#sometimes when life is hard I need whump

[hannahbarberra162]

Heat Transfer, Ch. 1

On Ao3

Summary: You're a half blood Sea Naga, happily living by yourself. Until a group of humans mistake you for a baby and kidnap you, taking you back to their ship. You're kept like a pet, but you need out of your gilded cage, and fast.

A special thank you to a wonderful Nonnie who not only inspired this work but is also beta-ing it.

I know X reader is a stretch since the reader is so specific. It's basically an OC written from second person.

Warnings: Soft / normal yandere, pet-ification, some whump, eventual romance.

~~~

The first thing that alerted you to their presence was the smell of a fire on your island. You’d been swimming earlier that day and had smelled a ship coming close, the distinct scent of old, well cared for timber carried by the currents, but that wasn’t anything new. Ships sailed near your isolated little sanctuary sometimes, but very rarely docked there. It was small and uninhabited, with few natural resources that sailors would want. It didn’t hurt that there were rumors that Sea Naga lived nearby, ones with a particular thirst for human flesh.

You lived on a normally pleasant summer island, but it was winter at the moment. It had been a particularly harsh winter, you’d had a hard time hunting and finding anything worthwhile lately. But it was almost over, spring would be coming soon and the fishing would get better. You were the thinnest you’d been in a long while, but you weren’t worried, you knew you’d make it through. You’d been doing it your whole life. You returned your gaze towards the direction of the fire, trying to smell how many humans had come. But following the scent of smoke came the most delicious, mouth watering, succulent smell you’d ever sniffed. It smelled like meat but better . You’d eaten meat cooked over the fire before, it was tasty. Your sisters preferred raw meat and fish but you tried to cook it if you could get enough brush for a decent fire. But nothing you’d made had ever smelled like this. 

Maybe if you ate enough of what they had you’d be able to gain weight before one of your sisters came to visit. They always brought you some kind of animal to feast on, but that was part of the problem. Your three older sisters were full blooded Sea Naga, they were large and strong and vicious and everything you wished you were. You, however, were only a half blood, half Sea Naga, half human. Your mother had abandoned you after your birth and Maela, Typha, and Tsuna took it upon themselves to raise you. They’d handpicked your island and brought you there when you were a baby. They taught you everything you knew, how to survive, how to hunt, how to strike at enemies. They even taught you some of the human words they knew, including your nickname “Baby.” You knew they loved you very dearly, as you did them. 

But you weren’t a baby anymore. You were a full grown adult, albeit a very tiny one in terms of Sea Naga. You felt stifled by them sometimes, but there wasn’t anything to do. You couldn’t leave the island, you’d be vulnerable to the cold and to other predators. You didn’t have a spear forged from an underwater volcano like they did, and you could barely control the waves. You had potent venom and agility in the water, but that wasn’t enough to make it on your own. So you stayed on the island, happy and lonely in equal parts. The smell wafted past you once more and you became more determined than before to put your hands on that meat. You needed to show your sisters that you could make it on your own, you didn’t need them coddling you anymore.

You surveyed the sky - it was going to be nightfall very soon. Since you were cold blooded, the night was a hard time for you. If you were caught out in the cold for a prolonged period, you’d lose your strength and fall asleep, freezing to death. Your sisters had always warned you about this time of day, about how tempting it was to leave the cave. They warned you it wasn’t worth it, that the risk was greater than the reward. But the smell was so alluring, it was calling to you like a siren song. Decision made, you wrapped yourself in your warmest furs and slithered to the entrance of your cave. Your cave was strategically chosen - the land path to get to it extremely narrow and water on both sides. Aquatic creatures wouldn’t be able to traverse the land and it was too narrow for most walking creatures to cross without falling into the water. Luckily for you, you could do both with ease.

Tongue flicking out, you found the trail and set off. You wanted whatever meat they had, and you were going to get it. Luckily, you had years of stalking animals under your belt, you knew you could watch the humans undetected.

Ace POV

“Someone’s watching us,” Ace said, mouth full of food. A group of Commanders were sitting near him on logs, enjoying a peaceful meal by the fire.

“Yeah, we know,” replied Thatch, not taking his eyes off the meat he was rotating over the fire.

“Well, don’t you want to see who it is?” Ace put his meat down for just a moment, trying to determine exactly where the other person was using his haki.

“No, yoi. There’s only one person and they’re not attacking. It doesn’t matter.” Marco said, indifferent to the situation. But Ace’s curiosity was piqued, he didn’t like unanswered questions.

“But there’s no one else on the island. No houses, no nothing. So who is it?” Ace continued.

“We don’t care,” replied Izou offhandedly, already drinking sake.

“I’m gonna go find out.” Ace declared, grabbing another skewer of meat.

“This is how those people die in the snail films we watch,” Thatch commented. “Someone thinks they hear something and go off into the woods and bam! They’ve been eaten by a Kraken.”

“Or a Sea King.” Added Vista.

“Or a Humandrill,” Izo chimed in. The Moby needed some variety in the snail films they watched, Ace thought to himself. Regardless, he started off to find whoever (or whatever) was watching, bringing his meat along for the ride. He didn’t want to search on an empty stomach, after all. It was a colder night, but Ace didn’t mind. He was literally made of fire, the chilly air wouldn’t bother him in the slightest. Tromping through the brush, he saw a worn path that someone had obviously used many times. Following it, he came to an open field edged by dense underbrush. He felt the gaze coming from behind the shrubs, but they weren’t quite big enough to conceal a person. 

He came closer to the shrubs and heard a soft hiss. Interesting, he thought. Normal snakes, no matter the size, weren’t enough to set off his observation haki. He’d heard there were Sea Naga in the area, which were definitely capable of setting off his haki. But Sea Naga were large, nearly as large as Sea Kings, and wouldn’t be able to hide in such surroundings. Intrigued, he put down one of his skewers near the brush and backed off. If nothing happened, he’d push forward. But he had a feeling that whoever was watching was more interested in his food than him. Not a sure bet, just a hunch. 

Ace backed off and concealed himself behind a dead tree. He watched and waited, used to this type of sting from his days with Luffy. The sky was completely dark, just the moon and stars providing light. Something darted out, grabbed the meat and quickly retreated. Ace pursued, curiosity still unsatisfied. What on the seas could it be? Ace ran but was a step behind whoever it was.

“Wait, who are you?” Ace asked while running. “I don’t want to hurt you!” Ace yelled, cupping his hand over his mouth. Marco was right, whoever it was wasn’t attacking, maybe they were just hungry. He could give them more food dammit, they just had to stop running. Er, slithering? As Ace started to gain on the other being, he realized it wasn’t exactly a human. The top half was, he could see the hunk of meat gripped in humanoid arms. But below the torso was the winding body of a Sea Naga. But Sea Naga were enormous, and he’d never heard of a pygmy Sea Naga before. Maybe it was a baby, trying to forage for food in the winter. Ace felt sympathy, he knew what it was like to struggle for food in the harsher months of the year. He ran faster, trying to catch up to the baby, not focusing on where he was going. The baby slithered towards a cave and in the dark of the night, Ace slipped on mud, falling into the cold water to his right.

Your POV

The human chasing you had fallen into the water. You leaned over the pool, watching bubbles rise. He’d chased you for the entire way back to your cave to your annoyance. You were hoping you’d be able to get the food and run, to see if you liked it and would survey for more later. But no, this human decided to chase you, maybe to hunt you. If one of your sisters were here, they’d have told you to fight him in the clearing, not to lead him back to your dwelling. But it was getting colder by the moment and your time was dwindling. You needed to be back in your cave under your furs or risk being frozen to death. You didn’t have the time to fight this human, and quite frankly, weren’t sure you’d win. He looked strong and seemed confident in his abilities. So you took your chances and slithered back to your cave, hoping the human would cease to follow. Which he did now that he’d fallen into the water. 

You thought humans could swim, you’d seen some of them doing it before. Maybe this one just didn’t know how, he was sinking down quickly and not even fighting it. Watching him drown, you bit into the meat in your hand. And, oh stars, you’d never had anything like it. It tasted like the stars above were being born in your mouth, like heaven was showing you its celestial favor. It was juicy, tender, succulent, and from an animal you couldn’t place. You unhinged your jaw and swallowed the rest whole, not wanting another second between you and the immaculate meat in your hand. You licked your fingers with your forked tongue, savoring every droplet of residual flavor before slinking into the pool to get the human. If you saved his life, he would want to get you more meat. Or you’d make him. Anything to get that taste again. 

You easily caught up to his sinking form, you were much faster in the water than on land. His limbs and hair were flowing freely in the water as the last few bubbles escaped his lips. Curling your tail around his midsection, you swam up back to the top, bringing him with you. Breaching the top of the water, you pulled the two of you into your cave. Your cave was small but homey, you’d been working on it for years. Obviously, it had no windows, but you’d smoothed the floor with stones to give a pleasant cool feeling on your scales. You had a few baskets you’d made, furs from animals you or your sisters had hunted, your knife, and various bones your sisters had given you as gifts. You even kept a small remnant from your first molting. You tried to keep your cave somewhere you enjoyed being, since you had to spend so much time in it during the winter.

There were small hydrothermal vents in the water near your cave, meaning the water was warm in some spots. Now that you were out of the water though, you were freezing. You left the human on the ground, you knew they were warm blooded and you’d have more time to help him undrown or whatever they called it. You quickly threw off the now drenched fur you’d been wearing, and gathered every warm skin you had in the cave. Wrapping yourself up, you heard the human coughing up water. Looking at your fully covered form and his naked torso, you sighed, knowing you’d have to give up at least one fur for the human to survive. You slithered over to him, unwrapping the bottom most fur around the paddled tip of your tail. 

You had excellent night vision, you didn’t need the sun to see what he looked like. If you stretched out, you were nearly as long as the human. You hadn’t seen a human up close before, you’d only seen sailors from afar. You’d never actually seen any male up close either, now that you thought about it. Male Sea Naga were half the size of female Naga and rather timid. Your sisters would never allow a male near your island and would kill any who tried. You were pretty sure it was a man, it didn’t have breasts like you and your sisters. You took your time inspecting him. He had markings on his face, chest and upper arms, little dots that reminded you of the sea shore. He had short black hair unlike your own longer blonde locks. His arm had some kind of writing, but your sisters never taught you human letters, only Naga. On his back there were some bones crossed over a face, it looked like some of the flags on the ships. His ears were little and not very sensitive, you decided after putting a claw carefully in one. Overall, he was acceptably good looking. Different and a little alien, but alright. He was breathing evenly, you saw no need to wake him. 

As you covered him in the fur, you made an incredible discovery. This human was hot . Not warm, not toasty, but hot. Your sisters always told you humans were a little above room temperature when eaten, but not this warm. He was already dry, having burned off the moisture from his body heat. You were pretty sure this wasn’t normal for humans, but you weren’t going to look a Sea King in the mouth. Practically wriggling in excitement, you wrapped yourself around him trying to maximize the amount of your surface area touching him. You wanted to absorb as much of his body heat as you could so you took off all your furs. You didn’t need them being this close to the fire man. Being near this human felt like basking on the most blistering part of a black rock on a scorching day in the middle of summer. You wound yourself around him carefully, making sure not to constrict his breathing. Between the blaze of a man you were wrapped around, the delicious meal you’d had, and your long day, you were practically a puddle. You felt your eyelids drift close, and you snuggled your arms tighter around the human. He smelled very pleasant too, like a fire made from driftwood. You’d decide what to do with him when you woke up. You could always bite and asphyxiate him later if you needed to. 

Ace POV

Blinking his eyes, Ace determined he hadn’t died, which was always positive. The last thing he remembered was the creature watching him drown with a neutral expression. Obviously, the creature had brought him back to the surface and to its cave. He studied the creature now wound around him a little closer.

He had been right, it was a baby Sea Naga. It was extremely thin, skin stretched tight over its ribs. It looked emaciated, like it wouldn’t survive through the winter. It was tenderly wound all the way around his body, probably relishing in his body heat since it was cold blooded. It wasn’t constricting him, it was softly snoring in his arms contentedly. Its little forked tongue was flicking out every so often, and a long ear would twitch when his arm brushed against it. It was…cute. Its top half was humanoid, looking like a sad lost child with long tangled blonde hair. The bottom half was consistent for Sea Naga, a muscled black and white striped tail ending in a paddle-like tip. It was fast on land, but underwater it would be like lightning. It gripped him tighter in the throes of whatever dream it was having. 

Ace felt pity for the creature. It was obviously starving and wasn’t going to survive without intervention. And it had saved his life, for no obvious reason. Ace wanted to find the rest of the crew and see what they thought about adopting the little Naga. He could probably convince them that they could tame it and keep it. Though rare, Sea Naga were extremely powerful and were known to be highly intelligent. Once grown, they could control the waves and were fierce warriors. If they treated it right, it would fight for them in the water once it grew. Decision made, Ace carefully sat up, holding onto the baby with his arms. He rested its head on his shoulder, almost like when he would carry Luffy when he was a kid. It didn’t stir, so Ace picked up the loops of its tail and stood up. Ace frowned at the weight of the creature. The baby was very light, it needed to be fed a nutrient rich diet if they wanted it to live. 

Ace walked to the entrance of the cave and looked around. He couldn’t see the fire anymore, he’d run after the baby for quite a bit. Instead, he chose to use his haki to assist in locating his siblings. Finding where he needed to go, he began the trek back to his brothers, to show them his incredible find and convince them they needed to keep it. 

Your POV

You were on the move. Well, you weren’t, but the human now holding you was. Groggily waking up from one of the best rests you’d ever had, you reared back, preparing to bite the human. But he just patted your head gently and said something in human language to you with a smile. Taken aback by his demeanor, you looked at him quizzically while he continued to talk to you, like you understood him. You didn’t know human, only a few words your sisters had taught you, so you weren’t sure what he was telling you. Looking around, you realized several things very quickly. It was the middle of the night, you were far from your cave, it was cold outside, and you didn’t have your furs. Like it or not, the only way you’d survive the night was if you continued to be held by the fireman. He was still producing heat, enough to make you comfortable in the cold night. You would never ever admit it to your sisters, but you were scared. You had never been at the mercy of someone else before and it wasn’t a feeling that you liked. The man was taking you back to where the other humans were and you weren’t sure you could get away from them all. You tried to think about what your sisters would do, but they would probably laugh and swallow the men whole without a second thought. 

The fireman was talking to you incessantly and rubbing your back. Maybe it was a human thing, but it felt alright. Your sisters weren’t often physically affectionate with you, but that was their way. He carried you towards the men, who perked up at his arrival. They were animatedly talking amongst themselves, probably about you.  You so desperately wanted to leave, to never see these humans again, but if the fireman put you down you wouldn’t be able to get back to your cave before dying. You were stuck. You’d have to wait until daytime when it would be warm enough to escape. You just had to outlast them for the night, that was all. 

One of the men in particular was activating your fight or flight. There wasn’t anything abnormal about him, he looked like the rest of them. But something about him reminded you of a bird of prey, like the stories of harpies your sisters had told you during your childhood. They hadn’t wanted you leaving the island or wandering too far from your cave, so they told you stories of harpies, half human half birds, who preyed on Sea Naga foolish enough to ignore the warnings of their sisters. You believed them when you were a kid, but not anymore. He looked at you and you reared back, hissing. He raised an eyebrow and spoke to the fireman, who held you even tighter when responding.

One of the men came towards you with a curious but open expression on his face and something in his closed hand. He smelled the best out of all of them, like the meat you had in your belly. He opened his hand to reveal more of the meat and held it out to you expectantly. You waited a moment to see what was going to happen, but he didn’t move. You tentatively reached out to take it, and he cooed at you to continue. You swiped the meat quickly and shoved it all in your mouth, swallowing it whole. You flicked your tongue to his outstretched hand, trying to find more, but you’d eaten it all. Fireman patted your head, which was getting irritating. Your sisters had done that a few times when you were young, but not constantly. The meatman reached for you again, but this time without food. You weren’t expecting it, and instinct kicked in. You bit him.

Ace POV

“Ow! Goddammit!” Thatch yelled, yanking his hand back. He was shaking it as blood trickled out of two puncture wounds. 

“It’s not her fault, you startled her!” Ace yelled back, gripping the baby tighter. He was pretty sure Baby was a girl but it was hard to tell. Most Sea Naga were female, but not much was known about them. Not many people encountered them and lived to tell the tale. 

“I’m not saying it's her fault, I’m just saying it hurt. Actually, it doesn’t anymore. My hand is completely numb. And it's spreading.” Thatch was pinching his forearm with his other hand, trying to determine where the sensation ended. Marco leaned forward, now interested. The first Commander had been the biggest opponent to bringing her on the ship. Marco said that it was a bad idea, that pets were a lot of work, that Ace was already busy, and lots of other things Ace didn’t really listen to him. Ace knew in his heart he needed to save Baby and he was going to do it. 

“Really, that quickly yoi?” Marco asked, moving towards Thatch. The baby curled tighter around Ace, hiding her face in Ace’s neck. Ace cradled her head with a hand, soothing her.

“Yeah, check it out, almost my whole arm is numb now.” Without warning, Marco used a talon to slice open Thatch’s arm, blood pouring out of the wound. Before Thatch reacted, Marco healed it just as quickly. 

“Oi! What if I wasn’t numb? Coulda used a heads up,” grumbled Thatch. The little baby was shaking, wound so tight she was almost cutting off Ace’s circulation. Poor thing.

“Can you feel your arm now yoi? Now that I’ve healed you?” Marco asked, still prodding Thatch’s arm. He ignored Thatch’s question completely. 

“Nope, still numb, and I can’t move it.” Thatch said, swinging his numb arm.

Marco whistled.  “I’ve changed my mind yoi. Bring her on the ship. I want to extract some of that venom. It’s a powerful anesthetic.” 

Ace grinned. “See? She’s already useful. And this is only her baby form, imagine how powerful her venom will be when she gets older. Besides, we can’t leave her, right Thatch? Look how hungry she is, she’s practically bones. She’s gonna need someone to feed her back to health.” Ace knew he was manipulating the chef, but Thatch didn’t need much convincing. 

“How could we leave this tiny little baby behind? To starve and freeze to death on this wasteland of an island? Of course she’s coming with us,” said Thatch, almost offended at the thought of leaving her. Ace smiled and rubbed his face on the top of the baby’s head.

“Alright, I’ll take her back to the Moby now. She’s coldblooded and it’s cold yoi,” said Marco, turning to Ace.

Baby POV

You regretted ever ignoring your sisters. You regretted every time you told them they were overprotective, that they were overbearing, that you were independent. You wished you had listened to their advice and had stayed in your cave during the evening. Because they were right. Harpies were real. 

The man who set your fangs on edge transformed into a Harpy straight from your nightmares as a child. Now you understood why the fireman brought you back. This was all a trap and you were too stupid to see it. They were going to feed you to the Harpy. Small Sea Naga were a favored treat for Harpies, according to your sisters. Even though it meant your death, you quickly unfurled from the fireman and tried to slither away as fast as you could. Which unfortunately wasn’t very fast due to the cold. But you weren’t going to stay and become Harpy food and meet a humiliating death. You tried to run but the Fireman caught you by the end of your tail. He was talking to you, looking confused as you thrashed, trying to get away. You tried constricting as well but it was to no avail. The more you fought, the more tired you became until you barely had any fight left in you. The fireman frowned at you and patted your head once more. You would have bit him if you could have mustered the energy. 

The Harpy transformed into its full bird form, frightening you into a final burst of energy to make an escape. Unfortunately it caught you in a talon immediately, gripping you by the end of your tail, leaving you to dangle pathetically as it took flight. The fireman was in the other talon, watching you with interest. You had to hand it to them, they got you. You just hoped your sisters found them and killed them, their crew, and sunk their ship in your honor. 

The Harpy climbed higher into the sky and it was too cold for you to bear. You’d never been this frozen in your life. The air itself was chilled but you were now being whipped by winds as you were flown to the Harpy’s nest. You knew you’d pass out soon, you weren’t meant for these temperatures. You let out one loud sad hiss as you lost consciousness. At least they’d given you a tasty last meal.

Aces POV

Ace felt bad as he watched the baby pass out. He knew she was confused and scared, unsure why they were taking her. The lack of heat was probably uncomfortable for her but Marco assured Ace she’d be OK. Marco was giving them a lift back to the ship, which was better than the long walk and ride on the dinghy they would have had to take. The baby did not like Marco specifically - Ace wasn’t sure why. She’d gone wild when Marco transformed, and even worse when they’d taken flight. Ace was going to make sure she was comfortable in the crate they would set up for her. Lots of blankets, pillows, heating pads, anything he could find to make her feel warm. He would have slept next to her again but he had a feeling she wouldn’t be happy when she woke up and he didn’t want to be bitten. She would get used to them, to being on the ship. She’d come to love them, he thought, and they’d love her too.

[much-ado-about-whumping]

Help for when you’re having a rough time

(If you're looking for my old pinned post with my whump masterlists, you can find it here.)

In light of some deeply sad news in the whump community today, I’m thinking about how many of us here struggle with mental health, sometimes including physical or mental self-harm and suicidality. Since I know lots of folks might be having a hard time right now, I wanted to share some resources that have helped me in rough moments. Please feel free to add on to this post (or make your own, if you want!) with the resources that have worked for you. 

First, a note:

Trauma, shame, and suicidality all tend to isolate - they make us feel like we’re all alone in the world, like no one else would understand us, and like the only solutions we have available to us are ones we can think of all by ourselves. In my experience, the antidote to that is connection. If you’re feeling scared or alone, you can hop into my asks or DMs if you want. I’m sure there are other folks in this community who would offer that, too. Many of us have grappled with mental health struggles, including suicidal ideation, and sometimes we can offer each other the care that can be hard to offer ourselves. Don’t be afraid to reach out if you need support.

A quick note about location: I live in the US, but about half the resources in this post are written guides you can access from anywhere. The hotlines and warmlines linked below are US-based. One or two are accessible in Canada or have an online chat or moderated forum that could be accessed anywhere. If you have good local resources from another place, please reblog and add them! (Thank you, @straight-to-the-pain, for flagging this in the notes!)

That said, here’s my absolute first recommendation if you’re feeling generally awful and don’t know what to do:

1. You Feel Like Shit (also available at its original site here)

If you’ve read a lot of ~self care tips~ in your life (and if you’re a bit of a salty bitch like me), you might be sick of being told to eat something and take a nap. (I don’t think we can hydrate our way out of long-term trauma and late-stage capitalistic hell, but thanks.) That said, I’ve found this site REALLY helpful. Personally, I have ADHD and CPTSD, a combination that makes it ROUGH for me to know how to take care of myself sometimes. This site speaks to you calmly, like a non-judgemental friend, and walks you through steps that you might struggle with if you have a hard time with executive function in general, or if you’re ill, grieving, overwhelmed, or otherwise just off your game. I pretty much always walk away feeling at least a little better, even if I don’t complete every step.

There are more suggestions and resources below the cut. Wishing everyone in this community love and care. <3

2. The 15-Minute Rule (info available in many places; after a quick google, I really like this site as a place to start)

One key principle to understanding the resources I’ve put together here is the 15-minute rule. If you’re feeling an urge towards physical or mental self-harm or suicide, studies show that the urge is unlikely to last more than about 15 minutes at its peak intensity. (Sorry I don’t have data on this off the bat - anecdotally, I can tell you that this rule also tracks with my own personal experience.) This means that, if you’re presently feeling overwhelmed by grief or pain that’s turning inwards on you, if you can stay afloat through the next few minutes, the tide of it is likely to ebb. The site I linked above has information about this concept and some great harm-reduction ideas, too. (Another resource on this that I liked in my quick search is here.)

3. Read This First (a compassionate distraction from feelings of self-harm)

I’m gonna be honest; this resource is aimed at folks having urges towards physical self-harm, but it looks like something I would find helpful with urges towards emotional self-harm, too. (It also looks like it could be handy for body-focused repetitive behaviors - BFRBs - like dermatillomania/skin-picking or trichotillomania/hair-pulling).

4. Resources from Pete Walker, psychotherapist and author of Complex PTSD: From Surviving to Thriving

Obviously not everyone reading this will have complex PTSD (also called C-PTSD), but if you’re a person who, in general, tends to beat yourself up a lot, I’d highly recommend checking Pete Walker’s work out. If some of it doesn’t apply to you, that’s okay - take what you need, and leave the rest. This site (and the book it references most heavily) assumes you may have had parents who were emotionally or physically abusive or neglectful. If that doesn’t ring true for you, but other parts of the resources seem helpful, use them anyway! A handy place to start maybe this page on Shrinking the Inner Critic in Complex PTSD (that is, reducing the volume of the voice that screeches unpleasantness at you when you feel ashamed or scared).

As a note: this website looks VERY mid-2000s (which I kind of love). Most of the resources you want will be in the right-hand column full of links. Some of those links will open new pages, and some will automatically try to download a PDF of the article you want to read. 

5. Warmlines:

This is something I just learned today - if you’re feeling really lonely and sad, but you’re not in immediate crisis, there are warmlines you can contact! These seem to be numbers where you can call (or sometimes text) to talk with a counselor or trained peer when you need support and connection. I can’t vouch for any of these numbers personally, but as someone who has definitely thought, “It’s not bad enough to REALLY need help,” I think this is a fabulous idea. Here’s a list of warmlines you can check out in the US.

6. Specialized hotlines: 

There are lots of good crisis hotlines out there, but some may be better for your needs than others. For one thing, if you’re feeling seriously suicidal, it’s good to know the policies of the hotline you’re calling. In my opinion, everyone deserves bodily autonomy and the right to refuse care; for that reason, I think it’s important to know the policy of the hotline you’re calling as to whether or not they’ll call emergency services without your consent. Everyone has to make their own judgment call on this one, and I’m a little too (lightly!) triggered to go deep into my analysis on this right now, but I wanted to flag that it’s something to be aware of - if you’re going to call a hotline, you can try to look up their policy on calling emergency services before you contact them. You could probably even ask them in the beginning of the call. (A script: “Before we start, can you tell me what your policy is about contacting emergency services on behalf of callers?” If this is true, you can add: “I’m having some feelings of [suicidality/self-harm], but I’m safe and am not in danger of hurting myself or others.”)

With that in mind, here are some hotlines that seem promising to me, in no particular order:

A. For queer and trans folks in general:

Trans LifeLine

Available in the US (1-877-565-8860) and Canada (1-877-330-6366)

Available in English and Spanish

Will NOT call emergency services without your consent (you can read more about this policy on their website, including here)

Peer to peer support for transgender and questioning folks; also, microgrants (small amounts of money) for trans-related needs!

Does not offer text/chat-based support

I’ve never used Trans LifeLine myself, but I’ve heard excellent things about it from peers who have.

The Trevor Project:

Support from trained counselors for queer, trans, and questioning folks

Definitely available in the US; I’m not sure where else.

Offers support via phone (1-866-488-7386), text message (678-678), and online chat (link here - scroll down to Start Chat)

Also offers an online peer support space, TrevorSpace, for folks ages 13-24

Their site says, “In very specific instances of abuse or a clear concern of an in-progress or imminent suicide, Trevor counselors may need to contact a child welfare agency or emergency service.” When you click Learn More, it takes you to their Terms of Service (informative, but in legalese that might be hard to parse if you’re in crisis).

Again, not a service I’ve used myself, but I’ve heard good things!

B. For BIPOC folks (Black folks, Indigenous folks, and people of color more broadly), especially those who also hold LQBTQI identities:

Call Blackline:

Available via phone or text (both at 1-800-604-5841)

Available for people in crisis. Call Blackline can also help connect you with local community organizers and officials if you need to report a negative, inappropriate, or physical interaction with police, other law enforcement, or vigilantes.

From their website:

Call BlackLine® provides a space for peer support, counseling, reporting of mistreatment, witnessing and affirming the lived experiences for folxs who are most impacted by systematic oppression with an LGBTQ+ Black Femme Lens.Call BlackLine® prioritizes BIPOC (Black, Indigenous, and People of Color). By us for us.

Here’s what I found regarding their policy on emergency services:

You do not have to provide any personal information to use the service. All calls remain private and will never be shared with law enforcement or state agencies of any kind.

Of course, a BIPOC person can contact any hotline for support, but for people dealing with racism, anti-Blackness, and other specific bigotries, I can very much see the importance of talking to someone who shares or understands that experience.

C. For folks processing bad psychedelic trips:

Fireside Project:

This one is something I didn’t even know existed! They do call- or text-based support (1-623-473-7433, or 1-62-FIRESIDE) for people processing psychedelic drug experiences, available 11am to 11pm Pacific time. I don’t have a ton more info, but their site seems really interesting and like they’re serving a unique need.

7. A soothing distraction:

One of the glories of the internet is the fact that it enables us to conjure up images of kittens at a moment’s notice. In that vein, I want to offer up a VERY cute distraction: Peptoc is a hotline (1-707-873-7862, or 1-707-8PEPTOC) where you can hear encouraging messages in English or Spanish from kindergarteners. How sweet is that? (Thanks to the wonderful @newbornwhumperfly for this suggestion!)

--------

Beloved whump community, I want to know about things that help you when you’re struggling. Please feel free to share them if you want.

And, Moya - we’ll miss you so, so much, even those of us (like me) who didn’t know you well. May your memory be an absolute blessing. <3

(I was going to put this in the tags, but oops, it’s going up here - I really hope this post will be helpful to someone, but it was also helpful to me to build. I feel better in a crisis when I can find a way to help - it’s how I soothe myself when I’m sad or scared. I really hope this doesn’t seem preachy or self-aggrandizing - it’s really just me processing-processing-processing. <3)

One more note: if this post makes you think you might want to follow my blog, you're totally welcome, but you should check out my note here first. This is not a DNI list; it's just a heads-up about my content, which could be inappropriate or triggering for some people.

[halfmoth-halfman]

Preserve Your Love In A Field Of Tulips

Pairing: Kento Nanami x GN!Reader Word Count: 3.9k Warnings: fluff, whump, bruises, blood, injury, shibuya aftermath, nanami survives shibuya A/N: we got the winner of the last fic poll!! it's my first fic in a while so i hope y'all enjoy it, and if you notice typos...no you didn't lmao

You grow up next to a field of wildflowers, in a house that smells of summer and honey.

It’s been in your family for generations, a cozy two-story away from the noise and chaos of the city. As a child, your mother told you stories of it being built by a grandfather of a grandfather trying to find a place for himself in the world. The story changed each time, every retelling more fantastical than the last. Sometimes she claimed he came to this field to escape a great evil that haunted his family home. Other times she claimed that he’d fallen in love with a spirit that lived among the wildflowers and built his home here in hopes of seeing her again.

Your father’s explanation was far more practical, and probably closer to the truth. A simple story of a man wanting to see the world and build a legacy of his own without the overbearing opinions of his family. 

Whatever the truth, the house is yours now. 

Your little paradise, a space lovingly carved out of the world and meant just for you.

You do your best to honor their memory, to care for this gift you’ve been given properly. You tend to your mother’s herb garden, care for the shubunkin and tamasaba in your great uncle’s pond, and leave little pieces of yourself throughout the house to make it your own. 

You don’t mind the routine, finding peace in the feel of the sun warming your skin and the soft glow of fireflies at night. You know this is a gift meant to be shared, something made to pass on to your children and their children after. There’s no rush, you tell yourself. You’re content in your solitude, satisfied with the few close friendships you’ve nurtured over the years. Of course, those friendships were from your time spent abroad with no one close enough to actually meet with in person.

Maybe the isolation can be a bit much, but it’s not like you can’t visit the city at any time. 

“You have your whole life to find love,” your mother once told you while you helped her wash dishes, a knowing smile on her kind face. She’d taken a moment to lean down to you, glancing at your father as she whispered conspiratorially into your ear, “And this place has a way of sending you exactly what you need when you least expect it.” She winked at you then, returning to the dishes while humming a soft tune.

She spoke about your home like that often, as if it were a living, thinking thing. You struggled to believe her even as a child, sharing in your father’s more “practical” line of thought.

You should’ve known that even in death your mother was always right. 

Seven summers after you inherit the house, a week of harsh rains and unnatural winds leaves your land a mess of mud and branches. You spend far too many days trying to salvage your flooded herb garden and saving your fish from their overflowing pond. Only when the land is somewhat cleared does the storm return, disappearing and reappearing in patterns that purposely inconvenience you. 

You’re fed up, sitting hopelessly on the rain-soaked steps of your porch as the storm rages around you when a stranger appears.

Umbrella in hand, wearing a tan suit and strange sunglasses, the man politely ushers you inside “for your own safety”. It’s the only thing he says to you, offering no explanations for why he’s here or how he found this place. Sealed inside your house, no light except for the lightning flashing through your windows, you rush to the living room, climbing atop your couch to peer through your curtains and search for the stranger in your yard. 

It’s not hard to spot the blonde of his hair even through the heavy downpour, but your attention is immediately drawn to the massive creature swatting at him from the clouds. It’s grotesque, a twisted form of sharpened teeth and bloated, purple arms. The man is seemingly unbothered, dodging its swings with ease. The creature roars, echoes of thunder rattling the walls of your house. The skin on its many arms burst open, bolts of lightning shooting from its veins. The light is blinding, its roar pressing painfully into your eardrums until you’re crouched on your living room floor with your eyes shut and hands squeezing against your ears.

You don’t realize it’s over until a warm hand is laid on your shoulder, and you find the man crouched in front of you. He’s soaked, dripping red-tinted rainwater onto your floor, but he looks at you with genuine concern. 

“Are you alright?” he asks softly. 

So many questions swirl around your head: Who are you? What was that thing? Did you kill it? How did you do that? How did you know to come here? 

“Did that thing hurt my fish?” Is what leaves your mouth. The man blinks, surprise briefly flashing across his face. 

“I don’t think so.” 

You sag forward without thinking, your head coming to rest on his shoulder with a relieved sigh. Already you can feel exhaustion creeping in, your eyes sliding closed as you mutter a soft thanks. 

The man clears his throat, shifting awkwardly beneath you.

“The garden will need some work, however.”

He’d introduced himself as Kento Nanami, politely offering to help clear out your garden before he left. You’d declined, exhausted and defeated, but thanked him nonetheless. He helped you to your feet, guiding you around the puddles on your floor as he brought you to the stairs. It took three times to assure him that you could make it to your room by yourself, and he still waited until you were at the top of the steps to take his leave.

It only takes you a day to convince yourself it was nothing more than a vivid dream brought on by stress and too little sleep. It’s easier to believe, far easier than the idea of a handsome stranger showing up in the middle of a storm to fight a massive sky demon in your front yard. If something so crazy had actually happened, surely there would be evidence of it. Yet, there are no stains on your living room floor, no destruction in your herb garden aside from some extra mud, no giant, bloated sky demon corpse lying around.

There’s nothing but your memories of an admittedly wild dream…

Nothing but your memories, and the handsome, blonde man dressed in a tan suit standing at your front door a week later. He ignores the stunned look on your face, holding up a blue gift bag decorated with cartoon goldfish and a talking turtle. You wordlessly take the bag, peering inside in equal parts curiosity and disbelief.

Lights shaped like white lotus flowers, polished rocks, and two yellow duck figurines. 

“A few pieces from your pond were damaged,” he explains. “Fish can get stressed if there are extreme changes to their environment.”

“You…” You blink up at him, trying to come to terms with the fact that the handsome man from your dream is, in fact, real and bringing you decorations to calm your fish. “It's Kento, right?”

“I apologize for the abrupt visit–”

“Where’d you put the body?” 

You’ve stunned him into silence once more, Kento staring at you with his mouth slightly open. He composes himself quickly, straightening with a small cough.

“The body?”

“The sky demon. That was real, right? I didn’t dream that? I don’t think I did ‘cause that would mean I dreamt you up, which…well, I might have – you seem like the type I’d dream of. But you’re standing in front of me right now, and I’m definitely not asleep. Unless I’m hallucinating…” 

You reach out without thinking, snatching your hand back the moment your fingertips meet the solid muscle of his torso. “Nope, you’re real and I’m...making a fool of myself.”

“It’s a lot to process,” he nods. You nod in return, eyes bouncing back between him and the bag in your hands. “I’m sure you need time–”

He takes a step back, and that’s all you need to snap back to reality.

“Yes, well no…” He pauses, waiting patiently as you take a deep breath to gather your words. 

“Thank you for the gift and the–” you gesture up to the clear, blue sky, “–demon…thing. If you’d like, you can come inside for a bit.”

Kento raises his brows, and you think you catch the brief twitch of his mouth. “That’s not necessary–”

“It’s more for me, really. I think I’m still trying to process…everything, and I could use the company.” 

You notice the way he glances down, a short look to the nervous smile on your lips to the shaking of your hands around the handles of the gift bag. If the rambling doesn’t give your nerves away, the rest certainly does, but Kento is polite enough not to mention it. 

“Alright,” he nods, lips pulled into a small smile. 

Over the afternoon, Kento eases you through a simple explanation of the curse – not demon – that had tried to make a home in your skies. The explanation leads into a wider conversation about curses as a whole and his role in dealing with them. He’s vague but patient, answering your questions in a calm manner that soothes your anxiety without going into detail. There’s more silence than there is conversation, but he doesn’t seem to mind. You’re sure he feels sorry for you, watching you try to navigate as your world gets flipped on its head.

Guilt sets in by late afternoon when you realize that his work is far more important than wasting time comforting you. You thank him for staying, letting him leave with more thanks than he’s probably comfortable with. He offers to come back in a few weeks if you need, but you assure him you’re fine. 

He gives you a smile, one you’re coming to understand means he sees right through your lies, before gesturing to the gift bag sitting on your coffee table. 

“I look forward to seeing what you do with the pond, then,” he says. “Since you’re sure you’re alright.”

He’s walking away before you can argue, and you swear you catch the hint of a smirk. 

Kento visits three weeks later, keeping his word as he heads straight to your pond.

You took a trip to the city and bought a few more decorations since his visit, working on getting the pond back to normal as a way to distract your mind. You think you’ve come to terms with the idea of curses, though the feeling of being watched has spiked your paranoia.

“Not bad,” he hums, crouching down to assess the duck figurines you have next to the small waterfall.

“The fish seem to appreciate it,” you shrug, watching your fish happily circle the pond. He gives a contemplative hum, running a finger along the water’s surface to watch one of the tamasaba follow along the ripples. A comfortable silence stretches over the pond, broken a few moments later by the ringing of Kento’s phone. 

He stands, taking a few steps away before answering. You take his place at the pond’s edge, content to watch the fish circle along the gentle waves and listen to Kento’s murmurs into his phone. He hangs up with a deep sigh, rejoining you at the pond. 

“More demon stuff to deal with?” you ask teasingly. 

“Next time I’ll bring something for the garden,” he says, watching the fish circle for a few seconds before looking to you.

“Next time?” 

He nods, and you smile wide, “Next time, then.” 

Kento visits two weeks later, a bag of star-shaped lights that he spends the afternoon stringing along your garden fence. He sticks around until after the sun sets – just to make sure the lights work, he claims – promising to fix the loose step on your porch before he leaves. 

Once your step is fixed, he insists on fixing the missing piece to your porch railing. 

After that, it’s the way your kitchen window squeaks when you slide it open. 

Then, it’s the loose knob on your front door.

Then the uneven chair at your dining table.

The bent bottom shelf of your bookcase. 

The crooked picture in the upstairs hallway.

Fixes turn to small talk turns to long conversations turns to lunch in the herb garden turns to sunsets by the pond. 

“What happens when there’s nothing left to fix?” you ask, watching the last of the sun’s light disappear beyond the horizon. “You have to be running out of stuff by now.” You try not to sound anxious, try not to worry that this may only be a passing fancy for him.

Kento pauses, finger still on the pond’s surface. He thinks for a moment, soft breeze ruffling the fabric of his blue shirt. A shiver skims across your skin, and you pull his jacket tighter around your shoulders. 

“Nothing to fix…” he mutters, pulling his hand from the pond to pick up one of the duck figurines. He glances at you before holding the duck up and letting go. You gasp as it breaks against the stone next to him. Kento’s gaze slides to you, a smirk stretched across his handsome face as he picks up another duck. A playful hum as he pretends to think, letting the second duck drop and break. 

“Looks like you need new ducks.” 

You don’t try to hide your laughter, playfully shoving against his shoulder as he sweeps the figurine pieces into a small pile. 

He stays an extra ten minutes that night, cleaning up the broken ducks and double-checking that nothing got into the pond. When you hand his jacket back, he refuses to take it. Instead, he makes you promise to return it when he comes back with new ducks and departs with a kiss on your cheek that has you too stunned to argue. 

After seven months of fixing, then breaking, then fixing again, you stand across from Kento in your living with nothing left for him. Nothing to break nor to fix. You’re sure that won’t stop him – you can see him already eyeing your bookcase – but you’re tired of your things caught in a constant state of not quite usable.

You have a much better idea. One that’s been stewing in your brain since he first appeared at your door with a bag of pond decorations. 

Your teeth sink into your bottom lip when his back is turned, pulling at the skin until it gives and you taste iron. The sting makes you hiss, and Kento turns to you with a startled quickness. His eyes immediately fall to the blood on your lips, watching intensely as your tongue darts out to lick it away. 

“Any way you can fix–”

One hand on your jaw, the other on your neck, Kento pulls you forward until his lips are on yours. His tongue swipes across your bottom lip, the sting pulling a sharp gasp from your mouth. He swallows it with another kiss, a desperate groan as his hand slides from your jaw into your hair. 

You part from him with a soft push, but he refuses to go far, leaning his forehead against yours. The hand on your neck moves to cup your cheek, thumb gently tracing the cut on your lip. 

“Better?” he rasps, pulling his fixated gaze from your mouth to your eyes. 

“Not sure,” you breathe, leaning in until your lips brush against his. “You might have to do it again.”

Over the next two years, you learn just how difficult life can be loving a Jujutsu sorcerer. 

While each moment spent with Kento is nothing short of bliss, it makes his absence all the more painful. Nights without him are spent worrying over his safety, doing everything in your power to not call the one number he’d given you in case of emergencies. Pain lingers in your chest every time you watch him walk out the door, threatening to squeeze your heart until it pops. 

Despite your feelings, you let him go every time.

And every time he returns to you. 

Most of the time he’s exhausted, and you’re more than happy to take care of him, to get him fed and washed and safe in bed. Sometimes he returns with new bruises or the occasional stitched wound. You fuss over him, and, despite his insistence that you don’t need to, he lets you do it.

The worst is when not all of him makes it back. It’s rare – Kento isn’t one to let his work affect his home life – but it does happen. On those days he sits by the pond, watching the fish go in circles for hours on end while you tend to the garden or pick wildflowers to decorate the house. 

He comes back to himself slowly, always apologizing with overwhelming affection when he’s more himself. There’s no reason for him to be sorry, you’ve told him so countless times. He’s here with you and that’s all you need.

He shares his plans with you late those nights, dreams of the two of you on a beach in Malaysia. You’re lulled to sleep by the whispered fantasies of the ocean breeze, the sun on your skin, and a ring on your finger. 

The first time you meet Takuma Ino, you slap him.

You don’t mean to – you’ve heard so many good things about him from Kento – but he appears on your doorstep, face bruised and spirit broken, and the words come spilling out of his mouth as thick and harsh as his tears. 

Curses. Attack. Shibuya. 

Burning. Kento. 

Not sure if he’ll make it.

You act before you think, leaving yet another mark on his already wounded face. You apologize immediately, but he takes it in stride. A pained smile on his face, Ino helps you pack a bag and brings you to Jujutsu High for the first time. 

Your introduction to Shoko is the stench of cigarettes and being bluntly told there’s little chance of Kento surviving his injuries. You’re too tired to worry, only desperate to see him. She gives you a pitying smile, allowing you and Ino into the infirmary. 

Your strength leaves you the moment you lay eyes on Kento’s bandaged form. Ino keeps you steady, a hand grasping your arm to keep you upright while he slides a chair over for you. You collapse into the chair, eyes fixated on your love.

You’ve seen him injured, but never to this extent. Only his upper half is visible to you, his torso and left arm completely wrapped in bandages. Those bandages extend up the left side of his neck, packed with gauze as it covers the left side of his face. 

You reach over, gently brushing a piece of his hair from his face. His face contorts, a pained groan escaping his lips. You pull your hand back, heart-shattering at his labored breaths. 

You’ve seen him soft, vulnerable, hurt, but never weak. 

He groans again, muscles tensing, hand fisting into the thin sheet over his lower half. You set your hand over his, tenderly running your thumb across his knuckles. Murmurs of praise and love rush past your lips as you try to comfort him. 

Ino sets a hand on your shoulder, squeezing reassuringly. A silent question if you’re alright. You look back at him with a smile that doesn’t quite reach your eyes. You give his hand a light squeeze, a million thanks on the tip of your tongue. 

He moves your bag next to your chair, eyes glancing to the infirmary door. 

“If you need anything…” he says softly. You nod, watching Ino give Kento one last look of deep anguish before he forces himself away. 

His footsteps fade. The door clicks shut. Kento groans, blood staining the bandages on his face. 

You weep. 

Recovery is long and hard. 

The first weeks back home are spent struggling to adjust, Kento to his slow healing injuries and you to his attitude. He’s never angry or short with you, always appreciative of your efforts, and far more considerate of your feelings than his own, but you can see the exhaustion in his face. You catch the way he deflates when he thinks you aren’t looking, the way he frowns whenever he passes by a mirror, the way he politely avoids your affection.

He may not voice it, but you know he feels defeated. 

You keep yourself in good spirits, telling yourself that your optimism will catch on eventually.

And it does.

Months pass and Kento learns to move more, talk more, smile more. Ino visits on occasion, the two of you playfully bullying Kento into getting the rest he deserves while you make dinner. Shoko once a week, then once every other week, then once a month, keeping an eye on Kento’s recovery. Her visits aren’t long, and she’s still terribly blunt with you, but you go out of your way to ensure she knows how grateful you are to her, and she gives you a rare smile just before she leaves.

Things are good for the most part. Bad nights still happen, as they are bound to after what he’s been through. Nights when Kento’s trapped in his memories until you manage to wake him. Nights when he can’t sleep, sitting out by the pond until long after the sun has risen. Nights when he flinches at even the softest of touches from you. 

You worry. How could you not? But you’re there for him every step of the way, supporting him when he needs you there and giving him space when he doesn’t. 

He kisses you again six months after Shibuya. After a particularly bad nightmare, you coax him back into the waking world only to have him collapse into sobs against your chest. You hold him, soothe him, let him finally have this release. He sobs through apology after apology, to you, to Ino, to people you’ve never heard of. Everything spills out of him, every worry, every impossible dream, every fear, the neverending paranoia that one day you’ll regret wasting so much time on him.

“Never in my life would I regret you, Kento Nanami,” you tell him, hand softly cupping the ruined half of his jaw. “You’re stuck with me forever.”

He kisses you then, desperate and wanting, and you spend the night showing him every way you could love him now and forever. 

A year and a half after Shibuya, you lay in the field of wildflowers near your home with your fingers woven through the mottled and warped ones of your husband. It’s a peaceful afternoon spent gazing at clouds, sharing carefully sliced oranges, and basking in the warmth of the sun.

Kento turns, watching your eyes explore the sky as you smile and point at a cloud that’s shaped like a fish. Golden light on your face, petals stuck to your hair, you’ve never looked more beautiful to him. You catch him staring, laughter spilling out of you as you snuggle up to his side. You kiss his cheek, lifting the hand clasped in yours to point him toward your fish-shaped cloud.

He never sees the cloud, too distracted by the way your rings sparkle in the sunlight. 

It isn’t Malaysia, no. It’s far, far better.

[ohtobeleah]

Bruises // Jake Seresin

Chapter Four: [Men & Their Many Masks]

Summary: You and Jake find yourselves alone in his cell for what feels like a week. Passing the time with mundane conversations. But when The Commander and his fellow officers finally come back? Things take a turn for the worst.

Series Warnings: Heavy themes of violence, sexual assault, torture. 18+ content. Minors DNI. Mature themes. Being held in captivity. Hostage style situation. Main character death! Whump, Angst. Conversations that discuss antisocial & antisemitism views.

Word Count: 5.3k

Author Note: THIS SERIES IS CONFRONTING, FICTIONAL, AND DEPICTS IMAGES OF TORTURE. DO NOT READ PAST THIS POINT IF YOU BELIEVE THAT THIS SERIES WILL BE DETRIMENTAL TO YOUR MENTAL STABILITY. CURATE YOUR OWN TIMELINE.

Series Masterlist | Main Masterlist

***~***~***~***~***~***~***~***~***~***~***~***~

“How’s the leg?” In life, only one thing is certain apart from death and taxes. No matter how hard you try, no matter how good your intentions are, you’re going to make mistakes. You’re going to hurt people and you’re going to get hurt. “Feeling any better than the last few days?” 

“Stings, but yeah I think it’s starting to heal.” But you never thought you’d be hurt quite like this. And if you ever wanted to recover, there was really only one thing you could say. “I forgive you though.” 

Jake smiled softly as he sat with you on the floor of the cell the two of you had been put back in for what felt like days at this point. He was just grateful he could hold you, that there were no bars to separate him from keeping you safe. His arm was slung around your shoulders as your head laid heavy against his shoulders. Just sitting, both waiting for the hell that was sure to come. 

“I’m glad to hear it.” Jake couldn’t stop thinking about it, your screams that was. The agonising cries that escaped from your mouth as he sewed your thigh up without any anaesthetic, without proper medical training or knowledge. “Might have to consider a career change when we get outta here.” You could hear in Jake's voice that he was tired, but he’d never admit it to you, just how tired he truly was. 

He’d stay up while you slept with your head in his lap or head on his shoulders. He’d stay awake and keep a watchful eye over you as the days mixed in with the nights. He wasn’t about to let anyone take you, he wouldn’t let them. He’d stay awake as you slept stroking your hair back out of your face all the while he’d eye of the passing insurgents that walked past in the hallway. 

You wouldn’t tell Jake, but sometimes you’d wake up from his constant mumbling. The mantra he’d say over and over and over again as you slept: 

“I’m not gonna let anything happen to you, I’ve got you.” 

“Hmm—“ You mumbled in response as you very tiredly lifted your head from the comfort it had found against Jake's broad shoulder. “Career change definitely seems in the cards.” You weren’t lying. “A desk job with zero dangers sounds pretty good right about now.” 

In the time that had passed you and Jake by in the hell hole you found yourself in, there had been times where you’d both fall into mundane conversation just to fill the void. Now must have been one of those times—because instead of sitting in the dimly lit cell with dirty floors and concrete walls in silence, Jake kept the conversation going just to hear your voice. 

“What made you wanna be an aviator in the first place?” You didn’t reply straight away as you moved your leg a little, needing to keep it from going numb. Jake's handy work hadn’t been all that handy. He’d left the pant of your flight suit torn and in tatters from where he’d cut the Normex to get to your thigh. 

“My dad.” You began. “He’s my hero, always has been always will be.” It was the first time Jake had seen you smile since before he was sewing your thigh back up. Jake wasn’t about to say what he was thinking either, if he did it would have your smile disappearing far too quickly. Your dad was the Commander of the Pacific Fleet, would he have signed off on this mission? 

Jake felt like you could light up the darkest of rooms with that smile of yours. So genuine and pure. Full of love and pride for whatever the topic was. “I remember my OC at basic found out who he was and I’ve had the callsign since.” It was stuff Jake wished he’d asked you about at the Hard Deck. Not here on the floor a million miles away from home. He wished he’d put his pride aside, he wished he told his ego to take a hike, because he didn’t know you. He didn’t want to get to know you, but now? You were here because of him and not once had you put the blame on him. “He was always my biggest inspiration, just wanted me to chase my dreams you know.” 

“Sounds like a good guy.” Jake replied as he looked at your thigh, god he’d done an awful job. He could see how raw the wound still was. How inflamed the skin around the stitching was. He felt awful—but it was still better than the alternative. 

“What about you? What made you wanna join the Navy?” Your voice broke Jake from the tailspin his mind had gone into as his eyes went from your thigh back to your eyes, not as shiny as they had been in Admiral Simpson's office, but still just as beautiful and just as captivating. 

“My old man wasn’t as supportive as what your dad seemed to be.” Jake explained as he watched you maneuver yourself so that your head was laying in his lap. Back laid up in the dirt. Looking up at him like he was your greatest protector. “He was an Army triage doctor.” You wouldn’t have ever picked that, especially after seeing Jakes stitch work. 

“Guess the apple fell a little far from the tree huh?” You teased up at him, a soft smile crept itself across your lips as Jake laughed gently with you. He nodded in agreement, he knew he was nothing like his old man. He never wanted to be like him either. If Jake Seresin could be anything in the world, he’d choose to not be his fathers son. 

“He wanted me to join the army, said every other branch of service spent their time sucking each other's dicks and crying about how much they missed their mama’s.” Jake chuckled to himself as he let his head rest against the concrete. “The day I told him I joined the Navy, he beat me near black and blue.” Jake saw the way you looked up at him, with sympathetic eyes and a worried frown. “I left Bradshaw hanging one day in water training, it was supposed to be a team exercise but I bailed.” Jake hadn’t told anyone this story before. He hadn’t really had to, Rooster always did it for him and the narrative was born. “I was scared that I wouldn’t be able to get him out so I just bailed.” 

“Hangman—“ You got it. He always left people hanging. It made so much sense. 

“It’s an excuse to not get personal.” Jake finally looked down at you, his hand had absentmindedly been running through the mess that was your hair. “Once I’m involved I can’t get out.” 

“Hangman wasn’t flying our F-18 when we went down was he?” You asked as the realisation really kicked in. “It was just you.” The Jake who cared about the people around him, the Jake who would go above and beyond to make sure Phoenix was treated equally. Jake who made sure to have glasses wipes in his locker for Bob if he ran out. Jake who was always there to be Fanboys wingman at the bar. Jake who always made sure Rooster had a way home when he got a little carried away. Even if it was his couch. Jake who never told Coyote it was him who set him and his girlfriend up that one night when he was too afraid to talk to her. He wrote the notes they both received, the penmanship should have given it away. Jake who carried an epipen in his car, locker and tucked away in his kitchen for Payback—he’d never seen a grown man so allergic to peanuts. 

That Jake was the guy who went after Rooster. The version of Jake Seresin who was sitting here right now playing with your hair. Not Hangman who’d stare at you from across the Hard Deck trying his best not to get involved. Fighting every instinct he ever had to want to get to know you. 

“I tell you what, if Bradshaw doesn’t cover my tab for at least a few months after this I’m gonna be pissed.” Jake laughed it off as you followed suit. “Hangman’s just an easy character to hide behind.” 

“He’s a safety net.” You understood where Jake was coming from. “But be honest with me will you? because I’d rather die knowing the truth than always wondering.” 

“What’s on your mind?” Jake was curious, where were you going with this?

“Is it Hangman who hates me or is it Jake? Because I think I can handle Hangman.” You were being as honest as you could be as you laid in Jake's lap looking up at him. Stubble had begun to cover his chin and cheeks and boy did it look good. The bruises not so much. “I think I could handle Hangman, but I don’t think I could handle it if the real you had a problem with me.” 

Jake frowned when your eyes never left his. You looked him dead in the eye, unafraid of whatever answer he might give you. His hand curled in your hair as he bent his knees to raise your head closer to his and before you even had a chance to register what was happening? 

His lips were softly planted against yours. Huh, that wasn’t what you were expecting. 

His lips were chapped but still so soft if that made any sense. You always thought Jake Seresin would be a good kisser, not that you’d ever thought about it for more than a fleeting moment. But still, the fact was proven to be true when he ran his tongue slowly across your lip to ask permission for more. You granted his request without so much of a second of hesitation.

There was a small fraction of desperation that showed its ugly head when your hand came up to grip at the back of Hangman's neck. With his knees bent up into his chest you were raised as close to him as you possibly could be. Drinking in the gentle touch of each other's fear. 

“I don’t think I could ever hate you, Hotshot.” Jake paused to catch his breath before things could get too heated too quickly. His forehead made its home against yours as you closed your eyes and tried to control your heart beat. “I was scared.” He finally explained. “I was scared I’d be the reason you'd end up dead and I just thought, that if I didn’t get to know you, losing my first WSO wouldn’t hurt as much as they say it does.” 

“But here we are—“ You reminded Jake of your current situation. “We’re gonna die here, and you spent weeks avoiding me like the plague only to end up rotting next to me in some hellscape prison anyway.” You couldn’t help the irony that escaped as you chuckled softly. 

“You’re not gonna die in here Y/n, I promise you.” With a gentle kiss to your forehead, Jake wrapped you up completely in his arms. His chin remained utop your head as he watched the door. He could hear people outside in the corridor—but they remained out of frame. A scare tactic probably. “Get some rest for me.” Jake whispered as he felt you cling to his chest. “I’m not gonna let anyone take you.” 

“Jake?” His warmth brought a comfort to you that you’d never not crave. 

“Yeah?” Your voice brought a solace Jake would never not need. 

“If you hadn’t gone after Rooster, it would probably be him in here right now.” You reminded him, it was something Jake didn’t like to think about. The what if of it all. All the what ifs there were. 

“Yeah, yeah it probably would be.” He replied softly, a deep bust lingered in his tone. “But you wouldn’t be if I hadn't.” 

Forgive and forget. That’s what they say. It’s good advice but it’s not very practical. When someone hurts us, we want to hurt them back. When someone wrongs us, we want to be right. Without forgiveness? old scores are never settled, old wounds never heal. And the most you can ever hope for, is that one day, you’ll be lucky enough to forget. 

“I forgive you Hangman.” You spoke into Jake's chest. He knew you already forgave him, Jake that was. But to hear you forgave his alter ego too meant a hell of a lot more than you could ever know. “I forgive him too.” 

***~***~***~***~***~***~***~

“Up and at it Lieutenants!” At any given moment, the brain has fourteen billion neurons firing at the speed of four hundred and fifty miles per hour. “The Commander wants to see you, Hollywood.” One of the insurgents snickered as he unlocked the cell door, letting in far too much light as he did so.

“You’re not taking her.” You don’t have control over most of them. When you get the chills, goosebumps. When you get excited, adrenaline. The body naturally follows its impulses, which, you believe, is a part of what makes it so hard to control those impulses. “No way.” Jake had been up since you’d fallen asleep in his warm embrace, he held you closer and a little tighter as the guards stepped into the cell you were both being held in. It was instinct, impulse. “You’re not taking her away from me, wherever she goes, I go.” 

“Oh I can assure you, we’ll take her by force if necessary.” You were barely awake, but you heard it loud and clear. The buzz of a taser Jake had already had a run in with. “So I’m going to give you another chance to do what I fucking say, hand, the girl, over.” The buzz only got louder as the man dressed in all black stepped further into the cell. 

“I’ll go—“ But of course sometimes you have impulses you would rather not control, that you later wish you had. “I’ll go, but leave Jake alone.” You added as you sat up. Your leg throbbed as you tried to bend it at your knee. “Please?” You begged as Jake held your wrist to stop you from leaving his side. But when you looked at him with pleading eyes he knew you had to go. “There’s no need for the taser.” You turned back to the man who towered over you. “I’m coming.” 

Without a word, the man shut off the taser in his hand and pocketed it. He didn’t look all that impressed as he removed his mask, revealing a blonde haired blue eyed man with a scar that ran the expanse of his face. Cutting him essentially in half. It was ugly and red and as prominent as a scar could be. Keloid style. 

“The Commander wants to speak with you.” He informed you once again. “And he isn’t a patient man so move.” 

“Let me help you.” Jake insisted as he stood up before you could even begin to try. Your leg was killing you. “Here, take my hands.” He gestured for you to place your hands in his so he could pull you up with ease, such ease it shocked you. Jake was a hell of a lot stronger than he looked sometimes. And he was strong, you’d seen his bench press. 

“Thanks, I’m okay, I promise.” You lied through your teeth, a part of you wanted to cry in pure panic because you couldn’t feel your toes. But what good would that do? Jake helped you to your feet until you were steady before he pulled you in closer. 

“Remember you give them nothing alright?” Jake held your face in his hands as you nodded. “You don’t give them a reason to hurt you, you do what you have to do and don’t you dare worry about me.” 

“Okay.” You nodded. 

“I’m right here.” Jake reminded you before you were harshly being pulled away by the blonde haired blue eyes scar having man. He wasn’t as gentle as Jake was. “I’ll be right here!” 

By the time you were down the hall Jake’s mind had already begun to run through a rolodex of scenarios that you might find yourself in. He was, however, too exhausted to even stand on his own without a reason to fight. He took a knee, gently, feeling faint from the lake of sleep, food and water that the two of you had been provided. It was enough to keep you from starving but not nearly enough to replenish already exhausted muscles. 

“Unfortunately for you my good man we’re gonna need you up on your feet.” The insurgent left behind with Jake snickered as he held a bunch of rope in his hand. “I’ll give you the option to cooperate or again, we’ll force you.” Jake let out a laugh that was laced in uncertainty. 

“The day I cooperate with any of you evil sons of bitches is the day hell freezes over.” 

“You’re call Lieutenant.” The insurgent who had yet to show his face sighed as he took out a baton from his holster at the side of his pant leg, sighed. “You’re call.” He waisted no time. 

You could hear Jakes groans from down the hall. But even though you tried to turn around the guard who kept you walking forward kept you walking one foot in front of the other. 

“Don’t try anything stupid girly.” He hissed as he stopped in front of an elevator, just waiting for it to dig. You watched as the numbers dropped— seven, six, five, four, until they reached your floor. B. B for basement. “In, or so help me god.” 

You did as you were told. Jake had told you not to give them a reason. But from the groans you heard it seemed as though he’d already forgotten his own advice. 

“How’d you get your scar?” You asked as you watched the elevator climb, one, two, three, four. “Looks like it hurt?” You weren’t sure why you were even asking, but the silence was deafening. The answer the blonde haired blue eyed insurgent gave you made your bones turn cold as ice as he turned around and slammed you up against the wall of the elevator, the sudden burst of mania made you gasp as he trapped you in his arms up against the wall. He leaned in to whisper in your ear, but first? He left a gentle kiss against the junction of your neck. His explanation was only two words, but enough to send you into a dizzying tailspin. 

“The Commander.” 

The body is a slave to impulse. But the thing that makes us human is what we can control. After the storm, after the rush, after the heat of the moment has passed, you can cool off and clean up the messes you’ve made. 

All you can do to survive is to try to let go of what was. Freedom.

***~***~***~***~***~***~***~

“Get cleaned up, the Commander would like to have dinner with you.” You were expecting something, you weren’t exactly sure what but it certainly wasn’t this. You were standing in the middle of a bathroom. “He’d like you to wear what’s been provided.” The man with the scar spoke just under his breath so his voice didn’t echo. “Take your time.” He told you as his eyes roamed the expanse of your body before he shut the door behind him, leaving you alone in the bathroom that smelled of vanilla and chamomile. Most likely from the candle burning on the vanity. 

Odd. This was all very odd. 

As confused as you were, you did what you were told. You stripped out of your disgusting flight suit that smelt gross enough to walk on its own and stepped into the shower. The second the warm water hit your body you cried. You cried until you couldn’t control the sobs. They echoed painfully off the walls as you washed away the grime that had built up on your skin and in your hair. Shampoo that smelled of apple and rhubarb reminded you of the pies Penny would make at the Hard Deck, which made you cry even more. You missed home. 

As much as you enjoyed the feeling of being clean, you felt guilty knowing that seven stories below, Jake remained in the dirt. Still in his flight suit, still covered in grime. It was enough to nearly drive you insane from guilt alone. 

You dried off and changed into the clothes provided. It had been an emerald evening dress with spaghetti straps at a length that went just above your ankles. It was odd to feel so beautiful in the situation you were in. You couldn’t pry your eyes away from the mirror, you looked ridiculous. With wet hair and swollen eyes. Bruises that weren’t even trying to hide littered your skin. 

So you reached for the hair dryer, and the bags of beauty products that were on the shelf behind you and got to work. Now wasn’t the time to feel sorry for yourself. Now was the time to put on a mask and front a brave exterior. You and Jake had to get out of this mess one way or another. 

By the time you were finished someone was knocking on the bathroom door. You had been told to take your time but perhaps you had over done it. 

“Yes?” You answered, standing tall and proud in the heels that had been provided. In the dress that was a little provocative. 

“The Commander will see you now, Lieutenant.” 

“Well, we wouldn’t want to keep The Commander waiting now would we?” You spat, shoving past the guard who was someone you’d never seen. When he tried to guide you, you pulled your arm out of his grasp. “I don’t need your help.” 

“Sorry ma’am, it just looked as if you were limping is all.” He apologised kindly, something you weren’t used to with the guards. He didn’t wear the same all black get up as the others. He wore a suit and tie, evening wear. A navy blue fitted attire with brown boots and tie to match. “My apologies, this way.” 

He was right for what it was worth, you were in fact, limping. But you weren’t about to put your pride aside for that. You didn’t want The Commander or whatever the fuck his actual name was to know you were in pain. 

It wasn’t long at all before you were being led into an near empty banquet room. Its clean cut aesthetic looked like a new world order. It made your stomach churn at the idea. The Commander sat at the end of a massive banquet style dining table made for twenty plus. He stood from his chair when you entered and his eyes never left yours as you hurried your way over to the chair set just for you. 

“You look beautiful—“

“It’s the blush, a brand called prisoner of war.” You huffed as you sat down, not needing any help from the man who’d escorted you in. He stood just behind you with his hands held in front. “What’s all this?” 

“I thought I might be able to explain our current situation a little better over a meal.” The Commander smiled as he gestured for one of the three Buttlers to pour you a glass of wine. “I was able to obtain your Naval records from the information Lieutenant Seresin provided.” It wasn’t all that interesting, you’d never really done anything of import. Sure you were a TopGun graduate but you weren’t first in your class. You didn’t stand out in a crowd. “I’d also like to take a minute to apologise for the wound you suffered—it’s never my first choice to resort to violence of such an extent—but I’m not—“ 

“A patient man.” You finished The Commander's sentence for him. “So I've heard.” Roasted chicken and vegetables, that’s what food was on your plate. You couldn’t bring yourself to eat even if you were slowly starving. It wouldn’t be fair to Jake. So you just moved your fork around and picked at the green beans. “If we could make this quick.” 

“Have you got somewhere to be Miss Y/l/n?” The Commander tilted his head curiously, trying to figure out why you were in such a hurry. 

“More like I’ve got someone to get back to.” You snapped back harshly. “I’d rather not waste my time listening to you babble on about defense budgets and the United Nations because let’s face it if the United States has their eye on you—you’ve probably done something to piss of someone in those bounds.” It wasn’t far from the truth of the matter at all, if anything you were right on the money. “And neither of those two topics really account for your probable anti-semetic ignorance.” You rolled your eyes as you wiped your face with the napkin beside your plate. “I’d like to go back to my cell now, even that shit hole’s better than being up here listening to some pathetic excuse for harbouring nuclear weapons.” You knew why your mission was to destroy that insurgent camp, it wasn’t rocket science. Nuclear weapons were a legitimate threat, and against Jake's wishes, you were catching some of his attitude. 

“I was just going to discuss the geopolitical complexities of the topic, which is in no way the same as going to an anti-semetic place.” The Commander corrected you as he slammed his fist down onto the table. “We believe, as a Rogue Nation, that the United Nations, NATO, all the major international bodies that preach international solidarity should be held accountable for their actions in instigating wars that never would have occurred.” It was a speech you weren’t all that interested in listening to. But with nowhere to run, you did just that. “Sovereign borders should be abolished, one World, one Nation, no countries with different societies and structures, no Nations with different cultures and religions, a universal language, currency and healthcare systems that aren’t flawed, access to food, water, education that isn't currently available.” It was a lot to take in, hell this may have been a bigger problem than your superiors had led you to believe. “Do you see the bigger picture here my dear?” 

“You’re certifiably insane—“ It was the only conclusion you could come to with the information you had laid out before you. “You’re talking about completely annihilating hundreds of thousands of years of cultural history and heritage across the world, you can’t justify that.” 

“It’s been done before in history—“ Was all The Commander replied before he smirked and took a sip of his wine. “The insurgent compound you and your friend were sent to destroy? One of two I believe you and your higher ups were aware of, was full of women and children, my wife included.” Your brain was working in overdrive trying to digest all this new information at the same time while keeping a straight face. Trying to look seemingly uninterested all the while taking in critical information that could be used at a later date was harder than it looked. 

“Tell me Lieutenant, what good would come of killing hundreds of women and children?” It was a trick question, or so you thought. “Your country has a very compelling history of instigating violence and provoking wars that never needed to occur.” The Commander wasn’t wrong, but it still didn’t make him right. “Countries like Australia and New Zealand follow, empires like Europe join the fight and then it’s Nation against Nation, ethnicity against ethnicity, culture against culture and religion against religion.” As much as you hated it there was a logic to The Commander's radical ideology. “There is no need for such violence—such loss of life, racism, discrimination, misogyny, homophobia; it could all be prevented if the entire world was one way. Had one ideology.” 

“Tell me Commander, how do you achieve such a goal?” You asked all the while trying not to throw up. 

“Complete nuclear destruction, pin countries against one another with tactical diplomacy that starts a domino effect—because something you Admirals have failed to realise Miss Y/l/n is that you can’t start a war against a Nation that doesn’t exist.” 

“You seem to have the resources to find out anything you want.” You kept a straight face even if you were thinking of lunging yourself down the time to ring your hands around The Commanders neck. “Why do you need Jake and I for information?” 

“I don't tend to believe everything I read on the internet my dear, it can be quite costly.” He smiled genuinely, it made you want to vomit, or perhaps that was the win. “I like to fact check, validate my findings. Captain Hewens told us that the United States Navy was planning a military strike against one of our compounds, so we were able to switch which site held what.” You couldn’t control your face as shock took over your expression. The Commander was willing to kill hundreds of people for his own political agenda—if you had succeeded in the mission? You could have caused an all out war. “With her help we were able to locate your mission file after an insider sold intelligence to the dark web for one point four million.” 

You were now physically unable to hide your shock as your shoulders slumped in defeat. This was much bigger, much worse than you could have ever anticipated. Holy shit, you were going to die here. Where ever here even was. 

“I guess you can always just put it down to the fact you and your friend are a hell of a lot less valuable than one point four million dollars.” The Commander chuckled to himself as he stood from his chair. His shoes clicked against the flooring as he made his way towards you, fixing his jacket as he did so with a proud chest. “You and your friend are nothing but pawns in a war your country has decided it’s in. But how can you be at war with a Nation that doesn’t exist? A nation with no borders or place or origin.” It made you shiver with dread and fear, you could feel the hairs on the back of your neck sticking up like on a cat's spine. “We are the Rogue Nation miss Y/l/n, we are one world and one people, the sooner you realise who’s side you’re really fighting on the sooner your time here gets a hell of a lot easier.” 

Your heart was racing a hundred miles an hour as The Commander reached out to squish your cheeks together between his fingers and his thumb. He turned your face towards where he stood beside you and growled. 

“So before you go back to your cell, just remember, when I ask you or your friend for information? I expect to get it from either of you, the easy way or the goddamn hard way.” 

“I’m not telling you anything you mentality deranged fuck.” You pulled your head from his grasp as you reached for the knife sitting beside your plate. Your food still sat uneaten, but the serrated knife would do just fine. You plunged it into The Commanders hand up until the hilt before you got up out of your chair in a panicked hurry. “You’re delusional!” It was then the blonde haired blue eyed man with the angry scar came bursting through the door. As of right on cue. 

“Nathan—“ The Commander made not a single cry, nor a groan or anything as he pulled the knife from the palm of his hand and placed it back where you had originally picked it up from. Covered in a deep crimson. “Please escort the Lieutenant back to her cellmate. I’m sure he’s ready to talk, if not? You know what to do.” 

***~***~***~***~***~***~***~***~***~***~***~***~

Tags 🏷️ @americaarse @blindedbythelightt @tayl0rhuynh @athenabarnes @imaginecrushes @whyareallnamesgone @mjmaximoffbarnes @amiets2 @mads-weasley @gabbyella @ephemeralninon @xoxabs88xox @pedrohoe04 @starkleila @je-suis-prest-rachel @clancycucumber230 @maisie-rebloging-blog @callsign-barbell @obiwankenobis-lap @some-lovely-day @paperbag333 @callsign-magnolia @jhiddles03 @hardballoonlove @shanimallina87 @seitmai i @abaker74 @missemrose @starset21 @kmc1989 @phoenix1388 @emma8895eb @tsofo26 @itsmytimetoodream

[tightjeansjavi]

his eyes still glisten

A/N: so, this is based off a real life experience that I and others have probably been on both the receiving end, and the giving end whether it was intentional or not. Healthy communication in all types of relationships is important, as are boundaries. We all make mistakes and hurt people sometimes, but the important part to remember is that as human beings, we feel. We innately want to do good, and sometimes these hard conversations need to be had. Remember to also hold compassion for yourself during a painful/stressful time. We always can do better, and be better. 🤍

~word count: 2.9k~

Pairing | Joel Miller x f!reader

summary: Joel is feeling neglected in his current relationship with you. He breaks finally when you are no show to a planned dinner date. You and Joel talk through your feelings and set healthy boundaries in your relationship .

warnings: angst, hurt, some fluff, miss communication,minor whump, comfort, arguments, light mention of alcohol consumption, uncomfortable conversations, boundaries being set, vulnerability, just two people trying to navigate in a relationship, resolution, no age gap, reader has no physical descriptions, +18 minors dni!

main masterlist masterlist

As human beings we often find ourselves being engrossed in our lives. It’s never often intentional, but it’s easy as sliced butter to inadvertently make everything about ourselves. Our jobs, our relationships, our opinions, our thoughts. When we find ourselves too focused on our own lives, we forget the important people. Our friends, our families, our partners. You’ve forgotten your Joel, and he’s not quite sure how much longer he can keep his voice silent.

It’s not that you’re a bad person, a bad partner, a bad listener, you’ve just fallen off the rails a bit. Joel knows that he too needs to work on communicating his feelings better. His problem is that he often finds himself bottling everything up for so long that it begins to chip away at his exterior, piece by piece. He’s hurting; but you don’t realize it. After being together for so long, the honeymoon stage eventually wears off. He’s always been there to listen, be the shoulder used to soak your tears in. You’ve been good to him, so good to him, but lately he’s been feeling neglected. He feels the uneasiness in the pit of his stomach. The trepidation that maybe you just don’t love him anymore.

He doesn’t want to jump to conclusions, but there’s only so much he can take before he breaks.

“Sir, are you ready to order?” The waitress at yours and Joel’s favorite restaurant asks with a gentle smile. She’s stopped by the table a few times now.

Joel checks his phone with a heavy sigh. You're running twenty-minutes late, but he wants to give you the benefit of the doubt. He gives the waitress a small, polite smile as he shakes his head. “No, Just a few more minutes. My girlfriend is running late.”

“Of course sir, no problem. Would you like another beer while you wait?”

He nods tightly before she even has the chance to finish.

The minutes begin to tick by as he nurses his crisp bottle Miller Lite. He feels pathetic each time he glances at the entrance to the restaurant. His mind plays a cruel trick on him as he searches for your face in the other diners.

Where the fuck are you?

He scrolls through his messages between you and him. Searching for any context clues as to why you were late. He calls you once, twice, a third time. He can’t help the dread that begins to seep deep into his bones. His palms are clammy to the touch as he imagines the worst possible outcomes; you’re breaking up with him, you’re seeing someone else.

No. No. He chants silently to his callous thoughts.

You’re just running late.

He finishes off his second beer as he begins to feel the tears sting the corner of his eyes. He refuses to show his emotions in a public setting. He won’t break down here, like this. He fishes his wallet from his back pocket as he slaps down enough bills to cover both the two beers, and a hefty tip for his waitress.

Once he’s safely behind the wheel of his truck, he finally breaks.

You were in back to back meetings all day. You were exhausted, burnt out, frustrated to the max limit, and your dinner date with Joel was forced to the back of your mind. Subconsciously, work was beginning to become your top priority, while your relationship was pushed to the backburner. It was becoming hard to juggle it all. Your sense of work-life balance was depleting faster than you could keep up. At the end of an extinguished flame that was barely holding on by a thread, was your boyfriend. Your Joel.

It’s a moment too late when you’re smacked head on with the realization that you fucked up. Shit, what day is today? Thursday. Oh–fuck, Joel. Your own sense of dread forces its way into your system as you frantically dial his number. You barely hear your co-worker telling you to have a good evening as you rush out to your car.

He doesn’t pick up. You try again, and again, and again.

He’s purposely ignoring your calls and you can’t seem to grasp the reason as to why.

A sense of relief washes over you when you find his truck parked in the driveway of your shared home. The lights in every room are turned off. He usually keeps a few on when he knows you’re working late in the office.

He hears your keys jingle at the front door from where he’s sat at the kitchen table. He doesn’t budge. He sits there with a stoic look on his face, and his hands clasped in his lap. Remnants of his tears laid streaked across his cheekbones like two cavernous streams.

“Joel, baby? Hey, I’m so sorry about tonight. I was in back to back meetings all day, Eric was being a fucking cranky pants, again. I had to stay late to work on this project that is due at the end of day Friday.” It felt like you were talking strictly to yourself as you softly closed the front door behind you, and plopped your keys in the bowl on the hall table right next to his. “Joel?”

Your ears perked at the sound of the kitchen chair scraping across the tile as you rounded the corner. “There you are. I’m so sorry, baby. I–”

“Why couldn’t you jus’ call me, or send me a text message. I sat in the fucking restaurant waitin’ for you. I could have changed the time of the reservation had I known you would be workin’ late.” He answers flatly as his forefinger nervously begins to pick away at the skin along his cuticles. A nasty habit he can’t seem to break.

“Baby, I know. I didn’t have a ton of access to my phone, and I just got caught up in a lot of shit today. You know it wasn’t intentional, right?”

He swallows down the urge to scoff at your dismissive response as his eyes slowly focus on you. “Can you..not call me baby right now? I’m trying to have a fuckin’ conversation with you, and you’re completely dismissing what I just said.” He bites back out of pure frustration.

“Dismissing you? Joel, I just said I was fucking sorry. I told you that I was busy–”

“Yeah, I heard you. You think I'm not busy too? Yet, I still take the time out of my schedule to communicate with you, because it’s the considerate and bare minimum thing to do! You couldn’t just take five fuckin’ seconds to send me a text?!”

“Joel, I never said that you weren’t busy too? Can you please not put words in my mouth? I was in back-to-back meetings. I barely had any access to my phone! What are you insinuating here? That I'm just making up excuses?!”

“You’re tellin’ me that you had zero time to communicate to your boyfriend?! I’m not insinuating that you’re makin’ up excuses, because that’s exactly what you are doing right now. All I'm asking for is some communication. Do you know how fucking pathetic I felt waiting around for you? I just wanted to have a relaxing evening with my girlfriend. I’ve been looking forward to it all day, all week, and it’s like you don’t care.” His voice cracked at the end. He felt utterly defeated as he scrubbed a hand across his face with an exasperated sigh. He hated confrontation. He hated fighting with you. It ripped his heart to shreds to see the way your face immediately fell from his words.

When you couldn’t muster up a response, he took this as his opportunity to get everything off of his chest.

“Look, I don’t want to hurt you, darlin.’ That is quite literally the last thing I want to do, but i’m at my fuckin’ breakin’ point here. You’re the most important person in my life outside of my brother, and lately I've been feeling neglected in our relationship. I don’t think you mean it intentionally, but these past few weeks I have been hurting. I know I should have communicated this to you sooner, but lately it’s been all about you. I know you’re busy at work. I know you’re stressed and frustrated with some of your co-workers, but what about my day? What about the projects that I have been working on? What about my stress? What about..me?” His eyes glistened like two shiny marbles under the warm glow of the overhanging kitchen light.

You were taken aback. It felt as if a freight train had collided with you and smashed your body down into smithereens. You hesitantly pulled out the kitchen chair across from where he was sitting before you slowly sank down. “Joel, I had no idea that you had been feeling this way at all. I truly thought that things were okay between us. I’m sorry I didn’t read between the lines and picked up on your change of mood. I’ve just been so caught up in myself lately, that I haven’t created the time for us to just sit down and communicate like this.” You softly spoke as you clasped your hands along the smooth finish of the wooden table.

“It’s not just about reading between the lines, I have some responsibility in this as well because I can’t just expect you to know exactly how i’m feeling if i’m not taking the time to communicate it to you. I don’t want you to feel like you need to internalize everything I'm sayin’, okay? I jus’ have done a disservice to us both for keeping this shit bottled up for as long as I have.” He murmured as he moved his hands from his lap and rested them along the table.

“How..else have I been making you feel lately, Joel?”

You watched as he took a deep inhale through his nose, before exhaling shakily through his mouth. You saw his lower lip wobble with uncertainty as his still glistening eyes met yours.

“Truthfully? I jus’ feel like I ain’t as important to you anymore. Like I could just get up and leave one day and you wouldn’t even notice that I wasn’t there. I feel like I'm always there to listen, and comfort you, but you don’t do the same for me. I feel like I constantly am seeking reassurance that you actually still want to be in a relationship with me. I feel like it’s a one way street, and my car is about to spin out because i’ve lost all capability of steering. I feel obligated to tell you the things that you want to hear, in fear of hurting your feelings unintentionally. I feel like i’m constantly putting my best foot forward in the relationship, and in the same breath, I’m trying to hold it together with some expired fuckin’ glue. I feel like I've been putting my everything into us, and I'm just becoming an afterthought to you.” Admittedly, it felt good to get everything he was keeping pent up off his chest finally.

“Joel, you are so important to me. I absolutely would notice if you just weren’t here one day. I’m sorry that I have been making everything about myself lately. I promise you it’s not in an intentional, or malicious way, I've just been getting sidetracked, and I haven’t been taking the time to focus on us and our relationship. I completely understand why you are feeling this way lately, and your present feelings towards me are completely valid. I haven’t been the best partner to you, and you shouldn’t feel like our relationship is a one way street. It should be a two way street, and I regrettably have lost sight of that.”

He had half expected you to blow up in his face over his vulnerable admittance. He had his own baggage from past failed relationships, so that unhealed side of him wanted to believe that you were just complying out of spite. The healed side of him was a gentle reminder that you were human too, and that mistakes are made, and people are hurt, but the most important fact was that you were listening to him. You were validating his feelings and holding yourself accountable.

“Darlin’ it’s okay. We’ve both been shit communicators lately. I think it's something that we both need to work on, don’t you think? Earlier this evening when I saw that you called, I was purposely ignoring you because I was feeling angry, hurt, and I was feeling bitter. I know I should have just taken the call, but I also didn’t want to explode on you either. I was at that point, and before anything could be said, I needed to calm down and collect my thoughts. I let my emotions get the best of me sometimes, and that’s also somethin’ i’d like to personally work on within myself.”

“Yeah, we can definitely use some touching up in that department. I need to start taking your feelings into consideration more. I’m glad that you didn’t pick up your phone, because honestly? It probably would have gotten ugly. I also think that lately I have turned you into my personal punching bag, because I'm constantly throwing my work drama onto your shoulders without even thinking about asking if you’re in the headspace to take on my emotions. I just open my mouth and spew, and I need to be more considerate on how you're feeling at that moment. I know we can always vent to each other about our frustrations, but maybe a boundary should be set?”

He slowly reached for your hands across the middle of the table as his fingers slotted through yours. He gave your hands a reassuring squeeze, followed by a soft smile.

“Yeah.” He rasped warmly, “I think it would be good for us to set some healthy boundaries. Sometimes I just don’t have the emotional capacity to take on your frustrations, especially if I am feeling particularly down on myself, or just in a general mood. With that, I really think it would be good for us to think about the positives as well y’know? Maybe we should try to not let our frustrations completely take over the vibe all the time? Cause honestly, I do find myself seeking your comfort and support when I find myself needing it most, but with that, I also need to remember that you might not have the emotional capacity to drop everything for me, and that is okay. We both have lives existing outside of the relationship, I jus’ think we gotta find that balance that works for both of us.”

You gently squeezed his hands back as you attentively listened to everything he was saying. “Yes, I agree that sometimes we both don’t have that emotional capacity for one another. Perhaps a level of consent can be established? Just a simple, ‘hey, i’m really frustrated right now, can I please tell you how i’m feeling?’ That way, it doesn’t just feel like we’re venting without checking in with one another first?”

“I think that is a great idea, darlin,’ why should consent and boundaries only be applied in the bedroom? I think it’s beneficial to have it present in all aspects of our relationship. I also would appreciate it if maybe we start having these conversations more? Maybe they can be like weekly check in’s to see how we're feeling? This might be considered to be a little lame, but it’s almost like we’re scrapbookin’ our feelings? Maybe that ain’t the right word for it, but I jus’ want our line of communication to be open, y’know?” He could feel his once tensed up nerves begin to gradually settle. His heart no longer felt like a twisted coil now that you both were communicating.

“Yes, we should make a point to sit down and make the time to have these conversations. It might be a bit tough at first, but I think we can manage it. I get what you mean with the scrapbooking comment. It almost brings a lighter element to it? Plus, we don’t have to just talk about the frustrating stuff. We can talk about all the fun and exciting aspects as well. Joel, I just want you to know that you don’t have to bottle everything up before it becomes too much for you to handle. You can always talk to me, and I can’t promise that I will always be readily available, but I will actively put in the effort to be there for you, just like you have been for me. You and I aren’t perfect. No one is. No relationship is flawless, but I think with a bit of nurturing, we’ll be alright.”

Your own eyes began to glisten as you listened to the familiar scrape of the kitchen chair along the tile as he padded over to you. Your arms instinctively wrapped around his neck, as his own looped tenderly around your waist. He nearly crushed you to his chest from how tightly he was hugging you. He really loved you that much. You were his girl after all.

“I love you, honey. Thank you for taking the time to listen and acknowledge my feelings. I appreciate it so much, and we’re gonna be alright. We’re jus’ hittin’ a little speed bump right now, but we haven’t lost control of steering entirely.” He nuzzled his face into your cheek. You could feel the bristles in his beard gently scratch your skin as he squeezed you tightly.

“I love you so much, Joel. Thank you for being honest with me, and I promise I'll do better.”

“I know you will, baby. S’okay. We’re all just human at the end of the day.”

banners made by the lovely @saradika 🩵

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[necrotic-nephilim]

"How else am I supposed to learn if you don't punish me?" With Jason x Bruce ship pls 🙏

send a quote and a ship and I'll write a short fic!

fucked up BruJay my beloved. this is. honestly more emotional whump than physical and the romance is implied, but i do like this piece a lot, even if i struggled with it a bit. have 2.2k of Bruce and Jason struggling to get along. enjoy <3

Sometimes, Jason did it on purpose.

He knew Bruce’s patrol route better than anyone. Which was by design. Jason wanted to know where Bruce was, what he was doing, and who he was doing it with at all times. And really, Bruce didn’t seem to be stopping Jason from keeping tabs. None of Jason’s carefully placed trackers were removed, and Jason knew better than to assume Bruce had lost his touch. Bruce knew they were there, and he knew they were Jason’s.

So if Jason wanted to avoid Bruce, he knew how to do it. And when he really did want to get work done under Bruce’s nose, it was easy for Jason to dance around Bruce’s schedule and send him tail spinning just trying to keep up with Jason.

But some days, Jason didn’t want to avoid Bruce. He wanted the thrill of the chase.

So he got caught on purpose.

He picked a gang on the side of town Bruce always patrolled at this hour. He used the loudest guns he had with no silencers. He started the messiest brawl he could.

And he waited.

Jason didn’t have to wait long.

Like it always was with Bruce, the entrance was dramatic. Shattering glass as a large form with an unfurled cape descended from the skylight. Jason smiled under his helmet.

There were already at least half a dozen dead. The rest were running around like ants, either trying to get away from Jason or futilely trying to fight him.

“You’re late!” Jason shouted over his shoulder. He dodged a batarang thrown in his general direction. “I expected you to get here at least five minutes earlier.”

“Robbery a block away,” Bruce said brusquely. He turned to a few gang members with tire irons and shivs lifted, ready to charge Jason. “Run. Now.”

They didn’t need to be told twice.

Jason raised his gun to shoot one. He wasn’t particular about who he picked. He knew it didn’t matter. The bullet wouldn’t actually hit them.

Because just on time as Jason squeezed the trigger, a batarang buried into his hand. He swore and dropped the gun.

“Enough, Hood,” Bruce said coldly.

Jason smiled under his mask. “Someone’s gotta clean up this city.” He lunged for another thug.

Bruce’s body was like a battering ram, slamming into Jason. He was heavy enough to knock the wind out of Jason, sending them both tumbling to the ground. Jason groaned, trying to throw Bruce off of him. When that didn’t work, he went for his belt, grabbing his kris dagger and flipping it around.

“Do you hold any value for human life?” Bruce demanded. He grabbed Jason’s wrist and pinned it against the ground. “These aren’t supervillains, they’re normal people down on their luck-”

Before Bruce could finish talking, one of the gang members bashed him over the head with a wooden plank. Bruce’s cowl was reinforced, but the little bastard had managed to hit hard enough to snap the plank clean in half. A grunt was forced out of Bruce and his whole body buckled.

Now that was just rude. Bruce was Jason’s meat, not some stupid punk’s. Possessive jealousy flared through Jason, watching Bruce wince in pain to a wound Jason didn’t give him.

“Yeah, they seem real grateful to their savior,” Jason sneered. He threw Bruce off of him and grabbed the gang member. A wiry thing, probably still a teenager. Jason twisted them around to hold his dagger against their throat with his fingers buried into their hair, holding them still. A horrified noise came out of them. Not that Jason particularly cared. He wasn’t the one stupid enough to try beaning Batman with some plywood.

Bruce was on one knee, looking up at Jason. “Don’t.” His fingers twitched toward his utility belt.

“You can’t stop me,” Jason taunted, pressing the blade against tender flesh until the person was squirming in his grasp and blubbering out incoherent pleas for mercy. “Hands where I can see ‘em, B.”

If Jason was anyone else, Bruce would’ve stopped him by now. A quick flick of his wrist to hit Jason with a tranq dart, was how he guessed Bruce would do it.

But he wasn’t just some rogue. He was Jason. And that made Bruce go still, actually listening to Jason’s demands.

“You’re just doing this for attention,” Bruce said carefully, keeping his whole body tense, but not moving it. “Let them go.”

“It’s working.” Jason shrugged, adjusting his hold on the stranger. “So can you blame me?”

“There are other ways to do it without-” Bruce briefly looked around the room at the bodies littered everywhere- “casualties. And innocent hostages.”

“Innocent?” Jason laughed. He turned to address the person he was holding. “Do you think you’re innocent? Why don’t you tell the Batman where these drugs were getting funneled.”

“I don’t- please, I just help packaging- I didn’t-”

Jason huffed in annoyance. “I’ll tell him for you. The middle school down the street. And if there was extra supply, the youth center just around the corner from it too. You remember that youth center don’t you, B? I slept there sometimes as a kid. It was warmer than the streets.”

Bruce’s mouth faintly twitched. His jaw was set. Jason could see him grappling with the rage of knowing exactly who these low lives were dealing to, while still wanting to tell Jason off for all the ugly murder.

How contradictory that nasty little moral code of his could be.

“Let them go,” Bruce spoke slowly, “and we’ll work together to figure out how-”

“Oh don’t even pretend,” Jason laughed. “Don’t pretend you would work with me for a second.”

“Let them go,” Bruce repeated. He seemed to pointedly avoid admitting to Jason’s point.

Jason let out a long hum like he was thinking about it. “I don’t know. What’s one more to my body count?” He started to press the blade.

Bruce moved inhumanely fast. He kicked up, knocking the knife out of Jason’s hand without hitting the gang member. His hands went for Jason’s throat and he managed to get Jason back on the ground. The gang member ran off, footsteps echoing until they were gone while Jason and Bruce grappled, trading punches and kicks until Bruce managed to pin Jason down. Blood was pouring from Jason’s nose and Bruce had human claw marks across his cheek.

Rough. Animalistic. Just the way Jason liked it.

“Why do you do this?” Bruce spoke through grit teeth. “Why do you make me do this?”

“Like you said,” Jason grunted, trying to twist out from Bruce. “I like the attention.” His struggles only got him pinned harder. Bruce forced Jason facedown against the concrete, with an arm twisted behind his back. Jason’s helmet was torn off and tossed to the side.

“I never want to hurt you,” Bruce actually sounded choked up about it. “Why do you have to take it too far every time?”

Jason would give anything to see his face, right now.

“Maybe I want you to hurt me,” Jason said. He looked at his hand resting against the concrete, blood still pouring out of the wound the batarang left. it was a bright, pulsing pain that danced across his reality, making his blood sing. He hoped it would scar. Another to add to the collection of ones he’d goaded Bruce into giving him.

“Why?” Bruce’s voice broke on the word. It was an ironic thing. How badly Bruce wanted to show Jason his mercy. His gentle side. And how badly Jason wanted Bruce’s violence. He wanted Bruce to fight Jason until Bruce’s knuckles were bloody and Jason was barely conscious. He wanted to feel Bruce’s violence down to the marrow.

Jason craned his head back to look at Bruce and smiled. “How else am I supposed to learn if you don’t punish me?”

Bruce stared. For a long moment, he was silent. Jason listened to his breathing like a lifeline. “You don’t actually believe that.” his voice was soft and laced with something that sounded dangerously close to concern.

Sentimental bastard.

“No,” Jason admitted. “We both know I’ll never learn.”

To prove his point, Jason grabbed a stray piece of glass from the ground and stabbed it into one of the weak spots on Bruce’s armor. It made Bruce’s grip loosen enough for Jason to roll free and try to kick Bruce in the face.

Bruce wasn’t fighting him. He only blocked Jason’s blows, and even then, let some of them hit. It was like fighting a brick wall. Hard and unrelenting.

It was starting to piss Jason off.

“Don’t be afraid to hurt me now, Bruce,” Jason said through grit teeth, throwing another punch. It sailed uselessly over Bruce’s shoulder when Bruce easily dodged.

“No.” Bruce’s expression was unreadable under his mask. “I’m not playing your game, Jason.”

“Damnit!” Jason could feel his anger threatening to take control. He kicked Bruce hard in the shin, forcing the man to his knees. Jason ripped Bruce’s cowl off. He wasn’t stopped by Bruce. Hard blue eyes stared up at him. Practically emotionless. “I know you hate me. I know you’re itching to rip my head off for…” Jason spread his arms, gesturing to all the bodies. “For this! For everything I’ve done.”

Bruce shook his head, hair stuck to his forehead with sweat. “I don’t hate you, Jason. I could never-” He doubled over when Jason’s knee connected with his stomach.

“Well you definitely don’t love me,” Jason snapped, ice dripping from his tone. “If you did… if you loved me, you would let me have this.”

“Killing people?”

“Hurting me,” Jason corrected. He snatched his kris off the floor from where it’d fallen to. He stared at the blade. “I’m sick of your pacificism. I’m sick of you pretending you don’t crave hurting someone and pretending to be someone you’re not.”

“I’ve never pretended,” Bruce looked at Jason through careful, hooded eyes. “That want… that need has always been a part of me. I take too much pleasure in hurting people. Pleasure in believing they deserve it.” He studied Jason for a moment. “I never wanted it to consume you the way it consumes me. Because I know it’s something you can’t come back from, once it takes root.”

Jason hated it when Bruce waxed poetic. It was a whole lot of bullshit that meant nothing to Jason. It did nothing to fight the roar of rage building in Jason’s chest.

“Do you want to hurt me?” Jason asked.

He needed Bruce to say yes.

He knew Bruce wouldn’t.

Even if it was the truth. Which now, Jason wasn’t so sure.

Bruce was silent. He didn’t give Jason any answer, not even a change in expression. Bruce just pushed himself to his feet and looked at his cowl that Jason was still holding.

“I love you, Jason,” Bruce said. He grabbed the cowl, but Jason didn’t let go. “I want to help you. Please let me help you in any other way that’s not… this.” Bruce’s thumb brushed over the still bleeding gash on Jason’s hand.

Jason tightened his grip on the cowl. “I’m not giving you the free pass to sleep easy at night,” he hissed. “You can’t take back any of the scars you’ve given me. And we both know sooner or later, there will be new ones.”

Bruce tore the cowl out of Jason’s hand. Before putting it on, he started to reach out for Jason’s face, but seemed to think against it, hand abruptly dropping. He opened his mouth to say something. An apology, probably.

A muffled, crackly voice came from inside the cowl. A police scanner, by the sounds of it. Jason only caught the words bomb threat and hostages.

So much for Bruce’s attention.

“Come with me?” Bruce offered, pulling his cowl on.

Jason shook his head. “You know you don’t want me there.”

“I always want you-” Bruce cut himself off, seeming to realize how dangerously vulnerable his words were. “The offer to come to me will always be open, Jason. You know that.”

Jason’s fist curled and his blood dripped onto the concrete. “Go to hell.”

Like that, the intimacy was gone. Bruce put his emotional mask back on to go with his physical one and turned heel, walking away. Jason just watched him go, some part of him foolishly waiting for Bruce to turn back and say something. Anything. He could get any other hero to handle the bomb threat. He could spare Jason just a few more moments of arguing and fighting. Maybe even something more.

But of course, he didn’t.

[snapghoul]

I’d give you a part of my soul for Twins HC: Hurt and Whump Edition or similarities edition

Your offering is adequate, the terms are fair. You shall receive both whump and similarities.

Warning: foul language

Their similarities

✩ Both have a very self centered front they put on. Jake’s need to be the best came from the spotlight being taken away once in high school, a new kid stole his thunder and he hated how none of his friends really cared about him for almost two weeks. Tyler’s come from having the spotlight for a short time, he started rodeo as a freshmen and when he started getting good people started to like him. He was never the popular kid and he liked the attention. Despite this they surprisingly don’t compete with each other, they don’t try to one up and put their twin down.

✩ Deep down both are sweet southern boys. Tyler it takes less for him to show it, Jake is like a fortress, he’d rather naw his own foot off than show he cares.

✩ Both are extremely outspoken, neither have an issue voicing their opinions. Tyler is less aggressive about it and Jake will go to insulting the other to get his point across.

✩ They consume sweet ice tea like their life depends on it. If Jake isn’t having a beer at the Hard Deck he is downing tea like he’s been in the desert. Tyler doesn’t drink too much alcohol, having two at most, and like Jake he loves ice tea any chance he gets. Nothing beats their Dad’s tea, somehow the man knows just the right mixture.

✩ Both like physical touch:

✩ Jake is more guarded with touch until he feels comfortable. When he got more comfortable with the Daggers and his cocky front dropped he likes to hang close to his team, he rests an arm over Phoenix and Bob’s shoulders, grab Rooster by the shoulders and shake him when he’s playing piano. Lack of personal space and touch is a sign he feels safe to be himself.

✩ Tyler have a touch boundary, as long as it someone he knows, but mostly because personal space doesn’t exist with the wranglers. Tyler can stand right up next to Boone and neither of them will notice or care. He loves to give hugs and pats in the back, high fives. Tyler’s way of physical touch is a way to welcome others and he is respectful for people’s boundaries, if they don’t want to be touched then he won’t.

✩ Their love language is acts of service. “Jake, can you?” Done. “Tyler, I need-“ already has it.

Comfort

❥ Tyler is much better at comforting others, he knows what to say, how to get certain answers and helps people understand and process. Tyler knows his crew better than anyone and he knows exactly what to do when one of them needs some comfort. Boone likes chocolate peanut butter bars and fireworks, Lilly likes the quiet and star gazing, Dani likes to sit and talk, and Dex likes to listen to classical music.

❥ Tyler’s way of self comfort is to just sit in a field and let everything out, mama Seresin says the wind takes everything away and keeps all your secrets. But when he needs it from others he’ll seek out Dani or Kate to vent to until he feels better.

❥ Jake on the other hand is not so good at comfort. Jake is a freezer, someone starts crying and he panics. He tries to make horrible dad jokes which always suck but do work because they’re so bad. If it’s a Dagger he’ll offer a hug, he’s bad at verbally making people feel better but he does know touch can help.

❥ Jake’s self comfort is throwing playing darts and pretending the issue in the target he keeps nailing in the face. He doesn’t seem comfort from others often, he’d rather do it himself but just sitting quietly with someone is nice.

Hurt

☹ Jake hides his pain, emotionally and physically if he can get away with it. With mental and emotional damage he gets quiet and snappy, a time bomb that never blows up. He makes sure he gets his space, sometimes being rude about it. The daggers know when to leave him alone and no one takes his poisonous words to heart anymore. But when sometimes he crumbles and just needs someone to hold him together. He’ll call his mom or dad if it’s a serious problem like almost dying or a teammate almost dying. If is parents aren’t available, Coyote will always be there for his best friend.

☹ Physical pain, depending on the severity Jake is either an annoying over dramatic shit or ignores it until he can’t or he gets caught. Jake’s sick? No he’s not, he’s not gonna pass out (he is). Jake not holding the door open? Sorry he can’t, he jammed his hand in the door this morning (he’s fine).

☹ Tyler is more open with talking his emotions out, he’ll even call his mama if he didn’t feel comfortable telling the others. But he doesn’t bottle everything up, he never did even as a child. If he cries, he cries and he doesn’t care what others think.

☹ With physical pain he’s the exact same, though not to Jake’s annoying degree but he’ll make jokes about it. He also forgets he’s injured since most of his nerves are kinda shot in some areas from the rodeo he won’t even register he’s bleeding until someone says something.

[jordanstrophe]

Behave, 8

Masterlist

CW: Forced medical treatment, hospital whump, soft caring whumper, captivity, blood drawing, manhandling, hurt/comfort, lots of hurt/comfort 

"Arm." Whumper gestured, waving two fingers. They were sitting on whumpees bedside hardly looking up from fiddling with a strap.

But Whumpee didn't move a muscle. They glared with a tired sickly look.

"Come on, I'm just checking your blood pressure. I'm not torturing you." They snapped two fingers impatiently and held their hand out. Whumpee blinked rapidly, before hesitantly placing their wrist in whumpers hand as they tightened the strap around their arm.

"You're not usually impatient." Whumpee mumbled uneasily. Whumper stopped midway and stared blankly, before sighing sadly. 

"I know, I'm sorry. I’m just getting a bit worried; you haven't started healing yet and the boss wants better results than I've been giving." They said, ripping the strap off after it beeped and scribbling away on their clipboard.

Whumpee let out a breath when it was off. They laid their head back and closed their eyes, feeling drained. Stress worsened it, but Whumper was good noticing. They were a little too good at it most times. Whumpee could almost believe they cared.

"I do care about you, you know?"

"What?" Whumpees eyes shot open from startlement. Could they read minds now? Why would they say that so suddenly?

"I know this is hard. You don’t want to be here, and I don’t want to hurt you. Despite how I treat you sometimes, I do care about you. I care enough to do all the hard things, like this-” Before they finished, they tightened their grip on their elbow and forced a needle into whumpee’s arm. They let loose a cry and pulled away, but whumper crawled half on top of them and held their arm still.

"Stop!!!" Whumpee shrilled, trying to give a good kick of retaliation, but whumper's weight over their waist only let them raise their knees a short height. Within seconds, the needle was out and Whumper was holding them against their chest trying to get them to lay back down.

"Lean back, breathe, you're okay. I just took a sample. I was supposed to get one yesterday, but you looked like you needed a break from being poked and prodded." They held up a veil of blood to make sure it was enough as whumpee collapsed back in bed panting.

"I-.... *huff*... I hate you." Whumpee huffed out of breath. They both suddenly looked at eachother, whumpee had a pure wounded look, while whumper just had a furrowed brow.

"I know." Whumper mumbled, still holding their wrist in fear of getting hit. "But even if you believe me or not, everything I have done, I've done for you."

They moved some hair from whumpees face and rested their hand on their forehead. They could feel them shaking and their temperature high. Their eyes were teary and they looked like they could just pass out. 

"Then why-... Don't you j-just let me go." They whimpered. "Why- .. Why can't you just le-leave me alone..? Why do you keep coming b-back? Why do you keep me here?" They buried their face in their hands and quietly wept. Whumper slowly crawled back to their bedside and let go of them. 

"Because.... You would die."

Whumpee immediately fell silent you couldn't even hear breathing.

Whumper got up, adjusted their room temperature, poured a cup of water by their bedside and put out a couple of crackers. 

"I can put some music on. Would you like that?" They asked. Whumpee still had their face buried in their hands as they slowly nodded. Whumper put on a playlist titled "Whumpee's soft songs" on their personal phone. They weren't supposed to mix work and life together, especially here, but even at home they couldn't help but put together little things to keep them both sane. 

@serialobsesssor @fishtale88  @echo-of-umbra 

[door-insurance]

My Life is strange hot takes:-

-I think we should know less about Rachel as a character because imo it was better when everyone had their own interpretations of her, i will forever hate BtS for the mischaracterization of Rachel Amber (and others). You can still show Rachel in game and have her be multilayered and hard to decipher

-never got it when everyone in game and outside hyped up Jefferson’s looks, he looks mid to me- just a white guy wearing skinny jeans and glasses

-Nathan is my least favorite character cause with Jefferson you’re meant to hate him but with Nathan you’re meant to kinda sympathize and I just can’t- he got something I call “infantilized tumblr white boy syndrome”, I always hated how Chloe, Rachel and Victoria got most of the heat from the fandom (and detractors) but never Nathan who did worse. I get it, your dad sucks and you have issues but that doesn’t mean you should go around drugging and killing people, by that logic- Kate marsh should blow the school up

-we all hate d9 writing but never talk about how Dontnod can screw some things up, I never liked how they treated the whole thing with Frank and Rachel- never calling HIM out for sleeping with a girl who was barely legal (I assume they met before she turned 18? In that case, that’s grooming), it’s not that they wrote that in I don’t mind that- it’s how they handled it that gives me the ick

- also constantly mentally whipping Chloe (I’m sorry I don’t like episode 4 it was too melodramatic) and Sean, it borderlines on whump sometimes which I don’t mind in fanfics but outside? Nah.

-i loved lis 1 dialogue it was so ass

-I didn’t hate true colors, I like it more than BtS; I just didn’t like how safe and predictable it was

-I don’t really care if they include Chloe in DE or not or if they canonize bae and bay, I give up on the canon a looong time ago- I just want the depth and grit from LiS 1 back, I just finished Road 96 (great game! Kinda relevant at the moment) for the first time and it left me with the same empty feeling that episode 5: polarized left me with

-in case you couldn’t tell, BtS is my least favorite entry because imo they wasted so much resources ruining continuity, doing character assassinations, adding unnecessary characters (par Steph and Mikey) that we don’t see in LiS 1 when it could’ve just been a 3 episode game about Chloe’s grief and meeting Rachel for the first time- idk why it needed the plot twists and breaking bad sub plot it was hella stupid, let narrative games be a little lowkey sometimes cause you can’t cover everything on a 3 episode dev cycle and budget

[paingoes]

more yapping. i feel like delta and paris are kind of a perfect storm in terms of how their personalities play off one another but ive had fun thinking about alternative scenarios and whump dynamics. esp if paris lost the custody battle and delta got inherited by someone else LMFAO.

delta w a stoic/cold whumper would be fine. that’s pretty much what the emperor was to him. his life would be really really boring and he’d probably not have a lot of autonomy to do anything but theres no active conflict cause he just behaves. this could go on indefinitely as long as he does not get access to the internet or anything that really challenges his programming.

he would do really really badly w a sadistic whumper because he tries so hard to be good and having someone not respond to that and continue to hurt him anyway without any apparent rhyme or reason would confuse and scare him a lot :(

[paris hurts delta for no real reason too sometimes but delta kinda has enough good will towards him to trust it wont go too far? and when he does break that trust in the birthday incident delta is like I Need To Leave Immediately. he got spooked!]

and my favorite. delta would respond TERRIBLY to a carewhumper scenario. the way i interpret “carewhumper” is someone who is using affection and intimacy as a way to manipulate the whumpee and confuse their situation. and my opinion is that delta is actually very hard to manipulate! he’s an incredible guarded person and he’s capable of emotionally detaching from most situations. if you wanted to manipulate him, you would have to know what to play to, and he keeps that close to his chest. he would definitely see through that kind of faux affection and would resent it. also god he fucking hates being touched. this is the scenario that would make him go ballistic the fastest.

but if its carewhumper as in someone who hurts him and puts him in a bad situation but also genuinely cares about him, he has that with simon! and he likes simon a lot! he’d respond well to any sincere kindness and it’s a pretty easy to win his loyalty that way.

[ataliagold]

Hello!

Thought it was about time I introduce myself and link all my fics in one place, so here we go, in the order I wrote them.

I'm from New Zealand (I try hard to keep NZ slang/terms out of fics but sometimes they slip in...sorry!) am 30, autistic and pan...

I only write Steddie, I enjoy AU's, Steve whump, hurt/comfort and fluff, so there's alot of that here. Animals often feature strongly in my fics too, because I love them.

Fics below the cut, all complete unless specified:

Multi Chapter:

The Wreckage Of You I No Longer Reside In -

Rating - M, W/C - 55,708

Steve had escaped an abusive relationship with Billy three years ago, fleeing in the middle of the night with his young son, Dustin. Working odd jobs and struggling to get by, Steve catches the eye of music teacher Eddie Munson. But when Steve's dark past crashes back into his life again, will Steve be able to find a reason to stop running?

You Fell, I Caught You -

Rating - T, W/C - 8621

How many ways can a camping trip go wrong? When Steve agrees to take the kids on a short trip, he finds out.

Hopefully, I Won't Wake Up This Time -

Rating - T, W/C - 4029

While everyone moves on around him, Steve finds himself stuck, pushing his friends away and turning to alcohol to cope. Eddie intervenes.

Love Like Ghosts -

Rating - E, W/C - 10k + (still updating)

Three months after the main gate opened and Eddie died, Steve is not ok. His bat bites refuse to heal, and his dreams are haunted each night by a shadowy creature. After hearing Eddie's voice, Steve clings to a shred of hope that perhaps he is alive somewhere, and is determined to find him even if it's the last thing he does.

Oh Darling, Please Be Mine -

Rating - M, W/C - 56,249

Eddie brings six dumped kittens into the vet clinic Steve works at. Steve falls in love.

I Can Wait For You At The Bottom -

Rating - M, W/C - 57,524

Steve drives to an isolated cabin intending to end it all. He wasn't counting on a desperate boy breaking into the cabin on the same night.

I Need You To See Me For What I Have Become -

Rating - M, W/C - 5604

The car came around the corner both suddenly and in slow motion at the same time.

Steve saw the headlights, registered it approaching at speed, heard the blare of the horn, but it was as if he was watching from far away, not in his body. He stood stock still even as his brain screamed at him to move.

The impact knocked him down, sending him lurching across the surface of the road, skin giving way against asphalt, and suddenly he was in a dry lake bed being dragged across rough ground like a fish on a hook.

My, My, Those Eyes Like Fire -

Rating - M, W/C - 65,433

When Steve and Dustin are captured by King Munson, their home destroyed by his army, Steve fights for their lives in the arena every day. He captures the eye of Prince Edward who is immediately intrigued by Steve's refusal to give in and the sheer fury with which he fights. Edward, whose father had slaughtered Steve's family and burnt his home to the ground.

Edward, who should be his sworn enemy, but may now be his only way to stay alive.

Keep My Hand In Yours -

Rating - M, W/C - 91,714

The entire world fell apart just over a year ago.

Steve's just trying to get by on his own, on a desperate mission to find his best friend.

Enter Eddie Munson.

We Made Universes Out Of Bitten Lips And Broken Hands -

Rating - M, W/C - 65,770

Steve is working with the Wild Horse Inmate Rehabilitation Program. He's good at his job, exceptional with the horses, and makes sure to keep a healthy detachment from the inmates he works with...

...until Eddie Munson.

the edges of your soul i haven't seen yet -

Rating - T, W/C - 50k + (still updating)

Eddie's reluctantly helping Wayne with his produce stall at the farmers' market. He's resigned himself to a boring summer - until a new face shows up at the market to run a baking stall with his best friend. Steve is...odd, like no one Eddie's ever met.

And it doesn't take him long to fall head over heels for him.

Oneshots:

"But You Love Me?"..."Always" -

Rating - T, W/C - 6026

“Oh, I told him not to order the chicken, the dingus…”

When Steve Harrington is struck down by a nasty case of food poisoning, Eddie does his best to take care of him, but ends up calling in backup in the form of Joyce Byers.

We Were Gods, We Were Kids -

Rating - G, W/C - 1595

Steve suffers from migraines.

Luckily for him, he doesn't have to suffer alone anymore.

My Heart Has Changed And My Soul Has Changed -

Rating - T, W/C - 1797

Steve helps Hopper stack firewood at the cabin. The two have a much-needed talk.

I'm Naming The Stars In The Sky After You -

Rating - T, W/C - 2074

In the aftermath of Vecna, Steve is struggling. Eddie looks after him.

But My Heart Is Just A Little Boy -

Rating - T, W/C - 2017

Steve wanted to surprise Eddie by joining in on D&D. Unfortunately, he's struggling with the math involved, and the kids aren't making it any easier.

Found -

Rating - T, W/C - 1787

Steve has been frantically looking for his missing cat for nearly a week, when he receives a voicemail from a stranger.

Knocking Me Out With Those American Thighs -

Rating - T, W/C - 850

Steve sunbathes in the tiniest shorts Hawkins has ever seen. Eddie tries and fails to keep his cool.

The Night Belongs To You -

Rating - T, W/C - 2004

It's the night before Eddie is leaving Hawkins. Things between him and Steve come to a head.

Sip The Sunlight From Your Eyes -

Rating - G, W/C - 706

The whole gang has gathered at Steve's place for a summer BBQ. Part way through, Eddie realizes Steve is missing, and finds him fast asleep in the midday sun.

All Along The Watchtower -

Rating - T, W/C - 1578

In the aftermath of the partial destruction of Hawkins, some of the group find a new home in a bunker outside what’s left of the town.

Steve has the night watch.

I Can't Hide From You Like I Hide From Myself -

Rating - T, W/C - 1535

Both suffering from the flu, Steve and Eddie aren't doing the best. Robin steps in.

Flowers In Your Hair -

Rating - G, W/C - 1250

Eddie enlists some help to find the perfect flowers for Steve. Despite his own insecurities, Eddie is learning that his boyfriend loves soft things.

you told me once that i'm selfish (and i kissed you hard, in the dark) -

Rating - G, W/C - 1452

Steve is used to spending time doing what Eddie wants to do. On a hot summer afternoon, the tables are turned when Steve asks Eddie to go hiking with him and Eddie is...not so thrilled about it.

Under July Stars That Would Glow Like Sparks -

Rating - G, W/C - 1243

At the end of their final summer in Hawkins, Steve and Eddie spend a bittersweet evening catching fireflies with Dustin.

Slippery When Wet -

Rating - M, W/C - 967

On a sweltering July afternoon, Eddie watches Steve practicing basketball with Lucas, and struggles to keep his hands off him.

I'll Sing Silence -

Rating - T, W/C - 2702

A series of unfortunate events leads to a bad day for Steve. Luckily, Eddie's there to take care of him.

Or Maybe We Don't -

Rating - G, W/C - 1289

Steve wanted to be Eddies.

It's the final day of Steve and Eddie's summer trip, and Steve has something he needs to tell Eddie.

Keep Me Afloat -

Rating - G, W/C - 1735

Standing in ankle-deep water watching his friends enjoy a summer beach day, Steve looks down at himself and hates what he sees.

I Just Wanna Get To Know Ya -

Rating - T, W/C - 1289

Dustin convinces Eddie to drive them to the indoor climbing gym where his old babysitter works. Eddie's reluctant at first, but changes his tune when he lays eyes on the instructor...

Drove Through Ghosts To Get Here -

Rating - T, W/C - 1237

During his last summer in Hawkins, Steve teaches Robin how to drive.

If Love Was Contagious I Might Be Immune To It -

Rating - T, W/C - 1914

Steve's early life is mostly devoid of love - until Eddie Munson.

He Loves My Heart Shaped Sunglasses -

Rating - G, W/C - 938

Steve's at a barbeque with his friends when he's hit with the painful consequences of too much sun.

I Want Ours To Be An Endless Song -

Rating - T, W/C - 1257

Eddie's been trying for months to keep his feelings for Steve in check. But unbeknownst to Eddie, Steve's taken him on a date.

Boy Don't You Worry, You'll Find Yourself -

Rating - T, W/C - 3879

Steve joins Wayne and Eddie on their fishing trip. He and Wayne have a much-needed talk.

Come Back Home For The Lightning Chase -

Rating - T, W/C - 1311

Several years after the death of Vecna, Steve and Eddie return to Hawkins during a summer storm.

Spirits Follow Me Where I Go -

Rating - T, W/C - 2156

Steve takes Eddie kayaking, and experiences a panic attack while on the water.

When The Night Was Full Of Terrors -

Rating - T, W/C - 8048

A camping trip goes seriously wrong for Eddie and Steve.

Show Me Yours And I'll Show You Mine -

Rating - T, W/C - 1882

Eddie is self-conscious about his scars. Steve shows him he doesn't have to be.

you're the only one who knows, you slow it down -

Rating - T, W/C - 1800

Eddie's at a farmers market when he's approached by a very determined black and white cat. On a whim, he follows him to a young man having a panic attack in the woods.

and the moonlight baby shows you what's real -

Rating - T, W/C - 1103

In the aftermath of Vecna, Steve's left with a variety of issues, including frequent episodes of sleep paralysis. Luckily, he doesn't have to suffer through them alone.

you still dance but you're out of time -

Rating - T, W/C - 3181

Until now, nobody's worked out that Steve's essentially homeless, living in his car. But one night, when Steve's cold and alone and in pain, Hopper chances across him.

trouble's always gonna find you baby, but so am i -

Rating - T, W/C - 1555

Steve's found by some men looking to pass Al Munson's drug debt on to his son.

But he'll die before he gives Eddie up.

Series:

It Was Always Burning -

Firefighter AU, collection of 66 (so far) oneshots in this universe, some written by floralsunrise. Ratings range G - M.

[whumpsday]

Kane & Jim BBU AU #3: Erased

Previous / Kane & Jim AUs Masterlist

content: bbu, pet whump, rescue, recovery, caretaking, amnesia, whumper turned whumpee, starvation

takes place 10 years after Liz rescues 913/Jim. don't forget to read ⭐ this drabble ⭐ taking place between #2 and #3 first!!

@bbu-on-the-side BBU Community Days #13: Safety

-

Jim was a person. He'd been a person for almost ten years, now. It was hard at first, but he was used to it by now.

He couldn't legally work, but he'd been helping out where he could. In a way, he was still doing the same things he did as a domestic, just by choice this time, for his family. He was good at it, and even if he wasn't a fan of all of it, he liked cooking. Liz told him he'd always liked cooking, even before. He had no problem believing that. He even did some odd jobs around the neighborhood that worked in cash, babysitting and mowing lawns and shoveling snow.

He wasn't as involved in the pet lib stuff as she was. It scared him, even after he'd started being able to stand up to the voice in the back of his head that repeated everything his handlers told him. Too risky.

Life wasn't a constant walk on eggshells anymore. He still got scared sometimes, or fell into his old conditioning, but he was safe. He was free.

So when Jim was out grocery shopping, he almost dropped his basket when he saw him.

There, right down the aisle. He'd know that face anywhere. Practically the only face he saw for the first five years of his memorable life.

He almost bolted right away, but something was... off. Master didn't look like how he usually did. Gone were the expensive suits and bitter scowl, replaced with plain clothing and an anxious frown.

He was wearing a collar.

Jim ducked into the next aisle, watching him through the gaps in the shelves. There was no way, right? Master- Kane was wildly rich. He'd have no need to sell himself to WRU.

But Kane went missing years ago. No one knew where he was, or what had happened to him.

He watched Kane further, looking down at a list and plucking items off the shelves, eyebrows bunched together with nerves. Jim had never seen Kane look this... unsure of himself.

There was a barcode on his wrist too, sure enough. It wasn't clear enough to make out from this far, but he could see the number, something with a 4 in it.

He wondered if Kane's owner gave him a name.

It was stupid, Jim knew. But he had to. He couldn't just leave, not after seeing this.

Jim hesitantly approached, ready to run at any time. "Master?" he asked, voice coming out smaller than he'd have liked.

Kane turned, eyeing him up and down, only growing more tense. "My master sent me to do his shopping, sir." He shrunk away slightly, as if afraid Jim would hurt him after finding out he was alone.

"Do you remember me?" Jim blurted out, despite already knowing the answer.

"I'm sorry, sir." Kane's hands gripped the cart's handle tight, like it would protect him. "I'm- I'm bad at- at everything. I'm so sorry."

Of course Kane thought Jim was a person. He had taken care to remove every last trace of his tattoo, though the marks on his neck from the collar wouldn't go away, even after a decade. But Kane wouldn't be able to see that under his turtleneck.

"It's alright," he said softly. The words 913 had wanted to hear so, so badly. "I'm Jim. I knew you before."

That certainly got Kane's attention. "I'm- my designation is 110146. Do you mean... before I was a pet, sir?"

"Yeah." Jim could fully take stock of Kane's state, now that he was standing close. Dark circles ringed his eyes, bruises poked out from under his sleeve. He looked thinner than Jim had ever seen him, to the point it was obvious he wasn't being allowed enough food. And-

Something that looked like a knife mark, barely visible above his neckline.

"Yours hurts you?" Jim asked.

Kane seemed to study him, searching for a shred of mocking for a moment. He found none. "Master can do as he likes with his pet," he settled on.

Jim stepped closer, lowering his voice to a conspiratorial whisper. "Mine did, too." His heart raced at the revelation. He hadn't told anyone outside of pet lib about his past, ever. And here he was telling Kane, of all people.

Kane glanced at his wrist again, but of course he found nothing. "Yours, sir?" he asked.

Jim tugged his collar down for a moment, revealing the faint outline of a collar that had scarred itself permanently into his skin. "Mine."

Kane's eyes widened. "Oh."

"You wanna get out of here?" Jim extended a hand toward Kane, even as every logical bone in his body screamed at him that he was being a careless idiot, throwing his life away for someone who never cared.

Kane looked around wildly. "I can't just- Master would be furious."

"Life can be better than this. I promise." Jim kept his arm extended. "No more hurting. And I can get you a good meal."

Kane stood there frozen for a long moment, just staring at him, before he broke down in quiet tears. He forced himself to nod. "I- I- Thank you."

He reached forward and took Jim's hand uncertainly, bony fingers wrapping around Jim's own.

"You're doing great," Jim encouraged. Despite a lifetime of resentment, all he could see was the terrified boxie in front of him now. Kane couldn't even remember how cruel he used to be. He couldn't even remember his own name. "Just try and calm down a little. You're gonna be okay."

Kane clung to Jim's forearm like a lifeline. "Yes, s-sir."

Jim tried to calm himself down, too. Having Kane on him like this flipped a switch in his brain that told him to cower and placate, that he was about to be hurt. But he managed to repress it, with some effort. He'd had a lot of practice over the years.

When Kane got himself to stop crying and wiped the tears from his eyes, he nodded. "Thank you for- for being patient with me. I'm ready."

"Good," Jim said approvingly. "I'm just gonna check out what I've got in my basket, and you can follow behind me and pretend to be... you know. We'll get outta here without a second look from anyone. Just follow my lead."

Kane did spare a glance for his nearly-full shopping cart, but nodded agreeably anyway. "Yes, sir."

God, that was still so weird.

Jim eyed the meat section they'd met in. Kane always loved steak. He couldn't afford the fancy stuff he used to make as Kane's pet, but he grabbed a cheap, on-sale cut and threw it in his basket.

"By the way, your name's Kane. Kane de Sang."

-

There was no issue getting out of the supermarket, and Six- Kane, now, or maybe again- followed behind Jim like his life depended on it. Jim from before. He wanted to offer to carry the bags, but he didn't. He didn't want to do anything to disrupt what was happening, this miraculous whisking-away.

He was being so bad. Master would be beyond furious. Master would punish him worse than he'd ever been punished before. But Six was so tired. He had no idea what was in store for him here, but it had to be better than back home.

Jim led him to an apartment building, opening the door and ushering him inside. "I'm home!" he called, setting the groceries down on the kitchen counter. He turned to Six and gestured toward the couch. "Have a seat there," he ordered, his voice gentle.

"Yes, sir. Thank you." Six sat, grateful for the simple, easy-to-follow order.

"We don't have a lot of extra space, so you're gonna be sleeping on the couch, sorry. I'm just gonna go explain what's going on to my sister. Don't worry, she's with us-"

"What the fuck!" a woman shouted as she came out from one of the rooms. She glared at Six, bolting protectively in front of Jim.

Six pressed himself back against the couch, putting his arms up in surrender. "I'm s-sorry, ma'am, I'm so sorry, I thought- he said-" He cut himself off with a sob. He was so stupid to go along with this, breaking the rules. He didn't even know why this woman was angry with him, but at least with Master he knew what to expect. He didn't know how to please these new people. How could he have thought this would work? "I'm sorry!"

Jim placed a hand on her shoulder. "Liz, it's okay."

"You can't have him!" the woman called Liz shouted at Six with a glare, only confusing him further.

"I don't- Ma'am, I'm so sorry, I don't understand!" Six cried.

"Liz." Jim stepped out from behind her and, to Six's great relief, got between the two of them. "Look at him for two seconds. Like actually look."

Liz listened, even though Jim was sort-of-a-pet. Her eyes lingered on Six's collar.

"He doesn't even remember," Jim continued.

Liz eyed him warily. "You're a boxie? You?"

"Yes, ma'am," Six answered, still pressed back into the couch. "I'm sorry. I didn't realize that- that my presence here would be a detriment. I could go back?" He could still make it back to the grocery store and home with the shopping. Master would punish his lateness, but it would be far better than a punishment for an attempted escape.

"You're not going back," Jim said so firmly that Six couldn't possibly argue with him. He turned to the woman. "He's just another rescue. Could we host him? I just- I gotta make sure myself. That he's taken care of."

Another? he wondered.

"You sure? You don't have to deal with him again if you don't wanna. There's plenty of people who'd be willing to safehouse. He's put you through enough."

Six's stomach dropped. When Jim said he knew him before, Six had thought he meant they were friendly. Why would someone he's been enemies with help him?

"I'm sure." Jim stepped forward and gestured toward Six. "Liz, this is Kane. Kane, this is my sister, Liz. Neither of us are gonna hurt you. You're safe now."

Six- Kane, he was Kane now, he had to remember- bowed his head. "It's nice to meet you, ma'am."

Liz wouldn't stop looking at Kane like he was a bomb that could go off at any moment. "We've met," she said coldly.

"C'mon, be nice. He can't even remember," Jim pointed out.

Liz sighed. "Yeah, sorry, you're right." Her gaze softened. "It's good to meet you too, Kane." She headed to the kitchen. "I'll put the groceries away before I head to work."

"Thanks. I'll save you leftovers." Jim sat next to him. "So, you got any questions? I know this is a lot, believe me. I've been through it, too."

"What will be expected of me here, sir?" Kane asked. That was the most important thing. He couldn't do what he was supposed to without knowing what it was first. "What will my duties be?"

"First, you can just rest and recover. It's been a while since you've had a break, I bet, and you look like a strong gust of wind could blow you over. Take a breather. Once you're better, we can split work around the house and some odd jobs I do in the neighborhood, which is mostly just stuff you know how to do anyway. Domestic stuff. If there's anything I want you to do, I'll let you know, so don't worry about trying to guess."

Kane nodded, a bit nervous about not having duties to fulfill. He wanted to make a good impression.

"I mean, I assume you're a domestic, 'cause you were doing the shopping. Unless I'm wrong...?" Jim asked cautiously.

"I am, sir," Kane assured him.

Jim gave him a wry smile. "I was, too."

Liz bopped Jim on the head as she passed by. "See you later. Uh, have fun." She stopped for a moment, looking at Kane quizzically. "Can I see your shoulder for a sec?" she asked, pointing at his right.

"Liz-"

"Yes, ma'am." Kane pulled the neck of his shirt down, exposing the scar there.

She brushed her fingertips against it, gentler than he'd thought she would be. "Does it hurt?"

"Only sometimes, ma'am, when I strain my shoulder too much. But usually not. I've always had it," he reported.

Liz tapped the scar. "I did that." She stepped back.

"Oh." Kane had been told it was a bullet wound. This woman had shot him? Why? Was she going to do it again? His mind raced with fear.

"I don't regret doing it. But I'm sorry it still hurts." Liz nodded at him before leaving the apartment.

Jim shook his head. "She's too much." He stood up. "Let's go to the kitchen. I'll make your favorite. 'Cept I can't get the fancy stuff like you used to get, but I hope you like it anyway."

Food. Kane was going to be allowed a meal, that was what Jim had said, instead of just the scraps. "Thank you so much, sir."

"No problem." Jim led him to the kitchen and indicated for Kane to sit as he started preparing food. It felt wrong. Kane was the pet, he was supposed to be doing the chores. But Jim said he wasn't supposed to yet, so he didn't.

"Any other questions?" Jim asked as he worked.

"What are the rules?" Kane ventured, trying to suppress a shudder as Jim picked up the knife. But he didn't come at Kane with it, he just started peeling a potato.

"Don't hurt anyone or destroy other people's stuff on purpose. Don't go tattling to WRU, obviously. Pretty much as long as you're not hurting anyone, no one's gonna have an issue with you. No discipline. You don't have to be scared of messing up. And you're allowed to want stuff."

It sounded far too good to be true. "Okay," he said, a bit choked up with emotion. "Please let me know if it's rude to ask, but when- when you first got away, was it easy for you, sir?"

Jim paused for a moment, then continued. Kane tensed, worried he'd offended his... new master? But Jim just kept talking. "It wasn't. I was all messed up. I was happy to be out, but I had no idea how to be my own person. And shit was... complicated with Liz. She kept expecting me to be someone I wasn't anymore. And I missed- my master, sometimes. He wasn't good to me, but he was everything I knew. And there were good times too, mixed in with the bad. So it made everything real complicated. But it all worked out eventually. I'm... actually happy now. I'm not the guy I was before, but I'm better." He smiled at Kane.

Kane didn't think he would ever miss his master. There weren't good times too. It was just pain and fear. "I'm glad you're happy now, sir."

"Me, too."

As Jim cooked, it was hard for Kane to restrain himself. When he cooked, he made use of everything he had. Potato peels that he would have eaten raw as he worked were dumped in the trash. He wondered if he would get in trouble for digging those out later. It wasn't against the rules, as far as Jim's description of them went.

At last, dinner was ready. Jim brought over two plates, piled high with food, and set one in front of Kane. He could hardly believe it.

"This is all for me?" he asked, just to make sure.

Jim's eyes fixated on him, watching intently for his reaction. "Yep, dig in."

Kane cut off a bite of meat, practically melting at its delicious taste. It was more than that- it tasted... familiar, somehow.

"Do you like it?" Jim prompted, an anxious look in his eyes that Kane knew all too well in his own. Seeking approval.

"It's the best thing I've ever tasted," he said emphatically.

Jim beamed, picking up his own fork. "I'm glad."

Kane had never eaten this much at once in his life. Everything was so good, better than anything he'd ever been able to make. When he'd finished his plat, he felt full for once, full with food he was allowed to have. It was the best feeling in the world.

"I- I'm sorry if I've wronged you," Kane said. "I didn't know. Thank you for helping me anyway."

Jim stared at him with an unreadable expression. "Oh." He shook his head. "Yeah, I mean, yeah. 'Course. You're pretty much not even the same guy."

A sneaking suspicion had been creeping up on Kane, and he was growing more and more certain of it by the minute, no matter how much he hoped it wasn't true. "Was I...?" He touched his own collar.

Jim glanced away. "Yeah."

Mine did, too. Jim said his master hit him, too. Had Kane been just like Master, but to Jim? Was that why Jim was so anxious for his approval? That's who he was before, that was Kane de Sang?

"I'm sorry," he said again, now feeling the weight of what he'd done. "You didn't deserve that. You're so kind."

Jim wiped at the tears starting to form in his eyes. "Thanks. I never thought I'd- thanks."

"Sir?" he asked, since this seemed to be going well. "You said I was... allowed to want things?"

"Yeah. You're allowed," Jim confirmed.

"I don't think I want to be Kane de Sang anymore."

-

in canon, liz has a good-sized 3-bedroom house, because housing by the vampire territory border is dirt cheap since no one wants to live there. in a world without vampires, i am whisking their comfortable house away. apartment be upon ye

and that's the final part of this AU miniseries! hope you enjoyed!

taglist in reblog!

[thoughtsonhurtandcomfort]

Shun the Light - Ch 18 - Nightlife

Masterlist

Author's Notes: Dante POV here, Matteo next chapter

Both chapters will jump around a bit, but I didn't want to drag things out too long and it would just be a lot of the same thing over and over again anyway.

Content Warnings: vampire whump, angst, loneliness, beaten up, alcohol mention, smoking mention

----

Returning to his old ways shouldn't be this hard.

Dante spent forty-eight years alone. Matteo was only here two months.

Who knew such a slight impact could leave such a crater.

He set himself up for failure the moment he tried to go about business as usual as though none of it happened. Like they didn't bare their souls to each other, like he didn't lick Matteo's wounds and hold him while he cried, like Matteo didn't feed Dante with his own blood countless times.

The bedroom where Matteo stayed looks like no one touched it. The bed is neatly made, his things all gone, any mess cleaned up.

Only a few small things throughout the house provide any reminder that there was a second inhabitant, if only for a short while. Claw marks in the bunker, a broken attic window, the handful of things Matteo bought for him in town. Sometimes he can still recall the taste of Matteo's blood. Sometimes he still catches a hint of his scent when he walks into a room.

Without these things Dante might be able to convince himself that it was all a dream, or worse, a hallucination in his dying moments before he turns to ash, still staked to the wall upstairs. But the emptiness that aches within Dante is all too real.

-

I miss him.

The admission finally comes three weeks after Matteo left.

Night has just fallen and Dante is looking out the window. He has almost gotten used to the silence by now. He has also started hunting again, drinking just enough to keep going, no more, no less. Even now, something in him wants to live - if this could be called a life.

With each passing night the moon grows, and Dante dares to hope that Matteo will change his mind and return. Even if it was only for shelter, at least they could talk. Dante wouldn't try to make him stay; he just wants to know if their time together meant something to Matteo too. Maybe they could even stay in touch.

-

The full moon arrives.

Dante leaves the front door unlocked and a lamp on out front.

Morning comes, but there is no sign of Matteo.

-

Dante feels like he might finally lose his mind after all these years.

One moment he's doing alright, the next he's at the damn window again, looking for a figure that never appears. None of the usual distractions are working. His appetite continues to dwindle.

Three nights have passed since the full moon. Some part of Dante really believed it was the thing that would bring Matteo back. No matter how determined he was to move on, the hope was like an itch he couldn't scratch.

Sick of his own thoughts, Dante decides he needs to do something. He doesn't intend for it to be something reckless, but that's what happens. That night he steps outside, picks a direction, and starts walking.

-

After a few hours of nothing but trees, Dante reaches a state route that cuts through the woods. He ducks behind a tree until a single car passes before he steps out.

In the distance a handful of businesses line the road. As Dante approaches he can tell that most of them are closed, except for a gas station and a dive bar with a single glowing blue sign.

This is the point where Dante should turn around and head back. Instead he heads towards the light without any real plan. He hasn't been somewhere so public in over a decade. Maybe being around humans will remind him why he avoids it.

Dante only just makes it through the front door when a group of four belligerently drunk young men shove past him.

"Watch it," one snaps at him.

"Go home and take a bath," Dante mutters.

The man closest to him stops and turns around. "What was that?"

Shit. He keeps his back to them. "Nothing."

Another guy grab's Dante's shoulder and forces him to turn around. The group take one look at him with his long hair and old fashioned clothing and deem him an easy target.

Getting rid of them would be easy, but not worth the risk of getting caught, so Dante doesn't struggle when they drag him around the side of the building and shove him to the ground.

"It's nice and quiet out here. Now what did you say?"

Dante slowly stands and brushes himself off. He turns to walk away, but one of them grabs his arm. He immediately pulls free, and when the man reaches for him again Dante grabs him first, holding his wrist in a tight grip.

"What - what the fuck, man?! Let go!"

He struggles but Dante is unmoving, staring him down. If he wanted to he could snap his bones. If he really wanted to he could tell the man to break his own wrist, and he would obey.

Dante sees the the punch coming. He could stop it. He could stop all of this in an instant. If he wanted to. If he cared.

A fist strikes his cheek with brute force, sending Dante crashing to the ground. This time, before he has a chance to recover, all four men surround him and unleash a barrage of fists and boots, each blow more painful than the last. It's all he can do to shield his mouth so the humans don't see his fangs each time he cries out.

"HEY!" Someone shouts. "Break it up or I'm calling the cops!"

One of them grabs Dante's shirt and slams him back against the wall and leans in close. His breath smells like cheap beer and cigarettes.

"I don't want to see you here again," he growls, "got it?"

Dante nods and the man lets him go. He slides down the wall and slumps to the ground. The group heads off to their car, and the stranger who intervened walks over to check on him.

"You need me to call someone for you?"

That voice...

"Shit, he's not breathing. Hey, are you o...kay..."

He comes to a halt beside Dante and crouches down. Dante lifts his head and is met with a familiar pair of amber eyes.

"Dante?"

[inkwell-and-dagger]

How To Kill An Immortal

Chapter 3 — Playing Dead

- In which Rayan learns that actions have consequences

Word count: 3,210

Contains: Stress position, captivity whump, immortal whumpee, sadistic whumper, broken bones, stabbing, threats.

previous || next || masterlist

—> —> —> —> —> —>

Madeline felt guilty for being worried so easily, but something in her gut told her she had a damned good reason this time.

Rayan had gone out to a pub with his friends, intending to reunite and catch up at their favourite spot last night. Of course, Madeline had been pleased to see him doing something for once, ushering him out the door before he'd even tied his shoes; but it was clear that something had happened during the evening to cause his sudden disappearance. He hadn't come home yet, nor done so much as texted Madeline that he needed picking up or the time he'd be returning, and the thin reassurances her dear Vivana gave her weren't helping.

At first, she had just assumed he'd spent the night at his mates house, and was just sleeping in with a hangover he'd, no doubt, gotten; a plausible explanation to why he hadn't come home. But as the day dragged along, Madeline was sure there was something else going on.

“You really need to relax, sweet’art,” Vivana sighed, walking up behind the other and placing her hands atop Madeline's shoulders. Madeline had been sitting on the porch for half an hour now, nursing a mug of tea which had likely begun to go cold, waiting for him to return. “I'm sure he's fine. He's with his friends, and I bet with the worst hangover of his life. He's okay.”

Madeline just grumbled, though the tenseness of her shoulders dwindled under her beloved’s hands.

—> —> —>

Rayan had been brought out of the basement. After his beating the previous night — his back was still aching from it — he had learned that it'd be best not to get on Foster's nerves. It was clear that, no matter how hard he tried to bite and scratch, they'd overpower him one way or another.

But fuck, was the urge hard to resist sometimes.

“Get in,” Foster sneered, pushing their limping captive through the doorway of the upstairs bathroom. Rayan stumbled at the push and straightened himself up, albeit with the support of the doorway. But then he stopped. The pocketknife Foster had used to herd him upstairs raised to the side of his neck, grazing his skin. “The bathroom window’s locked. If you even try to get out or hurt yourself, I'll cut you up and feed you to my mate's dog. Just do what you need to do. Got it?”

Rayan's mind blanked. It wasn't too surprising; it was hard for Rayan to think coherently when a knife was all but kissing his skin. “I—”

“Am I speaking French to you?”

“N-No. No. I got it.”

The knife retracted, and Rayan was shoved inside. The door shut, and he locked it.

Sliding the knife into their pocket, Foster opened their phone, steely gaze flicking through their contacts. Despite their short list of contacts, her name seemed to be lost in the numbers and names.

“Where the fuck is she…”

Their thumb stopped its mindless scrolling, cursing themself for going past her number more than once. They rang her and placed the phone to their ear. Foster knew she'd respond.

“I’ve got a problem.”

The voice on the other side crackled through, amused. “Car broke down again?”

“No, summat else. You free soon?”

“Dunno. I'll check my calendar, tell you later. Why?”

“I’ve.. got somethin’, and I need your help because havin’ this is more difficult than I thought.”

“What did you get? Is it like.. a technical thing you need help with? ‘Cause you'll have no luck with me.”

“No, ‘m not that stupid.”

“...Don't tell me you got a pet.”

“No— Can you not jump to conclusions? I'm never planning on getting a pet, this is somethin’ else. Just.. Just let me know when you're free, okay?”

“Fine. Why are you so desperate to be in my amazing company any—”

Foster ended the call out of spite. While they waited, they leaned against the bannister, looking down on the stairs sprawling out below. The carpet really needed improvement. It was an ugly colour, aged and weathered.

Soon enough, Rayan was done. Foster wasted no time in dragging him out and grasping the back of his shirt. They wielded the knife again.

“Didn't take you too long.” They remarked, but Rayan just swallowed and kept his eyes straight ahead.

“Who were you talking to?”

“Not important. Just move.” Training the tip of the knife on the back of Rayan's neck, they led him back downstairs. Silence met their footsteps; Rayan was nervous, terrified even, and Foster knew it.

They made it downstairs and, with a warning glare not to make a move, Foster crouched down in front of a black backpack. Meanwhile, Rayan glanced around.

It was jarring how normal his captor’s house seemed. Early morning sunlight filtered in through the living room window, though one curtain was drawn to. An assortment of items were sprawled across the windowsill with a radiator perched underneath. The walls were mostly bare, save a clock on one wall; a nice plush sofa atop carpeted floors faced a television on an oak cabinet; a bookcase lined one wall, stacked with knick knacks, the occasional book, and photographs in dark frames. On a small, stained side table was a potted plant, clearly fake (Rayan wasn't all that surprised to see that they couldn't even tend to a plant) although rather pretty. A small note laid beside the rich red pot, seemingly discarded and forgotten about:

‘From your bff Ivy’, it read in neat, fine script.

Rayan was surprised to see that his captor had friends, however. It sickened him how normal this place seemed; that his captor would wake up in their bed, watch TV on that sofa, read those books, with the rhythmic ticking of the clock in the background. He felt bad for this ‘Ivy’ person, unknowing of the horrors that dwelled in their friend's basement.

Foster pulled him back to his side, the backpack slung over their shoulder. They hissed, “Stop staring,” as they shoved him forward, pulling him up from his train of thought. With a begrudging grunt, he walked down the old, worn steps to the basement. The steps wailed and groaned under the weight of their footsteps.

“You're awfully quiet today,” Foster said, rummaging through their pocket for the keys to the basement. With their spare hand they retrieved the knife again from their pocket. Rayan remained quiet by their side, hardly daring to move a finger. The cold, sharp metal on the back of their neck sent goosebumps raising across his arms, a haunting reminder of what would come if he tried anything stupid.

Momentarily, they struggled to open the door, grumbling a curse under their breath as they jostled it around. But eventually, inevitably, it unlocked and was kicked open, hinges screeching in protest. And Rayan was shoved in.

“Don't get comfortable just yet,” Foster followed moments after, bringing out their phone. They closed the door, not bothering to flick on the light. Rayan was momentarily alarmed, before he squinted and shielded his eyes from the glare of their phone torch. “Oh, don't be dramatic. It's just a phone torch, not the end of the world.”

“Easy for you to say,” He grumbled, watching as Foster propped their phone up against the wall, illuminating the room in an ugly white light.

“Stand over there.” They pointed to an area near the centre of the room, a joist of sorts on the ceiling.

“Why?”

“Just fucking do it.” Foster sounded exasperated.

Rayan’s eyes narrowed in reluctance, but he complied anyhow. Moving to the centre of the room, the bulb dangled overhead like a man on a noose. After a few moments of rustling and rummaging, Foster walked up behind him, a line of rope in hand. “Arms up, Immortal.”

He raised his arms. “You know my name.”

“That doesn't mean I have to call you by your name.” They retorted, tying each of his wrists together and to the joist, making the knots tight, unnecessarily so.

Eventually, they left the remaining line of rope to hang behind him, standing back to admire their handiwork. Rayan, however, raised an eyebrow.

“Am I supposed to be scared?”

“Maybe.”

“Oh,” He scoffed. “How frightening. My hands are tied, whatever will I do? Y'know, I'm shitting myself over here—”

His mocking fell short as Rayan turned his head, seeing his captor pick up his bat. His eyes widened. “Wait- no, wait wait wait wait, hold on—”

The spiked bat smashed into the back of his knees with a crack and a thud, knocking him off balance. His knees buckled and yet the wire held him up, shoulders straining. He yelped in pain, gritting his teeth.

“Ooh, I heard somethin’ break! Now,” they hissed, “say you're sorry, and mean it this time.” And they hit his legs again. Another yell, and Rayan rocked forward as if he were no more than a punching bag.

Another swing. Another yell, another choked up attempt at an apology. A mocking complaint of how ‘they couldn't hear him’, and they'd swing again. They seemed adamant on targeting his legs, but occasionally hit his torso and ribs.

Another swing. Another yell. Another swing. Another yell.

Another swing. Another yell.

Lather, rinse, repeat.

At some point, Rayan couldn't even talk through the pain, unable to string a series of words together and keep it coherent. With every swing of the bat that hit his legs, his apologies turned into nothing more than pained grunts.

“I'm— I'm sorry!” Rayan hissed out, his pleas drifting into a strained, inhuman noise when the bat slammed into his ankle. Head bowed, he watched through eyes glistening with tears as his captors trainers came into view.

“What for?”

A finger and thumb gripped his chin, tilting it up so they could meet eye-to-eye. Foster was no longer smiling. “What are you sorry for, Rayan?”

Rayan's mind blanked again; perhaps it was the pain clouding his thoughts this time, the blood trickling down his legs. He'd focused so much energy in apologising, and yet had never wondered what for.

Perhaps he should apologise for teasing them? For… For…

Oh, crap. The picture.

That was a shitty idea, wasn't it.

A sharp backhand interrupted his train of thought. His head whipped to the side, and Rayan gritted his teeth as his cheek burned in pain.

“It isn't that hard, Immortal,” Foster said, a faint sneer in their tone. “Or do you want a little reminder?”

Rayan didn't want to admit it, but it seemed the choice had been made for him. Foster walked away, to the dreaded cabinet and opened one of the drawers. They picked out one of many, holding it between their index and middle and waving it in front of Rayan's face.

This one was different. Two figures; one, a girl with fluorescent blue hair tied up in two space buns, curls framing a smiling face. The other, a boy with black hair that draped over shoulders, hunched over with his knees to his chest, a lit cigarette in hand. They wore matching bracelets. The boy looked roughed up; bruised knuckles, remnants of bloodstains on his shirt and nose, and a nasty scratch splitting the corner of his lip. His eyes, mismatched blue and grey, stared right back at Rayan.

“That's me,” Foster said. “That picture from yesterday was also me.”

“Look, I'm- I'm sorry—”

“Good. You should be, Rayan,” Foster flashed a smile. “I'm glad your kind knows what remorse is.”

Rayan stared at them, incredulously. His kind? Surely there wasn't much difference between mortals and Immortals; besides uncanny healing abilities and the wretched markings on their bodies, what other differences were there? “I'm as human as you are.”

“Hmm, whatever makes you feel better,” Foster placed the picture aside. Rayan noticed how their eyes lingered on the picture, before ripping away to glare at him. “I'm done for today.”

They clutched the bat in both hands, knuckles whitening.

He watched, helpless, as the bat lifted, its rusted nails splitting the bark, dripping with crimson.

“Sleep tight now.”

Thud.

—> —> —>

Rayan awoke to a splitting headache. Scrunching his face at the ache, he felt dried blood cracking on his face. His legs seemed healed for the most part; only a dull throb remained, his blood already dry on his jeans. It was dark without their phone’s torch blinding him, and for once Rayan was thankful for that. He didn't want to see himself, didn't want to see his own battered body.

He hung from the rope, wrists straining against it. There was a tingling sensation in his hands, no doubt from a loss of circulation. Rayan knew Foster wouldn't have considered his comfort. Why would they? After all, this is a captive situation; he wasn't just staying over for a couple days.

It was cold. Goosebumps prickled on his arms as he hung, swallowing down a lump in his throat. He wanted to go home. To see Madeline, his friends — anyone. Anyone except that smirking, scarred face who had mocked and, for lack of a better word as much Rayan detested the thought, tortured him for…

For…

How long has it been? There wasn't a clock in here. Rayan always told the time by his phone; which was useless now, a consequence from his thoughtless, stupid actions. Perhaps it hadn't even been that long; maybe a day or two, and the hours were just dragging along. Maybe.

Hopefully.

Creaking footsteps interrupted his thoughts. Fuck. He didn't want to be hurt again, but fighting back was futile. Pleading wouldn't work; he'd tried that already, and all he gained from that were a few mocking sneers and continued abuse. So… what could he do, to at least delay the inevitable for just a minute longer?

The footfalls grew louder, and then stopped.

Rayan heard a jangling of keys.

The lock in the door turned.

The door was opening, creaking in protest of the hand moving it.

Perhaps on instinct, or because there was no option left that he could think of, Rayan went limp like a ragdoll and closed his eyes, praying that his captor was thick enough to believe he was still unconscious.

—> —> —>

Foster entered the basement and flicked the light on. They gave Rayan a questioning glance, smirked in amusement, and shook their head.

The poor man was panting like a dog, but they'd humour him for now.

Foster strode past the sagging figure of their captive, opening the drawer and picking up the pile of pictures. They meticulously checked each and every one for any sign of damage, lest the Immortal had gotten his grubby little hands on any of the others prior to yesterday. All seemed perfectly fine, but they shoved them into their pockets just in case. For safekeeping. In hindsight, it was a bad idea to keep sacred items in the same vicinity as their teeth-bearing prisoner.

They spared another glance over their shoulder at Rayan. Unmoving, swaying lightly, his hands a faint, purple colour. But Foster couldn't miss the tremble in his body, the frantic breathing of their dear captive.

Foster's hand absently found the adjacent drawer. They slid it open and brandished a small knife. One of many they'd collected over the years, a coat of aged blood upon its blade. Won't make much of a difference either way.

Foster's footsteps were quiet. Masking their intentions by making it as if they were simply strolling about, though it was horribly executed. Excitement was at fault, but was Foster to blame? Absolutely not.

A hand coiled round to clamp over Rayan's mouth as the knife was stabbed into his side. Rayan “awoke” with a jolt, and his scream was muffled by their hand.

“Ah, there you are,” Foster tutted into his ear. “Thought I'd lost you there. Nevermind.” Their grasp on his jaw tightened when Rayan thrashed about, throwing his head back and grunting out a muffled curse. Foster removed the knife, and a circle of crimson grew steadily around the man’s wound.

Foster sighed, thoughtfully. “I'm really gonna have to do somethin’ about that mouth of yours. Can't have the neighbours know my little secret, eh?” Smirking as Rayan shook his head in protest, they simply patted his cheek. “Too bad. My house, my rules, Rayan.”

Foster's hand slipped away, and Rayan hung his head again. There was no point in arguing back. Whatever snappy remark he had bubbling in his chest diminished when Foster held the knife up; a silent warning, perhaps a challenge. As if they're saying, don't you even think about it.

Rayan watched onwards as Foster wiped the knife clean on their jeans, returning it to its original place in the drawer. “You're a good actor, y'know. I almost believed you.”

“Fuck you,” Rayan hissed.

A scoff. “You were panting like a dog. I'm not braindead, if you're wondering.” They reached forwards and Rayan instinctively flinched; he heard Foster chuckle, as they undid the rope. Once it was fully undone, Rayan crumpled to the floor like nothing more than a piece of paper.

Foster nudged him onto his back, eliciting a grunt from the man. He clutched the wound in his side, wrists rubbed raw. “You've got quite the foul mouth,” They mused in a sickly sweet voice. “I wonder how quickly that'll change.”

Rayan squinted up at them, his head pounding. He'd been hit pretty hard, huh. “You're sick,” He grunted. Foster just smirked in reply, and walked away.

Rayan watched them leave. Keeping a trained, glaring eye on their back, as they looked over their shoulder to meet his gaze. They gave him a once-over, flicked off the light, and shut the door.

“Pussy,” He hissed, as the sound of the door locking reached his ringing ears.

—> —> —>

“I'm free,” The voice on the other end declared in a sing-song voice. Foster had returned to their phone buzzing madly, and multiple missed calls from the same contact. Annoying little shit.

Foster hummed, sitting down on the sofa. “Now?”

“Yep!”

“Alright then,” They sighed out, sounding more than a little exasperated. “Just- don't stall on your way ‘ere. I know what you're like.”

“I never do that.”

“Sure you don't.”

After an exchanged goodbye that dragged on for far longer than it should've, Foster glanced out the window. It was early afternoon, sunlight filtering in through the blinds. The house was quiet, quaint; only the ticking of the clock interrupted the empty silence. At a glance, nobody would think there was a man, bleeding and possessing abilities of which almost everyone would dream of having, right underneath the floorboards.

Foster was grateful for that. That, in the public’s eye, he was a normal person. Sure, one who was given curious stares and scrutinising glances when they went out, but they couldn't help that. Their scars hadn't come from anything that wasn't absolutely necessary.

Their gaze turned to the potted plant on the side table, vibrant but fake. And then to the note. It was one of the few gifts Foster had actually kept, hadn't been pushed into the attic to collect dust and be forgotten about. At this point, Foster was glad they'd kept her around for so long.

—> —> —>

WE ARE SO FUCKING BAAAAAAAAAAACCCCCCCCCCCCCCKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKK. AAUATGGJRJRHRHRHRJCIM IM SO HAPPY AND EXCITED IM SO GLAD IVE FINALLY PULLED THIS OUTTA MY ASS NOW. AAAHWHWSJ!!!!!!!!?! LETS GO. LETS FUCKING GO.

I have a lot planned for the next chapter :33333 a new character as well!!!!! let's just hope it doesn't take like. eight months to post it though

HTKAI Taglist: @kira-the-whump-enthusiast @whumpy-wyrms @creppersfunpalooza @toyybox @vidawhump

[thewhumpcaretaker]

🖤 Dark, Cathartic Whump 🖤

I just want to talk about the stuff that feels almost too dark to write yet so important. It feels like an actual drug sometimes. It hits so hard that you feel dizzy for a second and then you feel such a sense of urgency that you can hardly sit still - at least, I do. These are the kinds of whump that leave me thinking afterwards, wanting to go hug my real loved ones, and reflecting on what makes this life good even though it contains so much suffering. (Spoilers: the answer is genuine love and connection.) It makes my brain start screaming, "LIVE! LIVE! LIVE! LIVE! LIFE IS WONDERFUL!" to both myself and everyone around me.

TW: physical abuse, emotional abuse, drugs/OD, SA aftermath, suicide, sh, passing out, rocky/difficult recovery. DDNE

Whumpee being flat-out beaten within an inch of their life, especially by a parent, and not even fighting back.

Whumpee being emotionally abused or gaslit, especially by someone they trusted. Being told the worst possible things about themselves until they're reduced to a sobbing mess.

Whumpee caught in a suicide attempt and fighting back against those who try to stop them. The agonizing conversations and suicide watch that follow.

Whumpee openly sobbing in genuine despair or grief. Inconsolable, yet someone is trying to console them anyway, and it DOES matter.

Whumpee overdosing in an attempt to feel something good when they've been addicted for so long that nothing feels good anymore.

Whumpee facing the aftermath of assault and dissociating violently. The desire to leave the body at any price.

Whumpee severely self-harming in a blind rage that looks almost like a tantrum. Needing to be restrained or calmed down.

Whumpee passing out from shock after something traumatic happens. No time to process, no copings skills that can keep up with how bad that was. They're going to wake up with PTSD.

And rescue. Rescue from all of that. A rescue that involves freedom and trust and long term solutions as much as dependence. A rescue that puts Whumpee's needs above everything, including Caretaker's concern, and demonstrates trust in their ability to heal and live independently again. It would be so easy to incapacitate Whumpee "for their own good," to place blame on them and to expect a lot from them during recovery. Because this hurts to watch. But Caretaker loves them and will make every effort to respect their will and their consent. Caretaker knows it will be necessary to face extreme empathetic pain for Whumpee's sake, and just share that pain with them, and listen. It will be hard. Good. That's an outlet for the vengeful protectiveness that is quickly becoming uncontainable.

[the-red-butterfly]

Not-Yet-Written-Fics Game

Tagged by @fishing4stars to reveal my not-yet-written fics.

This is fantastic actually the amount of things I have on the back burner is HUGE I'll have to pick and choose, oh dear.

For Your Life Hate Me (Twilight) As story about Carlisle and Jasper (very self indulgent) where they get kidnaped by María and forced to fight (like in Jasper's old days). To keep Carlisle alive Jasper is forced to do some not nice things that horrify Carlisle but he'll do them to keep the man who took him in safe, even if Carlisle hates Jasper in the end.

The Adventures of Young Man Henry Winchester and his Violent Grandsons (Supernatural) Henry Winchester survives his death by Abadon! And now he has to get used to modern life without his family. It is extremely painful and sometimes his grandsons are no help. The start of their relationship is very rocky but it'll eventually lead to better days. I'm very fond of this one.

It's The Ashy Taste Of Sacrifice (One Piece) Sanji and Zoro get turned into animals and (spoilers) in the end Sanji has to bear the brunt of this happening and suffer a life as a fox. The premise is silly but I promise you the contents are not. I am making this boy SUFFER and that is just a universal constant. Full of platonic friendship and hurt/comfort ✨And Zoro being a better bro to Sanji.

To Look Like Her (One Piece) And to keep up with the point before. This is a story about Sanji self sabotaging his body because he realizes that when he's sick he looks like his mother and he wants to KEEP that look. It does not end well for anyone. The Straw Hats get rightfully very pissed and concerned about this.

Mending The Tears One Spoonful At The Time (Sam Rami Spider-man) This is just a whole ass ploy to better the friendship between Peter and Harry. Harry realizes something is off with Peter when he notices his friend is ALWAYS hungry. When Harry offers help Peter's pride gets in the way and Harry has to devise ways to secretly help Peter.

Homeward Bound From The Sea (Frozen) Frozen AU where Agnarr survives the shipwreck but is lost for some years in an island until he's eventually found by a fishing-ship. He gets rescued and returned home but things are hard for father and daughters equally. Full of Agnarr!whump and everyone having to adapt to this new reality. Kind of non-verbal Agnarr in this one.

When Doriath Fell (Silmarillion/Tolkien) AU where Dior and Elured and Elurin survive BUT actually Dior did die he just came back wrong. So Dior raises his children as a feral creatures in the forest surrounding Menegroth. But Elured and Elurin sort of have to take care of their father as well because the man is not well. Of course, this thing is full of angst what did you expect?

The Price Of Freedom (Sandman) Hob rescues Dream from the fishbowl of doom and Dream thinks he needs to repay him with devotion and love (just like he did with Alianora). Surprisingly shippy but not really? HobxDream is not endgame at any rate, but Dream is convinced that's how he needs to repay his friend for saving him. Very angsty, the sky is blue, next.

Reverse 'Verse (Firefly) Another AU (of course) where instead of River being taken and brainwashed it is Simon who becomes the mortal weapon/assassin. And in turn it is River who has to take care of him and escape. Lots of sibiling feels.

I have so many, so so many, but i better not drag them up into the surface less I get tempted into working on them XD but here are some honorable mentions of ofter fandoms I have wips in: SPD Power Rangers (don't laugh), Batman, Hocus Pocus and a ton for Criminal Minds.

If you feel like asking about any of these drop me an ask and I might feel inclined to doodle something about it 😂

No pressure tags: @arlenianchronicles @slightly-crimson-tornado @bad-at-names-and-faces @loonysama @byrambles @i-did-not-mean-to