#spider infested clothing

[spiderclothing]

black and blue tracksuit Athletes and sports enthusiasts appreciate its functionality and style. You can shop here:

[ozzgin]

Aye, this is kinda random but what if we rent a room and (surprisingly not) the room is infested by the spiders and the landlord is some kind of werespider or a spider ruler 💥💥💥

Spider Hybrid Horde x Reader

Content: gender neutral reader, NSFW, prompt: Mommy’s Little Monsters

Little heathens, blasphemous crreatures! Nasty vermin, every single one They want your blood, they need to feed And now Mother has brought them a treat

"That's a lot of webs", you groan to yourself, placing down your luggage.

A cheap room's a cheap room. No point in complaining about it now. You wander around, inspecting the dusty furniture and glancing out the window. You’d expected more people around, given everything else was booked out. Yet the paths are empty, save for the overgrown vegetation.

Even the lobby was devoid of any other human. You were instructed to pick up your key and find your room by yourself. Your only encounter was spiders, hanging from every corner and crawling in and out of the multiple cracks decorating the washed out walls.

You stretch your arms out and lazily throw your clothes on the bed, then walk towards the bathroom. Maybe some hot water will wash down your discomfort. The faucet turns with a rusty creak.

Suddenly, a horrendous shadow looms above you, twisting and bending over the shower curtain. There's a smacking sound, and the silhouette vanishes as quickly as it came.

"Not now, you varmint!" Mother scolds. "You're going to scare the human, and I won't find a better one."

The intruder scurries back to the group, lowering his head apologetically. His brothers continue gawking at your oblivious form, fat droplets of drool hitting the tile.

"Soon, soon", Mother coos. "Then you can do whatever you please."

Look at her boys, all grown up, ready to mate and breed. It’s about time she becomes a proper Grandmother.

The spider hybrids clack their arthropod appendages in excitement. Who gets to use you first? There’s a lot to consider, you see. They can’t tire you out too much, not until everyone’s had their chance to fill you. How do humans sound when they’re being fucked relentlessly? They’re about to find out.

[Navigation] | [Ozztober Masterlist]

[see-arcane]

“You know,” Dracula hums by the fireplace, the flames a shade dimmer than his own eyes. “I do believe I am becoming paranoid in my old age. Yet I keep my things in such precarious order, all things where they must be.” A log pops. His eyes flash. “Where they should be. And so I have noticed that my own bedroom was disturbed during the day.”

“Oh?” Voice level, Jonathan. Voice steady, Jonathan. Surprise. Concern. “How so? I was under the impression the door was locked.”

“So it was. And yet, I can tell something was...” His nails drum on the mantel, the click of claws, “...different. Meddled with somehow.”

Something between foolishness, sleeplessness, and a smoldering kernel of ire sparks in Jonathan’s chest. Its embers travel up to his tongue.

“Nothing was stolen, I hope. I admit I had a mild scare some time ago, when I realized I couldn’t find certain things in my luggage. Only it occurred to me that your servants must have already taken them away to clean and hold aside for my departure.” A smile so easy it borders on suicidal curls on his face. It feels like a rictus. Maybe it will see him dead right then. “The people here are the most discreet I’ve ever encountered.”

Dracula raises a snowy brow.

“That they are. As discreet as spiders minding their web.” Then, a sudden swerve out of the growing cloud. He oozes mirth. “Have you seen any here, my friend? Spiders?”

“None.” He hadn’t. Dust, motheaten holes, but no spiders.

“That is because of my people as well. More, it is the work of local aid.” His grin has too many teeth. “The bats quite love them. Whenever I or my servants come across a spider indoors, we save it for them. All those that would dare to come crawling along the outer walls?” He snaps his fingers. “They are eaten before they can spin their first thread. It is a most lucrative exchange.”

Jonathan fights not to swallow, not to acknowledge the cold twisting in his stomach.

“I’m certain.”

“A hypothetical question for you. Which would you rather be, my friend? Of the two, I mean.” Dracula’s hand is on him again, itself a titanic white spider. Cold and immovable from his shoulder. It squeezes just short of bruising. “A spider or a bat?”

“I wouldn’t know, Count. Neither is the best choice."

“No?”

The hand is tighter.

“No.” Under the table, Jonathan crosses his fingers. “The best choice is a cat.”

The grip lightens and amusement sketches a change in the Count’s expression.

“Why a cat?”

“They can get away with much more,” Jonathan’s traitor tongue flies. He bites it. “If only for the fact of their comparative harmlessness as they serve their masters as they entertain and accompany. This, while it provides a more handy service in hunting pests of all sorts, be it spider and bat or beetle and rat. In exchange for doing the dual work of tending to the home and being pleasant and defenseless, the more powerful keeper ensures they’re housed and,” he gulps down glass, hot coals, acid, “and loved. A cat can only do so much, but it does just enough.”

Dracula shakes his head.

“Enough to get themselves in trouble, perhaps. No, my friend, if we must leave the smaller creatures behind, I must say a wolf is the better choice. He eats all in his path and has no master at all.” The cold hand gives another squeeze, the nails dimpling cloth and skin...then relaxes. Strokes. “But cats have their place as well. If kept in their proper place...”

The night goes on in this way for endless hours. And still Jonathan’s fingers are crossed out of sight. He has a fondness for cats. Even for spiders. He appreciates all creatures who take it upon themselves to hunt and cull those things that infest or take lives by little bites. But more than either, he has always had a fondness and fealty to dogs.

As the moon drags itself slowly across the sky, he imagines he hears their barking and baying meeting the wild cry of the wolves, and shepherd teeth sinking deep into bloodthirsty throats.

[pupsmailbox]

BUG ID PACK

NAMES ⌇　adalia. adam. agatha. amber. andrena. ant. antony. aranea. arthro. aspen. attacus. beckett. bee. beetle. behan. benjy. bogárka. bubonic. bubonicholas. bubonick. bugsy. buzzie. býleistr. carrie. celastrina. cesare. cheli. chelicera. chrysalis. coley. cordulia. craniifer. crawly. creepy. critter. cuddlebug. dahlia. danuria. destiny. diseaselie. dishevella. dishevelle. dusk. dust. ella. ellsee. emery. eve. fern. fester. fifi. firefly. giselle. glimmer. hawk. hexa. hisser. hive. honey. hope. infestatianne. instar. jan. jeb. jed. jeddie. jeddy. jewelette. junebug. kaida. kaira. kieran. ladybird. lepidoptera. lester. lightsse. logan. lorcan. lovebug. luciole. luna. lyssa. mandela. mandibella. mandibelle. mandible. mangie. mangy. mantis. maurr. maxwell. midge. mikio. minii. mold. monarch. mordecai. mordechai. mordekai. mordy. mortimer. morty. moth. mould. naoki. nettle. ogtha. opal. osa. paul. pepper. phobianna. phoenix. ralph. ralphie. ralphy. ratianna. ratianne. ration. ravenesse. ravenette. ravenous. rex. rhene. rhyssa. roach. roark. rolf. ronan. rotgut. rowan. ruddy. rudy. ruth. salvia. scorpio. scurry. scuttle. sicknesse. sicknette. skittish. snugglebug. tawny. terry. thorax. toffee. vanessa. vespasiano. wesley. whiskey. wren. writhe.

PRONOUNS ⌇　ant/ant. antenna/antannae. antenna/antenna. anthill/anthill. aphid/aphid. arachnid/arachnid. arachnid/arachnids. arthropod/arthropod. bee/bee. bee/beetle. beet/beetle. beetle/beetle. bu/bug. bug/bug. bug/bugs. butterfly/butterfly. buzz/buzz. bzz/buzz. centipede/centipede. change/change. cicada/cicada. click/click. cloth/cloth. crawl/crawl. creepy/crawly. cricket/cricket. damp/damp. dig/dig. dirt/dirt. dragonfly/dragonfly. dusk/dusk. dust/dust. ely/elytra. en/entomology. ento/entomology. exo/exoskeleton. exoskele/exoskeleton. fate/fate. fester/fester. firefly/firefly. flea/flea. flow/flower. flutter/flutter. fly/butterfly. fly/fly. forest/forest. fy/fly. glow/glow. grey/grey. grime/grime. grime/grimy. hex/hexapod. hiss/hiss. hive/hive. hornet/hornet. hun/hungry. infect/infect. infest/infestation. inse/insect. inse/insectoid. insect/insect. insect/insectoid. it/it. jewel/jeweled. lady/ladybug. ladybug/ladybug. lamp/lamp. lice/lice. light/light. lin/linger. lost/lost. lur/lurk. mange/mangy. mant/manti. mantis/manti. millipede/millipede. mite/mite. mo/moth. mosquito/mosquito. moth/moth. night/night. pest/pesticide. pho/phobia. ro/roach. ro/roache. roach/roach. rot/gut. scarab/scarab. scurry/scurrie. scurry/scurry. scut/scuttle. sick/sickly. sick/sicknes. spider/spider. star/star. sting/sting. swarm/swarm. termite/termite. tin/tiny. twitch/twitch. venom/venom. ver/vermin. wasp/wasp. web/web. weevil/weevil. win/wing. wing/wing. worm/worm. 🐌 . 🐛 . 🐜 . 🐝 . 🐞 . 🕷 . 🦂 . 🦋 . 🦗 . 🦟 .

[ironspiderfics]

someone else living in his skin

by @iron--spider for @shoyzz-art

~

Peter slides up alongside Rhodey, and Rhodey startles.

There’s a cacophony of twinkling glasses and chairs being pulled out and whatever weird jazz music playlist Tony’s got playing, and all of it seems loud, in Peter’s ears. Shaking his nerves. 

“Jesus Christ,” Rhodey says, pinching the bridge of his nose. “What are you doing? I thought you were putting out table numbers—”

“Do you think he’s acting shifty?” Peter asks, calmly as he can.

He’s calm. Why wouldn’t he be calm?

His eyes are locked on Tony. 

They’re in the middle of setting up this mini gala event, the opening for Stark’s new research facility in the Lower East Side. It’s gonna create hundreds of jobs and scholarships and internships and it’s gonna be a really good thing, partnering with the museums and businesses in the area. Peter’s actually really excited because he’s got the title of ‘Lead Researcher’ for the intern pool, whatever that winds up meaning from day to day, and he thought Tony would be really excited too. He loves celebrations, he loves new opportunities and helping people, but—

But for the last two days he’s been…different.

He’s been…off.

But Peter’s calm. He’s calm about it. There’s no reason why he shouldn’t be calm.

His eye is just twitching a little bit.

Rhodey looks at Tony, and then he looks at Peter, and then he looks at Tony again. He narrows his eyes, like he’s trying to assess the situation. 

“He’s just—I don’t know,” Peter says, blowing out a breath. He wrings his hands together and cracks his jaw. 

“Is this a spidey sense thing?” Rhodey asks, crossing his arms over his chest. 

Peter shrugs, still watching him. Tony is sort of looming around—straightening a table cloth here, pushing in a chair there, glancing over his shoulder like he thinks someone is watching him. He’s sweating more than normal. 

“A little bit of that, a little bit of—just—he’s acting weird,” Peter says. “Not acting like himself, I guess ever since the other night when that guy tried to break in—”

“But we dealt with that,” Rhodey says, looking at him. “It was in and out—cops came, got the guy—”

“Right, I know, but it’s been since then he’s just been like—I don’t know,” Peter says, blowing out a breath. “Like he—the other night, he forgot that I already graduated, he was asking me when I was gonna graduate—”

“We all forget that,” Rhodey says, raising his eyebrow at him. “You’re perpetually twelve—”

“You didn’t even know me when I was twelve—”

“You’re twelve now—”

Peter sighs. “Well, he normally remembers, and he was the one at my graduation screaming and yelling and making a big scene so, that’s not really—easily forgotten, and he was being weird about Spider-Man the other day—”

“Weird how?” Rhodey asks, turning towards him completely, now. “Because he’s always weird about Spider-Man. Every other day he’s messaging me like how do we convince Peter to retire?”

Peter clicks his tongue. “Asking me things he knows. Like how I make my webs and which suit is my favorite and—I don’t know, stuff like that. Weird stuff.”

“You’ve been staying at the compound since that guy tried to break in?”

“Yeah,” Peter says. “Me and May both, the apartment has that infestation, everybody’s out for at least a week.” 

He clears his throat. The guy trying to break in was weird—he seemed normal, no powers, no real intentions, he got pretty far but was taken down fast, and he didn’t seem at all—fazed, by any of it. He was even polite. 

Maybe it got under Tony’s skin? A lot of stuff like that does. They’ve been through enough, with the dying, coming back again two years later, him nearly dying trying to fix it all—a petty thief trying to get into an Avengers compound is just the kind of irritation that might set him off. Last straw kinda deal.

Rhodey stares over at Tony again, and Peter looks too. Tony is being twitchy. He’s talking to waiters and he’s got his hands behind his back and his fingers are twitching. 

“Has Pepper said anything to you?” Rhodey asks.

“Has Pepper said anything to you?” Peter asks, raising his eyebrows. “Because she’s more likely—I mean, with me, we talk about MIT, when I start, how my summer’s going, we talk about, um, TikTok recipes, we talk about MJ, and Tony in the capacity of like, Iron Man, and Spider-Man, or his birthday, or Christmas, but not like—I’m just saying, she’s more likely to—have said something to you, or Happy, than me.”

“No, she hasn’t, but now that you mention—and he is acting weird right now—and yesterday he did get off the phone fast, different from how he normally…” Rhodey trails off, shaking his head. 

“Maybe he’s sick?” Peter asks, worrying a little bit more now. He thought maybe he was overreacting, he thought Rhodey would brush him off and he’d feel better and then Tony would magically start acting normal again after the conversation. “Nervous? He doesn’t usually—”

“No,” Rhodey says, shaking his head. “Not nervous, these things are—easy, like the back of his hand—sick, maybe, but I thought he was well beyond hiding sick from us, so I hope not—” He looks resolute, all of a sudden, and he claps Peter on the shoulder. “I’m gonna go talk to him. We’ve got an hour or so still, of set-up, so let’s just—just keep on putting out the numbers, doing everything on your list—”

“Okay,” Peter says, nodding, and Rhodey pats him on the shoulder again, moving past him. Peter watches, nonchalantly, as Rhodey walks up to Tony, taking his arm and sort of moving him across the room.

And it’s probably fine. 

Rhodey’s gonna talk to him, figure it out, and it’s gonna be okay. 

Peter keeps repeating that to himself, as he does his little jobs, and he marks them off his list in his notepad—table numbers, check, badges at the door, check, banners, check, taste test the hors d'oeuvres, mostly check, and he totally had that spelled wrong in his notes and it’s fine—

And when people start to arrive, he realizes that he hasn’t seen Tony or Rhodey since—Rhodey left to go talk to him.

And he gets a little nervous and he looks around, trying to scan the room—not completely full yet, and nothing’s started, but Pepper is here and he sees Happy—

—and May makes him jump when she shows up behind him.

“What’s wrong, honey?” she says, giving him that look, that look that’s gotten sharper and even more severe with every one of his near death experiences. 

So he decides not to tell her what’s going on in his head. Which is usually the opposite of what she wants, but this probably isn’t anything, so. “Nothing,” he says, clearing his throat, still trying to scan around. But Tony and Rhodey aren’t here, not anywhere he can see.

“That’s not your nothing face,” she says, rubbing his arm. “Do you have a job you’re supposed to be doing? Is your brain tingling?”

He narrows his eyes at her. “No, it’s—no, it’s not—I gotta, uh, one second—can you make sure you get me one of those little wonton things? Or like three of them? I keep seeing them on the trays and I haven’t gotten to try one yet—”

“You’re concerned about that?” she asks, her eyes still worried and distrustful.

“Yes,” he says, grinning at her quickly before he starts to go looking. 

Part of him feels like he should say something to Pepper, but he doesn’t want to stress her out—and like, it’s probably nothing, everything is probably fine, and he makes a beeline for the door that leads to the little backstage area. 

“Tony?” he says, and the crowd noise goes muffled when he lets the door swing closed behind him. It’s so quiet back here—he doesn’t even see any of the employees or the guys that do the lights or any of Tony’s security—there wasn’t even anybody at the door when he scanned in.

He hears what sounds like something—brushing against the ground—

“Tony?” Peter asks again, glancing around. “Rhodey? Are you guys, uh—I feel like we’re getting ready to—”

Peter turns another corner and stops dead.

Rhodey is on the ground, knocked out, and Tony is dragging him by the arms. He looks up, and sees Peter there, and the look on his face—he doesn’t—Peter’s brain is going a mile a minute and he’s already surging forward to help but the look on Tony’s face—it registers somewhere in the back of Peter’s mind…

“Oh my God, what—what happened?” Peter asks, rushing over and kneeling down next to Rhodey. “What happened, what did—”

“Uh, he fell,” Tony says, and he kneels down next to him. He nods, and widens his eyes and shakes his head, and he doesn’t seem nearly as concerned as he usually would be. Tony normally loses his mind when Rhodey so much as gets a paper cut, so this is…this is…

“How?” Peter asks, looking at Tony and back at Rhodey again. “He was just—”

“I don’t think he ate enough,” Tony says.

Every alarm bell is going off in Peter’s head. They’ve been going off tonight, and for a couple days, honestly, if he really thinks about it, but it’s loud now. He feels like time is slowing down, like his vision is getting narrow, like all of his senses are on high and zeroing in.

And it feels wrong. The shift in the air and his own suspicion, it feels wrong. What would be wrong with Tony?

But that’s where this is going.

It’s focusing on him.

Peter looks at Rhodey, and there’s a bruise on his cheek—

And Tony is clenching and unclenching his fist—

“Tony?” Peter asks, slowly, glancing up at him. His brain isn’t working. It isn’t working and it’s working too fast and he feels like he’s trudging through sludge. Every move is the wrong move.

And Peter looks at him in a certain way. With suspicion. And he hates it, and he feels sick, but he can’t shake it—

And Tony doesn’t answer him. He just looks at him, and the light that’s usually behind his eyes is gone, and his expression is one Peter doesn’t recognize. 

Like someone else is living in his skin.

And just as that thought takes hold and sends chills down Peter’s spine, setting off a whole new line of panicked questions in his head, Tony clicks his tongue. And he sighs.

“Shit,” he breathes. And it’s his voice, of course it’s his voice, but it sounds twisted, and different, and before Peter can even react, before he can pounce on the alarm bells and the way his senses are narrowing and signaling, Tony surges forward with a stiff arm to Peter’s throat, and knocking him to the ground. 

Tony punches him, with his full strength behind it, and Peter is so shocked that he doesn’t even block, and he tastes blood immediately. He winces, gasping, and he blocks the next one, and then Tony is grabbing his forearms and tossing him across the room. 

Peter hits a thing of shelving, and a bunch of buckets fall down on top of him, and through the pandemonium, he sees Tony running away from him.

“What the fuck,” Peter breathes, and he scrambles to his feet—

And Tony would never hit him, ever, not ever, and Peter’s head pounds, with the force of the punches, with the alarms going off, with fear and worry, and is this a clone, is it mind control—either way he has to get him, there’s a reason, but what is it, what is it—

And if he’s a clone it’d be different, but if it’s mind control, Peter might be able to get through to him, he might be able to break it—

And Peter scrambles to his feet, wiping the blood from under his nose with the back of his hand, and he starts taking off in the same direction Tony did—

And he can’t even call his name before he’s taking the full force of a repulsor blast. 

He’s knocked backwards again, slamming into the wall, and he can feel it cave in against his back with the strength of the hit. He coughs, gasping, and his jacket is smoldering and his skin underneath it is too, and he sees Tony standing there with the repulsor aimed at him—he’s only wearing one, and Peter rolls out of the way, narrowly avoiding getting hit again and trying to catch his breath.

He’s not thinking, because nothing makes sense, and Peter just rushes at him and tackles him to the floor—

And Tony punches him again, with the iron hand this time, and Peter’s neck twists hard with the hit���his jaw cracks, blood in his teeth—

And everything in him is screaming to fight back, fight back, but it’s Tony, he—he can’t—he can’t hurt him he fucking can’t hurt him—

And he grimaces, metal in his mouth, and grabs both of Tony’s wrists, mid-flail, and pins him to the ground—

“Doesn’t fucking matter, it’s set,” Tony hisses, and he doesn’t even sound like himself, and the way his face is contorting, he doesn’t look like himself either. Peter’s heart is in his throat, and he dodges another repulsor blast that Tony manages to get off, and Peter covers the repulsor with his hand and twists Tony’s fist and focuses—

“What is? What is?” Peter knows it’s not him, not right now, not really, but he can’t help— “Tony, Tony, are you in there? Are you in there, can you hear—”

“It’ll still do damage where it is—they’d never scan Tony Stark himself at one of his own events,” Tony says, and he grins, manic. “Good way to get it done, huh? One big blast, kill him, ruin his reputation at the same time—”

And Peter’s mind drifts again, like a lifeboat at sea, and he remembers Tony saying earlier that he wouldn’t need his webshooters here, but he packed them anyway. He remembers him with a gym bag, a duffel, he remembers oh nothing, just a few extra lights, and May is here and Rhodey and Happy and people are starting to arrive and Tony himself—Tony himself, and he’s not a clone, he’s not, they’re—they’re trying to kill him, it’s—it’s mind control, it has to be, they used him to smuggle a device in, and they’re trying to kill him—

Peter’s mind drifts, and guides him, and every time it feels like a pull, like a bunch of arrows, but this is more powerful than he’s felt in a while—

And Tony knees him in the stomach, knocking the wind out of him again—Tony grabs him by his shoulders and Peter wrenches away, and they both stumble to their feet again and for a minute they’re in a boxing match, except Peter keeps getting hit, because he’s pulling his punches, because it’s Tony, it’s Tony—

“Stop, stop, stop, you’re—”

Another blow across his cheek, breaking the skin, and he hears a high pitch in his ear, and Tony grabs him by the throat and shoves him against the wall—

And Peter gasps, and pushes him, hard, and Tony trips back and nearly falls and even the way he’s moving right now doesn’t seem like him—

And Peter rushes away and tries to run, his head drifting, pulling him, alert, alert—

Webshooters, backpack, the duffel—they were together, he left it—left it with their stuff, back here, when they—when they got here—

And there are arrows in his head and they’re pulsing and buzzing like neon signs, and he knows he’s going the right way—

But he’s being pulled back to the ground by his ankle, and his head cracks on the tile, and it’s stars and metal and arrows and buzz buzz, how much time is on the clock, we don’t know, we don’t even know it’s a bomb, we don’t even know if it’s counting down, but it sure as shit feels like it—

And he tries to scramble up again and his spidey sense can usually help him from all angles, but it feels off, here, and he knows it is when Tony hits him in the face again, when he grabs him and throws him—and punches him again, rattling his brain in his skull—

And it’s because it’s Tony, because he’s not—he’s not a threat, but he is, he is, right now he is—

“Tony!” Peter yells, because maybe he can get through, maybe he can— “Please—”

And he dodges out of the way of another hit, and stumbles up against the far wall in the narrow backstage hallway—

“Tony, this isn’t—it’s me, it’s Peter, Tony, you have to fight this!” he yells, and he starts running again—again—

“He’s not home!” Tony sing-songs, laughing. “Should have known you’d be fucking trouble, a stupid fucking kid is Spider-Man—”

And Peter runs from him, and sees the fire alarm on the wall, and he grabs it and pulls it as he passes it by—

And the alarm goes off in the real world now, in tune with the one in his head, flashing red and white. He hears Tony curse and yell behind him, and Peter has to—he has to—

Doesn’t fucking matter, it’s set—it’ll still do damage where it is—

It has to be a bomb, it has to be—

And he grits his teeth—Tony is still on his heels, and tears sting in Peter’s eyes along with the heartbeat thump of the pulp his face is turning into, and he sucks in a breath and dodges another repulsor blast—

He has to get him to stop, stop, stop trying to stop him—

And he turns around, and tries to hold back and focus at the same time—

“I’m sorry, I’m—I’m so so sorry—”

And he punches him once, and then again, directly in the face, and Peter knows how strong he is and he tries not to hurt him too badly, and Tony crumples and Peter catches him, guiding him to the ground—

And even though the arrows and the alarms are buzzing and jolting in Peter’s entire body now, he sniffles through the blood and makes sure Tony is still breathing, makes sure he still has a pulse, and he is, he does, and Peter squeezes his shoulder and he can’t think about after, not til they get there—

“I’m sorry,” he breathes, squeezing his shoulder again. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry—”

And he gets up and he doesn’t let himself look back and he starts running again—

And he’s limping now, and he doesn’t know where that came from, and he finds the place where they stored their bags—

And alarms in his head, and the fire alarm in the building, and lights flashing on and off and he can hear the insanity in the main ballroom, and he finds the duffel and rips it open and—

It is a bomb. 

And it’s got a five minute counter.

Peter scrambles, his head pounding pulsing sick, and he gets his webshooters out and puts them on and grabs the entire duffel bag and slings it over his shoulder.

And he makes a break through the nearest emergency door.

And he gets a running start and leaps into a swing, and his whole face hurts and the emergency in his head is steeping him in a bubble now, because the source is with him, and the danger is still back there, because he doesn’t know if knocking Tony out broke the mind control or if he’s gonna wake up still trapped as an angry Terminator—

And Peter swings, trying to launch himself higher and higher, and he can hear the timer clicking and he keeps track of the count and he can’t be a second off or this is gonna go south—

And it might not work anyway—

And this is dire straits, but Peter finds himself thinking of normal things, and they rise above the noise in his head and the oncoming sirens and he doesn’t feel calm, exactly—his face is pulsing with the pain of the hits he took and he feels like he lost a couple teeth, and his shoulder feels like it’s not in the socket properly every time he swings higher, and his leg is in fire and his spidey sense is an orb of panic, encasing him in a snow globe, but—

He thinks of watching that African Grey Parrot with MJ and Ned the other day, for two hours straight, wiping out the entire YouTube catalog of all his antics. He thinks about the yoga class with May at Bryant Park they got with that Groupon and the seven chai lattes she had lined up beside her mat like bowling pins. He thinks about touring the MIT campus with Tony and the way he introduced him to everybody and said this kid is gonna be the best student you ever have. Sharing french fries at Sebastian’s Cafe. I’m so proud of you.

And he hears the beeping speed up, and he’s thinking of all of that and everything else and why did I wear these shoes why not the brown ones as he tosses the duffel into the air at the arc of his highest swing, and it explodes above him in a mess of orange fireball and knocks him right out of the air—

~

Tony wakes up broken apart.

He doesn’t open his eyes right away. He’s not in the vice grip anymore, not locked into some subconscious pit in his own body while some asshole takes the reins, but he feels like—he feels like the asshole could take over again at any minute, like he’s still in his head somewhere. Dormant, waiting for a moment of weakness so he can shove Tony back down in his cage—

His hands are cuffed together, and he’s—he’s cuffed to something—

He groans, rattling his hands a little bit, and he wakes up and—

Rhodey and Pepper are there. He’s on the floor, and cuffed to a pipe in the wall, and they’re sitting in front of him, and they both look wary and he doesn’t fucking blame them, and his head is pounding and his memories are slapdash watercolor but—

“It’s me,” he breathes, his throat hurting. “It’s me, it’s me—”

“There’s something wrong with you,” Rhodey says, and he exchanges a look with Pepper. He’s got a butterfly bandage on his cheek and Tony thinks that’s me, my fault and what else did he, what else—

“No, I know,” Tony says, squeezing his eyes shut, and his head is pounding and it feels like someone shredded him from the inside out, and—

Tony, you have to fight this—

He remembers, barely—the NYPD taking that guy away, laughing at the idea that they had to ‘save Iron Man’, and he was alone that night and still skeeved off over the whole thing and then he felt the pinch on his arm and felt the thing burrowing and he panicked and he couldn’t even panic for long enough before he seized, before he fell inside himself—

“Thing in my arm,” he croaks, still squeezing his eyes shut tight, because light hurts because voices hurt because everything hurts, and he’s trying to put together the puzzle of his memories and he feels like he might throw up because—because he’s here now but the other guy—he’s here too, he’s still in there, he’s still—and any moment he could— “There’s a thing in my upper arm, left arm—you need to—dig it out, I think it’s right below—right under the skin, it’s like—it made me—made me susceptible, created a link, I don’t fucking know, get it out. You need to get it out.”

“Tony, what—”

Pepper’s voice.

“Pep, he’s—”

“It’s me right now, get it out of my arm or it might not be me in—” He opens his eyes too fast, and really feels like he’s gonna fucking throw up, and they’re both looking at him like he’s the biggest piece of trash they’ve ever had the misfortune of knowing, and that makes him sick too, and what did he—what did he do, what—puzzle pieces, shifting, falling off a glass table—

And he feels his hands breaking skin—

“Jesus Christ,” Rhodey says, and he shifts around and moves over to Tony’s left side, pushing up his sleeve. Tony isn’t even sure where the hell they are right now—he was deep inside, dark and dank and paralyzed in his own body—

“Jesus,” Rhodey says again, and Tony cranes his neck a bit and sees it, feels Rhodey running his finger over a little bump in his arm about the size of a nickel—

“Cut it out,” Tony says, closing his eyes again. “I’m serious, find a knife, cut it out, that’s—”

“Tony,” Pepper says, and she’s rubbing his knee—

“Pepper,” Rhodey says, in that warning tone he has, and the fact that he has to warn Tony’s wife not to touch him is just—

“Cut it out, Rhodey, I’m serious—”

“Alright, Jesus Christ, alright—” And he scrambles away—

“Sterilize it, Rhodey,” Pepper calls after him, looking at Tony again. Her face is streaked with worry, and she looks at him with wariness and pity and love all at the same time. “Tony, why didn’t you—you couldn’t say—”

“I was here but I wasn’t,” he breathes, and the cuffs are hurting his wrists, and everything is fucking hurting, and what did he do what did he do how the fuck long has it been. “Someone—someone got me, I let my guard down and someone—”

It was so easy. The guy used himself as a distraction, as bait, and then he—he did whatever the hell he did and then he was in Tony’s head—

“Okay, okay,” Rhodey says, rushing back around the corner again. “Close your eyes, Tony, if you are—Tony, goddamnit—”

Tony swallows hard, nodding and closing his eyes, and he winces, holding onto the pipe as Rhodey cuts into his skin. He does it fast, and Tony grits his teeth, and he feels Rhodey take the thing out and then he hears him stomping and stomping and stomping—

Feels like plates falling and crashing to the ground inside Tony’s skull. 

He doesn’t get it all, but he gets flashes—the bomb under his hands, Rhodey confronting him, Peter—

Peter.

He remembers hitting him. Over and over, and is that the same hit or—how many times did he—

Peter hitting the wall, and Tony recoils, a tremor running through him, and what did he, what did—

“Where’s Peter?” he asks, looking back and forth at them. His arm is throbbing, everything hurts, he’s frail and sick and he’s probably gonna fucking puke but he doesn’t care. “Where’s Peter, where is he?”

They both just stare at him, and kind of look at each other, and Tony’s heart sinks. 

“What, did I kill him?” he asks, his voice breaking. He grabs onto the bar he’s cuffed to, feeling like he needs to hold on. He’s terrified. “What, what? Where is he?”

“Tony, you were…” Rhodey starts, shaking his head. “You—the kid knew you were acting weird and I went to confront you and you knocked me out—and I guess—Jesus, I guess you were—are, I don’t goddamn know—being mind controlled, and you brought a bomb in here—we’re at the gala, for the new facility—and Peter sussed you out and you two got into it and he knocked you out and I guess—knocked this guy’s control on you loose enough—but he—he took the bomb and—he had webshooters and he—”

Tony closes his eyes, white noise eating into his vision, and he feels like he’s gonna pass out. “Is Peter dead?” he breathes, shaking.

“We’re trying to find him,” Pepper says, and she rubs Tony’s knee again. “Some people got footage, he tossed it into the air and he was blown back and now we can’t—Happy is out there looking, Sam and Natasha are looking, we’ve got emergency deployment teams looking—”

“Uncuff me, please,” Tony half-whispers, because his voice gets caught in his throat. “I need to help, I need to—I need to help look for him—”

“Tony, you’re—”

“He’s not in my head anymore,” Tony snaps, looking at Rhodey. He doesn’t know how the fuck he can prove that, but he can feel it now. It’s different, he’s—he feels ill, and weak, but he doesn’t feel trapped. He doesn’t feel like the ground is about to fall out from underneath him. “And you need to find someone to get that dipshit, he was supposed to be in jail, but right now, I’m—I’m in here alone, okay? I wanna help look for Peter, I want to—please let me, please. You can stay with me, but I need to—just—please. Please.”

Pepper and Rhodey exchange a look, and Tony keeps getting flashes—his fist connecting with Peter’s face, grabbing him and throwing him against the wall—and he shakes them off, swallowing hard. “Please,” he breathes.

Rhodey heaves a sigh. “Lemme get the key.”

~

Tony watches the footage from the quinjet while they scan over the city. He was ruthless, relentless, and he watches himself grab Peter by the throat, toss him every which way, hit him and hit him and hit him again. He made him bleed, over and over, he shot him and burned him up and dragged him to the ground, and Peter barely fought him. He actively avoided it, and got worse because of it. Tony keeps watching, and before long Clint is walking over and taking the phone from him. 

“It wasn’t you,” he says, giving him a pointed look. “Alright? You know that. It wasn’t you.”

“Sure looked like me,” Tony says, getting up and walking back over to Friday’s main control panel. Peter wasn’t in a suit, so this is harder than normal. 

“It wasn’t,” Clint says, sitting back in the pilot’s seat. And he doesn’t say much else about it, but Tony knows he knows firsthand what he’s going through, what this feels like. And it helps a little bit, but not much. The images are imprinted in his head.

He loves Peter. May trusts Tony with her nephew, her surrogate son, the person in her care, and it’s gotten to the point that it’s just a given that Peter is safe with Tony, that Tony’s always gonna help him and protect him. But now there’s this. Now there’s Tony punching him and hitting him and choking him and making him bleed, and he looks down at his hands and they shake. 

Nobody else was hurt, he didn’t do anything else, but that’s because Peter took the bomb. He took that on himself, Tony’s mistake, Tony’s problem, and he put himself in danger to solve it and save everybody. And now they can’t find him. 

Tony wavers back down into the closest seat.

“Stop beating yourself up,” Pepper says, walking out of the back compartment and sitting down next to him. “It wasn’t you. You’re a victim here too.”

“I hurt him, whether it was…me in charge or not,” Tony says, his eyes straining with tears as he looks at her. “These hands hurt him. And I almost…blew up the goddamn gala, if it wasn’t for him noticing—”

“I didn’t notice,” she says. “I should have—Rhodey should have—”

“You guys are busy,” Tony says, looking at the screen again. He’s got a social media tracker up too, and so many people are talking about what happened. Peter didn’t have a mask on, but thankfully, there’s no good footage of his face. 

Everyone is calling him a hero. Because that’s exactly what he is, what he always has been.

“You need people to look out for you too,” Pepper says, running her hand through his hair. “We should have done better, but Peter’s got that little…alert system in his brain, and he’s intuitive, and he knows you. He loves you, he worries.”

Tony shakes his head, looking down at his hands again. He knows May is with Happy, searching, and he can’t even imagine how she feels right now. He feels fucking sick.

“You need someone to check you out too,” Pepper says, still touching him gently, and he doesn’t deserve that either. “Probably have a concussion.”

“Not til we find him,” Tony croaks. “Doesn’t matter.”

“Tony,” she says, but he shakes his head. He’s supposed to be better than this. They defeated a fucking Titan, they defied death and time and saved the goddamn world. And he lets a petty thief mind control him? Take away his agency? Hit Rhodey, threaten an event with innocent people, hurt Peter, badly, put him in harm’s way—

“Tony,” Clint says. “I think we got something.”

~

Peter needs to get up.

He’s been laying here for forty five years he’s an old man now—

He needs to get back he needs to fix Tony so nothing else happens he needs to protect him and get that guy that did this it must have been that guy that’s when it started and he doesn’t know how he did it but he mind controlled him somehow—

Peter coughs, twisting onto his side, and he spits out some blood, and a tooth, and he hopes it’s his wisdom tooth that’s been bothering him the top right one—

He got exploded, that’s right—

And his face hurts, and where the repulsor got him is burning and he feels like he’s wheezing and he falls back on his back again and he feels like he’s on fire a little bit and is his left eye closed or welded closed or gone forever and his leg—twisted—

And just a second just a second—

Black again, in a wonder wheel of spiraling stars—

“Hey, hey. Pete.”

He opens his eyes. Tony is there, cupping his face in his hands, and Peter smiles a little bit, dizzy.

“Is it you?” he asks, or thinks he asks. He can’t hear his own voice. Tony sounded muffled too, but he nods at him.

“It’s me,” he says. He looks so sad. “I’m so sorry. I’m so sorry.”

Peter closes his eyes again, because they’re so heavy. “It’s okay,” he says, and he feels like he’s being lifted up, and he doesn’t remember anything else after—

He opens his eyes. He feels like he’s moving, and he recognizes the tiny medical room in the quinjet. Tony is right next to him, and he stands up when he sees Peter’s awake, and is Peter awake? He feels…crazy, he feels…

“Tony,” he says, and he tries to sit up. “Is it you? Is it you? Are you—”

“I’m not gonna hurt you,” Tony says, stepping closer. He still sounds muffled, and faraway, and so does everything else. But he looks like himself. He’s not off anymore. “I’m not gonna hurt you again. Jesus, Pete, I’m so sorry—”

Peter shakes his head, blinking at him. “You didn’t, you—it wasn’t you, you didn’t—”

“I did, technically,” Tony says, and he just stands there and he’s got tears in his eyes and he isn’t really looking at him. He’s close, but he’s keeping his distance. “We’re on our way back, to the compound, May and everybody else is meeting us there—you, uh, you saved everybody, you’re burned in a couple places from the blast and my—goddamn repulsor, but Helen’s gonna—when we get back, she’s going to—”

He sighs, stops talking and rests his elbows on the bar of the bed, and hangs his head, like he’s ashamed. Peter hasn’t ever really seen him like this, and his brain still feels like it’s swiss cheese but he sits up a little bit more. He covers Tony’s hands with his own and squeezes them, and tries not to think about how much everything hurts.

“You wouldn’t be mad at me if this was opposite,” Peter says, staring at the top of his head. “You wouldn’t. You wouldn’t blame me at all and I don’t blame you either so. So. Just don’t even, I mean. Just don’t.”

“You can’t even talk straight,” Tony says, still not looking up. 

“That’s most of the time,” Peter says, still holding onto his hands. 

Tony sighs. “I put you in danger and I hurt you. I watched the footage, it was a fucking nightmare, and you let me keep hitting you because you know how strong you are and you didn’t want to hurt me so you just let me keep hurting you—”

“It wasn’t you,” Peter says, trying to be assertive, and he’s so tired, he’s so, so tired. He leans forward, resting his head on Tony’s shoulder, and he closes his eyes. “It wasn’t your fault. It isn’t. So stop. I know you won’t and you’re gonna live in this and punish yourself forever but like, don’t. Don’t do that.” He sighs, leaning into him. “Did you guys get the bad guy—”

“Sounded like it,” Tony says, and he’s still hanging his head, and Peter sighs. “I think so. I gotta check in with Rhodey again. Make sure nobody else got mind controlled.”

“So it all worked out,” Peter says.

“You nearly getting exploded is not it all working out.”

“I didn’t get exploded I only got slightly singed and nobody else got exploded and you are no longer mind controlled so. Win to me.”

Tony sighs again, and he gently, very gently, wraps his arms around Peter and hugs him. “I’m gonna jump off a fucking roof,” he says. “I never wanna hurt you. Never. I can barely remember it, I’ve got flashes—”

“Don’t try,” Peter says, reaching up and holding onto his arm.

“—but I saw the footage—”

“Forget it,” Peter says. “Erase it.”

Tony shakes his head. “I’m sorry,” he whispers. “I’m so sorry. I shouldn’t have ever—allowed it to happen in the first place, and I still don’t know how the hell it did, and I’ve just got—a lot of work to do, to make sure it doesn’t happen again. I can’t let myself get taken like that, used like a fucking goon against people I love. Jesus Christ. You’re hurt because of me.”

“Nope,” Peter says, because he doesn’t have the brain power to try and fight him harder, even though he knows it’s gonna be a guilt battle probably for the rest of their lives. 

“Pete,” Tony says, still holding onto him.

“Nope,” Peter says again, and he drifts. Spidey sense is dormant. He’s a piece of raw meat but he’s—safe.

~

And Tony isn’t there when Peter wakes up again, back at the compound. May is there, and after she hugs him and kisses him about a hundred times, she breaks out the Tupperware, containing all the little appetizers from the gala that never was. 

And Tony stays missing in action the next couple days, even though everyone else comes by to see how Peter is doing. Rhodey implies that Tony paid a special visit to the asshole that did this, but he doesn’t go into detail on what the encounter entailed. The guy did have hidden powers, clearly, and Doctor Strange even gets involved trying to figure out how he did it, what exactly that thing was that they pulled out of Tony’s arm. 

But three days later and Peter still hasn’t seen him again. 

“Maybe he’s busy,” Ned says, as he and Peter and MJ walk up and down the hallways. Peter broke his ankle, somewhere in all the insanity, and pulled a muscle in his calf. He’s been trying to walk around a lot during the day, even though he’s still on bed rest.

“He’s not busy,” Peter says. “He’s avoiding me.”

“Well, he beat the shit out of you, and he feels bad,” MJ says. 

Peter sighs. 

“I’d feel bad too,” MJ says, “even if I was mind controlled. It still sucks, I mean, when I saw him his knuckles were still all bruised. Just a constant reminder of what someone made him do.”

“You saw him?” Peter asks, looking at her.

She looks a little bit like she wants to take a back, but she nods. “Yeah, uh, earlier. When I got here, when I was talking to Pepper.”

“Did you talk to him?” Peter asks, as they turn around at the end of the hall. He’s trying to sound nonchalant and failing spectacularly.

“Not really,” MJ says, taking Peter’s hand. “He wouldn’t really even look at me, I can tell he—he’s just really guilty. He feels really bad.”

“Peter doesn’t want him to feel bad,” Ned says. 

“Yeah, but once you feel bad, you feel bad,” MJ says, “it’s not like it magically goes away because someone says that it should.”

“Maybe we can magic him,” Ned says. “Doctor Strange, you know. He could do that.”

“Yeah, let’s just hack into his mind again,” MJ says, widening her eyes at him. “I’m sure that’s the right course of action.”

Peter sighs again. “I don’t know what to do,” he says. “He could do this forever. And ever and ever.”

“Well, definitely as long as you’re all bruised up,” MJ says, reaching over with her free hand and brushing her thumb over Peter’s cheek. 

~

And two more days go by without seeing Tony, and it’s almost time for Peter and May to head back to their apartment, even though May said they could stay at the compound as long as he wanted to.

And Peter decides to do something.

“Friday is he still there?” Peter asks, making his way down to the workshop.

“Yes, Peter,” Friday says, in Peter’s ear.

“And you’re not lying to me?” Peter asks, rushing down the stairs, quick as he can with a bum leg.

“No, Peter,” Friday says. “I am not permitted to lie to you.”

Peter smiles to himself. He knows he still doesn’t look wonderful, but he looks a lot better than he did, and either way he can’t take this anymore. And he gets down to the workshop in what feels like record time and he scans in without trying to make a lot of noise, and when he opens the door he sees Tony at the back door as if he’s trying to escape.

“Stop!” Peter yells, his hands up. “Stop! Don’t leave!”

Tony whips around, his eyebrows furrowed. “Kid?” he says, already walking back over in his direction. “Are you okay?”

“No!” Peter says, a little more forcefully than he intended to. 

“What’s wrong?” Tony asks, gently, weaving around the work stations and reaching his side. 

“You’re ignoring me!” Peter says, and he sounds like a small, stupid child, but he doesn’t do anything to change that. “And I don’t like it.”

Tony’s face falls, and he nods, glancing away from him. “I’m not…ignoring you, I just—I felt like—”

“I know you feel bad,” Peter says, sucking in a big breath. “And I know me telling you not to feel bad doesn’t change the fact that you feel bad, but I seriously don’t want you to feel bad, because now this whole like—keeping yourself separate and out of my sight thing feels like you’re punishing me.”

“I’m not,” Tony says, fast. “I was just—”

“You don’t need to punish yourself either—”

“I wasn’t really…exactly…c’mere, come sit down—”

“I’m okay,” Peter says.

“I know, I know, I wanna sit,” Tony says, taking Peter’s arm and tugging him over to the closest workstation with two rolling chairs. They sit down, and they both sigh, and Tony keeps talking. “I was just, uh—I sent out messages to everyone involved at the gala explaining things a little bit, and I got everything rescheduled on my own, and I, uh—met up with the asshole at Riker’s and attacked him and nearly got arrested myself—”

Peter leans on the workstation, running his hands over his face. He can imagine that, and he doesn’t like it.

“—and I’ve been building some new security protocols, and working on another nano suit for you that’s a lot like my watch gauntlet that can—stay on your person, read your heart rate, come to you if you need it—but I’m trying to make sure it only comes in the correct instance, and not if you like, see a cute dog—”

Peter laughs a little bit, shaking his head at him.

Tony smiles softly. “But I’ve been doing all that, along with maybe, slightly punishing myself by—staying out of your way—”

“You’re not in my way,” Peter says, feeling a little bit too emotional, maybe. “You’re not. You never have been. Never will be.”

“You don’t know that—”

“Tony—”

“What I mean is…old man, long shadow, you know, I’ve been there—”

“You’re not your dad,” Peter says, shaking his head at him. “You’re a good—you’re a good father figure, you’re a…good father.”

Tony brightens up a little bit, and his nod almost looks like a question. “Yeah?”

“Yeah,” Peter says. “No matter what.”

Tony nods again, more solidly this time. “One more thing—”

“No more saying sorry,” Peter says, shaking his head. “You told me I can never say sorry again, well now, you can’t either so, how about—”

“Thank you,” Tony says, and Peter stops talking. “Thank you for—realizing that something was wrong, thank you for figuring it out, thank you for knocking me on my ass when I wasn’t me, thank you for—saving everybody and me too, in the process. Thank you, Pete, really. Thank you.”

Peter’s throat goes tight, and there are tears in his eyes, and he nods again. “You’re welcome,” he says, holding his chin high. “Any time.”

“And I’m sorry,” Tony says, fast, rolling forward and wrapping him up in a big hug. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry. Last time, I’m sorry. Okay I’m done. I’m so sorry. Okay I’m actually done.”

Peter snorts, hugging him too, burying his face in his shoulder. “No more mind control,” he says, letting the apologies drift into the air unanswered.

“Oh no, never again,” Tony says, rubbing Peter’s back. “And I figure, when you’re—when you’re tip top again, we can get into the ring, and I’ll feel better if you get a few good shots in, and I’ll forget about the whole thing if you break my nose—”

“No,” Peter says, shaking his head and still holding onto him. “I’m not doing that.”

“Too afraid to box an old man, huh?”

“My old man, maybe,” Peter says, feeling particularly sentimental.

And Tony laughs, in a rush of breath, and holds him reverently for a second. He pulls back, and pats Peter’s cheek. “We’ll see,” he says. “Might get Rhodey in there too, to make it fair—”

“He’ll probably take you up on that,” Peter says, getting to his feet. “Okay, lemme see the suit, remember I get last say in design decisions—”

“Oh, you aren’t going for bright yellow?” Tony asks, resting his hand on Peter’s shoulder as they head over to the main workstation. “You don’t like that?”

“Better than that time you tried to integrate green and made me look like a Christmas tree,” Peter says, grinning at him.

“Hey,” Tony says, typing in a few commands and bringing up the specs. “I thought that was very festive.”

And they start working, and Peter remembers feeling safe, before, when they were on the quinjet and his brain was still scrambled. But he feels like they’re on the other side of it now, for real. 

Safe. Really, truly safe.

[firgri]

G/N! reader × Male!Yandere!Monster(?)

Synopsis: you went with your friends to a building that at first glance doesn’t look anything terrible, but inside something much worse awaits you.

TW: attempt at horror (unsuccessful), mention of blood, slight yandere(?)

(I'm sorry, but English is not my native language, so I used a translator! Rus->eng)

----

You were walking down a dark corridor, holding a flashlight in your hands, trying to make less noise. "Come on, everything's going to be fine for sure, don't be afraid!" is all your friends told you when they entered this abandoned building. Of course you were afraid! From the outside, the building does not look at its best, so in the past it was a school or even a hospital, which means that there will be a lot of rooms and corridors.

It's good that the net was caught here, which is why you could break up with your friends and go to other floors, and who to the basement. Of course you didn't want to go alone! And especially in the basement! This darkness begins to put a lot of pressure on you, which is why you have shrunk into yourself a little more. It's good that you dressed warmly, as if you knew that you would have to go to a cold basement infested with spiders and rats. Perhaps that's why you were sent here, because you didn't want to face all this. What a horror! Why are you friends with them at all?..... That's right, because you didn't have any friends at university because you moved to another city, and you didn't want to spend all your academic years alone either. After thinking for a couple of minutes, you didn't even notice a figure sitting with his back to you in the distance. When you stopped, you looked closer and saw the outline of a human figure. "Why do I always have all these troubles! It's better to leave, otherwise you never know, maybe it's some kind of drug addict." - with these thoughts, you began to walk back, trying to make less noise. After walking some distance, you began to hear someone following you, while trying not to make noise. Sweat began to accumulate on your neck, and your heart began to beat even harder. You didn't know anything better than to start running, but a strong hand grabbed you by the collar and pulled you towards it, gagging you at the same time.

  - God, be quiet, - said a hoarse voice right in your ear, which is why you began to rush harder in his grip, shouting right into his hand, - Well, really, you'll scare everyone off right now, but I don't need that. - realizing that you do not intend to put up with this, he added, - don't worry, sun, everything will definitely be fine, I won't kill you, I promise~,- he purred, putting his head right on your neck.

  - Listen, let's do this: I let you go, but you don't scream and listen to me. Is it okay?...It's just that if you start screaming, the creatures living here can hear us and come here. - he said and fell silent, as if he expected at least some confirmation from you. When he saw your slight nod, he praised you and let you go. Moving away from him at a decent distance, you picked up a flashlight that had fallen to the floor and pointed it directly at him. He was dressed as if the cold had no effect on him: jeans and a T-shirt - while looking as if he had just left the house. That is, clean, there is no dirt on his clothes or body. Realizing that he was still looking at you, while closing his eyes, you let go of the flashlight to the floor.

  - God, you finally took it away, otherwise shining directly into someone's eyes is very bad, - he said, starting to look directly at you, - Yes, I wanted to say that it was better not to come here or even go up to the floors of yours. Well, those who do it won't be lucky, huh," he grinned as if he had told the funniest joke.

  - Hmm~ don't worry, these creatures don't come here, because it's cold here, and they don't like cold, - he said, starting to rummage in his pockets.

  - You keep talking about some creatures...What are you talking about? - You asked him.

  - Hmm? Oh, you don't know? What a horror, well, you're really lucky if you're here and not there, between the floors. - He answered you, lighting a cigarette at the same time, - Oh, I didn't know he had them. - He said softly. You started sweating terribly, looking at him, then at the corridor from which you came out.

- Well, okay, I think I'll go find my friends....This, good luck with what you did before, - you said, walking back, while looking at him (so that he would not do anything superfluous!)

  - Oh. I don't think you should go there now, because they walk there, - he said, shifting his weight to the other leg.

  - Who are they? - you already said with irritation, because he still did not say who he was talking about at all.

  - Hmm, monsters, - that's all he said, and he started looking at you again. You looked at him as if he had grown a second head and laughed. You've stumbled upon a drug addict! Congratulations.

  - R-right, you're right. You're right, they're still there, how could I forget about it, huh. Don't worry, I can handle them, if anything, so I'll really go, - with these words, you ran down the corridor, holding the flashlight exactly so that you could see.

- Hm, she/he/they really don't know anything about this place, - with these words, he followed you, while puffing on a cigarette.

You ran as if your whole life depended on it. Out of breath, you stopped and began to breathe deeply. When you heard a scream from the floor above, you climbed the stairs and saw something you never expected to see. Your one of your "friends" was dead right in front of you, and his balls were spread all over the floor. You put your hand to your mouth, trying to stifle a scream.

Suddenly, someone started running right above you, while starting to scream. It seems that it was one of your "friends". Suddenly there was a lull, and you began to hear someone coming down the stairs with a quiet step. Turning your head there and dedicating it with a flashlight, you began to see what "that addict" was talking about. The creature was coming right down the stairs, starting to look right at you. Suddenly it winked and went back up to the floor above. You turned back and saw him again.

  - Well, well, I told you it's better not to come up here, - he said, starting to walk right up to you. You started to walk away and accidentally stumbled, landing right on the ground. - Adore, why are you so scared? I won't do anything to you, sun~ - he purred, coming up to you at a decent distance from you. - So timid, are you scared of me? Oh, I wouldn't want that, honey, - he continued, while starting to stroke your head. Coming a little closer to you, he began to take you in his arms in a "wedding style". - You're so cute. Did you know that? - after these words, he began to descend back into the basement, which is why you began to rush in his arms, screaming for help.

  - Hmm, I think it's your fault that you went to this building, but it's great for me, because we're going to have a lot of fun. ♡

He's right, you shouldn't have followed your "friends" here at all.

[mlmxreader]

Death Do Us Part | Alfie Solomons x m!reader

『••✎••』

↳ ❝ "I just... I thought that you would always be mine" + "You will never not be a part of me"

[I don't have specifics but could you make this one angst? Heavy angst is totally fine btw] ❞

: ̗̀➛ The trenches are not somewhere that anyone wants to be, and what happens at night is worse than what happens during the day.

: ̗̀➛ graphic depictions of death & injury, swearing, eaten alive, rats, eye gore

•───────────────★•♛•★──────────────•

The sounds coming from No Man's Land would forever echo against the tall wooden graves; burial sites of a land once flourishing and blooming with life, now scarred and wounded with such great cuts that could never heal.

Trees that were once beautiful dark greens in summer and would happily rest with nests on their powerful arms, were now barren and black and smelled of rot and decay. Nothing lived anymore.

Bushes did not grow fruit, spiders did not spin webs, birds did not sing. Nothing lived anymore. The sounds were made up of loud groaning mixed with screeching; sometimes the squeak of rats could be heard as they bit down on achy eyeballs and chewed through the soft, popping flesh.

Hoards of them would gather at night, feasting upon the soldiers who were injured and left on the battlefield; their deaths would be slow, eaten alive from the stomach and out of their backs and through their spines until their bodies gave up. It was a slow, terrible way to go.

Amongst the trenches, it wasn't much easier. Ticks and lice infested every man, regardless of if they were alice or dead, and food was constantly in short supply; the soldiers took to frying their parasites over small fires, and still found their stomachs gurgling and gargling.

Many of them were malnourished, their faces sunken, and their eyes slowly being sucked into their skulls. Disease was rife and rampant.

The mud and the dirt and the clay managed to sneak in through clothes and boots with ease, and if a man fell into the designated shit pits... he would have to stay in his dirty, disgusting uniform. Nobody was having a pleasant time.

Alfie sat by the edge of the trench the entire night, weeping with his face buried in his hands; the hot tears cascading through his fingertips as his body trembled and shook. It was the closest he could get, his fingers and knuckles stinging and raw and red.

His head was pounding, and the snot trickling down his face was sticking to his beard. He could still hear you struggling. The wet slap of the mud as you tried to drag yourself closer to the edge of the trench, leaving behind a slick and sticky trail as your lungs started to get smaller and smaller.

Alfie knew it was his own fault. He had tried too hard and too much to protect you, and he had killed you. He knew that his hands would forever be coated in blood, smeared all over his tattoos and stained on his pale palms for the whole world to see and then some.

He had tried to protect you. He had failed.

He could still picture it as he wept, rocking back and forth without even realising it.

You were wearing his gas mask, as yours had been damaged by enemy fire and there were no spares; he had pissed on a cloth and held it to his face in hopes that it would prevent the gas from getting to him. It didn't.

His eyes still burned, and he still let a string of greenish yellow foam spill from his throat as he tried to seek relief. You struggled to secure the gas mask, and he was too late to reach you; he watched with wide eyes when the bullet tore through your neck.

The sound of your gargling as you hit the ground and struggled, and although Alfie did his best to find his way to you, he was ripped away by the commanding officer; Jamie was the Colonel, and had wasted no time and grabbing Alfie by the shoulder and dragging him away from you.

And now Alfie was here; listening to you die slowly as he wept and wished that he had never tried to protect you.

Maybe if he hadn't tried, it would have saved you and maybe it would have allowed you to live another day. It was all his fault, and he knew it all too well. It was his fault.

He would have to tell his mother; she would be devastated to hear that he had killed his husband. She would hate him and scorn him for it, and he knew it. Everybody back home would detest him for it, and he couldn't even bring himself to try and absolve himself; he knew that they would be right.

He had killed you.

"Stay down, Solomons!" Jamie called when he noticed Alfie tear his hands away from his face and shakily grasp the ladder. "He's a dead man, now."

Alfie glared at him, clenching his jaw tightly. "So bloody what?"

"So," Jamie sighed as he took a few steps forward. Missing a hand, his blue eyes were full of sorrow as he swallowed thickly and shook his head. Golden hair cut short. "There's no use in trying to get him back. He's a dead man, Solomons. We don't fight for dead men."

Alfie shook his head. "That dead man saved your life. He saved mine! He was mine!"

"I know," Jamie whispered. "Just let him be, aye? He won't last til morning - rats are gonna get him."

"Just let me bring back his body," Alfie whispered. "Just his fuckin' body. Let me at least say goodbye to him, for fuck's sake."

Jamie checked his watch, then listened closely for a moment before nodding curtly. "Five minutes. If Jerry starts the blitz again, you get your arse back in this trench, aye?"

"Yes," Alfie agreed with gritted teeth before hoisting himself over the ladder and slamming into the mud and onto his stomach.

With a groan, he picked himself up, and collapsed by your side; on his back, he pulled your hand to his chest, flipping you over and pressing his temple to yours as he sniffled. You were weak, hardly responsive and only able to groan.

"I just... I thought you would always be mine until we died," Alfie grumbled. "I thought we'd grow old, together... it was always fuckin' meant to be us against all the other cunts in the world..."

Your breathing got shallower, and when he slipped his finger down to your wrist, he wept softly.

"Know I fuckin' loved you," he continued with a trembling voice, "know that you will never not be a part of me... I will never fuckin' let you go, alright? You're always gonna fuckin' be with me."

You spasmed, and he frowned as he turned onto his side and kissed your temple gently; his hot tears against your slowly cooling skin.

[patheticlittlemen]

I wanted to ask for a fic of The Spot with a Spider person s/o, but they are allergic to spiders and their skin have like mosquito bites (I don't know how to describe it) and those parts always are itchy and they scratch them all the time to the point it hurts them and makes some skin fall, the mosquito bites are all around their body and makes them insecure

I've been thinking of this idea and I think is good angst potential

i got you anon!!

The Spot x Reader: What if the Spider-Person reader was allergic to spiders?

A/N- the spider person’s name in this is Spider-Sanguis

word count: 1110

Becoming Spider-Sanguis was probably the worst thing that happened to you. You’ve always been pretty allergic to spiders, getting an intense rash that lasted for a few days every time you had been bitten. When you were a kid, your room seemed to constantly be infested with spiders, despite everything you did to keep them away. At some point, you gave up and managed to live alongside the spiders without getting bitten. That is until you got bitten by a radioactive spider.

You’re not super sciencey, so you didn’t really understand what happened or how, but your running theory is that something from the spider has infused into your blood or DNA and has become a part of you. This theory makes the most sense, and would also explain the permanent allergic reaction.

You struggle with who you are now. You hate that your body is fighting against you and that your skin is now permanently marred by itchy bumps ranging from the size of a regular bug bite to rashes spanning large areas. You hate that you can’t wear your old clothes outside, that you can’t go to the doctor and try to find relief at the risk of exposing your identity. 

Despite how much you struggle with your allergies and everything that comes with being Spider-Sanguis, you’re incredibly grateful that it led you to meet your new roommate and partner.

Spot came into your life first as a villain, but after his plan failed and he found that your universe was his favorite (partially because of you but he insists he also likes the “atmosphere”), he decided to stay and make amends with you. After many late-night talks and tension that could have been cut with a knife, he eventually confessed his feelings for you and you started dating. 

Since then, he has been there for you on every bad day, happy to comfort you and hold your hands to keep you from scratching yourself. He gets you itch cream and allergy medicine (which you’re pretty sure he steals, but you have no proof and don’t care to look for any) on your worst days, and helps you apply the cream on parts of your body you can’t reach.

Today, your reaction is especially rough. You have an intense rash spanning your entire torso, mainly down your chest and back. Last week’s reaction, smaller bumps all down your arms, are now starting to peel and causing the skin on your arms to flake off. No matter how long you’ve been Spider-Sanguis, the itching and burning never get better. 

You were supposed to go to dinner with a friend today but had to cancel because you felt incredibly insecure and uncomfortable. That leaves you stuck at home, mulling in your awful thoughts and drowning in a wave of self-hatred. You still haven’t found the courage to tell anybody that you’re secretly a superhero, so Spot is the only person who truly knows what’s going on. You’ve been able to explain enough for your friends to understand, and they’ve been incredibly kind, but it’s still hard not having them fully understand.

To try and avoid your overwhelming emotions you turn on the TV and decide to watch a movie. Spot left right after you canceled your plans and said he wouldn’t be long, so you try and focus on the movie until he returns and can distract you. 

About halfway through the movie, you get up to go to the bathroom and catch a glimpse of yourself in the mirror. Your eyes scan across your flaky arms and the patch of inflamed skin peeking out from your shirt collar. Trying to ignore the wave of nausea that sweeps over you at the sight, you quickly do what you came to do and leave without looking in the mirror again.

Sitting down and turning on the movie again, you try to re-invest yourself in what’s happening on screen but can’t get past the thought of yourself in the mirror. Spot has recently helped you feel more confident in your own skin, but your mindset of despising yourself is an easy one to settle into. What doesn’t help is that your rash decides to start itching and burning at the same time the hateful thoughts start filling your mind. Tears start streaming down your face and in an attempt to keep yourself from scratching and picking at your skin, you lie down on the couch and squeeze your hands between your thighs.

“Hey, I brought dinner! It’s your favorite-” Spot exits a portal in the kitchen not long after your breakdown starts. He approaches you with a takeout bag but stops as he sees you curled into a ball on the couch. “Oh, dear.”

Spot sets the bag down on the table and sits next to you, gently placing a hand on your back, which makes you yelp.

“My love…” Spot abruptly pulls his hand away. “I’m so sorry. Does it itch?”

You pull yourself up and wipe your eyes, nodding.

“Want me to put itch cream on?” Spot asks.

“How can you love me?” You ask, looking at Spot whose face spot swirls with emotion.

“What? What do you mean?” Spot sounds surprised and confused, and the rest of the spots on his body move around to show as much.

“Look at me. I’m pathetic and disgusting. My skin is falling off and I can barely focus on anything except for the itching and pain. How can you sit here every night and touch me where I’m covered in bumps and rashes? How can you touch me so gently and say such sweet things to me when I’m…me?” You end your rant whispering and sobbing as Spot looks at you.

“I could ask you the same thing. Your touches are so kind and full of love, I can’t fathom how you could love a monster like me. You speak to me like I’m the sun, moon, and stars in the sky, but I’m…just me. I understand how you feel. And I will never judge you on your appearance. I love you and your rashes, just like you love me and my holes.” Spot says, grabbing your hands and rubbing them gently with his thumbs. You chuckle a little bit at his last comment.

“Hm, yeah I love your holes.” You tease, lightly running a finger around one of his spots.

“Wh- no, no, no, you know what I mean.”

“Okay, okay. Thank you for saying all that. It…makes a lot of sense.” You say, gently resting your head on Spot’s chest. “Can you put that itch cream on now?”

“Of course.”

bonus A/N: i love love love doing research for fics so feel free to send any out-there/very specific spot/johnathon x reader fic ideas and i'll try to do it justice🫡

[theworldvsyoshiko]

A current state of affairs, since I haven't posted an overall update in a while:

The settlement hasn't changed shape much. The main update of note is those tunnels off to the east. One thing with this map: the exposed area is a relatively small crater in the center, with one real narrow route in or out. This makes it incredibly defensible against people attacking on foot. Against drop pod raids and such, though, it means that there's very little available space for them to spawn. Most drop pod raids end up landing basically in the middle of the base, even ones that are balanced around not doing that. This makes them the biggest threat by far, and there isn't much I can do about them in the current setup.

So, the girls are starting to migrate underground. (With lots of chokepoints built in to mitigate the risk of insectoid infestations.) This will be a slow as hell process, because all of the rooms they're going to spend much time in need to be smoothed out to make them not ugly, and this is a group genetically dispositioned to be bad at Construction.

Almost everybody has the gene for Psychite dependency now, because it's basically free metabolism. Yeah sure I'll make my biochemical processes dependent on a special easily-produced tea in exchange for eating 40% less food.

Almost everybody also has a Bionic/Archotech Eye and genes for quick wound healing, slow bleeding, and Scarless, which is already a pretty solid combat loadout.

Karina McClain

Look don't ask me what's going on with the Very Diligent Student trait.

Karina's decent at basically everything but art. I think her Crafting skill purely came from making clothes before Cupcake was old enough. Despite the 20 Shooting, she's only the main combatant because of her mechanitor stuff. Otherwise, that title goes to...

Karina "Cupcake" McClain

Sure, Cupcake's a bit worse at shooting than Karina, but she has some other advantages. For one thing, Trigger Happy, which makes her shoot twice as fast for a bit of an accuracy penalty. Since she isn't using her utility slot for a mech pack, she can also use a ranged shield belt, which makes her much safer to venture out of cover. She's got an Archotech Arm, which combined with her tail gives her 142% Manipulation for fighting and crafting. But also,

Outside of combat, Cupcake's also the lead researcher and crafter.

Karina "Damage" McClain

Damage is also good at everything. Being giant means that she's a nice big target, so she also has a Painstopper (0 pain), a Healing Enhancer, and a Toughskin Gland. Damage currently has higher armor than Karina, who's wearing marine armor. But then also:

... and then the snake tail gives her an extra melee attack, and being giant gives her a shitton of health. She should probably pick up Robust to balance out Wimp, but frankly it hasn't been an issue yet. Damage can take a truly ridiculous amount of, uh, damage.

Karina "Kitten" McClain

Kitten inherited Evil Twin's genes. The last memory of Karina's ex-wife...

Kitten doesn't have a lot special going for her just yet, but she does have

Karina "Scratch" McClain

Like Kitten, Scratch doesn't have much to distinguish her yet. Apart, of course, from

... if I give this kid six bionic/archotech arms, I assume that she'll be the fastest worker on the planet. High Manipulation makes most things faster, but bonuses to quality and such tend to be capped around 100% Manipulation.

Karina "Shorty" McClain

is baby

The only really notable thing about Shorty at this point is that they got a minor mutation in the cloning tank, and came out with like 10% more melanin than the rest of the group.

Spider and Lustthrist

The resident ghouls. Meaning: they're incapable of basically everything that isn't hand-to-hand combat, but they feel no pain, don't sleep, don't have any non-food needs at all actually, and regenerate ridiculously fast. Melee shock troops, basically. They've both got armor plating bolted right onto their skin, metal barbs jutting out of it, a nuclear stomach that makes them eat 1/4 as much in exchange for bombarding them with radiation that they don't mind, and their heart has been replaced with one that drops a lot of that pesky 'blood' stuff to generate acid for them to projectile vomit.

Once the girls have a little more research done, they'll be replacing some of the ghouls' limbs with weaponry, and other fun things like that.

[spiderclothing]

SPIDER ENCORE FULL ZIP FLEECE JACKET GIRLS

Spider jacket offers a fashionable at the same time.

[eyeballsoup7310]

(Rachel Rand voice)

There is a spiderweb in the corner of my room.

It’s been there for years, at this point. Mama’s hit it with the broom countless times, but after a few days it’s right back where it was. Dad says there’s an infestation— not just spiders, but everything. Ants. Wasps. Moths. There are more moth balls in my closet than anywhere else in the house, so Mama always has some candles burning. Dad thinks the candles just make it worse. I’ve never seen any of the bugs. I’ve never seen the spider, or the ants, or the moths when they eat through my cheap, secondhand Star Wars shirt. They eat through my clothes more than anyone else’s. Even Dad’s fancy tweed jacket that he never wears.

Tomorrow is Halloween. I’ll finally be able to get out of the house, I think. Tim has a party he has to go to, but Mama made him promise me he’ll bring me trick-or-treating first. He’s going to pick me up from dance class. I hope the mosquitoes won’t be out this year, like they were last year, and maybe even the year before. Tim hates the mosquitoes. I don’t know how many more years he’ll let me drag him along.

Tim tells me he never gets bugs up in that old attic that he moved into after the basement flooded last year, but I know he’s lying. I watched Dad, up on that old, rickety ladder, as he tried to break the wasp hive away from Tim’s window. They left eventually, but not before stinging him half to death. I’m the only one in the family who’s not allergic to bugs— my friends are all jealous that the mosquitoes never seem to bother me. Tim’s friend, Rolan, isn’t allergic either. Rolan already has plans to move away once he’s old enough. I’m going to miss him— he’s a better brother than Tim is, sometimes. I hope he comes with us trick-or-treating. I hope I’ll be able to leave this town when I’m old enough, too.

…

Sometimes I think I can hear the web talking to me. Whispering. Humming. Thrumming. Burning.

I’ve learned not to bring it up around other people, even Mama. My dance instructor. My friends. But the spiderweb is still there, and it’s taken up so much space, in the corner of my bedroom. I watch it while pretending to be asleep. I can’t see the molding anymore. I can hear it. It’s talking to me. I want to tell someone. I want to tell someone. I want to tell someone I want to tell someone Iwanttotellsomeone but no one can hear it except me. I don���t know what it’s saying. I want to know what it’s saying. I want to know why it talks to me. It speaks in a language I can’t understand. But I could. I know I could. I want to learn.

I think it wants me to learn, too.

Tomorrow is Halloween.

(Context for the Halloween bit, also inspired by Jane Prentiss’ statement in TMA)

[boygiwrites]

Harley D. Dixon 9

An amazing edit inspired by this story! (Cred to Cora_Line99) Harley D. Dixon's Pinterest Board! Harley D. Dixon's Playlist!

📖Chapter List.

Author's Note. New chapter! :)

If I had to guess, I'd say a week has passed.

Our days are spent driving, siphoning gas, and sleeping. We wake up in whatever overgrown pocket of forest we spent the night in, buckle up for an entire day of winding up and down side-roads blocked by trucks or dead bodies or fallen trees, and then we spend the night in another pocket of overgrown forest, feeling just a little more exhausted than we were the day before; dirtier, bloodier, and hungrier.

At least nothing more has happened between Shane and my Dad, yet. We've all been too busy trying not to starve for that.

Tonight, as the thicket hoots and rustles around me, I close my eyes.

It's nice to pretend that time has stopped.

I listen as the river flows past my bare shoulders, undisturbed, like I'm just another steady rock amongst its gentle ripples. I let the water skim across my fingers and wash over my hair. I can feel the satisfying smoothness of riverbed stones on the pearly soles of my feet, and I wiggle my toes against the current, breathing in the freshness of night air. It's not as luxurious as a shower, 'cause showers don't quite got leaves and twigs and dirt in 'em, but I pretend it's luxurious, anyway. I feel the day being lifted from my skin and carried away down-stream.

Fwip.

A flock of birds takes off from the trees.

I snap my eyes open.

On the muddy bank of the river, a dead woman drops to her knees. Blood oozes like thick, brown pudding from a crossbow bolt pierced through one of her eyes. I gasp, paddling backwards, as she slumps head-first into the water. The rest of her mossy body slides in after her.

Splash.

The river carries her away, too.

I watch as the fuzzy hump of her back slowly floats away until it disappears around the bend.

Whew. That was close.

"Harley!"

I turn around.

On the opposite bank, from where he's been supervising the whole time, my Dad swings his crossbow over his shoulder.

"Time to get out, now. Ya clean enough?"

Oh, right. I'm supposed to be bathing. I got a little distracted.

"Yeah!" I call back. "I'm clean!"

I squeeze the last of the suds outta my hair.

"Come on, then."

He holds out his hand.

Quick to obey, I wade through the water and onto the pebbly shore. He grabs my arm and helps me step up over the shelf of dirt, onto dry land, where he wraps me up in the big towel that he bought with us. A gust of hot breeze sails through the forest as I hastily dry myself off, wanting to get back to camp as soon as possible. It's never good news when we find walkers. They've been following us for days, travelling tirelessly through the night while we sleep. Besides, dinner is probably being served by now, since I'm the last one to bathe tonight.

As usual, I'm not looking forward to it.

Once I'm dry, I step into my underwear and my purple pyjama pants, and then pull on my frog shirt and my lady-bug boots.

My Dad packs the bottle of hand-soap that I used to wash myself with and my old, dirty clothes into his pack.

He nods me forward. "Let's go."

We start the short hike back to camp. We step over mushroom-infested logs and shallow ditches filled with noisy crickets; our path lit by a flashlight. At one point, we have to duck under a glittering spider-web, which is pretty cool. I like spiders, especially fat and colorful ones.

Soon enough, we can hear a fire crackling in the distance, and we step through the trees.

We made it back.

All the vehicles are parked in a bumper-to-bumper ring around a tiny campfire, where the group is silently sitting together in the grass. Rick rations the cooked food into a bunch of bowls, mugs, and plates as Glenn passes bottles of boiled water around. We take our spots next to Carol. She takes four bowls from Rick, and hands one to Sophia, and then another two to me and my Dad. Dale hands us some spoons. We don't bother thanking them. There's a grim look on both their faces. They don't wanna be doin' this, but they don't got a choice, and neither do we.

Everyone settles down, reluctant to begin eating.

I look over at Carl, who's hair is also wet from his river-bath. He peers into his bowl. He looks like he's gonna puke.

I peer down at mine. I feel the same way.

"Dig in, everyone." Rick mutters.

T-Dog echoes him unenthusiastically.

Oh, well.

I can't survive without food. I should just get it over with.

I start with the intestines.

There are disgusting crunching and chewing and slurping noises all around me as I inch the brown tube into my mouth.

It's chewy like a frozen squid ring, and slippery like sausage-skin.

Tastes like chicken, I tell myself, even though I know it came from a skunk.

I think about what's inside a skunk. It's got a little heart, much smaller than ours, which I think is what Rick is eating, 'cause I can see little pipe-like things hanging off the chunk of meat in his hand. The fire flutters ominously over his face, his stare locked onto a burning branch as it turns to ash. Then there's the liver, which is now diced up on Carl's spoon. He swallows it one go, like cough medicine. There are the kidneys. Glenn got those, but he's not really eating 'em. He's knocking 'em back like big, rubbery pills instead, so he don't gotta taste 'em. There's also its stomach and its spaghetti-intestines, and then the breast and the ribs, which is the good part, which I'm saving for last.

Then, the most shameful parts are the paws and the tongue and, ugh, the nose and the tail and the eyeballs.

Those parts aren't meant for eating. I never even saw 'em in the freezer section at the supermarket.

But we're eating 'em.

We'll starve if we don't.

With oily fingers and scrunched up noses, we bite and chew and swallow every last morsel of the poor skunk, including the feet and the snout, until it's just a bad memory — Just protein and fat to keep us alive, and not animal-guts. I remember back at the quarry, I used to think surviving meant using a single square of toilet paper instead of four or five, but now I know it's this. It's gnashing on skunk organs.

"Saw a walker out there." Dad mumbles, as he nibbles on the tail bone. "S'just the one, but..."

"Where there's one, there's a hundred." Glenn muses.

Walkers are like ants. There used to be a big ant-hill in our yard, and sometimes I'd just watch 'em crawl over each other, mindless.

"We'll pack up at first light." Rick frowns. "One walker ain't gonna slow us down."

"You okay?" Jacqui asks us.

I nod, staring down at my shiny lumps of skunk-gut.

"What happened?"

"It was just some loaner." Dad explains. "Came up to the river while Harley was washin'. Shot it quick."

"More and more seem to be poppin' up." Shane tells everybody. "Keep your eyes peeled tonight, alright? Who's on watch?"

Glenn and Andrea lift their hands.

Then Morales points between himself and Rick. "We take over, afterwards."

Shane nods. "Y'all know the drill. No noisy weapons; no gunfire. Try to keep everyone alive 'till sunrise."

"How close even is Fort Benning by now?" Carl suddenly asks. "We've been driving for ages."

"Carl..." Rick rubs his forehead.

"Listen, we drove down Lone Oak today. We're nearin' Hogansville." Shane says. "So, we're just shy three days away, I reckon."

Carl sighs heavily, picking at his food.

Three more days means three more nights, which means three more dinners like this one. My Dad skinned it the best he could, and it's cooked all the way through, but it's still a little nasty considering we've only been eating granola bars and tinned fruit up until now. Even the squirrel burgers Uncle Merle used to make tasted better than this, 'cause at least he threw some salt and pepper on those.

"It's not forever, baby." Lori comforts Carl. "We just need to stick it out until then."

"Yeah, I guess." He grouches.

As I suck the meat off the skunk's leg bone, I think to myself, Just three more days.

After a while, T-Dog stands.

"Thanks for the experience, man," He sighs, "But I think I'm gonna turn in."

Rick nods. "I think it's best we all do. We got more travelling ahead of us; Need the rest."

"I know I do." Dale scoffs, stretching.

Glenn and Andrea walk off to start patrolling the area for the night, and the rest of us drop our dishes into a bucket of water to be washed tomorrow morning. I say goodnight to everyone and follow my Dad into the truck. He hands me one of the pillows and the blanket to snuggle into. He clicks off the ceiling light, and 'cause he don't sing for me tonight, I count the fish on my blanket until I drift off to sleep instead.

I swear I hear Shane and Dale arguing sometime during the night.

Grrr...

The next morning, I wake up to the sound of a car engine humming lowly. Groggily, I turn over, covering my ears with my blanket. The noise persists. I turn over again, trying to fall back asleep, but again, the noise persists. And it keeps persisting, almost for a full minute, until I begin to think, That doesn't actually sound much like a car engine. Confused, I slowly lift my head, peeking out the wind—

Smack!

A pale hand, grabbing at the glass.

Grrrr...

It's not an engine.

It's a walker.

It's nose bone makes a tick, tick, tick sound as it knocks into the window, its purple gums and black teeth kissing at me, tongue licking.

I scream.

My Dad jumps awake beside me.

Smack!

He's confronted with the sight of the walker mouthing and groping the glass, and he quickly puts his arm in front of me.

He huffs, "What the Hell?"

Smack!

"You okay?"

"Uh-huh." I answer, "But... aren't Morales and Rick supposed to be on watch?"

They wouldn't have let a walker get this close if they could help it.

He peers outside. "Yeah, they are."

Smack!

Behind us, there's another one. With two bloated, gummy hands, a second walker palms at Dad's window, leaving behind sticky hand-prints and gooey blood. He unsheathes his knife, angrily winds the window down about an inch, and stabs it through the forehead. It crumples to the ground, only to be replaced by another one. Then another, and another, all rushing to pile on top of each other, sniffing the air and clicking their rotten teeth at us. I count them — Three, four, five — Five walkers crowding against Dad's side of the truck.

He scoffs, "Found us, did ya?"

Where there's one, there's a hundred.

He winds the window back up, but the walkers wiggle their fingers through the gap like little worms.

"Damn it."

They start tugging it down with combined strength, shoving their knobbly elbows and shoulders and hands inside. Dad tries to ram it closed, but it gives in, sliding all the way open once more. The dead immediately start climbing inside. I scream again. Dad scoots back until we're pressed up against the opposite window, with the original walker licking at the back of our necks through the glass. I can hear it going, Tick, tick, tick.

Dad picks his crossbow up off the floor and loads it, aims it, and—

Fwip!

The closest walker face-plants onto the driver's seat.

"Where are they?" I worry. "Morales and Rick. What if they're in trouble?"

Fwip!

"Just stay behind me."

The next walker slumps on top of the last one.

He yanks the bolt out its nose and stabs the next one in the eye with it, and then the one after that, too.

He grunts as he pulls it out. Grey blood splatters the ceiling.

"Rick!" He calls out. "Morales! Glenn! Where are ya?"

"Dad, they're not answering!"

Dad drives the bolt into the last walker's ear canal, slamming its head into the side mirror. Both the walker-skull and the mirror crack in half, tumbling into the grass below. He lets the bolt fall with 'em, and winds up the window just in time for three more walkers to run into it, their peeling mouths held agape, and their eyeballs rolling up into their lids. I watch them slobber and moan.

One of them has a hatchet in its neck.

Dad drops back down, panting.

I recognise the yellow tape wound around the handle.

Dad must, too, 'cause he says, "That's Rick's hatchet."

The walkers continue slapping the truck and moaning incoherently as we peer out the windows. Over their shoulders, I can see one, two, three, five, eight, ten walkers stumbling through camp, all tripping over the chairs and the logs from the fire. One by one, they latch onto their choice of vehicle with dead hands, like the RV, which is totally surrounded. I've never seen this many walkers, not even back at the quarry. In the back window, we can see Sophia peeking past the curtains. In the front, we see Dale and Glenn trying to get our attention.

My Dad waves to 'em once he notices.

"Where's Rick and Morales?" He yells.

They get the gist of what he's tryna ask, and they both shrug, which makes us even more worried.

"They gotta still be out there." Dad grumbles.

I scan the sea of greasy heads wandering by. They're all half-beaten, blood-soaked, stringy, and mishappen, but oh, not that one — That one's regular, and it's moving way faster than the others. Another one trails behind it, I realize, slightly taller. It must be them.

"Dad!" I point. "I think that's them!"

"Yeah? Where?"

"There!"

One, two, three walkers are slashed to the ground, revealing — Yes! — Rick and Morales.

"There they are!"

Dad leans over me, opening the door. "Hey! Over here!"

"Get ready to go!" Rick yells at us.

The original walker falls onto its back, and both Rick and Morales make a bee-line for the truck, shouldering their way past walker after walker after walker, until they reach the door. They step over the flailing walker and climb inside. We make room for them as fast as we can. I climb onto my Dad's lap behind the wheel as Morales slams the door closed, panting, covered head to toe in blood of all different colors.

"Go!" Rick pats the dash. "Drive! We gotta go!"

"What about all the stuff out there?" I ask.

The dishes, the bucket, the chairs.

"We have to leave it." Rick shakes his head. "We can't stay here a second longer."

"Everyone good?" My Dad asks him, turning the keys.

"Yeah." He pants. "Got— Got caught off guard, that's all. Everyone else was still inside the cars. They're safe."

The truck sputters to life. Dad stomps on the gas. The tyres squeal all at once, and we tear off into the forest, between clusters of thin trees. The walkers try to cling on, but they're too weak to keep up and they topple over into the dirt. We leave them in the distance — shrinking, shrinking, shrinking, until they look like little stick figures, and then like nothing. The truck bumps and wobbles along the dirt road, following after the RV.

Behind us, the rest of the vehicles catch up.

Rick counts them through the back window. He sighs. Everyone's here.

As branches hit the sides of the truck, he speaks up. "You two okay? Harley, you okay?"

"Yeah," I nod. "Just... There were so many of 'em."

He puts his hand on my shoulder, leaning his head back, closing his eyes. "Tell me about it."

We enjoy the silence — the calm — as we make our way through the woods. I can tell Dad wants to ask what happened, but he keeps his mouth shut for now. Caught off guard? What does that mean? After some time, we reach a break in the trees. We tail the RV as it pulls back onto the highway that we started on, feeling just a little more exhausted than we were the day before; dirtier, bloodier, and hungrier.

At least we're alive.

It's not until we've been driving for at least twenty minutes that I spot the bite mark on Morales' wrist.

Oh.

Rick catches me looking, but he doesn't look surprised.

He just looks defeated.

The next time we stop, it's not to siphon gas or to sleep.

It's to kill Morales.

We all wait together on the highway as Shane and Rick march him into the trees. It'll be quick and painless, were the words they used. Apparently, Morales chose to be shot in the head instead of bein' left to turn, and they're gonna honour that choice by killing him. Louis and Eliza weren't comforted by any of this, though. Neither was Miranda. I feel so awful for them. They cling to each other, a family made up of pain and hurt waiting for the worst to come, which will be in the form of an echoing Bang a few minutes from now.

Jacqui gives Miranda's tear-coated cheek a kiss, and Lori rubs her back gently.

It's the best anyone can do.

My Dad sits next to me on the bed of the truck, watching the trio disappear between the shrubs.

Rick's revolver glints in the afternoon sun.

"It's gonna be like Tank again, ain't it?" I ask numbly, ready.

It's quick and painless, the vet-lady had said, before she poked him with a needle that sent him into a permanent sleep.

"Yeah." He mutters.

He rubs my back now, as well.

It's a bit like Jenner, too, I accidently think, And a bit like Momma.

Sadly, I muse, "I liked Morales."

He grips my shoulder and pulls me into his side.

Together we watch summer clouds pan overhead.

Bang!

Kinda sounds like a firework.

Miranda starts weeping.

Quick and painless.

Maybe for Morales.

But not for us.

It's two days later now, and we still haven't reached Fort Benning.

Miranda, Louis and Eliza are no longer part of the group. After Morales died, they wanted to leave, and so they left. After some convincing, Rick and Shane set them up with a box of bullets, a pistol, and a map, and then we all exchanged hugs. Eliza gave me and Sophia each of her two beaded bracelets. We were real sad to be saying goodbye the other kids like this. Their little station wagon drove off into the horizon, and then that was it — We were suddenly down four people; one dead, and three gone, all overnight. I never realized how small our group was until then.

I think everybody's takin' it pretty hard — Especially Rick, who hasn't spoke in days. I think he was the one that shot Morales.

Problems, I can handle. Full-scale disasters, not so much.

Nobody from our group has died until now, so I'd say this classifies as a full-scale disaster.

I think what we've learnt from all this is that whether you're scavenging or travelling, you can't cheat yourself out of danger.

Still, we've been pushing on. It's what we do best.

Sitting in the passenger seat of the RV, I try re-reading Hairy Maclary again while Dale drives beside me, but it's hard to concentrate. I give up after a while and switch to gazing outside at the rolling landscape. Every now and then, we pass a walker, and I'm reminded of everything all over again.

I'm staring at a bird soaring alongside the highway when the RV comes to a stop.

"Ah, jeez." Dale mutters.

I frown, "What's goin' on?"

When I look out the window, the answer is immediately obvious.

"Oh."

"Jammed to Hell." He sighs.

"We gotta be cursed or somethin'." I mumble. "So much is goin' wrong."

He chuckles a little. "I think you might be right about that."

Glenn walks up behind us and grabs both our chairs, peering outside at the littering of cars.

"Wow..." He sighs.

Dale gestures vaguely at it all. "Just our luck, isn't it?"

"Maybe we can circle back?" Glenn suggests. "There was an interstate bypass back there."

Dale shakes his head. "We can't spare the fuel."

I glance at the fuel meter. I don't know how it works, but I'm pretty sure the E is for empty, and the needle is way too close to it right now.

My Dad brings the truck up besides the RV.

"You see a way through?" Dale calls out to him.

Dad nods us forward, driving ahead to guide us through the wreckage. Dale follows. He steers the huge RV along the narrow path, and we crawl along like this for a couple minutes. We watch in unison as a group of birds casually peck at an empty baby seat strewn across the tarmac. They stare at us with their beady little eyes as we pass. There are car crashes mangled in with the guardrail, and walker-bodies smeared into the gravel. I remember bein' on a highway exactly like this one with my Dad and my Uncle Merle, in the beginning, when people still thought they could drive away from it all. We chose to leave after a while, but many stayed. I guess this is pretty much what happened to them all.

All of a sudden, as we're turning a slight corner, the RV gives out a clunk, clunk, clunk noise.

That's not good.

"What was that?" Glenn frowns.

Clunk!

As if to answer, smoke starts trickling out from underneath the hood.

We roll along for a couple more feet before creaking to a definite stop.

That's not good either.

"Ugh, it's that darn radiator hose." Dale slaps his knee, frustrated. "I knew it wouldn't survive the trip. I just knew it."

He gets up, and me and Glenn follow him outside into the hot sun.

Both ahead of us and behind us, the others hop out their cars, confused.

"I said it, didn't I?" Dale complains, watching hopelessly as his precious RV billows smoke. "A thousand times... Dead in the water."

I try smiling. "Don't worry. We'll fix it."

He tries smiling back, but he doesn't look too convinced.

Shane approaches. "Problem, Dale?"

"Oh, I don't know." He sighs. "Just the small matter of being stranded in the middle of nowhere, with a herd breathing down our necks and no hope of ever finding a new—" He cuts himself off, remembering where it is we're standing exactly. "Okay," He mutters, "That was dumb."

We're surrounded by radiator hoses.

"If you can't find a radiator hose here..." Shane scoffs.

My Dad jogs up to us, frowning at the broken engine. "What's goin' on? That the hose again?"

Dale nods. "Broken, just like I predicted."

Dad shrugs. "I can have a go fixin' it up. You got tools?"

"A few. Nothing fancy."

"I can siphon more fuel." T-Dog offers.

Carol suggests, "Maybe find some water?"

"And some food." Glenn adds, cringing already at the thought of eating another dinner of skunk-kidneys. "We could definitely use some food."

Everyone looks like they agree with that sentiment.

Rick considers all this.

It wasn't his plan to scavenge any more, but we need to, and we're not gonna get a more perfect opportunity than this.

"Okay," He eventually decides, clearing his throat. "We'll split into pairs; conquer this one car at a time, together. T-Dog, Glenn. See if you can't find us some more fuel. Shane, Daryl. You're with me. We'll circle the area for walkers, make sure it's safe for now. Dale, you're on watch. We don't need that herd sneaking up on us today. Rest of you, don't wander too far. And keep an eye out for any food and water laying around, okay? We'll be back on track in about half an hour, I reckon."

"Are you sure about this?" Lori asks, clutching her necklace. "This place is a graveyard."

"It—" Rick shakes his head. "It'll have to do."

"C'mon, y'all." Shane says. "Let's just take a look around. Doesn't have to take long."

With that, Rick's new plan is put into motion.

I look down at the pink and green bracelet on my wrist, next to Amy's hair lackey, and I pretend I don't feel sad at all.

I been doin' that a lot lately.

Author's Note.

Okay, admittedly, this one is a little filler-y... I just needed to set up the whole herd situation, and I also wanted to spend a little more time on the road before we reach the farm. I still hope you enjoyed. I've been feeling a little insecure recently about how often I've been deviating from canon, but I'm trying to ignore it, haha.

RIP Morales. Season two just wasn't in the cards for him.

Also the Shane vs Daryl thing didn't really come up in this chapter... Oops. Next time! It's about to get crazy for those two, ahaha. I have some interesting things planned for them and Harley.

Thank you everyone for reading!

[ao3feed-irondadspiderson]

Aunt Infestation

https://archiveofourown.org/works/52199920 by Sara (ctrsara) Pepper's out of town, and Peter had sort of invited Tony to spend Thanksgiving with him and May. “You can totally come, Tony, but I gotta warn you about May’s aunts,” Peter had said, his face very serious. “They’re crazy.” When Tony had given him a questioning look, Peter had continued. “I mean, they were crazy the last time I saw them, and that was like six years ago, so they’re probably even crazier now that they’re older.” Chaos and busybody-ness ensue.   Comfortember 2023: 20 - Shopping, 23 - Anxiety, 27 - Soup, and 29 - Sleepover. Flufftober Alt 3 - Wearing each other's clothes (it's barely there, but there's plenty of fluff in this story, so I decided to go with it!) and Cozywinter 2023: 17 - Awkward family visits, 22 - Holiday meals and 24 - Sharing a holiday with friends/found family. Words: 5165, Chapters: 1/1, Language: English Series: Part 13 of Unbroken Strands, Part 7 of Comfortember 2023 Fandoms: Marvel Cinematic Universe, Spider-Man (Tom Holland Movies), The Avengers (Marvel Movies) Rating: General Audiences Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply Categories: Gen Characters: Tony Stark, Peter Parker, Aunt May Parker (Marvel), Friday (Marvel), Aunt May's crazy relatives Relationships: Peter Parker & Tony Stark, Aunt May Parker & Peter Parker, Aunt May Parker & Tony Stark, Aunt May Parker & Peter Parker & Tony Stark Additional Tags: Comfortember, Comfortember 2023, Thanksgiving, Crack Treated Seriously, Fluff and Crack, Tony Stark is a Tease, Tony Stark Has A Heart, Tony Stark Acting as Peter Parker's Parental Figure, Aunt May Parker & Tony Stark Coparenting Peter Parker, Aunt May Parker & Tony Stark Friendship, Holidays, Thanksgiving Crack, Inspired by a Geico commercial, Why isn't that a tag?, Tony Stark is Good With Kids read it on AO3 at https://archiveofourown.org/works/52199920

[hymnserendipity]

Tsukkiyama and daisuga horror vacation

Light horror

Song Ayun was a quiet town, nestled in the Vietnamese mountains, a perfect place to relax and get in touch with nature. Four friends were staying in a small but characteristic artificial hot spring resort for the weekend, which meant drinking and relaxing in the water. In reality, Karasuno was supposed to be full but between those who had an exam at college and those who had a work shift, in the end they were the only ones available. On the second night, however, the two couples decided to go out and drink a beer on the river bank, so as to celebrate and end that short vacation in style. So it was that Koushi, Daichi, Kei and Tadashi, the latter in the lead, headed out of the hotel, immediately finding a freezing darkness. Having glimpsed the water of the river from their rooms, they followed its roar in that moonless night. Unlike the previous evening, it wasn't hot, in fact the air was full of vegetation. With the help of the phone's flashlights they went down the stone steps at the back of the hotel, and the air in general was incredibly few. Some points of the parking lot were surrounded by thick chains that were difficult to notice in the dark despite the flashlights, because they were old and rusty, they blended in with the asphalt ground, and it was pure chance that Koushi, grabbing Tadashi clumsily almost shouted: "Wait!" thus avoiding both of them falling to the ground after hitting that line that reached just below their knees.How risky it seemed to move even ten meters away from the reassuring light of that living room that had cost the two boys three weeks of their miserable wages as waiters. Once the four friends had passed the parking lot, the sound of the river was getting closer and closer, leading them along the only unpaved road through the brush that led to the bank.

<<It's so macabre.>> Daichi said weakly, as they passed among the skeletons of the stalls now closed for the day. The stools in front of the empty counters seemed inhabited by the ghosts of an old clientele that had come to feast at that late hour of the night. They continued walking along the road that was becoming increasingly deserted, until they saw the glow of the gurgling water a few meters away from them. Simo breathed a silent sigh of relief, opening the green checked tablecloth and placing it on the lawn. They all sat in silence, passing Kei their beers to open with a lighter, and began to look at the sky and the river, listening to the loud chirping of the cicadas. It wasn't long before Tadashi, certainly the least reckless of the group, jumped up, spilling his beer between the grass and the tablecloth, yelling, "Spiders! There are spiders!" and starting to run in circles, slapping his own arms and clothes. What to expect from a picnic on the grass? The boy thought, rolling his eyes. Since there didn't seem to be any way to sit down in peace, Daichi looked around for another place to sit together in the area. His gaze fell a little further on, on a metal bench lit by the light of a vending machine. "Okay, let's get away from here." he blurted out, helping Kei fold up the half-soaked and smelly tablecloth and stuffing it into a plastic bag they had initially brought to use as a garbage can. They sat there for a quarter of an hour before Koushi looked up and, like his little friend, first, she started screaming. The spiders, as big as a hand, infested the frames of every wall and crack in the area. It was clear to everyone by now that it would be impossible to continue that evening outside the hotel, which is why they approached in silence towards the parking lot, demoralized and partly frightened by those monsters that they had found next to them. <<Come on Kei, give us a break!>> Tadashi exclaimed annoyed. After walking a few meters she realized that the boy was not among them, and that he was playing one of his phantom pranks in bad taste, especially at a time when they were all already so nervous. Daichi sighed, looking at his friend as if to say Not again!

The boys continued walking almost to the parking lot, lighting themselves with their phones both to avoid getting in the way and to avoid falling victim to the prank. Kei was in fact renowned lately for approaching them from behind and making them scream in fear. But even though they turned to observe every visible corner of that place, Kei's figure was nowhere to be seen. The boys felt the same terrifying sensation as on April 12th of that same year, when they had gone to the haunted house of a city amusement park and waited with trepidation for the actors to scare them. But this was different, because it was not controlled. "Stop playing!" Tadashi shouted, but he didn't feel like going to look for him. With the phone in his hand, and the flashlight still on, he dialed the phone number of the boy who extremely rarely put the phone on silent and who, he thought, he would capture just like that. A few moments later the characteristic symphony of his favorite Maroon Five song resounded between the roar of the river and the chirping of the cicadas. With a burst of energy Tadashi headed towards that sound, continuing to walk until she found herself once again in the light of the gas station. The phone was on the ground, it continued to ring. But there was no sign of Kei.

After a few minutes, when Tadashi, who had gone on a scouting mission, had not yet returned, Daichi thought he had joined in on the prank and followed his example, ringing his friend's phone and following the sound to the drinks dispenser, under which there were two devices, one of which was lit up for the call in progress. Kousi followed the boy after just two minutes, finding himself in front of drops of a viscous liquid on the dark asphalt, before feeling a huge, hairy, skeletal finger walk over his shoulder. He didn't even have time to scream.

[mraprilfools]

Word Count: 4.1k

Rating: Mature

CW/TW: Period typical Racism, F slur, Graphic depiction of insects, Child Abuse, Animal abuse & Death

Summary:

A story about Alastor's beginning's and how he ended up with the chain around his neck. In the confines of a prison he meets a devil, a god, or something else entirely that offers a deal too good to be true... Preview under the cut.

It was always dark in the attic.

And it was always filthy.

Dust everywhere. On walls, the floors, you couldn’t take a breath without it filling your lungs.

Cobwebs webbed on every corner, you couldn’t breach any new territory without it wrapping around your body.

Then there was the musty stench of sweat crawling over Alain’s body. Unwashed from so many days left up in the sweltering hell. He quickly retracted his hand when an insect skittered across it. He wondered if it might be a spider, centipede, roach, or otherwise. Eyes adjusted to the darkness hours ago, he preferred to remain ignorant. So he did not go searching for answers he didn’t want. Didn’t think about it. He focused on the single lifeline he had up here: The light from the Four-pane window.

It was the only connection he had with the outside world. The dying embers of the day stained half the attic in an ethereal orange glow. As if peering into the gates of hell. And some days? He felt like opening the window and taking that leap. He’d cast his body to the flames if it meant he could escape this silence.

Escape the sound of his blood pumping through his veins. The company he shared in these four dark corners. And the looming presence of something he could not be sure was imagination, madness, or… a demon that stepped through the glowing orange gate.

Tk. Tk. Tk. Tk. Tk. Shkshkshkshskshk.

One could argue it was a squirrel. But it was far too constantly skittering across the ceiling above him. A crumbling of dirt fell into his hair, greasy from the days left unwashed. A large rat sped past him. Ugly, matted fur, red beady eyes, with a short pinkish tail, torn at the end. Alain’s eyes fixated on it, watching it nibble on the leftovers of the meal his mother prepared him yesterday. The unwashed, ragged face of the boy reflected in its glassy soulless eyes.

A heavy wind hissed through the trees outside the window, a large gnarled branch stretched banging against the window. Shadowy tendrils in the outstretched yellow light crawling across the floorboards only just out of reach. Waiting. Simply waiting to drag him to hell.

How did he end up here?

Well-- He’d been a very, very, very bad boy.

A man insulted his mother. And he sought to make him into something far more polite. He’d practiced on many creatures before. Cats, dogs, birds, even pigs. But, never a man. The drunkard was far bigger than him, stronger too. But strength and size weren’t everything. The dullard was fond of day drinking and far too confident around a child. He never expected to wake up with a blade in his throat, and the impassive eyes of a child holding it down to silence his burbling protests.

When he kicked the body into the gator-infested waters, he felt far more guilt for soiling his mother’s dear kitchen knife than what he’d done to him. To Alain, the sailor had been no better than the rats feasting on garbage. A cold corpse was an improvement over the blithering idiot he once was. It was…easier than he thought it would be. It was… empowering, life-changing. A realization of his power to change the world around him.

When Alain got home, his first instinct was to wash the blade in the sink. Alain didn’t want manman’s cherished knife to rust! He didn’t care about how he tracked swamp mud through the house, or how it stuck to his clothes mingled with blood. Brand new clothes soiled by the swamp waters still secondary to the things his mother cherished.

When Manman wandered the house, Alain could always tell by the daintier footsteps on the floorboards. Those always meant safety to him. Serenity. Peace.

But he feared the heavy stomping of boots. Those belonged to his father. Or as he called him in his mind: The Beast.

The way he stomped around his grounds making his authority known, feared wasn’t the picture of a loving father or a doting husband. It was a beast that wanted control over what was under its roof. The heavy footsteps made him a doe in the woods.

If it remained constant, that was fine. It was his father’s neutral state. What does he truly need to watch out for? Was the silence. When it became so quiet you could hear a pin drop. When you could hear the rush of air hissing through his nostrils and his teeth. The beast didn’t use words. It had to hiss through its jaws and strike violence so you knew to not provoke it.

If you were lucky, it would be the drywall. More than a few holes littered the house where a fist punched clean through. A reminder that it could have been him if the transgression or noise had been any worse. The handyman of this father would plaster them in places, but the off-color still told the story of many nights of undirected rage.

[astarab1aze]

➥ Witcher Schools

it's no secret, witchers are a thing in my universe - and i have three schools of my own to add into the mix, each with their own purposes and trials. not one-to-one with witcher lore.

School of the Wolf in Vago, at the junction of the Stormlands, the Dustveil, and the Diremark for optimum well-rounded training, in the Dragon's Tail Mountains at Kaer Morhen

School of the Gryphon in Myrrdin, in the Dragon's Spine foothills west of the Chimerian border at Kaer Seren

School of the Cat in Yuurei, in the Dina Mara Caravan traveling up and down the eastern half of the continent

School of the Bear in Kavast, in Arnaghad in the Kavastan Dragon's Spine, though it is disbanded and lies in ruin

School of the Salamander in Seralta, hidden in the Sabaari Forest near the volcano Odesza's Spout at Fort Ejderha

School of the Raven in Strigane, located in the deep, rocky pine forests of the Bloodwood at Kaer Dēle

School of the Spider in the Dustveil, in the redstone caves of the Carapace Wastes of the Dustveil at Mākurā

Witcher schools are institutions built on the prospect of propogating witchers, to train and equip them with the tools and techniques necessary to slay the monsters awoken by the mad empress's war in the second era; Each school has their own set of ideals, training methods, trials, fighting styles, and more, unique to the regions in which they've built their secluded strongholds. These schools once belonged to the order of witchers, but split off some four-hundred years before the turn of the fourth era, continuing to create and train witchers well into the third century. Unfortunately, as witchers are seen as monstrous themselves, despite having had no say in the paths their lives would take, they are by and large shunned and hated by most people across the continent - humans especially - so many of their keeps have been sacked and all but fallen since. Some have been rebuilt and still function to this day, into the fourth century, but the core of their knowledge to make new witchers has been lost. as such, the schools themselves are dying fast, if not already.

One surviving school is the School of the Spider.

The School of the Spider, dubbed Mākurā, was built into a system of caves in the eastern-most region of the Dustveil - the Carapace Waste - tasked with discovering the origins of the terrifying widows stalking the desert and exterminating them. They are mysterious and wholly off-putting in demeanour, spindly and small in stature, and pride themselves on their tracking, trapping, and poison methods. They are best known for their inclusion of women among their ranks, though this was born of necessity when the widow infestations were at their worst - it's a practice that hasn't ended, carrying on into the fourth century. Spiders are entirely committed to their mission and haven't deterred nor faltered since their school was built, rigidly adhering to their code.

Trial of Cihana: A mock live entombment, in which a prospective witcher, male or female, would be sealed into a casket that was then filled with juvenile widows - which are highly venomous - for three days. If the student survived, they would move on to the next trial. (A supposed result of this trial is superior resistence to widow venom, as well as most poisons, and a statuesque patience and calmness in the face of...well, anything)

They are characterized by an eight-legged widow medallion, both cloth and carapace armor, and twin curved swords of silsaph and steel with sharp, angular pommels. They are regarded, by Kirati and J'verdien people, as friends, something rarely extended to witchers across the continent. In breslin and norhaven, they are seen as monsters and spider-blighted freaks. Most of the Fhal'Tir in the Diremark are uneasy around them if not outright hostile toward them. In all fairness, they do indeed take orphaned boys and girls into their 'care', where the accusations of abduction come from, and from then on they subject these children to horrific experiments and trials as best can be replicated from their notes full of holes, continuing on in patent refusal to allow their school to die.

As mentioned before, they take girls and boys into their numbers. Any new recruits must be able to use at least one magical affinity, what was once applied only to girls now extending to boys, and none of them can be beastfolk (they tried that, didn't work with the concoctions needed to create witchers, and they have no intention on trying again in the present day even without them). The women of the Spider school are perhaps more dangerous than the men, by the end of their training, as they are often subjected to different and sometimes worse trials to mete out any undesirable traits. For the most part, everything is equal across the board, if somewhat flawed. No one wishes for this life, it's simply forced upon them, and the Spiders do what they can to ensure their witchers have every advantage, however cruelly they're given.

The School of the Spider is led by a witcheresse by the name of Adisheree Abadie, a cold, calculating, and pragmatic woman known for her combined handling of necrosis and blood magic. Most Spider witchers today aren't 'true' witchers by any means, including her, but due to some of their techniques, perhaps they all are true witchers after all... whatever that means.