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maxineswritingcenter · 3 years ago

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You Saved Me - Derek Hale x fem!reader part 24

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2004

“We lay to rest a beloved member of the community. A mother. A friend. A daughter. A wife. Claudia Stilinski...” We stood on the lawn of Beacon Hills Memorial Cemetery, watching Aunt Claudia’s casket being lowered into the ground. She had been sick for so long and it was starting to turn ugly... But she was in a better place now, that’s what Uncle Noah said. When he spoke at least. I looked past the grieving people, like Ms. McCall, Scott, the entire police department, and looked at Stiles. He looked so tired. His cheeks were tear stained and his eyes were red from crying.

Once people started to disperse, my parents and I made our way over to Uncle Noah and Stiles. While the adults talked, Stiles and I just continued to stare at the grave. The grounds keepers were starting to cover her body with dirt.

“Do you want me to spend the night tonight?” I whispered, reaching over and holding his hand.

Stiles shook his head, chewing on the inside of his cheek, “I want to be alone tonight.” He gave my hand a squeeze.

“Wouldn’t tonight be the worst time to be alone?”

“I just want to be at home with my dad. I need some time for myself.”

“(Y/N).” We both turned at my father’s voice, “Let’s go, sweetie.” We both looked back at the grave.

“Okay. Well, call if you change your mind.” I gave his hand a squeeze before letting it slip away.

We got into the car, making our way back home.

“How you holding up, sweetie?” Mom turned back and looked at me over the sink.

“I don’t want to be alone tonight.” I said, looking out the window.

“Well, you don’t have to.” Dad said, “We’ll get into our pjs and watch Disney movies. You know how much Aunt Claudia loved Disney movies.”

I swallowed thickly, “Actually... I was hoping that I could go to see the Hales. If that’s okay.” Dad sighed loudly and mom smacked him subtly.

“Sure, baby.” Mom said, a sad smile on her face, “I’ll call Talia when we get home.”

When I was dropped off at the Hales’, Talia welcomed me with open arms, a blanket, and a hot chocolate. I guess what I needed was away from the whole situation. We played games, Laura braided my hair, we made friendship bracelets. At the end of the night, Laura and Cora had fallen asleep to the movie we had been watching and Derek had snuck us both onto the roof of the Hale house. We were on our back, looking up at all the stars in the sky and the moon shining down on us. We had been in silence for a while until Derek cleared his throat awkwardly.

“So, uh, are you excited for high school next year?”

I sighed and shook my head, “After today? I don’t think I’ll be ready for anything.”

“Yeah...” He turned on his side to face me, “I’m sorry about your aunt. I know she was important to you.”

“Thanks...” I turned, “I guess I’m just kinda worried about everything. I don’t know what life is going to be like without her. And I’m worried about Stiles too.”

“I bet. I don’t know what I would do if I lost my mom.” He said. Then, he reached out and grabbed my hand, “Whenever you feel like this again, let me know. You can come over and we can do this again. Whatever you need, I’ll be there.”

I smiled, a slight blush to my cheeks that I really hoped was hidden in the dark, “Thanks, Derek.”

“Of course.” He smiled, “It’s what friends do.”

The communication with Beacon Hills was slim to none. And, ya know, that didn’t feel great. I understood that everyone was busy living their lives whether it was being a high school student or fighting supernatural beings or being a supernatural being or the sheriff in a town full of both. But unanswered texts and calls were starting to get to me.

The ones I got weren’t great either though. Stiles occasionally sent me a long email about the events that had happened since long distance calls weren’t in the phone plan.

I had learned more about the alpha pack - a blind one, a woman who could definitely use a manicure, a strong man, and twins who could morph into each other. I was almost a little happy I didn’t have to deal with that.

All the betas were missing except Isaac who had stayed behind. Even if he did get in trouble every now and then.

And then missing turned into dead. Hearing that Erica was dead really hit me hard. I barely knew the girl, a few moments and quick chats usually didn’t mean that much. But they found her locked in a closet, rotting. It was horrifying. She was a child. She was finally enjoying her life - a new life without seizures and bullying, her parents had taken her to get pictures taken; happy to see that their little girl loved herself for the first time. Now she was gone.

They found Boyd alive, thankfully. And surprisingly, they had found Derek’s sister: Cora.

Not forgetting that there were flocks of animals committing mass suicide and kids turning up murdered. It seems home is getting more and more dangerous. Not only was there an alpha pack but there was a creature called a Darach, a dark druid.

The leader of the alpha pack, Deucalion, was trying to get Derek to join his pack. He also wanted me to join as well, apparently he had been asking where I was. To join, he would have to kill the betas. Derek, who I’m sure was done being manipulated, refused. To keep him safe, Derek kicked Isaac out of the depot to live with Scott.

Speaking of dead...

Even thousands of miles away, the vision of falling three stories still hurt as much as if I was actually there. A battle between the alphas, Derek and Scott. And honestly, I wasn’t sure if Derek was alive or dead. Every little message I thought to him just echoed in my head. I had cried, tried forcing myself to work through it. But nothing really worked. I still woke up in the middle of the night, naked on the castle grounds having shifted my feelings or else I was instinctually trying to search for him. First it was anger, next it was denial, then more anger. And that was all just last night.

Hell, not even forgetting to mention the fact that the test Lachlan ran on me was a little more than just a blood panel. They checked for human chorionic gonadotropin hormone aka the pregnancy hormone. And things were just getting better and better. Because it was positive. I am pregnant. And the father may be dead.

Sending a preemptive long distance fee to Stiles’ PayPal account, I called the house phone. It didn’t have caller ID but it was something. Michael didn’t think it was a good idea, however, it was gonna be a cold day in Hell before I listened to his double agent ass. Lachlan thought I deserved closure. And I trusted him more.

“Stilinski residence.” Stiles’ voice was a little scratchy, but still loud and clear.

“Stiles, if you hang up on me I swear you will live to regret it. I still have access to your secret YouTube channel.” There was a pause on the other end, then a sigh.

“Hey (Y/N). I was wondering why I got an email from my PayPal."

"Is there a reason I've been on everyone's pay no mind list? Because it's starting to piss me off."

"Well... Derek said that we shouldn't worry about or get you stressed out."

"So not talking to me for months is supposed to help?" I raised my eyebrows.

"Uh... Ya got me there."

I groaned and started tapping my foot, "I just...." My mind seemed to go blank, my heart rate going up. That's not right. I wasn't doing anything to make it spike like this.

"I know, I know. And I'm sorry, I wish I could contact you more. But there's a lot going on here with the alpha pack and Lydia and-and Derek-"

"Shit." I wheezed, sitting down on the bed. My body felt so warm and not in the way it normally would.

"Yeah I know, it's a lot right now-" His voice was drowned out by my senses taking over. It was the familiar warmth of intimacy. But not from me. It was Derek! He was alive. But he was with someone. And that someone-

He was kissing her. Touching her. His heart racing. Her touch set his skin ablaze and nothing else mattered. Not even the wounds on his body that nearly killed him. But all that mattered was her intoxicating touch. The touch of a woman he didn’t know. But her whole being enveloped him.

I screamed loudly in anger, but behind that anger was so much pain. My chest ached and felt like it was being pulled across the world. I dropped the phone, holding my chest.

"(Y/N)? (Y/N)! What's wrong?!" My breathing was erratic and my thoughts were going wild between what had just happened and what I was thinking and what I had to do from here. I felt so helpless and alone. What could I do?

Then... There was an answer. Maybe it was the stress? Maybe it was my raging hormones? But I had my answer.

I picked the phone back up.

"(Y/N)! Talk to me, what's going on?"

I inhaled and exhaled deeply, "Derek’s alive."

"He is?"

"But not for long." I hung up.

How dare he? HOW COULD HE? AFTER EVERYTHING WE HAVE BEEN THROUGH OUR ENTIRE LIVES AND HE JUST- JUST THROWS IT ALL OUT? And for what? Who could have been more important than me? I'm his stupid mate for Christ's sake.

But if he wants to sleep around?

Fine.

He could for the next thirteen hours. Because I'm going back to Beacon Hills for the soul purpose of ripping his heart out like he did mine. And if this emotional trauma affected my child? Well, there were repercussions for that too.

Michael and Lachlan were in my room, watching me as I threw together a bag to take on the plane. Remarkably, as a member of the Lunar Circle I would get free airfare courtesy of Lachlan mostly because the guy was insanely rich and he agreed with my revenge plot, for the most part.

"Okay, let's think rationally here." Michael said, taking things out of my bag as I was putting them in, "He's a total douche bag for doing this. We all agree. But in your state, I don't think you should fly. I mean anything could happen."

"I can fly until I'm thirty-six weeks along." I said curtly, grabbing my things out of his hands and putting them back in the bag.

"Come on, think about what you're doing-"

"I have thought about it. And I'm going to kill him."

Michael looked back at Lachlan who had his arms crossed over my chest, only observing.

"A little help here, Praetor McLeod?"

Lachlan shrugged, "Seems justified to me."

"Murder? Murder seems justified to you." He asked incredulously.

"It's the werewolf way." Lachlan said simply.

"Thank you, Lachlan." I smiled.

"Anytime."

"Okay, what about this?" Michael stood in front of my path to my bag, "Murdering him seems like a great idea right now, I totally get it. But-but if you do that, it will weigh heavily on your conscience."

"The Lunar Circle has excellent insurance, including therapy." Lachlan chimed in.

I moved Michael out of the way, "Duly noted."

Michael sputtered, "And-and your baby? What about your baby? That's their dad."

"Their dad who decided to stick his penis in another woman." I raised my eyebrows at him, "That one? Yeah, what a stand up guy."

“But you love him. Don’t you think killing him-”

“Michael!” I slammed my suitcase shut, “Shut up.” I turned and faced both of them, “You’re right, okay? I do love him, which is the worst part. I hate him so much but I still love him. I dedicated my life to him and I thought he had dedicated himself to me. I was wrong.” I zipped the bag and made my way out the door, “I’ll be back at the end of the week.”

Getting on the plane didn’t take long. Relatively short lines, quick ticket, fast boarding. Like someone was looking out for me as I went to kick Derek's ass. Becoming alpha to Derek's pack was starting to sound better and better as the pain continued to radiate through my body. Eventually, I just felt numb.

The people on the plane were nice. I sat next to an older gentleman who slept for the most part so I could whisper profanities under my breath. The stewardess had been kind, making sure I had enough to drink. It seems someone had tipped them off I was pregnant, probably Michael. The guy had been a nervous wreck since he found out I was pregnant. He wouldn’t even let me train, not like he had much of a choice in what I did. But he sure knew how to annoy me out of a room. Lachlan had been supportive, talking about adding an additional room onto mine for a nursery. I told that it wasn’t necessary since I wouldn’t be staying in Scotland that long.

After the plane landed, I was met by a very tired looking Stiles. We didn’t speak much, just began the drive back home.

"So...." He swallowed, his eyes darted from me to the road ahead, "Pregnant," He chuckled nervously, "That-that's great! I'm so happy for you.” He tapped his fingers against the steering wheel. He was hesitating, he wanted to say something else, “Uh...Speaking of-” I groaned loudly, another lecture.

He ignored my dramatics, “Maybe you shouldn't kill him. That's not good for the baby..."

“It wasn’t good for the baby when he decided to take our bond, step on it and rub it in the dirt.” He was silent, but not for long.

"Yeah-but you see we kinda need Derek to help with some big bads. Like Deucalion and the Darach and ya know, other stuff."

"I remember you telling me about it. I tried to do some research but Lachlan said that we didn’t have too much information on them.”

“Well that’s not too helpful.”

We made it back to the house at sunset, which was perfect timing. The cover of night would be great to conceal me in the dark. Sure, he would smell my scent but he would have no idea where I was coming from. I pulled on the handle on the door but stared at it when it didn’t budge. Still locked. I looked back at Stiles. He looked tired, a wreck.

“Would you just... See dad before you cover yourself in blood? He was really excited to hear you were coming home.” Like he always seemed to be, Stiles’ was right. I should see Uncle Noah.

“I will. I need to rest anyway. Besides, I can’t kill him on an empty stomach.” I winked.

“You terrify me.” He unlocked the doors. We got out just in time for Uncle Noah to jog down the driveway.

“There she is!” He grinned, wrapping his arms around me and hugging me tight.

“I missed you so much.” I said into his shirt, giving him a soft squeeze. He pulled away and looked over me, “Look at you.” He motioned to my stomach that looked more like I was bloated than a fetus growing inside of me, “This-this is... Mhm. Exciting!”

I chuckled, “Thanks. Very mhm.”

“Uh, you hungry?”

“Starving.”

Dinner had been extremely awkward, the conversation mostly coming back to the child growing inside of me. Lots of questions from both of them. Mostly how I hadn't called. In actuality I had called approximately twenty times a day with no answer from anyone per Derek's request. Unfortunately for him, his requests were now being put on the back burner. I excused myself to my room.

My room was kept the same, I'm certain no one had been inside besides Uncle Noah. And from the ruffled blankets, maybe Stiles. Back when we were kids, we used to sneak scary movies and had to sleep in a huddled pile because we were too scared to sleep by ourselves.

I grabbed a jacket and opened up my window, I was half way out of it when my door opened. Stiles stood in the doorway. We stared at each other for a minute.

“I may regret saying this one day because I don’t care for Derek, but don’t kill him.” He said, “Kick the living shit out of him, sure. Get in a few punches for me. But don’t kill him. We need him.” Of course, all it took was Stiles to talk me off the murder-ledge.

“I won’t kill him.” I smiled, “I’ll be home soon.”

Odds are, with the alpha pack threat Derek will have the depot protected. What he failed to remember was that the most dangerous being in the world had a key to every place in the depot. I simply walked in the front door. Almost like he was expecting me.

His scent was so strong, like the forest after it rained. It made this ball of emotion well up in my chest bringing me back to all the love and memories we had shared together. Not all the memories were life and death. They weren't all fights. Some days, Derek and I would curl up and bed and never leave, only grabbing food here and there. His smile would light up his whole face, sometimes it would even reach his green eyes and make them sparkle. When he would nap, he would lay his head on my chest and sleep, like he was finally at peace with himself and the world. That was the person I loved.

I walked through the main room at the depot, getting to the stairs. The worst part here was the pictures, us together, the pack. I want to make the depot less abandoned and more homey for the betas to have a place to go and relax. Some of the pictures had turned heads at the photo developing counter (but I had managed to convince them that it was for a theater class). The worst part was that on my way here Boyd had been killed. If only I had been here soon, if only I had been here at all. Only two of the pack remained, Isaac and Jackson who was no longer a killer lizard thanks to Lydia. Say what you will about Peter Hale but sometimes he knew what he was talking about.

If Derek knew I was here, he hadn’t tried to make a move. Smart.

After wandering a bit, I finally decided to face the music. I found him hunched over his desk in the main office room. Rain was dancing against the fluorescent lights from the street lamps down below. He hadn’t looked up at me the whole time that I walked up to him. He felt defeat and alone. He had lost everything. He was looking down at his desk, his hands laced together. He looked up slightly, more looking at my shirt than my face.

“I...” His voice was soft and quiet, something unlike the loud, booming man I was used to, “I messed up.”

“Yeah, you did.” It was silent for a moment, then he spoke again.

“Who’s with you?” He asked, his eyes scanning the room.

I narrowed my eyes at him, “No one.”

“Then why do I hear another heart-” His eyes widened. He stared directly at my stomach. I thought I almost saw his ears perk up.

“Are you...”

“I am. I’m having a baby. Emphasis on the ‘I’m’.” I really hadn’t wanted to do much talking, I really hadn’t planned on saying anything besides obscenities and screaming at him. He stood up from the desk and quickly came around, he reached his hand out towards my stomach but I smacked it away.

“You have no right to touch me. Especially when I can still smell her stench on you.” I scrunched up my nose and sneered.

“Look,” He licked his lips, “I can’t give you a good answer or an excuse-”

“Good, because I don’t want one.” I glared.

He looked at me a moment then continued, “I don’t know why I did what I did. Something just came over me. Please tell me you believe me.” He put his hand on my shoulder.

He really should have taken a lesson out of his own book. With amazing speed, I grabbed him by the throat and threw him across the room. When he landed, my features shifted and my eyes glowed red. He groaned, holding at his waist. That’s where he had been injured in the alpha fight, it had healed but it was still sore.

“I don’t want your apologies.” I growled, walking towards him, “I want you to feel what I felt. The pain and the suffering. The violation...” I chuckled darkly, “You know that I felt her hands on you? Touching the most private parts of your body that only I was supposed to feel. Do you know how disgusting I felt afterwards? I felt used and dirty and it wasn’t even my body.” I stepped on his chest with my boot to keep him down on the ground. He still wasn’t looking at me. I snarled, grabbing him by his shirt and shoving him against the concrete pillar he landed on.

“Look at me!” I roared, “You broke me into a million little pieces. You didn’t answer my calls.” I punched him.

“You kept me hidden in the dark about Erica’s death.” I hit him again.

“You wouldn’t let my family communicate with me and when they did they couldn’t even tell me everything that was going on. I was begging to hear from someone, anyone, I was all alone!” I threw him across the room.

“You blocked my number two months ago.” I stalked over to him, ignoring the tears running down my face, “I couldn’t even hear your voice on your goddamn voicemail!” I got down on my knees and grabbed his chin so that his eyes met mine.

“LOOK AT ME!” I screamed, “Look what you did to me! For months you’ve been using our bond for your own strength, strength that used used to heal and have sex with another woman!” My voice was starting to crack as all the things I had thought about were coming out, “See how much my heart broke when I felt how happy you were with someone other than me.” He was finally looking at me. The worst thing though was that his eyes were full of so much love for me, that special twinkle that Peter said only happened when he looked at me. I wasn’t angry anymore, I was devastated.

“I came here to kill you.” I sniffled, my features shifting back to normal, “I wanted to tear your heart out. But I can’t... I can’t because I love you and I don’t want to hurt you anymore. I shouldn’t have hurt you, but I want to because of what you did.” As the anger fogged cleared, I realized that I was just as bad as he was.

“You had every right to hurt me-”

“No, I didn’t. I shouldn’t have hurt you. I’m sorry.” I looked down at my hands, “I felt so out of control. I thought I was getting better at it.”

“You were.” Derek sat up slowly, “It’s the baby. All of your emotions are going to be heightened. More than usual.”

“It doesn’t matter.” I made my way towards the exit, not caring that he was calling after me, running to catch up to me. I just left him there. Even when I got home and he tried to get into my window, I just ignored his pleading. What I did wasn’t right, I shouldn’t have hit him or punched him. I was just so angry and that anger clouded my vision.

Weren’t we a pair - one cheats and the other goes into a blind rage. Perfect.

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lovely-necromancy · 3 years ago

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A Cure for Insomnia CH.5

A scream shocks you out of your fuzzy thoughts. You look around and notice Connor sitting alert and looking like he wants to run down the hallway this very instant.

“Connor?” the head snaps to you immediately and before you can even question his presence in your home he jumps up and barks then walks in circles near the door.

Great a dog who has no sense of horror movie tropes. Since the scream did come from inside your house you should go find the person who made it and see what's wrong. Also maybe get clarification on why they're in your home. You aren't dead and are still in the same clothes so you figure you're alright around them. You follow Connor to where Toby is, in your kitchen staring out the window standing at a very odd angle. Like he caught himself before he fell backwards but hadn't bothered to get up.

“What's up....oh.” is all you can say as you see Chonk's head whip towards you and Connor before he books it for the tree line. Damn that fat raccoon can run fast, good to know if he ever wants to chase you down in the future. Which he might if you don't leave his slice of pizza out today.

“'oh' 'oh', that's all yo-you've got to say about a giant fuck-ing ra-mrrow- raccoon!?!” maybe thinking this guy was composed and unphased was a misconception, if seeing Chonk has put his world views in question.

“I mean he probably just eats a lot of pizza.” to put it simply you never gave much thought to the fat little trash thief, he was just fat and he existed. Visiting your home for the slice he deemed his every other week. Probably had other homes in Kepler he terrorized for the same reasons. God knows Leo would never put up with a raccoon trashing his store for his pizza. Or even his home for that matter.

“He's nearly half the size of Connor!” looking down towards Connor you tilt your head.

“Are we talking about with his legs or just his torso?” you could maybe see the size comparison with the dog's body but with his height it was a different matter all together.

Toby rolls his eyes before going and sitting down at the small breakfast table where he seemed to have found your fidget cube and had been well fidgeting with it. You take the seat opposite of him, it's weird having a guest over especially when you didn't invite them in. Well now that removes the chances of him being a vampire you suppose.

Perfect not a kidnapper, nor a vampire, and he's helped you out twice now. The two of you might well be on your way to becoming best friends. That is if he could get past this episode of yours.

“I still don't know what happened last night, but I'm done with the freak out.” you say as you idly pet Connor.

“...What?” he's squinting at you trying to get a read on how anyone bounces back from something like that so calmly in a matter of hours. Especially when he'd been checking up on you and Connor only to see you still staring off into space.

“Oh, uh... I have Autism. Isn't good for much but helps me rationalize events quicker and move past emotional and mental breakdowns pretty quick too.”

“Is that an Autism thing?” you shrug at his question as he jerks his shoulders forwards a few times.

“Probably more of a me thing, but I've read the trait tends to be more common in those of us who are neurodivergent.”

You hear a murmur of telling someone later later. Filing that away to take note of another day you stare at Toby who in turn stares back. This goes on for a bit, you couldn't even classify it as a staring contest since you are both still blinking occasionally. You aren't really sure if you should say 'thank you' first and then ask the man what he's doing in your home or wait for him to break the silence. But as you stare at Toby, into his eyes, you get the feeling this man is more of a zombie than anything else. The type to drag along and go at a snails pace rather than get into the messy bits in one go...ironic choice for comparison.

“Thank you for driving me home...but why are you still here?” you hear a huff of laughter?

“You weren't really in a position...” knuckles pop “to be left alone. What if you got back into your car again?” his eyes cut and there's a bit of bite to his words...it wasn't directed towards you, you can feel that much.

“Fair enough.” you glance at the stove and see the clock shine a little before six. “Would you like some breakfast” his neck snaps to the left triggering your own to snap as well, “or a ride home?” you finish asking.

“Can you make something for Connor too? Don't trust you behind the wheel yet.”

“Oh sure! What does he normally eat?” Perking up at the thought of the dog being off duty, that means actual pets!

“He-mrrow- normally gets oatmeal with some fruit or veg and anything raw I can find.” He finishes with a whistle for Connor's attention, and then a pointed finger flipping down in front of him. The dog trots over and sits down, while Toby takes off the vest you look through your cupboards to find the rolled oats you'd gotten as incentive to eat in the mornings before realizing you only liked them on certain days.

“So what does Tobias normally eat?” you call out as you look for some honey you know you threw in the cupboards.

“Anything really. I don't do slimy textures or anything watery.”

“Watery? Like soups?” Found a can of pumpkin, it's still in date too, perfect.

“Watery like...when you put too much water in oatmeal.” He nods when you silently show him the can of pumpkin asking if that'd be fine for his boy, who is sitting down drooling from his smiling face as Toby tussles his ears.

“Ahhh, thin watery got it.” You hear movement and a few grunts from Toby as you assume he tics, trying to ignore them so they won't trigger your own you look through the fridge. You suddenly take a deep breath, while looking for a meat in your fridge, and let out a shrill trill. Kinda sounds like a Togepi's cry from the cartoon. Shaking your head your eyes catch the eggs and turkey sausages you have.

“Will turkey sausage and eggs work for you two?”

“Never had turkey sausage but it should be fine.” he's leaning forward resting his head in his arms on the table as Connor lays by his bouncing feet.

You set the eye to medium heat and put the sausages on first, leaving three out for Connor. He is a big dog after all. You turned your focus on preparing Connor's oatmeal while the sausages cooked. It was kinda nice having company over even though the circumstances weren't the best. Your neck jerks to the side three times before pulling back. There's more on the way your neck didn't crack and your body doesn't let up until it does.

“So what disorder do you have?” You turn to give Toby a confused look you hope he can read through your mask.

“...I have a few..you want the list?”

“No, the tics. Lower level Tourettes or what?”

“Oh, they stem from my” head jerking twice to the side before cracking “there we go.” “Sorry, they stem from my Autism, at least that's the best I can gather without seeing a specialist. Virginia doctors suck big time.”

“Tell me about it.” that perks you right up, you knew you caught a transatlantic accent, it's pretty much the lack of an accent that gives Virginians away so easily. You already have two guesses on where Toby came from.

“I knew it, you're from Halifax aren't you?!” Since you've turned around to face him you see the exact moment his face drops. Eyes shocked wide open.

“How...did”

“Oh it's easy once you know what to listen for, in fact it was the total lack of any distinguishing accent or use of slang that gave you a way. A lot of people don't notice what they take from their communities linguistically speaking. And for us Virginians it's what we don't take. It's such a bland neutral midpoint it's why it had been so coveted during the radio era and while we might've lost the in-fluctuations as time went by, no longer needing them for our voices to be heard over various frequencies....am I talking too much you can tell me to shut up, really you won't hurt my feelings.” you give Toby a minute to process everything you've just said.

“Special interest?”

“mmm, more a...an interesting factoid.” you hope he registers your smile, hell you hope he doesn't think you're weird. You know how much you can be sometimes, especially when you info dump or overshare information. He manages to nod along with you before finding his voice again.

“Lemme guess NOVA?”

“Pfft, seriously.” you really need him to at least register the disgust on your face if he hasn't been able to read you before, “Listen the Beach isn't much better but I'd probably off myself if I was from NOVA.”

“A public service really.”

You both stare at each other before breaking into a fit of laughter. It's nothing huge but it does seem to put Toby more at ease you noticed. In the time it took you to make breakfast for all three of you you've found out a little bit more about Toby.

He's uncomfortable talking about his hometown, at least you assume, so instead he mentions that he recently came to town with his friends, Brian and Tim. Talks mostly about Connor and you learn he's to help alert Toby of his Tourettes when driving and he can even detect seizures with Brian. That's amazing, service dogs have sure come a long way! And you love hearing what a silly puppy Connor is off duty, it makes you smile. Toby in turn asks about you, and you are such a well of stories. You tell him about your family back on the coast, about your recent move to Kepler, give him a little info on Kepler to help him adjust to his stay, and even get on the topic of your extensive work with animals.

“Sounds like you were working towards being a trainer, why didn't you?”

Making a sound that sort of sounds like a jumbled 'I dunno', “Sort of don't like people that much. Dogs are fine, less complex and less likely to complain when you do something in a different way. But a trainer doesn't train the dog, they train the people.” You're placing Connor's food in front of him as he sits patiently.

It's quiet for a moment as you place a plate in front of Toby and set yours down as well. Not tense just quiet, it's very calming really. Until Toby ruins it.

“Thanks Connor.”

Like he's a voice actor who is over exaggerating the sound effects of a dog munching away at their bowl. Connor inhales harshly before diving head first into the bowl. The dog is ferociously tearing into his breakfast and you can't help the laughter that spills from you at his enthusiasm. Hands coming up near your face and shaking as you shift from foot to foot. It's a happy stim, cute dogs are of course a trigger, someone can complain later you're happy to see a happy excited pup any day.

Taking your seat and turning your attention to your food, you see Toby hasn't touched his own. He's staring at the plate with a furrowed brow, he glances up to you as you remove your mask. You feel a bit vulnerable to be honest.

“Oh is something wrong? Do you want something else?” He's a guest who's helped you twice now the least you can do is make sure he leaves your home full.

It takes a moment but he gathers his thoughts to explain, “I have a scar...it's pretty bad.” he looks away from you.

You tilt your head not quiet understanding what he means, “Cool story, do you want me to look away?”

He stalls at this, you just keep throwing him for a loop since you met the other day. While he thinks on it you scoop some of your eggs on your spoon and into your mouth. Perfect texture and prefect flavor, today will be good.

Toby seems to have made his decision and without any show he takes his mask off to begin eating. You can see the scar he was talking about, and while the currently red and bleeding'?!' scar on the left corner of his mouth was bad it wasn't much compared to the gaping hole further up that side on his cheek. You can clearly see the even whiter, how this boy is so pale is beyond you, skin around the edges suggesting the wound was older and had started to heal at some point. But you could see most of the teeth on the left side of his mouth. You've never seen these teeth while they were still in the head. A skull or 3D model yea. But never a living breathing person's head. It's fascinating really, you hadn't even noticed that you finished your breakfast as you watched him eat, you were so enthralled.

“You know your lip's bleeding right?” eyes never leaving the boy's teeth as you see them grind down the eggs into the tiniest particles. Neat!

“Rwhatf?” the way he can talk with his mouth full without spilling it from the hole is fucking magic and you won't hear another word on it.

He takes a drink of water, again it doesn't spill. Then you notice the slight tilt of his head...oh he's had practice doing this. Impressive honestly.

“That's what you choose to comment on?” his eyes narrow at you're still gawking form.

“I'm sorry I've just never seen those type of teeth still in head, normally muscle and...and skin cover them. So this is really cool to see them in action!” gosh you're so damn weird. By his stupefied expression Toby seems to think so too.

“Plus the wound looks healed but the lips look fresh,” you get up and grab a few paper towels bringing them over to offer to Toby, “Not to mention it's bleeding and you haven't once wiped it.”

He doesn't reply as he takes the napkins from you and dabs at his scarred lip, looking back and seeing blood just as you said. He was right when he thought he'd been biting himself a few hours ago. He'd totally forgotten to check after getting you home.

“Well I don't feel it so I didn't know actually.” he just resumes eating as if this conversation didn't happen.

“Didn't, didn't, didn't” you get stuck in a loop for a bit before breaking out “you didn't feel it? What do you have congenital insensitivity to pain?” you ask incredulously.

“I haven't heard it called that since I got diagnosed.” still eating he looks at you through his long eyelashes.

This dude could not be a real person. You had to have been imagining your dream friend. Everything you learned about Toby was more interesting than the last...at least for you it was.

“Medical history podcasts are interesting.” you shrug, “should I get the first aid kit?” at his shrug you get up and go to your bathroom to retrieve the kit.

Coming back into the kitchen you catch Toby lowering your plates for Connor to lick clean. You don't see a problem with it but you will wash everything twice since the pup has slobbered on nearly everything anyway. When you don't say anything he lets Connor continue before placing the dishes in your sink.

“Such a big help” you say patting Connor's head as you pass him, “Yea I really am” Toby says as he sits back down. Propping his arm up on the table to rest his head on his knuckles, it was such a fluid and casual motion. As if he's sat at this table everyday of his life, like this was his home and you were his guest. Tied in with how comfy he is man spreading at your kitchen table you'd say he made himself at home just fine.

You smile and scoot your chair next to him first aid kit in between you on the table. Toby looks between you and the kit before leaning in closer for you to work. Grabbing the antiseptic cleaning towels you go to wipe Toby's lip when he flinches away. Probably faking to see your reaction.

“Oh, fuck off you have CIPA.” you laugh grabbing his chin to keep him in place. He rolls his eyes “And you're weird.” The vibrations feel weird against your fingers.

“I know.” you continue cleaning the small bite mark? Well he does have CIPA he wouldn't be able to feel the pain if he was gnawing at his lips. Would he be able to taste the metallic tang of his blood or were taste buds effected by the disorder too? You might need to do another deep dive on this, it just became relevant. Maybe an anxious tic, judging from the larger wound it could be possible. Wearing a mask must help to hide it but not not to stop it getting worse if no one can call you out on it.

“That wasn't an insult...” he says making you look up into his eyes as you dry the wound, “I know.” You smile down at him, knowing this time he can see it on your maskless face.

When you finished cleaning his wounded lips, you drove Toby and Connor back to their home. Which turned out to be the RV at the forgotten entrance of the forest. Toby had been a little wary you knew where he was talking about but seemed to shake it off just as quick when you mentioned hiking a lot and using that entrance because it was the closest to you.

He had put Connor's vest back on and hopped in the back with him. You noticed from the review that Connor's full attention was on you.

“This set up let's him focus on the driver, so he'll tell us if something will impede your driving.” Well that explains Brian's position the first time you four met.

Nodding you sync you phone with the car's bluetooth and pass it to Toby with spotify open.

“Rules of the road, passenger picks music.” you say simply when he questioned it.

He quickly clicked your last playlist. Probably either too lazy to find something or trying to get a better read on you. Music says a lot about a person even if not everyone thinks that way. And unfortunately for you this playlist screams mental illness and a need for therapy. But you have folk punk. So who needs therapy when you can just scream cry these lyrics.

Toby doesn't comment on it, either just totally apathetic or maybe he likes it. He's a bit of an enigma, he's open and honest for the most part but saves his opinions unless directly asked.

Even after making it to the RV without incident Toby tries to distract you for a bit and tempt you out of the car with the possibility of playing with Connor. As fun as the idea sounds and as much as you don't want to be rude, you're very tired and drained. Probably more from “hanging out” with Toby this morning than your actual episode last night. Plus you understand Toby's just trying to be nice and maybe ensure your safety.

“Could I maybe rain-check? I'm actually really tired.” you say with your most polite smile, though he can't see it through the mask you know he sees the crinkle of your eyes.

“Sure, just get home safe.” you feel that's less about you, but you aren't sure what the hanging subject is. So cryptic.

“Yup,” you chirp, “See you later Tobias!” as you start to back out back onto the road you hear Toby say “ Later YN.”

Driving off you can't keep the smile off of your face. Toby's a nice guy, you hope you get to spend more time with him. And this time the thought isn't centered around also hanging out with Connor. Just about enjoying Toby's company.

Getting home and locking your door you strip your jeans and flannel, leaving you only in your muscle tee, and curl up in your unkempt sheets. You'll do laundry later, right now was time for a little nap.

#ticci tobyx reader #ticci toby #ticcitoby #hoodie x reader #masky x reader #timothy wright x reader #brain thomas x reader #reader insert #mask #hoodie #timothy wright x brian thomas #timothy wright #brian thomas #creepypasta fanfic #A cure for insomnia

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lokilickedme · 4 years ago

Text

Well today was a shitshow. Sit down and lemme tell you a little story about trusting your gut when someone seems too fakey-nice to be real.

Actually you know what? - it’s a long story so let me just give you a quick rundown.

(under the cut because my quick rundown ended up slightly longer than “quick” - this is a massive vent with trigger warnings for dog attack, injured children, animal bites, police, and hospitals. Yeah, it’s been a goddamn HELL of a day)

Neighbors moved into the house next door maybe a year ago (it’s the house that inspired Hammer Of The Gods, just as an interesting side point) and the mom has always been one of those chirpy sunshiny waving-over-the-back-fence “call me anytime, I’ll bake cookies!” good neighbor types that make you feel a little bit unsettled, like, nobody can be that cheery and be for real, you know what I mean? But we’ve never seen any dark side peeking out so we’ve always just accepted it at face value and waved back and gone about our business, happy in the belief that we got a real good neighbor this time.

So - neighbor lady has this rotten little shit of a dog that we have hated since day one. We’re not dog haters, this is just a hellspawn beast that even Steve Irwin would want to euthanize. It barks constantly (sometimes all night), and it gets out of their yard and comes into ours to either 1) take a shit in Little’s sandpit, or 2) snarl and chase Little while he screams and cries. The kid is scared to go in his own back yard to play because he’s afraid of this shit dog even seeing him.

Neighbor knows this, has seen it happen, and always blows it off with a chirpy “Oh he just likes to roughhouse and play rough, you’ll be fine, he won’t hurt you!”

Yeah, no. You don’t let your animal come into MY yard and terrorize MY children. I have chased that beast off with rocks, the water hose, my own shoe more than once, and I stg if it hadn’t run off before I got back with the baseball bat there was one time when I likely would have killed the damn thing. My child is terrified of it and it goes out of its way to come onto our property to snarl at him and chase him. I’m not cool with that. But we haven’t complained because we’re scared to death of making enemies of this neighbor. Trust me, after the last people who lived in that house, we’re very anxious to stay friends with the ones in there now. So we did the good neighbor thing and kept the peace by keeping our mouths shut.

Well. Fast forward to tonight, after a year of putting up with that yappy vicious asshole. Little is out in the front yard, playing right in front of the front door of our house. He’s nowhere near their house or the fenceline to their yard, you can’t even see their front door from where he is. Two steps and he would be inside our house, that’s where he’s at. Absolutely ten THOUSAND percent nowhere near them or their house or their dog. Neighbor opens her front door to leave and this shithead comes tearing out of their house on a straight beeline for Little. It has to go all the way to the end of their front yard and around the end of the fence to even get into our yard, which means it had full intention of coming over here from the minute it got out of their house. And it’s snarling and barking the whole way, which scares the everloving shit out of Little, because he’s been chased by this hellhound countless times and he knows what’s coming. He immediately starts screaming and loses his damn mind to the point where he can’t think straight enough to turn around and run into the house, and he starts running in circles because, yeah, he’s a complete idiot when he’s scared, like most 8 year olds when being attacked by vicious animals. And this stupid dog is right behind him, snarling and barking like a rabid goddamn demon, and Little is screaming that horrified deep-chest kind of scream that stops mothers’ hearts.

I hear it all the way at the far end of the house, over the loud music I have playing. I’d already heard the dog but had assumed it was just barking through the fence like it always does. But that scream - god, I hate that scream. That scream is like a nightmare, you don’t want to hear it while you’re awake, ever.

So I run through the house and tear out onto the porch to see this dog straight up attacking my child. My child is trying to run but the dog has hold of the back of the calf of his left leg, and Little is practically dragging the thing and screaming his lungs out, but it won’t let him go. I slam the screen door open and scream BABY GET IN THE HOUSE!!!!! and bam, his brain kicks back in and he heads for me. I grab him and he’s trembling so hard I thought he was having a seizure.

Now comes the kicker. The neighbor lady is standing at the end of the fence, watching all this happen. She yells for the dog to come to her, but that’s all she does.

Now for an even bigger kicker. The teenage daughter is actually standing less than two feet away from Little and the dog when I get there, meaning she followed the dog into the yard but stood there and didn’t stop it when it started attacking him. She was simply standing there. I mean, I can sort of understand where she’s coming from on this, because she’s afraid of the damn dog herself. But if I were watching my dog attack a small child, you better bet your ass and everything attached to it that I would be putting myself between that dog and that child - or at the very least kicking the dog or trying to grab it by the collar, anything to protect the child. At least make a fucking effort.

Nope. She stood there. In my yard. Watching her dog attempt to maul my child. While the mother watched as well, from the safety of the end of the fenceline, while making one feeble attempt to yell for the dog to come.

Fuck them both.

So at this point I’ve grabbed Little and slammed the screen shut to keep the dog away, and the girl says “I’m so sorry!” and then just stands there looking at me like she’s expecting me to say it’s okay. I’m inspecting my still-screaming child and I find that his leg is bleeding and has fucking HOLES IN IT. I look through the screen at the teenager and say “IT BIT HIM!!!”

She just stands there. She obviously doesn’t know what to do, she keeps looking over at her mother. The mother never steps foot into the yard. Not a damn step.

Again, fuck her. I can forgive the teenager...but not the adult.

So my husband finally comes in from the back - up to this point he’s assumed the kids were just playing noisy and the neighbor’s dog was being a yappy little bitch from its own back yard like usual, but when I got Little into the house he finally realized those screams were serious and came running. I told him the dog bit Little in our yard, and he runs outside but the dog and both women are gone. He comes back in, confused about what’s happening, and I look him straight in the eye and say “That dog bit our kid, you do something.”

To his credit he snaps to action and runs out, heading straight over to the neighbors’ house to ask what the hell just happened. She’s trying to get in her car and leave in a hurry, so he stops her and she starts laughing and saying how the dog loves to “roughhouse” and she wished Little wasn’t scared of him so they could play. And husband, still not knowing what’s going on, has no choice but to let the woman get in her car and leave, but he asks her if the dog is current on its rabies shots and she says something to the effect of “I think so, we lost his tag” (husband was confused by the whole situation, bless him he’s no good at all in a crisis...that’s why he has me) and then she says she has to go and quickly gets the fuck out of Dodge.

When husband comes back in I tell him what I saw. Little recovers his wits enough to start talking and tells us everything. I clean the wound and hold him while we try to figure out what to do. ER? God, we were just in there a month ago when my eyeball exploded, we just got the bill for it a few days ago and have no idea how we’re going to pay it. We’re not even sure they’ll see us again with that visit still on the books unless we pay them something on arrival. But we’re going anyway, because this is our kid and we know we at the very least need to get this situation documented by someone official and make sure the bite doesn’t need care beyond what I can provide...but I need to know what to tell the ER crew when they ask if the dog has had its shots. I start texting the neighbor, I send her pictures of the bite so she knows this is serious and she needs to work with me, I ask for information on the dog’s vaccine status, and she...straight up ignores me. I text her again, making it clear that I need her to answer me ASAP because we’re likely going to the hospital and if I can’t tell them what they need to know, they’re going to be calling her.

A half hour goes by, and in the meantime I’m calling TeleHealth and googling shit as fast as I can, waiting for this woman to reply so we know what to do next, and when she finally responds she -

REFUSES TO GIVE ME ANY INFORMATION.

Yeah.

Two tries later - all I want is to know if the dog has had its shots, I even tell her she can just text me a picture of the dog’s collar tags or let me take a picture of its vaccine papers - and she comes back with “I don’t have any papers and his collar broke so the tags were lost.”

I realize at this point that there’s a reason why she won’t give me an answer and keeps evading. I text her again and say “Ticia I need you to tell me right now HAS THAT DOG HAD ITS SHOTS”

She waits a while, then replies with “My friend does the vaccines for me.” So I ask for the “friends” name and phone number so the hospital can call and get the information they need from them. She makes me wait a long time again, after which she finally comes back with “Tell the doctor to call me and I’ll tell him what he needs to know.”

Okay, this is pure bullshit now. One more try. “IS THAT DOG VACCINATED OR NOT, YES OR NO?”

She finally replies one last time, with just a single name, “Hubbs”.

I google it - it’s a vet clinic, Hubbs is the doctor. Wait, I thought she said her “friend” does it and there are no papers...? So I call the vet clinic, but by this time it’s after hours and they’re closed and my only option is to leave a message and beg them to call me first thing in the morning. Now I know why she waited so long in between replies...she was watching the clock. I give husband a quick rundown of what’s been happening and he says “That’s it, I’m calling her.”

He calls her. She doesn’t answer.

By this time I’m starting to cry and we’re both getting frantic. I get the kiddo calmed down enough to leave the room and I call my mother - yeah, I know, I’m supposed to be on Active Shun status with her, but this is an emergency and she has experience in the legal field (I do too, but her know-how is far more recent than mine) and there’s no way in hell she would refuse to help her grandbaby. She’s also the only level head I can think of at the moment. So I suck it up and make the call.

In spite of everything, she comes through for me. Lists off everything I need to be doing as far as documenting, getting him to the ER, filing a police report afterward if the neighbor decides to pull a vanishing act (the woman is out of town VERY frequently, sometimes we only see her once or twice a week so we know this is likely). While I’m on the phone with her, my husband is on the phone with his friend, who is a veterinarian in another state. Equine vet, but hey, they all have the same basic knowledge under their specialties. Vet friend says get him to the ER tonight, as in right now, and starts a massive spiel on the danger of waiting since rabies is a possible factor in this equation. Full panic is setting in now and I’m crying fullblown and vet friend is telling us to take him in NOW, we’re operating on a tight timeframe and rabies is something you don’t fuck around with and we do not want to cut it even remotely close.

So. We grab our masks and get gone. On the way to the ER I call the neighbor in one last ditch attempt to get something remotely useful information-wise from her. She answers on what had to be the fifteenth ring, I was just about to hang up when there’s finally a terse “Hello.” And while I’m breathlessly telling her we’re in the car on our way to the emergency room and I need to know if her damn dog has had its damn shots or my sweet little 8 year old boy is going to have to start a horrifically painful series of shots for something that likely isn’t even going to happen to him, she has the unmitigated BALLS to calmly and coldly say to me, “If I had that information I would have given it to you. I can’t do anything until tomorrow.”

Again...say it with me. FUCK. HER. She doesn’t even ask if he’s okay. Her attitude and tone make it clear that she’s considering this whole thing a waste of her time and she’s annoyed that I keep contacting her about it.

I hang up. Not gonna let that bitch hear me cry.

We get to the ER, I run inside with Little, husband and Big have to stay in the car because Covid regulations. We get temperature-checked at the door and then do the front desk check-in thing; it’s a quiet night and a small town thank god so we get taken to a room immediately, ER nurse asks what’s happened and I tell her.

She is PISSED. Informs me that they’re going to be calling the police and that I won’t have to do anything, the Sheriff’s Department will handle it all. She takes all Little’s stats, checks him over, then leaves to make the call.

Doctor comes in, super nice man, Dr Khan. He’s not happy about the situation either, tells us they’ll get the police involved on our behalf, verifies that the bite will be okay with some careful tending and a ten day round of antibiotics. He says since it’s highly unlikely a domestic pet is carrying rabies and this dog has a history of just being a bad tempered bitch, he’s not going to start Little on the horrific preventative treatment for the virus because it’ll likely be unnecessary - but that damn mutt IS going into quarantine and the CDC is being notified of the situation.

Husband texts me from the parking lot: COPS JUST PULLED UP. About three minutes later Deputy Bishop walks in and he’s ready to rumble because he’s already mad about the call being for a dog attack, and when he sees the victim - all 48 lbs of tiny skinny little blue-eyed blonde haired angelfaced Little - he’s furious. Takes all the information, asks a lot of questions, spends a lot of time with us, listens to Little, and then as he’s closing his notebook he tells me that he’s headed to neighbor’s house to inform her she’s in some shit now and she should have just cooperated with me from the start (yep I told him how she gave me the runaround). But since she didn’t extend even the slightest bit of human decency, her dog is being put on the “problem animal” watch list and I’m to call him immediately if she gives me any trouble at all, ever, about any of this.

She not only has to quarantine the dog for ten days, she has to report to the CDC. If she doesn’t comply, the dog will be taken by the authorities. She’s also in trouble for not maintaining proper records on the dog’s vaccinations (which I think is because the dog ISN’T vaccinated - why would she have given me such a yank job about it if it was? I straight up asked her FOUR TIMES “is the dog vaccinated” and she refused to give me a simple yes or no).

So it’s finally finished and we’re released from the hospital, and as we’re turning at the end of our street headed home we pass Deputy Bishop leaving neighbor’s house. Neighbor is out in her front yard, dragging her trash cans to the corner in the dark as we go into our house.

She never looks at us, never asks how Little is doing. Nothing. Pretends we aren’t even there. Her dog just fucking MAULED my kid, we’re literally just now home from the hospital because of it, we’re going to have an astronomical hospital bill, she could likely get SUED THE FUCK INTO OBLIVION AND BACK, she’s standing less than 20 feet away from us as we’re carrying the injured baby into the house...but she doesn’t even ask if the kid is okay.

This is where the learned lesson comes in. Remember that fakey-sunshiny-chirpy-friendly “I’m a great neighbor, you’re so lucky to have me!” shit I mentioned at the beginning? Yeah, we thought this lady was a super great person, we had nothing to make us think otherwise. Now we do. From the very first contact after the incident she attempted to make it our fault - said to me in one of the first texts that if we had a problem with her dog’s behavior we should have said so from the start (I had told her that the dog chased Little and snarled at him a lot, that this wasn’t the first time, and that she needed to make sure it was the last time). She immediately got uppity with me and turned it into our mistake for not saying something every time the dog acted up. Oh, okay, forgive us for trying to be good neighbors who don’t complain about everything. That’s where we went wrong here! Yeah it’s all our fault, sorry! You’re completely within your rights to keep a dangerous animal that hates children next door to a family with children and not do anything to keep it under control. Our bad, sorry to waste your time.

For the nth time...fuck her. People show their true colors when they feel threatened, and I feel like she knew she likely has a lawsuit coming...and if she felt threatened by the possibility of a lawsuit, that means she knows she’s guilty and deserves one.

So anyway...Little is going to be fine, physically. But he’s made it clear that he’s never going outside again. (Say it with me, class...FUCK HER). The shitty little dog has to be locked up for ten days, yay. Personally I wish they’d taken it away, but at least there’s 10 days where Little can go out in his own damn yard without fearing for his life - if I can convince him it’s safe and talk him into it. (Say it again...)

Tomorrow I talk to neighbor’s vet and get the truth, finally, about the damn thing’s shots (or lack thereof), and then I have to call our homeowner’s insurance and file a claim through them against neighbor’s insurance to try to get our hospital bill paid by her. Which, you know, probably wouldn’t even have been necessary if the woman had cooperated with me from the start. And then I get to start the long process of getting Little through his trauma and fear of ever going outside to play again. And in 3-5 days I get the joy of going down to the police department to pick up a copy of the report.

And, of course, we get to deal with the cold shoulder from a suddenly not-such-a-nice-person uncaring next door neighbor who obviously thinks we’re assholes because the hospital called the police and reported her while our son was bleeding in the emergency room with holes in his leg the size of her precious pet’s teeth.

I won’t ever fall for that fakey-nice act again, from anyone. My gut never truly believed she was as good as she pretended to be, and now I know my gut was right. She’s a mother...yet she couldn’t even muster up that fake sunshine long enough to find out if a child was going to be alright. A child whose injury and trauma were due to her negligence. To me that makes the deception a thousand times worse. She’s a goddamned mother and she flat doesn’t give a shit. She didn’t even pretend to.

Words can’t even go where my feels are at the moment.

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boogiewrites · 4 years ago

Text

No.9: The Body

Chapter Five

Characters: Diego Hargreeves & OFC Eve Corpuz

Summary: Diego breaks down Eve unexpectedly, and Luther attempts to break down Diego.

Warnings/Tags: Light descriptions of fighting. Little bit of Luther. Talk of past trauma/abuse/death.

Click on my icon then go to my Mobile Masterlist in my bio for my other works and chapters. Please like, comment and reblog if you enjoyed it! It helps out us writers A LOT! If you’d like added to the tags, just let me know. This is a multi-chapter fic.

Eve walked into the gym after work as she did most nights now. It greeted her half-lit but still bright enough to see the training area. She’d continually thanked Luther for being so accommodating, and he didn’t seem to mind in the least. She felt almost bad keeping him in the dark about her powers. She was dying to tell them all, to have people understand, to be around people like her as she tried to newly navigate this alternate reality she’d found herself having to accept. But Diego said to trust him, it was best to keep it as low key as possible until she felt a bit more certain. She did trust him, so she did as he suggested even if she felt like a kid being denied a gift.

She had acetaminophen in her system, her usual jug of water, and another large container of Gatorade in tow. She was as ready as she’d ever been. She was actually glad she decided to go late instead of early for her sessions. She was at least awake and warmed up and accustomed to the hungover feeling at this point.

“You showed up.” Diego smirks as he wraps his hands to ready for training.

“Of course I did.” she sasses back and throws her bag against the wall. She also liked not having anyone looking at her or bothering her while she worked out. No one around to steal her things, she could toss them instead of throwing them into a locker and be able to totally focus.

“You were getting a little faded when I left last night, didn't know if you’d be up to this.”

“I’ve already put in a shift today, dude. Don’t come at me with that shit.” she laughs and begins taking off her outer layers. Still staying in an oversized t-shirt and leggings as was her usual, she shook and jumped to warm up everything after it’s exposed to the still cold late winter air of the city that drafted through the old brick walls of the industrial-looking building.

“How was work?” he asked, always down to hear the gross-out stories she had to tell.

“Not great.”

“You good?” he asks, brows high and making an effort to meet her eyes.

“I’ll be fine. Just y’know, dealing with kids is hard.”

“They call you a butt head and it hurt your feelings?”

“No, they died from a drunk driver.” she stares into his eyes and she sees his instant regret.

“Oh shit. I-I'm sorry.” his posture slinks.

“It's what I signed up for, Diego. I’ll be fine.” she motions her hand to halt his sympathetic approach to her. “Just wear me out so I have to go home and collapse into a dreamless sleep.”

“Oh I’ve never let a girl down that’s asked me that.” he falls back into his playful self, trying to deflect the embarrassment he felt.

“Let’s not start now. C’mon.” she begins stretching and heads over to the heavy bags.

------

“Eve. You aren’t hitting like you MEAN it!” he says for the fifth time, trying her patience.

“I’m TRYING! I don’t know what you mean? I’m putting my whole body into it.”

“No, this isn’t about your body, you’ve got to FEEL it.” he shakes the bag as he holds it so she can hit it. She’d been shown how to wrap her hands, and get used to the feeling of hitting something and it jarring her back. But she kept hitting the bag, focused and form correct and he kept asking for more. She was starting to get frustrated.

“Is my form wrong?” she asks with dropped shoulders, panting.

“No, it’s perfect. That’s the problem. I want to see you get messy. In a real fight, you won’t have your head on perfectly straight. I want to see you give everything you’ve got and HIT. Like you HATE this bag.”

“I’ll hit it like it’s you if you don’t stop with this hippy sounding nonsense.”

“THAT is what you need!” he says exasperated too, trying to get her to give in and break, put her heart, not just her mind into it. He knew a fighter was inside her but her years of polish to appear as perfect as possible was a hard varnish to breakthrough. “Imagine it’s someone you hate.”

“I don’t HATE anyone…” she lies.

He cocks a brow at her. “Bullshit. Think of something that made you cry, made you lash out, made you want to beat someone's head in. HEY imagine it’s whoever stabbed you? What would you have done now that you KNOW how to fight huh? Imagine it’s them and that you’re going to give them what's coming to them.”

She takes a deep breath and presses her lips together. He didn’t really know what he was asking of her. Her therapist would be slapping him for requesting her to do such a thing. But she trusted his philosophy. And she imagined the bag was her mother. “I’ll… try okay. Just...stop talking and let me... focus.” she rasps out and stretches her neck.

He motions zipping his mouth and throwing away the key, and braces himself for her hit.

A one-two. A flash of her mother screaming at her. A few more hits. The feeling of true fear as she saw the wild in her mother's eyes. She begins a pattern, a few hits, and a deep breath. Eventually, it becomes a continuous downpour of hits, making sounds as she hits each time. It sounded like pain and Diego knew she’d found what she needed to fuel herself.

“There it is. You got it. Keep goin’.” he says softly, watching her eyes.

Her naturally dark hair is falling out of its tight ponytail, now flopping with every hit. She could hear her mother's voice, feel that fear for her life, and the deluge of insults that would be her inner monologue for so many years after. The hits came harder, with more grunts and whimpers after each one, each a time she’d been afraid. Her breathing buckles, the hits harder and harder, her knuckles aching until she throws in knees and kicks. It doesn’t stop, the feelings were broken open and he’d gotten what he wanted, but at what cost to her.

Diego was proud for a few shining moments until he saw the tears start to fall. Her lips went from tight to gasping, sobs breaking through her angry sounds of impact until her hits lost strength and her head hit against the bag. Her shoulders shook and his eyes went wide, quickly reaching around to her support her as the sobs hit and her knees gave out.

With an unsure hand on her back, her on all fours and trying to gasp through the sobs, the day and her past became too heavy at that moment and it all hit her, breaking her down into a tired, sweaty mess on the gym floor.

He sits next to her, silently, a now supportive rub to her back. “I”m sorry Eve I didn’t-”

She reaches her arms back and hits him lightly. “It’s-you didn’t-” stuttering inhale that she couldn't control.

“Sh… just breathe. Sit up here.” he pulls her up, sitting on her knees, pressing between her shoulder blades to give her lungs room to breathe. “Count in five, out seven.” He counts out loud for her, as her hands begin to still against her thighs and the sounds of pain cease. “I didn’t know you had panic attacks.”

“I dont,” she says wiping her eyes. “I just... it’s been a hard day.” she begins more weakly crying and lets a small laugh out to hide her pain.

“Uh…’ he takes his hands off of her as she begins to let herself stretch and retie her hair. “I think this is where I ask if you wanna talk about it?” he offers and his delivery makes her laugh.

“Better question.” she moves to wipe her face with the hem of her shirt. “Do you wanna hear it?”

With a pause he answers, “Of course I do.” and she turns to face him with still watery eyes.

“Really?” the disbelief almost hurt his feelings.

“Yeah. If we’re gonna be in this together, I wanna know what’s gonna set you off like this. I don’t wanna...make things worse than I already do.” he shrugs.

She nods, turning and plopping down to sit on her butt and cross her legs. “That’s... that’s really nice…” she wells up again and then laughs and rubs her face. “Must be time for me to start my period or somethin’,” she mumbles and it makes him chuckle.

“Or you’ve had a shitty upbringing that still follows you around no matter where you run. Not that I would know anything about that though, right?”

She considered hugging him. For the goofiness he showed, he also had a depth that you had to access through empathy. They both had finally let that facade of having their shit together break down and now they sat like two children in a play circle, sharing secrets.

“Did your dad ever stab you?” she asks with a weak smile as she let herself slump over with a deep sigh.

“He did actually. Tried to kill me.” he nods with an annoyed look on his face.

“Well fuck.” she snorts and rubs her face. “Maybe you do get it.”

“I do.” he leans in and puts his hand on her shoulder. “So tell me.” he asks softly.

“It was the night I ran away for good.” she begins, eyes wandering and looking at nothing as she recalled it. “There was this kid, this guy at school that used to bully me. He’d had me cornered and was... “ she sighs, “he was trying to hurt me. And he ended up having a seizure and dying.” her eyes stare out blankly. “Whispers started fast. Saying I killed him. Although how would I?” she says defensively still. “My mom...knowing about my...abilities she did blame me. She became convinced I’d kill her too. So she tried to beat me to it.” her face wrinkles, pulling her knees to her chest.

“Shit.” he quietly exhales. “That's fucked up, Eve.”

She lets out a genuine louder laugh that confuses him. “Yeah, it is.” She shakes her head and rests her chin on her knees. “I don’t know if you’ve noticed but we’re both pretty fucked up, Diego.” she offers with a smile and tears still wet on her lashes. It makes him give the smile back, a soft laugh shared between them. Sometimes you had to laugh not to cry.

After pulling her to her feet, he tells her there’s no way he’s making her train more tonight and sends her home. A comforting hug between them before she parts, it felt right to do so. She’d entered the gym with a secret that no one else knew, and left with the weight of it shared. It was no small step, and even though it hurt like hell, in the aftermath it felt worth it.

Diego has a contemplative look on his face as he begins to tidy and shut everything down. Luther appears from the men’s locker room, an apologetic look on his face.

“Didn’t know you were still here big guy.” Diego looks him up and down, trying to read him.

“Yeah…” he drags on, eyes not meeting his brothers.

“What?” Diego demands with a jutted out chin.

“I...uh...kind of heard….all of that…” he pushes back his chin and presses his lips. “Were you gonna tell us you found another person like us or… just keep that to yourself?”

“I didn’t want her to get freaked out by you all and leave.”

“Well she’s already met me and I’m the freakiest there is.” he chuckles softly.

He shrugs in non-insulting agreement. “I just… she’s the first person since..”

“Yeah.” Luther interrupts.

“Y’know who's GOT me. Like, she gets how messed up everything is, man. I don’t want her to…” he sighs and drops the tension in his shoulders. “I don’t want her to leave.”

Luther put a large hand to Deigo’s shoulder. “Ever think she might want to be a part of this?”

“No, Jesus why would she?”

“She’s been alone since she was what? Sixteen she said? She didn’t have support like we did growing up.”

“You’re gonna call what dad did to us support?”

“Look, the point is.. She doesn’t have a family. And even if you hate your family, like you claim to, you still keep coming back right?”

“I can stop.” he sarcastically suggests.

“Well, maybe that’s what she needs. A family. Or at least y’know...friends that understand her. She didn’t know what was going on when she was younger. Can you imagine that? I can’t.” he muses with raised brows, feeling bad for the kind doctor lady.

“I hate to admit this...but you’ve got a point.”

“I know. I do that sometimes. If anyone would listen.” he mumbles defensively. “And I mean.. she’s very nice. She seems...cool. I wouldn’t mind being able to help her out too.” He offers, and Diego knows he only means it in the nicest way possible.

“She is cool.” he nods and looks down, voice soft. “Just let me… I’ll do...somethin’. Just give me some time okay?”

“Secrets safe with me.” Luther says proudly.

“Oh shit, Luther you can’t keep a secret.” Diego groans.

“Yes I can!”

“This is going to end so badly…” Diego complains childishly and loudly. “She’s gonna get introduced to Five and he’s gonna be a DICK and she’s gonna leave and hate me and-!”

“Ah. I get it.” Luther grins.

“What? What’s there to get? We’re a bunch of crazy people, and she’s a nice girl and you’re all gonna freak her out!”

“You like her.” Luther keeps the same cheesy grin on his face.

“PSH!” Diego says dramatically. “I don’t- pfft. I don’t like her. She’s cool and all but-”

“Diego…” Luther comes in and gives his brother a forced hug. “Can’t believe I didn’t realize it sooner.”

“I don't.” he murmurs into his brother chest, being held against his will.

“It’s been like what? A year? Over a year now? Since… Voldemort happened

“Voldemort?” he pushes away.

“She who must not be named.”

“You can say her name.” he grumbles.

“Since Lila. You were a wreck. It’s about time you started to move on.”

Diego pouts and holds a low brow, looking up with disdain for his brother. Who was right. “Doesn’t mean you have to say it.” he mumbles back but Luther hears and laughs.

“I can’t wait to meet your girlfriend, Diego!” he cheers out as his brother sulks away.

“SHE’S NOT MY GIRLFRIEND!” he protests but the flush on his cheeks from embarrassment says otherwise.

@s-h-e-w-r-i-t-e-s @jaegeeeeer @diegos-butt @anglovesthis

#diego hargreeves #diego hargreeves fanfic #diego hargreeves fic #diego hargreeves fan fiction #The Umbrella Academy

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masquerade-story · 3 years ago

Text

Chapter 2 - Strange Happening

"Help me get her onto the ground, quick!"

"Careful, careful! Watch out for her hands!"

Rayne and Grey hurriedly eased Crystal onto her side as the latter twisted and writhed with a clear expression of agony on her pale face. Grey carefully wedged a pillow under Crystal's head once she was safely on the floor, while Rayne worked to push the beds back to create more space. Lillian turned on the bedside lamp and scrambled for her phone, activating the timer to keep track of how long the seizure lasted. If it was longer than five minutes, she'd have to call 911.

Crystal twitched and flailed on the ground, her eyes wide and vacant, mumbling fragments of sentences and random words between shrieks of pain. Rayne knelt by her sister's head, gently sweeping aside tangled locks of blonde hair and patting the side of her clammy face. "It's alright, it's okay. There, there. You're fine, you're safe."

Grey scrambled up onto the bed with Lillian, his face grim. He clenched his shaking hands, trying to calm the frantic beating of his heart. It'd been a long time since Crystal had a seizure, and even longer since she had a really nasty one. Considering they stayed the night in a suspiciously unhaunted haunted house, and the things she said the night before, Grey couldn't help having a strange feeling it was all connected.

Was the timing of her seizure really an unfortunate coincidence?

Grey forcibly shook his head, chasing such ominous thoughts away. He looked over at Lillian to check the timer only to find her already looking back at him. Judging by the look on her face she had similar concerns, but neither was willing to voice them at the moment. Whether it was or wasn't a coincidence, the discussion of it could wait until Crystal was no longer hurting.

The twins exchanged a long silent glance, concern and fear mirrored in their eyes, before watching the numbers on the timer tick ever higher.

At the five minute mark the seizure showed no signs of stopping, so Lillian dialed 911. After a moment, her face paled until she was almost as white as Crystal. "There's no signal," she whispered, her voice a bare thread of sound cutting through Crystal's agonized muttering and Rayne's gentle murmurs.

Grey checked his phone just in case and shook his head, jumping off the end of the bed. "I'll be right back, maybe there's better reception outside! If not, I'll run to the car and-"

"NO!"

Crystal's sudden shriek stopped Grey in his tracks. He looked over his shoulder, and though her eyes remained vacant, she was definitely forcing herself to look in his direction. He hesitated before saying, "Crystal?"

"No... No don't... Fence, fence, fence, barrier, don't..." Crystal gasped for air, chest heaving as she struggled to breathe. Her body convulsed as though fighting against her attempts to communicate. "Not... Not yet! I... I'll... be fine... They... stay! Don't, don't, don't... Don't pass the fence!"

Grey looked on, helpless, unsure whether to abide by Crystal's wishes or go ahead regardless. Rayne carefully wiped Crystal's sweating face with the corner of her pajama shirt, blocking her vision while nodding at Grey to leave.

With her permission, Grey bit his lip and sprinted out of the room, bare feet slipping on the hardwood floors. He pinged off the walls in the hallway and took the stairs in a few clumsy bounds, landing hard on the ground floor. Pain briefly shot through his knees, but he ignored it and ran for the front door.

Grey took only two steps out of the house before he froze in place. He put his glasses on out of reflex on being forcibly woken up, but he still felt the need to pat his face and check that the stylish black frames were still there.

A thick, rolling fog encircled the house, forming a churning dome that obstructed vision of anything past the fence. The yard and house themselves were completely clear, not even so much as a tendril of mist clinging to the tall grass and weeds, with a faint bluish light level that suggested early morning.

Grey swallowed a lump in his throat. He checked his phone again, but wasn't surprised in the least when it indicated no signal. When he looked up again, he caught sight of...

Something.

Something big.

A dark shadow moved within the fog, undulating in a way that somehow made his stomach clench in fear. There was no way to guess what it could possibly be, only that it was even bigger than the house, and circling the yard at an impressive speed.

Wordlessly, Grey backed into the house and shut the front door. When he returned to the room, Rayne looked at him with a hint of annoyance in her gaze at having him return so soon without any help while her sister was still in pain. "What, did you get lost?"

"I, uh. Think we just have to wait this out, actually."

"What are you talking about? She needs an ambulance! Or at least a paramedic!"

"That... Might be impossible."

"Dorian!" Rayne snapped, but froze when she realized how pale he'd gotten. "What's going on?"

"I... I don't know exactly? But I think... I think we should listen to Crystal."

"Crystal's having a grand mal seizure, she has no idea what she's even saying!"

"Look outside."

"Dorian Grey Duvall-"

"LOOK OUTSIDE!"

The girls flinched when Grey raised his voice. He never yelled, no matter how angry or upset he got, so he knew it would get their attention. He still felt bad though, as the sound of his yelling made Crystal instinctively flinch in the middle of her twitching, tears springing to her eyes, pained muttering turning into fearful whimpers. Rayne flinched too, but most of her attention was focused on making sure her sister didn't hurt herself.

Lillian sprang off the bed, edging around the beds to the large window overlooking the front yard, hesitating only a moment before she threw open the curtains.

She stared. Her body started trembling, and she was only able to wrench herself away from the view when Grey placed a gentle hand on her shoulder.

"That's... Grey, what the heck is going on?"

"How should I know? But that's what I saw when I went outside, and I... I figured I should listen about not leaving."

Rayne frowned, glancing between Crystal and the window. "What... Is out there?"

"Manda. Or maybe it's a Leviathan..."

"W... What?"

"The kaiju. Big sea snake?"

Rayne opened her mouth, closed it, then opened it again. Before she could ask, both Grey and Lillian simultaneously pointed at the window with as much emphasis as the silent gesture could contain. Crystal's convulsions lessened to involuntary twitching rather than erratic flailing, so Rayne made sure the pillow was firmly under her sister's head before getting up to look for herself.

Rayne preferred contacts, but she didn't have time to put them in since Crystal's scream woke her up. She fished in her backpack for a spare pair of glasses, and slipped them on so she could actually see whatever was making the twins tremble like leaves in a storm. When she pulled back the curtain, Grey took another peek at the thing over her shoulder, unable to resist the feeling of awestruck yet terrified curiosity.

Rather than seeing a creature's physical form, Grey felt like he was seeing the fog move to avoid touching a continuously moving sinuous black void, an absence of existence instead of a living thing. Trailing wisps of fog hinted at fins, or wings, or limbs of unimaginable shape and usage. The longer he stared the more his head started to ache from the incomprehensible ridiculousness circling the house, and after a few moments he had to look away again.

"The way it's moving..." he muttered to himself, closing his eyes to fight off the headache stinging his eyes. "It's like it's... Diving? Weaving in and out of the ground outside the fence... Like the ground isn't even there."

"I couldn't see any of the trees," Rayne whispered, slowly closing the curtains to block the view. "There were so many, and tons of branches hanging into the yard, but I... I couldn't see anything. Not even the leaves of the bush near the gate."

"What is that thing?" Lillian whispered back, her already quiet voice almost inaudible. "Will it... Hurt us?"

"Eater... Eat, eat, the eater..." Everyone froze, then glanced at Crystal when her strained voice broke the silence following Lillian's question. She was still shaking, her hands twitching, but her eyes were bright.

Very bright.

"Yo, Coco? Your eyes-" Grey shouted, flinching when both Lillian and Rayne covered his mouth to silence his outburst. He barely resisted the urge to lick their fingers, pointing emphatically at Crystal's face.

Instead of the grayish-blue they were all familiar with, Crystal's eyes were such a brilliant and bright cyan that Grey wouldn't be surprised if they could glow in the dark.

Crystal raised a shaking hand to her face, dragging her fingers down her cheek, her nails leaving thin scratches on her pale skin. Rayne hurried forward to stop her, pulling her hands gently but firmly away from her face. "Crystal, are you alright? Can you hear me?"

"Eater... The eater... Eat, eat, eats... us not us!" Crystal whispered, her voice steadying but her wording remained obtuse. She turned to look past Rayne, her glazed eyes staring straight at the window. "Us not us. Shadows on the wall! Hand in the light, shadows connect the layers, the hands don't touch but the shadows connect one into one into two. Leaving the cave, passing the light, passing the shadow second star on the right!"

The more she spoke, the more frustrated she became. The expression on her face meant her mind felt clear, but she couldn't bring up the words to properly communicate whatever it was she wanted to say. It happened whenever she started to recover from either a seizure, or an anxiety attack, and Grey felt a pang of sympathy. He didn't have seizures, but used to have anxiety attacks with some frequency as a teenager.

"That thing won't hurt us as long as we stay inside the fence, right?" Grey said, and Crystal gave a single, jerking nod. "It's some sort of eater-thing that eats something that isn't fleshy meat suits, so we aren't in immediate danger?" Another nod.

Rayne sighed with relief, pressing her cool hand to Crystal's fevered brow. "Alright, we're good then. The rest can wait until you get better, so try to relax okay? Don't work yourself back up just when you've started to recover."

Crystal made a sound like a disgusted sigh, but still managed a third nod and closed her eyes.

Lillian made sure the curtains were firmly closed over the window, then glanced over at Grey and gave a little start. "Grey! Your eyes too...?"

"Have I gone blue?!" Grey gasped, horrified, but Lillian shook her head.

"No."

"Must you hurt me this way? Why would you get my hopes up like that?"

"I meant, they've gone... Bright."

"Bright?" Grey turned to make a face at his twin, but then he gave a little start of his own. "Oh! Like yours?"

"Mine?!"

They both ran into the nearest lavatory, fighting to be the first through the door, with Lillian emerging the winner but Grey pulling the underhanded tactic of grabbing the back of her shirt to lean past and be the first to look in the mirror.

"Yo! Yoooo? Yooooooooo." Grey dragged the vowels out further and further which each surprised utterance, turning his head left and right to examine his eerily unfamiliar bright mint green eyes. He leaned toward the mirror until the tip of his nose almost touched its polished surface, and slipped off his glasses to get a closer look. Then he turned to say something to Lillian, and froze mid-turn, staring at a point over her shoulder.

Just like his twin, Grey was legally blind. He was so nearsighted that he couldn't clearly see text on his phone if he held it out at arm's length. With his glasses on, distant objects were still blurry and indistinct.

Yet somehow, he was suddenly able to see individual quartz grains in the stone brick wall of the hallway. Grey frowned, checked that his glasses were still in his hand, then looked at Lillian. Her eyes were now a rich, vivid emerald green behind thick lenses. Grey snatched her glasses as he ducked past her into the hall, sprinting toward the far staircase. "Lils! Stay there and tell me how many fingers I'm holding up!"

Lillian sighed in annoyance at her brother's antics, until she noticed what Grey already discovered. "Um. I can... See you? You're holding up three fingers!"

"Now you, hold up some fingers!"

"Grey, what-"

"Just do it!"

"Alright..."

"There, that's two! Right? Hey, no dropping a finger to cheat!"

"What the heck..." Lillian muttered, staring down at her hand with the index finger awkwardly curled as though it froze in fright at being called out for cheating. "What in the world is going on?"

Grey jogged back over, handing over her glasses, while staring at his own with a mixture of wonder and confusion. "I... Have no idea. I think Crystal might know something, we'll just have to wait until she recovers."

"I know we're used to her knowing a bit about everything, but doesn't this all seem kinda... Outside even her purview?" Lillian asked, rubbing the back of her neck. "This whole situation is... It doesn't even feel real. I saw that thing outside and it still doesn't feel real. How can anyone know anything about what's happening to us?"

"I dunno, Lils. But worrying about it won't do anything, not while we have no other way to get information." Grey smiled in what he hoped was a comforting manner, patting Lillian on the shoulder. She quirked an eyebrow at him, a question in her gaze that she didn't bother to voice, so Grey ignored the look until she was ready to ask whatever lingered on her mind.

They both returned to the room where Rayne was frowning at her phone, leaning back against the side of the bed. She'd wrapped her sister securely in a few blankets, meaning Crystal's seizure was on to the exhausted recovery stage. The twins let out simultaneous sighs of relief seeing her safely bundled up.

"What happened?" Rayne asked, raising her eyebrows without looking away from the screen.

"Lils and I have perfect vision now," Grey said nonchalantly, flopping down on another bed. Rayne scoffed.

"No, really. What happened?"

"He's not kidding."

At Lillian's deadpan confirmation, Rayne finally looked up, glancing from one twin to the other. "Hold on... Seriously? Uh... Whoa. Damn, your eyes are super green. And your faces are naked?"

"Hmm..." Grey rubbed his chin, staring at Rayne's face. "I can't tell if your eyes changed, they're black as always. Try taking your glasses off? Look at the furthest wall over there."

Furrowing her brows, Rayne hesitated before also removing her glasses. She stared at the bedroom wall for a long moment, before her knit brows slowly rose once more. "Ah. I see."

"You see?"

"I see."

"You see good?"

"I see really good."

"How good is good?"

"There's an ant between the bricks toward the ceiling. If I focus, I can see its little legs wiggling about."

"Rock on. Crystal's vision too, I guess?"

Crystal stuck her arm out from the blankets to give a shaky thumbs up.

"Yup, Crystal too."

Grey groaned dramatically, flopping back onto the bed with his arms spread wide. "So the good news is, we've all developed a superpower that increased the clarity of our vision."

"Worst superpower."

"Agreed."

Rayne sighed, setting her phone on the bed and covering her face with her hands. "I had three bars before I fell asleep last night, but there's no signal at all now. There's no Wi-Fi installed here, and it's too far in the boonies to leech a signal from neighbors."

"So yeah, we just wait?"

"We just wait."

Crystal reached her arm from the blankets and tapped Rayne's leg. She drew a small circle in the air, with three fingers held up. Rayne sighed again, in relief this time, and gently patted Crystal's shoulder.

"Okay, she says we'll know more in three hours."

"She said all that with one gesture?!"

"That was the one-handed sign for three hours, and we were just talking about waiting."

"Damn you both and your secret sisterly sign language of love communication."

"It's American Sign Language!"

"It's a damned mystery is what it is." Grey huffed, pulling his phone from his pocket and holding it at arm's length just to marvel at the fact he could still see the tiny clock text even without his glasses on. "3 hours, huh? That'd be around 9 AM. Do we wanna go back to sleep, or do we wanna get up and have breakfast?"

Crystal made a hand sign Grey definitely recognized, at the same time that Rayne said: "Food, for sure."

They did rock-paper-scissors to pick who had cooking duty, then Rayne and Lillian went downstairs to make breakfast burritos. Meanwhile, Grey rolled onto the bed with Crystal, and flopped his leg over her. "Make room, I'm gay."

Crystal grunted, and awkwardly shuffled aside so he could lay more comfortably.

"Will all this be over in three hours?" Grey asked softly, folding his hands over his stomach.

Crystal hesitated, then shook her head.

"Will we die in three hours?"

She emphatically shook her head.

"Do you know what's going on?"

She stuck her hand out of the blankets and made a vague wiggling hand gesture.

"Are you well enough to text yet so I can get some answers?"

Thumbs down.

"Worth a shot. Lemme guess... You'll feel better in about three hours?"

She made the disgusted sigh noise again while nodding. Knowing her, it was because she was frustrated about not being able to communicate what she knew, and not annoyance at his constant questions. Grey mimicked the disgusted sigh, draping one arm over her while letting his other arm dangle off the bed.

"This is homophobic."

Crystal snorted, nudging his side with her elbow through several layers of blanket.

"Well it's true! Should have expected it when making a band full of queer folks, I guess. Rampant homophobia."

After a moment, Crystal rolled over within the blankets so that only her brilliant cyan eyes peeked out from underneath, staring at Grey with an intense gaze. "Are... you..." Crystal paused, her words fighting on the way out to get stuck in her throat. Then she took a deep breath, and tried again. "Are you... scared?"

"Hm? No, not really. I trust your danger sense that much, I guess. You're so overprotective, you'd warn us even if we were only gonna skin our knee! It's hard to be worried when you aren't."

"No... Anxiety?"

"Oddly enough, it's not..." Grey froze, and it was his turn to furrow his brows. Crystal's eyes squinted in the smug smile unique to a prescient as Grey scratched the side of his face in confusion. "Wait, why aren't I freaking out about this? There's a damn kaiju encircling the house! Ray is more worried about you so I get that, you are you so I get that too... Lils is trying super hard to not panic, but... Ah! Is that why she was giving me a weird look earlier? Cuz I said there's no point in worrying about it now instead of also being maximum panic?"

Grey slapped his forehead, and Crystal let out a soft, sleepy laugh. "All of us, same but... different now. Not anxious, because... No need. No danger."

"I kinda get it, but I also have so many more questions." Grey sighed, rubbing his temples, and Crystal made an apologetic noise of sympathy. "Just rest up, yeah? We can talk later."

Crystal nodded and closed her eyes, falling asleep in moments. Grey rolled over, staring at the curtained window with a curiously peaceful heart, even with the knowledge of what lay beyond their strangely isolated yard.

#writing #chapter #original story #original #masquerade #fantasy #isekai

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louadorable126 · 4 years ago

Text

Demons(you).me - Chapter 6 Redgrave Market

>>Click here to Read over on AO3!<<

Art by Aya/ITOUYAS! <3

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Summary:

In a city controlled by the generally altered race of Demons, Lady's life as a mercenary on the lower floor was never easy. Especially when she ran into Dante. A demon on the hunt for his missing brother.

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Important information!

Fandom: Devil May Cry

Rating: Mature

Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence

Realtionships: Dante x Lady, Vergil x Lady

Characters: Lady, Dante, Vergil, Morrison, Nell Goldstien, Eva, Sparda, Mundus

Additional Tags: Alternate Universe - Cyberpunk, Genetic Engineering, Sci-fi Fantasy, Strip Clubs and Strippers, Dystopia, Seizures, Flirting, Eva and Sprada are alive!, Human Experimentation, Cults.

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Chapter 6

“Hang on. You want me to do what?!” A familiar deep voice, on the other end of the phone, exclaimed.

“I need you to find us a way into that event, Morrison!” Lady repeated herself; words laced with growing frustration. Her hand tightening its hold around the bright yellow ceiling handle hanging above her. “Yes, I know you don’t deal with the Cult of Fortuna! But this is really kinda urgent!”

The heat of the compartment was really starting to get to her. Sweat beads welling up on her forehead and covering it in a wet, salty glaze. It was hard to tell if this was because of the stress of negotiating with Morrison, or the 60 or so people rammed into the same monorail cart around her - pressed up against one another like sheep in an inclosed pen. It felt as though she was being cooked in a gruelling dry oven. The air conditioning unit stationed above her, trying its best as it worked overtime to pump small blasts of cool air in the mercenary’s direction, to little avail except for a brief millisecond of chilly relief she gained from it.

Her compatriots, likewise, also seemed to be uncomfortable in their current situation.

Apparently, Dante’s already non-existent attention span had been quickly eroded away in the 15 or so minutes he had been forced to stand here. Well…not really stand. As he had leaned back against one of the glass archways, in-between the main seating area and the exit door, arms crossed. Obviously rather bored, if the occasional upset, deep sighs she heard coming from his direction, were anything to go by. Alongside the sweet sound of him humming some kind of rock song, unbeknownst to anyone but himself, and tapping his foot on the floor to its invisible beat. His eyes closed, although occasionally peaking one sapphire eye open to see if their final destination was coming up on the floating holographic sign above them. Only to always be sorely disappointed, then returning to his sweet humming.

Vergil, meanwhile, was sitting on a small plastic bench in between the pair of them. It seemed he had declared some sort of silent, and bloody war against a screaming and whining young child across from them; the child’s ignorant mother taking no action to stop them. His sharp eyes fixed intently on the small, high-pitched creature. Glaring at them angrily, as though the demon thought that by some miracle, it would get the child to shut up. That...obviously wasn’t working however, and the little boy continued to screech regardless.

Lady took the opportunity to slip a glance over her shoulder at the elder twin, while her conversation between her and her employer lulled for a moment. Morrison deep in thought as he lit up another cigar.

It was crystal clear from how tense and rigid the blue demon’s body language was becoming - his sharp pale jawline, peaking from beneath the veil of shadows covering his aristocratic features, hardening - that Vergil was soon going to blow. Massively. Which given the elder twin's track record for bloody slaughter, could only really lead to a disaster on a packed train like this. All Lady could do was hold her breath, and hope they could get off this nightmarish train before that happened.

“Alright. Cause’ its you little missy, I’ll see what I can do.” Morrison relented. A touch of fatherly gruffness to his voice. "Not making any promises though. Fuck. I don’t even wanna to think about whose strings I’m gonna have to tug to pull this off!”

“I certainly appreciate it, Morrison. Cheers.” Lady thanked, before ending the call. Sliding her phone into her skirt pocket.

“So is he going to do it?” Dante asked. Smiling hopefully at her.

“Sounds like it.” Lady confirmed with a nod. Switching her cramping arm, holding onto the ceiling handle, over to the other. “I’m sure he’ll pull through with something.”

More accurately, they needed him to pull through with something.

Despite being the one to send them off on this perilous quest in the first place. Augustus had been kind enough to provide them as much information as he could gather about this “Charity Ball”. Sending through several of the emails he had received from the cult’s network, after the group had handed back his laptop.

And it was just as well he had! Because, as it turned out, the Charity Ball drastically moved location every time it was held. From fancy restaurants on the middle floor to a gentrified warehouse in the slums. However, this time it seemed the location of choice was a small expo centre. Ironically, it was surprisingly close to the hotel where she had first encountered Vergil.

But, even if they at least knew this secret meeting's location, it still didn’t mean they had any way to actually enter the Ball. It was an invite only event. Unless Lady wanted to bankrupt herself a few hundred times over, she sure as hell was not buying her way inside! It wasn’t even like the twins could do much to help either, even with their father’s limitless wealth. As Vergil had pointed out, it would be obvious they came from a demonic household, given that they weren’t already a part of the pre-established wealthy society of humans. And thus, given the Cult of Fortuna’s fears about being found out by the demonic authorities, they’d be swiftly rejected regardless.

“MUUUUUUUUUUM I WANNA GET OFF! THIS SO BORING!” The bratty child screamed at the top of his lungs. Before pointing a chubby finger over in the group's direction. “SERIOUSLY THIS PLACE SMELLS FUNNY!! ESPECIALLY THAT CREEPY GUY WHO KEEPS STARING AT ME-“

The child didn’t have a chance to finish. Pinned against the opposite train wall by the sharp tip of Yamato’s silver blade, held dubiously resting above the boy's heart, in less than the blink of an eye. The boy fell, choked on his words. Only letting out a small whimper in terror as he looked up at the towering man before him. The whole crowd erupted into a mania of panicked screaming and backing away from the scene. Leaving a circle of free space around them.

Crap, this isn’t good! Lady thought to herself. Silently cursing the child for antagonising Vergil when they had seemed so close to being able to get off without a hitch. The next station’s only a minute away, dammit!

“What on earth are you doing!” The child’s mother cried hysterically. Reaching out to push him off her son, before being stopped dead in her tracks by Vergil’s cutting glare.

“Teaching your child the consequences of his actions.” Vergil informed her sharply. A look of genuine confusion shot onto the woman’s features at his declaration. As though she had no idea what he was talking about."You really are a terrible mother, aren’t you? Don’t you realise there are other people on this train who do not wish to hear your child's screeching? You are not only neglectful to your son, but also to common decency.”

The mother grew enraged at his accusation. Clenching one hand tightly around the handle of her crimson handbag, as her heart-shaped face twisted and disfigured in offence. “B-but I don’t control what my son does! He’s his own person-“

“Yes. But as his guardian you have an obligation to do something, woman!” Vergil snapped angrily.

“Yeah, as much as my bro might be overreacting. He’s kinda got a point lady.” Dante chimed in. Causally moving to stand over beside Vergil so that they were back to back; Dante leaning a portion of his body weight against his brother.

Subtly, he elbowed his twin’s lower back. Getting Vergil’s attention off the child and towards him. The blue demon tilted his head over his shoulder in Dante’s direction, before leaning in close and whispering into his ear. “Think the kid’s got the idea, Verge. Wanna let him go?”

At his brother’s words, Vergil withdrew his blade. Returning Yamato back to its holster under his coat with a satisfying click. He turned away with a flourish of his blue coat, leaving the now silent child in his tracks. As he headed for the train doors, the packed crowd standing in his path shifted aside for him, like he was parting the Red Sea, just as a masculine, artificial voice stated; “We will shortly be arriving at Redgrave Market Station. Please stand clear of the doors for those exiting.”

“That’s our stop! You coming babe?” Dante called out over his shoulder, walking straight past Lady after his brother, as the train’s heavy doors slid open and bright artificial street light flooded through into the dim cabin. Illuminating their escape.

“Yep!” Lady exclaimed, embarrassingly high-pitched. Finding it hard to keep her cool with all these people, likely hundreds, staring at her. After quickly sparing a glance to check if the young boy was ok - which seemed to be the case, as his mother cradled the now crying child close to her chest, ironically finally paying him the scrap of obviously needed attention - the mercenary fled the train just as its metal doors slammed shut behind her.

—————————————————————————

Click here to read more over on Ao3! :D

#devil may cry #dmc #dante #vergil #dante sparda #vergil sparda #dmc lady #dmc dante #dmc vergil #devil may cry fanfiction

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ask-the-mh-crew · 5 years ago

Note

Unfortunately the anons right, hes alive. I'm sorry.

Tim turns the key in his hand, metal scraping against his layers of hard skin, and the car starts.

For some reason he hadn’t expected the car to start, nor for him to actually get away with being irrational. He was never irrational; scared, maybe. Maybe he was angry, like he was right now, or hurt, or crying, like he also was right now, but never irrational. No, Tim couldn’t get away with that, he couldn’t get away with hallucinating and being irrational, he couldn’t get away with having seizures and being irrational. Tim couldn’t get away with being intentionally stupid, he couldn’t get away with purposefully not thinking about his actions.

But this time, he had. And it felt sort of… freeing.

He backed up, to pull out of the driveway, and the camera in the passenger seat stayed lingering in the corner of his eye. It was real, Tim knew it was real, Tim was conscious of the decisions he was currently making, but in his current state of mind it reminded him of all of the things he usually saw out of the corner of his eye, of the things that weren’t supposed to be there, and he jolted to a stop.

Right now, Tim could be hit by a truck and be rolling underneath it’s wheels, crushing and crumbling all of his bones like his leg had been at one point, and this could all be a “what if” scenario showing a better course in life than the one he had taken, that had left him dead on the street with no one to care about him.

Tim sighed, heaved a breath in, and backed out onto the road. If he was dead, he would get to that later, because even in this idealized scenario nobody cared about him, so he might as well start driving.

He swerved into the other lane, the wrong one, a few times, but his vision always evened out in the end, so he kept going. He could still feel copper in his mouth, and he spit it up, red flecks muddying the tan jacket that had been wrung through the mud a few too many times, and the blue long sleeve he had on underneath it. He had worn blue today, and he thought blue meant something important, was something important supposed to happen today instead of this?

He coughed a few times, his stomach flipping, letting go of the steering wheel for a moment as red also spotted his hands, veering to the right once he realized the rumble of the middle of the road sounding underneath his car.

The eye of the camera was still staring at him, as well as Arcane’s mask he had thrown down haphazardly into the same seat (not like it could be broken). He was so used to a hand accompanying the rectangular little box, Jay’s fingers curling around metal, making sure the little red light was still blinking. Jay’s eyes, burrowing into him, wide, big, asking what’s wrong, why won’t you just talk to me? And Tim responding, choked up, that it isn’t that easy for him, nothing is ever easy for him, and that he will always be wrong and bad as his ribs twist into braids in his chest and he chokes in oxygen as he yanks the wheel into the nearest parking lot.

Tim’s eyes are bulging out of his head as he opens the driver’s side door and vomits bitterly onto the pavement, bile and coffee mixing with saltwater, not remembering the last time he ate although he was supposed to. He spits up blood again, thick fluids in his mouth not able to be swallowed, and his head pounds as he starts to breathe. It’s ragged, heavy, something weighing him down until he’s on the pavement on his hands and knees coughing, trying to clear his airways so he’s able to function like a normal human being for once, but Tim knows in his heart of hearts that that’ll never happen, it’s not possible, he’ll never be normal and he never was normal.

But Tim likes to pretend, he likes to pretend a lot of things, he likes to pretend that he hasn’t just made the second worst decision he’s ever made in his life, and he likes to pretend so much that he’s coughing up fluids onto the pavement again and sobbing as his chest heaves because he’s enjoying himself so much.

Arcane looks on like a ghost from the passenger seat, not able to do anything because Tim’s not in danger, Tim brought this on himself. Arcane only needs to take in the world with Tim’s fingertips and Tim’s fists when there’s danger, and there isn’t any unless you counted Tim as the danger, which very well might be true.

Tim groaned, blinking, trying to stick the multiples of objects around him into one. He stood up, using the car door and car seat as balance, dropping himself back into Jay’s car with a heave of strength he didn’t know he had.

The flickering neon sign that was now behind him had said “Pawn Shop”, and maybe that was fate. Maybe, just maybe, in this cruel twist of events, maybe Tim was supposed to pawn off Jay’s camera and throw away the mask again and drive until the car couldn’t drive anymore and then light himself on fire in the middle of the woods. Maybe that’s what he was supposed to do, maybe he was supposed to continue being a fucking idiot, one who couldn’t survive in the real world, one who would punch the metal of the gas tank until it got on his hands and he lit it with his cigarette lighter and then his hands started melting.

His hands were shaking. Trembling. He had curled into himself as much as you can in a car’s leather driver’s seat, and the drowning feeling reminded him of convulsing on kitchen linoleum with Brian awake when Brian shouldn’t have been, screaming for help, screaming while Brian made sure Tim was still breathing as Tim pissed himself like an 8 year old in solitary confinement, making sure Tim didn’t choke as Tim’s body malfunctioned at 5 in the morning.

Was he convulsing? His hands were in front of the steering wheel, white against black, and Tim reasoned that if he was convulsing he wouldn’t be able to think about if it was happening or not, so he went to turn the keys in the ignition again before realizing everything was still running.

Oh.

Well then.

Look at how stupid Timothy is now.

He buckled his seatbelt this time even though he really didn’t want to, and straightened himself out.

Plan. He needed a semblance of a plan, he needed something for the doctors to put on their clipboards and check off as they forced more and more medication into his system, he needed something so that when he reached Alex this didn’t happen again.

Tim’s hand shakily rolled up the sleeve on his right arm, and it was blank. Nothing. He should have nothing in his system, and even if he had, it was recycled back into the earth now.

He was going to keep the camera, and he was going to keep the mask, and he was going to keep the jacket he had on. In fact, he was going to bring the camera with him, into the ever-changing woods, and he wasn’t going to think twice about what anybody else would think, because the kindling in his chest that he had just drenched was flickering back now.

Tim circled his car around in the parking lot before pulling back out into the country road that had no paint on it, one that he wasn’t going to intentionally crash on, one that he wasn’t going to be thrown through the windshield on and inevitably stain with red.

Timothy was going to Rosswood Park, and he was going to find Alex even if it got him thrown back into another goddamn mental institution.

#Marble Hornets #Tim Wright #Timothy Wright #Cat's answer #ask #anon #car crash tw #vomit tw #ask to tag

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lucarioisinthevoid · 5 years ago

Text

Dark was the night. The moon shined bright. Snow was covering the green fields outside- Wait. This doesn’t work in English. Dammit. Oh well. It was a peaceful evening- or rather, late noon. It just got dark THAT early, so it felt like evening already. The restaurant laid abandoned, in silence, as everyone had gone to sleep ea- BAM, DOOR BUST OPEN, JEREMY EMERGED FROM THE DEPTHS OF HELL, LIKE A TRUE GREMLIN. “CHRIIIIIIIIIIIIIISTMAAAAAAAAAAAAS!” DAVE AND OLD SPORT CAME FROM THE CEILING, DROPPING DOWN IN LIQUID FORM BEFORE BECOMING SOLID AGAIN. “CHRISTER MISTER, CHRISTER MISTER, CHRI-“ Poor Mike who sat there, wearing a Christmas hat was close to losing it. “COULD YOU STOP FUCKING SCREAMING!?” “NO,” Dave responded, mercilessly. “IT’S CHRISTIAN’S BIRTHDAY. WE GOTTA CELEBRATE.” Jeremy made an offended noise. “No- not- don’t make fun of this! This holiday is REALLY important to me!” “Why.” The response was pretty casual. “Because- well- it’s a very happy day that is meant to remember that all of us can be forgiven!” Old Sport turned away, trying not to laugh. “Aw, I’m sorry Jeremy. We didn’t mean to make fun of you.” “YOU BETTER! BECAUSE THOSE THAT DO ARE NAUGHTY AND DON’T GET COOKIES!” As threatening as the average golden retriever puppy he pointed at them. However, both of the colorful killers whined and rolled over. NOT DENYING COOKIES! Simon entered the room, eggnog in hand. “What’s the chaos about?” When he spotted Mike, he moved over to hand him a glass. This was met with a scoff. “I can’t have alco-“ “It’s free. I’ll spike my own drink.” And with that Simon took out a giant flask and began pouring it into his own cup, more and more much to Mike’s amazement. “… thanks… I guess…?” “No problem. I look out for you.” He took a hearty swig from the eggnog. “I love the holidays. I love being allowed to drink.” “Yeah, sure, rub it in.” Grumpy Mike responded. “Oh, sorry, didn’t, uh- didn’t mean that.” “As if.” They looked out into the group that surrounded them, throwing around snowy glitter and chattering on about what kind of cookies they wanted. Eventually Mike nudged the Phone. “… hey, is that the detective there or am I losing it again?” “That is the detective, yep.” “… so nobody planned to tell me, huh?” At this point he wasn’t even surprised. The detective was being ushered around by the giant machines around him, pushed forward towards the two of them. Awkwardly he approached, looking at each of them. “… I… I think the animatronics would like to be decorated. Would that be- can we-“ Two bodies crashed into him right away, before he could even finish and both the Orange Guy as well as Jeremy, sitting on top of him, excited. “YES WE TOTALLY CAN DECORATE THEM!” “W-we could cover them in fake snow and give them little ornaments-“ “FLASHING LIGHTS. EVERY KID IN THE WHOLE CITY SHOULD GET SEIZURES. WE COULD RACK UP SUCH A KILL C- I MEAN, CHRISTMAS COUNT FOR ALL THE JOY WE ARE SPREADING!” Jeremy looked at him from the side. “Listen, Old Sport, I really love and look up to you, but if you ruin Christmas for me, I WILL do things to you that won’t make me proud.” Four sets of eyes stared into him, but he didn’t waver. Christmas is NO joke. And he wouldn’t let ANYONE get in the way of it. After he felt like the seriousness of the situation as set in, he was cheerful once more. “Anyways, can we decorate them Mr. Phone Guy? Please, please, please! We’ll be careful!” Freddy joined in. “Yes, boss, it would be nice… wouldn’t you let us have some holiday spirit too?” “Uh-“ Unsure he looked between the people. “… sure?” Children’s cheering sounded, as they all ran off to get something festive to put onto them. The Phone Guy sighed. “I’ll regret this, won’t I?” With that he took out the flask again and downed the liquid without a hint of hesitation. Ethan was still sitting there, seemingly lost. “… I really can’t leave.” “Wow. Big fucking surprise.” Mike responded, dripping sarcasm. “I- I just meant that’s why I’m still here. I didn’t mean to- interrupt your Christmas celebration.” For a moment Phoney inspected the detective, then shook his head. “We don’t mind you here.” “I didn’t even get a present for anyone.” The man blurted out. “We, uh- nobody did.” “Oh.” Insecure he looked around. “I… I suppose then it’s okay.” Suddenly he yelped as a sudden cold feeling hit the back of his head. Snickering came from the door, Chica was looking in and snickering. “H-hey- are- is she supposed to do that?!” Quickly the detective wiped away the wet feeling from his neck. “Won’t it hurt their- the mechanics inside of them-“ Smugly Mike grinned. “The only one I’M seeing getting hurt is your fucking ego. Getting hit like that? PATHETIC.” Staring down at him, Ethan paused, then slowly crossed his arms. “… true. You’re right. I won’t bother you any further.” Quickly he left towards the door. “Think that little bitch was insulted?” The guard asked his friend, but only got a shrug in response. Soon enough his mind was taken out of it though, as Jeremy came out of the back again, handing out plates of warm cookies. The machines had been decorated with paper snowflakes, with actual false snow, Foxy had a little glittering balls hanging from him, while Bonnie was covered in colorful lights. Everyone was happy and proud so far. Jeremy gifted everyone handcrafted papers with a thank you and what they appreciated about them- even the detective was supposed to get one, now that he was confirmed to be here and stay around. The others promised to get him something as thank you and that they were sorry for not having prepared anything for this year’s Christmas. He reassured them that he didn’t need another gift aside from their company, but secretly was looking forward to getting gifts. Happily he bit into his cookies, sitting in a circles with the others, in front of a fire that they just started in the middle of the main hall. “I hope everyone is having a nice Christmas! And remembers that each Christmas is a new chance to forgive and that there’s nothing more valuable than peace in your heart.” Dave chimed in. “Nothin’ except a tank. A tank is fuckin’ valuable. Jeremy, imma build you a tank for next Christmas.” All in all it was a peaceful Christmas Eve. Oh yeah, Mike and Phone Guy were later in the evening found drowned in a pile of snow. Chicken and human footprints were found in the snow, but no strong suspects were found. An oversized duck that we saw on a street near the incident commented on the event with “Pathetic.”

In the distance, in the void, a small figure sat alone in front of a fireplace, wearing a Santa hat and drinking hot chocolate. The little lizard had a decorated tank, which included a miniature decorated tree that he seemed to be pretty happy about, as well as a few stacked grasshoppers that he occasionally ate from. It looked like Henry was watching the fire, but actually he was watching the people in the restaurant, lost in thought. Jealous? “… not in the slightest. Stuff like that stresses me out, I am happy to not be part of it. I do lament the lack of snow in the void though.” Wouldn’t you know it, snow started to pick up, dancing through the darkness, not cold, not warm, only there for a second before disappearing again. And for once, Henry smiled a little, peacefully. Bless you, murder monster man. “Bless you too. Whatever blessings you may wish for.” (I just felt like writing a small something for Christmas, to get everyone in the mood... seeing as I couldn’t make a dedicated chapter for it Merry Christmas or Happy Hanukah or Bestested Holidays, I love you all and hope you have some wholesome days the next while :3 )

#Happy SNOWDAY #the Group #the read more is absolutely unnecessary but I felt like it fit to seperate him from the others #Like he should be #anyways I hope all of you are satisfied with another nice day!#Light the darkness up with your smiles #you fools

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xxx-cat-xxx · 6 years ago

Text

Leave out all the Rest

Irondad, Spiderson, and the rest of the family. This is long and a bit sad, so of course it's named after a Linkin Park song. I poured my heart and soul into this story and I hope that it manages to touch a few of you.

Thank you to @whumphoarder for being the most wonderful beta.

This story contains serious illness (TW: tumour) and death.

When my time comes Forget the wrong that I’ve done Help me leave behind some Reasons to be missed

“Good news first: I booked us into Marriott's in Venice for a week,” Tony says in a cheerful tone that defies the outright panic written clearly onto every inch of his face. “Finally getting that trip off the bucket list.”

He takes a deep breath. “As for the bad news…”

And Pepper doesn't want to know, she wants to run, scream, cover her ears and make this all untrue. But fate is not kind to her today, and as Tony goes on, all she can do is listen with horror while the tears are slowly dripping down her face.

That's how it starts.

“You're not allowed - you're not allowed to do that! Tony Stark, you can't - you can't just leave -” Pepper is pleading now, and Tony's reassuring words seem like background static below her shrill voice.

“I'm working on it. It's gonna be okay, Pep. Just stop crying.”

Peter knows he isn't supposed to hear them talking inside the infirmary that Tony's bedroom has become. But then, he can't help his enhanced hearing skills, and it's not really like they have many secrets from him nowadays.

“But they said…they said that there's nothing - if the chemo isn't working -” Pepper's words are nearly indecipherable through her sobbing.

It is enough to drive them all to despair. The tumour is growing and growing, the dozen different medications Tony takes doing nothing to slow it down, only making him drowsy and sick.

It had been the third seizure in just as many weeks. The only reason Tony made it through this one was Friday's early-warning system and the fact that Pepper, Happy, and Bruce have arranged their schedules in such a way that someone is always present in the building. Just in case.

Peter had been there when it had happened first. He'd seen Tony grow increasingly pale and quiet during their lab afternoon, seen the inconspicuous attempts at supporting himself on the table when he got up, but he'd thought that it was just another flu bug his mentor was hiding.

Then Tony had fallen, and Friday had sounded alarms, and Peter's carefully constructed world had started to crumble.

Some days are better than others. They start better, at least. Peter spends so much of his time at the tower now that May had threatened to report him missing when he'd left that morning. She'd been joking, of course, but Tony takes it seriously and makes sure he is back home early that night.

“You look younger every time I see you,” Tony compliments May when she opens the door to their cramped apartment.

“And this one gets older every time I hear it,” she replies. Then she pulls him into a short, tight hug. “How are you, Tony?”

“Good, good,” he lies easily, absentmindedly running a hand through his greying hair. “Your nephew did well today, but I'm still searching for that switch to mute him. Never seen a kid that talkative.”

“Well, that won't change anymore, I guess…” She grins and ruffles Peter's hair before he can duck away. “Do you want to stay for dinner?” she addresses Tony.

“No, thanks, I'm not very hungry,” he declines. “Need to get back to the tower anyway, Pepper is waiting.”

“I made brownies for dessert,” she informs him.

“It’s fine, May,” Peter interjects, because he can see the tiredness radiating from Tony’s posture.

“At least have one. I promise that I didn't burn them this time.” She holds the plate in front of Tony. “I'll be offended if you don't try them.”

Tony gingerly picks up the brownie and takes a bite. Peter can see the colour draining from his face when he swallows. “Yeah, thank you, I - actually, could I use your bathroom for a sec?” He doesn't wait for a reply before abruptly turning around.

A moment later they can hear him being violently ill into the toilet, the thin walls of their apartment doing nothing to conceal the noise. Peter can't bring himself to look at May, desperately wishing for a larger place, a house, something that would make it possible not to have to witness a weak moment in the life of the man who hates to appear weak.

“It's not looking good, is it?” May asks quietly.

Peter silently shakes his head. He doesn't resist when she pulls him into a tight embrace.

After a while, Tony emerges from the bathroom, looking pale and shaky below the bright, fake smile plastered on his face.

“So, where were we?” He must have seen their expressions, because the smile disappears immediately. “Oh.”

“Mr. Stark –” Peter starts.

“Sorry for that,” Tony interrupts, motioning at the bathroom. “I, um, I guess I'll get going.”

“Sit down for a minute, Tony,” May urges, stepping towards him. “I'll get you a glass of water.”

“No, thank you.” Peter has never seen his mentor self-conscious before, but that's exactly what he looks like now. “I gotta get back.”

He rests a hand on Peter's shoulder for a split second before raising it to cover his mouth and coughing drily. “Great work today, kiddo.”

Peter stays silent. Tony leaves, alone.

Tony is still the most optimistic among them. It’s more than just fake cheerfulness meant to stop everyone else from worrying, as Peter had suspected in the beginning. No, the man is honestly convinced that he will be able to find a solution, to build another genius piece of tech that would force his body to keep working against all odds, or invent a method of performing an operation on his brain that won’t destroy everything that makes him him.

But then, he is hardly able to concentrate more than a few hours on his good days, and Peter doesn't want to remember the bad ones. He doesn't want to think about how he'd found Tony slumped unresponsive over the workbench next to a puddle of his own sick one afternoon, about how his skin gets greyer and his hair thinner every day, about the flickers of pain crossing his face whenever the headaches get too much to bear.

He doesn't want to think about the fact that it took Tony a whole night to correct a minor bug in Peter's web-shooters, or that he still hasn't figured out the reason the Mark 47's left arm won't cooperate anymore. He doesn't want to remember the numerous times he'd wriggled the Starkpad out of Tony's grip after the man had fallen asleep at the table to correct the equations he'd gotten wrong this time.

No one says it out loud. But Peter knows, and everyone knows, that their hope is dwindling rapidly.

Pepper is the one who suffers most.

She doesn’t show it. After the initial breakdown, she pulls herself together in a way Peter wouldn't have thought possible if he hadn't witnessed it. To the outside, she is her normal, energetic, hospitable self, friendly to those who deserve it and snippy toward those who don’t.

Peter clings to this knowledge. If Pepper can pull through even after feeling how she does, he can too. He has to.

But they all see the circles under her eyes after another sleepless night at Tony’s bedside, and Peter with his enhanced hearing is the only one who can make out her quiet sobbing in the bathroom when she goes to take a shower.

Bruce, despite insisting that he is not that kind of doctor, has turned into a radiologist overnight. He has taken Tony's place to fall asleep at his desk on crossed-over arms after endless nights of analysing scans from virtually every part of Tony's brain.

Sometimes, when he's worked so late that his eyes are burning and the numbers dance in front of them, Pepper makes tea for him - the strong chai with ginger and cardamom he likes so much. Then they sit together in silence, sadness and fear almost a tangible bond between them, waiting for a miracle that never happens.

Peter had been granted security clearance for all levels of the tower after the first time Tony faded out on him, just for emergencies. Nobody seems to mind him being around, so he doesn't hesitate to take the elevator directly to Tony's personal quarters when he can’t find him in the lab. He'd been banned from visiting for nearly a week by an alliance of May, Tony and Happy due to his exams, and now nervousness mixes with anticipation in his gut when he steps out of the lift.

“Mr. Stark?” he calls out when he finds the living room empty.

There's light pouring through the crack under the bathroom door. Peter knocks hesitantly. He hears a muffled cough, scrambling, and then the lock is being opened.

“What do you want?” Tony asks hoarsely, a hint of irritation in his tone. “I'm sorry, should have texted. It's not a good day.”

“I - ” Peter starts, and then stops with a gasp as the door opens fully and he gets a view of his mentor.

Tony looks terrible, there is no other word for it. His face is ashen, his pupils bloodshot, and he seems to have lost multiple pounds over the past days. He's clearly just been sick, evident from the foul smell hanging in the air around him. But the worst is the overpowering sense of weakness surrounding him, the complete lack of energy that Peter's never observed on him before, the beaten expression in his eyes.

“Yeah?” Tony swallows heavily.

“I just wanted to…” He is stopped by Tony holding up a hand, then abruptly turning back and dropping onto his knees in front of the toilet. Peter cringes when the man retches hard and liquid hits the bowl.

Peter feels his heart hammering wildly in his chest as he steps carefully into the bathroom.

“Are you okay?” he asks, laying a hand on Tony's shoulder and knowing full well how stupid his question is even before Tony bats him away.

“What about this –” the older man pauses to gulp and gesture around him angrily - “looks okay to you?”

“Sorry. I'm sorry,” Peter breathes.

Tony hangs his head back over the toilet, breathing shallowly, until he shudders and gags again. Only bile comes up, and he spits into the bowl to get rid of the strings.

“You should leave. This won't get any better today,” he mutters as he weakly reaches up to flush the toilet and clear away the evidence.

“Where's Pepper?” Peter asks. He respects Tony's privacy, but every instinct is screaming not to leave him alone in this state.

“Business…something. Will be back tonight,” Tony replies. “Don't call her,” he adds when he sees the look on Peter's face. “She's barely worked all week. The stocks will drop even further if she leaves her meeting abruptly.”

“Does this mean that you've been like this all week?” Peter can't help but ask.

“None of your business.”

“But - ”

“Nope.”

Mr. Sta-”

“I don't want to talk about it.”

“But I do! You are not the only one suffering from this!”

Tony looks up. Their eyes meet, and for a brief moment, there's no Iron Man there, no superhero. He's only a man, a man who is tired and old and scared to death.

Then the mask closes over his face. He pulls his shoulder back, straightens up, and grabs the basin for support to pull himself upright. When he looks at Peter, there's a mad, feverish glow in his eyes.

“Okay. You want to talk? Fine. Let's talk then.”

It's scary how he can go from broken to menacing within seconds. Peter swallows, suddenly insecure.

“It’s just…” Peter desperately searches for words. “It just sucks not to know if you’ll still be alive tomorrow. Every time my phone rings, I think it's Pepper, telling me that it’s over. Every time May knocks on my door, I get – I get scared. I can't concentrate, can't think of anything else. It sucks not to know what's going on. And it doesn’t get better by you not telling me how you're feeling.”

“Fine,” Tony snaps.“I’ve been feeling like shit the whole week. There’s a high probability that I’m going to feel like shit for the rest of my life, which amounts to a month, maybe. I'm tired of hurting, I'm tired of being sick, I'm tired of fucking dying.”

He is interrupted by a coughing fit that leaves him breathlessly leaning against the wall for support.

“What did you want to hear?” he continues, panting. “That I value the few minutes every day when I'm not either puking my guts out or feeling like my head is exploding and I might faint any minute? That I am grateful for the time I had? That I see a sense in all of this?”

He looks at Peter's face, which is frozen in shock.

“See, you didn’t wanna hear that, either,” he spits, but there’s no anger left in him. Peter sees him through the veil of tears in his eyes, and it looks like there is wetness in Tony's, too.

He doesn't want to cry. He knows that the last thing Tony needs is him having a breakdown on his bathroom floor. He doesn't feel like he even has the right to crumble, not if Pepper, Rhodey, Happy - all the people who have known Tony so much longer - are still standing. Tony himself looks on the verge of a full-blown panic attack, and this means that Peter needs to be strong. He needs to be someone Tony can lean on, just as he himself has leaned on Tony so many times.

But he can't stop the sobs escaping his mouth, the tears dropping from his eyes. He can't. He just can't anymore.

“Come 'ere, kid,” Tony mumbles hoarsely.

Peter obliges, gravitating towards the older man until he nearly crashes into him. Tony pulls him against his chest, keeping one arm around Peter while supporting his weight against the wall with the other one. He smells like sweat and sickness, but there is still Tony's scent in there, still something left of him, and Peter clings to that bit, tries to burn it into his memory while he cries himself out.

Pepper and Tony return from Venice, Tony looking older and thinner than before, but less tense that he has in weeks. Pepper seems tired, but there's a glow on her face below the fear and exhaustion that no one has ever seen before.

“It felt like I was enough,” she tells Rhodey that night while crying quietly into his shoulder. “For the first time ever, it felt like I was enough for him.”

When Rhodey helps Tony to bed later that night, the engineer is calm and thoughtful.

“I wish I'd done that earlier,” he finally confesses after washing down the ever-growing assortment of pills with a grimace. “Sometimes I wish that my whole life had been Pepper and me on a holiday in Venice. But hindsight is a bitch.”

“You'd have gotten bored.” Rhodey smirks. “You'd have saved the city from drowning within a week and then gotten bored of it.”

“Yeah, maybe you're right.” Tony frowns, already half asleep.

“I am,” Rhodey says, hiding a sad smile behind the light tone, “I know you, man.”

A few days after they'd returned, Peter is on the roof when Tony finds him. Peter's been up there for a while, and he hadn't realised how cold he'd gotten until he feels the warm air brush him when the balcony door opens. His teeth chatter involuntarily.

“Here.” Tony takes off his leather jacket and drapes it around Peter's shoulders. He's limping, the latest seizure having left parts of his left side immobile.

“I'm not -”

“Save it. You're shivering so hard, I can feel the vibrations in the air.”

“But you -”

“I'm good, kid. See?” Tony points to the worn-out MIT hoodie that's hanging loosely around his bony shoulders.

The jacket is actually quite warm. It's hard to tell with Tony's sheer endless arrays of fancy garments, but Peter thinks that he's seen this one before, maybe on their trip to Germany. It smells like all leather jackets do, but his spider senses detect a bit of Tony below the surface.

“You haven't been patrolling lately,” Tony remarks as he stands casually next to Peter. Too casually, Peter notes immediately, because the railing is taking most of his mentor’s weight. Tony is breathing heavily, as if the short walk from the living room to the balcony has drained him completely. His face is haggard, the fine lines and wrinkles having turned into deep creases during the past weeks.

“How do you know?” Peter asks.

“Oh, Karen and Friday are worse than two old grannies.” He smirks. “Always gossiping.”

Peter gives a half-hearted grin. He thinks about how this is all he's ever wanted, standing on a rooftop with Iron Man, looking down at New York. And now he wouldn't hesitate to trade anything in the world, even his powers, if that could only make Tony healthy again.

“Seriously, kid. Don't get sloppy. New York needs her friendly neighbourhood Spider-Man.”

“I'm not sloppy. Just haven’t felt like it lately.”

He wants to explain it to Tony, but he doesn't seem to have the right words for his feelings. How senseless it seems to keep people from stealing bikes and breaking into banks when none of this will stop the worst thing from happening, when he can do absolutely nothing to save his mentor. How to tell him that Spider-Man is powerful, but Peter doesn't feel powerful anymore - hasn't felt it since the day Tony first collapsed in front of him. That wearing the suit doesn't feel like being who he is anymore, just like trying to become someone he can never be.

“Spider-Man is not something you do when you feel like it, kid,” Tony says. “It's not a part-time job. Either you are in with your heart and soul, or you leave it. And I believe that you made your decision already, quite a while ago.”

“Yeah,” Peter concedes. Then it occurs to him that he has never asked the most obvious question. “When did you decide to become Iron Man?”

“Whoa. Taking advantage of me being in a talkative mood, are you?” Tony teases before turning serious again. “The first suit I ever made was to save my own ass. Well, not only my own, but that was the result.”

A series of emotions crosses his face, too quick, too dark for Peter to decipher.

“After that… I'd been held captive for a couple months, and that made me reconsider my priorities. I realised that I had been throwing away my abilities for something that wasn't worth it. I’d built weapons to kill innocent people instead of protecting those I care about. The reason I became Iron Man… I didn't want to waste my life, you know?”

Then he shakes his head, quickly, as if he is trying to chase the ghosts away. “Sorry, that was… too much input, I guess.”

“No, it's okay,” Peter says. “I… I understand, really, I do.”

And he does. Ben's face flashes in his mind’s eye, memories of the night when the unthinkable happened and he swore that this was the last time he'd let someone dear to him die. Well, it looks like he's failed miserably this time.

“We should get back inside,” Tony suggests. “May is expecting you back and I'm not keen on getting a lecture about irresponsible behaviour if I have Happy drop you off late on a school night.”

Peter wants to stay longer, wants to seize the rare opportunity of having Tony open up to him a little. But he can sense the man’s tiredness, can see Tony hugging his arms against his chest in the cold.

Back inside, Peter takes off the jacket, a bit hesitantly, because its inside is nicely warm now, and even if it's too broad for his shoulders, it already weirdly feels like a part of his body.

“Keep it, kid,” Tony dismisses. “I won't -”

He breaks off before the words can leave his mouth, but it's too late, Peter knows what he was going to say. I won't need it anymore.

The weight of the jacket suddenly feels heavy on his shoulders. The moment Peter steps into his room, he throws it into a corner of his cupboard with so much angry strength that the impact makes the walls shake.

Tony sleeps a lot now. It's what everyone always wished for, the man developing a healthy sleeping habit, but it feels all wrong. Peter is glad when Tony agrees to rest, but sometimes there are moments when he almost hates him for spending eleven hours apiece in bed, for wasting so much of the little time they have left. And then he hates himself for his thoughts.

He tries to steal as many moments as he can. Sometimes Peter sits at his mentor’s bedside, Tony helping him with his math homework. Sometimes, on the rare occasions when the engineer is able to get up and moving, they work on Peter's equipment in the lab, in an attempt to create a sense of normalcy and that never quite materialises.

Unlike Tony, Peter hardly sleeps. He sometimes wonders whether there is a fixed sleep budget in the tower of which Tony takes more than his fair share, leaving less for everyone else. Sometimes he fills his nights by watching movies with Bruce, or by helping Pepper tidy up the documents on her work desk. Sometimes he sits at the window alone, watching as day turns into night and back, another day won for Tony.

One night, he is trying to bend his head around an English essay, trying and failing to think of anything else than what Pepper had told him today with puffy eyes when he had cornered her about the sudden lack of medications on Tony's bedside table. That the therapy hasn't been effective, and that they've finally stopped it for good.

“Hey kid.” Tony is whispering, which is more than unusual.

“What happened?” Peter jumps up immediately, his heartbeat doubling, scanning the man in the doorway for any signs of distress.

“I'm fine,” Tony reassures quietly. “I figured you couldn't sleep, and I… need to ask you for a favour.”

“Of course,” Peter assures. “What is it?”

Tony just puts a finger to his lips and motions him to follow, which Peter does, struggling to get control over the anxiety pulsing through his veins. They take the elevator down to the workshop and then walk to the back where Tony's suits are displayed in a row of glass cabinets, looking new and polished even though they haven't been used in almost two months.

Tony comes to a stop.

“No,” Peter blurts, looking from the suits up at Tony and back, understanding sinking in. “No, that's - that's dangerous, and stupid, and I – there's no way I would help you with that.”

Tony has already motioned the door housing the Mark 46 to open, the expression on his face somewhere between tenderness and longing when the front of the armour retracts for him to step inside.

“One last time,” he assures. “It's the last time, Peter, and you know it.”

“Mr. Stark, this is – please, just don't-” he pleads.

“Peter, listen. You know I'm going to do this either ways, and Friday here would rather have you by my side while I'm out.”

“But what if -” Peter swallows, trying to ignore the fact that Tony has to sit down while the suits encloses him.

“Trust me, this one time,” Tony says, looking at him calmly with those deep brown eyes.

And Peter, straightening up, replies, “Always.”

They fly.

That is, Iron Man flies and Peter swings behind him, but tonight it feels like gravity has lost its meaning. New York is a blurry mess of colour below the two of them, stars and buildings circling around their heads in a dizzying rush until up becomes down, the ground becomes sky, and for a moment, the impossible seems just within reach.

“Yeeha! This feels like the first time!” Tony shouts when he takes a head dive and pulls up just above the pavement, the foot of his armour leaving sparks when it brushes the ground. And for the first time since the start of the illness, he sounds truly happy.

Peter is catching his breath on top of a skyscraper when Tony rises high, high above the roofs, high enough that to those on the ground, he might look like just another bright star. And maybe he's just that, Peter thinks. Someone to spread light and warmth to the world, sometimes searing those who get too close, giving and giving until he has burnt himself out.

Iron Man spreads his arms wide, and for a moment it seems as if he wants to hold the whole earth in his hands.

Rhodey is waiting at the rooftop assembly area when they return. Peter expects him to be upset, or at the very least, worried. But there's a knowing, slightly melancholic smile playing around his lips when he helps Tony with the landing, as if he's known all along what was going to happen.

The armour opens and Tony collapses onto his knees before Peter can catch him. He looks about ready to faint, but there are still traces of joy and excitement mixed into the exhaustion.

“That was one hell of a flight.” He raises his hand to fist bump Peter, who can't help but join into his smile when their knuckles collide.

When Peter passes by the kitchen that night, Tony is leaning against the counter with a tablet in his hand, a glass of water and a bottle of painkillers next to him. He locks the screen as soon as Peter steps in, but not fast enough, because Peter can capture a list of names. Pepper's is on top, his own not far below. Bruce. Happy. Further down, in lowercase, he thinks that he can read Steve Rogers.

“What's that?” he asks, motioning at the tablet.

“Later, kid, later,” Tony defers tiredly. “That's for another time.”

Then he turns towards Peter and looks him straight in the eyes. His face is set, but his pupils are wide and glistening, reflecting the warm lights around them.

“Thank you for today,” he says and swallows once. “It meant…a lot.”

Peter bites his lip, aware of Tony's heart beating hard and fast in his chest, mirroring the breathless speed of Peter's own.

“Listen, Peter. You need to promise me one thing. Don't stop being Spider-Man. The world needs you, more so than it ever needed me. More than you know.”

Then he gets up, walking away at the slow pace of an old man, and Peter never sees the tears on his cheeks.

Tony dies peacefully in his sleep. It's the best way to go, everyone says, but Peter knows that it's the worst possible way for Tony Stark.

There is no dramatic rescue this time, no meaningful final words. No last miracle to save the Invincible Iron Man. It is just Tony. There one second, gone the next.

People tell Peter that he looked calm. People tell him that they tried to revive Tony, tried the best to make him come back, but this time, he didn’t return. The doctors had given him eight weeks at most, and Tony, one last time, had to outwit them by staying alive for nine.

People tell Peter that it’s okay. He nods when it’s appropriate, cries when they expect him to. But inside, he is all empty.

Bruce hulks out upon hearing the news and disappears into the wilderness. Rhodey takes every single of the suits, flies them all out to the forest and lights them up in an explosion that can be heard throughout the city. Because nobody, nobody else could ever be Iron Man.

Pepper keeps functioning, just as everyone expected, just as everyone knew she would, and somehow this is even worse than watching her fall apart. Peter has learned to look behind the façade. He knows that she is running on autopilot, understands that there is nothing left inside her but pain. And there is nothing in the world that he can do to make it better.

The funeral is held on the first day of snowfall. Happy comes to pick them up in the most expensive car Peter's ever sat in, and he doesn't have to ask to know that Tony has left them all to his former bodyguard.

When it's over, he carefully removes his shoes and socks and stands in the thin film of white velvet snow next to the grave, watching his toes turn first red, then blue. He still cannot feel the pain.

The shock hits days later, without a trigger or a warning. May tells him to let it out, tells him that it will help to cry. It doesn't. She holds him while he sobs and chokes until he feels like he will either throw up or suffocate, and he is grateful for her presence. But all he can think of is the first not-quite-hug Tony gave him after their return from Germany and the weight of May's arms around his shoulders is all wrong.

Bruce returns after weeks, looking gaunt and exhausted. He sleeps for two days straight and never tells anyone where he's been. He avoids the lab for a week before finally entering again, and when he comes out, his eyes look more hopeless than ever before.

“For over a decade, this was the only place I felt like I belonged to,” he tells Pepper in a quiet voice that night. “And now…it just doesn't feel like home anymore.”

A few days later, he is gone again.

Peter visits the cemetery every night after patrol. Sometimes he sits for hours in the branches of the chestnut tree that overshadow the grave, sometimes only for a few minutes. Sometimes he sobs. Sometimes he begs. Sometimes he tells Tony what happened to him that day, talks about thieves and drones and bank robberies, and about the old lady with the Churros whom he met again, desperately wishing that it was Happy's mailbox he was talking to, not a silent tombstone.

One day, close to dawn, he sees a group of figures approaching the grave.

Peter watches Black Widow lay down a boxing glove on the grave, Clint standing still, so still, until Natasha slowly drapes an arm around his shoulders. He leans into the touch, just a little bit. Steve Rogers kneels down, and it seems like he is offering a prayer before he gets stiffly back onto his feet, wiping his eyes in a gesture of defeat.

A few minutes later, the sky lights up in a sudden onslaught of brightness. Electricity fizzles around the grave as thunder rolls loudly. For a brief moment, Peter sees a large figure descending next to the others, then then shockwaves hit him and he has to cling to the branch as to not fall from the tree.

When he opens his eyes again, he is alone. But there is a symbol carved into the tombstone that wasn't there before, a lean and shiny ‘A’ in a circle just next to Tony's name.

And Peter will grow older.

There will be moments when he will be sitting in his room, absentmindedly trying to repair his suit. After hours of trial and error, he will finally find the bug and fix it. He will be proud, will take the phone in his hands without a second thought in order to send Tony a triumphant text and a photo, and when the pain hits, it will be all-consuming.

These moments will hurt like hell, but he is so, so scared of the day when they will finally stop.

There will be times when he will laugh almost as if everything was normal, forgetting for the fraction of a moment that the world is all wrong. And then the guilt will choke him, because he can't be happy, doesn't want to be happy. Not after all that has happened. The least he owes to Tony Stark is to hold on to the pain of losing him.

He won't share these thoughts with anyone - he knows what they would say, that Tony would have wanted him to enjoy his life, would have wanted him to be happy - but it's wrong in a fundamental way for which he has no words.

It will be months later when Peter realises that the night of Tony's last flight was never about Tony. It was about Peter, was meant for Peter from the start. The flight, the happiness on his face - maybe that was the last present Tony Stark ever made to him.

There'll be an emptiness inside of him that will never go away. It will slowly dawn on him that he is not the only one. That everyone, all of these broken people he loves so strongly, are always just trying to find a sense in the void, and that Iron Man was maybe just Tony's way to fill the emptiness.

There will be times when he will go out on patrol wrapped into Tony's leather jacket, and the weight of it on his shoulders will take his breath away. There will be times when he jumps from a building and has the webs catch him just above the ground, so close that he can see the tips of the grass blades moving in the wind.

And then there will be times where he will sit on the roof at night, fiddling with a screwdriver in his hand, and think back to the words Tony said to him that night.

“The reason I became Iron Man… I didn't want to waste my life, you know?”

“You didn't,” Peter whispers into the dark, empty sky. “It was worth it .”

Don’t resent me And when you’re feeling empty Keep me in your memory Leave out all the rest.

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setaripendragon · 6 years ago

Text

Never Simple - Chapter 1

Okay! This is... this one is kind of ridiculous. So, I watched Venom a couple of weeks ago, figuring, you know, I was already neck-deep in the soul-bond tentacle-porn on Ao3, I ought to at least see the source material, even if I expected to find it kind of cringey. (Given that everyone also raved about Ragnarok, and I actually couldn’t watch it because of the cringe, I had reason to worry, but) I absolutely loved it. There was only one moment of genuine cringe, right at the beginning, and from there on, it was, as the internet had assured me, a beautiful, ridiculous rom-com XD Why am I talking about Venom on a story tagged with FMA? Because I’ve spent the last two weeks crossing Venom over with everything. Skyfall, Torchwood, Elementary, Teen Wolf, and, thanks to @furisca, FullMetal Alchemist. So yeah, I have plans for this story (so many fix-it style plans), but I have no idea if I’m going to manage to write them all, where this story is actually going, or how I’m going to end it, but... have the first insane 5K I wrote in an inspired delirium anyway. (Warnings: Character death, severe illness and seizures, sort of body horror? I tried not to make it too gory, but I also had some fun trying to evoke that skin-crawly horror feel, so, yeah.)

Teacher had called it making a deal with the devil, but Ed didn’t believe in any sort of god or devil or anything like that. Alchemy was science, and it was simple. Knowledge was power. The more you knew, the more you could do. If you knew how the pieces fit together, you could twist them and shape them into anything you liked. That was how alchemy worked.

And, sure, the human body was complicated – massively, incredibly, bewilderingly complicated – but it wasn’t unknowable. The knowledge was there, in the very fact that those molecules, those atoms had come together in that way, in that form. The entire equation was there, written into their very existence. Which meant that with enough knowledge, they could fix their mum.

The doctors didn’t know what was wrong. Mum had been sick for years, and no one could tell her what was wrong. She’d tried to hide it at first, but that hadn’t lasted. They might have been young, but they weren’t stupid. They were actually pretty fucking smart, if Ed did say so himself.

It had taken them years of study, of plumbing the depths of alchemy and human biology, but Ed was pretty sure they had their answer at last. Ed had found it in a footnote in one of their deadbeat dad’s journals. In the one explaining the very basics of alchemy. Jotted in the margin of the basic explanation that Ed could recite by heart; Alchemy is the science of understanding the structure of matter, breaking it down, then reconstructing it as something else.

Always, always, they’d been taught, understanding had to come first.

The note in dad’s journal said otherwise.

Deconstruction came first. Understanding only came from taking a thing and pulling it apart to see how it worked.

It was dangerous, of course. Ed understood that. Physically, you could pull a thing apart, and the only negative consequence would be not being able to put it back together again. Pulling a thing apart with alchemy? If you couldn’t understand it quickly enough, thoroughly enough, the backlash would be devastating. They certainly weren’t going to try in on Mum without testing it first.

At least, that was the plan, until Ed sent Al to get them a few drops of Mum’s blood while he double checked their array, and before a minute had gone by, Al screamed; “BROTHER!” Ed dropped the book he was holding, uncaring as to its fate as he rushed upstairs, a horrible sort of anticipatory dread coiling slow and sickening inside him.

Sure enough, when he joined Al in their mum’s room, it wasn’t hard to see why Al had screamed. Mum was- Ed couldn’t think the word, but she was perfectly still, sprawled limply with her eyes staring unseeing at the ceiling, glassy and empty, one arm flung out like she’d been trying to reach for something on the night-stand, and just… switched off half way through the motion.

Ed’s head filled with a litany of denial, and he just stood there, dumbfounded with horror and the terrible creeping certainty that they were too late. Beside him, Al let out a wretched sob, almost a wail, and Ed snapped back into the present. “No.” He said, but this time, it was full of determination and ferocity. “We can still do this.” He announced, startling Al. “Get some chalk, we’re going to have to redraw the array up here.” Ed didn’t think he could handle trying to carry Mum down to the basement like this.

“B-Brother?” Al stammered.

“Chalk!” Ed repeated, and finally saw understanding, hope, and then determination fill his brother’s eyes, too. With a nod, Al bolted out of the room. Ed took the moments he was gone to go and… and check. He tentatively wrapped his hand around Mum’s wrist and pressed his fingers to her pulse. She was still warm, but there was no movement under his fingertips, no pulse.

That knowledge nearly broke him, would have broken him if it hadn’t been for the array all planned out and plotted in the back of his mind. They could do this. They had to. Al returned, breathless and brandishing a whole box of chalks, and they set to work. It took them a while, because the array was so stupidly complicated, and every minute that slipped by was another minute that dragged their mother further and further away from them.

They had to push the bed out of the way to finish it, and then, once it was done, they were forced to face the fact that they needed to move their mother into the center of the array. After sharing a dismayed look with Al, Ed set his jaw, and set to it, stubbornly ignoring the horrible fact of how lifeless the body in his arms was. It wouldn’t be that way for long.

And then it was ready.

“This is going to work, Al.” Ed asserted. Al nodded, eyes burning just as fiercely as Ed’s, and grabbed Ed’s hand, gripping tightly, desperately. Ed squeezed back reassuringly, then let go so he could kneel beside their array. Al followed his lead and, in unison, they reached out and pressed their hands to the edge of the circle, activating their array. Actinic light spilled out as energy crackled through the lines they’d etched painstakingly across the floor of the basement, the force of it whipping their hair about their heads and tugging at their clothes.

The world came apart at the seems.

“Foolish little alchemist.”

Ed jumped, looking around, but there was nothing. Just an endless expanse of pristine white nothingness, stretching out into infinity. He turned around again, and jumped again, because he could have sworn there was nothing there, before, but now? Now he found himself looking up at a huge stone door, etched with a strangely branching tree. “Who- who’s there? Where are you? Where am I?!” Ed blurted out, peering around the sides of the great stone door, but there was only more nothingness beyond it.

“I’m so glad you asked!” The voice responded, but it didn’t sound glad. It sounded bitter. It sounded like Ed did, when he was forced to talk about dad. “I am nothing, and everything. The universe, and the void. I am, and so you are. I am Truth.” Ed spun around again, as the voice seemed to coalesce behind him, and he saw-

He stumbled backwards until his back hit the stone door, incomprehension sending him recoiling. The thing in front of him looked almost human. Two arms, two legs, a head, all in the right places, but wrong. There was no definition, no features, no solidity, just a writhing, amorphous mass of white-on-white that was only barely managing a paltry attempt at a human form. It grinned at him, showing off teeth that would have looked more at home on a piranha than a human, and waved a not-hand at the nothingness around them. “And this, little alchemist, is me.”

A deep, groaning crack reverberated out from behind Ed, and terror seized him. Every fibre of his being was telling him to run, to run and not look back for a second, but he couldn’t help it, he had to know what was there, so he turned, slowly, forcing himself to move one inch at a time, until he could see, out of the corner of his eye, what was behind the door.

Ed screamed.

He tried to scramble backwards, all the while keep his eyes on the incomprehensible writhing mass of strangely geometric viscera teeming and seething within the stone archway. Before he had gone more than two steps, though, his back hit something solid, with just a hint of give to it. Like flesh, but not, too slick, too fluid. He froze. Even the air in his lungs froze.

Two not-hands came up beside his head. He could see them moving just on the edges of his vision, curling round, closing in, and panic stole all rational thought from his mind. “I thought this was what you wanted, you arrogant little shit.” The not human thing behind him crooned, as those hands pressed over his face.

This time, it was Ed that came apart at the seams.

The worst part? The worst part was that he could feel it. He could taste it. Every molecule that broke away from the whole, every atom that was wrenched out of alignment. He knew by taste-feel-weight-texture-vibration what they were and what they did and how they fit. Right down to the plasma in his blood and the bacteria in his intestines, the bile in his liver and the mucous in his lungs. The electricity in his brain and all the little chemicals that strung the whole lot together into a functioning whole. He could feel membranes he hadn’t even known were there, knew the entire topographical structure of his lungs, felt every synapse in his brain as it was taken apart and shown to him. As he was vivisected all the way down to his atoms, until he was nothing more than biological mush. Just a puddle of writhing ooze on a blank white canvas.

And then he was whole again. Whole and gasping for breath as every nerve in his body tingled with visceral euphoria at being together and coherent again. “W-w-wha…” He tried to speak, to ask, to understand, but he couldn’t stop shaking long enough to get the words out.

“Equivalent exchange, little alchemist.” The voice said right into Ed’s ear from where it was standing directly behind him, breathing on his neck. All the hair on his body stood up on end, and he lurched away and around, wanting that thing and it’s teeth where he could see them-

It looked like Alphonse.

Al’s golden hair and Al’s hazel eyes and Al’s button nose and a mouth full of razors in a jagged crescent, splitting his face in two. “You opened the gate. You came here, in your arrogance, to take something from me, and you thought there wouldn’t be consequences?” It demanded, furious and vicious and smug.

“NO!” Ed screamed. He lunged forwards, grabbing the thing that was wearing his brother by the shoulders and shaking it. “GIVE HIM BACK! ALPHONSE!”

The world slipped away and slid back into place, a moment of vertigo and the nothingness was filled in. Ed wasn’t standing, he was half-lying, half-kneeling over Alphonse’s limp form sprawled across their basement floor. He looked like he was sleeping, no sign of those awful teeth or the horror sealed behind a huge stone door except for the way Ed could still half remember what his own brain tasted like.

“A-Al?” Ed breathed, unable to make his voice any louder with the horrible, terrible fear surging through him. Al’s shoulders shifted beneath his hands, moving with the suddenly rapid rise and fall of his chest. “Al?!” Ed called, stronger, more urgent, but the only response he got was not from Al.

There was a gurgling gasp from the center of the array. Ed’s head snapped up, breath caught somewhere in his throat, to stare at Mum. She was moving. She shuddered and arched until her back cleared the floor. “Mum?!” Ed called, not quite willing to let go of Al just yet, but still desperately wanting confirmation that all that horror had been worth it.

Instead, what he got was discordant, reverberating laughter spilling out of his mother’s mouth. Jagged fangs bloomed behind her open lips, and when her eyes opened, they were opalescent white from lid to lid, and getting larger. They spilled out over the edges of her eyelids, while crystalline blue oozed out of her pores, crawling over her skin.

“No…!” Ed breathed, hope turning sour in a heartbeat.

The thing that wasn’t really his mother zeroed in on him, head twisting too far to be natural, and whole body contorting in ways that made Ed want to vomit. “Yes!” She – it – crooned, and the worst part was Ed thought he could almost hear his mother’s voice under the distortion. The monster laughed again, and lunged. Ed didn’t even see it coming, just registered that it was starting to move, and then the next thing he knew, he was pinned to the floor with a monster that used to be his mother looming over him, maw gaping wide and getting closer. “Mum?” Ed begged, even though he had no idea if his mum was even still alive – alive again – in there. “Mum, p-please don’t-!”

The monster paused, jerked forwards – making Ed flinch – only to suddenly fling itself backwards, back into the array. “No.” That was Mum’s voice, ragged and hoarse, but entirely and only Mum’s voice. Ed sobbed before he could stop himself. “You won’t have my boys-! Will. Hungry-! Over my dead body!”

Ed flinched at the words, but it wasn’t nearly as bad as the way Mum screamed next, thrashing and convulsing in jerky, jittering motions. There was a crack, followed by another, and then several more in quick succession as Mum’s limbs twisted themselves into unnatural shapes, bones splintering and tearing skin, spilling blood. One last, violent flail was cut short when her head hit the ground with a terrible crunch, and she – it – went still, the blue sinking away back under the skin as the red spilled out, leaving Mum looking like a contortionist’s nightmare, and entirely lifeless once again.

Ed choked on a sob, but his grief was put on hold when Al let out a pained, confused groan. He couldn’t stand – his legs were shaking too much to support his weight, so he half-crawled, half-shuffled back over to his brother’s side, and patted his cheek. Al’s face screwed up, even as his mouth opened on panting breaths. A mouth full of normal, boring, perfectly human teeth.

He cast half a glance over his shoulder towards the… thing in the middle of the array, but he couldn’t quite bring himself to look at it head on before a shudder overtook him and he looked away. Al didn’t need those nightmares as well, he decided, and carefully pulled his brother up and around so his back was towards the middle of the room and they were facing the door.

Al lurched, and for a moment Ed was afraid he was going to fall, but all he did was lean over and throw up weakly onto the floor, one hand slapping down to support himself on an arm that shook violently. “Shit, Al-” Ed choked out, throwing an arm around Al’s shoulders just in time to keep him from collapsing face-first into the pool of his own vomit. Al made an unhappy noise, and dropped his head onto Ed’s shoulder. Ed flinched, because the bare skin of Al’s cheek was burning to the touch, and he could feel that even through his t-shirt. “Oh, fuck-” Ed didn’t need the echoes of everything Truth had shown him to know that that? Wasn’t a good sign.

“B-broth…” Al mumbled weakly, sounding just as tired and pained as Mum did- used to- That was not a comparison Ed wanted to make right now, so he shut that thought down hard. He also tried not to think about how what he desperately wanted to do right now was scream for his mum and have her come soothe them and fix everything, but he couldn’t. He couldn’t because she was dead, and- He shook the thoughts off with a hiccuped back sob, and focused on getting Al out of the room before he came to enough to notice-

Al managed to coordinate his feet enough to be moderately helpful in walking to their bedroom, where Ed tucked him into bed, and Al promptly passed out. Which was good, because Ed knew he couldn’t hold it together much longer. He half stumbled down the stairs and called the only other person he could think of to turn to for help.

“Rockbell Automail.”

“G-granny? Al’s sick.” Ed said, and then choked. It was hard to keep the desperate, panicked sobs in now that he’d said it out loud.

“Edward?” Granny asked sharply.

Ed sobbed once, and then forced it back down, because he needed to be strong, for fuck’s sake. Needed to keep his shit together long enough to get Al the help he needed. “Al’s sick.” He said again, because he couldn’t manage more than that. “I don’t know what to do.”

“I’ll be right there.” Granny promised, and then hung up.

Ed put the phone down with a clatter, and went to check on Al again, only to find him peering blearily at Ed from under the arm he’d flung over his face. “Al?” Ed breathed, relief tinged with desperation. “Al, are you okay?”

“C’n I… food?” He asked plaintively, hiding his eyes in the crook of his elbow again. “M’hungry.”

“Yeah! Yeah, sure.” Ed agreed. Honestly, he would have agreed to just about anything Al asked for, right now. He hurried down to the kitchen and frantically searched for something healthy that wouldn’t need a lot of preparation time. He settled on grabbing an apple for now, and filling a jug with water, and brought them up to Al. “Got you some water as well.” He explained, unnecessarily, as he put them on the bedside table. He poured a glass of water, and helped Al drink it, because his hands were shaking too badly to hold it steady by himself.

Truthfully, Ed’s hands weren’t doing much better, but between them, they managed to get more of the water into Al than on him. Then Ed offered him the apple. Al just about snatched it and sank his teeth into it with alarming voracity. He didn’t stop until the whole thing was gone, core and all. “Al…?” Ed asked tentatively, holding himself very still, uncomfortable visions of a different set of teeth swimming hazily in his mind.

“Brother?” Al echoed, a touch of a tremor in his voice.

Shit. Ed needed to pull himself together, before his freak out made Al freak out. He tried for a smile, and knew it must have fell miles short when Al’s face crumpled. “I guess you’d like another one, huh?” He asked, pulling bravado over the top of his uncertainty.

Al licked his lips. “Somethin’…” He began hopefully. “Some… some of the… th’meat stew?”

“Sure.” Ed agreed. Reheating the stew didn’t take very long, and soon he was back at Al’s side, helping him sit up so he could eat. He got half way through it before his eyes widened and he shoved the bowl towards Ed, turning where he sat so that when he threw up, it ended up on the floor instead of in his lap. “Shit.” Ed said, because what the hell else could he say?

Al looked up, distress writ large across his face, his eyes pleading as they found Ed. “What’s- what’s wrong with m-me?” He asked desperately.

“I don’t know.” Ed admitted, even though he didn’t want to. He now knew exactly how fragile the human body was, what a delicate balance it hung in. There were just too many ways for it to go wrong, and it wasn’t as if the remnants of his knowledge of his own internal workings meant he had any hope of figuring out what was wrong with Al’s.

“What happened?” Al asked next, which wasn’t a very reassuring question.

“I don’t know.” Ed said again, a little more desperately.

Al looked at him with wide, tentative eyes. “Did- Did we- Is Mum…?” He stammered, not quite daring to hope.

It broke Ed’s heart, and his face crumpled up before he could stop it, his whole body shaking with suppressed sobs. It was awful, to watch that barely-there hope drain out of Al’s face to be replaced by the agony of grief. He started to cry, weak but unstoppable, and that just set Ed off, too, years of anxious grief pouring out of them all at once.

Ed pulled himself together first, when he heard Granny open the door and come stomping up the stairs. Al didn’t bother. Granny stopped in the doorway to take them in, and Ed looked over at her with a mixture of desperation and defiance. Granny just clicked her tongue at him. “Go get a mop, pipsqueak.” She ordered, stepping inside and depositing her doctor’s bag on the end of Al’s bed.

Ed hopped up, glad for something to do. “He- he threw up twice.” He said, just before he left. “And he’s got a fever.”

“It’s probably just a bad stomach bug.” Granny assured him.

It could be that, or an infection, or the flu, or any number of his organs could be fucking up, like his appendix or his kidney or his pancreas. Maybe he hit his head and Ed didn’t notice and now he’s bleeding in his brain. Ed stared at her for a long moment, knowing that she could see just how not reassured he was by his expression, before he went to go get the mop.

He cleaned up their room, but even though he knew he ought to, he just couldn’t bring himself to go clean up Mum’s room, too. The memory of what she’d looked like after that- that thing was done with her flashed through his mind and he shuddered on a belated wave of horror, curling his arms around himself and focusing, desperately, on Granny fussing over Al. She was frowning, though, which only made Ed feel worse. “Granny?” He asked, wanting some answers, instead of this nameless, shapeless terror.

Granny glanced at him, then pursed her lips. “I think it’d be best if you boys came to stay at the clinic for a little while, so I can keep an eye on Al. It looks like an infection, which means antibiotics should clear it up, but just to be on the safe side.”

“Okay.” Ed agreed, even though he didn’t like the way Granny said it. He did actually kind of like the idea of not being in this house anymore, with the prickling awareness of what had happened in the other room constantly looming over his head. So he went to bundle Al out of bed and coax him into walking down to Winry’s house, while Granny bustled about getting a few clothes and their over-night stuff together for them.

“Ed…?” Granny called from upstairs once Ed had gotten Al to the front door. She sounded perturbed, but like she was trying to hide it so as not to upset him.

“Yeah?” Ed called back.

“Where’s your mother?”

Ed flinched, memory replaying, and no, no stop it. “In-” He choked, swallowed down the sob. “In her room.”

“No. She’s not.” Granny informed him, tone going sharp.

Ed jolted, looked to Al. Al looked back, frightened and bewildered, but he nodded hesitantly, and let go of the grip he had on Ed’s arm so that Ed could bolt back up the stairs. Granny moved out of his way, and he shoved into Mum’s room even though he really, really didn’t want to. The array was still there, half obscured by a few puddles of half-congealed- something. Not blood. It didn’t smell clean enough to be blood. Just… dead tissue. decomposing biological matter.

The memory of what Truth had done to him came back to him so vividly, so viscerally, that for a moment, Ed was half convinced he was going to simply collapse into his component parts and ooze away through the floorboards. “I-” He choked, unable to shape words through the guilt strangling his insides. “I th-think she dis-dissolved.”

“Dissolved?”

“She was- She wasn’t- We were just trying to- to bring her back, to fix it, but-” Ed shook his head, not wanting to go anywhere near the memory of what had happened.

Granny sighed, long and slow, heavy with her own grief. “Alright, back downstairs with you. Come on. I’ll come back to clean this all up later.” She continued to ramble a stream of reassuring nonsense at him as she chivvied him back downstairs and out of the house. Ed stuck close to Al’s side the whole way, but now that Al was moving, he seemed to be a little better.

Right up until they were standing on the Rockbell’s front porch, and Al just crumpled. Ed didn’t manage to grab him in time, but fell to his knees beside his brother as Al convulsed where he was lying, twitching and spasming like- like- Ed reached out to grab hold of Al in a desperate, useless attempt to try and help, but Granny barked “Don’t!” at him, and he recoiled.

“Why not? He’s-”

“He’s having a seizure, don’t try to hold him still.” Granny informed him briskly. She leaned over and tucked her balled up apron under Al’s head, and then, just… waited.

“There has to be something-!” Ed choked out. Granny just shook her head, leaving Ed to stew in terrified helplessness until Al stopped convulsing and went limp.

“Winry!” Granny called. “Come on, let’s get him inside.” She instructed, and Ed leapt to help pick Al up. Winry appeared in the doorway and gasped, but then her expression set and she moved to help without a single moment of hesitation or distress. Ed was absurdly grateful, because he didn’t think he could handle her upset on top of his own.

They carried Al into the patient room on the ground floor, and then Ed parked himself by his brother’s bedside and refused to be moved. Granny tried to convince him to take one of the guest beds that were semi-permanently reserved for him and Al anyway, but Ed just glared at her, mulish and silent, until she threw her hands in the air and stalked off to get some antibiotics for Al.

Sitting vigil by Al’s bedside was awful, but Ed couldn’t bring himself to move. It was quiet, especially when Winry gave up keeping him company and went to bed, which gave Ed’s brain plenty of space to spin over everything that had happened, everything that had gone wrong in such a short space of time. He thought he might have slept at some point, folded over with his head on his arms on the side of Al’s bed, because that was the only explanation for why he jolted awake in a panic some time later.

The night blurred into the next day. Al woke up enough to eat, which was good, because he was clearly starving, going by how much he ate, but he didn’t seem to be fully aware of where he was or what was going on, and then he went right back to sleep. His fever went up even higher, and Granny made noises about maybe trying a different – stronger – antibiotic.

Maybe if Ed had slept better, he would have thought better of it, but in his wound up state of sleep-deprived anxiety, he threw caution to the winds. He knew, at least in theory, what was supposed to be in the human body, and what wasn’t. It shouldn’t be too hard to draw out an array that would kill the infection without doing Al any real harm.

He snuck out of the patient room and found a spare bit of chalk he or Al must have left lying around the last time they were here, and snuck back into Al’s room. He hovered for a moment by the bed, eyeing the available space, and then turned to crouch down. Before he could, though, a hand shot out and caught his wrist in a bruising grip. Ed yelped and turned to stare at Al, who was glaring at him in uncharacteristic anger.

“Didn’t you learn your lesson the first time?!” The thing that was wearing Al’s face demanded.

Ed choked, wrenching his arm out of it’s grip. Or trying to, because no matter how he wrenched or twisted, he couldn’t get free. “So it is you!” Ed snarled, glaring right back. “Leave him alone! Let him go!” He demanded, furious and despairing.

“We cannot.”

Ed felt as if his chest was caving in under the weight of that simple statement. He sobbed once, twice, and bowed his head over where Al’s – not Al’s – hand was still wrapped around his arm. “Why?” He asked wretchedly. “Why- We did it together, we- it was my idea, so why are you punishing him but not me? Why didn’t you take me instead? You should have taken me instead!” He wailed, begged.

Truth yanked him down, so brutal and sudden that Ed stumbled and fell against the side of the bed, finding himself staring into familiar eyes made alien by the burning ferocity behind them. “Do you mean that?” It demanded, sharp and desperate.

Ed blinked at Al – at Truth – utterly bewildered by the sudden shift from coldly indifferent to blazing intensity. “Of course! He’s my brother, I’d do anything to keep him safe.” He swore. “You can take everything from me, so long as Al’s okay.”

“We cannot reverse all the damage, but without me, he will recover in time.” It informed him, which was so much better than the alternative that Ed didn’t even hesitate to nod. Something moved against his wrist, and when he looked, he saw tendrils, white and writhing and entirely too reminiscent of that place, spilling out of Al’s skin and seeping into Ed’s. The moment the last tendril detached from Al, he went boneless. Ed yelped in horror and scrambled to catch Al’s hand and check his pulse.

It was still there, and when Ed held very still and quiet, he could hear Al breathing, soft and steady. He slumped, all the way down to the floor, and pressed his head against the side of the mattress, trying not to cry and failing.

We need food.

Ed jumped, and looked around, but Truth hadn’t manifested anywhere, except… except inside him. “Fuck you. I’m not leaving Al.” He muttered to himself, relaxing again. And then something other than himself rolled his eyes. “Fuck. You.” Ed growled again, trembling finely and not relaxed at all anymore. If that thing could move his body without his permission…

Deal with the devil, indeed.

51 notes · View notes

sweetlangdon · 6 years ago

Text

Strangeness & Charm (Michael Langdon x Reader)

Notes: Hawthorne!Michael. Halloween fluff. Michael uses his powers for good, and a girl finds herself charmed by this mysterious boy from the Hawthorne School.

Word Count: 2.8k

Warnings: Some blood, swearing, and a group of boys being creeps. Nothing explicit, but there’s some rough handling of the protagonist.

[Repost of a previously published fic from my main blog.]

Coming here had been a mistake.

A thunderous bassline rattled inside her ribcage, the lyrics drowned out by the beat. She lingered by the table of refreshments, dodging stray elbows and keeping a mental tally of how many versions of sexy beloved childhood characters crossed into her path. There wasn’t a single person here that she knew, at least not directly. The house—a sprawling mansion full of white marble and high ceilings and far too many sculptures—belonged to someone in her parents’ social circle, and she was supposed to stop by for some bullshit reason. It hadn’t been her idea of a good time on her favorite night of the year. Far from it, actually. It wasn’t like she had plans, anyway, now that all of her friends were miles and miles across the country. But there was no way in hell she’d be making any new ones here.

She hadn’t been motivated enough to dress up, either, and this California weather was not kind to layers. She’d seriously misjudged the flannel button down now that she was gridlocked in a sea of humanity buzzed on alcoholic punch. There had been more alcohol than punch, she found out early on, once she’d tossed back two of those small glasses. She’d been here just over an hour, but it felt like an eternity. Was it socially acceptable to nope the fuck out of this place yet?

The refreshments spread was impressive—she had to give them that at least. It had been the only reason she’d hung around so long, shoveling Halloween cookies and candied apples into the bag draped over her shoulder in the least discreet manner possible. If she had to endure her own personal slice of hell, then she should’ve gotten something out of it. It was only fair to take advantage of free food.

She dropped a handful of assorted fun sized candy bars into her bag, well aware of the unsolicited leering gazes across the room. A trio of fuckboys had been eyeing her since she walked in. She was someone new, someone unknown, so of course they had to sniff her out like prey. That look was universal no matter what coast you lived on, and she wasn’t here for it.

Elbows and shoulders jostled her as she merged into the traffic of mostly costumed bodies. They followed behind, thinking she didn’t notice.

She did.

She hitched her bag up onto her shoulder and continued toward where she thought the front door had been, though this house was laid out like a maze. She attempted to use the crowd as a buffer, but it thinned out faster than she’d anticipated. The hot, sweaty presence of them hovering behind her was too close, too much. Their expensive cologne choked her senses and mingled with whatever combination of booze had been in the punch. She veered down a hall, intending to take off at a brisk walk when a strong hand latched onto her wrist.

“Where’re you going, sweetheart?”

They stalked her, surrounding her, boxing her into a corner. She struggled against the iron grip around her wrist and tried to kick at their shins. If only she could’ve bashed them across the face with her bag full of candied apples and Halloween chocolate when she had the chance.

“Fuck off.”

“Aww, come on—”

“Let her go.”

The steely command filled up the hall as if a layer of ice had suddenly formed on the lavish end tables and lamps and portrait frames. For a moment, the predatory trio relented, and she turned her head to find who the voice belonged to.

A Hawthorne boy. It had to be.

Tall, yet leaner than the trio of dumbasses holding her hostage, he managed to somehow appear more intimidating than the three of them combined. He wore a tailored black suit paired with a crisp white shirt, a thin, glossy black bow tied around his neck. Definitely a uniform, she mused absently, while she gaped at him in something akin to astonishment. He had the most impressive head of strawberry blond hair she’d ever seen.

Slender fingers clenched into fists at his sides and his jaw tightened. She’d heard stories about the boys who went to Hawthorne from her own classmates; they were often spoken about in conspiratorial whispers like they were eldritch beings, the stuff of myth and legend.

Maybe they were.

“Yeah?” one of the trio taunted. “Why don’t you mind your own business?” His fingers pressed deeper into her skin and she imagined a handprint-shaped bruise around her wrist like some macabre bracelet.

“Get your hands off her,” the Hawthorne boy demanded. His voice was even, but she saw the impatience, the anger building in his tone. “I won’t tell you again.”

They laughed. They kept laughing—his nails digging into her skin until her fingers went numb—and she was the only one who caught the smirk that passed over the boy’s lips before they all heard a sickening crack. He dropped her wrist with a cry of agony, holding up a hand full of twisted, mangled fingers. His blood pattered onto the expensive carpet beneath their feet, the white bones that protruded from his broken skin shining in the glow of the orange Halloween lights.

“Holy shit,” she breathed.

“What the fuck, man?”

The two uninjured assailants rounded on the Hawthorne boy while their friend stood there, sobbing and uselessly clutching his obliterated hand to his chest. She watched the growing stain of red across his shirt and pooling around his shoes with more satisfaction than she was willing to admit.

“The hell did you do to him, freak?”

He’d barely taken two steps toward the Hawthorne boy when he flew up into the air and careened onto the floor on the opposite end of the hallway, attracting a chorus of screams and horrified looks and dropped cups of punch. She saw the boy’s fingers flex, his knuckles white as he confronted the third attacker. The one who’d been bleeding had finally fled the scene, leaving a trail of blood behind.

“Don’t,” her would-be assailant pleaded with wide eyes. “Please, I didn’t—”

Hawthorne boy titled his head. “It’s far too late for that now.”

The third attacker flew into the opposite wall, pressed flat against the mahogany paneling as if someone had their hands around his throat. His hands seemed to be restrained by some unseen force, his feet dangling a few inches from the ground. He sputtered and gurgled trying to take in a breath, all attempts to force out a single, desperate syllable made in vain. She watched the veins pop out of his forehead and neck, his face veering from a gross shade of beet red to a bruised purple.

Hawthorne boy seemed unconcerned—and really, neither was she—but the attention they’d garnered had gotten out of hand, quickly. And then she saw it: she swore Hawthorne boy’s eyes rolled back in his head and he convulsed like he was having some kind of seizure. Blood started to drip from his nostrils.

“Whoa…whoa, easy,” she said, very aware of the shouting and bodies moving around them as she surged forward and grabbed the front of Hawthorne boy’s sweater vest. “Come on, we have to get out of here. Like, now.”

She bulldozed through the crowd to the front door, her fist still curled around his sweater despite the fact that he was a good several inches taller than her. She didn’t even know if he was coherent at this point, she just knew they needed to disappear fast before someone got wise and called the cops on him. She moved like nothing else around them existed, tuning out the whispers and yells until the cool evening air finally hit her in the face.

It was dusk outside. Night encroached on the horizon, orange and purple lights winking to life on the houses they passed. The sidewalks had become flooded with kids in costume. She could breathe when they were at least a block away from the house, and finally let go of Hawthorne boy’s formerly pristine sweater vest after another block. When she turned on her heel, he was blinking slowly, taking shallow breaths while he stared down at the blood on his fingers.

“Are you okay?” she asked, though it sounded pointless after it left her mouth. Of course he wasn’t okay—he was trembling, there was blood all down the front of his starched white shirt, and the terror on his face made something twist uncomfortably in her chest.

“Here, sit down. Careful…deep breaths, that’s it.” He sunk down onto the stone wall of the house they’d stopped in front of. She joined him, cautious of the carved pumpkins that flickered with candlelight to her left.

“There’s too much of it, sometimes,” he said. She could still hear the tremble in his voice, all traces of anger and mischief gone. “I get lost in it. I…don’t even notice until it’s almost too late.”

She didn’t know what he was talking about, but whatever trance he’d been in had looked scary as fuck. She dug around in her bag until she uncovered a few napkins pilfered from the refreshments table. It seemed like the blood flow had stopped, but it’d made a mess of his face and the front of his clothes. There wasn’t much she could do about the uniform. But she pressed the napkin to his nose, gingerly, then wiped up the trails of crimson that had dripped down his lips and chin. He had a jawline for days and crystalline blue eyes that made the breath in her throat catch just a little.

“Thank you,” he murmured, taking the bloodstained napkins and tucking them away into the pocket of his jacket. “You didn’t have to do that.”

“You saved me from those creeps. It was the least I could do,” she answered. “Actually…” She pulled open her bag again, settling it between them. “I dohave a lot of stolen chocolate in here, and there’s no way I’m going to eat it all myself. Do you like candied apples? ‘Cause I took like five of them.”

He laughed, and so did she, because he had the kind of infectious, charming laughter that made her insides turn into complete mush. He unearthed a KitKat bar from the depths of her bag and she tore open a Reese’s peanut butter cup. She couldn’t stop staring at his long, slender fingers and the candlelight that spun his hair into gold.

She was sitting here on Halloween night casually eating stolen chocolate with a Hawthorne boy. What the hell kind of luck had the universe thrown her way?

“I thought all of those stories about you Hawthorne boys were bullshit,” she confessed as the empty wrappers began to pile up between them. “But I’m new here, so what the hell do I know, right?”

He folded one leg underneath him on the stone wall, the other left over the side. She’d settled cross-legged, the wrappers drifting down into her lap.

“Well, I’m Michael,” he said. He flashed a megawatt smile, and it took her a second to register the cheesy albeit adorable joke. “And I don’t know what you’ve heard about Hawthorne but I can guarantee at least half of it is bullshit.”

She laughed. “Yeah, maybe,” she agreed. “But what I saw…what you did…I’m impressed with whatever that was. You’ve made me a believer.”

Michael ripped open another KitKat and shied away from her confession. “Where’d you move from?”

“New York,” she answered. “Y’know, where autumn actually exists and the leaves change color like they’re supposed to.”

“You miss it.”

“You have no idea,” she said.

Michael hopped down from the wall and brushed off his pants. After shoving the discarded chocolate wrappers into his pocket, he held out one of his hands to her. She pushed the wrappers in her lap back into her bag and took Michael’s hand, letting him help her off the wall. His skin was warm and soft when he laced his fingers between hers.

He smirked. “Come with me.”

They walked for several blocks, weaving in between bands of costumed kids and dogs. Houses were strung up with lights and fake cobwebs, lawns inundated with artificial fog and tacky decorations. Her eyes wandered to the Jack O’Lanterns displayed on almost every porch and front yard, from the simple, toothy grins to the intricate, pop culture-inspired works of art. High-pitched shrieks pierced the air from somewhere a couple blocks away; across the street, there was the rush of children’s quick footsteps. For a moment, if she closed her eyes, she could conjure the rich scent of wood smoke and damp leaves.

Michael led her into a small wooded park through an elegant wrought iron entranceway. They passed circles of teenagers and kids gathered on the grass trading their trick-or-treat spoils and looking for mischief.

“What are we doing?” she asked.

“You’ll see.”

The two of them moved away from the crowds to a quiet little corner where Michael relinquished her hand. She watched him, one eyebrow raised, as he circled a massive tree. He considered it like the tree itself was some kind of challenge, until he stopped and took a deep breath. Michael lifted one arm, then the other, his palms splayed upward to face the network of branches, his movements fluid and graceful.

She only took her eyes off him when she realized the leaves were beginning to fade from their bright verdant color to a golden yellow. One of them floated off the branches and curled into her palm. She studied it, her mouth dropping open as it turned again, this time toward a burnt orange hue. The rest of the leaves followed, dissolving and changing before her very eyes, from gold to dark orange and every shade in between until the tree became a brilliant display of scarlet.

She laughed, twirling under the shelter of the branches while they let go of their leaves, a crimson storm swirling around her. She felt them land on her head, and gathered them up into her arms just to toss them into the breeze again. Her boots crunched through the piles when they accumulated around the tree trunk; for just a moment, she was a kid in her backyard in New York.

Once the last one had fallen, she dove face-first into the most gigantic pile of bright red leaves she’d seen in months. Their rich, earthy fragrance filled up her senses, and she flopped onto her back cocooned by them, feeling blissfully content. Michael towered over her, that ever-present smirk lighting up his face.

She tugged on his pant leg. “Come on,” she beckoned. “Join me—it’s fun.”

Michael toppled backward into the leaves and landed next to her, his hair slightly tousled from the fall. He had a few leaves stuck in those golden curls, another one edging toward the collar of his shirt. His arm brushed hers, his fingers instantly seeking hers out until they were laced together again. She moved closer, the leaves crackling and crunching under her, and rested her head on his shoulder.

She breathed in deep. “So this is what they teach at Hawthorne.”

“…Some of it.”

She was comfortable—way too comfortable. If they stayed here like this all night, she wouldn’t argue. Would he?

“I have to say, I’m jealous.” She let her eyes close. “Thank you…that was the sweetest thing anyone’s done for me since I moved here.”

His thumb brushed across the back of her hand. “It was worth it, to see the look on your face.”

“Hey, Langdon,” a new voice hollered from somewhere behind them. “We’ve been looking all over for you.”

Michael sat up and she followed, craning her neck to find a small group of Hawthorne boys in their crisp black and white uniforms. She plucked a couple of leaves out of Michael’s hair, then traced the curve of his cheek with her fingertips.

“I have to go,” he told her. “I’m sorry.”

Fuck it, she thought, before she pressed her lips to his. It was a tentative kiss and far too chaste; she wasn’t sure if she’d miscalculated his feelings. But when she started to pull away, he drew her back to him, his fingers tipping her chin upward. He kissed her deeply, both of them ignoring the howls from his friends until they broke apart, desperate to catch their breath.

Michael left another kiss on her forehead, soft and lingering and delicate.

“See you around, Hawthorne boy.”

He gave her one last grin, and then he was gone, back to his group of mysterious, ethereal friends, back to his strange school of myth and legend, nothing but a silhouette fading into the shadows of this surreal Halloween night.

@lastregasolitaria @mylippo @zeciex @lvngdvns @langdonsdemon @yourkingcodyfern @sojournmichael @gabnelson98 @rainbowrosesjas @antichristlangdxn @keavysmithxoxo @artistlunadrayne @codysfallenangels @batgirlbride @mileeyyowens @dead-witch-boy @boofy1998 @gentianea @cryptid-coalition @langdonsrapture @kinlovecody @yuriohoe04 @electricurie @marvel-rpdr-and-ahs @gallxntdean @langdonscurls @jcshadowkiss-blog @frozenhuntress67 @sebastianshoe @dixmond-taurus @bookobssesed99 @sassylangdon @queenie435 @holylangdon @weareallevilmotherfuckers @langdonfern @angsty-otters-blog @denaexr @sapphronrose @micheallangdons @lostin-fern @crazedcatcuddler @satansapostle @monsucre @softlangdvn @ritualmichael

#michael langdon #michael langdon x reader #michael langdon x fem!reader #michael langdon imagine #michael langdon fanfiction #ahs fic #ahs imagine #ahs fanfiction #ahs apocalypse imagine #ahs apocalypse fanfiction #fic: strangeness and charm #fic: fluff #fic: hawthorne era

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summersoldier-616 · 6 years ago

Text

First Impressions

Chapter 00/Prologue

Sherlock Holmes x Reader

word count: ~3.000 words

warnings: swearing, talk about murder, alcoholism, drug abuse, angst, sulky reader and surely some grammatical mistakes or mistranslations :)

A/N: This is actually a kind of pilot for an actual series I am starting. I am indeed fairly new to writing fanfiction and espacially this little lovely bastard but hopefully I’ll do my fair share. So please enjoy and let me know what you think.

I also wanted to say that I am in no way an expert in forensics, biology or anything similar. All facts I use are either researched or fictitious. However, I try to come as near to the truth as possible.

You found yourself in a dark room devoid of any warmth or furniture, not even a window to determine the daytime. The only light source consisted in a naked bulb which hung still; the light beaming neiter bright nor large enough to illuminate the walls or ceiling as you made your way towards the dirty light source, the floor cracking underneath your feet as you neared.

Standing close enough to touch it, you carefully reached out for the lightbulb. Holding your breath for a second you finally gave it a spin to make the bulb turn around in circles in hope to see more of the foreign room. However, nothing new came into focus as you kept staring into empty space, the spinning light source making the atmosphere even more eerie than before.

As you were about to turn away, a blinding reflection appeared for a second making you halt in your movement. Seconds went by before the action recurred, this time revealing its location. When you took a step forward the sound of breaking glass rang out, making you direct your focus downwards in an attempt to decipher the new sensation.

Picking up a small, oblong object you stepped farther out of the light cone and recognized the item without much effort as a syringe, a dirty one at that. As soon as the term fell from your lips, a low grunt rang out which in return made you turn around. You screamed in horror as a shadowy frame hang underneath the lightbulb, desperately gasping for air while his limbs had been bound.

With shaky steps you closed in on the struggling being but as you reached out, about to touch his shoulder, you felt a hand on your own.

“Ma'am, excuse me“, a soft voice accompanied by a slight shake of your shoulder awoke you from your slumber. As you opened your eyes to find yourself in another foreign environment, in a confined seat surrounded by strangers and backrests, the friendly face of a young flight attendant came into your field of vision. “Ma'am, we're about to begin our final descent. Therefore I have to ask you to fasten your seat belt“, the stewardess repeated kindly.

With a short nod you quickly fiddled with the safety belt, your brain still slightly foggy from the nap and the corresponding dream. At the sound of the fastener clicking into place the young woman in costume gave you a quick smile and then continued her check down the aisle.

As you looked out of the small airplane window and saw nothing but grey clouds, you quietly scoffed; already missing the burning hot sun of Phoenix, Arizona. After graduating from the University of Arizona – the College of Medicine in Phoenix, to be quite exact – you had started to work for the Phoenix Police Department while still participating actively in the Department of Pathology at your former place of study.

However, the work with the PHXPD was not exactly as thrilling as you would have expected. Most of your 'patients' had died by some drug related crime or the drug itself wherefore the actual pathological examination proved to be less difficult than you had hoped. So when your dreaded 30th birthday rolled around and you came to the realisation that you were heading down an impasse, the decision to alter the current course wasn't that difficult.

And that's exactly how the now 32-year old you found herself on an airplane headed to England's capital with all important belonings stuffed into two large suitcases and the letter of resignation back home on your employer's desk. However rash that decision might have seemed and no matter your family's protests, till the moment you boarded the plane almost ten hours ago you didn't doubt your decision; feeling almost encouraged by the outcry you had caused.

With a sigh you teared your eyes away from the cloudy view and redirected your attention towards the slight mess you had created before falling asleep. As your departure was at quite short notice and you didn't like to leave unfinished buisness behind, you chose to take some unsolved cases with you, including a quite unsettling case, a young gang member's corpse being found drifting through the Gila River, which had occupied your mind just before your involuntary nap.

This may not seem out of the ordinary if it wasn't for the man to die from asphyxiation. And although throughout your examination you had found multiple indications for physical abuse, neither of those were from strangulation or the like which could have led to suffocation.

However, as you took another look at the forensic report everything seemed so painfully obvious. Quickly grabbing the toxicologic report you scanned the results for a certain data and as you finally found the object of desire you had to fight the urge to smite your forehead.

You emptied the rest of your overprized gin and tonic in one gulp before rapidly typing away on your laptop, determined to finish the covering letter before deboarding as you had just solved the case in your sleep – quiet literally.

“No, listen to me“, you audibly groaned on your way to the baggage claim, the mobile phone pressed to your ear since you had stepped out of the airplane, “Bobby, if you'd just shut your mouth for a minute, I might not have to repeat every second sentence.“

You really weren't a short-tempered person, cross your heart, simply incredibly impatient. Since early days you had been irritated by the obvious inability of your fellows to follow your trains of thoughts, always feeling pressured to slow down which in return made you even more frustrated.

However, as time went by and you grew older you found a way to at least dial it down a notch in 'emergency situations'. The initial bad habit to sometimes drink one to many became a slight addiction to more often than not being at least a bit tipsy; numbing your brain to slow down your racing mind.

“Yes, I am well aware of the time difference but as criminals never rest, lawmen shouldn't either“, you reasoned while your destination came into view, the first suitcases and carpetbags already passing by on the baggage conveyer belt. As you heard light snorring instead of an answer you shouted loudly into the speaker, “I finally understand how they murdered him!“

As soon as the sentence had left your lips, you felt countless pairs of eyes on you; some passerby even stopped in their tracks to cut you a look. Looking around you mouthed an inaudible 'What?', forcing yourself to look more confident than you actually felt, and continued your way, hopeful to now have your collocutor's attention.

“I hope this is a good one“, Bob murmured while you heard rustling in the background, he was probably leaving the bed as to not disturb his wife. As he rambled on you arrived at the baggage carousel, standing between other passengers who had already found their luggage.

“Cry me a fucking river, Bob“, you taunted absentmindedly while scanning your surroundings, quickly growing impatient as you waited for your baggage. Looking to your left you saw a small child at the hand of her mother who shot you a deadly glare; probably for swearing within earshot of her offspring that was surely too busy watching items of luggage rolling by on the baggage conveyer belt to listen to some stranger's phone call.

“Do you remember how I had a hard time understanding how someone could die by suffocation with neither external influence nor pulmonary aspiration? And yet it is so painfully obvious that it must have been too easy for me to see. The drugs, Bobby, it's his addiction!“, you explained, earning a few more irritated side glances. “So what?“, Bob asked, his voice still laced with sleep and now additionally incomprehension, “The little junky took an overdose?“

“No, no, quiet the opposite actually. His body did not only show symptoms of regular drug use, which doesn't come as a surprise considering his presumable addiction, but they also found evidence for recent drug withdrawal. That was the missing piece, Bobby, don't you understand?!“, you asked excitedly. Your question was answered by a short peroid of silence, followed by a deep-drawn sigh and a muttered, “Do me the favour and just tell me.“

If it hadn't been for the importance of the current phone conversation, you would have ended the call at this point. Explaining an officer how the cause of death was brought about was basically solving the case for him. However, as your luggage seemed to be long in coming you chose to elaborate.

“Okay, listen and listen closely. The victim showed signs of physical abuse in form of possible captivation which means that he quiet surely wasn't able to satisfy his cravings and therefore went through an involuntary withdrawal. This 'shock theraphy' probably resulted in a seizure which thereupon led to the asphyxiation and due to the lack of medical intervention his death.

I just gave the results from the toxicology a once over and all indications are that his serotonin as well as the noradrenaline level must have been extremely low which would complement my assumption about the deprivation and considering his physical condition I am confident that my presumption concerning the captivity will turn out to be true as well.

I already sent an email to my replacement in the pathology department to run another test on the victim concerning his external injuries and as soon as I arrive at the hotel I'll send you my report on the current data which I worked with. If you'll excuse me now, I still have a busy schedule ahead of me and there are only so many hours in the day.“

Without awaiting an answer you ended the call and with a smile on your face put the phone in your jeans' backpocket. However, as you realised that the conveyer belt had come to a halt without a trace of your luggage your facial features derailed. Spinning on your heel you quickly made your way to the next information while holding your handbag close in a futile attempt to slow your racing thoughts and heart.

You stared wide eyed at the middle-aged woman sitting behind the counter, wearing a sympathetic look on her face. “I am truly sorry, Miss, but it seems like your luggage wasn't on the plane. Our personnel could not find it either in the cargo area or somewhere on the way to the baggage claim“, she explained once more.

“But that is impossible“, you choked out, “All my belonings, clothes were in those two suitcases and you are telling me that you lost them? How is that even possible?“ Just as the woman was about to answer your rhethorical question, the ringing of her phone stopped her before you could, saving her from further embarrasment. While she concentrated her attention on the computer, typing away on the console, you had time to check your phone, only to realise that you had already wasted two precious hours in this maze called airport.

“Thank you, I'll inform her immediately“, the female sighed into the telephone before hanging up. Before she even managed to address you, you stood at the desk and asked hopefully, “So, you did find them? Oh, thank god. I wouldn't have known what to do without them. Where exactly can I pick-“ - “Miss, we indeed did find your luggage. However, I must inform you that your suitcases are currently in Madrid.“ The last part was a slightly whispered answer, followed by an unsettling long pause.

“I do not expect that you have by any chance a town called Madrid in England?“, you muttered tiredly although the question sounded more like a half hearted joke which the staff member answered with a shake of her head. Suddenly you felt exhausted, tired and absolutely fed up with the whole situation. Massaging the bridge of your nose, you chose to end this conversation as quickly as possible; not like it was leading anywhere wherefore you quietly asked, “How long?“

After a quick look into her computer she informed you that it should take about three days, maximum five. At this point you just accepted your fate silently, leaving behind your phone number and e-mail address if by a fluke your luggage would arrive any sooner. The woman apologized again profoundly before releasing you by wishing you – quite ironically – a 'good day'.

On your way out, you made a quick stop at one of the airports' outpriced shops to buy some necessities. The cashier, probably a student who needed to make money on the side, shot a scornful glance at you as he scanned your purchase consisting of a fresh-perked coffee and a bottle of whiskey.

While the young man put away the cash you opened the bought liquor, opened the lid of your steaming coffee and poured some of the spirit into your caffeinated drink. As you took a sip and tasted the delightful flavor on your tongue a content sigh fell from your lips; answered by a quiet snicker from the male student.

“Listen, kid“, you warned the boy while you stored the liquor away in your purse – your only luggage at the given moment. With a quick once-over you knew that the male behind the counter had it coming; glazed over eyes due to increased production of lachrymal fluid, chapped lips and lastly a light swelling of the lymph node meant that the poor boy would be laid low with a pretty nasty flue in a few days.

A dry chuckle escaped your lips before you rummaged through your handbag, all the while lecturing, “First of, if you haven't heared of Irish Coffee, then you should probably rethink your attitude to life. Secondly, you have no idea how shitty this day has been so far.“ As you finally found what you were looking for, you tossed the item in his direction while adding with a frosty smile, “And lastly, my bad habits surely shouldn't be your greatest concern.“

Whit that you took your coffee and left the store behind with the boy looking back and forth between your departing form and the package of tissues.

You couldn't help the content sigh that fell from your lips as you finally breathed fresh air; and although it was slightly drizzling by now, the cooling effect was more than welcome as you were practically fuming with rage at this point. As you dragged your feet towards the street to hail down a taxi, your rational side managed to regain the upper hand after being too emotional for the last two hours.

Straightening your back and raking your fingers through your hair to look the least bit presentable, you whistled with your fingers to catch some taxidrivers attention. With a small smile adorning your lips as seconds later a taxi stopped you walked towards to vehicle; only to be outrun by two men, the smaller one opening the door while the taller man tipped away on his mobile phone, mumbling to himself.

“Excuse me“, you shrieked furiously, admittedly louder than you intended to but as the one holding the car door open focused his attention on you, it obviously had served the purpose. With a smile that didn't reach your eyes and a bitter sweet voice that dripped with venom you purred: “I believe that is my cab.“

While the blonde one quickly let go of the car door, wearing a guilty expression mixed with a tinge of embarrasment, his friend didn't seem to mind the inconvenience as he began to step into the taxi, not even bothering to spare you a glance. With a quick movement you banged your fist on the car roof which in return made the man stop in his tracks. “I think you failed to hear, sir“, you repeated sibilantly, “This happens to be my cab.“

As you looked angrily at the male he scanned you blatantly, only for his expression to grow even colder as he retorted monotone, “You are already late so I don't see the necessity for your rush.“ Shocked not only by his straightforwardness but the veracity of his claim as well, you failed to come up with incisive answer, only hissing a half-hearted 'You don't know the last thing about me'. Misinterpreting the retort as a challenge the dark haired man turned around, beginning to slowly stroll around all the while ignoring his friend's attempts to stop him.

“Early thirties which would explain your decision for a significant life change like – in your case – leaving Arizona; an age in which the average person decides to conduct a sort of 'life audit' to assess meaningfulness and satisfaction. The farewell must have been quiet tearful considering the residue of lachrymal fluid on your shoulder; your mother must weep easily, doesn't she?

However, considering the evident lack of luggage you either a) had it collected or b) the airline must have made a mistake which is much more likely due to your tense posture and the alcohol you mixed in your coffee; don't you think ten o'clock in the morning is a bit early to drink?

Which overall brings me to my original assessment of your lateness. After all, as an arrival you surely had an appointment for the key delivery which you must have missed by now. Therefore, it shouldn't be to much of a hastle to wait for the next vehicle and leave this taxi to us.“ His deduction concluded with a fatigued sigh from his companion.

You were taken aback. It was neither do to his perceptions and following conclusions being spot-on nor because of the obviousness he stated those facts with but the simple aspect of meeting someone who was able to talk even more than you made you speechless. As you made eye contact with the other man he gave you a compassionate smile, implying that his friend's remarks weren't anything out of the ordinary. But no matter the impressive demonstration, you weren't about to loose this fairly one-sided verbal exchange.

“Impressive“, you cooed, trying to keep your composure which proofed to be a difficult task, “Right down to the last detail, except for one minor exception.“ At these words the dark haired man stopped in his tracks, keeping his back turned to you. You couldn't fight down the smug smile that overtook your features – admittedly, you didn't try to either – as you heared his deep voice asking: “And what would that be?“

You shot his companion a knowing look and although you weren't quite sure why, his features held the same smug look present on your face as he let go of the door, stepping back onto the pavement. Stepping inside the car, you calmly answered, “That this is my cab.“ With that you shut the door while the dark haired man turned around, an unreadable expression on his face as the car drove off with the two men standing at the roadside and you sitting inside the taxi.

“Whereto, Miss?“, the taxidriver asked, a slight tinge of petulance evident in his voice. As you turned around, looking through the rear window to see the tall man standing in the same position as you had left him while his friend hailed down another cab, you answered with a smile on your face, “236 Baker Street, please.“

#attractionandrepulsion #sherlock #sherlock holmes #watson #doctor watson #john watson #mrs hudson #benedict cumberbatch #martin freeman #jim moriarty #greg lestrade #mycroft holmes #fanfiction #bbc #sherlock x reader #holmesxreader #sherlockxreader #fanfic #sherlockedmarvelously

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acidicwriting · 6 years ago

Text

Billie Eilish -Lovely feat.Khalid

Isn't it lovely all alone

Heart made of glass my mind of stone

Tear me to pieces skin to bone

Hello,welcome home

She lay on her back,the bed sheet caressing her skin with a smooth touch.The sheet covering her didn't seem to offer her any warmth. Alyssa's fingers were cold, body involuntarily shivering whenever a cool gust of wind blew in through the half-open window.Her previously harsh sobs had subsided into silent tears that now only remained as dried-up tracks on her face.Her heartbeat was even,no longer hammering against her chest .Her whole being was now eerily calm, similar to a formerly angry bee, buzzing with menace before being smoked into serenity.A brilliant flash of light danced across the sky,turning it green for a moment,followed by the loud clap of Thor beating his hammer high up in the heavens yet she lay impervious to it.

As if on cue, Patches darted into her room and jumped up on her bed with a shaky meow.The cat's eyes were wide, bottle brush tail flicking in the air as he made his way to Alyssa , sniffing her face before climbing onto her chest and taking a seat. He looked regal really, posture like that of a noble general marching his brave soldiers into the battleground.She was going to miss him.The comfort he brought simply with his presence was unparallelled.His meows, his purrs, that look of smug satisfaction on his face he when he caught a cockroach and brought it back to proudly show off to her.Those two lone patches of brown on the base of his ears that contrasted softly with his white fur.Even his weight on her chest was reassuring .Like everything was going to be alright in the world. Only it wasn't. Not for her.

But that was fine, really. She'd come to terms with it.It all had to end now. No more anxiety, no more constant self-loathing, no more loneliness. She felt numb. And oh,so tired. Her hands were stable as they softly scratched the top of Patches' little head. The kitten responded by resting his chin on his feet and closing his eyes.It seemed like a nice enough way to go ; lying on her bed, cozy, with the only creature in the world that never made her feel silly or worthless,who looked at her with unconditional love brimming in those icy blue eyes.She felt a sharp pang of guilt in her heart as she thought about how Patches would feel when he finally realised his master was dead.In the goodbye message she'd sent Alicia,she'd told her to take care of the cat in her permanent absence. She had turned off her phone so there was no chance of her getting a reply text. Not that she'd get one too soon anyway. Alicia hardly had time to check what her attention-seeking little sister texted her,what with her jam-packed schedule. Who'd actually notice her absence first? Her father? Her sister? Certainly not her "friends". At least she'd filled several bowls of food and water for Patches so he could survive on his own for a while.And if those ran out then,well,he could just eat her right?

Her lunch was leftover linguine with a simple sauce.Last night it had tasted like spring and sunshine on a plate.Today it tasted like ash.She managed to chew and swallow the whole thing, walked to the bathroom,gulped down the contents of the little orange bottle of Ambien and washed that down with a bottle of wine.Then she lay down, waiting for the inevitable to happen.

Her wait wasn't a long one. In less than a half hour her inhalations began to consecutively become shallower with her heart rate picking up.Her lips felt dry and when she tried to lick them even her tongue turned out to be parched .Calm down,she told herself, it's okay. She attempted to swallow but that small action stung as if her throat were scraped raw on the inside. She needed water. Right then.

Alyssa sat up ,dislocating Patches ,and promptly fell back onto her sheets, hit by a sudden wave of light-headedness. Inhaling deeply she sat back up, her arms quivering as she pushed herself off the bed, only to take two steps forward before plummeting to the floor. Her legs felt like jelly.Everything looked hazy.She blinked hard, trying to clear her unfocused eyes but to no avail.Heart pounding, she crawled to the dresser on top of which her phone was. She reached out with her hands but only ended up pushing it farther away brushing her fingers against it.Alyssa was slightly breathless now,mouth hung open, insides twisting as she tried to push herself up holding the dresser drawers but found that her body didn't really do what she wanted it to anymore and fell back limply on the ground with a loud thud.Her body felt like it had been hit by a truck.Her hands were shaking and she couldn't do anything to stop them,the muscles of her legs,back and shoulders were contracting wildly yet she was utterly helpless.Her throat seemed to be closing up.Her mouth still hung open but except for the loud gasps of breath she inhaled and exhaled she could make no other sound.She was crying now, screaming in her head for someone to come save her. This was not how her life was supposed to end.Her body was not supposed to betray her like this.Alyssa felt a wild stab of fear clawing at her insides that came with the blunt realisation that she was not ready to die."Help me please please anybody please just someone help me " the voice inside her head kept screaming and screaming and screaming while all that came out of her mouth were small choked whimpers and gasps.She could hear Patches wailing loudly, scared of whatever was happening to her before running off into another part of the house,seemingly eager to put a distance between them and leaving her to fend for herself. It was hot,so unbearably hot.Her body felt like it was blistering. Her eyes burned as they fluttered shut.

She could hear a voice and the sound of footsteps .Someone was in her apartment. "I'M IN HERE! " the voice in her head screamed. It was a familiar voice that said "Uh, Alyssa it's me Johnny from next door, I brought your cat back.He came into my apartment meowing his ass off and it was actually kinda freaky 'cause I thought he was feral but then I saw the collar and HOLY FUCKING SHIT WHAT HAPPENED" he had walked right into the doorway to her room.Johnny dropped Patches and rushed to her side, turning her on her back to feel her neck for a pulse and simultaneously calling and shrieking the address to a 911 operator. Patches anxiously paced half circles around the both of them,sniffing Alyssa's trembling hands and wailing loudly at her .

The last thing Alyssa saw before losing her consciousness was the face of a medic as she pulled her left eye open,aimed a flashlight at it and yelled something to someone behind behind her.

Everything happened in a rush after the medics came.Alyssa was heaved onto a stretcher,her still-convulsing body strapped down and pulled inside an ambulance that sped away instantly with Johnny in it with her.She was wheeled to the operating room, tubes attached to her arms,a particularly big tube in her mouth pumping in the necessary fluids. The doors closed behind Alyssa and the emergency medical team, separating them from Johnny who had been running right beside them. He stood there, shaking with fright before sinking into one of the couches with his face in his hands. What the hell just happened? Why was Alyssa having a grand mal seizure in the middle of the day? How long had she been like that before he found her? What would have happened if her cat hadn't run to his apartment?Was she even going to make it?

Alyssa was trapped in a nightmare.She kept running but they always found her. The malicious enigmas that her subconscious had created.There were many.People she used to know,people she didn't remember ever seeing.She didn't know exactly what it was about them that terrified her.Maybe it was simply their malicious aura,or maybe it was the way they smiled at her.Cold smiles with sinister eyes .They smiled like they knew a secret of hers.As they'd try to grab her they'd laugh.And when she got away they's scream and moan as if they were in pain.There was a small boy too.He wore a yellow shirt,black pants and black shoes.He never approached her.He stayed in the shadows, just quietly watching her.There was something about him that absolutely terrified her. On seeing him her breaths stuttered, she'd shake and just collapse. Was this all in her head?Or was it real life? Was she simply trapped in another dimension?Was this limbo? Or was this where the dead stayed? If that was the case where were the others?

There was a light now. A brilliant light that had an otherworldly quality to it.It seemed to emanate a soft music. And she inexplicably found herself being drawn to it. She took a step towards it, entranced, reached out a hand only to be pulled back into darkness with a shriek.The monsters were back.

After what seemed like an eternity of suffering,Alyssa's eyes flickered open.And to her massive surprise she found herself in a hospital room, with needles in her arm, what looked like a catheter hooked on her torso and the sound of beeping from the device measuring her heart rate.'What the hell?'she thought and turned her head to the left to see Johnny sitting there tapping away on his phone. He looked so out of place in the drab,pale cream room, dressed in a pink t-shirt, black jeans and white shoes. And yet he looked so good. She suddenly felt inferior and oddly exposed to him in the hospital gown with its thin,white material,hair that was most probably matted to her head and her pale skin.Awkwardly fumbling with the sheets,she tried to pull them all over herself when he looked up and went "Oh thank god you're awake I was beginning to get worried" with a smile so bright she could only stare for a moment before she snapped out of it. "Why were you worried?" it came out harsh due to her not having spoken in a while but Johnny either didn't notice or just chose to ignore it because the next second he was going off about how he was so scared when he found her, and the doctors gave him a mini heart attack when they declared that she had died on the table and then almost fainting in relief when that one particularly determined doctor who seemed to just not know how to give up had miraculously brought Alyssa back from the dead. "YOU WERE DEAD FOR 2 MINUTES AND 42 SECONDS ALYSSA THAT'S ALMOST LIKE 3 FUCKING MINUTES" .He then proceeded to explain how her sister had showed up that night in tears."I swear she would've wiped the floor with the face of that nurse who told her she couldn't see you in the icu right then if I wasn't holding her back" and how Alicia practically lived in her hospital room for the entirety of four days and only went home to shower when Johnny visited each day. " I told her you're up.She's on the way now, it's gonna take her,like,10 minutes and she says to tell you that she's gonna kill you". "Oh" is all the reply Alyssa can muster before a doctor walks in with with a nurse and a woman who introduces herself saying "Hi, Alyssa my name is Charlotte" "She's one of our doctors who are going to see you during your stay here", added the doctor. After a moment she again replied with a quiet "Oh",which seemed to be the only word in Alyssa's muddled, slow brain yet her heart rate had picked up and she began to fidget uncomfortably at the idea of having to talk to someone. She spaced out, didn't even notice them leaving or Johnny resuming his seat on the couch and refocusing his attention to his phone. "Thanks Johnny" she said when she finally came to her senses. He smiled softly at her, "Don't sweat it" he said before he went back to his phone.His smile seemed to calm her down a little.She looked to her right and there was a tray laden with soup and a glass of orange juice.She carefully picked up the glass, pleasantly surprised to see she had the strength to do so, and took a small sip. It tasted bitter. She put it back down and settled back against the pillow,at ease. Her calmness didn't last long ; the next moment her door was flung open and there she was. Alicia, her older sister who didn't really seem to care before but now had eyes brimming with tears.She half-ran to her bed and flung herself at Alyssa and held her so tightly Alyssa wasn't sure if her sudden lack of breath was due to the fact that she herself was overcome with emotions or her sister's stronghold on her. And she seemed to not even care about that because they were both sobbing now,shoulders shaking,saying words the other couldn't comprehend.Johnny excused himself with an awkward "I'll get going then",leaving the door open behind him.

When Alicia finally detached herself, Alyssa found herself become nervous again about having to explain her actions. She opened her mouth, about to say something when Alicia gasps and reaches for her handbag, through which the head of a certain cat with white fur and a lone brown patch at the base of each ear could be seen "I couldn't not bring him he's missed you so much. Johnny says he's been crying for you all the time",she said,letting him out .He runs to Alyssa, meowing, without missing a beat. Patches stands on her half sitting body, hind paws on her stomach, soft front paws on her chest, sniffing her face and then rubbing his head on her face while meowing.Alyssa realised she loved this cat to death.While Johnny may have called an ambulance it was Patches who had run off to Johnny's to bring him to her.She hugged the cat to herself, kissing his small head."Johnny took care of him?" she asked Alicia."Yeah he loves the cat he says it basically saved you", she replied, in an amused voice. "He did,he's my furry little hero" Alyssa said, kissing his head again and smiling softly. "I'll be there for you from now on Aly". Alyssa froze, her mind immediately blanking but as hard as she struggled she couldn't find any words to form a sort of reply.In lieu she said "The door's open".Alicia's face portrayed hurt as she stammered " OH I um yeah I'll leave I'm sorry I know I-" "I didn't mean that you have to leave I just don't want the staff or a doctor to see Patches in here with me". "Oh thank god" Alicia said, visibly relieved as she quickly went to the door and shut it. When she came and sat back down at Alyssa's side she took a deep breath and said "Johnny's hot" Alyssa snorted before replying "Tell me about it". In response her sister smirked "I think he likes you" ."Alicia he calls me a crazy cat lady ", Alyssa replied half exasperated half amused. Alicia grinned, "He told them you two were engaged". "He what ?". Alicia's grin grew bigger "Well they wouldn't let him ride with you in the ambulance but apparently he had to come with you so he just lied". "He was just being the nice guy that he is?", Alyssa offered." Her sister snorted, "He so likes you."

Hi guys.So this is the first story of mine that I feel confident enough to post.It's kind of special to me.And if you've made it this far,through all that cringe shit,thank you.I hope you had a somewhat good read.Merry Christmas!🎄🎄✨

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