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lamentationsofalonelypotato · 2 months ago

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Chapter 9: Don't Let The Bed Bugs Bite

Pairing: Soldier Boy x f!reader, Reader POV

Summary: When you decided to work with Butcher and his merry band of supe hunters to take down Homelander, you neve expected to be saddled with a sullen, grumpy, jerk like Soldier Boy when the job was done. The more you're around him the more you hate him, but you can't help but wonder, is he really as big a jerk as you think? Reader is a supe with plant powers. This takes place in an AU about a month after the end of The Boys Season 3, in which Butcher has let Soldier Boy continue to work with him on his team. (I'm real bad at summaries, please forgive me!) Soldier Boy calls the reader "Petals."

Tropes: Enemies to Lovers (Not in this chapter), Slow Burn, Age Difference (Reader is in her 20s), Soft Ben/ Soldier Boy, Protective Ben/Soldier Boy

Word Count: 6.7K

Warnings: I'm going to label this 18+ because Soldier Boy (he's a warning and everyone knows it), swearing, mentions of sex, sexual innuendo, sexual jokes, sexual tension, Nightmare, Mentions of Death, Mentions of Drowning, Mention of Vomiting, SUPER GROSS SUPERPOWER, Reader is really oblivious, and I mean REALLY oblivious. Ben/Soldier Boy might be a little bit OOC.

Note: This is told from Reader's perspective. Any references to the reader is made using you or your. There is minimal use of y/n. I tried my best to proofread, but nobody's perfect. If you don’t like, don’t read, but if you do like, you’re my favorite!

Internal monologue is in italics and is in first person.

A/N: This chapter is just really fluffy and I didn't want to keep it to myself, because it makes me so happy. Well, after the first part at least.

Series Masterlist

Main Masterlist

Rain glazed all the sharp edges of the world outside the car, smearing the drops against the windows with a heavy hand. The humid air breathed and iced the glass, but did not disrupt the droplets that raced quickly by, catching and sparkling in the sporadic streetlights along the twisting road.

Your mother was singing softly along to "Nights In White Satin", the haunting melody building with every note, your father's deep baritone weaving with hers to make a wonderful melody in the silence of the night. The smell of rain seeped through the ancient air conditioning, the heady scent of wet earth and clean water filling the cab of your family's car.

You smile to yourself in the backseat, sleepy and content, tracing a single finger against the smudged glass to watch each raindrop race against the fogged glass. You could still taste the chocolate ice cream on the tip of your tongue from the cone your parents have bought you on the way home, your hands and cheeks sticky with the remains. The leather seats of your family car are worn in and soft beneath you from years of family trips all over the United States. There was still a loose marble rolling around back and forth with every gentle rock of the car as it moved smoothly over the wet roads, a comfort when you were a baby and you couldn't sleep and your parents drove around the block to send you into the sweet abyss.

The sharp plunk of rain against the windshield is heavy, but your father reaches to turn up the song on the radio, flicking his eyes to smile at your mother one final time. And as he glances back up he shouts something.

You can't hear what it is, only that when you look out the windshield you see a brilliant flash of white light coming straight for the car and feel the car jerk to the right as your father yanks on the wheel. There's an awful sound of concrete against metal, a high pitched screech that you can't forget followed by the almost inhuman scream of terror that comes from your mother's mouth, as the car breaks through the concrete side of the bridge and goes off the road.

There's an awful moment of weightlessness and when the car hits the water everything goes black.

You jolt upwards out of bed, screaming at the top of your lungs, chest heaving and gasping for air as the memory of water filling your lungs floors your senses. You shudder involuntarily, rocking back and forth as you try to shake off the memory of your parent's death.

No one really knew what happened that night, what the bright light was that you saw or where it came from. The detective said that it had to be lightning, but it hadn't looked like lightning to you. Your parents had drowned inside, but you survived. When the police arrived on the scene of the crash they found you on the bank of the river with the branches of the trees forming a protective cage around you. The back windshield of the car had been completely destroyed, blown inward when the trees along the bank had reached in to pull you out.

You always thought it was funny that somewhere deep down your powers took over, you weren’t sure if it was when you blacked out or if you somehow forgot what happened in your parent's final moments, but all you knew was that you were alive because you called out for help and the trees answered.

A part of you still felt guilty. It had been your fault that you were out. There was a music recital at school, they'd come to support you, Darren had stayed home too busy doing homework to care. He was taking courses at the local community college, too involved in his own life to pay any attention to yours, except when he needed you. You weren't sure why the trees hadn't saved them too, why you were the only survivor.

You reach for your bedside table, scrambling in the darkness to find the inhaler that usually helps, before finally putting it to your lips and taking in a long puff. It helps for a moment. Your heart was still beating fast, a cold sweat making your sleep shirt stick to your back, as another involuntary shudder works through your body, the sound of your mother's scream ringing in your ears.

You press your face into your knees trying to calm your breathing when your bedroom door snaps in half. Pieces of the door shoot through the air like shrapnel as Ben appears in the doorway, shirtless, wearing only a pair of black sweatpants holding one of the lamps from your living room.

"Ben what the fuck?" You scream, heart already feeling like it was going to burst out of your chest.

"What happened? What's going on? Why did you scream?" He shouts back, eyes darting around the room as if looking for invisible intruders.

"Get out of my room!" You shout.

"Not until you tell me what's going on." Ben's eyes fall on you once more and you watch the tension in his shoulders drop an inch. "Are you okay?"

"Yes." You lie taking in a deep breath, hoping that you can calm down your heart beat and that he's not paying attention to that.

He was.

"No, you’re not."

"Yes I am." You didn’t feel like doing this with him, didn’t feel like telling him exactly why you'd just woken up screaming or deal with him teasing you.

It had been a few days since the party and you had been trying your best to make things as normal between the two of you as you could, especially after you'd yelled at him. It had been more awkward the day after, not because of what you said to him, but because of what he yelled at you after the supe got away. He hadn't come back to the apartment until after you'd gone to bed and when you woke up on Sunday morning, Ben had gotten you coffee again when he went out to get a newspaper.

You figured that was his way of apologizing for yelling at you. That and he had insisted on walking to "Please Don't Die" with you on Monday and Tuesday morning, as if he thought that you were incapable of doing it yourself and then showed up when you got out of work at 5 to walk you back home. You didn't know how he figured out what time you got off of work, only that when he showed up to get you on Monday, he glared at Jake who was debating with you about which of Rory Gilmore's love interests was the best.

Jake had watched a few episodes with his younger sister when she visited him a few weeks ago to tour some of the colleges in New York, and she'd gotten him hooked. Annie and you had watched Gilmore Girls forever ago, but you'd started watching a few episodes now that it was fall and that meant you were being reminded of how much you obsessed over the show when you were younger.

Ben had stood there watching the two of you, noticing how close Jake was standing to you and how Jake seemed to smile even wider and how Jake spoke animatedly to you over the display of cactus all the while frowning and glaring daggers in the back of Jake's head.

You'd be lying if you said that you weren't reconsidering dating Jake. Ben had made it clear what he wanted and despite how much you were attracted to him, you knew that he didn't want to be what you wanted, and you didn't want to force Ben into something or try to turn him into something he wasn't. So you were trying to think about what it would be like dating Jake. He definitely had the kind of qualities you were looking for, he was one for relationships, he had the same sense of humor you did, he liked plants almost as much as you, he was kind and compassionate, and he had a warm smile.

The problem was you couldn't imagine what it would be like to date him and for some reason the thought of dating Jake didn't bring you as much joy as it would have a few weeks ago, and you had no idea why that was.

You also didn't know why Ben came to pick you up or forced himself to walk with you to work, especially if he hated Jake so much and hated being around Jake, but Ben did, and then bought you a cup of pineapple iced tea from your favorite shop around the corner from your apartment on the way home even though you insisted on paying for yourself. He thought that pineapple iced tea sounded disgusting, but because you liked proving him wrong, you'd let him have a sip and he'd grudgingly agreed that it wasn't "that bad," but then took another sip of it when you put it down on the kitchen counter for a second to pet Bean when he thought you weren't looking.

Honestly you didn't understand why he was so eager to walk with you to work or why he wanted to walk you back to the apartment. Not when Ben seemed to fill his life and all his time endless dates with the women of New York City, something that you noticed he hadn't done in the past three days since the party. You always figured he had better things to do than walk with you, and yet he had making somewhat pleasant conversation, well, pleasant for Ben which was not the same as pleasant for other people. But it wasn't terrible. He did occasionally tease you because you couldn't walk past a wilting plant without perking it up, but that was to be expected.

"No, you're not." Ben put the lamp down on the floor by your door. It didn’t have it's shade on it anymore and you figured that Ben had ripped it from the living room table when he heard you scream, throwing the shade to the floor when he kicked down your bedroom door.

The same door that was lying in pieces on the hardwood floor of your bedroom.

How am I going to explain that to the super?

"Yes-" You gasp for air and shove the inhaler in your mouth again to take another puff and this time it takes. "I am." You finish, swiping your free hand over your face to rid yourself of the tears, but for some reason they won't stop. "Please, Ben just go-" Your voice breaks for a moment and you bury your face into your knees again.

You really wanted him to go, didn't want to talk to him about this, didn't feel like putting up with his teasing or with his disgusting jokes, and didn't want him to make fun of you for using an inhaler, the same one you'd had prescribed by your doctor when he told you that your nightmares were causing panic attacks. You didn’t have to use it all the time, just when you had the dreams.

You feel the end of your bed dip and you glance up from your knees at Ben. He's sitting there, not quite looking at you, instead he's petting Bean where he was guarding over you as you slept.

"You don't have to talk to me if you don't want to, but I don't want to leave you when you're like this Petals." He says it more to the cat than to you, barely audible. Bean was leaning into Ben's hand as if Ben being in your bedroom, sitting on your bed was normal.

You suddenly feel like you’ve been struck by lightning. What he said was so honest so caring so completely unlike the Ben you knew that all you could do was stare at him. If anything the shock of what he said seemed to help you regulate your breathing and calm down from the images you had just seen in your nightmare.

Ben doesn’t say anything, just continues to rub Bean under his chin, sitting on the end of your bed like it’s the most natural thing in the world and as if he hasn’t said anything at all.

You stare at him for longer than you should, tracing the dips of his broad shoulders, the gentle freckles that graces his skin, and muscles as the taper down his back. You’d seen him shirtless before, but every time you’re unprepared for how good he looks.

Right now he looks, different. He looks softer.

You’re not sure if it’s because of the yellowed light from your bedside table lamp or if it’s because he’s petting Bean, but there's something about him that feels more open, as if he genuinely cares, and it makes you want to talk to him. You sit there for another few minutes calming your breathing, still holding on to your knees, but you prop your chin on your knee so you can look at him.

Why won't he leave? Why does he care so much that he wants to stay here?

Bean stands and saunters up the bed to press his head into your shin as if he's checking up on you. "Hey buddy." You whisper hoarsely, rubbing him behind his ears.

Ben turns his body, folding one of his legs under him and the other hangs off your bed so that his bare foot is sitting on the hardwood floor of your bedroom. He's watching you with an unreadable expression, eyes following the trail of your hand on Bean's back, but Ben does not break the silence.

"I have nightmares sometimes." You whisper. Bean's thick gray fur was falling through your fingertips in a comforting way, his luminous amber colored eyes looking up at you. "But I'm okay."

Ben still doesn't say anything.

The high pitched ring of the metal of the car on concrete makes you wince and he doesn't miss it. You watch his hand twitch as if he wants to touch you, but instead he lays it on the bed between the two of you, sinking into the soft comforter.

"I've never heard you scream like that before." Ben murmurs under his breath. "I thought that-"

You glance up at him, eyes wide.

He runs a hand through his hair nervously, as if he's uncomfortable continuing the conversation. "I thought that the supe was in here with you."

"The electric guy?"

Ben nods once.

"No I don't think he's in here. Unless he's hiding under the bed or something." You smile weakly at the joke, but you can still feel the jolt of the car hitting the water and the sharp snap of the seatbelt cutting into your chest. This time you successfully fight the shudder.

Ben doesn't smile. "The nightmares aren't about him are they? Or when I-" He stops mid sentence eyes flicking away from you, ashamed.

You understood what he was asking. Ben and you, like any modern day meet cute, had met mid-fight, the night that Butcher took him to Vought to take down Homelander. Back then you hadn't been working for Butcher, you'd showed up with Annie, and when Ben advanced on her you'd shoved Annie out of the way from his outstretched hands.

You hadn't been fast enough to escape yourself and he had hauled you up into the air by your throat, his chest glowing a dangerous orange spreading up through his skin until it turned his eyes a molten gold. Your hands had held on to his wrists so tight that you felt like your skin was burning and you were desperately trying to think of a way out of this. But just as you thought he was going to explode, his eyes had locked on yours and you watched something move through them that wasn’t rage. Ben had thrown you across the room and gone after Butcher instead.

"Is that why you didn't want me to move in?" Ben's gaze is on you, something deep buried in his eyes that looks a lot like regret. "Because you're afraid of me? Because I hurt you?”

“Ben, no. I’m not afraid of you.” You touch his hand where it rests on the bed gently. He had hurt you. The bruising around your neck for the few weeks that followed was ugly and had to be covered up with turtlenecks and foundation to avoid people on the street asking you if you needed help.

But it hurt you more to know that he thought that you were afraid of him and that he worried about that. Because you weren’t afraid of Ben. Yes he lost his temper and would yell very loudly and always felt the need to scream his opinion to the world, but you didn’t think that he was a bad guy despite what he had done. If you had been afraid of him then you wouldn’t have let him stay with you in your apartment, let alone live with your cat.

He looks relieved when you say it. “Then what are they about?”

“I-“ You swallow, before dropping your gaze back to your knees. You retract your hand, but Ben turns his over, palm up and gently holds yours, not quite squeezing it, just laying beneath yours.

What in the actual fuck is happening?

You glance down at where he’s holding your hand, the warmth from his body comforting like the first day of summer, seeping through your body as it does to take away the chill the nightmare left behind. It seemed a little awkward for him, as if he wasn't sure what to do now that your hand was laying on top of his. He wasn't even entwining your fingertips together, but your fingers just barely curved over the thick muscle at the base of his thumb. His hand was bigger than yours, rough and worn in just the right places.

“It’s about my parents.” The words feel like cotton in your mouth. “The night they died.”

"Oh."

You bite the inside of your cheek. You weren't sure that you wanted to talk to him about this. You'd never wanted to talk to anyone about it. The only person you'd ever spoken about it with outside of your family was Annie. But he was here, and he was looking at you differently, and he was actually holding your hand, sort of, and he was acting so different than any time you'd spent together.

"I was twelve. It was raining and we were coming home from a music recital." You couldn't remember what it was you sang, just remember the people coming up to congratulate you and the large bundle of gardenias that your parents had bought you. "My dad was driving and they were singing in the front seat together."

You felt the tears begin to build behind your eyes, throat closing. You can't really look up at him now, all you do is stare at where his hand sits under yours. " We were crossing over a bridge and there was this brilliant flash of light, my dad swerved and the car went off the road."

Ben's hand finally curls around yours. "You were in the car?" His voice is lower now, emotion lacing his words.

You nod once. "In the backseat." You whisper. "I can't really remember what happened after we hit the water, all I know is that the trees saved me."

"What?"

"I don't know if I somehow called to them as I was drowning, but they broke through the back windshield and pulled me out of the car, but my parents-" Your voice breaks and you don't try to finish the sentence.

Why am I telling him this? He doesn't care. All he wants is-

"I'm sorry." Ben murmurs, interrupting your chain of thought, sounding sincere.

You shrug. "I'm sorry I woke you up."

Ben raises his free hand to tilt your chin up to face him, and you quickly get lost in the greenish glow that draws you in each time he looks at you. "Don't be sorry for that y/n. I'd rather be wrong and you be okay, than sleep through you screaming like that." Ben swallows. "I didn't like it." You watch the ends of his lips twitch for a second and he smiles. "And we both know how much I like to hear women scream my name.”

Despite the conversation you'd have previously, you snort and smile faintly. "Have you always been like this? Or is it a recent development?"

Ben shrugs, thumb rubbing just barely over your cheekbone. "I like to think of myself as charming."

"Of course you do."

"You don't think I'm charming Petals?"

"Nope."

"Still a bad liar." He laughs releasing your jaw to gently touch the scrunched skin between your eyebrows that gave away your lie.

"I don't really think you're that great at lying either." You roll your eyes, swatting away his hand. "At least I can pretend to like people."

"I can pretend to like people-"

"Oh really? Then what about Jake."

At the mention of Jake's name, Ben frowns.

"See!" You smile wide. "I don't understand why you don't like him."

"He's annoying. No one is that happy Petals. He’s probably been drinking the Koolaid for too long and is trying to get you to join a cult. The pussy is practically part golden retriever." Ben rolls his eyes, but then notices you yawn. "I should go." He stands, letting go of your hand as he does. "You need your beauty sleep."

You fight the disappointment that blooms in your chest as he lets go and the immediate loss that comes when he lets go of you scares you. You're afraid of how you seem to be so attached to him, to someone who has told you countless times he doesn't want a relationship, doesn't believe that you need a strong emotional connection with someone else, and someone who said that the only thing he wanted from a woman was to fuck them. That last part stung a bit. You remember when he said it to you, when you were looking over the map at the other apartment last week.

But why would he say something like that and act like this with me? Why did he come in here to save me from the supe?

"I think you could use some beauty sleep too Gramps. Without it, you look your age. Can't hide all those wrinkles under make-up." You half-smile when Ben sighs, before you pull your hands into your lap and cross your legs beneath you. "But, thanks for-well- making sure that no one was murdering me."

"It's what roommates are for." Ben pauses in the doorway before he leaves, the light from the hallway reflecting off the strong muscles of his upper back. His body sways, considering if he should say what he's about to. "I -uh- I get them too." He whispers it.

"What?"

"Nightmares." You see the tension in his shoulders, the word muttered almost like a curse, as if he doesn't really want to admit that.

Your body freezes. "About the lab?"

He looks down and you take that as a yes.

You could only imagine what that was like for him, to be trapped in another country, thinking every day that someone he thought he loved would come find him, but then never did. Again the idea of what Countess did to him, burns hot in your chest. It broke you to think that Ben spent all that time wishing and hoping that she would come for him. You would have. You would have fought tooth and nail to find the man you loved, even if it meant you getting trapped in the process. Not trying wasn't an option in your mind.

Honestly, it was difficult not to come up behind him and hug him, to hold him close and let him know that it was okay to break, that it was okay for him to admit those things with you, and that it didn't make you see him as less than a man. But of course that seemed more like a relationship thing than a friendship thing, not to mention you thought if you tried to do that, Ben would probably somehow get you in the same position you were three days ago when he pinned you against the car with his warm body pressed against you in all the right places and his beard tickling against the sensitive skin of your neck. And that would only send the two of you reeling back to square one, and you thought that in the past three days things seemed to be better between the two of you, more casual and more friendly.

You didn't want to ruin that when you'd practically embarrassed yourself at the party by yelling at Ben outside. So you stay in your bed, your legs still underneath your comforter, your heart no longer pounding in your chest, and your breathing even.

"Well," You say slowly. "If you have one, you know where to find me."

He glances over his shoulder at you, eyes a little wider than usual and you think that he almost looks surprised. Ben nods once and vanishes down the dark hallway going back out to your living room.

You lie back in your bed, placing your inhaler on your bedside before you do, eyes focused on the ceiling and trying not to think about how good it felt to finally talk like two normal people with Ben and trying not to think about how he let you hold on to his hand.

You drag yourself through the front door of your apartment, exhausted, sweaty, and feeling like you'd swum through a dumpster that had been sitting in the sun for a week. You knew for a fact that you smelled, you didn't need super senses for that. The look of the people that lined the sidewalks of New York while you squished down the sidewalk and up into your apartment building was enough of a clue. Everyone had given you a wide berth and you didn’t blame them. MM even rolled down the window of his car when he drove you back. And he’d made you change your clothes into a set of gym shorts and a t-shirt that reached your knees and proudly proclaimed “I love you daddy” on it.

Yeah. It was that kind of day.

MM also made you sit with a plastic bag over your head to avoid smearing the remnants of the supe that was matted in your hair onto his seats.

When you woke up to answer your phone this morning, that was blasting the UK's national anthem aka. Butcher's ringtone, you knew that your day was going to suck. He had proclaimed over the phone loudly, because Mike had already started to screech Beyonce's "Love On Top,” that he needed you to deal with a supe. You thought that he was going to send you after the electric supe, but no, he and MM had caught a whiff of a supe that was robbing banks with his ability to liquify and turn his body into an tomato colored gelatinous mass.

I know, lovely right?

But of course, Butcher had decided that you were the one for the job and so he sent MM and you, while Ben was assigned to something else on the other side of town. The mission had gone wrong in the worst way, when the supe decided that the only way to fight you was to try and drown you in his liquified flesh, bone, and sinew.

When you'd finally scattered his body in the Hudson, you'd vomited for ten minutes, trying to expel as much of the supe as you could, but you still felt disgusting. MM had tried to be supportive, but the sight of you vomiting sent him hurtling to the nearest trashcan while his own stomach heaved. Not to mention Butcher had chewed out the both of you good for technically "killing the supe."

But you'd rather the supe died than have to go through that ordeal all over again.

You'd tried to get as much of the orangey-red goo off of your body as possible, but it stained your clothes, so you had to walk through New York city looking like a giant bucket of paint was dropped on you and feeling sticky.

You turn around and lean your forehead against the front door with a loud sigh, trying to catch your bearings before you attempt to make it to the bathroom. You were happy that Mike hadn’t come out of his apartment. You didn’t want to have to explain to him why you looked like you’d taken a bath in tomato soup. Every few minutes you'd get a whiff of yourself and feel the urge to throw up all over again, living in the moment of the supe trying to shove his liquified body down your throat.

"What the fuck happened to you?" Ben asks from the charcoal couch, a blunt perched between his lips.

The living room had already started to look like his bedroom back at the other apartment, pieces of his dirty clothing were spread over your hardwood floors, old beer bottles were sitting on your coffee table, and there was a collection of half-smoked blunts in a large ceramic pot that you were letting Ben use as an ashtray. The room was still yours though. The plants on the walls and in pots around the space had not been harmed by Ben's habitation of your apartment. You wondered if that was because Ben actually was trying to respect your rules or if he was afraid you would throw him out.

I'm going to buy him a hamper. The last thing I want is to step on his dirty underwear on my way into the kitchen.

"The next time Butcher calls, tell him I died." You groan moving into the kitchen to grab a bottle of water.

He turns his head to stare at you. "Is that paint?"

"Nope." You shudder taking a sip from the water bottle, swishing it around your mouth to wash out the taste.

"Then what is it?"

"It's the supe. He was disgusting." You shudder and take another sip of water. It was helping a little bit, but you eat a handful of raspberries to try and get rid of the aftertaste. "I can still taste him."

Ben smirks. "You can still taste him? What part of him did you put in your mouth?"

"Don't be disgusting." You groan. "His power was liquification, okay, he could liquify his entire body-"

"Did you swallow?" He wiggles his eyebrows suggestively.

"This is why we don't talk." You narrow your eyes at Ben. "He liquified himself and tried to drown me by shoving himself down my throat."

"Drown you?" Ben sits up straighter. "Are you okay?" You watch something shift through his gaze that looks a lot like worry.

Why is he worried?

"I'm fine." You hold up a hand and watch him relax and take a hit from the blunt. "But worst superpower ever."

"I don't know, kinda sounds like a fun way to get to know someone-"

"He was an idiot. He thought that whatever he lost would replenish."

"Wait what?"

"Whatever he 'drowned' me with didn't reform on his body. So he shoved himself down my esophagus and then he couldn't figure out why he was missing a hand, didn't think about stomach acid. Idiot." You roll your eyes. "But we couldn't contain him and the only thing that I could think of was to dump him in the Hudson. He wasn't strong enough to keep himself together in the current of the bay, it’s gonna take him centuries to piece himself back together." You shake your head. "What have you been doing? I thought you had a hot Tinder date or whatever."

He'd mentioned it this morning when you saw him briefly and grabbed a granola bar on the way out of the apartment. You hadn't spoke much since last night or really had time to talk about what happened, if anything did happen. All he did was let you hold his hand and -well- kick down your mother fucking door.

You weren't looking forward to sleeping without a door, it was the only thing that separated Ben and you, the only thing that gave you a little privacy. You figured that you could just hang one of the crocheted blankets over the doorway, but you were exhausted.

Ben shrugs, letting out a lungful of smoke. "Thought I'd just relax tonight. Didn't feel like going out."

"You didn't feel like going out? Mr. Casual-?" You begin to say, eyes sweeping through the apartment and looking down the dark hallway, stopping on your bedroom doorway.

Instead of the broken mess it was this morning, a new door has replaced it. It's a beautiful dark red wood that matches the floors that run through your apartment, different than the white one that had been there previously.

"Mr. Casual?" Ben asks while raising an eyebrow, clearly confused.

You were going to call him 'Mr. Casual Sex' but you couldn't finish the thought. "Did you fix my door?"

"Huh?"

"My door." You point down the hallway, eyes shifting back to Ben, who looks suddenly uncomfortable. "The one you broke in half."

"Yeah- uh- I know how much you like your privacy." Ben grunts looking back at the flat screen tv. There was a baseball game on, but the T.V was on mute, the blue light flickering around the small room.

You suddenly have the overwhelming urge to cry. You figured that it was everything from today crashing down on you, the frustration you had with the supe, the smell, and now Ben was actually doing something nice for you.

“Thank you.”

“You’re welcome.” He still doesn’t look at you and you wonder if he's embarrassed that you pointed it out.

“Well I think I’m going to try to scrub whatever the hell this is off of me.” You say as you begin to walk down the dark hallway and Ben continues to watch the game.

“Wait Petals I’ve got something important to ask you.”

You look up at him expectantly.

“How much do you love your daddy?” His smile slips into a suggestive smirk. “Would you be willing to do anything to keep him happy?”

“Shut up Gramps.” You flip him off and squish down the hallway to the bathroom.

When you get out of the shower you're missing several layers of skin. You'd scrubbed and scrubbed until you felt red and raw, but it was better than feeling the sticky remains of the supe all over your body. The clothes you wore were ruined and there was no saving them, but at least now you felt better.

You walk back out into the kitchen wearing a soft t-shirt and sweatpants. Ben was still sitting on the couch, but the blunt was gone. You hadn’t noticed before that his dark hair was wet, as if he had taken a shower before you got to the apartment, the smell of his shampoo was strong.

"There's pizza in the fridge." Ben glances over the back of the couch. "Much better Petals, orange is not your color. But I will say I miss the t-shirt.”

"I'm just happy that it didn't permanently stain my skin." You make your way to the fridge to pull out a slice of pizza, eating it slowly. "And very happy I didn't wear my favorite pair of jeans. I'm going to have to burn my clothes I think."

"I'm just happy you smell better." He wrinkles his nose. "Before you smelled like unwashed gym clothes and a fucking yeast infection."

"Thank you for that lovely comparison."

"You're welcome Petals." Ben presses his lips together. "Did you want to-" He pauses. "Watch a movie or something?"

"Oh, um-" You glance down the hallway. You really wanted to curl up with your newest romance novel under your covers and relax, possibly with a cup of calming blueberry tea.

Ben shakes his head. "Just fucking forget it-" He almost seemed angry with himself for suggesting something like that.

"Ben no. I do want to watch a movie with you, I just-" Your eyes flick to the t.v watching one of the baseball players hits a home run. "I kinda wanted to relax with some tea and read. I just got a new book and I haven't been able to start it yet. Annie and I are reading the same one and on Friday we're gonna have book club and I really need to decompress from everything that happened today." You say it gently, trying to let him understand that you wouldn't be opposed to the idea of watching something with him.

"Oh." Ben sits there for a moment considering what you said. "Well, do you want to sit out here? I know you don't exactly-" He clears his throat. "Have a place to sit in your bedroom."

If Ben wasn’t living with you, you would be reading on the couch. Sitting in your living room surrounded by all of you plants always helped you relax. You hadn’t been able to do that since Ben moved in, not to mention you didn't want to encroach on his space.

“I mean if you’re watching T.V I don’t want to disturb you or anything-“ As soon as you say it, Ben hits the off button on the remote.

“I didn’t get to read the paper this morning and I’ve been trying to find the time all day.” He says, pulling the folded newspaper out from where it was folded and pushed up against the arm of the couch on his right side.

“Oh. Well. Um-“ You didn’t see anything wrong with sitting out here and reading with Ben. “Okay. I’ll just grab my book then.”

“Okay.” Ben breezes, before he glances at the left side of the couch where you would be sitting. The couch was in its upright position, which means it was more couch than bed, but Ben had stacked his blankets and pillows on the other side. “I’ll move my stuff.”

“Okay.” You say again because you weren’t really sure what to say.

You go back and grab the book from your bedside table, but stop just short of the door.

This is weird.

You think to yourself, holding the book tightly by its spine. You weren’t sure what was happening only that Ben and you were going to sit together on the couch in your living room quietly with no tv. And weirder still it was him that suggested you two do it.

He turned off the tv. He asked me to sit with him and suggested something non-sexual. You pause shifting from foot to foot. Because again Ben was confusing you. He was acting like the person you'd occasionally see when it was just the two of you, and it made you anxious. You didn’t want him to do this, to pretend to be someone you wanted just to get into your pants. It was like whiplash. Not to mention you didn't want Ben to force himself to change just for you.

Maybe… Maybe I can just go out there and pretend that this is normal and that he doesn’t just use women for sex like he told me. I will not overthink this. I will sit and read just like I planned.

You come out of your bedroom armed with your favorite crocheted granny-square blanket and the new book. Ben had cleared the left side of the sofa for you as he said he would and was now sitting with his newspaper spread out in front of him, one leg crossed over the other.

“Do you want some tea?” You ask him. You were just being polite, you knew that he would probably say no.

“Pineapple?” He actually kind of perked up as if he would have some if you made it.

“No it’s blueberry.”

Ben shakes his head. “Why do you like so many fruit teas?”

“Because they’re good and they enrich my life.” You snort before placing the book and the blanket on the couch next to Ben and go through the motions of making the tea. “I’ll take that as a no.”

“You’d be right. But could you pour me a glass of scotch?”

“Sure.”

When you’re finally hunkered down with your book and blanket, legs bent at the knee between the two of you, the book propped up on them, facing Ben with the right side of your head laying against the back of the couch, you feel yourself begin to relax. Bean is sleeping in a ball between the two of you. His soft breathing and the sound of pages being turned fills your apartment. The subtle thrum of the plants in the room soaks into your bones and you feel yourself begin to slip into the soft prose and for the first time in a long time you feel at peace.

A/N: Annnnnddddd we're just gonna keep the Sky High References coming. Maybe the next supe they meet will glow… or turn into a guinea pig? 😅 Is it wrong that it's kinda making me want to do a Superhero High School AU with the Boys characters? That would be so crazy! I already have several other series fic ideas for Soldier Boy, but that idea is definitely going on the list to be considered.

As always thank you so much for reading and all the love and support! If you would like to be added to my taglist please let me know! 😊

Taglist:

@roseblue373 @mrsjenniferwinchester @corruptedcruiser @winchesterwild78 @the-super-who-locked-wizard

@criminalyetminimal @52ndstreeet @bitchykittenconnoisseur @anna6307 @libby99hb

@faephoria @possiblyafangirl @jqtaro @quietlybitchy @tinydancer40

@roger-that-cap @megara0224 @miskwaadesiwag @rainyeggvoidpurse

@soldiergrimes @tiffsbagels @podiumackles

@ifyouwerethemoon @ririshkin @peachhiz @fitxgrld @sukunassfinger

@xx-spooky-little-vampire-xx @ej13928 @deans-spinster-witch @kr804573 @modiddys-blog

@acciosherlockholmes @minas-fantasies @fireskyy

@n-o-p-e-never @nesnejwritings @am0rem @tpwkcalli @momggn

@fitxgrld @whimsicalcherry @ladysparkles78

@spxideyver

#soldier boy x you #soldier boy x reader #jensen ackles #soldier boy #soldier boy x female reader #soldier boy x y/n #jensen ackles soldier boy #soldier boy/ben #the boys amazon #the boys fanfic #soldier boy fanfiction #soldier boy fic #the boys

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schoenpepper · 1 month ago

Text

Fishies

Intro: In your dreams, this eel merman loves to bother you the most.

Warnings: bad writing, awful grammar, Floyd is a warning in and of himself, mentions of homicide haha, reader is yuu, i dont think i followed the req very well my bad, u and floyd are like super totally normal besties i prommy ahaha no romance here nope no sir, not proofread im like super ded, the glitch text is funny to me, yandere floyd and reader if u like squint super hard

A/N: Updates are slowing down a lot, I know, I'm so so sorry. Unfortunately, my course and univ are kind of competitive, and as someone who hates studying, I've been forced to actually study. Gross, I know. This is for my 300 follower event, for @anonymousplant. I hope you like it.

Masterlist

You’re a pretty normal person, at least, you’d like to think so.

But starting from when you were 5 years old, you’ve had a permanent, recurring dream. You tell your parents of a rowdy merman that tends to linger in your subconscious: his sharp-toothed grin, his sparkly tail longer than his torso, his pretty fins that fluttered when you tried to touch them. They didn’t believe you when you said he really liked trying to squeeze you to death, though they comfort you when you break into their room in the middle of the night sobbing your little heart out.

Yeah, Floyd is an asshole.

That’s his name, or at least, what he told you. You’re not too inclined to debate him on that considering his fondness of wrapping his ridiculously long (and freakishly strong) tail around you, squeezing you at a moment’s notice.

You thank whatever deity is listening that you can breathe underwater in your dreams. He does not seem like the kind of guy who wouldn’t drown you. You know, for fun. Every night when you fall asleep, you ready yourself to meet with your imaginary friend (that’s what your parents called him, though you prefer the term imaginary acquaintance, at best).

“Shrimpy! You’re here, hehe~”

You look at him harshly with your arms crossed in front of your chest, “You’re never this happy to see me. What do you want, fishy?”

“Neh, shrimpy~” the sparkles in his two-colored irises bring about a sense of fear in you, “do you know what dreaming like this means?”

“That I made up a weird eel merman in my mind?”

“I’m not made up. Don’t be silly, shrimpy!” Floyd’s tail slithers in the water, coiling around your legs, “Jade and I learned about it yesterday. You’re my soulmate!”

Ten-year-old you woke up in a nervous start.

Ew!

Why would you ever, ever, be caught dead being with someone like Floyd?! He’s annoying, and a fish, and so if you got together you’d be a fish too! But you don’t want to be a fish!

Your parents are surprised to find you in a very snappy mood the following morning.

“You left so quick, shrimpy! You don’t wanna be my soulmate?”

You snatch an iridescent fish swimming by, turning it into a big plushie with your dream powers. “But you’re annoying,” you stick out your tongue, “so I don’t want to be your soulmate.”

“Eh…?”

You glance at Floyd. He doesn’t seem too happy with your words—in fact, his eyes are narrowed and he’s swimming slowly, closer and closer to you. “But I like you so much, shrimpy~” he says, but there’s no expression on his face. He’s so, so uncomfortably close that you need to lean back to avoid touching him, “you don’t get to choose your soulmate, y’know? So it’s not like you have a choice, hehe~ But if you really wanna be rid of me, I can always squeeze you ‘til your eyes pop! If you’re dead, you wouldn’t have a soulmate anymore. Shrimpy, aren’t I so nice?”

“You suck.”

You kick at the dream water and swim away from the giggling eel.

“Wanna play chase, shrimpy? Okay~”

He’s not too bad. At worst he’ll get cuteness aggression and suddenly wrap himself around you, but most times you’re just chatting endlessly with him about what he calls “weird human things”, and you pester him for details about “normal fish things”. He talks about his octopus friend that he refuses to call a friend, and how takoyaki is his favorite food in the same sentence. You talk about having to dissect a frog in science class which he found really funny somehow. He tells you about his twin brother and their shenanigans together. You tell him about how your parents, your friends—no one believes you when you say that Floyd’s real.

He says they’re lame.

You’ve learned to keep him a well-guarded secret lest your parents recommend a mental hospital again, but he must’ve stuck himself real close to your heart when he starts becoming inseparable from your mind.

He’s become a really good friend.

With Floyd, no moment is ever dull, even when you’re just sitting together on some dream-conjured rock, leaning on each other silently.

There is no second in a day in which you’re not thinking of him. Your favorite part of the day is going to sleep to see him each night, spending hours with his eccentric tendencies. The fish has become a very important part of your life.

(Your friends in school ask you who you like in a discussion about crushes. You ignore the fact that his name is on the tip of your tongue.)

He’s your best friend. There is no secret you can keep from him, because despite Floyd’s usual laissez-faire attitude, one change in your expression and he’s onto you. You’d thought you would go through your entire life with him as your constant, you really did.

On your sixteenth birthday, he’s gone.

Not that he disappeared, but rather, you can’t dream anymore. You wake up the next day with no memory of any dream, and it fills you with panic. Your stomach is churning like a void is forming inside—an integral part of yourself is missing and everything feels so, so wrong. You make your bed and head downstairs to eat breakfast. Your parents question your demeanor in concern for your well-being, and you force out a smile. You tell them you’re fine? There’s no need to worry them about the loss of your imaginary friend, right? You’re okay. Maybe this is the change you needed. You’ll be an adult soon, and you can’t dream of a weird eel merman forever.

No no n̷̥̜̐ơ̷͉̪ ̴͚̉̾n̷͚̥͒̓o̵͍̾̆ ̵͍͑n̷̩̝͐ő̵̟ ̶̛̈́ͅn̴̟̣͝͠ȍ̴̢̜ ̸̳̾ǹ̷̳̮ö̴̠́

Where is he?

Where is F̸̛̛̛͇͉̳̝̫̹͒̏͒͊̐͜ͅļ̸̪͈̞̱͓̰̖͌̽̉̔̐̇̃̃̏ó̶̻̯̪̭̐͋̏͛͒̈́̇̽ͅy̶̟̳̬͉̙̖̫̙̻̑̏̌̔̇͂̋̌̕d̷̝͕̣͖̺̬̂͊͜��̟?̶̧̛͕͎̼͔̈́̆ Ẅ̶̟̗́͠ͅh̶̦̞͚͙̣͛ỳ̴̢͓͓̗͔̗͓̀̉́͋͜͝ ̸̹́͐̿͛ī̵̡̛͎̪̭͉̫̋s̷̢͇͗̏̔͑̿́̚͜ ̵̡̟̄̀̈̆̎̓͝ͅh̵͕̓͂̍̀̔̊̏́ę̶̹̝̘̙̪̗͊̽ ̸̮̟̞͇̭͕̫́̆̀͑̓͗͜͠g̵̙̰̽̔̈́̃́̓̋̐o̸͚̱̟̳̘̦̖̊͐̓ñ̷̨͕͉͈̱̮̲̟ȅ̷͓͙?̴͖͎̳͚̟̲͚̂̔́̔͝͝

Why has he left you...?

Your vacation to your grandmother’s house does nothing to ease your worries (but if she ever heard you sobbing your heart out alone in your room, she never said anything about it).

There’s an old mirror in your bedroom in your grandmother’s house, owned by your late great grandparents. The floor length mirror is encased in an intricate gold frame, and it’s not too obvious until one night when you’d found yourself staring at it in a daze, but the reflection is off. It’s tinged with a layer of purple light, translucent and barely visible unless you pay attention. You try to sleep (it’s been evading you for three days, since the night of your birthday), cozy in your fluffy blankets and a blue unicorn onesie that your grandma had bought to try to cheer you up.

You’re woken by a bright light.

Careful, tiptoed steps lead you in front of the mirror. Your fingertips graze over its surface when a sudden force pulls you in—right in front of a crowd of a few hundred students.

So that was your first day in NRC.

You’d say it was nothing particularly remarkable considering everyone in this place has some sort of superpower, but to be honest, they think you’re so intriguing because you’re magicless. In their eyes that made you weak.

Helpless.

NRC is just filled to the brim with budding sadists.

Your first night in NRC goes a lot different.

It’s uncomfortable. The blankets and sheets are old and scratchy. The entire place is in disarray. It’s filthy and dusty and you’re sure you’re one step away from falling right through the floorboards because of how creaky they are. But tiredness makes for the best sleeping aid, and you’re prepared for another night of nothing.

You miss Floyd.

It’s a big shock when you’re met with your most beloved dreamscape instead of the void. Cold water that chills you to the bone, schools of colorful fish just passing by. There’s a long tail wrapped around a boulder, connected to a swaying half-human who’s blankly staring at the jellyfish. It’s all so familiar that your feet have acted before your brain has; you’re right next to him again.

(It’s where you should be.)

“Shrimpy!”

His voice is a welcome sound. His squeezing though, not so much.

“Floyd—ack! Ow ow ow!”

You almost swear you hear your ribs crack at some point with the way his tail and arms are putting pressure on it, but he only loosens his hold. He doesn’t let go.

You don’t mind that he doesn’t want to.

“Shrimpy’s so mean, why’d you gotta go no contact like that? It’s been so boring! I was super bummed, didn’t even wanna leave my room for that lame ceremony. Did you sleep when I was awake or somethin’?” he whines mournfully into your hair, “I thought… tsk, I told you soulmates aren’t changeable. Were you tryin’ to stop dreaming again?”

“No, the dreams just stopped,” you reply softly. It’s so oddly comforting to be in his arms, it makes you sleepy even in your sleep.

“Really?”

“Really.”

“You weren’t tryin’ to stop seeing me again?”

“I wasn’t. I promise.”

He hums, almost in relief.

(You don’t feel his lips gently, so gently, leaving a kiss on your neck where he’d buried his head. It’s so unlike him, but you make him act so weird.)

Grim wakes you up to look for breakfast in the cafeteria, and your time with your (platonic 💜) soulmate is over all too quickly. But something is stuck in your mind as you’re trudging through dimly lit halls with cat in tow. You knew the name Night Raven College rang a bell, but for it to be the very same school that Floyd had been ranting about for a year is just so unexpected.

(You’re finally in the same world.)

Then, is he here?

You didn’t manage to tell him about your most recent adventures last night. Maybe you should ask around and see if anyone can point you in the correct direction. At least, that was your original plan. Before an almost-burnt statue, a broken chandelier, two idiots who are actually really fun to hang out with, an abandoned mine with hostile ghosts…yeah. It takes you at least three more days before you remember to ask about Floyd in the school. You wanted it to be a surprise, so you kept it a secret from him. Though you probably should have expected that with all the mischief you’d gotten up to, your name was bound to reach his ears sooner or later.

“What the—?!”

“Ack!”

“Woah!”

Your first real meeting with Floyd starts with your cat and your friends being pushed to the ground in a pile.

“Shrimpy! You’re in my school! And you’re the funny student that’s been causing trouble? Now I’m annoyed I missed orientation for the freshies,” he does not hug any looser in his human form, “coulda’ seen you earlier. I coulda’ squeezed you earlier too~”

“Too tight, loosen up a bit please.”

“Okay~”

Ace and Deuce are looking up at you in shock with how casual you seem to be with him, but you pay their reactions no mind, only walking towards them with Floyd still wrapped around you, reaching out a hand to help them up.

(You don’t notice Floyd glower at the trio, or the way his hold tightens ever so slightly.)

They don’t take your hand, but you smile and introduce your best friend anyway. “Guys, this is Floyd. He and I have been in each other’s dreams since forever,” you pat Floyd’s arm that’s slung over your shoulder, “he says we’re soulmates but just ignore him, he’s kinda crazy. It’s probably some freak coincidence.”

“There you go again shrimpy, I thought we were over this? You still don’t believe me even now?”

“Soulmates don’t exist Floyd, don’t think about it too much. You know you’re still my best friend.”

(Ace and Deuce look at each other. Neither of them want to be the one to tell you—)

Soulmates are absolutely a thing.

And with the way that the big bad school bully, known for terrorizing at least half of the student population, is basically hanging off you, there was just no way that Floyd wasn’t completely and absolutely enamored by his cute, magicless little soulmate.

They should probably warn Grim that the eel merman wouldn’t be letting you sleep at Ramshackle tonight.

Or ever.

#disney twst #disney twisted wonderland #twisted wonderland #gender neutral reader #x reader #twst x reader #floyd leech x reader #floyd x reader #floyd leech

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forever-fixating · 3 months ago

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RWRB Appreciation Month Bingo: Female Character(s)

For @rwrbsource and @rwrbmovie's RWRB Appreciation Month Bingo: Female Character(s)

Female Character(s)- Bea, June, and Nora

Author's Note: I love the girls so much. I love how unique each one is and how they provide lovely support for the guys. (Bea's speech to Alex after the outing is really beautiful and one of my favorite moments from the book.) This is just a silly bit of fluff that turned into a wedding quartet! Enjoy!

"Why does it feel like this state is punishing its residents for living here?"

June snorted a laugh at the vaguely annoyed expression on Bea's face. It wasn't her first time in Texas and wouldn't be her last since Alex and Henry moved from New York. The big day was a week away, and the three women were "enjoying" a quiet moment at the Diaz lakehouse before everything descended into wedding madness.

"One of life's unanswerable questions," Nora mumbled, her head in June's lap. "Like who shot Kennedy or why some people like pineapple on pizza."

Bea then looked perplexed. "I thought that Oswald bloke shot him?"

Nora pushed her sunglasses onto her forehead. "That's what they want you to believe."

"Behave," June sighed, smacking Nora's forehead lightly. "Keep acting like that, and she is gonna convince H to pack it up and head back to England."

"I'd have better luck convincing Pip to wear a dress to the ceremony," Bea said. "Did you see Eloise's flower girl dress? Maz sent me a video of her practicing her petal scattering technique. The gardener at their residence is beside himself because she won't stop ripping petals off flowers."

June and Nora moved closer and cooed over the video of the tiny five-year-old in a dress with a white bodice and a tutu skirt, each layer of different shades of pink. She held a basket full of white rose petals and took patient steps down a path in the garden, pausing with each step to let a fistful of petals fall delicately to the ground.

"Stop, that's so adorable!" June squealed.

Nora snapped her fingers in approval. "Little Miss El said, 'Uncle Al and Uncle H may be the ones getting married, but this is my moment to shine!'"

Bea locked her phone with a smirk. "I've taught her well. Can we head inside? I may perish if I stay in this heat for a moment later."

June loved hanging out with Bea. After the dust settled, the three women enjoyed getting together for girls-only weekends without the boys for mani-pedis, spa days, and marathons of whatever reality show social media deemed the most unhinged. It was frivolous and fun. Growing up, June always wanted a little sister. That didn't mean she hated having Alex as a little brother, but sharing a bathroom with a boy was gross. Walking in and finding a sweaty jock strap hanging off the shower rod. Showering after him and having no hot water because he took forever to "get extra clean" like she didn't know about masturbation. Going off to college at UT was a bunch needed break from the testosterone tornado that was Alex Claremont-Diaz.

Inside the lakehouse, Bea opened a bottle of sparkling water and poured each a glass, saying, "If you're up for it, I bought some obscenely expensive face masks for us to try. The new season of Too Hot to Handle looks fully bizarre. I think if I auditioned for it, that might finally be the thing that takes my Gran out."

When the boys returned from Austin with dinner, they found them in pajamas, each with a mask on, trying not to laugh too much as a dentist hygienist Marcie made out with Maxx, a naked personal trainer, in a hot tub to make Jake, a bodybuilder, jealous.

"Why do you three always do this without us?" Alex whined as they headed to the kitchen.

"Girl time, little bit," June called out. "Now be a good feminist and bring us dinner! Jake is about to walk in on Marcie and Maxx, and I will not pause."

Alex started to argue, but Henry said, "Best not to argue, love. Everything will be all about us soon enough."

"Listen to your man, Alejandro!" Nora said. "If you're really nice, I'm sure your future sister-in-law will provide your very own face mask so you'll look extra pretty on your wedding day."

June glanced at Bea, who shrugged and said, "Maybe. But only if Alexander remembered the extra queso this time!"

A/N- Like I said, silly silly fluff! I can't believe this month is almost over!

Check out this post and join the fun in celebrating the one-year anniversary of our little romcom that could being released!

#rwrbmonth #red white and royal blue #firstprince #rwrb #rwrb movie #june claremont diaz #nora holleran #bea fox mountchristen windsor #henry fox mountchristen windsor #alex claremont diaz

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ellenhghg · 3 months ago

Note

Head cannons For ff7 boys...ZAAAAAAACK (above all) for when they're super sick, puking...literally can't keep water down? Fever? I dunno just sick as heck.

They're favorite comfort or care routine to receive from their lovers?

Thank you for your request!! ♥ ♥ Took me a bit because of busy days. But! I have some headcanons + a drabble. I hope you like it! ^^

Super sick Zack Fair headcanons + drabble

♡‧₊˚ Zack is usually the epitome of health and energy, so when he’s hit by an illness that knocks him off his feet, it’s a pretty big deal. He doesn’t get sick often, but when he does, it’s a mess. ♡‧₊˚ At first, Zack tries to play it off like he’s totally fine—he’ll be stumbling around, barely able to keep his eyes open, insisting he’s still up for a sparring match or a mission. But it’s obvious to anyone looking that he’s not okay. ♡‧₊˚ When Zack finally accepts that he’s down for the count, he completely gives in to it. He’s suddenly the biggest baby in the world—pouty, clingy, and constantly asking for reassurance. “Babe, am I dying? Be honest. Cough, it’s bad, isn’t it?” ♡‧₊˚ Zack gets really whiny when he’s nauseous. He hates throwing up, and he’ll do anything to avoid it, even if it means curling up on the bathroom floor for hours. He’ll beg you for anything that might help, even if it’s just holding his hand or rubbing his back while he’s miserable. ♡‧₊˚ Zack is the type to tearfully ask "Do you still love me even though I'm all gross?" And of course you have to shower him with reassurance and affection. ♡‧₊˚ Zack's favorite comfort routine when he's sick is having his lover, you, run your fingers through his hair and massage his scalp. It's the one thing that can soothe him to sleep. ♡‧₊˚ He's a sucker for a good old-fashioned cold compress on his forehead. He'll sigh dramatically and proclaim that your healing touch is the only thing keeping him alive.

♡‧₊˚ Soup is an absolute must. But not just any soup - he wants your special homemade soup made just for him. With extra noodles. ♡‧₊˚ Don't even think of suggesting medicine. Zack will avoid it like a plague. You will have to gently insist it will make him feel better. While petting his head of course.

Zack groans miserably, huddled under a mound of blankets. His face is flushed with fever, dark spikes of hair plastered to his forehead with sweat.

"Nngh… (y/n)? 'Zat you?" He croaks, one bleary eye cracking open. "I think I'm dyin' here…"

You smile fondly, perching on the edge of the bed. Reaching out, you brush Zack's bangs back, fingers lingering on his overheated skin.

"You're not dying, you big baby," you tease gently, leaning down to press a kiss to his temple. "It's just the flu. You'll be back on your feet in no time."

Zack whines pitifully, nuzzling into your touch. "Doesn't feel like 'just the flu'… Feels like a herd of chocobos ran me over, then backed up for round two."

You chuckle, shaking your head. "Well, that's what happens when you insist on training in the rain, mister SOLDIER. Even your mako-enhanced immune system has its limits."

Zack pouts, but there's a sparkle of mischief in his glassy eyes. "Aw, c'mon babe… You know I gotta keep in shape! Gotta make sure these guns are locked and loaded, in case you need a big, strong hero to sweep you off your feet…"

He tries to flex, but the motion turns into a coughing fit, his whole body shaking with the force of it. You rub his back soothingly, waiting for the spasms to subside.

"Alright, Casanova, that's enough flirting for one day," you scold lightly, helping him settle back against the pillows. "What you need now is rest, fluids, and plenty of TLC."

Zack's face brightens at that, a hopeful grin tugging at his chapped lips. "TLC, huh? I like the sound of that…"

He waggles his eyebrows, or tries to - it comes out more like a drunken wobble, his coordination shot by the fever. You snort, flicking his nose gently.

"Get your mind out of the gutter, Fair. I meant chicken soup and cuddles, not… whatever your fevered brain is cooking up."

Zack sighs dramatically, but there's a content gleam in his eyes as he snuggles into your side. "I suppose that'll do… for now. But once I'm better, you'd better be ready, babe. The Zack Attack waits for no one!"

You roll your eyes, but can't quite suppress the grin tugging at your lips. Wrapping your arms around your silly, wonderful boyfriend, you press a kiss to his sweaty brow.

"I'll hold you to that, hero. Now get some sleep - I'll be right here when you wake up."

Zack hums happily, already drifting off in your embrace. Even sick as a dog, he still manages to make your heart flutter with his irrepressible spirit and zest for life.

#zack fair #zack #zack fair x reader #final fantasy vii #final fantasy 7 #ffvii #headcanon #imagine #final fantasy rebirth #ffvii crisis core #crisis core

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missyandthemisfits · 8 months ago

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JJK - Grocery Shopping With Them Pt. I

Yuji Itadori - He’s got a hard time staying next to the cart especially once he sees something cool or funny or weird. Like, he doesn’t like wander half way across the store or anything like that, but he’s skipping his way up to the weird off brand cereal just as soon as you make it to the aisle, grinning back at you with that dorky smile as he does.

“Babe look, they’re called Nut O’s!” He’s snickering way too hard and loud and it’s just a liiitle embarrassing, but endearing. You chuckle as he shuffles back over, box in hand. “Can we get em?”

You snort and sigh halfheartedly, not really accustomed to denying the sweetheart.

“Throw it in, Yu.”

It was seriously hard not to spoil him sometimes.

Megumi Fushiguro - When I say he has a mental and physical checklist of everything you guys have vs everything you guys need to stock up on- it’s that serious for him. No like shopping is actually no joke. Any sort of suggestions made that aren’t on the list? He’s scowling a little harder than normal, eyeballing you and the food item you two definitely don’t need-

“But Megumiii, they look so good - please babe we have to try them!” He crosses his arms in scrutiny.

“That’s an unnecessary expense. Don’t even get me started on the sugar content-,”

“Oh my fucking- PLEASE.” There’s a long sigh and he finally relents.

But make no mistake he’s taking satisfaction in the fact that you inevitably hate the taste. Megumi 17, (Name) 0.

Nobara Kugisaki - Honestly? Y’all get the same level of giddy to see weird foods and utensils in the store, so much so you’ve got an entire collection of things like …sriracha pocky and those boxes of foreign snacks, all of which you end up recording yourselves try for the masses.

“Dude, no this is actually fucking gross I’m gonna-,” You’re laughing hysterically as she gags beside you, snorting a bit as she downs her entire bottle of water.

“It actually wasn’t that bad for me.” The look she gives you in response is priceless.

Maki Zenin - She’s the type to carry a book around in the store and let you take as much time as you need deliberating over spinach vs lettuce because she’s got her entertainment. She’s got very specific tastes too so it makes it really easy to shop for her when she’s not around, you on the other hand are so very indecisive- but she’s learned to live with that.

“Maki…should I get spicy or regular?”

“Hmm,” she doesn’t even glance up, “Flip a coin?”

“But what if I get home and decide I want the other one? Uggghhh-,” She finally peers over the pages.

“Just get both.” You’re looking at her in teary-eyed awe.

“You’re the smartest person I know Maki!”

“I know.”

Toge Inumaki - Loves going grocery shopping with you. I mean, loves spending all his free time with you, but there’s something about grocery shopping that just makes his day. He adores the domesticated feel of it all, he surmises.

“Salmon.” He gives a thumbs up at the wasabi flavored prawn chips in your hands and you cheer a little, placing them in the cart.

“Sure they won’t be too spicy for you?” He thinks for a moment.

“Mustard Leaf.” He gives a shrug and you chuckle.

“What do you mean you’re not sure? Weren’t these your suggestion?”

“Salmon Roe.” He gives a nod and you can tell by the way his eyes sparkle he’s smiling under his scarf.

“Well alright, don’t say I didn’t warn you…”

Always a pleasant experience to be around this cutie.

#jjk x reader #jujutsu kaisen #yuji itadori #megumi fushiguro #nobara kugisaki #maki zenin #inumaki toge #jjk headcanons

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ourtearsofrain · 23 days ago

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The Barbarians (D.R.W/S.F.K) - Chapter 11

Pairings: Danny Wagner x Sam Kiszka

Genre: ANGST, hurt(literally)/comfort

Word Count: just over 6.4

Warnings: AU typical events/threats/violence, violent fighting/injuries/deaths, needles/syringe, thoughts of unaliving self

A/N: OOOOOO starting with Danny’s pov this ch I wonder whyyyy 🫣🫣🫣

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The Wounded Warrior on This Battleground

Danny

Thursday, July 14th

“Hey, kid, time to get up.” Danny nudges Daphne’s shoulder gently, still feeling guilty about waking her despite knowing they needed to leave the fire portion of the arena. Their plans to leave the day before and head for the water section had been abandoned as the pair had taken turns sleeping through the day, the physical and emotional stress of the games draining their bodies and minds. “We should head to water, can cut through the forest to hunt again since all we ate yesterday was the last two rabbits. We need to keep our energy up, and I really need to clean the bones and hides before they get too gross.”

Rubbing the sleep from her eyes, she squints up at him, the harsh afternoon light filtering through the opening in the ceiling. “I hate that you’re right.” Danny laughs as she sits up fully, taking in their surroundings to see how much they had to pack up before heading out. “Hey, did you catch the fallen announcement yesterday? I didn’t hear any cannons when I was awake, and I think I slept through that too.”

“Yep, only one death. Girl from 10 but no one else. Everyone must have done what we did yesterday, laying low and recharging or gathering resources.” He pulls himself off the ground as he gathers the sharpened wooden stakes from where he had left them around their fire, shoving all but two into his bag. “If you see a stream in the forest, tell me. We have a canteen in here, but I haven’t filled it since after the bloodbath on our way here, so we have maybe one sip left.”

“Will do.” Daphne joins him on her feet, taking the hunting knife and one of the stakes as he offers them to her. He slings the bag over his shoulders before picking up his axe in his right hand, keeping the other wooden stake in his left.

“Alright, kid, lead the way.” Danny extends his arm, gesturing towards the opening that led out of the cavern as he takes a step back to allow her to pass him. “You do have a better sense of direction than I do.”

She lets out a quiet laugh as she takes the lead, offering a glance back as she speaks, her tone light and amused. “I’m pretty sure it’s hard to miss an entire forest, Danny.”

“Yet somehow, I think I’d get lost in here anyway. Once I’m in the forest, I have an excellent sense of direction, but put me in any another terrain and I’m useless.” Danny trails behind her as she moves through the twists and turns of the path, both staying relatively quiet. They stop as the canyon walls around them drop off to nothing, the open expanse of flat lava rock separating them and the tree line. “Looks clear this way.”

“Over here too.”

“On 3.” Danny spares a glance down at Daphne to see her nod before his eyes dart back to the space before him, checking one last time that there truly were no other tributes. “1, 2, 3!”

The pair break into a sprint, and it isn’t long before they reach the forest, the cover of the trees giving them both a sense of safety. “Think we should make our way closer to the center of the arena and walk along the forest edge or cut through the center of the forest?”

“Center of the forest, that way we can hopefully find some water and hunt.” Danny explains. “We aren’t in too much of a rush to get to water, just as long as we get there before dark.”

They say nothing more as they walk, letting the familiarity of the forest comfort them for even just a moment.

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After around two hours of walking, they come across a stream, the water clear and sparkling under the soft rays of sunlight filtering through the foliage. “Wanna stop here for a bit? Try and find something to eat, clean up a little?”

“I’m fine with that, I could use a break. Wanna give me the canteen and I can fill it?” Danny does as she asks, handing it to her as they both temporarily set their weapons down. As Daphne fills the canteen, Danny moves slightly downstream, rinsing the remaining grime off his hands from the rabbits that he hasn’t been able to completely get off. “What’s your favorite color?” Danny looks up at Daphne, amusement passing over his features at the random, simple question and the seriousness on her face.

“What? Why?”

She shrugs, taking a drink of water before answering. “I don’t know, I realized I don’t know that much about you. Obviously, I know you have a little sister and that you’re 18 and stuff, but I don’t know the little stuff about you. I wanna know the important stuff and the things people might consider unimportant too.”

Danny thinks for a moment, having a hard time deciding between the answers floating around his mind. “I want to say dark green, but I feel that’d be too stereotypical. I love purple, now that I think about it. I guess that’s my favorite color. What about you, kid?”

“Red, like a dark, deep red. Alright, next question. What’s your favorite animal?”

Danny smiles as he unpacks his bag, taking the contents from the tarp before washing it off in the stream. He quickly moves on to the bones and hides, scrubbing the dried blood and leftover tendons from the material. “White tailed deer. I’ve come across so many in the forests that some of them that haven’t been hunted yet have started to recognize me and they aren’t afraid of me anymore.”

Daphne gasps in excitement, her eyes going wide. “Have you ever pet one??”

“Not yet, but I’m not giving up. I can see in their eyes that they’re beginning to trust me, so hopefully I’ll be able to get closer when I-” Danny cuts himself off quickly, realizing where he had been going with his sentence. When you what? When you win and go back to 7? That’s not happening. “What about you?”

“Brown bears. Or ermines, they’re like cute little weasels. I found a baby one in the forest a year or two ago and mama let me keep him. I named him Cyprus cause I found him under a Leyland cypress tree.” She pauses momentarily, a sad look passing over her face at the memory of her beloved pet. “I miss him… my 10 ½ year old sister Cassandra is taking care of him until I get back. He’s super sweet and playful, he likes to chase a small ball of yarn around like a cat.”

Danny smiles at her before a wave of sadness crashes over him, and he looks down so she can’t see the tears brimming at his lash line, beginning to re-pack the now clean hides and bones in his bag. I can let them dry later, we need to keep moving. And find some food, I’m getting hungry. “I’m sure he misses you too, but it sounds like he’s in good hands. You’ll see him soon, kid. Soon as these games are over you can go home to him and your family.”

“What about you? I haven’t forgotten that there can only be one victor. Don’t you want to go home to your sister?”

Before Danny can try to come up with a response, he hears a branch snap to their left, the sound too loud and heavy to have been caused by anything but a human. His eyes go wide as he shoves the rest of his supplies into his bag, including the canteen as Daphne has the same realization. Another tribute was near, and they were headed straight for them. “Let’s go.” Danny’s voice is serious as he zips the bag up, fear coursing through his body as he all but drags Daphne to a stand and starts in the opposite direction of the sound. “Make as little sound as possible and stick with me.”

They make it about 20 feet before the male from 4, Neptune if Danny was remembering correctly, drops down in front of them from a tree, blocking their path. Danny’s eyes go wide as he sees a large, very sharp trident in his hands. He immediately turns and begins to sprint in the opposite direction, pulling Daphne alongside him. “It’s ok, don’t look back. I’ll keep you safe.”

He spares a glance down at her to see tears beginning to roll down her cheeks, her eyes alight with terror as she clings to his hand. He looks forward again just in time to see the male from 2, Vanil, swinging a massive war hammer towards his face. His instincts immediately take over as he drops to the ground, narrowly missing the weapon as he rolls.

“Danny!”

“It’s ok, I’m ok, Daphne. Keep running.” Danny recovers quickly, stumbling back to his feet as he tries to find his pace again. Something large and heavy slams into the back of his left shoulder then, sending him back to the ground as he reels in confusion. As soon as he sees Vanil’s hammer disappear into the underbrush beside him, his brain processes what had happened as pain radiates through his shoulder, flowing into his neck and upper arm as his head spins.

He pushes his nausea to the side as he sees Neptune race towards him, his trident raised and pointed directly at him. Just as it’s about to strike him square in the face, Danny raises his axe with his right arm, lodging the handle between the tines as his left hand comes up to grasp the butt of the axe head. Neptune drops to his knees on the ground, straddling Danny’s abdomen as he puts his full body weight on the weapon, the points slowly inching towards his face. Pain radiates through Danny’s left shoulder at the strain, his vision going black momentarily from how excruciating it was, feeling as if shards of glass had been lodged within his shoulder and were only being pressed deeper and deeper by the second.

You can’t hold him off this way forever. Think, Danny, fucking think. Daphne could be in trouble. The thought sends adrenaline coursing through his system, numbing the pain temporarily as he comes up with a plan in a split second. He steers the points to the left of his head slowly before letting go of the axe head with his left hand. The second the points sink into the ground only centimeters from his ear, Danny’s hand finds the wooden stake he had dropped in his fall, sending it straight towards Neptune. The point imbeds itself in the side of his neck, sinking into his jugular as his eyes go wide with pain and surprise, his blood beginning to drip down onto Danny’s face.

As his hands move to clutch his neck, Danny uses the opportunity to shove the other tribute off him before standing and finding his axe quickly. His eyes dart around his surroundings, praying to see any sign of Daphne or Vanil.

“DANNY!” The scream echoes across the forest, sending Danny sprinting in the direction of Daphne’s cries. A cannon booms in the distance, but he can barely process that it must have been for Neptune as terror claws at his heart. Just as he’s about to yell for her, he stumbles upon a clearing, seeing Daphne no more than ten feet high in a tree as Vanil swings at her with a machete, the small lower branches snapped as if he had tried to follow but had been too heavy.

“Get the fuck away from her!” The words rip at Danny’s throat as he raises his axe, swinging it directly towards Vanil’s head.

Vanil turns at the last minute, stepping out of the way and causing the edge to imbed itself into the tree trunk. Danny ducks as Vanil arcs his blade at his neck, succeeding in dodging that but not the punch he quickly sends straight into his nose. He nearly collapses as pain spikes through his skull, feeling blood begin to pour from his nose as he tries to blink his vision straight.

Somehow, his hand lands on the handle of his axe, managing to pull it from the wood weakly. Seeing Vanil slice his blade through the air, heading directly for Danny, he tries to raise his arm to block the blow with the axe in his left hand. He’s too slow, having forgotten the state his shoulder was in, and he can barely raise it above his waist as pain radiates through his chest and neck.

He chokes on his breath as the blade slashes across his stomach, searing pain shooting through his abdomen as Vanil grins at him. Danny’s hands come to grip the gash that was quickly staining his hands and shirt a deep red, before Vanil places his hand on Danny’s shoulder and shoves him down to his knees, his axe dropping at his side.

“DANNY!” No. Dear god please no. Please just stay where you are. Please. With Vanil’s focus still on Danny, he doesn’t see Daphne throw herself at him until she lands on his back, knocking the machete from his hands as he immediately tries to shake her off.

“No!” Danny’s voice is hoarse as he watches in terror, his blurred vision and seizing muscles preventing him from moving. Just as Daphne’s knife finds his throat, Vanil throws her from him, her body hitting the ground hard as she cries out in pain.

Vanil brings his hand up to his neck, pulling it back down to see it slick with blood from the small gash in his skin she had managed to make. “You little bitch!” The second he lunges for Daphne, Danny forces himself off the ground, nausea coursing through him as he uses the handle of his axe to push himself up in his desperation. Vanil grabs Daphne by her hair, drawing another cry from her as he pulls her to her feet.

Danny summons his remaining strength as Vanil’s other hand comes up to her neck, launching the axe at his head, fueled by his rage. He hears a sickening crack as Vanil roughly twists her head to the side before the blade finds the center of his face.

Both drop silently. A single cannon fires in the distance. Only one cannon. She can’t- she isn’t- Tears flow freely down his cheeks as he finds Daphne’s side, collapsing beside her and pulling her limp body into his lap. “Daphne. Daphne c’mon, we need to go.” He shakes her, his sobs and pleas growing louder as she remains still. “Daphne please, please get up. We need to go. Daphne. Daphne? Please.”

Bringing his shaking hand to her neck, he desperately searches for a pulse. Relief floods him when he finds it before it’s instantly ripped from him. He moves his hand under her nose, feeling no air coming from it. He severed her spinal cord; she must be completely paralyzed. I’ve seen this happen to men in the woods in logging accidents; she doesn’t have control of her respiratory muscles, she can’t breathe. She’ll die slowly if she doesn’t get medical attention.

Despair claws at him, no longer caring if he attracted other tributes. He needed to save Daphne, that was all that mattered. “HELP!” Danny turns his face to the sky, his vocal cords burning as he prayed that anyone in The Garden would hear his pleas. “PLEASE GET HER OUT OF HERE! SAVE HER! FUCKING KILL ME, I DON’T CARE! JUST SAVE HER!”

Met with no response, his head drops, his tears dripping onto Daphne’s cheeks as his forehead finds hers. They’ll never send help. They don’t care about her. The longer she suffers, the longer I suffer, the better for them. His knee brushes something sharp, Daphne’s knife, and he picks it up silently. I know what I need to do. I hate- I hate that I need to do it.

“I’m so sorry, kid. I’m so sorry. You deserved so much more than this.” His voice breaks as he places a gentle kiss to her forehead before positioning the blade of the knife on the side of her neck, just above where he knew her jugular and carotid arteries were. “May you walk peacefully into the woods, sister.” He closes his eyes as he sinks the blade into her skin, cutting as deep as he could as he drags it across her neck.

His free hand blindly finds the other side of her neck, her pulse fading rapidly beneath his fingertips until it stops completely. He feels as if his heart has been broken into a million pieces as a cannon booms in the distance. The combination of the pain ripping through his stomach and shoulder mixed with the feeling of her blood seeping into his pants finally sends him off the edge, and he moves Daphne off his lap as gently as he can before scrambling over to a group of bushes. Having not eaten anything in over a day, he dry heaves until he finally vomits up what little water he had drank, each retch sending pain slicing through his stomach as if he were being cut by Vanil over and over again.

Finally, he collapses in his exhaustion, letting out an anguished cry as his tears flow once more. This is my fault. She got hurt because of me. She died because of me. I promised to protect her, but I killed her. I did this. I’m a monster. In his despair, he remembers the knife still clutched weakly in his fist. Now that she’s- she’s dead, I don’t have to keep anyone safe in here. I’m useless, unnecessary. I don’t need to play their game anymore. He drags himself to a sit, tears still flowing down his cheeks as he brings the knife to his own throat, pressing down hard enough to feel the sting.

It’s ok. It’ll be quick. Less painful than what I’m going through right now. He takes a deep breath, closing his eyes as he prepares to drag the blade across his skin. That is until another thought pops into his head, causing his eyes to fly open as he freezes. Josie. I told her I would come back. She’ll be safe with Dave, but I can’t put her through losing the last family she has. I can’t do that to her, I have to try. The knife drops from his hand as he breaks down into tears once more, cradling his face in his hands weakly.

“I think I heard something over here.”

FUCK. Danny whips his head up, his eyes wide. He knew that voice; it was Samuel, no doubt about it. And if Samuel was here, his ally from 1 wouldn’t be far behind. As their footsteps grow closer, Daniel scrambles to shove the knife into his bag, taking up the axe and Vanil’s machete. He drops to his knees next to Daphne, placing one final kiss to her forehead as his last tears trail down his cheeks. “I’m so sorry.”

With that, he scrambles to his feet, stumbling off in the opposite direction of the voices growing louder by the second. He breaks into a weak sprint, finding he had made a grave mistake as he feels as if his body was shutting down. Pain radiates through his stomach, shoulder, neck, and head as he trips, dropping to his knees as he feels as if he had been set on fire. The distant sound of the other tributes is replaced by the mechanical beep of a Sponsor Gift slowly floating down to him, his blurring vision making it hard for him to pin down its location as hope flares in his chest. Depending on what’s in there, I could be ok. It could help.

Hearing it hit the ground, his body protests as he crawls towards the sound. The second his fingers wrap around the cool metal, relief floods him momentarily before his body finally gives out, the pain and exhaustion he was experiencing finally sending him crashing to the ground. The last thing he remembers before drifting into the blissful nothing of unconsciousness is the sound of two tributes approaching him, their footsteps heavy and quick atop the underbrush of the forest.

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With No Pride to Call His Own

Sam

Thursday, July 14th

“We can’t sit around here waiting for something to happen. We’ll starve or run into the tributes from 4 eventually.”

“You’re being overdramatic. There’s fish in that sea, I know it. We just need to try harder.”

Sam contemplates killing Hazel then and there, her dismissal of his fears nearly his final straw. They had remained in the cave since finding it after the bloodbath, only leaving for fresh water or their pathetic attempts at catching food. He knew if they stayed where they were, they were bound to die within days. “Who are you kidding, Hazel?! We’ve been surviving off kelp that I’ve been gathering. The only reason we haven’t left yet is because we’ve been too exhausted from lack of nutrition. If you want to stay here, that’s fine with me, but I’m leaving by midday.”

Rolling her eyes, Hazel pushes herself off the ground begrudgingly, beginning to gather what little “belongings” she had. “Fine. So, what’s your plan since you’ve decided you’re the leader of this operation."

"Hold on, I haven’t decided jack shit, I’m just the only one actually trying to survive. You wanted to be in this arena with me so bad that you volunteered, so fucking act like it. Start pulling your weight or I’m leaving your ass here. And we’re going to the forested area, that’s bound to have game and we have a bow and arrow.”

“I’ll choose to ignore the first part of that for your sake.” Pretentious bitch. “I thought you were worried about that meathead from 7 being there, why go where he might be?”

He isn’t a meathead. “Because one, we’re desperate; and two, he could have left that part of the area by now, or he’s dead. We both missed the tribute death announcement yesterday because someone fell asleep when they were supposed to be keeping watch, so we don’t know if he’s alive or not.” Sam snaps as he shoves the tools he had used over the last day back into his bag, leaving out the small canteen he had been beyond grateful to find in the pack.

“You can’t just blame me for everything!” Hazel raises her voice, nearly shouting at Sam as he passes her on his exit from the cave.

“For that, I can. You were supposed to be keeping watch; I understand getting tired, but you should have woken me up to take over. That can’t happen again, Hazel. Just think about what could have happened if another tribute had found us both asleep.” Stooping to fill his canteen with water, he glances back to see if she had followed him, not knowing whether to feel relieved or disappointed that she had.

“I’m not apologizing if that’s what you want.”

“I’m not asking for an apology; I’m telling you that it won’t happen again.” His response is short as he stands, brushing past her in the direction of the trees towering in the distance. He doesn’t slow as he hears nothing but an annoyed huff from behind him, the crunch of her boots on the sand following him after a few moments. I swear to god, I’m killing her if she keeps this shit up. With how she’s acting, I’d be more successful alone than with her as an ally. I’m giving her 24 hours to pull her weight, after that if she still hasn’t, I need to get rid of her.

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“Can we please stop for the day?” Hazel whines the words out, dragging her feet through the underbrush dramatically.

“Not until we find good shelter. I already told you; we need food, shelter, and water.”

“Ugh, fine.” The only sound they can hear as they walk is the crunch of their boots against the twigs underfoot and the various bird calls drifting between the trees, both tributes saying nothing as they trek on.

After another 20 minutes, Sam freezes mid-step, his ears perking up at the sound of a cannon firing. He says nothing as he looks to Hazel, only to hear another cannon fire only minutes after. Their eyes go wide at the sound, both wondering who those cannons had been for and where those dead tributes were.

Another minute passes before Sam picks up distant yelling. “Stop.” It sounds like a man. Could it be-? What does it matter if it is? “Do you hear that?”

Her eyebrows crease in confusion as she looks around them, yet still sees and hears nothing. “No? What are you talking about?”

“I thought I heard-” The sound of another cannon firing in the distance cuts him off, making eye contact with Hazel before he hears dry heaves coming from within the forest around them, setting off in the direction of the noise silently. “Is that- is that sobbing?”

“I can’t tell, I don’t know if I hear what you’re hearing, Samuel.”

“I think I heard something over here.” Just as he says the words, he hears faint rustling in the bushes before he catches a glimpse of something taking off into the trees. “Go! Follow them!”

Just as he takes the first step to sprint after whatever or whoever had made the noise, Hazel catches his arm, stopping him completely. “What if it’s a dangerous animal or tribute?”

“Then we kill them. It’s probably some weak tribute that’s hurt, I swore I heard sobbing.” The barely audible sound of a Sponsor Gift comes from the direction they had run in, and Sam’s eyes go wide. Neither of them had received a sponsor gift yet, so why was this tribute? “Now we definitely have to go. If it’s a weak tribute, we can kill them and take it for ourselves.”

“Fine. But if we die, it’s your fault.” Sam doesn’t respond, knowing better than to waste his breath on her as he quickly makes his way towards the mechanical chime until they finally come across the source.

Sam didn’t know what outcomes to expect of the situation; a weak tribute getting a pity gift, maybe even a trap to lure them towards a threat. But what he hadn’t expected to see was Daniel lying on his stomach alone, unconscious, and with a Sponsor Gift clutched in his hand. “What the fuck?” Sam approaches him cautiously, nudging his boot with his own as he waits for a response, thinking it could be a trap. When Daniel still doesn’t move or respond, he moves around the man, coming to a crouch by his side.

“What are you doing?” Hazel keeps her distance from them, eyeing the axe held loosely in his hand, a machete on the ground beside his other.

“Just checking something.” Sam brings his hand to Daniel’s right shoulder, pulling hard until he flips him to his back. He resists the urge to gasp at the sight before him. The shiny, dolled up pet of The Garden he had seen at the Parade and Interview was no more, now replaced with nothing but a broken man covered in grime.

“Holy fuck, that’s- that’s a lot of blood. Is he alive?”

Sam’s eyes roam over his body, from the gash across his stomach still bleeding, up to his left shoulder seemingly bent in an unnatural and extremely uncomfortable position. They finally stop on his face, blood not only covering the skin below his gorgeous nose and down his lips and chin, but also dripped across his face as if someone else had bled on him.

“I don’t know, let me check.” Bringing his fingertips to his neck gently, he feels for a pulse, nearly holding his breath as he waits. For some reason, relief floods him as Daniel’s heartbeat thuds weakly below his skin, finally seeing the light rise and fall of his chest the longer he stared. “He’s alive.”

“We should kill him.”

“What?” Sam whips his head towards Hazel, anger flashing across his features at the suggestion. “Are you kidding?”

“No. He’s dying, might as well put him out of his misery. And he’s a threat if he heals, we can’t risk him surviving out here and hunting us down.”

“What if we offer him ally-ship?”

Hazel deadpans at him, no amusement present on her features as she pointedly looks between Sam and Daniel. “Are you actually fucking insane?!”

“No. If we help him, he’d be in debt to us. He could be a powerful ally, you know how strong he is.”

“And how are we going to help him, Sam? He’s already on the brink of death and we don’t have any medicine.”

Sam’s heart drops before he remembers the gift, his eyes darting to the metal canister as he leans over Daniel to grab it. Inside, he finds a two syringes filled with a clear substance, a small jar of what appeared to be a cream of sorts, and a small piece of paper, messy words scrawled onto it as if they had been written in a rush. He slips the paper into his pocket before Hazel sees it, figuring he would read it alone when he got the chance. “With these. I would guess they’re medicine. His mentor did well getting people to love them.”

“Them.” Hazel repeats. “He had an ally, that girl. Where do you think she is?”

“I would guess that whoever did this,” Sam runs his fingers across the exposed skin around the slash on his stomach lightly, his fingertips drifting over the soft ridges of muscle beneath it. “Also did something to her. I think he’s alone, all his allies have been killed. He has no one else.”

“So what? You want to fill that hole for him? I think you just want him to fill yours.” She spits the last part of the sentence out, her cheeks tinging bright red in her embarrassment and anger.

“Excuse me?! What the fuck are you suggesting?” His blood boils as rage and panic courses through him, his cheeks burning as he rips his hand away from the other man’s skin. “I’m doing this for us. We suck ass at some survival skills, don’t deny it, he could help us stay alive. If he refuses our alliance or turns on us, I’ll kill him myself.”

“You know exactly what I mean… but fine. I’m holding you to that, though. Deal?”

Sam sets his jaw, the muscles twitching at the sheer force of it as he locks his steeled gaze on her. Who the fuck does she think she is, implying that like it’s nothing. She doesn’t know me, she doesn’t know him. I don’t know him. “Deal.”

Hazel looks around their surroundings, trying to find any place they could camp out for the night that wasn’t too far away, knowing that Sam likely couldn’t carry Daniel alone. “Alright well where do you suggest we take him? It’d be stupid to stay out in the open like this.”

Fuck. She’s right. We’re too exposed out here, and we don’t know what happened to the tribute that did this to him. Sam closes his eyes, taking a deep breath as he tries to think of any solution. With one sense gone, his others heighten slightly, the lack of visual input allowing him to notice the distant sound of running water. Opening his eyes again, he pinpoints the direction of it before looking back to Daniel and his belongings. “I think I hear a waterfall or something. Here, put his machete and axe in my bag blade down, then we can carry him over.”

“I’m gonna be so unbelievably mad if you’re wrong.” Despite her obvious reluctance, she does as he says before moving to stand at Daniel’s feet as Sam places himself at his head. “You take upper half and I take lower?”

“Yup.” Sam bends, looping his forearms under Daniel’s armpits as Hazel moves between his legs, picking each up at the knee as they hoist him into the air. “Alright, not too bad with the two of us. Let’s get moving.”

Rotating 180°, Sam takes the lead as he walks backwards, towards the sound of flowing water. The pair says nothing on their trek, not once making eye contact as Hazel makes her annoyance known through each huff and exaggerated grunt. Finally, after around 10 minutes, they stumble upon a small lake with a waterfall flowing into it, tall rocks surrounding the crystal-clear water. They set him down onto the river rock as both stretch from the strain of carrying him before Sam sees a small alcove cut into the rock towering over the water’s edge. “Hey, I know we just put him down, but over there is a little more hidden, less out in the open. Might be a little safer, y’know?”

“Fine. Let’s get this over with.” As Sam picks Daniel’s torso up gingerly, Hazel yanks his legs off the ground, already shuffling over towards the alcove as if she couldn’t get it over with fast enough, as if she had better things to do. “This is good enough.” Sam’s grateful that he had been the one to take Daniel’s top half as Hazel drops his legs, the extra weight now solely carried by him causing him to stumble. She rolls her eyes as she catches Sam’s irritated glare as he gently sets Daniel down, holding the back of his head as he lays him on the ground. “You’re lucky I even helped you drag him this far.”

“Thank you.”

“I’m going to go hunt. Stay here with him, don’t let him kill you when he wakes up. If he wakes up.” Sam doesn’t miss her smirk as she turns away from him, leaving the clearing without another word. Fucking bitch. He’ll wake up, she’ll see.

Sam tries not to let his thoughts wander as he carefully wrestles Daniel’s bag, jacket and shirt off, trying not to aggravate his shoulder or stomach too much. He sets in on cleaning him up immediately, folding his jacket neatly and placing it behind his head as a “pillow” before he takes the remains of his shirt and wets it at the edge of the small lake.

Kneeling by his side, Sam gently wipes away the blood covering his face, needing to scrub slightly as it had begun to dry. After rinsing off the shirt and getting it wet with clean water again, his hands move to Daniel’s stomach, his touch soft as he dabs at the edges of the large gash. I know I’ve wanted him dead for so long, I’ve wanted to be the one to kill him; but now that I see him like- like this, it hurts? I don’t know him, I won’t pretend to, but I would venture to guess he didn’t deserve this. He doesn’t deserve this pain. Sam finds himself tearing up as he’s unable to take his eyes from the slash, hating the way it split the perfect, soft skin of his stomach.

Pull yourself together, Samuel. Jesus Christ, what’s gotten into you? He’s thankful that Hazel had left them as he feels a blush spread over his cheeks, sure that they were bright red even in the dying light of the day. Suddenly remembering the Sponsor Gift and note, he retrieves both, placing the syringes and jar on the ground as he unfolds the paper.

“Inject into your shoulder, it’ll heal the shattered bones. Put a generous amount of ointment on the cut on your stomach.

It’s not your fault, Danny. You did everything you could, and in the end, you did what you had to. I’m so sorry. Keep going for her.

-Luna”

“You did what you had to.” What does that mean? What did he do? Sam looks back to Daniel, his confusion only visible to him as the other man lay unconscious. Deciding to move on from the thought for the time being, he sets in on uncapping one of the two syringes, his hands shaking slightly as he tries to figure out where to inject the substance. Is it his collarbone or shoulder blade? ‘Luna’ said ‘bones’ plural, maybe it’s both? Which shoulder? His left one looks a little fucked up, maybe it’s that one? Here goes nothing… He takes a deep breath before plunging the needle into the front of Daniel’s left shoulder, injecting half of the substance into the skin before pulling the needle out. Slightly lifting his upper body to the side, he stabs the needle into the back of his shoulder, just below the bottom of the blade. Should be good, right?

His attention moves to the ointment next as he replaces the cap on the syringe and unscrews the jar lid, taking a small whiff of the cream within. Pine needles and cloves; weird. Hope this works. I don’t have anything to do stitches with, and if this splits open again, there’s no way Hazel will let him live. Sam scoops a large amount onto his fingers, hesitating slightly as he brings the substance to the open wound. Expecting him to flinch, Sam’s heartbeat skyrockets as Daniel stays motionless, not even the hint of a reaction on his features. With his hand not covered in the ointment, he brings his fingers to his neck, frantically searching for his pulse. Oh, thank god, he’s alive. Just very, very unconscious. He’s alive.

Sam tries to calm his racing heart with these words as he covers the gash with the cream, praying that they would help speed up his recovery. Figuring he had applied enough, he leaves Daniel only to rinse his hands in the lake, the residue washing off easily. I probably shouldn’t just leave him like this in case he gets violent... but I don’t want to hurt his shoulder by tying his hands behind his back. He thinks as he retrieves the rope from his bag, deciding on carefully tying his wrists together in front of him before securing the other end of the rope to the trunk of a tree beside him. Shouldn’t be so tight it hurts him, but not so loose he can slip out or make a grab for me if he wakes up- when, when he wakes up. He’ll wake up… I hope he wakes up.

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