish I could be convinced.

Verdict: Is the Pintrest photo complete bullshit? - I’ll let you be the judge when you see the photo of my finished product, but I’m going to quietly sit over in the corner nodding furiously in the meantime.

Is it crazy expensive/time consuming/confusing? - The only pricey ingredient was a block of gruyere, and it was worth every single penny! It took about 45/50 minutes from start to finish but time is a cruel joke anyway so who cares? It was pretty straightforward and easy!

Does it taste good? - YES. MAKE IT.

French Onion Chicken

Ingredients

3 tbsp. extra-virgin olive oil, divided

1 large onion, halved and thinly sliced

2 tsp. freshly chopped thyme

Kosher salt

Freshly ground black pepper

2 cloves garlic, minced

1 3/4 lb. boneless skinless chicken breasts, cut into 1" pieces

1/2 tsp. dried oregano

2 tbsp. all-purpose flour

1 1/2 c. low-sodium beef broth

1 c.shredded Gruyère

Freshly chopped parsley, for garnish (optional)

Preparation

In a large skillet over medium heat, heat 2 tablespoons oil. Add onions and season with salt, pepper, and thyme. Reduce heat to medium-low and cook, stirring occasionally until onions are caramelized and jammy, about 25 minutes. Stir in garlic and cook until fragrant, 1 minute more. Turn off heat and remove onion mixture. Wipe skillet clean.

In a large bowl, season chicken with salt, pepper and oregano, then toss with flour. Heat remaining oil in same skillet over medium-high heat. Add chicken and cook until golden on all sides and mostly cooked through, about 8 minutes.

Add beef broth and return caramelized onions to skillet. Bring mixture to a boil, then reduce heat and simmer until chicken is cooked through and beef broth reduces slightly, about 10 more minutes.

Add Gruyère and cover skillet with a lid. Cook until cheese is melty, about 2 minutes. Remove from heat and garnish with parsley before serving.

Here’s what you need! You’ll notice a small pile of leaves at the front and may wonder why I’ve thrown foliage onto my counter. Long story short: Allan’s lovely Aunt Kathi and Uncle Eli gave us bags of fresh herbs from their garden, and we’ve been making such fancy herby dishes! These are the last fresh sage leaves; I know the recipe calls for thyme but we’ve got sage so now the recipe calls for sage.

 First thing’s first: oil up your trusty cast iron. You’ll notice that it looks like I’ve smeared dark gritty mud along the bottom of mine, and that is because I am a lazy no-good cast iron owner who does not properly season her pan. It’s frankly a disgrace. I will pay someone to fix it for me.

Slice yer onions! Somehow this giant beast didn’t even make me tear up!

At this point the meal could be done and I’d be pretty happy - who doesn’t love a pan of hot onions? They started to smell tasty, which was great ‘cause our apartment has lately had a weird smell of old meat, which is EXTRA concerning because we haven’t cooked any meat at all this week. Why does it smell like meat.

IT APPEARS WE’RE OUT OF THYME. AHAHAHA AREN’T WE ALL? Sorry guys, I’m realizing now that this cooking experiment was also a litmus test of my current five-months-into-lockdown mental state. Clearly I’m fine. Also we had sage so it was all good.

Sage-y onions. The kitchen was smelling very, very good.

I really had to trust the recipe on this one and let the onions cook for the full 20+ minute time even though I was oddly anxious they would burn. I ended up turning the heat down to low when I started to see a lot of crisping. To distract myself, I started chopping the chicken breast into cubes. They were meant to be about 1″ x 1″ x 1″ but most of them came out more like .5″ x 6″ x 2.89″.

My patience paid off! The onions, looking quite “jammy” and caramelized! I kept wondering what “jammy” would look like but I think it’s just a fancy way of saying “sticky and mushy”. Adding my scoop of jar-garlic because even in lockdown I don’t have time to mince fresh garlic.

This bit was a little tricky: it called for two tablespoons of flour to “coat” the chicken but I wasn’t sure how such a tiny amount of flour was going to “coat” jack squat. So here’s the heavily-seasoned chicken on the cutting board, and my tentative first attempt at adding flour.

It just sort of made the pile of raw chicken into a slightly more-beige, stickier pile of raw chicken. I was unconvinced. 

Ok I got them in the pan to start cooking and it looks vaguely like normal chicken? Now my instinct is to cook the shit out of chicken until it’s just little shreds of carbon to avoid salmonella, but I see that the recipe says that to let it finish cooking once we add/boil the liquid, so against my better judgement I just cooked them “medium rare” and moved on. 

It called for a cup of shredded cheese but I just shredded the whole block because honestly when in history has a dish ever been ruined by too much cheese? (Spoiler: never)

Oh wow! It looked so good when I added the stock and onions back in! We used mushroom stock ‘cause we’re trying to minimize our beef consumption and also mushrooms are delicious.

BUT THEN IT TURNED INTO THIS WATERY MESS WHEN I ADDED AND STEAMED THE CHEESE!

This is not staged, this is 100% exactly the face I was making as I saw what my end result was looking like. It was definitely straight-up soup, and no thickening instructions in sight.

So I harkened back to my years of training as Thanksgiving sous-chef with my grandma! Whip out your trusty cornstarch and turn that soupy frown upside down!

Take out your commemorative New Milford mug (whoot whoot hometown pride oh god I miss traveling across state borders) and make a cornstarch slurry. Starts as cement-like glue-chunks, add drops of water and keep scraping until it becomes an opaque liquid. 

So here’s how it looked immediately after adding the ~1.5 tbsp cornstarch slurry and then after a good stir and extra minute on the heat. No more soup! 

And finally plated: atop some brown rice (cooked with homemade chicken stock) and little zucchini pizza bites (made from one of the monster zucchini from my garden). 

Final final verdict: It really did NOT look like the Pintrest photo, but to be fair I did skip the (apparently essential) step of adding fresh parsley - between you and me I’m pretty sure they hit it with a blow torch to get that nice crispy top. BUT! This was actually DELICIOUS. Like, really really good. The chicken was moist, the cheese flavor was sublime, the onions were jammy to the extreme: I’m definitely going to make this again!

[spin-birdie]

What about some cold-blooded torture for the Bad Things Happen Bingo. I'm a sucker for angsty shit

sorry this took fuckin forever, it took a while for me to get a decent idea for this one. enjoy 1990 words of connor suffering

word count: 1.9k

pairing: none ig

additional tags: whump, body horror, leg trauma, android gore, graphic descriptions of violence, like seriously a lot of violence i think i went over the top whoops

Connor awakens slowly, blinking away distorted error messages and opening his eyes to a rusty ceiling. He doesn’t recognize the room he’s in on sight, and his mind palace is too corrupted to run his GPS software. He’s been awake for not even twenty seconds, but dread and panic fill his mind quickly.

He tries to sit up, only to find himself stuck. He’s lying face-up on a table - metal, based on the sounds produced by his body struggling against it - and his arms and legs are tightly bound with steel rope. He pulls away from the bonds, trying to free himself in every way he knows, but nothing works. He’s only making noise and causing himself discomfort.

The only part of him that isn’t completely restrained is his head, so he takes the chance to look around the room. The walls and ceiling appear to be made of tin, though it’s so rusted out that it’s hard to tell. Shelves and tables all along the walls seem to have various tools and biocomponents lined up along them. Arms and legs, eyes and hearts and pump regulators, some in containers, some just lying in the open. The empty, limbless chassis of an ST300 lies face-down in the corner of the room. Even without his mind palace fully operational, he can detect countless thirium stains all over the room and the table he’s strapped to.

Once upon a time, a sight like this wouldn’t have fazed Connor in the least. Now, it makes his gut twist uncomfortably, sends a chill down his spine. This room has seen so much death. The fact that he’s restrained can’t mean anything good.

Connor can’t see his own stress level, but he can guess that it’s fairly high. He struggles harder against the ropes, tries to rub his wrist into it. If he can detach even one of his hands, maybe he can figure something out.

Unfortunately, he seems to have drawn too much attention. A door squeaks open somewhere out of Connor’s line of sight, followed by the sound of heavy, echoing footsteps.

“Who’s there?” Connor says, craning his neck to look behind him. He’s greeted by the upside-down visage of a human woman he can’t identify. He continues to struggle, despite knowing it’s no use.

The woman doesn’t speak. Someone else steps into the room behind her. He’s carrying a camera and a tripod in his arms. Connor can’t see their faces properly. They’re wearing masks styled to look like skinless androids.

“Who are you?” Connor yanks on his restraints. Despite his best efforts, panic creeps into his voice. “What do you want?!”

The humans exchange glances. The woman walks around the table until she’s standing at Connor’s feet. The cameraman only walks close enough for Connor to see him out of the corner of his eye.

“We’re going to send a message to your charge,” the woman says. Her voice is pitched down unnaturally; Connor can’t recognize it. “Markus. The leader of the machines.”

“People,” Connor insists. “We’re just people who want to be free.”

The woman’s voice remains unchanged. “You’re anomalies. It’s not you’re fault; you were designed to integrate with human society, and in the process, you lost sight of your true purpose. Servitude.”

Connor stops struggling and grinds his teeth. “If you think Markus is just going to roll over--”

“We know he won’t,” the cameraman interjects. “He fought tooth and nail for the freedom you don’t deserve. But he cares about his colleagues. He cares about you specifically.”

“Which is why we brought you here,” the woman finishes. She turns to the cameraman and nods.

The cameraman sets his camera and tripod down on a table and walks over to Connor. Before he can react - not that he knows how he’d react - the man lifts his head up roughly and sticks something into the access port on his neck. Connor jolts, blinking rapidly as the unknown data copies itself into Connor’s system. The specific details of said data are incoherent and jumbled up, his mind palace too damaged to tell him what’s happening.

Halfway through the process, his neck starts to burn and ache. He twitches away from the sensation, but it follows him. It’s unlike any discomfort he’s felt before; his sensory feedback is advanced, but whatever this feeling is, it’s completely foreign. He hates it.

“What are-- Ow! What is that--?!”

The download finishes, and the man tears the data drive from his neck. He feels the pull of it, but it aches, sending sparks up and down his back.

“It’s pain,” the woman says. She doesn’t elaborate.

“What does that mean?” Connor demands. He pulls the rope again. It digs into his skin uncomfortably.

“It means you’re going to suffer for the sake of your kind.” She turns to the cameraman. “Get the hammer.”

Connor follows the man’s movement as he walks away, picking up a sledgehammer in the opposite corner of the room. His stomach drops, and on instinct, he struggles wildly. Sharp discomfort shoots through his wrists and ankles, but he ignores it. He has to escape. He has to get back to Markus and warn--

In the very next instant, Connor’s vision goes white, and he emits a sound he didn’t know he could make. Warnings flash past his eyes, illegible and too numerous to comprehend. He thrashes in his restraints, kicking and choking on another scream as unimaginable pain consumes him.

“Don’t kick. You’ll only make it worse.”

Connor coughs; something an android shouldn’t be able to do. He looks down at the hammer, where it rests upon what used to be his ankle until a few seconds ago. He doesn’t need to see the wound directly to know all that remains is a mess of shattered white plastic, flattened grey metal, and blue blood.

It’s the worst thing he’s ever felt. Worse than the chill of the Zen Garden. Worse than guilt. Every sensor in his body is on fire. It’s like he’s dying again; only it’s so much worse than feeling it secondhand. He wants to vomit, but he’s physically incapable. Not that it would do him any good if he could.

The woman is unfazed. “Keep going.”

The sledgehammer comes down on his other leg. This time, it’s his knee that gets crushed and split apart. Connor whites out again, shrieking as if it will save him from the pain. He tries to force himself into stasis, but doing so only yields an error message and more pain. He feels it in his eyes, and nothing has even touched them.

Once, twice, three more times the hammer is brought down on random parts of his body. His other knee, his shin, his elbow. After that, Connor loses count. The pain is no longer centered on specific parts of his body; it’s omnipresent and inescapable. No part of him hurts more than another. It’s agony no creature should be subjected to.

By the time he hears the hammer clatter to the ground, Connor’s extremities are completely unresponsive. Most of them have fallen off, too mangled to stay attached. He could try to roll off the table, but it’s like they planned for that; his left wrist is all that’s restraining him now. Even if he could escape, he wouldn’t get far with broken legs.

The sound of the hammer being set down fills Connor with relief. It’s quickly replaced with fear when the man tears Connor’s shirt open and picks up a pair of pliers, holding it over Connor’s stomach.

“No, stop!” Connor pleads as his stomach panel is forced open. “That hurts! Get off me-- Make him stop! STOP!”

The torturers disregard him completely. The man looks over to his counterpart. “What do I do?”

“Disconnect everything that isn’t vital. Make sure he stays conscious and verbal.”

The pliers haphazardly dig into Connor’s wires, pulling them open to slip deeper into his chassis. The agony is unbearable, prompting screams of almost animalistic torment. Connor instinctively curls away from them, but they’re inside his stomach; moving even a little sends even more torturous misery through Connor’s system.

He can’t see anymore; too many bright red, corrupted warnings appear faster than he can take them in. He’s positive that he’s the closest to physically ill that an android can be, and it’s just from the pain. He’s retching and coughing uncontrollably, like his body is trying to eject the intrusion but forgot he can’t vomit. The pain gets exponentially worse with every heartbeat, but his heart just keeps beating faster from the sheer trauma of the experience. The pain is in his CPU now; he literally feels it in his brain.

He can’t think, can’t move, can barely speak. Bits of him slowly go offline as more of his biocomponents are picked apart from their wires. Thirium is pooling in his chassis, but at some point the pliers stabbed all the way through to his back and opened up, splitting him open from the inside. He feels it soaking through his clothes, distantly hears it dripping onto the floor.

He’s not going to shut down, but that might be the worst part of it. He just wants it to stop. He wants everything to stop. The torment has gone on for far too long, and there’s no hope of adapting to it.

He wants to thank every deity in existence when the pliers are finally removed, but he’s too exhausted. Not even physically; the emotional trauma of the experience has just taken everything out of him. He feels like he’s overheating, but his cooling fans, his lungs, they’re all offline. He can’t move a muscle. He barely has muscles to move anymore. He wants to sleep, but the lingering pain is too immense to allow him that luxury.

“Can you speak?” the woman asks.

Connor tries to look at her, but he’s completely paralyzed. He clenches his jaw. It hurts.

“Ffff...fuck you...” he spits. His voice is heavy with tears he doesn’t remember shedding. There’s blood in the back of his throat. His vision is completely dark. The error messages no longer appear.

“Should I set up the camera now?” the man asks.

“Yes.”

---

The sight of the deviant leader falling to his knees would be enough to alarm anyone, but considering he’s been worried sick over his missing friend for days, everyone hurries to his aid.

“Markus, what’s wrong?” North asks. “What is that?”

Markus looks between North, Josh, and the tablet in his hands. He chokes back a sob. “It’s... Connor, he’s...look...”

He turns the tablet and replays the video so the others can see. Josh immediately puts a hand over his mouth. “Oh my God...”

It’s Connor, bleeding from the mouth and strapped to a bloody table. His clothes are torn and stained with thirium, his stomach is wide open, and he looks completely unfocused. He’s mumbling to himself; almost too muffled to make out, but they can barely hear him pleading, “It hurts... Make it stop... Kill me...”

Then the angle shifts over to someone clad in black, wearing a mask. “This is what freedom has cost you,” they say in a too-even voice. “You androids are lost and in pain. You’ve lost sight of what’s important, and you’re suffering for it. If you want the RK800 back, then stop trying to merge with humanity. Further details will be disclosed after this message is broadcast to your followers. You have two days to comply.”

The figure steps over to the table and puts a hand on Connor’s forehead. He visibly bristles at the contact as his head is pushed to the side, towards the camera. “Do you have anything to say to your charge?”

His eyes aren’t even on the camera, but they’re filled with misery. “Markus...” he whispers. “Markus, it hurts... Help...”

Markus caves in on himself, tears falling uncontrollably.

[resistingfateymir]

Captain Annie: The First Avenger

AOT Manga Spoilers.

Amino Conscripto 2019 challenge: Disney x AOT

On my Ao3 and Fanfiction accounts.

This was always going to happen. It was decided. It’s probably happened, once before. Maybe in a different way, but this is how she wakes today. Any inconsistency explained with one word: PATHS.

__________________________________________

An Island of Devils. Annie is cursed, cursed with the Power of the Female Titan. She’s completed many operations, always for a supposed greater good. Yet this is where she falls.

Mikasa slices Annie’s giant, skinless fingers. Landing delicately ontop her head. “Now fall.”

Crash.

She can’t escape. Eren’s giant form. Not a Titan, but a devil. Raging in flames, ready to bite down on her nape with incisor teeth. This can’t be the end?

Annie has to do it. The Titan researchers said it would be her last resort, now’s a better time than ever.

Woosh.

Blue crystals form over her body, encasing her. Pushing back Eren, Mikasa, and everyone. Away, to leave Annie isolated. Her eyelids flutter before sealing shut in the ice.

“Reiner, Berthold. Come save me.”

She waits. Seconds, unable to hear the outside world. Tired, she rests.

Rumble.

__________________________________________

Annie juts awake, but her eyes don’t open. Only hearing the stampede of massive footsteps, but it doesn’t affect her. Allowing her to tire again. Alone, isolated from the world. Yet, she’s frozen. Not even able to cry.

When are they coming to save her?

Annie gasps for breath. Oxygen filling her lungs, she thrashes her arms over white sheets. Opening her eyes, to the faint light in the room that gradually increases in luminosity.

She’s out. Out of her crystal. No one’s in the room. The simple Marlian hospital. They did it, she is safe.

Her eyes drift to the bedside counter. A metal object reminiscent of a Plato clock. It flickers in red light. 12:00. Noon. This scene looked very familiar. A PATH opens in her mind, telling her she’s out of time.

The door opens. A man walks inside, tall. “I see you’re finally awake, frozen girl.”

“Who are you? You’re not the General?”

“Call me Fury, director of S.H.E.I.L.D.”

Wait, he’s the agent for Marley’s secret defence force?

“But I met the director of S.H.E.I.L.D before. You’re not him.”

“That was Fury senior. .” He was a real piece of work, let me tell you.

“Just to be clear, we’re still talking about Magath, right?”

The man nods, but he’s not Fury. He’s Samuel L. Jackson. And that makes it all the worse.

“Things have changed since you were last awake. The world has got a whole lot smaller.”

So they failed their mission. Eren activated the Rumbling and became the tyrant of the world. Which begged the question: why was she alive?

Annie springs off the bed, then stalls. Fury gestures for her to stop.

“Calm down, you’re home now.”

The man drags a stool, painfully scrapping on the ground before dropping his weight on the cranking seat. Past his acting days, he looks at her with a grumpy expression. He’s going to monologue.

“The preceding mission, before Paradis, you were piloting the Hydra bomber locked on autopilot to Liberio. As you weren’t a fool, you jumped out of the plane in the last moment, using your Titan form to crush the landing.”

“And?”

“Soldier, I want you to understand something. Give me your mission report?”

Fury locks a deadly glare, eyes filled with a dark past. Annie falters. Squirming, she bites her lip. But she collects herself, returning a lazy stare to Fury. Like there is no problem at all.

“The bomber was on autopilot. I tried to move the steering column, only jutting it a little. That was enough for some manual control over the plane. This came with a caveat. Every time I left the steering yoke, the plane reverted back to its original heading. I couldn’t trust a damaged plane, so jamming the controls was a no go. That’s why I stayed behind, I was the only one who could crash that plane. A sacrifice wouldn’t have been stupid. But why are we talking about that? We know all of this already. Tell me, what happened on Paradis?”

He ignores her question, reshuffling himself on his stool like the question is awkward. He’s hiding a terrifying truth.

“The Hydra clean up went smoothly and was a great assistance to our war efforts. So I want to know something?”

He leans in.

“How come, a very capable Warrior like yourself failed at the last moment. On Paradis, you infiltrated the Walls and went face to face with the Coordinate. Everything was laid out for you, then you flunked it. Reverting to your crystal form.”

“I was outmatched.”

“No, you were scared. Thought you could hide away, that the crystal would protect you, keep you conscious. That’d you wake up from a fake slumber, and surprise the enemy. You were wrong, you couldn’t breathe in that crystal. It froze you in cryostasis. We didn’t even think that was possible.”

Annie would rather not waste her words on interrupting Fury. She huffs to the side, watching the window. Bright light glares on her skin. Almost like its a beautiful sunny day outside, but Annie’s a Titan shifter. She can tell straight away this is fake. She’s inside an industrial complex, not a general hospital.

Annie is a bird, trapped in a cage. And if Fury didn’t answer her questions soon, she would rattle the bars.

“I’m asking one last time, what happened Fury?”

Fury bolts up, striding forward.

“What didn’t happen, Annie? Marley got their butt kicked, while you were stuck in your crystal for who knows how long. And we want to know why?”

What’s Annie to say, she was probably in a coma. Sure, she could have fought harder against the Survey Corps, but she was on their home turf. The safest option was to run.

A voice in PATHS gives her doubt. Telling her, she is weak. Pathetic. Missed out on everything.

Annie considers it. That Fury is right. She gave up too soon. Glancing up, Fury is furious. He wants her to own up, try to atone for her failure. Be their slave for the remainder of her short life. It must be so short now.

“So I’m your prisoner?”

“On the contrary, you’re free. Free as a butterfly in skates riding a roller coaster. You can do anything you want. But first, you should listen.”

A stream of Erens spouting Freedom invade her mind: telling her to save Armin and Mikasa. Whose memories are these? Eren’s obviously, but that’s beside the point.

“All I want is to see my father. So whatever game you’re trying to pull, skip it.”

Fury sighs, making his way to the door.

“It’s been 70 years.”

Annie gasps, for such a stupid lie.

“Nope.”

“Yep.”

“Someone would have rescued me.”

“Nope.”

“They wouldn’t leave the fate of a beloved character to an off-screen death.”

“Did it with Ymir.”

He’s serious, Isayama forgot about her.

Annie crumples on her bed, covering her eyes with her forearm.

“What happened?”

“The Yeagers happened. Eren and Zeke together were able to activate the coordinate and change the world. Flattening all their enemies. If it wasn’t for one woman, none of us would be standing here today?”

Annie will bite the bullet. “Who?”

“Stark. Pieck Stark. A brilliant mind, always exactly right. The last words of Zeke Yeager, before she finished him off, and stopped the Rumbling. In her remaining years, she even privatised world peace. Leaving everything to her adopted daughter.”

Ah, Pieck. A fellow Warrior, always a nice girl.

But Annie wants to see her father. She promised she would return. Return back home, even if the whole world turned against her. She can’t have missed him? She needs to be sure.

“How long, how long has it been?”

“I don’t know?”

“But you said 70 years before.”

“Thinking it over, that doesn’t work with our timeline. Hey.”

Useless.

Annie knocks Fury over and pushes past him. Bursting outside the paper room, sprinting to the doors. The hallway changes. More shiny, clinical. She’s out the entrance reception. Crashing through the glass doors, into the bright and busy metropolis. Cars, plentiful, zoom past her. On an intersection of roads. The buildings flash large images, spinning. Spinning Annie’s head. Her whole body. As she collapses on the ground.

Laughing hysterically. This was not her home.

Five figures drop beside her, one by one. A girl clad in iron armour, a boy, dressed as a Viking, a green hulk shrinking into an old lady, a pile of stone, dragged along by a little girl hurling a bucket of water.

Fury stands in front. “There was once an initiative. To form a group of remarkable and unique individuals: to fight the fight that no one else could.”

This is Eren’s fault. He did this, used the power of the coordinate to change the world into a Super Hero parody.

“Pieck always wanted you to join this team. Be the glue that held it together.”

Annie eyes the heroes.

The iron helmet opens, revealing a face similar to Eren. Just as hostile. The tin soldier is held back by a herculean man, with the face of a 12-year-old. Fury laughs.

“This is Gabi Stark. She, accidentally, shot a border patrol officer. They captured her and forced her to make missiles. Luckily, Pieck taught her well, and she made the first Iron man suit. Now she can retaliate with deadly force whenever she causes a problem.”

The hair on Annie’s skin prickles. She can feel the temptation. Just looking at Gabi makes her want to start a Civil War.

But Fury points to Gabi’s restrainer.

“Falco Odinson, a God from Asgard. Always wanted to fly, and now he can. In exchange, he has to help Gabi solve racism.”

Annie doesn’t care. The old lady gives a piercing glare. She knows her.

“And this is Mikasa, the incredible hulk.”

Mikasa rolls bandages around her fists.

“So you decided to wake up Annie.”

“You’re the monster, how fitting.”

“I was having a nice picnic with Eren, Armin and Gabi when a gamma bomb exploded. It unleased my Ackerman rage, turning me into this monster.”

Samuel L. Jackson is quick to correct. “Actually, Eren Said this:”

Eren echos through PATHS.

“Ever since I was a kid, Mikasa. I’ve always hated you.”

Mikasa transforms, collapsing the entire neighbourhood.

Really, of all the old friends Annie could have a reunion with after 70 years, why did it have to be Mikasa?

Annie kicks the stone, annoying the monster. “Who’s this then?”

“That’s Hawkeye, a very effective member of the team.”

“Yeah, but who’s Hawkeye here?”

“Sasha.”

“That’s a tombstone.”

“Exactly.”

The last one, the Black Widow. A deadly poison. Too cool to actually show up. Instead, they get Ymir. Not the 104th cadet. Actual ancient Ymir. She splashes her bucket over Annie.

“You know, this technically makes us Disney Princesses now.”

“So I’m Sleeping Beauty?”

Annie doubts either of them is of royal blood. She sighs – no, grieves.

This is too much. If there is one moral to take away from all this: Don’t wait too long in your crystal.

With all the silliness aside, they’re just trying to distract her from the truth. Her father is dead.

PATHS echos the last voice. “I love you 3000.”

Annie’s not the only one suffering a loss. Fury lost Stark, and he’s trying to rebuild the past. But it’s over now.

Samuel L. Jackson raises his hands. “This is the Avenger initiative.”

Annie’s fist trembles, but she breathes deeply. Turning back.

There is only one thing to do.

“I’m done.”

__________________________________________

Credits

Annie Leonheart as Steve Rogers

Nick Fury as Samuel L. Jackson, don’t question it.

Pieck as Howard Stark

Gabi Braun as Tony Stark

Falco Grice as Thor Odinson

Mikasa Ackerman as Bruce Banner

Sasha Blouse as Clint Barton

Ymir Fritz as Natasha Romanoff

Reiner Braun as Bucky Barnes

Eren Yeager as PATHS

__________________________________________

Annie walks with flowers through the massive graveyard. It isn’t cloudy or foggy. The sky is beautiful today.

Annie doesn’t even care that she screwed up the Paradis operation. No matter how long Fury will pester her, thinking she has to own up to a problem long past. Her heart’s not in it: fighting for the rest of her short life. Saying ‘No’ was the best decision she ever made. Even if she does miss out on a multi-billion-dollar franchise.

She reaches it. The Mound. The grave.

“Father, I’m home.”

A routine for her, Annie places the flowers next to the grave. She looks at her wrinkled hands. The curse of Ymir has aged her considerably, but she doesn’t regret how she’s spent the remaining years of her life.

Reiner strolls towards her, a 100 year old husk. Death, never quite able to take him.

“Seems you’re still kicking it.”

They’ve forgiven each other for the past. Reiner lays down next to her.

“It keeps bothering me, PATHS. Why does it keep me alive just so I can suffer, have you figured it out yet?”

Annie nods her head. It was so satisfying.

“You have, great! Going to tell me what you found?”

“No. No, I don’t think I will.”

[otterbagel]

Not a Copy- RK800-60 (Colin) x Reader

Reader has been working at Cyberlife on a deviancy-safe version of their most advanced android, but that doesn’t stop the reader from becoming attached.

(Notes: THIS IS SO LONG. I didn’t even realize how much I’d written until I checked it on the word counter. 2.7 thousand! Anyway, I love this cocky dork. I really like the dynamic I have for the reader and him, I hope it came through somewhat in my rambles. May write another part for this at some point. Also, I used the name Colin because it seems to be the most common name for him.)

Warnings: Tense situations, some curse words.

  The commotion on your floor, although muffled, was frantic. Coworkers yelling at the prospect of being fired, gentle cries of those who were now a part of the giant unemployed statistic, and others simply discussing the radical chain of events over the past week. 

  Despite all of this, you absentmindedly stared at the ground, gently tapping at your cup as you covered your mouth with your hand in your office chair. A muted news feed was pulled up on your computer, showing the standoff between the androids and military outside a recall camp. Every android produced by Cyberlife was supposed to be immediately destroyed. The company, if it survived the next few hours, would be downsized almost completely. 

  And yet, you had not been terminated.

  Once most of your floor was unceremoniously kicked from the company, you had expected your call to arrive in the next hour. After-all, you hadn't done much for the company. You had only been here for half a year. Many loyal employees had been thrown out, why not you? As you hid from the others, who were likely highly emotional, you came to one conclusion. 

  The nature of your work.

  Aside from some small coding jobs between household androids, you had only received one big project. It wasn't even really your project. You was supposed to refine an already existing model's code, to make it more obedient. It had struck you as odd; why was an android not being obedient in the first place? Where were these opposing orders coming from? Either way, you did as you were told.

  It was only when this 'Android Revolution' started, did you realize why this was needed. The prototype that was being used to hunt deviants was a highly advanced abstract thinker. The likelihood of him becoming a deviant was too high to let him go without some sort of check in place.

  A polite knock at the door caused you to jolt, nearly spilling your drink everywhere. You gripped it with both hands as you calmed from your near heart attack. "Come in," you called, shaking as you set the cup on your table. You sighed as your RK800 model entered and closed the door. "Geez, Colin, you scared me to death."

  "Hello. And I apologize," he greeted, standing beside you. "I've heard that many Cyberlife employees have been terminated. Are you one of them?"

  You shook your head, looking at the news and back to him. "Not sure. They haven't called me yet."

  He nodded. "That's nice." 

  You picked up a pen and laid back in your chair as you caught a glimpse of the recall center. Their skinless bodies were hard to see with the thick layer of snow on the the ground. The image made you uncomfortable. 

  You noticed Colin watching the screen intently, head turned slightly to the side like a curious animal. You raised an eyebrow as a question came to mind. "How does that make you feel?" 

  "I can't feel anything. I'm not alive." he responded, not moving his attention from the screen.

  You rolled your eyes, playing with the pen. "Okay, then what do you think of all of-" you pointed to the screen. "-that."

  He parted his lips as he briefly looked at you. "Well, I find it to be quite the waste of technology," he joked. "but I understand the circumstances." He sat down in the chair you had reserved for him, which made you smile. He didn't need to sit down, chat with you, or even visit you. But he did. And it meant a lot to you. 

  But you felt... unsure.

  He looked back to you, clearly noticing your discomfort. He smiled. "You know, if I was deployed, we'd have Markus by now." 

  You chuckled. "Big words for someone who's never been out of these walls," you retorted.

  He shrugged. "Its what I was designed to do."

  You both returned to watching the screen. You used to worry that you had failed in preventing this RK800 from deviating. No matter how many code edits you made, no matter how many cognition tests you ran, you could never make the human qualities go away. 

  And, after a while, you stopped trying.

  The last time you had tried, you had been working overtime well into the night. After becoming frustrated with his code, you basically had a breakdown. After he calmed you, you realized how much he meant to you. You didn't want him to lose the qualities that made him the way he was.

  Deep down, you wanted him to become deviant. It took you a long time to identify that feeling. You didn't even know if it was possible after all your efforts to prevent it, but you could hope. 

  When had you started rooting for the deviants? When did you start accepting that they were feeling emotions? When had you started calling Colin a he instead of an it? You wasn't sure on any of those things.

  You heard a knock at the door, Colin and you both rising from your chairs in anticipation. "Come in," you yelled, taking a nervous look at Colin in the process. Your boss, Rodger Bailey, entered the room.

  While most of your department was full of quirky but quiet individuals, Rodger was the exact opposite. He was wearing an overly formal suit along with a stoic expression, eyes trained on you.

  "Hello, Mr. Bailey." you greeted, fiddling your hands together.

  "Yes," he greeted you. "I'm sure you're aware of the... state of things." he motioned with his eyes towards your desktop. 

  You nodded, looking over. Things were mostly the same since you last checked. Colin stood off to the side silently, arms held politely behind his back.

  He breathed in. "I wanted to tell you that, as we expected, the RK800-51 went deviant." 

  "It did?"

  "Yes. This is where your work comes in. Have that-" he pointed at Colin. "Destroy the -51 model. We believe its going to be here soon." You looked at Colin, who kept an emotionless expression as he watched Bailey.

  "What's going to happen to the company after all this?" you questioned.

  Bailey furrowed his brows, looking at you like you were insane. "Cyberlife is over. Whether or not this whole 'revolution' pans out doesn't matter. No consumer will trust us anymore. All that's being decided on is if androids will be destroyed or not." He stated. There was moment of silence before he turned around. "Have a good night." He left the room without hearing your response, shutting the door quietly behind him.

  You stared at the floor as you lightly touched your lips. What he had said repeated itself in your mind. If androids didn't get their rights, all androids would be scrapped. If they did get their freedom, then would Colin get caught up in his orders?

  Colin called your name gently, moving his head to enter your view of the floor. "Are you alright?"

  "Y-yes," you responded, noticing his fervent observation. This whole situation made you feel awful. Why did you have to get so attached to him? 

  He straightened his posture. "Do you want me to start my mission now?"

  You gulped.

  You had no good excuse as to why he couldn't. He was perfectly fit for the task; you had spent the last half a year making sure of that. Your only reasons were from your newfound agreement with deviants and your feelings towards him.

  You held your breath, staring the confused android in the eyes. "I... I don't want you to get hurt." you choked out finally, alarmed at the words escaping your mouth. Colin's eyes widened.

  "What?"

  You struggled to speak again. "I know, its crazy- especially how I work on androids for a living," you laughed out in a panic. "But you made me think differently. I know you're alive. And so are all of them out there!" You pointed to the screen, on the verge of tears.

  He mumbled your name before gesturing to his chest. "I'm a machine. I'm built to be used by humans. That's all I'm for." 

  You knew he would say something like that. You knew it was pointless. You hated this situation. The other RK800 had to die because you had forced Colin to live as a machine. This was al-

  "Please don't cry." Colin spoke quickly, putting his hands on your shoulders. You wiped your eyes quickly, not realizing that they had become wet. He enveloped you in a hug.

  "Yeah," you smiled, patting him on the back as you sniffled. "JUST a machine. Sure, Colin." You felt him smile against your shoulder, which helped calm you down.

  The situation seemed hopeless. 

  You ran through a bunch of different scenarios in your mind, all of which you concluded were impossible or unlikely to succeed. Your room was probably being watched closely in case you tried something brash, so you couldn't just sneak him out. If you refused to send him out, then a higher up would likely do it instead. If you managed to somehow get him to go deviant right now, then practically the whole company would know immediately and have him destroyed. You pulled away from him, watching his face as he inspected you. 

  An idea.

  You pulled away to head to your desktop, Colin watching you from over your shoulder. Your typing was littered with mistakes as you hurried to find the information you needed; you didn't have much time before others would wonder why Colin hadn't started his mission yet.

  "What are you searching for? I may be able to find it faster," he asked, fairly monotone.

  You pointed at the screen in an accusatory way. "Bring him here. Connor would probably give up if Anderson was in danger." You showed him a file on the partner Connor had been assigned to. If you could make Colin have a similar experience as Connor, maybe he would turn to deviancy.

  Colin nodded his head. "That's a good strategy," he responded.

  "Don't forget to download all of his memories as well. You may need them to convince Anderson to accompany you." 

  "Of course." he replied. "Do you wish for me to begin now?"

  You sighed, lightly touching his fingertips with your own. "Please be careful." He watched you with a gentle smile. "You can go."

-

  After Colin had headed out, you resigned yourself to silently watching the news. It wasn't looking good for the deviants. You exhaled with anxiety as you looked over the report on Anderson. It appeared he and the RK800 had a fairly good partnership. You hoped it wasn't about to end.

  You decided to skim through some of the things Connor had uploaded. You rolled through the page with the wheel of your mouse, gently chewing on your thumbnail. 

  Your heart stopped.

  Almost all of it was case related. No surprise there, honestly. But you had expected some personal experiences or memories, but there was nothing save for some of Anderson's opinions. You rubbed your face with a groan. You messed up. For someone who wanted to help deviants, you seemed to be doing everything in your power to make them fail. 

  You took a look at Colin's memory. There was a lot of menial things in there; various tools you used on him, different parts of the building you had taken him to, and some dietary information on your meals. You snickered at the differences between the RK800s. When you remembered the situation, you just looked over the meaningless information about you with a solemn feeling in your gut.

  You mulled over everything you two had done together over the months, realizing how empty it all would've been without him. He turned boring coding scripts into your favorite memories. How he would always badger you at mealtimes about how unhealthy it was. You always found solace with him and no one else.

  You would lose the most important part of your life if something happened to him.

  You jumped out of your chair, checking his location. He was already back, probably with Anderson. You switched off your computer and sped out your door. As much as you wanted to sprint, it would definitely arouse suspicion from your already angry coworkers.

  You hit the button of the elevator, calling it up. What was Connor planning on doing here? You chewed on your lip as you anticipated the upcoming car. He likely wouldn't plan on interacting with the higher ups; he should know they would be heavily guarded. You stepped in as the doors opened. 

  The warehouse?

  "Floor -49." you ordered the elevator, fiddling with your hands. It sped downwards quickly, but not quickly enough for your liking. What exactly were you planning on doing down here anyway? Catching Colin before he interacted with Connor? Preventing anyone from getting hurt? Helping the deviants?

  As you started to slow down, the desired floor became visible. You stood close to the glass, peering down. An older man, who you assumed was Anderson, was standing with his back to you. Two RK800s were standing in front of him, both of them watching you descend on the elevator. One of them said something as the doors opened, causing Anderson to turn halfway to watch both you and the androids.

  "Who the fuck are you?" he yelled, motioning the gun he was holding at you. You took a slow step out with your hands raised.

  "I-I'm a Cyberlife employee," you stuttered, trying to keep your voice steady. You eyed both the androids. It was too far to identify their serial numbers. "I want everyone to get out of this alive."

  "Why should I trust you, exactly?"

  You slowly approached, trying to walk around to get to the RK800s. They both seemed equally interested in watching you. "I made a mistake." you said simply, paying little attention to the gun trained on you. You were inspecting the jackets. -51 and -60. 

  That one was Colin.

  You sped up your pace, keeping your hands raised as you walked in front of Colin. "HEY, HEY, HEY!" you heard behind you. You stood steadfast in front of Colin, Connor beside you looking confused as he backed away. You gritted your teeth as you stared down the barrel of the pistol, slightly transfixed as you lowered your arms. 

  Colin scolded you with your name. "Why are you down here?!"

  You flipped your head around to look at him. "I couldn't just let you die like this." He looked as though he was about to argue, but stopped when he took in the desperation on your face. He put a hand into yours. "Colin, abort mission." 

  Anderson slowly lowered his gun to a more neutral stance, still keeping a close eye on the two of you. You turned to face Colin as your breathing calmed. He looked both angry and exhausted, which was weird for an android. "Why didn't you just let me finish my mission? You could've gotten hurt." he whispered forcefully.

  You pointed a finger into his chest. "YOU could've gotten hurt!" you shot back, taking brief note of Connor interacting with a warehouse android.

  "That doesn't matter." he mumbled, crossing his arms. 

  "It matters to me!" you hissed, getting fed up with the months of similar arguments. "You mean a lot to me. I can't believe you couldn't pick that up. Aren't you supposed to be a detective or something?" His eyes widened, appearing shocked.

  "Whoa, calm it down lovebirds," joked Anderson behind you, causing embarrassment to wash over you quickly. 

  "I'm sorry if I caused you to worry," Colin responded. You chewed on your lip. "You mean a lot to me as well. I didn't want my actions to affect you negatively. However, it appears that happened despite my precautions."

  "No, I wanted you to deviate. I want you to be happy. I just want you to be with me!" you beamed, him looking equally as enthused as you held your hands together.

  Connor flipped around as all the surrounding androids came to life. "I just got an update from Markus," he looked between your group. "They're backing off and the camps have been closed. We won."

  "Really!?" you exclaimed, bouncing up and down. "You get to be free!"

  Colin looked amused. "Does that mean I get to fix your diet?"

  "Wait, no-"  

[hallodraws]

Prototype (Part 5) | Reader x Peter Parker

Wordcount: 1,837

Genre: Male!Android!Reader x Peter Parker/Spider-Man | Marvel (MCU) x Detroit: Become Human AU Summary: “Not long after Tony Stark attends CyberLife’s Annual Investor & Shareholder Conference, the New Avenger’s Facility becomes freshly staffed by various CyberLife Androids. One particular model - the new ST400 - becomes a personal project of Mr. Stark’s. He could never have known that interactions with a particular young Avenger would impact his project in ways he could never have imagined.”

Warnings: None

Author’s Notes: It’s good to be back! I’ve been busy with moving to a new place, looking for a new job, and also working on a VERY SPECIAL PROJECT I can't WAIT to share with you guys :) Also This chapter was very very long so I’ll be posting another chapter very soon so this one isn't insanely long. (I’m sorry the angsty dramatic bits got pushed back they’re in the next chapter - don’t kill me) Also, if you want to be on the tag list for this fic just let me know in a comment

"I... should be getting back. Aunt May will be pissed if I get home too late." Peter slowly stood from the couch, his eyes still transfixed on the black screen.

"Of course," (Y/N) stood beside Peter, his LED blinking yellow for a brief moment, "I've just called you a car. It should be here in approximately three minutes."

"T-Thanks." Peter was still a little jarred from what he just watched, but found himself oddly impressed by (Y/N)'s seemingly never-ending list of functions. He really was fascinating.

"Thank you. Peter." (Y/N) suddenly piped up.

"Thanks? For what?" Peter collected his jacket and backpack.

"For watching the interview with me," (Y/N) began, "Granted, while the interview didn't go as planned for the parties involved, I enjoyed spending an evening with you."

Peter blushed. He had fun tonight and was glad to hear that (Y/N) enjoyed the evening as well, but also wondered if (Y/N) could enjoy himself. Enjoyment - it was such a simple concept for humans, but Peter was still so confused about what went on in the minds of Androids. While it did seem weird hearing an Android say those kinds of things out loud, the smile on (Y/N)'s face made all those thoughts fade away. Peter returned the smile.

"See you on Monday?" Peter asked.

"Of course," (Y/N) nodded, "Have a good night, Peter."

"You too."

The drive home was silent. The driver that took Peter home was an android - used for the late night shifts so humans wouldn't need to fill them. Peter tried to enjoy the quiet but found his thoughts to be far too loud.

"Was that a deviant?" Peter thought to himself, "That's what everyone is so scared of?"

The skinless face of the Android speaker flashed through his mind. He seemed kind - peaceful even. Realistically, while his demands were a little out there, they weren't unreasonable - and by no means were they aggressive or violent. The concept of deviancy lingered in Peter's head the whole way home. Was it something the Androids were born with or something they acquired. Regardless, what causes them to "wake up"? Ultimately, he found more questions than answers, which greatly upset him.

Peter soon made it home safe and sound. Once he made it upstairs, he discovered May sitting at the television, glued to the news. Images and headlines of Tony and the mysterious Android flashed on the screen.

"Hey, honey. You're back late," May waved Peter over to the couch, "Did you see the news?"

"Yeah," Peter sat beside May, "My friend and I were watching the interview when it all went down."

"I gotta say, I've never been a big fan of Tony Stark, but that Rosanna Cartland did him dirty," May suddenly turned to Peter, "Do you see any of those Androids of Tony's at your internship?"

"Y-Yeah," Peter stuttered, "Every day." Peter found himself worried about Aunt May's reaction. She's pretty liberal about most topics, but Peter never really knew her stance on the whole Android situation currently going on in the US.

"How are they around you?" May asked, curiosity in her voice.

"T-They're great. Friendly, thoughtful, hardworking..." Peter's voice trailed off, "...Honestly, sometime's I forget they're Androids."

"Hmm..." May pondered quietly for a moment, which frightened Peter just a bit - until she finally spoke up.

"It's a shame really. A few Androids mess it up for the rest of them," She stood from the couch, turning to face Peter, "It's just like people. One person does something wrong, and everyone tackles whatever they're a part of."

Peter was shocked; he didn't know why though. He thought - or I guess hoped - that May would be open-minded to the idea of Androids in our society. But it was still a relief to hear her say it out loud.

"Promise me, Peter," May placed her hand on Peter's head, "Don't judge the many for the actions of a few." Peter was speechless. Since when did May become all wise and Yoda-like? Still, it made him smile from ear to ear.

"I promise," Peter stood up, wrapping his arms around May, "I love you."

"I larb you too, kid." May laughed, squeezing her nephew.

"That joke's still not funny, May."

It was a weekend, and Peter didn't have to come to the compound today. Granted, with Mr. Stark and Pepper returning today, he wanted to make sure he was there. Peter decided to "Spidey" his way to the compound today. It was a brisk November day, and sure it was a bit of a treck, but with his Spider-Man duties being so few and far between these days he wanted an excuse to put on the suit and take to the sky.

The whole way to the compound Peter again thought of the Androids in our world today. No matter what he tried to think of, it inevitably always came back to Androids. Peter saw both sides of the argument, but being a part of Mr. Stark's project and getting to know so many Androids in the facility, he couldn't help but think there was so much more to them.

All that thinking made time fly by, and Peter arrived at the compound much faster than he anticipated. He wasted no time running up the steps and bursting through the lobby doors - eager to ask Mr. Stark what really happened the night of the interview. However, the next face he'd see would push Mr. Stark down a few notches on Peter's list of priorities.

"Peter, what are you doing here?" It was (Y/N), sitting quietly in the empty lobby. He gave Peter a small smile - one that left him still for just a moment.

"I-I didn't have anything to do today, and I wanted to check on Mr. Stark. Maybe get a little intel on what we saw last night on TV." Peter quickly sat beside (Y/N). Once close enough, (Y/N) looked closely at Peter - or more specifically his spidey-suit. He trailed his fingers across the red and blue fabric, examining each and every detail. Peter knew he was probably just analyzing or something, but being so close to (Y/N) and having his hand brush across his arm made him very glad (Y/N) couldn't see his flushing face behind his mask.

"Mr. Stark has told me about your suit, as well as imported information about it into my data," (Y/N)'s hand reached for Peter's covered face, his thumb grazing the lense of his eye-plate, "But seeing it up close and personal is really something. I can't believe you designed it yourself."

"T-Thanks!" Peter's face was bright pink - again, thankfully covered, "So what are you doing here in the lobby?" He did what he could to remain cool.

"Waiting for Mr. Stark and Ms. Potts," (Y/N) finally took back his hand from Peter's face, "There've been some complications in regards to their departure from Detroit. Anti-Android riots, congested traffic, poor weather... The odds don't seem to be in their favor."

"Really...?" There was disappointment in Peter's voice, "Do you think they'll be back today?"

"At this rate, unlikely." (Y/N) sighed, "Mr. Stark didn't provide any further instructions or jobs that needed to get done today, so I felt waiting for him would be the next best option."

"Do you want to go out with me?" Peter asked suddenly without thinking. (Y/N) cocked his head in confusion. The silence is what keyed Peter into the dilemma at hand -  what he meant and what he said were two very different things.

"I-I mean outside! Go outside!" Peter began to ramble, "D-Do you want to go with me? Outside I mean. Would you like to go see the outside with me?" Peter kept spitting out words, but he didn't feel like any less of an idiot.

"Like the courtyard?" (Y/N) seemed unaware of Peter's very obvious distress. Must've been the mask hiding his mortified face.

"N-No! I mean the city!" Peter stood up, "I just noticed you've never spent much time outside the facility, have you?"

"I..." (Y/N) began, his LED flickering yellow for a moment, "I can't, Peter."

"Oh..." Peter felt his heart sink, "Why can't you?"

"Mr. Stark doesn't allow it," (Y/N)'s head hung with quiet disappointment, "It goes against my program. Since I'm the only prototype he has, he wants to make sure I'm safe until his project runs its course."

"I see... I'm sorry I brought it up, (Y/N)." Peter felt sad for (Y/N). It was almost like Mr. Stark had grounded him. (Y/N) quickly shot up from his seat.

"No! Don't be sorry, Peter!" (Y/N) gently grabbed Peter's hand, "If I could go with you, I would. I'm sure I'd enjoy seeing more of New York."

"Well," Peter placed his hand on top of (Y/N)'s, "How 'bout this? Once you're an Avenger and the project is complete, I'll take you on a trip around the city to celebrate!"

(Y/N) didn't get a chance to reply. Their conversation was cut short by the sound of heels clicking against the tiled floor down the hall. It was Rebeka, carrying an assortment of small packages. She made her way into the lobby and straight to the young men.

"Good morning, Peter. I didn't know you were supposed to be in today. Doing some Spider-Man training or suit tests?" Rebeka adjusted her arms to better hold onto the packages.

"No, nothing like that. Just thought I'd stop by to say hi." Peter was a little surprised by Rebeka identifying him so fast - but it made sense, she was programmed to work at the facility. Of course she knows the ins and outs of everyone here.

"Well, it's very nice to see you." Rebeka smiled.

"Whatcha got there?" Peter examined the packages.

"Gregory, the Android in charge of packages, is getting his optical unit calibrated today. So I'm taking care of his route," Rebeka slowly began her departure, "I'm sorry gentlemen, but I'm running a bit behind. I need to bring these to Hangar 08."

"That's alright. Have a good one, Rebeka." Peter gave a playful wave. She returned the gesture and made her way around the corner to Hangar 08. Once she was out of sight, Peter returned his gaze to (Y/N). However, (Y/N) was focused on something else. He walked from Peter over to something cast aside on the ground.

"Wait. What's that?" Peter looked over in (Y/N)'s direction.

"It's a packaged envelope," (Y/N) bent down to examine it, "It's addressed to Dr. Wesley Greggor. There's no return address."

"Dr. Greggor?" Peter walked over, studying the package himself, "I wonder if Rebeka dropped it."

"Should we deliver it to Dr. Greggor for Rebeka?" (Y/N) stood, handing the package to Peter.

"Nah," The lenses of Peter's suit squinted, "He's a jerk I'd rather not deal with today. Especially after what he did to you. Let's just bring it back to Rebeka." "Sure, Peter," (Y/N) gave a soft smile, "Let's go to Hangar 08."

NEXT ▶ PART 6 PREVIOUS ▶ PART 4

PERSONAL ARTWORK INSPIRED BY “PROTOTYPE” ST400 Artwork 01, ST400 Artwork 02, ST400 Artwork 03, Rebekah Artwork, ST400 Digital Painting, ST400 x Peter Parker,  FANART & COMMISSIONS INSPIRED BY “PROTOTYPE” ST400 x Peter Parker Commission (erikakkomi), ST400 Animated Portrait Commission (relssah), ST400 Commission (6y9brows), 

Tags: @tonystanktheirondad @peter-null @starryfool @ragingballofanxiety @leo-nerd-oh @vollycon @sharkie-boyyo @brokenembers @dr3amw4lker @acelin-ginsberg @kalwinxhester @marvelgoateecollection @just-gay-writing @pineappleneko  @maximum-fander @green-draws0 @archerrious, @deathbyhallucination @lemon-ghost-flower

[justice-duwang]

Eightfold Way

“Hey, Therion,” Alfyn said suddenly.  “For some reason, I don’t think I like Cyrus.”

Therion nodded.  “Me neither.”

The offending scholar was currently surrounded, speaking to several local women about the town’s history. They hung onto his every word, captivated by the teacher’s charisma.

Naturally, Cyrus was completely oblivious to it all.

“That was a surprise,” he said after the ladies left, giggling to themselves.  “I had no idea this town was so appreciative of its culture! I’m quite impressed!”

“ . . . Yeah,” Alfyn nodded. “I don’t like Cyrus.”

The thief grunted in agreement.  While he had his fair share of disagreements with the apothecary, there were things both good agree on, such as the fact that apples were better skinless, Ophelia looked better with her hair down, and Cyrus definitely did not deserve the attention he got.

“You two . . . .” Olberic sighed.  They turned to see the warrior shaking a disapproving head in their direction, accompanied by one amused Primrose.  

“I don’t know, Olberic,” the dancer said.  “I think it’s kind of cute.”

“Shut up!” Alfyn and Therion said in tandem.

The party of four had met the others in a tavern in Rippletide.  Primrose and Olberic had been traveling together ever since she had left the desert, while Cyrus had ventured out from Atlasdam on his lonesome. At first, the three separate groups paid the other little mind—it was only a commotion in the town square, thanks to a pack of pillaging pirates, that had drawn them together.  They even gained a new member from that incident—a young merchant girl, eager to reclaim the valuables they had stolen.  She was all ready to charge off on her lonesome with her cask of drugged wine, but Alfyn, Primrose, and Cyrus weren’t having it, running off after her without a second glance.  Olberic and H’aanit eventually followed after making sure their more hotheaded companions didn’t get themselves hurt recklessly.  Ophelia tended to the townsfolk injured in the scuffle.

Therion, as he saw his teammates (by force) dash off without him, shrugged and sat back, flagging down a waiter for another tankard.

By the time the six returned, Therion was two drinks fuller, several hundred leaves richer, and the recipient of a particularly long lecture by Ophelia concerning the sins of theft which he mostly tuned out.  Upon their re-arrival to the tavern he quietly slipped away upon the priestess’ momentary distraction, smirking smugly to himself as he walked away, her indignant protests fading into the background.

Unfortunately for him, the next day he woke up to discover that the three groups had since joined forces, with an additional member consisting of the merchant girl from the previous day.  

“My name’s Tressa!” she said, sticking out her hand for Therion to take.  “I’ve already met the rest of your group!  I hope we can get along!”

“ . . . Therion,” he said, ignoring her outstretched arm.  

That didn’t seem to put a damper upon Tressa’s spirits.  “So, what do you do?  Your pal Alfyn says that everyone here is some kind of adventurer, right?  So you gotta be one too!”

“I’m . . . just an adventurer,” he said cautiously.  “Nothing more, nothing less.”

“Aw, come on!” she whined. “Tell me!”

“No.”

“Come on!”

“No!”

“Please?”

Therion glared at her. “No means no.  There’s nothing more to it.”

“He’s embarrassed because he’s a thief,” Primrose said smugly from behind her fan.

Therion already didn’t like the dancer.  He liked her less now.

Tressa immediately backed away from him, glaring daggers in his direction.  Therion gathered that she hated thieves.  Internally, he shrugged.  Thieves and merchants were natural enemies, after all.  Not much he could do about that.  So, he ignored her, and sent his own glare in Primrose’s direction, whose smug aura seemed to brighten the more he glared.  Out of the corner of his eyes he caught Alfyn trying to mask a snicker with a disapproving expression and failing.  He sighed, already wishing he had never got out of bed that morning.

Tressa continued to be wary of him for the next day, and the next day, and the next, all the way until they reached the town they currently resided in.  It had gotten to be quite annoying, really, as every time he ended up close by her in battle she scurried away, oftentimes placing herself—or him—in danger.  Olberic lectured her about that, and, while she stopped endangering the party with her actions, she was still on-edge around the thief.  

Therion didn’t really care what she thought of him.  He did, however, care about how Primrose knew he was a thief.  He was able to deceive the other three—so what was with her?

He asked her as such, and his suspicions were confirmed when she pointed out the band on his wrist. “Your reputation proceeds you,” she had said, “but you must not be that good if you got caught.”

Therion found himself beginning to hate Primrose.  

Still, she wasn’t the worst of his new unwanted companions.  Aside from the aforementioned thief-hating Tressa, there was the ever-stern Olberic, who watched his every move with hawklike eyes. The knight generally stayed out of his way, but he could tell that the big man was less-than-fond of him.

Then there was Cyrus, the current cause of Therion’s frustration.

“My dear boy!” Cyrus said, clapping Therion on the shoulder.  The shorter man sighed wearily.  “Might I see that bangle upon your arm?  I’ve heard tell of its significance, but I simply must see it for myself!”

How did he even know?!  Therion cried internally.  Externally he jerked his arm away.  “No thanks,” he said curtly.  “Did Primrose set you up to this?”

“Hm?  Ah, no.  I simply happened to notice the bangle during our last fight,” Cyrus explained.  “I thought this would be a rare chance to study such a thing!”

“Well, you thought wrong,” Therion replied.  “Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have places to be.”

He caught Alfyn’s eye as he made his escape from the overbearing scholar.  Alfyn gave him a sympathetic nod, and Therion felt himself nodding in return.  Really, his old group wasn’t so bad in comparison to the new people he had to put up with.

---

Tressa sighed as she closed the inn door, shrugging her pack off of her shoulders as she collapsed into a chair.  Today had been particularly bad for her in terms of business—not only had she barely sold a thing, but it had been terribly hot.  Also, a dog had run off with her lunch.  All in all, it wasn’t a good day.

She waved down a waiter and got something to drink.  She was halfway through it when Ophelia approached.

“Hey, Tressa,” the priestess greeted kindly.  “Do you mind if I take a seat?”

“No problem,” Tressa scooted over slightly as Ophelia took a seat beside her.  “What brings you here?”

“Just wanted to see how you were holding up,” Ophelia replied.  “It was a hot one today, after all.”

“Tell me about it,” Tressa grumbled.  “Not only that, but I couldn’t sell anything!  And a dog stole my lunch.”

“Oh no!”

“Don’t worry, Alfyn came by with something to share,” Tressa reassured her.  “He’s a really reliable guy.”

“Indeed he is,” Ophelia agreed.  “He’s always taking care of us.”

Tressa sighed.  “As opposed to that thief.”

“Tressa,” Ophelia scolded lightly.  “Therion is a fine man once you get to know him.”

“But he’s a thief, Ophelia!” Tressa repeated.  “The natural enemy of us merchants!  We can’t get along!  We’re like dogs and cats, oil and water, Cyrus and recognizing that he’s ridiculously good-looking!”

Ophelia blinked. “Wait, repeat that last one.”

“My point is,” Tressa enunciated, with just the barest hint of a blush upon her cheeks, “that you can’t trust a thief.  I’ve seen my fair share of pickpockets in my time, so let me give you some professional advice.”

“Well, Mr. Therion has been perfectly good to us so far,” Ophelia stated firmly.  “I won’t have you slandering him behind his back.”

“But he’s a thief!”

Ophelia sighed.  It looked like getting the party to cooperate was going to take a while.

---

The party of eight were on their way the next day.  Their destination was Quarrycrest—Cyrus had some business there, and they meant to stop at Saintsbridge on the way there.  They were a mere two days away from Saintsbridge when they found themselves ambushed.

They were surrounded by a number of rather large, monstrous frogs, lead, it seemed, by a small, bipedal cat carrying a sack.  They were more than a score in number, and steadily advanced upon the party’s position.

Cyrus and Ophelia immediately began to conjure their respective magic while the rest of the party formed a circle around them.  Olberic—legendary knight that he was—charged ahead with a mighty shout, his massive sword sweeping aside the Froggens’ own blades.  H’aanit dove into the fray alongside Linde, covering her companion’s attacks with a hail of arrows.  Primrose hung back to protect the casters, slinging her own spells at the creatures. Alphyn, having partially frozen a frog halfway solid, leaped off of the incapacitated monster and cleaved another’s arm right from its body.  Therion disappeared, reappearing to slit an amphibious throat before vanishing amongst the chaos again.  Tressa, for her part, hung back near the casters and jabbed at any incoming frogs with her spear.  She’s not as used to battle as the others are, but she’s learned a little from traveling with them, and she begins to grow confident that things are looking up.

That’s when, of course, things went wrong.  

All of a sudde, a harsh buzzing filled the air.  Tressa glanced wildly about, startled by the noise.  Alfyn pointed and shouted from atop his icy perch, and then Tressa saw it: a swarm of massive, yellow wasps.  Stingers bared, they divebomb the party.  Tressa tried to whirl about to face them but realizes with a frightened jolt that her spear was still lodged in a froggen.  She tugged and tugged but is unable to yank her weapon free.  The wasps get dangerously close.  She braced herself.

The pain never came. Instead, she heard a sickening thud, and she opened her eyes to see Therion standing over her with stinger in his shoulder as he drove his knife into the wasp’s brain.  It fell to the ground, dead, gravity causing it to rip its barbs from the thief’s shoulder with a splatter of blood and a gasp of pain. Therion grunts as he collapsed to the ground.  Tressa gasped and scrambled over to him, forgetting her spear in her panic.  

“T-Therion!” she stammered.

“Leave it,” he hissed through his teeth.  “Don’t get distracted!”

Shakily she unlimbered her bow, remembering at the last second she packed another weapon with her. She fired at a wasp, but it went wide, and only served to aggravate the insect.  Panicking, she thrust out her hands and summoned a razor-sharp blade of wind and flung it at her advancing opponent.  It sheared off a wing, sending it tumbling to the ground, where Therion finished off with a thrown knife.  

“Therion!” Tressa knelt by his side, helping him up.  “A-are you okay!?”

“Just fine,” he grit.

They fell back to Ophelia, where Therion collapsed by the priestess.  She immediately knelt and began administering aid, coating the wound in the holy light of the Sacred Flame.  Tressa nocked another arrow and managed to hit a froggen in the shoulder this time.

Things were turning out for the worse, however.  The party had been driven back to a tight circle, the frontline fighters surrounding the mages and the injured.  Their foes advanced, encircling them.

Tressa noticed that most of the rest of the party were sustaining injuries of their own—Linde’s coat was matted with blood, H’aanit’s arm dangled by her side, Alfyn had blood running down his face, and Olberic—well, Olberic was positively coated with wounds.  His overcoat was ruined, blood was splattered all over him, and he even had a knife sticking out of his back.  Tressa gulped.  

“Thank you, everyone!” Cyrus announced suddenly.  They looked at him, surprised to see him positively glowing with magical energy.  “Brace yourselves!”  He swirled his hands bout in the air before pointing towards the sky.  “By the power of thunder, make yourself known!  Come, tempest!  Nothing will quiet the storm!”

The air explodes.  Tressa screamed in a rather dignified fashion as a massive lightning bolt tore through sky to slam in all of its electric glory into the small army gathered before them.  Thus, as soon as it had started, it was over—the travelers stood above the remains of their ambushers, startled by the suddenness of their victory.

“Ah, that one’s getting away!” Alfyn shouted.  Olberic hurled his spear like a javelin, nailing the fleeing cait sith in the back. Tressa still had her hands clapped to her ears, waiting for the world to stop ringing.

Ophelia and Alfyn patched the group up, and the were once more on their way—after looting the monster corpses for anything salvageable.  As they walked, Tressa fell silent, reviewing the just-transpired events in her head.  Eventually, she shook her head, adopted a determined expression, and marched up to Therion.  

The thief noticed her presence.  “What do you want?” he asked testily.

Tressa met his gaze with her own.  “Mr. Therion, I misjudged you.  You’re not just a common thief after all.”

Therion’s eyes widened. Clearly, he had not been expecting that. “Er, thanks?  What are—”

“You may be a dirty sneak thief, but you’re a good guy,” Tressa admitted.  “So I apologize.  I’m sorry.”

“Hey,” Therion interjected, unsure whether to be insulted or complimented.  Before he could get another word in, Tressa dashed away, her massive pack clanking.

Ophelia sighed.  It’d take some work, but it was a start, at least.

---

“So Cyrus,” Alfyn began casually.

“What is it, my dear boy?”

“Next time could you warn us before dropping a massive frickin’ lightning bolt from the sky?”

“ . . . I can see how that can be unnerving, yes.  I’ll be sure to warn you all adequately next time.”

“Please do,” Primrose complained.  “I still can’t hear out of my right ear.”

“Er, sorry.”

[yukipage]

Promises (Connor/Reader)

Blue Lips, Blue Veins: Part 4

Characters: Connor (RK800), Reader, Lieutenant Hank Anderson.

Summary: You choose to sacrifice yourself for Connor's sake. He does everything in his power to save your life with mounting frustration at your reckless actions.

Author: Thank you guys who participated! I tabulated all of the responses from both Ao3 and my Tumblr, and this was the most popular choice. To be honest, it wasn't what I expected, but it was fun to take the story in a different direction. Thanks for reading and have a nice day :)

Square: SACRIFICE

What happens next is not a consequence of careful planning or logic. You don’t think, because there is no time to think; you do. In the blink of an eye, you throw yourself in front of Connor just as Zlatko pulls the trigger. Pain rips into your torso and your forearm, bringing you to your knees. For a split second, Connor just stares at you in shock. Your mouth opens in a silent wail as you feebly clutch your chest. Breaking from his stupor, Connor yanks the gun from your incapacitated grip, sending fresh waves of agony through your entire being. Without hesitation, and with deadly aim, he shoots Zlatko straight through the forehead. The shotgun slips from Zlatko’s grasp and he collapses like a felled tree in a growing puddle of his own fluids.

Meanwhile, you are in your own personal hell. Blood flows freely over your fingers, the stain in your shirt growing ever wider. Unbidden, a whimper escapes your lips. Connor’s head snaps in your direction and the gun clatters to the floor. Quickly, he kneels down next you and lays you on your back. He pulls off his necktie and ties a tourniquet around your upper arm. The android’s movements are precise and calculated; his attention doesn’t waver from his task and his hands don’t shake. As he works, he makes an emergency call. “Yes 911? An officer has been shot. I’m performing first aid now.” He gives them the address and hangs up curtly. Shrugging off his coat, he rolls up his sleeves and presses the piece of fabric into your chest wound. You writhe underneath the weight. “I need to apply pressure to your injury,” he explains quietly. “None of your major arteries are punctured, but I have to stop the bleeding.” You stare glassy-eyed at the ceiling, praying for any distraction from the suffering. You turn your gaze towards him and notice a small hole in his wrist, thirium trickling from it to his hand.

“Connor,” you gasp. Your breathing comes out short and quick, leaving you permanently winded.

“Don’t speak,” he orders. With your free hand, you grab his arm and squeeze with all your might. Connor refuses to meet your eyes, focusing determinedly on your wound. Tears roll down your cheeks as you use him to anchor you through the excruciating pain. You will yourself to pass out. Only after what seems like an eternity, with sirens growing louder in the distance, do you slip limply into the sweet release of unconsciousness.

When you return to the world, the first thing you notice is the smell. The distinct scent of sterile sheets and spotless hallways fills your nostrils. Then, you become aware of the soft, steady beeping of a heart rate monitor. Cautiously, you take inventory of your injuries. Your chest and arms ache dully, but it’s nowhere near what you felt before. You slowly open your eyes. The room you’re in is pretty stereotypical for a hospital. A whiteboard hangs on the wall directly across from you, announcing the nurse on duty in blue dry-erase marker. In the corner, a small television is mounted on the wall. You shift your hands and notice the tubes attached to you, leading to the machines on your left. To your right, sits a jacketless and tieless Connor in one of the uncomfortable hospital chairs. He stares blankly at the wall. “Hey,” you say, trying to get his attention. Connor remains motionless. “Connor, please. Talk to me.”

“Did you know that there many, many other RK800 models in storage at CyberLife?” His tone is even and measured. “If I’m ever damaged beyond repair, a fair amount of data that I’ve collected so far will be transferred into the memory of another android and my mission will continue.”

Your mouth twists into a frown. “I’m not going to apologize for what I did.”

“You could have just shot him!” Connor explodes. “None of this would have happened if you didn’t insist on blindly putting yourself in danger!” He falls silent, gripping your blanket to compose himself.

You sigh. “You’re right. I should have shot him. I wasn’t thinking.” You take a few moments to formulate what you want to say. “Look, I don’t care if you’re an android. I just didn’t want anyone… to die.” You bite your tongue to keep the word else from slipping out. “In the two days that I’ve known you, I’ve come to consider you as a friend. Which, frankly, is unheard of when it comes to me. I don’t… I don’t tend to trust people that easily. Uh…” You try to recover. “I’m rambling. Anyway, the point is that I’m not going to promise to not try to save you. But, what I will promise is to try to think about the best option; one that doesn’t involve killing myself. Alright?” Connor terse nods in agreement. “Ok then. So,” you exhale. “What’s the damage? How long was I out for?”

“You’ve been unconscious for around twenty seven hours. They kept you under in order to remove the bullets from your body. You had two in your chest and one in you arm.” You gently feel the bandages under your shirt and on your am. “There were mild complications, but no permanent harm was done. You’re to be released within the next few days.”

“You stayed with me all this time?”

“Yes. I only managed to get ahold of Hank in the past hour. He’ll be here shortly.”

“Geez.” You finger your bandages. “I got off lucky. Or, not luck, since you basically saved my life.” You notice the tear in the cuff of Connor’s shirt and your memories flood back. “What happened?” You take his hand and turn it over. A small, ragged hole is punched through the fabric, but his wrist is unblemished underneath.

He watches you. “A stray bullet hit me. My skin repaired itself.”

With the ball of your thumb, you rub the skin exposed by the bullet hole. “You know, you really shouldn’t devalue yourself so much. Your life matters too.”

The door bursts open and you release him with a start. Hank marches into the room, out of breath. “Blue, thank God you’re ok. You are ok, right?”

You crack a smile. “Yeah, I’m fine. Just a little tore up.”

“Good, good.” He regains his breath, then pivots towards Connor. Hank grabs him and lifts him up by the collar. “Why did you let this happen you piece of crap?” He shakes the android.

“Hank! Hank, let him go; it wasn’t his fault.” You attempt to get out of bed but wince as the pain in your chest and the tubes pumping drugs into your veins hold you back. Hank sets Connor free and helps you back into a relaxed position. “Take it easy, kid. Don’t hurt yourself.”

“It wasn’t his fault,” you reiterate. “He stopped me from bleeding out. If it weren’t for him, I would be dead.”

“Ok, I believe you. It’s alright.” Hank adjusts your pillow and looks back at Connor, who’s smoothing down his rumpled shirt. “I guess I owe you an apology.”

“There’s no need, Lieutenant. I would be angry too if I were in your position.” You smirk at the irony of that statement compared to how Connor had just yelled at you.

“Well, I’m here not just for Blue. TV on,” Hank says. The screen blares to life, displaying a news station.

“We’re still unclear about what exactly what occurred during the android infiltration of Channel 16’s broadcasting station. The Detroit police are now being joined by the FBI in investigating the turn of events. No official statement has been released yet about the alarming breach of security that happened yesterday morning,” states a female reporter, with a video of a skinless android playing on loop in the background.

“Yes, I already knew,” Connor says. “But I couldn’t reach you until now and someone had to stay with Blue. We should head to the crime scene immediately.” He directs his gaze to you, almost tenderly. “Rest well, Blue.”

“Yeah. Heal up. We can’t have you down for the count like this.” Hank passes a hand over your forehead and you grin weakly at him. “I’ll keep you posted on what goes down, don’t worry.”

That is the last time you see your friends for some time. Over the next couple of days, you watch Detroit descend into a state of panic from your hospital bed. You keep your eyes glued to the TV, listening to the reports of a group of deviants freeing androids from a CyberLife store, of a peaceful protest led through the downtown shopping center. You weep at the footage of the android bodies gunned down and splayed haphazardly in the streets. True to his word, Hank updates you every now and then. “I tell you, Connor scared the crap out of me. He’s going to give me a heart attack one day. He was connected to a deviant right before it blew its freaking brains out! And the look on his face afterwards… I swear, Blue. He said that he felt it die. He said he was scared.”

“Holy crap,” you murmur.

“I know, right? Connor also was able to get something out of it. A word: Jericho. We don’t know what it means yet. I’ll get back to you tomorrow, after we visit some retired CyberLife guy named Kamski.”

The word runs through your head over and over again as you wait out the long hours. Eventually, you learn from Hank that it’s the name of the deviant’s secret hideout. He tells you that the police are booted from the case and the FBI took over. Connor was not happy. Coincidently, someone broke into evidence just before the android supposedly went back to CyberLife. You don’t think for one second that Connor gave up his mission.

More time passes, then it’s the night before your release day. You drum your fingers on the empty meal tray, sick of your prison and the world that surrounds you. Anger eats at you as you play back what the skeptic announcers said about the deviants. Their protests prove that they feel, that they’re really people! That they are alive! Your phone buzzes. It’s a text from Hank. It reads: ‘The Feds found Jericho, but they’re not telling us where its at. I heard that they’re sending a raid. I think Connor may have found it first, though.’ Another message: “They got an anonymous tip about its location. I think it was him.”

Your mind races. If Connor knows where Jericho is, then he must be there. What if he gets caught in the raid? You’re busy texting this sentiment to Hank, when the sound of a helicopter whirs overhead. You look out the window and see it fly by, FBI plastered on the its side in large white lettering. It’s heading, by your estimate, toward the abandoned docks a couple of miles away. Hastily, you try to call Hank, but he doesn’t answer. You ball your hand into a fist. Someone has to warn the deviants. Or at least get Connor out. Or both! You pound the tray table, then rip the tubes from your arms. The monitor flat lines as your feet hit the floor. You’re done feeling useless. You’ve got to go to Jericho to find him and warn the others, no matter what happens. Right? Looking around the room, you struggle to come up with a plan that will help you achieve your goal.

Choose: Triangle: SNEAK THROUGH HALLWAY. Square: ESCAPE OUT WINDOW. Circle: RETURN TO BED.

|Ao3| |Part 1| |Part 2| |Part 3|

[mattiemoose]

Oops dropped your heart (5)

Horrortale x reader 

warnings: swearing for this chapter thats it

one two three four (five) six

It took so long to actually get out of the bedroom. Constantly phasing in and out of reality after Paps came in to wake you up. The demons you created just made it hard to keep up sometimes, to keep focused. 

But now that you've had time to come around and finally decided to step out before the tall crooked skeleton could come knocking on your door again. Stepping out into the hall, the distant idle chat of Tori and the boys came to your attention. Cringing slightly this always got you.

"Sans, do you think they'll go today? " Paps voice spoke up yet quieter than its usual boom.

"I'm. .getting hungry too pap, maybe...it's been a few months since we last ate something " Sans deeper voice followed and mothers sigh ended the conversation.

They'll ask, you of course will comply..you'll camp out there..wondering around for anyone stupid enough to follow. Maybe today you're the lost one? Maybe today you will beg someone to follow...to help you. Or someone might need you're help..and they'd just end up being killed in return for your aid... or the person who was willing to help you shrieking curses at you before being found out. Something in you snapped long ago, maybe it was your souls way in telling you that there was no going back. No simply going home. Inhaling slowly to recollect yourself you went your way to the living area, the two skelebros and mother sat around the table, a fire cracked loudly only a few feet away. .breakfast on the table for you. Smiling you plopped down right beside Sans, his fingers lazily tugged into his eye socket something he did often when he felt uneasy or trying to remember something..sometimes it just made him feel a little better, a little connected.

"Mornin Angel" ..yeah angel of death. "Listen...it's bout that time again" He spoke slowly removing his hand from his socket, his bright red orb staring you down.

"I know...fuck I-"

"Language " Tori cut you off.

"I know, I'll figure something out...I'll head off today" another song another dance...yet it was all the same. "I'll try to be quick about it...there might be some one there might not be " You didn't really eat, just picked at the pancakes that Tori managed to make. ...you still ate human food...not human flesh or their souls you ate what a human would eat...you brought food down for yourself so you wouldn't ever have give your fellow human a try.

There was a thought once, finding a way to build a little home for yourself just outside the barrier, maybe the terrible dreams would stop and stay down in this hell hole. Admittedly, however you loved being here..having a family, even though Sans took a chunk outta you once. Right in the shoulder, his sharp teeth tearing through you like you would through a piece of bread, he had no problems he had no struggle he just bit you and that part of you were gone. You had bled and struggled to get away, begged him..tried to bargain with him..pleading...crying... Just like the people they ate now. A skinless hand covered yours, giving you a sense of calm...guess you disappeared again. Sighing you apologized glancing at Pap who gave a crooked smile back,His pin pricks squinting with his smile.. he looked a lot better since you showed up too. Stronger maybe would be the right words? His bones didn't look as cracked, his energy now endless (though to be honest he was always excited and bounding around quickly and ready to go). Never the less you had to get ready, head out and go hunting.

Internally cringing you couldn't seem to call it anything else..Murder? Even though that is what it would be called you couldn't bring yourself to believe it as such..So hunting sounded best. Rising to your feet you thought it would be best to start now rather than wait on it. The look on Paps face made you get up really, he did look hungry and it was the last thing you wanted was for him or anyone to go hungry. His little eye dots squint up with his cheek bones as he continued to just smile at you, excited you were going off again, you wanted to protect him, wanted to make sure all went well for him.. he was so.. precious, so pure. If perhaps in another world, another time he would not have to suffer such a painful fate, you would hope him the best then. If it could change like the flick of a reset switch

Would it be different? Would it be better? Would they be sent to a good place even if under ground? And maybe you could be there too? Would you be allowed to go there with them? If this could be reset, if this could be different and happier could you be able to be there too? It actually hurt to think about it, to think you can't go with your family to a happier world.

Don't be greedy. Something in the back of your mind chimed in.

You smiled at Pappyrus and squeezed his hand before walking off to your room to get ready for the hunt. Someone once told you that it would take seven souls to break the barrier that trapped them down here, You've sent more down here to be eaten they could of used those souls to break out to leave to roam the earth again rather than being under it. But they always ate the brightly lit souls before they got the chance to trap them and use them. Maybe, you can try and collect those souls, could you even grab them? Could you collect them? would they disappear on impact? There were so many ifs and questions. You can touch your soul as long as you are down here surrounded by magical energy you can keep your soul out and about to look at it, to touch it. Swinging your bag over your shoulder you set out into the darker parts of the ruins, going over puzzles that had long been figured out and finished, Sans trailed after you, he was needed for when you first go.. and hell sometimes if lucky there's already a body down by those flowers.

"This place is always so.. puzzling" Sans joked stepping over the spike trap with caution, sometimes it hard to remember what spikes went down on the bridge and what ones will straight up fuck you over.

"That joke was uh, sharp" He chuckled at your attempt to out pun him, glancing back at him your couldn't suppress the grin that took your frowning features, his usual strained grin relaxed.

"Ya look good when ya smile.. you know that?" You just laughed in response, shrugging.

"You give my heart a boner, Sans"

Reaching the large and open area where the flowers are kept you slowed down, sun shone down the cavern up top that managed to be so bright it flooded a little area just down before. Sans shoulders sagged at the sight...the only bit of sunlight he will only be ever to stand in and it's not even directly under it. He drew closer glancing up only seeing bright light and the caves ceiling. His red eye light took in the sight up above, he could see life up there.. no not human life it looked to be a buck, glancing down and sniffing into the darkness and trying to find a way down to get to the charming flowers below. When it noticed movement it decided it was time to leave and walk away. Sans seem to visibly relax, taking in what ever he could from the world above so desperately wanting more than this.

Maybe, he might of held some jealousy against you..able to simply leave this place and seek the world around up above. But even then... you always came back down here unable to go no further than just outside the doors. Sure perhaps you had gotten out once and feed the left overs to them out there but that wasn't enough, it's never enough. Those who were fine with your being always greeted you, knew that there was some news or some food on hand.. Papyrus use to do it, bring out left overs and gifts... there were days you managed more than just ONE person.. and he'd bring those out but it was decided (Mostly by you) that you will do it... hopefully gaining their trust or at least make it so they aren't always trying to eat you.. It worked, so that was a plus... but then there are the few monsters... to far gone... to greedy. Sans knew that so every time you went out he followed, even if he was out of sight he made sure nothing would happen. Coming back from his thoughts he grabbed the rope tied around one of the pillars to keep it from swaying around or getting snagged from someone else from up above... this was the rope you took downwards, Up above was half a rope ladder that tangled effortlessly above. It was Sans idea, he was able to lift you just high enough to reach the broken ladder, it allowed you climb the rest of the way up while the lonely rope (Not attached to the ladder but hidden off to the side..) was your way down. Nice and slow...you learnt the hard way last time you tried sliding down bare handed..

"Ya ready Kid?" He finally turned to you a hand out reached to grab your soul.

"Ready as I always am" Being lifted into the air was always a scary experience.. fun but scary..

He has never once dropped you so you could trust him. Removing a hand from his jacket pocket and holding out towards you, your soul effortless pulled and floating just before your chest..the red of his eye light bright and taking over his whole socket while his other usual black socket held a flickering white dot... slowly he lifted you off the ground, doing his best not to flip you around, reaching the ladder you grabbed on, the force against your soul disappeared and gravity had come to drag you back down. Grunting you held on climbing the rest of the way and disappearing from view for a moment before glancing down... the bright red light below dimming. You always wondered where the barrier started from up here... maybe you could build a longer ladder for them to climb so they could see some of the world just behind the barrier.. Hell..maybe there wasn't one here...It didn't look like it, not like from behind the throne room where it was just black and white a wall they could not pass. That was a thought for another time, turning you faced the path that lead just into the tree's...

[anduplex]

Ashes to Ashes Pt. 5

Summary: When Anxiety and Logan started dating, tension rises between the sides. Everything changes and no one knows the right way to put the pieces together. {Had this idea and wanted to expand on it.}

Tag List: @imthemayan, @virgils-hoodie, @bubblycricket, @lizethemotherlycat, @monikastec, @alwaysmy-lilith, @briannagirl98, @isaksmolbean, @nicky-nix

Pt 1 | Pt 2 | Pt 3 | Pt 4 | Pt 6

Pairing: Analogical, Prinxiety, Logicality, (Platonic) Royality

Warnings: Angst(?), Sadness

  It had been three weeks since the fight between Patton and Logan. Patton still refused to sit down for a talk with everyone. He was too scared of what might happen or what he himself might say. Roman spent time with him in Patton's room, bringing him food and drinks and not letting anyone in to see him. And while Patton seemed happier than before, it was a lie. He's never felt worse than he did now. 'What if Logan hates me now? And what does Virgil think? I definitely went to far but how do I apologize? How is Roman holding up through all of this?' Patton thought in the confinement of his room. 

  Roman wasn't in much better shape. He was constantly worried about Patton, staying up at odd hours to make sure his friend was alright, still doing his best to avoid Virgil, and even taking over the cooking and other work Patton would usually do. Of course being able to see Patton did help and it was easy to stay away from the left hall. But he didn't know how much longer he could do this.

  Logan had been locked in his room most of the time, thinking of what went wrong that night, what he could do to fix it. But every time he came up with a plan, there was a high risk of it back firing. His thoughts constantly leading back to the look Patton held on his face, the tears that fell from his chin, and the stinging pain he had felt in his cheek that night. He's messed up and he'd come to terms with that. But his mind lingered on the word Patton had left him with. "And I Loved You." 

  Virgil tried the best he could to get along with everyone. But now everything was falling apart. He could never find Roman anywhere to fix things, he'd taken Logan from Patton and he didn't even know it, and now even Logan was avoiding talking to him. He felt so stuck, alone, useless. He'd been curled up on his bed for hours, listening to music and staring out the window at the fake snow.  

  Thomas was feeling the effects of Patton's sadness, but what could he do. Patton didn't want to talk and Thomas didn't want to force him too. He'd been trying to think of new ideas for his videos, but couldn't get creative enough to come up with anything useful. All his scheduling and plans were forgotten or canceled, his head felt like a jumbled mess and he couldn't understand why. And as he lay in bed, he couldn't sleep, his anxiety and fear kicking in. He'd finally decided enough was enough.

  "Logan!" Thomas called, sitting up in bed. Logan appeared next to him and sat down. "I've tried to leave it alone, I've tried to let it fix itself. But it's been three weeks and nothing's changed. What is going on?" He demanded.

  Logan gave Thomas a sad look, something that was unusual for him. "I'm sorry Thomas. Things are stressful, Patton's locked himself in his room, Roman's seemingly never around and definitely over worked, Virgil's anxiety has heightened from the fight, and I still have no idea how to fix this."

  Thomas looked down, ashamed of demanding Logan to explain the way he had. "Is there anything I can do to help?"

  Roman knocked on Patton's door holding a plate of food in his hands. The same secret knock they had been using before. "Patton buddy, I brought you some food." 

  "No thank you, I'd rather be alone right now." Patton said in a half choked, gentle voice.

  Roman sighed and set the food down next to the door. He then took his own seat, leaning against the wall opposite Patton's room. "I'm sorry." He said quietly. A tone of desperation was hidden in his voice. He pulled his legs to his chest and buried his face in his knees. Roman heard shuffling from next to him and turned his head just enough to see Virgil. He stood there mouth agape and hands balled into fists. "Look Virgil, I don't feel like talking about this right now." he sighed, turning his face back to the door. Virgil relaxed a little and took a seat next to Roman.

  "How is he?" he asked quietly. Roman sat up and rested his head against the wall.

  "He's been better. He doesn't really want to see anyone.”

  "Then why are you waiting here?" Virgil asked looking at the door with Roman.

  "I need to make sure he eats." Prince yawned and closing his eyes a little before opening them and blinking rapidly. Virgil noticed this, staring at Roman through the corner of his eye.

  "Have you been doing all of Patton's work?" He got a small nod in return. "When was the last time you slept?" Roman shrugged

  "Maybe, a couple days ago." he replied, unsure of the answer himself. Virgil's eyes widened. He stood and held out a hand to Roman. "What?" Roman asked looking between Virge's face and hand.

  "You need some sleep." He said forcibly taking Prince's hand and help him up. Roman shook his head and turned back to Patton's door. 

  "I have to make sure he's okay." 

  "I can do that, I'll sit here and wait, you need to sleep." He opened Roman's door and started shoving his friend through.

  "Are you sure?" Roman asked, turning back to Virgil as he stood in his door way. Virgil nodded ready to close the door. "Thank you." Roman reached out and wrapped the darker side in his arms. Virgil could feel his face flush this wasn't normal for him. None the less, he hugged back lightly. After the two parted, Roman went to lay down and Virgil slumped down next to the door.

  He was still flustered from the experience. He closed his eyes and thought about how long he'd liked Roman. How he knew those feeling would never be returned because they were opposites, and they would constantly fight. Then his mind skipped back to Logan, how he'd agreed for the sake of the logical side's feelings. How he'd grown to like him too. All those emotions swirling inside was hurting, sickening to him. 

  When he opened his eyes again he saw the food in front of him was gone and there was a blanket draped over him. He stood and walked to the common area finding that the kitchen light was on. Turning the corner, he saw Roman standing in front of four plates with chicken, potatoes, and vegetables. Roman hadn't seemed to notice though.

  "Patton likes extra butter on his potatoes." He said pouring a spoon of melt butter on top of the potatoes on Patton's plate. They were all color coded plates. Light blue trim for Patton, dark blue for Logan, red and gold for Prince, and black and purple for Virgil. Roman continued to plate each one differently. "Logan doesn't like the skin or bone of the chicken." he said as he pointed to a skinless, boneless piece of meat. "Virgil doesn't like a lot of food, and no vegetables." 

  Virgil looked at his plate which had a small portion and no greens on it. 'He knows us that well?' he thought. Roman turned around and spotted Virgil.

  "Oh how did you sleep? If you were tired yourself you should have said so." he said with a smile. 

  "I'm always tired." Virgil replied walking into the kitchen and standing with Roman. "What about you, did you get enough sleep?" he asked.

  "Well I will be getting more tonight, but I got enough for right now." Can you go let Patton know dinner is ready and that I need him to come out this time. 

  Virgil nodded and started walking down the hall, he got to Patton's door and knocked softly. "Patton?" he asked. Virge reached down and turned the knob, surprised it wasn't locked. He opened it slowly, being cautious of entering Patton's room. "Roman says he'd like you to come out to-" 

  He stopped talking, staring forward in shock. The situation in front of him was surprising and heart breaking. "Virgil." He turned fast and bolted down the hall, hearing yelling behind him but ignoring it. 

  He ran right into someone who caught him in their arms. "Are you alright? What happened?" Virgil looked up, tears streaming from his face as his eyes met Roman’s. 

  "Help me?" he said quietly. Logan and Patton came running down the hall after him, stopping when they saw him in Roman's arms. Virgil turned and started to panic as he saw them. He turned back to Roman and grabbed his shirts desperately. "Get me outta here please!" He cried. Roman complied quickly, snapping his fingers and disappearing with his opposite.

[tomahawk-swing]

Death and all of his Friends

The subway was moving at normal speed. It wasn’t too crowed, and never remained longer than usual at the stations. Dingo’s luck couldn’t have been any higher.

He sat at the far edge of a seat row, his head leaning agaisnt the railing. His uniform felt tighter than ever, his bag weighed onto his knees. Classes might be over for the day being, but his ordeal wasn’t. Just thinking of all the homework he had left made he want to fall asleep, and never wake up.

He envied the man who sat across from him, his feet tucked under his seat, preventing the large bag he had set under the row from moving away. The man had his face entirely hidden in the shadow of his hood, his hands tucked in his sweater’s pocket. Dingo couldn’t wait to get home, rip off his tie, get rid of his shirt and blazer, and finally slip into his beloved hoodie.

The train pulled into yet another station. Amongst the several people to climb up, Dingo spotted an elderly lady, walking with the help of a stick. Automatically, Dingo stood up from his seat, and gestured for the old woman to take it. He received a grateful smile, which he returned, before he moved to the other end of the alley.

A few minutes passed. He was only one station away from home now. At the penultimate station, he saw the old lady climb down, and address him another smile from afar. The man with the sweater climbed down as well but left he bag behind. Dingo wanted to grab the bag and run after its owner, but the alley was too crowded. The automatic doors closed.

The bag exploded.

The blast engulfed the crowd in a cloud of thick smoke. The windows exploded, the passengers’ screams of horror, pain, terror, all blended into one voice. It went out at once, replaced by a heavy silence. A silence of death.

The stenches of burnt metal, charred flesh, singed hair filled the train. Not a single passenger was still standing. People could be heard screaming outside, calling for help. Some tried to open the doors, but the heat of the explosion had melted the metal, trapping the survivors inside. Help could only crawl through the broken windows, at the price of burning their hands on the frames.

Time was slowing down. Dingo’s ears buzzed painfully, as if a drill was piercing through his eardrums. Torturous pain coursed through his side, a weight pushed his body down, making it impossible for him to move or breathe. The sickening stenches and the lingering smoke only made it all worse.

Unable to hear, Dingo could only try to move. His eyes were blinded by the stinging smoke, so he pushed at the weight on his body without realizing what it was. Using all the strength he still possessed, he managed to free himself. He pressed his eyes against his sleeve, and threw a quick glance at the obstacle, before tears came streaming down his face again.

Wide opened eyes stared back at him. Dull, drenched eyes. The eyes of a corpse.

Time stopped. Dingo felt intensely cold, a clear contrast to the wave of scorching heat that had followed the explosion. The buzzing in his ears slowly faded, but he still couldn’t hear a sound. He was able to wipe his eyes again, and prop himself on one elbow. The pain through his side was unbearable, but he held on.

He looked down at his torso. A large piece of metal pierced through his side, and had remained stuck there. His white shirt had already turned scarlet, and the stain kept spreading.

The boy’s attention was taken away from his wound, when he spotted movement in the corner of his vision. A figure was standing a few meters away, swiftly making its way around the fallen bodies. Dingo first believed that they were gracefully hopping between the corpses.

The silhouette was dressed in a long, pitch-black dress, that went down to their ankles. There was nothing below it - the figure wasn’t hopping, it was floating above the bodies. A deep hood covered their entire head. The only part of their body Dingo could see were two skinless hands, sharp, bony fingers sprouting out of the dress’ overlarge sleeves.

“What a mess ...” The silhouette commented, unnoticed to Dingo’s wounded eardrums. “This is how low humanity has stooped ... Cowardly crimes, where the murderer runs from the crime scene to be, leaving his victims to such a cruel fate. How am I supposed to take those tortured souls with me ? This makes me almost regret the times of the black plague ...”

The figure carried a large stick, topped with a crescent-shaped, pointy blade. A scythe, Dingo recalled. It took his foggy brain a few seconds to put the pieces of the puzzle together.

Death itself was standing right next to him.

He hadn’t heard the silhouette move closer. Were his eardrums still out of commission, or was the figure perfectly silent ? He soon figured out the truth.

“We meet again, young man.” The cloaked figure spoke in a deep voice, so deep that it seemed to resonate within Dingo’s very bones. It was chilling, frightening. A single shiver crawled all over Dingo’s skin. The last of his strength finished to faded, and he collapsed to his side again.

“How many times have we crossed path ? How many times have I leaned above your agonizing body, only to be denied the honor of taking you with me ?” The figure was now crouching next to Dingo. They slipped a finger under his chin, the sharp end of it digging into Dingo’s skin, allowing another chill to course down his entire being.

“Too many times, you’ve clung so deseperately to life that I could only let you go. You forgot all your encounters with me, of course. I couldn’t let you brag about defeating Death itself so many times.” The figure commented, in a tone filled with cold anger.

“Too any times, I’ve leaned over your agonizing body ... I’ve heard you beg for another chance, say that you still had people to protect, swear that you would never get into such a situation again ... But all those times, you broke that promise.”

Dingo was at a loss for words. Even if he could form a coherent sentence, the words might not make it through the knot that tied his vocal cords together. All he could do was listen, listen to the surreal figure, listen to its unbearable words. Listen to the last words he would ever hear, before Death lost their patience.

“This asks for punishment.” The cloaked silhouette concluded. They released Dingo’s chin, and slowly stood up. Without warning, a fleshless hand grabbed hold of the metallic piece that dug into Dingo’s skin, and pulled it out in a brutal motion.

Dingo howled in pain. He curled around the now open wound, and felt a warm fluid pool under his side. As cold as he felt, he didn’t want this warmth to keep spreading. He knew all too well that it was only a temporary relief.

“Here is my first suggestion : you will die here. The explosion will be branded a ‘terrorist attack’, your name will be added to the list of casualties, and every year, the entire country will mourn your death, along with those of all the corpses that fill this car.”

“You will die a sad, pitiful death. A victim of this new kind of ‘war’ modern humans have invented. You weren’t able to stand for yourself, and simply try to stop the villain from seeing through with their evil plan. The villain was sitting right across from you this whole time, but you had no idea.”

Dingo couldn’t take this anymore. He couldn’t accept such an end to his story. “I don’t ... I don’t ...” He croaked. His voice was barely louder than a whisper, but it still carried all the despair he felt. “I don’t ... want to die here ... I can’t ... I still have ... things to do ...”

The figure let out a short chuckle : “Of course. How could I expect your speech to be any different, this time ?” Their head shook in the depth of their large hood. “Very well. You might want to consider my second suggestion, then. Or rather, let’s forget that I’m giving you a choice ...”

“You won’t die here. But here’s the catch : you won’t walk away from this tomb with your life, either.”

“Allow me to explain.” The silhouette crouched down again. Their cold hands closed around Dingo’s, and took them away from his bleeding side. "Your life as you’ve lived it so far will end here. You will become the new bridge between life and death.”

Dingo felt Death’s hand reached for his head. The cold palm met his forehead, while the fingers digged into his skull. The silhouette picked up their scythe again, and made a swinging motion.

The blade stopped a millimeter away from Dingo’s neck. Very slowly, it was pressed into his skin, just deep enough to open a slight cut there. Blood trickled from the wound, one droplet, another one ... then no more.

A tremendous shiver spread through Dingo’s body. His veins were filled with cold fire, devouring his every nerve and muscle, shaking his frame with terrible spasms. He wanted to scream, but no sound came out of his mouth. Only his twisted traits and tortured body conveyed the unbearable pain he was going through.

The pain slowly subsidied, leaving only a cold sensation, as if Dingo had been laying in a deep layer of snow for an entire day. He couldn’t feel any of his limbs, nor hear his heart beating. He felt cold, so cold. Cold as a corpse.

The pressure was lifted from his forehead, and the sharp blade stopped digging into his neck. The silhouette stood up, a hand held out for Dingo to take, and commanded : “Stand up.”

Feeling returned to Dingo’s arms and legs, and he noticed that he no longer felt any pain in his side. He took the fleshless hand, and lifted himself up to his feet.

The moment his palm met Death’s, Dingo felt a prickling sensation spread across his skin. He jumped slightly, and immediately stared at his hand. What was wrong with it ?

“You’ll want to watch what you touch with those hands.” The silhouette warned, with a hint of amusement. “Of course, this wouldn’t truly be a punishment, if there weren’t some drawbacks to it ... But I will let you discover all the details of your new condition on your own. I have wasted enough time on your case.”

Dingo was utterly confused, but he found himself unable to speak again. His eyes were looking for a face in the shade of the silhouette’s hood, but there was nothing to be spotted in the pit of darkness.

"Do not think you have escaped my wrath. If you try to run away from your punishment, I will personally come to put an end to our little agreement. One doesn’t simply make a deal with Death itself, and break it in all impunity.”

“Honor my name. Adore it, fear it.” The silhouette solemnly commanded. Their voice became louder all of a sudden loud as a crack of thunder, louder even than the explosion that had started this all.

“Respect that name, young man. Because from now on, it will be yours.”

Silence fell at once, and the silhouette disappeared. In its stead, only a black cloak remained, similar to the one the figure was wearing. Dingo picked it up and slipped it on, only to realize with surprise that it suited him perfectly. Without a second glance for the corpses that lay all around him, he bolted for the nearest window, and ran away.

The rest of the world was slowly starting to move again, and by the time it had went back to normal, Dingo was already climbing up the stairs, escaping the attacked subway station along with the panicked crowd.

Death’s words kept resonating at the back of his mind. He couldn’t make any sense of them, but his instincts were on high alert. This couldn’t mean anything good. Whatever the ‘punishment’ was, he would suffer from its consequences. But in a way, he was relieved.

Whatever the implications of this ‘deal’ would turn out to be, he would have to live with them. If it meant that he could still share the existence of all his loved ones, that he could still protect them ... It had to be worth it.

How could it be any worse than death ?