#that man decays in my brain at all times

[fuzziemutt]

I'm starting this new phase in life called "insane" in which I'm just fucking insane

[babisawyer]

couldn't get the damn app to work to watch exorcist 2 so I watched the autopsy of jane doe instead.

[not-neverland06]

Hey! Love your writing and love Flux!! I was hoping to request a kind of angsty/fluffy fic with the worst!wolverine where the meet her in the void and maybe Logan knew her just not very well and he’s finally letting himself open up and be close with her (likewise with reader/flux towards logan) and they get into an argument or maybe logan has a nightmare and he ends up stabbing her with his claws and maybe the aftermath of him beating himself up and sabotaging the new relationship until reader finally snaps him out of it and says it was an accident and she still loves him?? Thanks!!

mistake

Logan Howlett x fem!reader

a/n: I want to thank you for this request because I've been having the worst writer's block in the world. I was worried about having to go into another unofficial hiatus, but this made something in my brain click together and I knocked it out in two hours. my life is yours 🙏🙏 Summary: You know him. Or, you knew him. And you never blamed him for what happened in your world. It wasn't his fault that everyone you loved died and you barely escaped with your life. But you never actually thought you'd have to see him again. You don't know what to do when all these feelings resurface with his appearance.

No one truly knew who you were back in your universe. After the horrific incident at the mansion, you had run. You’d run as fast and as far as you could from the slaughter of your friends. You’d barely escaped with your life, and from the amount of blood and gore they’d left behind, most people just assumed you were dead. 

It’s not like anyone cared about you. Scott, Ororo, and Jean had been the real heroes. But it didn’t matter because they were still mutants at the end of the day. It didn’t matter how many people they saved. How many lives they positively changed, no one would ever see past the fact that they were mutants. 

Being one of the newer members of the recently disbanded X-Men gave you enough anonymity to get through daily life without being recognized. It did not, however, protect you from being sucked into the shit fest that is the multiverse. 

You’re not sure what it is about you that just attracts bad luck. You don’t know if it’s some hidden power that’s a part of your evolution. You’re just apparently perpetually fucked. The TVA had determined that you were interfering with the proper flow of your timeline or some bullshit. 

Now you’re here. Stuck in the void with nothing but decay and drunk former superheroes. If you have to watch one more Captain America ‘rally the troops’ you’re gonna kill him yourself. You’ve considered switching teams and joining Cassandra Nova at times. If only so you don’t have to deal with Johnny Storm and the rest of the dipshits. 

You get along with Laura, at least. She likes to tell you about her Logan and you like to dodge her questions about yours. She doesn’t need to know that not every version of Wolverine has a golden heart and story worthy of tears. Yours was a fuck up, plain and simple, but you never thought the incident was his fault. 

As much as others tried to push the blame on him. The people who raided the mansion were determined. There was no other way that day was going to end up. You’d just have one less X-Man. But people always love a martyr more than a victim. 

After a couple of years, you get used to the monotony. Your days are only occasionally broken up by dodging Cassandra’s henchmen and trying not to get sucked up into the soul destroyer. Other than that, you spend your nights getting drunk with Gambit and pretending you know whatever the fuck he’s talking about. 

“Laura! I managed to find some chocolate!” You run into the hideout looking for the girl. It’s rare to find good food that isn’t already a month past its expiration date. You weren’t planning on sharing the candy with her but you figured she’d smell it on you and it’s not worth the fight. 

Instead, you stop short as the familiar blue and yellow uniform you’d always try to force on him comes into view. He’s stealing Gambit’s liquor and you know that’s not going to go over well. What you don’t know is why you are so sure that this is your Wolverine. 

You’ve never had a Wolverine in the void. Not once. This could be any one of the hundreds of thousands of variants. But you see that look in his eye. That familiar watery gaze shows just how much he hurts, even if he doesn’t want to admit it. 

“Logan?” You breathe his name out in disbelief. Bypassing the Deadpool standing nearby. You’ve dealt with enough of those in your time down here. He takes a step back, fixing you with a distrusting look. 

He keeps the bottle of alcohol clutched close to his chest like he thinks you’re going to take it. You track the movement and you scoff. “Right,” you shake your head and stop short. “Of course, the only thing you care about is still getting fucking drunk.”

He glares at you, taking a step forward like he thinks it might actually intimidate you. “Do I know you, bub?” He reaches forward, probably to jab his finger in your chest. You drop your gaze to his outstretched hand and narrow your eyes. 

The material of his suit fluctuates, pulling back and rippling over his arms like liquid and not spandex. He doesn’t notice the manipulation of matter until it's his skin you target. It melts off his adamantium bones and he stares down in horror. 

You know he's scared because he’s watching his body dissolve but he’s not feeling any pain. You could make it hurt, but that’s not what you want. You just want to see if he’ll remember you now. If there’s anything half-decent left in that alcohol-rotted brain of his.

“Flux,” he grits your X-Man name out through his teeth like it hurts him to say it. 

You nod and his skin and suit go back to normal, like you’d never tampered with it in the first place. “You do remember me, then?”

“Thought you fucking died with the rest of them.” Your face drops before you feel an astonished smile on your face. 

“You know, it’s a comfort to know nothing about my world has changed. You’re still the same spineless dick that left us all to die.” You shake your head and storm out of the hideout. You don’t know how long they’re planning on staying but you pray they leave soon. If you have to deal with him longer than a week, you’ll just kill him. 

You step outside just as Laura’s coming back from the bonfire. She greets you with a stiff smile and you wonder what’s got in her in a mood. It only takes a glance over her shoulder to find the reason.

Logan is sulking by the fire, nursing yet another bottle of whiskey. He’s drinking it like water and even with his healing, his liver should have turned to mush by now. “I can see why you didn’t tell me about him,” she mutters as she passes by you. 

You know she tried to be quiet but you can see the way Logan’s head tilts slightly towards you. He’s heard her and you know it has to sting just a little.

You glance down at the leaves under your feet, eyes glazing over as you feel the guilt sink into your stomach. You shouldn’t feel bad, you didn’t do anything wrong. You didn’t hurt him, technically, just reminded him who you were. But you still feel bad for what you said. 

You’ve never blamed Logan for what happened. And if you did, you would be a hypocrite. Because you survived too, and you left them all behind. You ran like a coward. You could never blame him when you failed to save them just the same. 

You take in a deep breath and steel yourself. You’ll just apologize, walk over there, and explain to him you didn’t mean what you said. You know he’ll be a dick about it. Claiming he doesn’t want your apology. You’ll just leave him alone after. 

You’re about to step forward when he barks out a gruff command, “Don’t fucking stare at me like that. I don’t want your company.” He turns back to the fire and takes another swig from his bottle. 

You roll your eyes and walk towards him. “You can be as miserable and self-pitying as you want, just let me say one thing.”

His head whips towards you so quickly you’re surprised you don’t hear it snap. “I’m not fucking pitying myself,” he grits out. You quirk your brows in amusement, glancing towards the bottle in his hand and the clear way he’s sulking. He turns his attention back towards the fire, intent on ignoring you again. 

“I don’t blame you for what happened,” you tell him. You ignore the warning look he shoots you, taking a seat beside him even if he doesn’t want you to. “I-” you choke on the words, struggling to admit to yourself what you’ve never wanted to. 

“Don’t.” You know it’s meant to be a warning. But when you look at him and see how completely broken he is, it sounds more like a pathetic plead. 

But you need to say this. As selfish as it is, you need to say this to someone., Need to unload this guilt you’ve carried for so long. “I was there, Logan. I could have saved them and I didn’t. I fucking ran.”

“Kid, don’t do this-”

“Jean was still moving,” you blurt out. You feel the way your heart speeds up at the admission. Your fingers shake and the air around you stills. 

His face drops and he slowly turns towards you. You’re afraid to look at him. You feel like a bunny staring down the snout of a wolf, there’s no escaping this. You’ve created this trap for yourself. 

“What?” He demands. His voice has lost that tremor of vulnerability. Instead, he sounds like he did when he first found out what had happened to you all. That same deadly level of calm that makes you want to bolt again. 

“She,” you stare into the fire until your eyes burn. You don’t know if it’s from the light or the smoke but the pain focuses you. “She was shaking on the floor. There was blood everywhere and she could barely breathe. They had gassed us with something. None of us could use our powers, it’s the only reason they got a one-up on us.”

You can feel yourself slipping back into that moment. You feel the warmth of the blood on your skin. It seeps into your suit and makes the material cling to you. Your gut is split open and the only thing holding your intestines in is your hands. 

Jean is in front of you. Her hands are twitching by her sides. There’s blood pouring out of her lips, dribbling down her tongue and cheeks. Every breath is a rattle so deep you feel it in your bones. 

Each inhale sounds like someone dragging glass through the membrane of her lungs. Her chest rises and sinks shallowly as she gasps for air. She’s practically convulsing, eyes twitching every which way.

The gas has faded from the halls. The people have left, satisfied with the carnage. You’re alone, surrounded only by the blood and bodies of your friends. None of the others are moving. Some of them are so mangled you can’t even tell who they are anymore. 

Jean’s eyes lock onto yours. The only anchor she has. And you can see it, the frantic, wounded animal gaze on her face. She knows she’s dying. She knows there’s nothing she can do about it. 

You can only stand by and watch as your friend dies. You could be her comfort. You could be the last face she sees before she dies, distracting her from the sight of her dead fiancee behind her. 

But what do you do?

You hold your guts in your stomach and you run. You can’t look at her. You can’t look at any of them. You can hear her croaking behind you. And even when you’re out of the mansion, when you’re in a hospital somewhere getting repaired and Logan’s on a rampage, you still hear her. 

You feel something heavy on your arm and it’s like you're being forcibly dragged out of a trance. Logan’s looking at you with something you’ve never seen before. But it’s something you’ve always desperately craved. 

It’s like he’s seeing you, really seeing you. For the first time in a long time, you feel that ache of guilt ease away ever so slightly. It doesn’t disappear, but you’re sharing the burden with someone else and it’s a relief you’ve desperately craved. 

“You’re not a bad person for leaving, kid.” He swallows roughly and you place your hand over his. He doesn’t look completely comfortable with the touch, slightly flinching away from it, but he doesn’t move. “If you hadn’t, you would be dead.”

You squeeze his hand, forcing him to meet your gaze. “I never blamed you for what happened.” emotion is so thick on your tongue and in your throat that the words come out a whisper. “Their deaths weren’t your fault, and what happened after wasn’t.”

He clenches his eyes shut and jerks his hand out of your grip. You sigh, knowing you’ve lost him. “I slaughtered them.”

You scoff, “They slaughtered us!” You nearly shout, anger bubbling hot in your gut. When you heard about him killing those who had hunted down your friends, you’d celebrated. And when you heard the way the public was crucifying him, you realized that no matter what you did they would never love you. 

You would always be nothing more than a mutant to them. 

“And the people who didn’t hurt them? The innocents I killed?” 

You don’t have anything to say to that. You just stand up, placing a hand on his shoulder as you pass by him. “I never blamed you, Logan.”

You don’t see Logan again after that. At least, not while you’re in the void. What was left of your little resistance was sucked up into the purple cloud of death. Only you and Laura are left with the carnage. 

Logan and Wade have disappeared to who knows where. It stings, to be on your own again. Sure, you have Laura, but she’ll never understand the pain of what happened to your universe. 

As much as it hurt, at least with Logan, you had someone to share the pain with. You could share your burden with him. You feel lonely and cold. Like there’s a part of you missing. You finally figure out what that ache is when the TVA comes to collect you and you see him again. 

He’s standing behind Wade as he enthusiastically tells you and Larua all about his world. But you can’t take your eyes off Logan, or the tentative smile on his face. Whatever had happened during that fight with Cassandra Nova had changed him, for the better. 

You smile back at him and it feels like taking a breath of fresh air after years. 

Apparently, whoever this world’s Flux had been, she was fucking insanely rich. And dead, which sucked for her but was great for you and Logan. 

It’s not hard for you to fake some government identities and explain that you’d been mistakenly marked as dead. It’s apparently pretty common in this universe. Superheroes are blipped out of existence all the time. You couldn’t get all of her assets as some had been liquidated, but you did get her giant ass house. 

You let Logan and Laura stay with you until they decide where they want to go. It’s better than living with Wade and his coke-fiend roommate. Laura finds her groove pretty quickly, it is her world after all. But you and Logan struggle to figure out what to do with yourselves. 

Neither of you has an interest in being X-Men again, and it seems like they’re not incredibly present in this world either. You also hadn’t been the best of friends, even before everything went wrong, back home. 

You’re not strangers, you’re not friends, you’re that awkward place in between. Each day is another opportunity to get to know each other. The progress might be slow, but you know that you’re getting closer to something real. 

It’s why you don’t feel any qualms about running into his room when you hear him shouting. You burst into his room and the door slamming against the wall isn’t even enough to wake him up. 

He’s writhing around in the bed, sheets twisted around his waist while sweat beads down his forehead. The noises he’s making remind you of a wounded animal. There’s something heartbreaking about this. 

He doesn’t get peace even when he’s sleeping. It makes you hurt for him. You want to smooth over the aches and pains he carries and burden yourself with them. 

The thought snaps you out of your reverie and you’re shocked by the revelation. You’d been growing closer to him, but you hadn’t thought you were growing this close. You feel so strongly for him, but you’re not ready to put a name on what it is that you feel for him. You just know that right now you want to make him feel better. 

You approach the bed cautiously, taking a seat beside him. The bed ripples and jolts underneath you as he tosses and turns. You place a gentle hand on his arm and shake, “Logan,” you whisper. You don’t want to startle him too bad. 

But he’s not responding to anything. It doesn’t matter how much you shake him or call out his name. Finally, you can’t handle it anymore. You get on your knees, sitting over him and bringing your palm down across his face as hard as you can. 

In a second he’s shooting up. You don’t even notice his hand until you see the way his vision clears. The visceral panic fades and something is aching in your gut. “Oh god, no no no,” he says the word so many times it stops sounding real. 

You look down and see the blood dribbling down his palm, the claws buried in your stomach. It’s almost funny, how perfectly aligned they are with the scar that already lived there. The reminder of your friend’s death being erased and reformed by Logan’s hand. 

He pulls his wrist back and you quickly snatch it up. “Don’t!” You shout, jaw clenching against the pain. “Don’t pull them out, I’ll just bleed out.”

“What the fuck am I supposed to do?” You know he’s worried, that’s why he snaps at you. But it doesn’t help the way you feel yourself fighting back tears.

He sees them drip down your cheeks and his face drops. His other hand, the one not in you, comes up and cradles your cheek. “What do I do?” He whispers, and he sounds more desperate than you do. 

You know he doesn’t want another death on his hands. But there’s something beyond that. He doesn’t want to be the reason you stop breathing. There’s a startling clarity when you’re slowly dying. 

He cares about you. Just as deeply as you do for him. You can’t make him go through this pain again. Can’t let him suffer alone, not when he’s made so much progress. “Slowly,” you tell him, guiding his claws out inch by inch. 

It’s hard not to black out. You’d barely felt it when he’d gotten you the first time. You think it’s because of how fast and sudden it was. But this, having them oh so slowly slicing through your insides is the worst form of torture. 

But you don’t heal like him. You have to close your eyes, focus on the pain, and forcibly reknit your skin back together. It’s a clever manipulation of your powers, but it’s a slow one. You could never take serious damage on the field because you wouldn’t be fast enough to repair yourself. 

This is easy to repair. But that doesn’t make it hurt less. It feels like an hour before he can safely draw them the rest of the way out. The second he does, you’re sinking into his arms with a pained sob. 

He clutches you so tightly to his chest you worry your back might snap. He keeps muttering apologies into your hair, hands desperately grasping at every inch of you he can hold. You’re too tired to say anything. 

You realized you should have. You should have told him you don’t blame him. You were the one who snuck into his room. You should have been smarter. But it doesn’t matter how many times you tell Logan not to blame himself, he always will. And you were too tired to try anyway. 

You only realize what’s happening two days after the incident. You figured he might need some space to process what happened. And honestly, you did too. It was awful and incredibly draining. You’ve felt fatigued ever since. 

But when you try and approach him and he just brushes past you like you weren’t even there, you know something is wrong. You watch his retreating back with a disturbed glare. You connect the dots quickly, already knowing what he’s doing. 

He doesn’t want to be responsible for hurting another person he loves. He can’t handle a loss like that again, even if it’s not by his hands. He wants to make sure you don’t want him, that you don’t care for him. Like that might ease the pain and guilt. 

But it wouldn’t. It would just make him feel worse. It would make you feel worse. 

You don’t waste a second, following him up the stairs and barging into his room before he can slam the door shut. It bounces off the wall and he lets out a deeply irritated sigh. He doesn’t turn to look at you, just walks over to his nightstand and rummages around through the doors.

You know he’s not looking for anything. He’s just trying to ignore you long enough for you to give up. It’s not going to happen, he should know better. 

You take a step further into the room and the smell of chemicals slams into you. Your nose wrinkles in disgust. It smells like he pumped Lysol into the vents. Your eyes dart to the bed and you sigh. 

Your blood, you’d completely forgotten. He must have been cleaning it up the morning after. You can’t blame him for wanting to get rid of the remainder. But this seems excessive. 

“Strong nose,” he mutters. You hadn’t realized you’d spoken aloud and you glanced over at him. “I can still smell it, even after cleaning.” He takes a seat on the bed and you hate the way his shoulders are slumped. 

He’d seemed so much more comfortable with himself lately. It’s like one accident has undone all his progress. “Logan,” you start, taking a step towards him. He holds his hand up, still not looking at you. 

It’s driving you insane. You wish he would just meet your eyes. You feel like you could change his mind if he would just see you. Maybe that’s why he won’t. He won’t let himself be happy. 

“Look, that night just made me realize what a huge fucking mistake this was.” He gets up and slides something out from under the bed. It takes a moment for you to register what it is. A duffel bag, packed with all his essentials and what little clothes he owns. 

He’s going to leave.

You act without thinking. Pure panic making your powers surge out. Logan grunts and the bag falls out of his hand. “Quit it,” he snipes, bending over to pick it up. But he can’t because it’s so heavy it’s making the wooden floor splinter and crack under its weight. 

“You don’t get to just leave when things get hard, Logan.”

He stands up, hands propped on his sides. There’s a challenge in his eyes that makes you nervous. “Fuck this,” he scoffs and brushes past you. 

It’s beyond manipulative to use your powers against him. But sometimes, someone is such a fucking idiot, they need a little outside help. You slam the door closed and the handle disappears, locking you both in his room. 

He turns towards you with a fierce glare on his face. “Open the goddamn door before I break it down.”

“You can try,” you taunt, a nasty tone to your voice. You’re sick of this. You’re sick of running from what you want. You’ve been miserable and alone for years. You want to be happy. For the first time in forever, you want something. 

And you want Logan to be happy with you. You can’t force him to feel the way you do. But you can stop him from actively preventing this. “Stop acting like a goddamn child and just talk to me!” You shout at him. 

There’s a disbelieving look on your face. You don’t understand why he won’t let this happen. Why does he have to fight so hard against any semblance of happiness in his life?

“I’m going to hurt you. That is all I do. I hurt the people I love and I cannot hurt you too.” Your eyes widen in shock at his outburst. Beyond anger, there was so much fear in his voice it was almost enough to make you miss what he’d said. 

“You love me?” You can see the realization dawn on him. The fact that he let slip why he’s so hesitant to be around you. You know he wants to leave, his eyes are darting around the room for an escape route, but you’ve blocked them all. You can’t let this go, not now. 

“Logan,” you snap, demanding an answer from him. 

“Fuck you,” he mutters, something vicious on his face. 

He’s going to hurt you. He’s going to lash out and say something cruel so that this doesn’t happen. You know him because you’ve been him. He will take every possible route to get out of this if it means he doesn’t have to face his feelings. 

You roll your eyes and take a step forward. You jerk him towards you and throw yourself on him before he can say something stupid. The kiss is brief, just enough to snap him out of this ridiculous headspace he’s in. 

When you pull back he looks dazed, but he’s relaxed in your hold, sinking towards you. You grin up at him, “I love you too, dumbass.” You lean up to kiss him again but you dart back at the last second, a mean glare on your face. “Pull some shit like this again and I’m going to melt your dick off.” 

You kiss him before he can respond, but you feel the smile against your lips. You can taste the defeat on his tongue as he wraps his arms around you and tugs you into his chest. He’s not going to push you away and you’re not going to let him. 

end. — I do not own the characters or the comics/movies Wolverine/X-Men, but this writing is my own all rights reserved © not-neverland06 2024. do not copy, repost, translate & recommend elsewhere.

General Taglist: @evasmlp

Logan Taglist:  @nonamevenus @smexy-bucky-waifu @wh1sp @peony-always @corvusmorte  

@mrs-ephemeral  @wolviesgirl @allllium  ♡ 

[lustlovehart]

Modern Monster!Twst... mmm (I need to stop making different variations of the same au LMAO)

Warnings: Human Eating, Blood, influencer!Reader (who is the opposite of MH!Reader in terms of personality. You'll see how 😭), Breaking and Entering, Zombies in your bed

Maybe rather than a monster hunter, you’re an influencer who fakes monster sightings. You record yourself sifting through abandoned places, searching every place, and without fail, something always seems to appear from the shadows, your poor self only narrowly escaping...

Most of your audience knows its, but there are always many who believe its real simply from the sheer horror! It looks so real!

With your camera in hand, you walk into the abandoned asylum, famed in history for its treatments. When patients go mad, they lock their necks with tight collars, old studies believing it would stop the illness from spreading to their heads... Heartslaybul "hospital".

Maybe it's a special live stream. While you're talking the chat begins to explode with worries, their fear seeping into you.

Your friend didn't tell you they were gonna set off the fake that early... You're ready to turn off your camera and search for them, only to be met with a glowing, transparent light. It's similar to the ghost fake you've used a few times before, but... since when was it red?

Realization finally hits you when you turn to the side; pale blue hair holds what looks like your friend's camera, curiously gazing at the contraption splattered with crimson liquid. He carries it above and lets the scarlet drip into his mouth.

You drop your stream onto the floor, not daring to look at the chat, nor your back before you sprint as far as you can. You don't even make it five feet before you're met with decaying limbs wrapping around you, orange hair invading your vision, and a heart-shaped wound on your captors face.

"You like monsters a lot, don't you?" his smile is cocky as his arms envelop your waist, "you wouldn't mind letting one take a bite, yeah?" He's about to take a chunk out of you with his canines before another rotting man appears, except with more stitches than wounds and a height that towers over everything. He's swift to hoist you over his shoulder, out of the gluttonous beast's range.

"You have to share, Ace. It's harder to find food than it was a while ago." You would jump out of his hold, but being eight feet in the air is horrifying.

Any shouts are caught in your throat, especially when another person comes into frame, except... He looks the most normal out of all them, albeit the slight wisp in his body... and the way his mouth is delayed like it doesn't belong there.

"They're kinda cute! Can't believe this frail thing is the one I've been watching!" his bright personality contrasts the dark background, as well as the stifling atmosphere. The corpse holding your friend's camera walks over. His face looks sorry, but the way he licks his lips clean of blood tells a different one.

Your lips tremble; you may not have seen it first hand, but you'd be a fool to believe they survived that. Survive...

You have to...! You really wish you had a gun right now, or maybe even a knife you don't know! Anything!

"Here's your friends... weapon, I think. They were kinda hitting me with it so."

...

"Please don't eat me!!! I've been eating junk for the last few weeks. I promise I probably taste like grease and sugar!" Maybe they're the brain-eating type... "Ah, I'm... stupid! Yeah, my brain doesn't taste good at all!" You continue your blabbering, begging them not to take a bite out of you as you flail. Your legs kick the giant you're on, and each hit has him awkwardly smiling, yet it doesn't stop him from holding you. he doesn't seem phased at all...

If you can somehow get out, the exit to the forest isn't far... In fact! Your apartment isn't far at all!

The red glow you saw first float in front of you, the stitched corners of his mouth twitching into a devious smile.

"No one's broken the rules of coming here in awhile. Even humans have gone as far to make rules themself about entering, yet you disobeyed them too." he leans closer, dark hollow eyes staring into yours. "You broke them; what is your reason?"

"I saw a picture of you online and thought you were really cute so I came to find you!"

That, is what seems to shock everyone into paralysis.

You quickly flip yourself over, your back hitting the floor before running towards your exit. You can hear them all running after you, yet when you turn, the one that catches your attention is the scarlet ghost. His eyes are distant, yet they seem fixated entirely on you.

...

Your breath is heavy as you fall down your door, processing what just happened. How... How do you explain your friends disappearance? If anything... You'll be the first suspect.

What do you, what do you do, what do you??

The stress has you passing out on your floor, your whole body trembling in fear at the reality that you have almost lost your life.

In your slumber, you fail to realize the five figures that stare at you through your window.

...

You shift in your covers, the alarm on your clock waking you up. Slowly, you lean up, your mattress creaking from the movement. A dream, a horrible dream... Your worries lift off your chest at the prospect. It was so realistic...

The sight of a bloody camera and cracked phone makes your initial relief disappear.

"Man, I didn't realize how comfy beds were now...!" the voice has you look to your left a rotten moving corpse under your sheets with you, the heart-wounded monster smiling at your shock. The shift of a different zombie has you looking to your right, pale blue emerging from under the blankets.

"He made me sleep here, i'm so sorry-"

"I did not; you came in here on your own Deuce-!"

You jump out of your bed, your body hitting the wall as photos fall to the floor. "How... How...? How the hell-?!" You reach for a fork you had lying around on your desk, an unfortunately familiar large hand gently grabbing your wrist and guiding the utensil away from the zombies.

"Sorry, silver works better on vampires." A spark of electricity leaves him when he exchanges this fact, the shock barely caressing your skin. You leap at the sensation, metal sounding off the floor. The corpse complied of different flesh, smiles at you as if you were simply jumpy, not absolutely horrified.

Those exist too?!

The curtains to your room are closed, minimal light seeping through. It might be cause for your current predicament. You swear, as they talk to you, a pair of green irises stare you down, and right when you're about to direct attention to the entity, shadows wave you goodbye.

It's as if you've given up your drive when they watch you sit on the floor, blankly staring at their rose tyrant.

"Can you at least kill me painlessly before you eat me...?" They all stare at the sudden willingness you have for their hunger... Their shock subsides when they notice the way you have a far-away camera recording them. It's no worry to them though; it's not live.

Riddle's apparitional form floats forward, the first one to break the stalemate. You shut your eyes tight, sticking your arm out for him like he was a vampire rather than a ghost.

as long as someone, anyone really, finds the footage...

You can go out famous for your mysterious death!

"Don't be foolish." Riddles cold wispy hand suddenly solidifies, his warm palm taking your hand. "the only way to truly stop a rule-breakers transgressions, is to make sure they can never do them again." They're gonna kill you. They're gonna-

"We're staying right here." Wait, is he saying...

Are they gonna live with you!?

A/n: I was actually gonna do all the dorms for this but realized i need to stop doing long posts for really small stuff 😔

It's not clear, but all of them actually know who you are solely from the phone Riddle got Cater when he went out as a human. he found you and then showed you all to them, collectively agreeing you'd be a good meal.

Riddle thought you were pretty on sight, but knows it's in his best interest to stay rule-abiding and just stick to consuming you. It must be destiny, the influencer they've all been secretly crushing on watching, said they thought he was pretty.

Cue the rest of Modern! Monster Twst about a fake monster investigator and the very real monsters who start living with them solely out of affection <3

[gaywineauntsstuff]

Okay but imagine for a second

You’re Bruce Wayne, Batman

The richest, smartest man in every room you have walked into since you turned 20

Every bit of information is at the tip of your fingertips money, brawn and brains are no object

And then you take in a child

Named Dick Grayson

From the circus, who has the most flimsy proof of his existence you’ve ever seen with a birth certificate that looks too worn to properly make out the parents named without knowing them before.

No passport despite traveling all over the globe

No form of identification

So you give the kid an ID and everything is fine

He becomes Robin

Joins a team

Becomes nightwing

Runs all the teams

Becomes Batman

Runs himself into the ground

And then Dicks in his 20s and he’s sick

Really sick

It’s not viral, fungal, parasitic or bacterial

No one else you know has this

And he’s getting sicker

He can’t walk without help and spends all his days wrapped up in blankets fighting off never ending shivers.

He mixes up his brothers names and sometimes outright forgets some of the kids

He didn’t recognize Kori a few weeks ago and hasn’t remembered her since

So Everytime he blearily asks “who are you again?” They All answer with the knowledge that this might be the him decaying blue eyes don’t spark with recognition

The first time it happened it was horror and tears “an Oh my god! I’m so sorry I love you you’re my brother” over time it’s devolved into an “oh right…hi Jason”

And the doctors ask for his family history

Maybe. Maybe there is something that could save him, bring him back or stop this descent… this fall from happening to the most untouchable man that’s ever lived.

(Tim threw up after he saw Dick burst into tears, head resting on Alfred’s shoulder when he realized he couldn’t walk without help- they need to stop this)

So they dig

And dig

And dig

And nothing

There’s no evidence of the Graysons before John, the Lloyd’s before Mary.

Neither had been to a doctor anytime in the states at least

Bruce had redone all of Dicks vaccines once he acquired guardianship of him.

There was nothing

Nothing on his aunts or the uncle that was his namesake

There’s just nothing

Bruce realizes he doesn’t even know Dicks ethnic background. 1000s of tests he’s ran and he doesn’t even know if Dick has ever been to his parents home countries

They do every test they can come up with to try and fake a comprehensive family history

Mary Grayson was a fake name

So way John

They don’t know the real ones

Bruce finds out the mother of his son is Syrian and Romani and the boys first father is Afghani and Italian.

He finds out Mary’s father fled from Syria during the 60s and settled in Germany

He finds out that John Grayson and his brother were orphans together

He can’t even tell you which one of them gave Dick his blood type.

He knows everything

He’s the smartest man in every room he’s ever walked into

And he won’t be able to save his son

Because the boy who holds Bruce Wayne’s very heart in his hands knows that the best way to stay in the shadows is simply to show so little everyone will fill in blank spots with jarring inaccuracies so seamlessly they won’t even notice they did it.

They’ve called everyone

And Dick just keeps getting sicker

[chuellas]

Thursday | T is for Temperature Play

⤷ Ft. Fyodor Dostoevsky

V. A. L. E. N. T. I. N. E.

Warnings | Fem!Reader, N.SFW, 18+ only, use of the name “Dear”, temp play, candle wax, fingering, orgasm denial, sacrilege, religious themes, reader grew up catholic, WC: 1.6k

A/N | Man, this woulda been so good to post on Thursday. A missed opportunity. Also I got just a weeeee bit carried away with this one sjdjkaksjajd 🙈

You let out a sharp whine when his fingers are removed from you for the fifth time now and you feel like you could burst at the seams at any moment now, but that still isn’t enough for you to admit your faults.

Fyodor was kind enough to let you roam the castle that the Decay of Angels were vacating before completely moving on to Japan for the final phases of his so-called pilgrimage. He never called it that of course, it’s what you refer to this whole plot as because you know it drives him up the wall. Most of this plan bored you to tears, but you’ve found pushing Fyodor Dostoevsky’s buttons to be peak entertainment in the mundane work you’ve been tasked with. While Nikolai was scouting and Sigma was running a whole casino in the sky, you were stuck at Fyodor’s side doing all the arranging and organizing and phone calls. You often feel like a damn secretary.

Tonight has been no different than the rest, other than you stumbling upon the Demon himself kneeling before an altar with his hands clasped, praying. You always thought that moniker was inaccurate. Fyodor wasn’t a demon, he was more akin to the first angel to fall from grace — The Devil himself. Undeniably beautiful, but with something dark lurking just beneath the surface.

You observed him for a few moments, truly caught off guard by just how beautiful the usually aloof man looked with the candlelight dancing across his relaxed features. It made him look much younger than you assume he really is. You thought again how the devil to his core was nothing more than a fallen angel. 

The peaceful atmosphere almost made you think twice about interrupting. Almost.

You didn’t outwardly interrupt at first. You entered quietly and respectfully kneeled next to the man. He didn’t even flinch at the sudden company and you almost pouted at the fact that you had such little effect on him — at least that’s what you thought. But then you notice the way his eyelashes subtly flutter when you “accidentally” brush against him. 

You smile to yourself slyly, you really hadn’t planned on bothering him tonight. Really. You were content with just exploring, but this was too good of an opportunity to pass up. 

Your eyes, which had previously been closed to pray along with the Russian, peeked open to eye him. It took you by surprise when you found Fyodor staring back at you, abandoning whatever prayers he had previously been reciting in his head. Your lips parted to speak but he beat you to the punch.

“I can practically hear those wheels in your head turning. I’ve been able to forgive your little…games up until now, but you’ve interrupted my time with God. I don’t think I can continue to be so forgiving, Dear.” His words had set your skin ablaze with excitement.

But now? Now you’re starting to regret interrupting him. However, you still refuse to admit to it and that’s how you find yourself with yet another denied orgasm. 

You watch with teary eyes as the man reaches over to grab one of the lit candles at the altar that’s doubling as this room's only source of light. Your pulse quickens as your foggy brain slowly puts together what Fyodor plans on doing with the candle. Another wave of excitement washes over you when the burning candles tips ever so slightly and a drop of hot wax lands on your bare stomach.

You shudder at the sensation and Fyodor watches your reaction closely, head tilted as he lets another few drops follow the first one. “Such a filthy thing you are. I must say, I wasn’t expecting a reaction like that. Are you still not ready to admit your sins?”

You’re not sure if you were meant to answer but all hope of that happening is lost when the pious man pushes his middle and ring finger into your leaking entrance. This would be number five? No. Number six. You wonder how long he’s willing to keep this up. You were sure that you could outlast him, but now? You’re doubting your own resilience. 

Fyodor’s patience has to be waning — vaguely noticing his fingers drag in and out of you at a faster pace than they had previously. 

You don’t have much time to dwell on the thought because now that he knows you’re not shy to the feeling, he pours more wax on your skin, this time on your thigh. Your head falls back and you arch off the cold ground. A strangled moan pushes its way past your lips.

The tingling on your skin from the hot wax is delicious, it’s a certain sensation that has your head going fuzzy again. “Fedya, please…”

Your plea goes ignored, he knows that you’re well aware of what he wants and that’s not it. His fingers are skilled and he works your insides like that gorgeous cello he likes to pick up and play from time to time. Plucking at your delicate walls, rubbing that sweet spot that makes you preen in his hold. 

Your mouth falls open but no noise follows, everything catching in your throat as you reach near release for the sixth time. 

And just like every other time, you’re curtly denied that sweet release. This time when your lips part a sob falls out and your whole body jerks. Your eyes are wild when you lift your head to look at the Demon himself. His eyes are dropped lazily and he wears a grin that makes your skin prickle in annoyance.

He’s enjoying this. He’s completely content with watching you squirm and cry. Suddenly you're hit with a realization that he’s expecting you to continue to fight him on admitting your fault. Banking on that stubbornness of yours to prevail and stretch this out further than it really needs to go. You think it already has and you consider finally giving in. 

Your thoughts are interrupted as you let out a hiss when more wax is poured onto your breast. You look up at Fyodor with sharp eyes as he clicks his tongue at you. “Your mind was wondering again. I wonder…Where did you go, hmm?”

His tone is light and almost teasing, something you’ve never experienced from the usually serious and intense man. That was all you needed to know that he is, in fact, having fun with you. Now you have to decide if you want to ruin this little game he’s playing, or let him have his fun. 

“My Dear, I asked you a question. It’s not polite to ignore someone.” He pours more wax on your other breast and trails it down your stomach. 

Your breath hitches again and before you can answer him, his fingers are prodding at your entrance once again. You let out a gasp when he adds a third finger. Your vision blurs and you swear you see stars. The stretch of a third finger being added is so delicious it makes every sense fuzzy. You let out a whine as your fingers dig into the antique rug laid underneath you.

“I was…Was considering giving a confession…” You let out a string of curses when his fingers speed up once again, a reaction you weren’t expecting.

You finally get it, there was no winning for you in terms of your pride. Either you stick to being stubborn and not admitting to doing anything wrong but continue to be denied any form of release or you find release at the expense of admitting to interrupting him on purpose. Either way, you were making a fool of yourself at his hands. At least if you give in you can find release.

“Were you now? How pleasant, I wasn’t particularly looking forward to this continued torture. It seemed too hard on you.” The bastard grins at you and you have half a mind to rescind your defeat, but then his thumb is brushing over your clit and you gasp at just how sensitive you are. “You grew up in a catholic orphanage, no?”

You can only muster a nod and it seems to be enough for him. “Good, then you’re familiar with the Act of Contrition prayer? Recite that correctly and I’ll give you the release I’ve been denying you for so long.”

He has to be joking. But just as you think that, his fingers slow and he gives you a pointed look as he dribbles wax across your collarbone. He’s not joking, he’s dead serious. 

Through your mind fog, you manage to stumble through the prayer, gasping every time he interrupts you with more hot wax. His own form of twisted irony for you having interrupted his worshipping hour, you’re sure. Once you utter the word “amen” Fyodor stays true to his word. His fingers quicken in pace and his thumb rubs circles into your clit.

It’s almost embarrassing how in a matter of seconds you're crying out his name and finally cumming hard after the numerous times you were denied. Your nails scratch at the rug and your body forms a high arch. Something doesn’t feel right as Fyodor continues to help you ride out your orgasm. Your hands are reaching out to claw at his arm but it’s too late, you flood his hand and the rug with your juices, squirting and making a complete mess.

Fyodor finally slows down when you go limp and clicks his tongue again. “What a mess…”

You weakly hum at his disapproval and try to sit up but he stops you. 

“No. I’m not done with you.”

[joeloverture]

comeuppance | qz!j.m. x f!reader

masterlist | notifs blog

pairing: qz!joel miller x f!reader summary: [post outbreak] when your recklessness causes an arms deal to go south, joel makes sure you regret it. warnings: (18+ mdni) qz!joel, age gap (late 20s/early 50s), written with hbo!joel in mind but with game!joel lore, guns, mentioned executions, misogynistic names outside (and in!) a sexual context, canon-typical violence as in murder (joel kills a soldier 'on-screen'), reader is a little shit but joel is worse, darkish & dubcon, spanking as a punishment, gunplay, attempted boot humping, degradation, humiliation, one kick to the cunt, mean!joel, orgasm denial [no use of y/n] word count: 2.7k a/n: this is my (admittedly late) submission for @iamasaddie's writing challenge 2.0! my prompt was 'you can't hide forever'. the genre was technically dark but joel himself isn't scarily dark here. thank you so much to aly for, once again, bringing this fandom together with her challenges. it's a steep task but she does a great job every time! and even more thanks to @joelsdagger and @lovesickonmybed for helping me brainstorm! (i have half of a brain without my wonderfully creative friends).

It only takes one deal gone south to fuck everything up.

You know the compass is already ticking that way the moment you and Joel, your longtime smuggling partner, enter the abandoned warehouse. Much like everything else in the Boston QZ, it’s falling apart. The corrugated metal walls are pitted with rust, and old blood is caked all over the floors. In another life, it might’ve been a slaughterhouse, but there’s no real way of knowing. It’s been long enough that any signage has deteriorated. The building’s state of decay, however, isn’t what messes things up.

It’s the singular man that walks in from the opposite side of the atrium.

FEDRA’s favorite executioner. Slitted eyes far apart, thinned out lips, and graying black hair. Rarely seen away from the gallows, only recognizable to you from all of the nightmares you’ve had of his face being the last you see.

If it were drugs, you’d think nothing of it. FEDRA soldiers buy quietly from you all of the time – but they have no need for guns that they don’t already have.

Joel steps forward, merchandise in the duffel bag over his shoulder, none the wiser. A knot ties itself in the base of your throat. You’re too busy trying to figure out what to do, what to do, what to do that you barely even realize that the soldier has a gun aimed right between your eyes until you’re looking right down the barrel.

Your hand jerks to your holster, drawing your pistol in one swipe.

“Drop your fucking gun!” he barks in your direction. It clatters out of your hands. “Don’t you dare fucking move.” Your hands fly up as you take a step back, nearly stumbling into a nearby crate. “Joel Miller and his bitch,” the man sneers. “What a lucky find. You two have quite the bounty on your heads.”

“Don’t do anything stupid,” Joel says, face completely blank.

“Easy for you to say,” the guard says with a nagging smirk. “Your little cunt here already did. Pretty fucking dumb not to check who you’re selling your merchandise to, huh?”

Joel tenses, ultimately huffing through his nose. “Can we get this over with?”

“I’ll make it easy, Miller. Come with me alive so I get paid, or come with me dead so I still get paid.”

Joel’s fingers twitch behind his back, and after almost three years of working with him, it’s impossible not to pick up on the subtext. Keep him busy. His hand is already reaching for the revolver in his back pocket.

“Turn the other way. I can make this worth your time,” you say. “But you’re lucky if those sons of bitches you work for even offer you half the reward they’ve posted for us. Dragging the bodies from Area 5 to the closest checkpoint… you’d have your work cut out for you.”

“Yeah fucking right,” he spits. “You two have been running around free for too damn long. Causing too much trouble. Not anymo–”

The man’s mouth freezes around the words by the time the bullet soars throat the canvas fabric of Joel’s duffel bag and through the man’s jugular. The soldier’s hands claw for his throat while he gargles on the blood as he begins the descent to the ground. New blood, still pumping directionless from the split artery, joins the old.

Much like him, where he’s slumping against the ground, chest moving until the very end, your hands clutch at your own throat. “We need to go,” you say, knowing the rest of FEDRA will come looking for the firefight at any second now. Joel doesn’t move. “Joel!” You reach out to tug his sleeve, but he doesn’t react. “Jesus– move!”

Joel turns to face you, gun still hanging from his hand. His fingers flex around the grip. “What the hell were you thinkin’, little girl?” You can hear his breathing, amplified from how close he is to you. His once inexpressive face is now red, lips curled, skin tight like a crushed soda can. 

“I– what?”

“Not vettin’ your buyers. First fuckin’ thing I told you all them years ago, wasn’t it? Gotta check so you don’t sell shit to the wrong guy, yeah?” He stalks closer to you – you stumble back.

Not vetting the now dead executioner, whose blood is currently creeping up to the soles of your boots. Your mistake, yes, a potentially catastrophic one that you’ll definitely never make again after this, but he’d been on your ass about finding buyers and after an entire day of burning bodies, the last thing you wanted to do was go asking around about the ‘John’ in search of guns that you’d talked to over the radio tower.

“We’re alive, aren’t we?”

Joel finally jerks his sleeve away from your grip. Your hand falls slack by your side, burning from his fire stoker touch. “And you oughta count your fuckin’ blessings for that. Dumbfuck of a girl, gonna get me killed,” he spits. Spittle flies across your neck. 

You flinch – and not because you’re scared. You’ve never seen him like this before. You hear noise in the distance, the moving of FEDRA trucks, no doubt. “Joel! We can do this later – we need to fucking go–”

“Then you better start running,” he says gruffly.

You don’t need to be told twice.

You sprint out of the atrium, cursing as your bloodied soles carve tracks behind you. A stack of crates blocks the door, which you vault over and shimmy your way through the broken glass panel. The hallway ahead of you is dark, and you have no idea where the fuck you’re going, only that you can’t stop. Each impact of your foot on the ground is like being struck by lightning, carbonating the racing blood pumping through your body. More glass crunches behind you, and a shock of terror pierces you when you hear Joel’s snarls filling the corridor.

There’s a metal cart in your way, which you send whirling in Joel’s direction. He grunts, presumably hitting him in the stomach before it goes clattering on the ground. You make the most of the diversion, hurtling forward and lurching through a cracked door.

Dead fucking end.

An office, by the looks of it. Desks all over the place, leftover tasks still pinned on cork boards from outbreak day, chairs on their sides. You hear Joel huffing and puffing behind you, and fear forks through you. You fall to your hands and knees, crawling underneath the labyrinth of desks and tucking yourself against a wall, carpet-burned hand to your mouth to muffle your breathing. Your chest avalanches with every single breath.

“You ain’t off the hook,” Joel says, voice getting closer with every word. You can hear the thump of his boots against the carpet. See the spread of his shadow roaming across the wall. You squint through the seam of two desks. He's looking over his shoulder when you haul yourself across the room to the next closest desk.

You look around for anything that might get you out of this long enough to slip back out of the door. If you can make it back to the apartment, maybe he can cool off on his own walk back. You reach up for a stapler and take a brief second to peek over a filing cabinet before flinging it against the wall. It snaps open, spilling decades old staples all over the floor.

“Only a clicker’s fallin’ for that,” he tuts at you. His boots land on the floor again, one, two, three steps closer to you. You wince, balling your hands into fists. 

All you can hear is the thrashing of your own heart. You scooch away from the desk – maybe if you throw something small at him, like a pack of sticky notes, it’ll be enough to abduct his attention long enough for you to slip by–

“You can’t hide forever,” Joel goddamn coos at you. You see him bending at the waist, scoping out the undersides of desks, seeking you out–

You crawl out from under the desk and book it to the door.

Stupid. Fucking. Idea.

Joel hauls you back by the belt loop, laughing as you cry out. You try squirming away, kicking at him, but his other arm wraps around your torso. It hits you then that you have no idea what he might do to you. You’ve trusted him with your life before, but what would he do when you risked his? You’d always been too scared to find out. He spins you, slamming you over the desk. You cry out as your chest meets the wood. His hand drags your wrists together, pinning them at the small of your back.

“Let me – the fuck– go!” you yell at him, trying to bend your elbow at the right angle to nail him in the chest.

He tightens his grip so much that you can barely move an inch. “Made your fuckin’ bed, gotta lie in it, sweetheart,” he tuts, shaking his head at you. His hand grazes over your ass, and you stiffen as he looms over you. He is just a man. Your mind spins to the worst-case scenario. No, no, no, no–

“How about an… old-fashioned corporal punishment to set ya straight?” Within the next second, he’s yanking your jeans down your thighs.

Oh. Oh fuck.

“Joel–” you exhale, breath shuddery. “Knock it off–”

“No panties? I was gonna be nice and spank ya over them…” Joel frowns at you. “Poor baby. ‘S gonna sting real bad.”

You snap at him, “What, you want me to go to the local QZ Victoria’s Secret?”

Joel swats, hard, across your asscheek.

You’ve seen how intense Joel’s brute strength can be. You’ve just never been on the receiving end of it. A cry pushes out of your throat, and you hunch over the desk as you struggle helplessly against Joel. Tears spring at your eyes.

Mercifully, Joel runs his calloused palm over the smarting skin. “Shh, shh, shh, shh. ‘S okay, Jus’ gotta teach ya a lesson. Make sure it sticks.” He strokes the nape of your neck as you whimper into the desk.

You tense up in preparation for the second hit, but, if anything, it just makes the impact worse. It prickles your other cheek, leaving your knees shaky. And God help you, your clit twitches. Twitches. Your thighs are already heating up, and you can’t help but squirm in a good way underneath Joel. A single tear slips over your waterline, and you have to tilt your head into the shoulder of your shirt to wipe it off. You don’t want him to see you weak – not that weak.

The next spank makes him grunt from how hard he swings his palm into your backside. “Joel!” you shout, pain nearly splitting you in two. Your feet raise off of the ground as you prop yourself up on the desk, kicking uselessly at his shins. All he does is chuckle at you.

Horror sinks like a cinderblock in your stomach when you realize that your hole, leaking slick, is practically fucking winking at him. You thank the darkness. It’s about the only good thing about this place.

“You don’t like that?” he mock-pouts at you. It’s enough to make you throb. The opposite, you’d say if you could.

A series of spanks follows, but at least these are lighter, and in rapid succession. Still, you jerk with each impact, squirming so that your fingers dance in his grip. “Stupid little girl. Thought you could sell our shit to a FEDRA bitch and get off scot-free? Really thought you could get away from me, huh?”

You try clamming up, desperately attempting to close your legs together. You squeeze your thighs together, relieved at the pressure – and then you hear a resounding click behind you.

You still.

Joel’s gun, still fucking hot from the bullet it’d fired right into the executioner’s throat, traces up the small of your back… all the way to your throat. “Could put one right here,” Joel whispers, more to himself than you. “Show ya what happens to girls that don’t follow orders.” He jams it into your skin, and you hiss at the pain, at the bruise it’s sure to leave. And in spite of it all, you fucking gush. God, you’re fucked up.

He wouldn’t kill you – he needs you more than you need him. But common sense isn’t enough to prevent the thrill, the arousal smiting your body from head to toe.

“I’ll reconsider if ya give it a kiss.” He nudges the barrel carefully against your lips and you stop breathing for a second, maybe two. “Go on. Give it some lovin’. Suck it like a cock. I know you’re good at it. Hear all the guys you bring over.”

You whimper at the thought of Joel listening to you getting your hook ups off – at the thought of him fisting his own cock while he listens. Obediently, you part your lips, slowly, ever so slowly, taking the gun down your throat. It fills your mouth up in such a strange way – all hard edges. It’d be freezing cold if not for the fact that it’s a weapon of death, a scythe in its own way. One press of the trigger, and you’d be just like the guard. You suck even harder at it, eyes rolling back in your skull. Your thighs twitch, stripes of slick running down your thighs. 

Joel reaches between your legs, grabbing at the meat of your inner thigh to spread you open. Instead, he gets a handful of the arousal that’s been pooling between your legs since he first bent you over the desk.

You freeze, pausing your ministrations on the pistol. He himself freezes before he drags his hips over your folds. His finger pads hover over your swollen clit before he properly rubs you once, and then twice. Your hips cant into the closest thing – his hand.

Joel makes a disgusted noise and swats your leaking pussy before shoving you forward and stepping back. You’re panting, properly fucked out even though he’d barely touched you. Cross-eyed, tongue hanging out, face hot. He looks you up and down, brows furrowing with revulsion. “Horny fuckin’ bitch. Creamin’ all over me. That long since you got action that a spankin’ and a gun in your mouth is all it takes to get you riled up? Pathetic.” He shoves the gun back in his pocket, still shining with your saliva.

He wipes your wetness all over your leg, grabs the back of your collar, and drags you to the floor in one foul swoop. You fall on your hands and knees again, ass still stinging from his treatment, lightheaded from how needy you are. Even his brutal treatment makes you whimper. 

You reach for his calf, pulling yourself up to brace your dripping cunt against his boot. You rut against it, not even fully cognizant of your movements as you roll your hips, praying that he lets you have this if nothing else. Your orgasm, wetting his boot thoroughly. Your scent, clinging to him on the walk back to the apartment. You buck into the boot, moaning as the toe bumps against your clit. It might be enough, if you could just do it one more time–

Joel tears his shoe out from underneath you, face pinched with aversion. “No!” you cry, still grabbing for his calf. You fall onto your back, legs spread and panting. Your ass needles from his spanking. The ceiling tiles spin above you. 

The same toe you’d been humping kicks into your cunt, and you yelp, curling in on yourself. Another tear slides down your burning cheek as you reach down to cup your sore pussy. Even that pressure feels like touching a live wire. 

Joel looks down at his shining boot and makes a disgusted noise. “Does humiliatin’ yourself always get ya dicked down?” 

He turns around, already walking away from you without a care in the world. The gun grip pokes out of his pocket, taunting you.

“Pull your goddamn pants up and get a move on. Curfew’s soon.”

[scarsji]

Lore time bellow for my 'headcanon' (clinical brain decay) about these pests;

in my head those dipshits are all stuck in the time out zone g-man has for the og Gordon Freeman, but the other 3 (Gorgeous, Freemind and the name I shall not say out loud) are also there due to being, well, Gordons and equally important to their respective Gman versions. I knoooow that it's technically not told how it looks since the og G just zips out of existence and back in once he's needed, but I imagine since there's more of them under "containment" that they're given consciousness in that 'dead space' or whatever and it's a very crude version of the original Black Mesa. So basically they're in purgatory chat I doooo wanna try and draw out some concepts of some rooms, since it'd be a more liveable version of said building, but... eh idk it's 1:20 am and I got lot's of thoughts. I think the other main important characters would also be held up in there, but since it's not exactly built/created for comfort or functionality they gotta make due. Very convoluted way of saying I'm having Freemind and VRGordon (i refuse to use the name) share the same quarters

[pandora-writes-one-piece]

The Meet-Cute - Kid's Story - 12

Source for pic

Imperfect 12

Word Count: 5443

Tags and Summary can be found here.

Special Warning: English is not my first language, I apologise for any possible spelling or grammar mistakes.

Notes: Aaaaand we're down bad in the angst stage of this fic. I hope you guys are ready for it, because it's going to take a while before we're back to happy. I've envisioned that last scene before the cliffhanger FOR MONTHS in my head. That and what follows. I hope I did it justice. I love you all, but I hope I managed to crush all your pretty little hearts. Do tell me all about it in the comments! But refrain from being murderous, I still have to get to the happy ending!

Here's a Spotify Playlist I created for this story if you want to check it out!

Masterlist

The rancid smell of the docks is overwhelming. Rotten fish carcasses left too long in the sun, half-devoured by the gulls; stale water splashing softly against decaying wood; and worse: the stench of the nastiest breeds of humans, gathering to add to their list of unending sins. Himself included. 

Kid has lost track of time since he dropped you off, with nothing but the twinkling of stars and the lonesome chirps of crickets to mark the progress of the night. 

Victoria is shrouded in shadows and silence, both acting as punishment for his actions. His hands grip the steering wheel so tightly his knuckles have blanched, and he can’t stop thinking about his mistakes. 

“You should’ve walked away when you had the chance, man.” Heat’s in the passenger seat, feet propped up on the dash, arms behind his head. Kid closes his eyes and tries to swallow the lump of guilt that’s lodged in his throat. 

“But you had to be a selfish son of a bitch.” Heat turns his head, and Kid keeps his eyes closed. He doesn’t need to open them to know what’s facing him, though. Half of Heat’s head is gone, his brain blown to shit by a PKM machine gun bullet. The Kevlar vest is nothing but a silly adornment, riddled with bullet holes and still-fresh blood. 

Wire laughs in the backseat, a low, rumbling sound. When he speaks, his voice sounds different from when he was alive. His vocal cords sound completely crushed under the weight of the pillar that collapsed on top of him, flattening him into an unrecognizable lump. “Crawling back to the Pit like a dog with its tail between its legs? I knew you couldn’t stay away.”

“Coward.” The word echoes in his head in all their voices. An amalgam of misery, dragging him down with clammy fingers filled with shame. 

“If you couldn’t keep your promise of getting us out of there alive, Captain, you could’ve at least kept your promise to Kill.” Bubblegum pops his chewing gum loudly near Kid’s ear, and he wonders how he can do that when his lips are melted together by the unforgiving heat of the scorching flames that devoured his body. 

“You told him you’d stay out of Hellpit,” Quincy’s voice comes out in a wheeze, a charred hole in the middle of her torso leaving no doubt about the fate she suffered. “And look at you! You’re back already? Tsk…”

He senses Hip and Reck there, too. But they don’t speak. They never do. They got blown to shit right in front of him. Nothing but red mist, blood, and gore left behind. Nothing to bring home. Yet they still judge, they still make sure he carries the guilt on his shoulders. 

Kid removes his hands from the wheel and presses the balls of his palms against his eyes, trying to snuff out their accusations, their ugly truth. But they don’t stop. They never did, and they never will. 

“You hurt her,” Quincy says.

“Aren’t you ashamed of hitting a woman? Your woman?” Heat scolds.

“Daddy warned her to stay away, warned you, but you were never very good at taking orders, were you, Captain?” Bubblegum speaks right by his ear, and Kid swears he can feel the hot breath warming his skin. “Perhaps if you were… we’d all still be alive.”

“Shut up, shut up,” Kid mutters between clenched teeth. “Yer dead, yer all fuckin’ dead.” His voice trembles with desperation and guilt. They’re right.

Wire chuckles, his voice gravelly and rough. “We are. Because of you. And that’s why we’re here. You think a few hours in the Pit are going to help you? That you can drown us out with punches and silence our voices with blood?”

“SHUT UP! Shut the fuck up!” Kid slams his fist into the dashboard, and the plastic gives, cracking and leaving jagged, sharp pieces, splitting in a morbid mimicry of what’s happening to his heart and soul. 

“You’re still running away. From us. From her. From yourself,” Wire continues. “You will always be a coward.”

He wants to scream. To roar and tear his chest open. To lay himself bare and let guilt and pain wash him away. To be cleansed of his sins, to free his conscience… to rest.

Instead, he takes a deep breath, opens the door, and gets out of the car, leaving his demons inside, though their ghostly voices still linger in his head. 

The warehouse is dimly lit and looks as rotten as all the decaying souls inside. Poorly drawn graffiti lines the outer walls, fighting with splotches of rust in a silent battle to see which can overtake more space outside the building. The graffiti is losing. 

The man at the door tilts his head in acknowledgment and lets him in without a word. Inside, the air feels thicker, heavy with the scent of sweat, blood, and testosterone. This time, he didn’t call ahead, so he means to find Apoo. He doesn’t have to look around too much before Apoo finds him.

“Eustass, you bastard,” Apoo cackles, handing him a can of cheap beer. “When I called last week, you said you were done with me.”

“Put me in.” Kid doesn’t ask. Doesn’t plead; he doesn’t need to. Apoo will taunt him, annoy him, and then put him in. He always does. 

“Roster’s full. Wrap your dick back into your pants and find another place to itch your fists. I ain’t got room for you tonight.” Apoo’s snake-like eyes glint under the dim lights. 

“Put. Me. In. Apoo.” Kid’s clenching his jaw so tightly his ears nearly pop from the effort. 

“Geez, man. Calm your tits, I was joking. I’ll find you a spot. Drink that beer.” 

As if on cue, a roar erupts from the crowd watching. The fighter inside the cage drops to the floor, bloodied and beaten. Apoo shrugs and signals the cage handler.

“Clear that useless pile of trash from the cage. Eustass is in the house!” The crowd cheers. The regulars know him, and they’re always down for a good show. 

“Yes, Captain. Go on. Be a monster, you’re so good at that. Run away from us. From her. Run. Run. Run. Coward.” 

He can’t even identify who the voice belongs to now. The roar of the crowd is deafening. Finally. 

Kid knows they’re right. Monster, coward… he’s both. And perhaps that’s all he’ll ever be good at. There’s no use pretending. He should never have thought he had a chance at something else. A chance with you. 

He was always meant to wreck it. 

The cage door swings open with an ominous sound as they drag the limp body of the previous fighter out. Kid’s blood rushes to his ears, his hands clench, itching to hit something solid. 

And the voices?

They finally drown.

-*-

You didn’t sleep at all. 

Tears threatened to spill all night, but you wouldn’t let them. It was stupid, but you felt that if even one of them slipped from your eyelids, it would mean you’d have lost the battle. That you’d lost Kid. And that was unacceptable. 

Sometime during the endless night, you decided you wouldn’t give up. You wouldn’t let Kid wander out of your life just like that, not when it was clear you meant so much to each other. You would just do what you do best: fight for Kid. 

Fight until he gets it through his thick skull that you and he are meant to be. 

At breakfast, you put up a strong front and a smile on your face, giving your father no chance to unwrap his ‘I told you so’s.’ Not when you’re ready to fight for your relationship. 

After lunch, you barge into the garage like a hurricane following a storm. Shoulders held high, chin up, and determination fueling your steps. When you see Kid, the previously rehearsed speech goes out the window. Your heart beats like an ancient war drum inside your chest, and all you want to do is wrap your arms around his neck and pull him to you. 

He’s sitting inside Victoria, so you approach without hesitation, pressing your lips into a thin line to keep them from trembling. No weakness. 

You lean down, then jerk back with a shocked gasp.

“What happened?” Kid’s face is a mess, again. Purplish eye, split lip, dried blood caked in his eyebrow. “Kid!” Your eyes wander to Victoria as he pulls out the cracked dashboard. “What the hell happened? Did you get into an accident?”

Taking two steps back, you survey Victoria’s condition, looking for dents or any indication of what could have happened. She’s fine on the outside, which means… Kid did the damage himself.

“Nothin’ happened. Please, go home.”

His words hit you like a slap. He’s begging you to go away. He hasn’t even lifted his gaze to meet yours. 

“Talk to me, Kid.” You lean down again, extending your hand to touch him, but he climbs out of the car with the dash in his hands and puts an insurmountable amount of distance between you, even if it’s just three steps. 

“No. We ain’t doing this anymore.” He still doesn’t look at you. He turns his back and places the large piece of plastic on his workbench.

“Are you really giving up on us? After everything?” You already sound breathless, and you’re still at the beginning of the battle. 

The very air stills and hums, like it’s alive with your grief. Kid grasps the edge of the workbench, his muscles coiled tight with restraint. 

“You won’t even look at me?” An indignant scoff parts your lips. “You need to stop doing this! You can’t be hot and then cold; wise one minute and dumb as a rock the next!” Kid looks over your shoulder at you, but can’t seem to hold eye contact. 

“I know I didn’t ask for commitment. But at least show me trust. Trust in the way I feel about you, but mostly…” You swallow down a sob, clenching your fists to stop your hands from trembling. “Show trust in yourself, Kid.” 

You take a step forward, and he takes one back, eyes on the floor and clenched fists holding up his walls against your vicious strikes. 

“You said I was your girl! You called me yours, like I mattered!” A sob tears through your throat, and only by sheer will do you force your tears down. “You said I was special, Kid! What changed, huh? What changed between yesterday and today, Kid, because—”

“Ye wanna know what fuckin’ changed?” Kid roars, his eyes finally snapping up to meet yours. They’re wild and red-rimmed, filled with the exact same kind of pain you’re feeling, but brimming with the shame and guilt you're trying so hard to rid him of.

You bite back the rest of the sentence that was already halfway out of your lips when he closes the distance between you with two angry steps. “This is what fuckin’ changed!” Without giving you a chance to react, his hand is at the hem of your shirt, lifting it and exposing a dark bruise on your side. 

You gasp as he takes in the blemish. It looks terrible, you’ve seen it. It’s large and purple, about the size of a grapefruit, and hurts like a bitch. But you try to school your features back to a more nonchalant expression. And fail miserably. 

Kid removes his hand with a resigned scoff, and your shirt falls back into place like a sad curtain fall at the end of a tragedy. 

“I fuckin’ did that,” he says, his voice hollow.

“It was an accide—”

“It don’t matter!” Kid waves his hands in the air, eyes widening as he shakes his head. “I still fuckin’ hurt ye! What the fuck don’t ye get?”

Kid turns away from you when you try to reach him again. He slams Victoria’s door so hard, you have no idea how the glass didn’t shatter altogether. 

“I am the fuckin’ monster yer father warned ye about!” He runs a hand through his already dishevelled hair, and the split on his lip opens up when he roars the words. “Angry! Dangerous! Volatile!” A loud, insane cackle leaves his lips next. “I ain’t changin’, sweetheart!”

Your throat tightens, and tears flood your eyes again. He’s not allowing you inside his walls. He doesn’t let you climb them and drag him away. He’s given up.

“Stop, Kid, please…”

“This is me! I’m a fuckin’ mess! A tickin’ time bomb, waiting to blow up in yer face.” Kid lets out another dark, humourless chuckle. “Run away while ye can.”

You step forward again, undeterred. Your relationship with Kid is nothing but a war zone, with battle after battle. Each one more exhausting and draining than the last, with barely enough time in between to allow you to breathe. 

You’ll be damned if you’re going to desert it without a proper fight.

“You’re doing it again. Pushing me away, thinking you’re protecting me, when all you’re doing is hurting us both. You want to drown in guilt and shame and self-loathing alone, so I can be happy on my own?” Your scoff nearly makes him flinch. “You’re just trying to punish yourself, Kid!”

Kid lifts his head, his gaze falling on yours, and for a moment, he looks so lost that you dare to hope. You keep trying to pull him to you, begging him to take the rope you keep throwing over the walls and either break through or let you in.

Anything.

“You think this is exactly what you deserve. That you should be alone, buried in pain and guilt with no chance of absolution.” You force back a whimper. This hurts you as much as it does him.

“Shut the fuck up,” he pleads with a growl, shaking his head and averting his gaze again. 

“No! No, Kid! I will not shut up!” The shrillness in your voice is as high-pitched as it is desperate. Your nails dig so hard into the soft skin of your hands that you already know they’ll leave red, angry marks. “I’ve seen who you are when you stop trying to blame yourself for every mistake!”

“Stop talkin’!” he roars.

“I’ve seen you smile and be happy! I’ve seen you try to be better! I’ve seen you stay!” Your voice falters as your breath hitches, but you keep ramming on those walls as hard as you can. “You made me feel safe! And—” You can’t fight a watery sob, nor the tears that crash down when it hits your throat. “—and wanted, Kid! Please… God, please… fight for us!”

“There’s no ‘us’ anymore.” The finality in his words is what shakes you to your core. He’s done this before. Pushed you away so many times, trying to be the asshole everyone paints him to be. 

Is this the final straw? Is this where you finally draw your limit and simply stop fighting? Because it hurts. It hurts so much to be the only one carrying all this weight. How can you keep fighting when it suddenly feels like there’s nothing left to fight for?

“Ye know ye don’t belong with me. Ye know, deep down, that yer meant for more; bigger, fancier things. Someone stable, safe, rich.”

The feeling of déjà vu almost takes you down. Your father uttered those words to you a long time ago. They hurt then, but now? Now they make you bleed. 

“I’ve fucking had that, Kid.” It’s the second time you’ve told him this, but you still know it won’t stick. “I told you.”

“But that’s what ye fuckin’ deserve!” he growls, eyes blazing with fury and a wish to be right.  “Not—”

“I don't want that!” you snap, voice cracking under pressure. “I only want—”

“—me!”

“—you!”

The silence is so heavy it almost bounces off the walls. You're both staring at each other, chests heaving, wearing your hearts on your sleeves; bleeding out emotions through your pores.

It’s not enough. 

You realise that as soon as he takes another step back. 

“This is the only me yer gonna get. The screwed up, broken and beaten up Eustass Kid. The one with nothin’ else to give but anger and pain. Ye don’t want that.”

And round and round in circles you go. 

A deep sigh leaves your lips as they tremble through the tears. It’s enough. For today, it's enough. You’ve depleted your ammo for this battle, and you need to recharge. 

You turn your back on him, silently vowing to return tomorrow and try again. “Clearly, you still have no idea what I want.”

You’ll keep trying. You have to. Because you know he’s worth it. Even though he’s shattering you into tiny pieces every time he pushes you away, you know he still holds the power to repair them.

If only he allows himself to. 

-*-

The next day, you try again. 

You figure that with sleep comes clarity, and perhaps today Kid is more willing to listen to you, to give you another chance, or, better yet, to give himself a chance. 

However, you didn't expect to be greeted by a ‘closed’ sign and no sign of either Kid or Killer when you arrived at the garage. 

Kid doesn't answer his phone, nor were you expecting him to, honestly. He's been ignoring your calls and texts since you came back from the road trip. You try Killer next, and he declines the call. 

You're already thinking that he might be busy when he texts you in reply. 

Killer: Hey, City Girl. I'm kicking some sense into him right now. Talk later? 

You reply with a ‘yes, please’ and let a smile wash away your worries. Killer instantly knew what you wanted before you even spoke to him. And he's talking to Kid, so maybe he can speak some sense into his thick skull. 

You hope. 

-*-

“Wanna tell me what the fuck happened?” Killer looks around Kid's living room. There's a pillow ripped to shreds, a bunch of crushed beer cans, and a half-empty scotch bottle. Kid’s on the floor, curled against his knees like a wounded dog, eyes empty, red-rimmed, and head swimming with alcohol and regret. 

“I happened,” Kid scoffs. A truth hard to swallow, but a truth nonetheless. 

“Elaborate. And don't fucking lie to me. I already know you went to Hellpit, even after promising me you wouldn't anymore,” Killer sounds pissed as fuck. He even removed his bandana to address him, which means business. 

“I fucked up, Kill. What else?” The slur in his voice comes from more than just the alcohol. It's deep pain, guilt, and shame, too. 

Killer sits on the couch and crosses his legs. “I got time,” he deadpans. “Spill.”

Kid fights with his conscience first. He's ashamed to share his faults. But then he looks up, and there's no judgment in Killer's face. There never was. Not once since he's known his best friend - his brother - has he laid judgment over his actions. 

So he talks. He starts at the nightmare because, really, that's where the shitshow began. He explains how you pulled him out and how he took advantage of that. Of you. 

Killer doesn't judge. 

“I could feel her tremblin’ against me, man. She was terrified that I would leave or push her away. Ain't even needed to hear the words. I could feel it.” Kid runs a hand through his matted hair and sighs. “And I didn't want to leave, Kill. All I could think about was how natural it felt to hold her. How good it would feel to wake every fuckin’ day with her in my arms.”

“So what fucked it up?”

A scoff leaves his lips before he resumes the tale. He talks about how everything was running smoothly until it wasn't. Until that fucker Basil Hawkins pointed out the differences between you and how much you didn't belong in Kid's world. 

“I saw it, I fuckin’ saw it. She was in her element. Usin’ posh words and bein’ all icy. Put him in his place, that's for sure. But made me see she's far off my league, man.” Kid reaches for the bottle, but Killer intercepts the action. 

“I'll make you coffee instead.” Killer gets up and navigates Kid’s kitchen like it's his own. “So was that it?”

“If only…” He tells his best friend all about how you told him that he's what you wanted, that it’s him you chose. And then… then comes the hard part. The part where he has to admit that he hurt you. 

Once he starts, though, he doesn’t shy away. He tells Killer how he only saw red when he heard you call his name in distress. All he could think about was getting the motherfucker away from you and then… punish him. 

“She tried to stop me and— fuck,” Kid groans into his hand. “I pushed her. I fuckin’ laid hands on her. Her back slammed into the payphone, and I only snapped out of it ‘cause she fuckin’ yelped!” 

He punches the pillow hard. Maybe not for the first time, since the fabric gives, and it deflates in a sad little poof. 

“Her eyes, Kill— fuck. She was scared.”

Killer places two mugs of coffee on top of the end table in Kid’s living room. Their steam swirls in the air, stealing time away before Killer even speaks. 

“You didn’t hit her, man,” Killer deadpans, his voice steady in a world that hasn’t stopped shaking since it happened. “And she wasn’t scared of you, Kid.”

“How the fuck do ye know that? Ye weren’t there!”

Killer raises his shoulders, twisting his lips into a sad smile. “She ain’t like that, Kid. She didn’t stop fighting for you once since she met you.” Killer leans forward, elbows steady on his knees. “She wasn’t scared of you. She was scared for you. That’s different.”

“Ye don’t know.”

“Wanna bet? How many times did she knock on that door? How many missed calls?” Kid’s silence is answer enough. “I rest my case.”

They drink their coffee in silence, Kid eyeing the scotch bottle like he’s being tempted by the devil himself. He gets up to set the mugs in the sink, and stays there for a beat longer, just staring at the black smudge at the bottom of it.

“I still ain’t right for her. I never should’ve led her on.”

“Aye, so you’ve fucking said. And still you can’t keep your hands off each other. Face it, Kid, you and she are meant to be together, no matter how hard you try to push her away.” Killer talks as if he’s teaching a preschooler his ABCs, like it’s common sense, as easy as breathing.

It’s not.

“I ain’t gonna pretend I’m not poison.” Kid turns the faucet and fills the mugs before rinsing them and setting them aside. 

“You’re not poison, man,” Killer scoffs, rising from the couch to lean against the counter and stare his friend down. “You’re damaged, sure. Hurt? Damn right. Broken? In fucking shambles. But you’re not beyond saving. Everybody deserves redemption.”

Kid’s head hangs from his shoulders. He’s heard that speech before. Every once in a while, Killer tries this. It never works.

“You need proper help. Professional help. Therapy, not the fucking end of a bottle or to rage against everyone and everything.”

He’s said this more than once, too. 

“I ain’t fuckin’ doin’ therapy, ye know that.” He tried it for a few months after he was discharged from the army. Never really worked, he fucking hated it. Hated having to speak and open himself up to a fucking judgy stranger. Fuck that shit.

“Why, Kid?” Killer snaps, a little growl slurring his question. “Is it because you think expressing your feelings is a weakness, or are you scared to break apart once you let someone see what’s on the inside?” Killer shakes his head. “Maybe you’re just afraid of who you’ll be once you’re not broken anymore…”

Kid walks away from Killer, pacing the room like a caged lion. Nowhere to go when the world is breathing down his neck. 

“Guess yer therapy is workin’ right!”

“Aye. I never miss a fucking session, Kid. I lost my friends, too. I can’t compare our situation, and I never meant to, but I’m broken too, brother.” Killer places one hand over Kid’s shoulder. He doesn’t squeeze, he’s just there. “And talking helps.”

Kid purses his lips together, jaw tightening, and doesn’t let out another word. Instead, he turns his back on his friend and faces the window. 

Killer knows that’s his cue. So, he picks up his jacket and keys and heads for the door.

“You’re not alone unless you choose to be, Kid.”

-*-

Luffy is having a party. One of his ragers, something more chaos than entertainment. You promised you’d make an appearance, even though it’s the last thing you want, but then decided to use the get-together to your advantage.

Kid has been avoiding you. He keeps leaving the texts you send unread, doesn’t pick up your calls, and you even stopped showing up at his garage because he kept the ‘closed’ sign in place, and you were feeling guilty that he was losing clients over this. 

That’s why you begged, pleaded, and even resorted to bribery. And it worked. You made Killer promise to bring Kid to Luffy’s house by any means necessary.

It’s a long shot, you know that, but it’s one you hope works. Kid would never go to one of Luffy’s parties of his own volition, and Killer told you he would try his best, but he wouldn’t make any promises. 

You can’t help the fluttering in your stomach from how nervous you are. Kid’s been very adamant about keeping you out of his life, and this is your only chance at speaking to him. It feels like hours pass between casual conversations with your friends until you see a glimpse of red near the entrance hall.

Muttering a quick excuse to Nami and Robin, you move, eyes peeled and, sure enough, there he is: black tee, jeans, a scowl, and attitude for days. He doesn’t want to be here, so you should account for his bad temper before you approach him. 

But you don’t even care.

Making a beeline towards him, you evade sweaty bodies and flailing limbs, reaching him already breathless. “Kid!” you urge, speaking over the loud music. “Let’s talk.”

He grimaces, shooting Killer an accusatory look before the blond disappears into the crowd. Only then does he look back at you. The wounds on his face are still very fresh, but it’s the growing shadows in his eyes that worry you the most. 

“I should’ve known it was a fuckin’ trap.”

You reach for his hand and pull him to a more secluded corner. He doesn’t pull away, nor does he resist you, but you don’t really know how to interpret that reaction. You don’t dare to be hopeful, but you don’t want to be downright pessimistic either.  

“You don’t even need to say anything, just let me speak, please, Kid. Please.” You squeeze his hand, eager eyes pleading with dull, amber ones. He opens his mouth, ready to contest, but closes it and nods instead. 

“You’ve been trying to push me away since the day you realised I was much more than just another girl. You keep saying you’re broken, that you’re a monster. Dangerous. And I keep coming back, Kid. What happened at that gas station wasn’t your fault. You were protecting me. I’m not scared of you, Kid. I never was. You know why?” 

You pause, but he doesn’t answer. “Because I know who you are here,” you whisper, placing your open palm against his chest. “You’re just a man who’s learning how to be whole again. And that takes time and effort.”

“Yer wastin’ yer time on me,” he drawls, eyes shifting without catching your gaze.

“I’m not. You don’t get to decide that for me. It’s always been my decision, not yours. You say you’re all the things my father warned me about, and I already told you I accept all of that, because it’s all part of you. But you know what?”

You take a tentative step towards him, one hand holding his, the other still on his chest. You chase his gaze until you trap him against your own.

“You’re not just that. You’re not just angry and dangerous. You’re also the man who called me his girl, who took me to the beach, and threw wet sand at my hair. The one who gave me his jacket to keep me warm and taught me how to fix a car. The man who held me close and told me he wasn’t going to leave—”

The words get stuck in your throat, and you swallow down a sob. It’s now or never. He needs to understand how special he is to you.  

“I love you, Kid. So much.” The words are barely a whisper, but you feel him flinch, his breath hitching, eyes widening, and his throat working to swallow a lump. 

“Don’t do this… It just makes it harder,” he whispers, taking a step back and avoiding your gaze. 

What? How is he still pushing you away?

“Harder, Kid?” you croak. “This was never easy. I’m barely holding on as it is…” Your confession makes him flinch again, but the shadows in his eyes recede. For a few moments, the world stops, and there’s only you and him.

You, him, and the lightest flicker of hope.

Until he shakes his head, drops your hand, and disappears back into the crowd. 

-*-

You lost him. 

Not just emotionally, but physically. He’s nowhere to be seen. He vanished.

Thinking he's already gone home, you take another look around, trying to locate your friends to say you’re leaving, since you feel emotionally exhausted. You weren’t expecting to confess to Kid that you love him, but it happened.

And it didn’t change a thing. 

You have no idea what you are going to do now or where you are going to go from here. But you’ll figure it out. You always do.

But then you see him, across the room. 

Kid’s sitting at the impromptu bar, a high table Luffy set up with beverages and stools. He looks weary, ready to call it a night even though he’s nursing a drink. There’s a storm brewing behind his eyes. 

With a deep breath, you decide to try one more time. Maybe this time’s the charm, you hope. One of you has to give. Either he sees reason, or you give up. There’s no in-between.

You’re two strides in when Kid looks up. His gaze locks with yours, something unreadable behind his eyes. Shame? Sorrow? You can’t quite tell.

He swallows and, without breaking eye contact with you, reaches out and pulls a girl by the waist straight into his lap. 

You stop, heart thundering against your ribs. You barely acknowledge who the girl is or where she came from - does it even matter? She’s laughing and flirting, placing a hand on his chest. Kid’s hand grips her waist, and your world starts to shrink. 

He wouldn’t…

You know what he’s doing. Your mind knows he’s using every method he can think of to push you away, to make you see he’s not good enough for you, but your heart… your heart is in your throat, ready to spill out and shatter into tiny pieces. 

Kid narrows his gaze for a second, and then his hand slithers up the girl’s spine, settles on her nape, and curls around her hair. Your move. You’ve lost count of the times he did this to you…

You can’t breathe. The air is stale, there’s not enough oxygen in the world to fill your lungs.

You try to speak, but no sound leaves your lips, so you just mouth the words: ‘Please, don’t’. You desperately shake your head, pleading, begging him not to do this. He can’t throw away what you have like this. Because if he does…

Then what the hell have you been fighting for all this time?

You take another step forward, and your legs wobble. Your vision swims. Are you crying?

Kid is still looking at you. He pulls the girl down, leaning in, angling her face so he can kiss her.

You shake your head again, a breathless whisper leaving your lips, an unheard plea: “Don’t… please… no!”

And then—

Darkness.

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|Chapter 13|

[fatuismooches]

I found your Dottore w playable reader stuff and it's been taking over my brain. nf!!but if you could give us a few more silly headcanons? Love ur writing btw 🥹

Dream Chaser's Blight: An ancient weapon that was once used to protect a certain scholar from ages past and to forge a path towards their shared dreams. He has carefully preserved it so that the wielder can use it once more... even though they can no longer perform that duty.

Fly or Fall: HP is increased by X%. When an Elemental Skill hits opponents or heals allies for the first time, the next character that is swapped to will have their CRIT Rate increased by X% and CRIT DMG increased by X%.

Weapon Description: The sound of his fellow peer's humming had become commonplace to the youth. In particular, it always happened when they were carefully cleaning their weapon after a battle, mostly with Ruin Machines that needed to be dismantled with minimal damage... occasionally other unscrupulous people. At the beginning of their budding relationship, the grumpy scholar paid little attention to their fiddling, but as of late, he had taken notice of how his partner's usually tender hands glided along the weapon with ease. The lovely scholar quickly noticed with a smile and inquired of him:

"What, are you interested in my expert skills now? Or- don't tell me, you wish to learn?"

The man clicked his tongue in false disinterest, to which his companion chuckled. They beckoned him further, agreeing that teaching him some basic combat would be wise. After all, despite his high intelligence getting him out of ninety-nine percent of situations, the one percent was certainly something he should plan for. However, unbeknownst to the young man's lover, perhaps he felt a twinge in his chest at the sight of their occasional cuts and bruises. Regardless, before he could finish his thought, something was hurled at him and he had mere moments to catch it.

His so-called beloved had thrown their weapon at him out of nowhere and he could hardly hold it up, all while they were laughing. They just wanted to test his reaction time, they reasoned, sauntering up to him and then relieving him of the weapon's weight, easily maneuvering it to their will.

"Why, you can hardly hold it up, can you? Too heavy, eh? Unsurprising, I know there's a reason I have to haul your items around... but don't worry too much. Until you obtain the powers of the Gods... anyone who hurts my ███ will have to answer to me. But even after, they still will!"

However, an unlived eternity came with nearly insurmountable change for the man's once cheery classmate. Having not picked up a weapon in centuries, the promise was lost to time.

But one day the tired soul questioned their darling, surprised that he had held on to their centuries-old weapon, which had somehow not decayed by now. In turn, he responded that he had preserved all of their belongings from long ago as best as he could. Their weapon in particular was kept in pristine condition, remembering all the opportunities it provided for him. A glimmer of excitement appeared in his love's eyes as they asked if they could hold the weapon once more, to which he hesitantly agreed. But it had hardly made it into his beloved's hands before they nearly toppled over with the weight.

"W-Was it always that heavy...?"

The patient's question was only met with silent sadness and fury from the doctor.

[daughterofheartshaven]

Using the Doctor Who EU to recontextualize the whole Timeless Child thing

Or, why the Doctor is a dhampir.

Salutations!

Maybe you saw my essay here about how Gallifrey wasn't actually destroyed by the Master using the Expanded universe as my evidence. Now, I want to tackle The Timeless Children's other controversial plot point - the titular Timeless Child's relationship with the Doctor. Also, perhaps you have heard of the Doctor Who book Lungbarrow, and how it connected the Doctor to a mysterious figure called the Other in Gallifrey's ancient history. So how are those connected? Was the Doctor really the Other? And just what is the story of the Timeless Child?

So let's talk about the Timeless Child. Let's talk about the Other. Let's talk about Patience. Let's talk about Division. And let's talk about vampires and where regeneration really comes from.

Shall we get started? Buckle up for another ride into the endless pit that is the Doctor Who expanded universe.

Okay, ground rules first. Anything seen on tv, happened. I can recontextualize as much as I want (and I'm gonna do that, believe me) but it still has to fit with everything we see onscreen. I also have to use all of an EU source if I use it. No picking and choosing bits. However, that same loophole applies to EU material - I can recontextualize those as much as I want, too.

With that out of the way, let's meet the stories that are our players. I'm going to be sorting them into medium by category this time.

Tv stories:

Ascension of the Cybermen / The Timeless Children: The controversial Thirteenth Doctor episodes. I'm assuming you're familiar with if you're reading this.

Fugitive of the Judoon: The Thirteenth Doctor story that introduced the Fugitive Doctor. I'm assuming you're familiar with this.

Flux: The Thirteenth Doctor story that followed up to the Timeless Child plot points in a way that is very relevant to this discussion. I'm assuming you're familiar with this.

A Good Man Goes to War: An Eleventh Doctor episode that established some of the history of the Time Lords

The Brain of Morbius: A Fourth Doctor story. Notable for this discussion because it featured brief images of ten faces that were implied to be incarnations of the Doctor from before the First Doctor. These are collectively known as the "Morbius Doctors".

State of Decay: The Fourth Doctor tv story that established the series lore on vampires

Books:

Cat's Cradle: Time's Crucible: the Seventh Doctor book that laid the groundwork for Lungbarrow and its Gallifrey Lore

The Pit: A 90s Who book with some vampire lore

Goth Opera: A 90s Who book with some vampire lore

Damaged Goods: A 90s Who book with some vampire lore

Cold Fusion: A book starring the Fifth and Seventh Doctors that is notable for introducing the character of Patience

Lungbarrow: the big Gallifrey Lore book. I will be going over this one in depth

Interference: Shock Tactic: A 90s Who book with some vampire lore

The Infinity Doctors: A very confusing Doctor Who book (this will get explained later)

The Book of the War: The first book in the Faction Paradox series

Audios:

Zagreus: A Big Finish story starring the Eighth Doctor and Rassilon

Patience: A Big Finish story starring the Eighth Doctor

Comics:

The Tides of Time: A 70s comic starring the Fifth Doctor

The Bidding War: A 2010s comic with some vampire lore

Monstrous Beauty: A 2020s comic with some vampire lore

Origins: A recent comic that features the Fugitive Doctor

Okay, so there are kinda four threads running together that tell a more complete story, but were all written independently of each other. The story of the Timeless Child and Division, the story of the Other, the story of Patience, and the story of the Yssgaroth War. Let's go through them in order.

Also while the Other, the Timeless Child, Patience's husband, the Fugitive Doctor, the Infinity Doctor, the Morbius Doctors, and the Doctor are all presented as more or less the same character who all call themselves "the Doctor", I will be referring to them all separately. I have a few reasons for doing this which will become clear later, but it's also helpful for reasons of clarity.

Prologue: Where all this mess came from

So in the 70s, there was a tv story called The Brain of Morbius. Morbius was a Time Lord president who decided it was Morbin Time, tried to conquer the universe, and caused a civil war on Gallifrey in just about the only interesting thing to happen on Gallifrey between Rassilon's presidency and the Doctor being loomed. He was killed, but one of his followers managed to save his brain and is trying to make Morbius a new body so it can be Morbin Time again. The Time Lords decide to throw the Doctor at this problem, and he ends up getting into a mind-bending contest with Morbius (who was by that point in an artificial body). During this, both Morbius and the Doctor's past incarnations are shown on a screen, and then we see ten new faces while Morbius says, "How far, Doctor? How long have you lived?". A lot of people assumed those faces were Morbius's, but the intention from the producers was that they were prior faces of the Doctors (I will be referring to these incarnations as the Morbius Doctors moving forward, as that is how they are generally reffered to in the fandom). Trouble is, the rest of classic who completely ignored that.

Oh and if you're worried, while Morbius won the mindbending contest, it left him disoriented enough that he was able to get mobbed by the Sisterhood of Karn and pitched off a cliff, averting the renewal of Morbin Time.

And with that out of the way, let's get on to the real attractions.

Part 1: The Timeless Child and Division

So this story is the most straightforward of the three. In Ascension of the Cybermen / The Timeless Children, it is revealed that in Gallifrey's prehistory, a Gallifreyan scientist named Tecteun travelled off-world (in her world's first exploration of another planet) and found the Timeless Child by a portal to another universe. She took the Timeless Child back to Gallifrey and discovered that the Timeless Child had the ability to regenerate. Tecteun was able to synthesize this regenerative power and give it to her own people, becoming one of the founders of modern Time Lord society in the process. Later on, the Timeless Child and Tecteun were both recruited into something called Division, a time-active-interventionist group that skirted around or outright ignored Gallifrey's laws. It is also stated that the Timeless Child's memory was wiped - at least once, possibly more than once - in order to control them. It's also suggested that Tecteun seems to have regrets about all of this, given how she left a message for the Timeless Child in the matrix about it.

This is where the story gets fuzzy. The next time we see anything, the Timeless Child has evolved into the Fugitive Doctor. She is seen working for Division in the flashbacks in Flux and Origins, but following Origins, she goes on the run from them. The events of the Fugitive Doctor's flight from Division play out in Fugitive of the Judoon. She is able to assassinate Gat, the Time Lord seeking her capture, and while it comes at significant personal loss, there is nothing to indicate that the Fugitive Doctor is unable to make a clean getaway.

By the story presented in Ascension of the Cybermen / The Timeless Children, however, the Fugitive Doctor is assumed to have been captured with her memory wiped to eventually become the Doctor. Let's put a pin in that assumption, though. That same story also shows the Fugitive Doctor and the Morbius Doctors being a part of the Doctor's past.

Tecteun, meanwhile, had become head of Division (if she wasn't head of it to begin with). Origins briefly shows her leading Division at the time of the Fugitive Doctor, and she is finally shown meeting the Doctor proper in Flux. There, it is revealed that she had started considering the entire universe a scientific experiment, but due to the Doctor being considered too much of a rouge element, she decided to use antimatter called flux from outside the universe to destroy the universe, with Division being safe outside the Universe. She also released a pair of Great Old Ones, Swarm and Azure, with the intention that they would kill the Doctor. Tecteun's plan was that the old universe would be destroyed, and that Division would conquer the universe that the Timeless Child originated from.

This plan did not work.

Swarm and Azure instead killed Tecteun and destroyed Division, before being destroyed by an entity only known as Time (and I could go on a whole tangent on what her deal is, but I'm gonna save that for another post). It's not shown explicitly in the show, but I also believe Time removed the destruction of the flux from the universe as well (mostly because planets explicitly destroyed in Flux are shown still existing in the future of the series).

In any case, during the Flux event, the Doctor was able to recover the archive where the Timeless Child's wiped memories were stored, but she ultimately decided not to access them.

It's never stated which universe the Timeless Child comes from in the show, but we're gonna circle back to that. It's also not stated how long Tecteun ran Division between its founding in early Gallifreyan history and its destruction during the Flux event. We're coming back to this, too.

Part 2: The Other

Cat's Cradle: Time's Crucible establishes two very important things about Gallifreyan history. One, all Time Lords became sterile early in their history - shortly after the conclusion of their war with the vampires (more on that war in a bit). Since then, instead of having sex, they have big cloning machines called Looms that make new Time Lords. And two, Rassilon (the founder of Time Lord society) had two major co-founders - Omega, and one other whose name was lost to time. He gets called just "the Other."

Rassilon and Omega were both established as characters in the classic series, but the Other is an invention of the books in the 90s (from the reader's perspective at least - he was a behind the scenes idea from the last few seasons of classic who, but he was never explicitly mentioned onscreen). He gets cryptic references all over the Virgin New Adventures book line, but this only gets concrete in their final Seventh Doctor book, Lungbarrow.

Where we get to know them in the book, Omega is presumed dead, and the Other and Rassilon are having a falling out. Omega's death is weighing heavily on the Other, and he thinks Rassilon is going power-mad and is trying to have the Other killed. Omega's last and most impressive creation, the stellar manipulator called the Hand of Omega, is quite possibly the Other's only friend by this point. The Other wants to leave the planet and so he tells his family to escape, and then confronts Rassilon with his intentions. Rassilon Does Not Like This and tries to have the Other stopped, and blocks all spaceports to make this happen. The Other then calmly walks into the primary generator for the looms and is never seen again.

And then, ten million years later, out from a loom, comes the Doctor. The Doctor's looming process was unusual, with the Doctor later claiming he could remember just before it happened, waiting to be born. (Although given the Doctor was five years old at the time he said this, that may be a little suspect). In any case, the Doctor lives a fairly normal life for a while, until he is found by the Hand of Omega which sees in him its old master. Shortly thereafter, the Doctor is confronted by the Time Lord Glospin (explaining his deal is a little complicated but he's a part of the same Family House as the Doctor is, the titular House Lungbarrow), about some irregularities in the Doctor's biology before being driven off by the Hand. It's ambiguous if either of these were the deciding factor, but the Doctor takes the Hand and leaves Gallifrey shortly thereafter.

Of course there's one last little piece left to take care of. If you're familiar with Classic Who, you may know that when we first met the Doctor, he was travelling with his granddaughter, Susan.

Lungbarrow claims that the Doctor's first trip in the Tardis was to travel back to Gallifrey's prehistory and meet the Other's granddaughter, the last child born before the Time Lords became sterile. She recognizes the Other in the Doctor, and considers him her grandfather. The Doctor doesn't quite recognize her, but takes her on as his first companion in the Tardis. And thus, Susan joined the Tardis crew.

The other thing that's important is uh that Lungbarrow has an actual plot. And said plot is only tangentially related to the above. Everything I just said is presented as three flashbacks in Lungbarrow - one straight narrative sequence (the argument between Rassilon and the Other), one where the Doctor shares his memories of leaving Gallifrey (basically everything that happens with Glospin, the Hand of Omega, and the Doctor first leaving Gallifrey), and one where several characters enter the Doctor's subconscious and have a dream sequence (including the Other walking into the Looms and the Doctor meeting Susan). The subconscious trip has some moments to it that are super trippy and metaphorical, and I'm gonna use that fact later. But for now, on to part 3!

Part 3: Patience

Like I said earlier, Cat's Cradle: Time's Crucible is the story that establishes that all Time Lords are sterile. At the end of a civil war in Gallifrey's ancient history, the leader of the losing side, Pythia, cursed the people who would become Time Lords with sterility before killing herself. (Her followers, by the way, left Gallifrey and eventually became the Sisterhood of Karn). The Time Lords, desiring to avoid extinction, created breeding engines known as Looms, which would create new Time Lords through what was effetely cloning. That's the story presented in Cat's Crade: Time's Crucible, anyway. But if you look at other places in the EU, this story starts to crack. An Earthly Child introduces Susan Forman's explicitly biological son, for example. And in Lungbarrow, the Time Lord Andred is able to get a human, Leela, pregnant, although the character's future appearances in Big Finish are notably child-less, suggesting the pregnancy failed somehow (either that or the child removed themselves from history as part of joining faction paradox and became the character known as Intrepid, but this is a tangent).

So are Time Lords sterile? Yeah, I think so. For the most part. But we know that not all of them are. A rare few can still reproduce sexually. There is another Time Lord who had a biological child that I've yet to bring up, as well. Her true name was lost to time, so we know her only as Patience.

This is her story.

The character of Patience has some truly strange origins, even for the Doctor Who EU. In the 1982 comic The Tides of Time, the fifth Doctor briefly sees an illusion of someone who looks familiar to him, created by the demon Melanicus using something called the Event Sythesizer (no, I'm not going to explain that). The art shown is close enough to Second Doctor companion Zoe Herriot to assume that's who the author and artist intended the illusion to be of, but that's not the direction later stories went in.

The character of Patience was introduced proper in 1996's book Cold Fusion. It also features the Fifth Doctor, in an earlier point in his life then The Tides of Time. In it, a prototype Tardis crashes into a planet that is later colonized by humans. The humans discover one pilot, comatose, who by all rights should be dead. She isn't. They take her back to their big fancy lab and attempt to find out more about her with basically no success.

Enter the Doctor. (And also Tegan Jovanka.)

When the Fifth Doctor stumbles into this, he is able to help the pilot complete her first regeneration. She is unable to remember much of anything from prior to her regeneration and is from Gallifrey's distant past. She is, biologically, something of a proto-Time Lord: she speaks a different language then the Doctor naturally, she only has one heart, and a few other things. She's explicitly more-or-less a contemporary of Rassilon.

Not having a name for herself, she adopts the moniker "Patience" on Tegan's unintentional suggestion. Despite all this, Patience and the Doctor recognize each other on some level, and neither really have any ideas as to why - the Doctor shouldn't even be able to recognize the dialect of Gallifreyan she speaks, as it is dead by his time. Patience has some garbled memory of fleeing from arrest as ordered by Rassilon (with the implication being that any fertile Time Lords were having their births stopped so that the loom-born were to inherit Gallifrey). Patience's escape came with the help of her husband, whom authorial intent confirms as one of the Morbius Doctors. In any case, in the present day, Patience is starting to properly recover when she is shot in the back of the head, apparently killing her. Her body then disappears. The Fifth Doctor's memory of Patience is lost shortly thereafter when the Seventh Doctor orchestrates the Fifth Doctor losing his memory of the whole adventure in order to preserve the timelines. The Seventh Doctor only met his prior self after Patience's body had vanished, meaning that the Doctor's entire memory of Patience was erased - except, perhaps, for some vague recollection which we see in The Tides of Time.

While Patience's fate is followed up in the book The Infinity Doctors, The Infinity Doctors is a very strange book that doesn't really contribute much to this ongoing discussion. The Infinity Doctors is deliberately evasive about which Doctor it stars, with its protagonist being sometimes implied to be the First Doctor and sometimes the Eighth. It's very possible that Patience and Omega (yes he's here but I'm not going to explain that) are the only characters in the story from the Whoniverse as we understand it, with everyone else being from a different universe. I might do a breakdown of The Infinity Doctors someday, but now is not that day.

The only other information we have about Patience comes from the 2021 audio story fittingly entitled "Patience". In it, the Doctor tells uses an ancient artifact that takes the form of a deck of cards called the Paradoxica to analyze time and hide his companions - Liv Chenka, Helen Sinclair, Tania Bell, and Andy Davidson (yes, the Torchwood character. no, I'm not explaining that either) - from the Judoon. The narrative is interspersed with the Doctor telling a fairy tale about a woman completing an impossible task (emptying an ocean with a bag that had a hole in it) and receiving the child she desired once she had spent an eternity completing this task. The story ends with the confirmation that this woman was Patience, and that she gave the Doctor the Paradoxica. How this happened is left unsaid - either she gave it to her husband who became the Doctor, or this happened during the events of Cold Fusion.

Part 4: The Yssgaroth War

Unlike the other narratives I've just rambled off, the Yssgaroth War is much more of a patchwork from various places around the EU, so this is gonna be even more scattered than I have been thusfar.

State of Decay, for being a story set in the pocket universe called E-Space, ended up being one of those foundational Gallifrey lore episodes of the classic series. That's the serial that established that at the dawn of time, the Time Lords fought and won a massive war against the vampires.

Yes, you read that right. This is one of my favorite pieces of Doctor Who lore.

State of Decay establishes that the Great Vampires were massive bat-like creatures who could drain the life from entire planets and who created more traditional vampires as their servants. Rassilon lead Gallifrey against them, and ordered the construction of "bowships," which were giant spaceship crossbows that could be used to stake the Great Vampires. The Great Vampires were ultimately defeated by the Time Lords. EU sources generally agree that this was the biggest war the Time Lords ever participated in until the Time War ten million years later.

The book The Pit would add a couple of new details about the conflict. It would rename the Great Vampires "Yssgaroth" and claim that the Yssgaroth originated from outside the universe - the early time travel experiments overseen by Rassilon ripped a hole in reality and the Yssgaroth were what came through with intent to consume the universe. These details are supported by Cat's Cradle: Time's Crucible and Interference: Shock Tactic.

A couple more recent comics have fleshed out the Yssgaroth War a bit. The Bidding War further reinforces that the Yssgaroth are from outside our universe, with it showing that during the Time War, the Time Lords opened a rift to the Yssgaroth dimension in an attempt to use them as a weapon against the Daleks. Monstrous Beauty was the first story to show us the War proper, depicting Rassilon personally leading forces against the vampiric army.

And this would all be interesting but irrelevant to our discussion if not for two stories published in the early 2000s that both seek to recontextualize the Yssgaroth War and the Time Lord's rise to power.

Let's start with Zagreus. The story as a whole is dedicated to deconstructing Rassilon's façade as a benevolent and reasonable ruler and instead reveals him to be a xenophobic tyrant who wished to remake the universe in his image - something that lines up with pretty much all of Rassilon's appearances post-Zagreus. As part of this, the vampire Lord Tepesh states that before the war, the vampires were peaceful and Rassilon provoked them because he feared their power. Tepesh is presented by the narrative as an unreliable narrator, but the point he makes is still worth noting.

The other story I need to talk about is The Book of the War. While the book's primary focus is The War in Heaven (for the uninitiated, that's basically spin-off series Faction Paradox's version of the Time War), it does give a lot of relevant information about the Yssgaroth War. First of all, it gives the timing of the War being right after Gallifrey established History as a concept - by "anchoring the thread" and making a linear history, the Time Lords accidentally let the Yssgaroth into the universe. While this contradicts some of the timings given by some of the sources mentioned above (other sources agree that it was the early experiments that caused the Yssgaroth to enter the universe not the final establishing of History and mastery over time), this can be excused since The Book of the War is an in-universe document and so may not be completely accurate. What makes this book relevant is that it also theorizes that the Time Lord's regenerative capabilities were stolen from the vampires. Even for an unreliably narrated book, this is treated as speculation, but as a concept, that is fascinating.

Interlude: when regeneration happened

There is some inconsistency in all of these sources as when regeneration first became a property of the Time Lords. The Timeless Children has it come shortly after they discover interstellar space travel, and far before time travel, but several of the VNA-era books (including Cold Fusion and I think Cat's Cradle: Time's Crucible) depict early time-travelling Gallifreyans as being without regeneration. The tv episode A Good Man Goes to War states that regeneration came about as a result of exposure to the Time Vortex. My personal take is that The Timeless Children showed Tecteun discovering regeneration, and initially only shared it amongst herself and her elite (Rassilon, etc.). After the Looms went into effect, they started Looming more and more Time Lords with regenerative capabilities, until eventually it's a shared trait among all Time Lords. After ten million years, the artificial origins of regeneration have been lost to time, but the symbiotic nature of the Time Lords to Tardises and the Time Vortex has meant that a being conceived in a Tardis could be engineered to have limited regenerative capabilities.

Part 5: Bringing it all together

So back to the Doctor and Gallifreyan history. Uh, how does this all make one cohesive story?

Okay so our story starts with Tecteun and finding the Timeless Child by a portal to another universe. She takes said child home, discovers from it the secrets of regeneration, and so on and so forth. Tecteun, Rassilon, and Omega become the three founders of Time Lord society.

So that's the first thing there. The Other, as revered in Time Lord history, isn't the Doctor or some version thereof. The founder whose name was lost to time was Tecteun. And Tecteun discovered regeneration from the Timeless Child. This child, for whatever reason, starts calling themselves the Doctor.

But wait? Wasn't there some theories running around that the the Time Lords stole regeneration from vampires? And that vampires initially weren't as hostile to the universe before Rassilon saw them as competition?

Yes, yes, there were. It's simple, really. The Timeless Child was from Spiral Yssgaroth. They're a vampire.

(I really wish I had been clever enough to come up with that on my own, but I'm not. Pretty much everything else here is out of my own brain, but that is a fan theory I saw on the internet.)

In any case, the Yssgaroth War was motivated, at least in part, by the Vampires' outrage that their secrets and child had been stolen. But, as history records, they were defeated.

And for a time afterwards, Tecteun and Rassilon continue to rule Gallifrey together. But Omega's apparent death shortly after the end of the Yssgaroth War weighs heavily on them both - and they're both ambitious enough to not quite appreciate the other being their equal. Trouble is, they kinda need each other. Rassilon, despite his posing, isn't a scientist - he's a politician. He needs his scientists to continue to work miracles, and Omega is already gone, so that just leaves Tecteun. Tecteun, for her part, is no leader. She wants power but doesn't have the people skills. And she still cares deeply about her people and about the vampire she has come to see as her child. The two drift apart - Tecteun becoming the leader of Division which she took increasingly off-world while Rassilon becomes more and more the sole face of leadership on Gallifrey.

Eventually this reaches a boiling point. Tecteun and Rassilon have lost all trust in each other. Tecteun makes preparations - including leaving the message in the Matrix we saw in Ascension of the Cybermen / the Timeless Children. She and Rassilon then have the confrontation that we saw in Lungbarrow. But Tecteun doesn't throw herself into the looms - she takes herself off Gallifrey through technology Rassilon doesn't know about and begins to cut Division's ties with Gallifrey altogether. Division has already begun recruiting across the universe, so she figures she can leave Rassilon to his one planet. Notably, she also leaves the Hand of Omega behind on Gallifrey, where it is eventually put in a vault and forgotten about. She maintains contact with Gallifrey only through her agents, one of which is the Timeless Child.

For their part, the Timeless Child has gone through several incarnations. They've had their mind wiped to hide that they're not Gallifreyan, and they have then been the Morbius Doctors, including Patience's husband. The Timeless Child has had a personal life (as seen by their marriage to Patience), but they're increasingly being a full-time agent of Division.

In any case, right now the Timeless Child is the Fugitive Doctor. And she plays along with Tecteun for a while. However, following the events we see in Origins, she goes on the run. Tecteun has Division track her to Earth, where the events of Fugitive of the Judoon play out. The Fugitive Doctor manages to get away as we see, but she doesn't know of any way to get away from Division long-term (as Big Finish is currently exploring) - and, away from Tecteun's influence and protection, she's starting to work out that she's not the Gallifreyan she thinks she is.

In an act of desperation, she pilots her Tardis back to Gallifrey - on the very same day Tecteun left. She takes Tecteun's place in Lungbarrow's story, and throws herself into the Looms, where she dies, dissolving into the giant vat of Gallifreyan genetic material.

This leaves Tecteun searching time and space desperately for the Timeless Child. At first, the Timeless Child seems nowhere to be found. But eventually Tecteun discovers that there is a time traveler called the Doctor out and around the universe. An investigation into the Doctor reveals that they've been all over the universe. Trying to just grab them and do a memory wipe isn't an option because they've done too much. Tecteun doesn't realize this Doctor is a different person to the Timeless Child, to the Doctor they left a message in the Matrix for.

Tecteun had probably never been that good of a person, but she used to care. She used to care about Omega, but he's gone. She used to care about Rassilon, but they burned too many bridges. She used to care about her vampiric child, but she takes this as a betrayal. And whatever good left in Tecteun dies.

Tecteun decides to destroy the universe and start over in a new one where she can control everything, so she picks a point far in the future where Gallifrey will have been destroyed naturally so her home planet will be unaffected. By convivence, one of the Doctor's most common destinations - Earth - happens to be at that point. Tecteun initiates the Flux event in Earth's time and releases Swarm and Azure to finish the Doctor off.

The Doctor stumbles into this, but she's operating off incomplete information from the Matrix. She doesn't realize that she's not the Timeless Child, since the Master seemingly destroyed any records that she could check his claims against. So when Tecteun and the Doctor confront each other, they both assume that the Doctor is the Timeless Child.

And this becomes a moot point because the Doctor finding Tecteun and Division HQ allows Swarm and Azure to find it as well. They kill Tecteun and destroy Division. If you're reading this, you probably watched Flux, you know how this goes.

It's not clear if Rassilon is aware that Tecteun died shortly after their argument. He certainly comes to the conclusion that she won't be an ongoing concern anymore, and, as the last survivor of Gallifrey's founding trio, uses his remaining lives to rule Gallifrey unopposed. With no one to oppose him, he removes Tecteun's name from record - as far as he's concerned, she betrayed him and does not deserve to be remembered.

Ten million years pass.

The House of Lungbarrow looms a new Time Lord, but, for whatever reason, this particular Time Lord has a significant amount of the Timeless Child's genetic material mixed into their genetic soup. This new Time Lord chooses to call themselves the Doctor - in unconscious echo of their genetic predecessor. Their amount of vampiric genetics makes them genetically distinguishable from other Gallifreyans if close examination is done, but for a while no one has any reason to do this.

This is also why I get to call the Doctor a dhampir - they're not a true vampire, but have a nontrivial amount of vampiric genetics - or, to use the terms of The Book of the War, they carry the Yssgaroth Taint.

These genetics are still enough to get the attention of the Hand of Omega, which has been mothballed for those Ten Million years. Maybe the Hand sees the Timeless Child in the Doctor, or maybe it's just intrigued by someone who isn't just another Time Lord. In any case, Glospin confronts the Doctor, the Hand drives Glospin off, and the Doctor leaves Gallifrey with it.

He also leaves with Susan. She isn't from the dawn of Gallifrey. Instead, she is a Loomed Time Lord of the Doctor's era who found herself ostracized and disliked. That being said, she found community with three other Time Lords: the Doctor, the Master, and another Time Lord named Braxiatel. The four of them are all outsiders from their own Houses, and so consider themselves a house unto themselves, and Susan, as the youngest, began referring to the Doctor as "Grandfather", as that term is reserved for the head of a House (something that is established in The Book of the War), as she views him as the head of their little house of four.

In any case, the Doctor and Susan leave Gallifrey. The Master loses his mind when he realize he got left behind, steals a Tardis himself and heads out after the family he thinks abandoned him. Braxiatel stays behind and becomes a successful politician and art collector.

A couple hundred more years pass.

We're now in the events of Lungbarrow. The Doctor shares his memory of leaving Gallifrey with some of the fellow members of his House. However, he edits Susan out of the memories he shows - technically, he went through the criminal justice system for this, but Susan never did and he doesn't want her to. Gallifrey has seemingly forgotten about her, and he wants to keep it that way.

And then he has his vision trip dream sequence where he sees the past and sees the Timeless Child walk into the Looms. He then sees a memory of himself meeting Susan. This isn't literal - it's symbolic of Susan and the Doctor's relationship changing and evolving as they left Gallifrey. The Doctor knows this isn't literal, but it's in his best interests to act like it is - he's not in control of this dream sequence and several other people are there (including one of the Doctor's enemies), and he still wants to protect Susan, so he goes along with that story.

The Doctor continues their life and eventually gets to the Thirteenth Doctor where she meets the Fugitive Doctor in Fugitive of the Judoon. When she scans herself and the Fugitive Doctor, the two register as the same entity. However, Time Lords are not biologically identical across regenerations - the Doctor has to have something specific to herself that she is looking for.

And she actually has one. At some point in the Doctor's life, they found a genetic quirk that has persisted across their regenerations. They don't know it, but it's the Yssgaroth Taint. Since the Doctor has never encountered another Time Lord with the Taint, she is by this point assuming it's a quirk of her own biology, so takes her sonic detecting the Taint in the Fugitive Doctor as confirmation that the two are the same.

And then shortly after the Doctor meets her genetic predecessor, the aforementioned stuff with Tecteun happens. It's possible that the Doctor themselves has noted the ambiguities in their backstory and heritage but given that there were several thousand years of life between the Seventh and Thirteenth Doctors, it seems likely that they don't think to try to analyze it that closely.

And that's a wrap! If you have any thoughts on all of this, I'd love it if you would share them! Thank you!

[spencerreidswhore187]

False Confidence

Don't take yourself so seriously / Look at you all dressed up for someone you never see.

Pairing: Spencer Reid x Reader

Summary: Spencer and Y/N hate each other, they just don't realise they have been anonymously messaging for months.

Word Count: 2.8k

T/W: Mentions of murder and death

A/N: For @sackofpissandshit . I came up for the premise of this as a plate of prawns fell onto my head at work. Enjoy! ◡̈

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SherlockHolmes1887: You were right. 

You couldn’t help the smile that stretched across your face; you replied immediately, the half-drunk coffee in your hand forgotten. 

NapoleonOfCrime: Feel free to say that again.

He did.  

Briefly, you looked up from your phone to cross the road. You were on the way to work having just received a message from Hotch. It sounded urgent. 

NapoleonOfCrime: So what made you realise that, as per usual, I was right? 

You had spent the better part of the night trying to convince him that Sherlock Holmes was in love with Jim Moriarty. You had met him online several months ago, on an Arthur Conan Doyle forum and have been messaging ever since. 

He, except for the one and only Penelope Garcia, was your best friend. You told him everything. Except for who you are. 

Early on in talking you both had agreed not to exchange names, tell each other where you lived or what you did for a career. You knew what SherlockHolmes1887 favourite film was (Star Trek), that he liked wearing mismatched socks and his mum used to call him ‘Crash’ because he would crash into things when he was younger. You knew that, like you, he had four qualifications, liked Sherlock Holmes and had an unhealthy obsession with coffee. You just didn’t know his name. 

Your phone vibrated. 

SherlockHolmes1887: “The greatest schemer of all time, the organiser of every devilry, the controlling brain of the underworld, a brain which might have made or marred the destiny of nations—that's the man! But so aloof is he from general suspicion, so immune from criticism, so admirable in his management and self-effacement, that for those very words that you have uttered he could hale you to a court and emerge with your year's pension as a solatium for his wounded character. [...] Foulmouthed doctor and slandered professor—such would be your respective roles! That's genius, Watson.”

Your phone buzzed again. You silenced it as you walked into the BAU elevator. 

SherlockHolmes1887: I reread ‘The Valley of Fear’ last night. 

You were about to reply when a voice cried out. 

“Hold the door!” 

Instinctively, you stretched your arm out between the closing elevator doors. 

The person entered beside you. 

If you had known who had asked, you would have let the doors shut. 

Dr Spencer Reid leant on his cane, drumming his fingers against its metal top as the elevator moved upwards. He had recently been shot in the leg on a case. You would never tell him but when that gun fired, you thought you were going to be sick. Your heart ached. It made you hate him even more.

“Reid,” you said, staring forward. You refused to look at him.

“L/N,” He replied. 

That was the most words you’d exchanged in days. 

When the doors finally opened again, you both headed towards the round table, where the rest of the team was waiting. 

You and Spencer were the last to arrive. 

It’s not like him to be late, you thought.  

You took a seat between Emily Prentiss and Derek Morgan - you were sat as far away from Spencer as possible.

“Now that you are all here,” Hotch began, pulling you from your thoughts, “let’s begin.” 

Penelope connected her computer to the screen; there was a picture of a body. The flesh was rotten, decayed from what was evidently years hidden away. Your eyes are wide as you saw it: a long cut, rough and jagged, stretched from neck to naval. You recognised this signature. 

“The Brooklyn Butcher,” you said, interrupting the silence. 

Hotch nodded. 

It was a case that had occurred six years ago and ended up going cold. 

Spencer recalled, “Eleven women, all under the age of twenty-five, all with red hair, went missing and then their bodies always turned up three days later with a long knife wound across their torso.” 

“The only body,” you continued, “that was never discovered was Sharon Lewis’. The first to go missing. The wife of Mitch Lewis, the prime suspect during the investigation.” 

“Why wasn’t he arrested?” Derek asked. 

Spencer answered before you could, tucking a strand of his brown hair behind his ear. Why did you want to run your hands through his hair? 

“There was no evidence. The police’s only theory was his wife was his first kill and he killed all the other victims who resembled her in an attempt to relive the thrill of the kill.”

“He had an alibi for Sharon Lewis’ disappearance,” you added. 

“Correct - they also never found her body. They couldn’t prove their theory without her body.” 

“Well,” Hotch said, “they have now.” 

“Sharon Lewis, aged twenty-four, was the first victim in the Brooklyn Butcher killings. Cause of death, blunt force trauma to the head.” 

JJ leant back in her chair and pressed her pen to her lips, “So the cut was postmortem?”

“According to the coroners.” 

“But that was not the case for the rest of the victims?”

“No,” Hotch replied. 

“Our UNSUB gained confidence in his kills.” 

Lewis was likely his first-ever kill. You wanted to message Sherlock and ask him what he thought. He was intelligent beyond belief, you were sure he would add valuable insight to this case but you couldn’t tell him. Then he would know you worked for the Behavioural Analysis Unit. You couldn’t let him know that. He couldn’t know who you were. What would he think then? When he knew you were more comfortable around dead bodies than real people.

“How was the body discovered?” Spencer asked. 

Hotch had that dark look in his eyes, the one he got when an UNSUB scared him. You hadn’t seen that look in his eyes since Haley died. 

“The body was left on an empty police vehicle parked outside a station in Brooklyn. There was a note attached to it.”

Penelope clicked a button on her laptop and the slide changed to a screwed-up piece of paper nailed to the shoulder of the body. 

Hotch read it aloud, “You have three days before I kill another. Happy hunting, the Butcher.”

He stood up from his seat, “Selene Harker was reported missing twelve hours ago. We leave for New York now - wheels up in twenty. Penelope, you’re coming with us.” 

She smiled nervously, you gave her a discreet thumbs up. 

Everyone stood up from the round table and headed towards the door, you had grabbed the handle when Hotch stopped you.

“L/N, you need to stay here.”

You froze, confused. 

He continued, “Reid has not been cleared to fly by his doctors yet and I need you to go through the old Mitch Lewis interrogation clips, find out whether he told any lies. Stay in touch.” 

With that he left the room, leaving you there with Spencer before you had a second to protest. 

You weren’t really sure how you did it, it’s an ability you’ve had since you were a kid. It’s how you were flagged by the FBI. You could tell when people lied. Everyone has a tell and, like the lie-detecter you are, you knew how to spot it. 

When you and Reid had first met, three years ago, he had told you all the statistics about lies: “Did you know,” he had said, “10% of all lies can be defined as exaggerations, though 60% of all lies are considered to be deceptive.” 

You remembered how you had nodded, anxious as it was your first day. 

“Of all liars, 70% of them claim to be willing to do it again. Every week, Americans tell 11 lies. In a study of 11,366 lies told by 632 people over 91 days, 75% of them lied between 0 or 2 times per day.”

“You know a lot,” You had laughed. 

Reid seemed kind. You liked kind people; you dealt with a lot of horrible people growing up. 

“I have an eidetic memory and an IQ of 187.” 

That was the first time you and Spencer had ever spoken and it was the last time you ever spoke like friends. 

You spun on your heels to face Spencer. 

“You leave me alone and I’ll leave you be. Understood?” 

“Understood,” Spencer said, rolling his eyes. 

“God, you are so infuriating.”

“I hate you,” he retorted. 

You noticed the way his jaw tensed. 

You grinned, “Lie.” 

Spencer groaned and left the room. Through the window, you saw him take a seat at his desk. 

Laughing, you walked into Penelope’s office and pulled up the police footage. 

You were three hours into the Mitch Lewis footage and he had told three lies. 

The first was that he did not know what happened to the other victims. Although, this could mean he had read about the case online. 

The second was more interesting. Lewis said he was at the pub when his wife disappeared. Even though there was security camera footage to confirm this, he was lying, 

The third made your head spin. He said he didn’t kill her. True. He said he didn’t know where she was. Lie. 

You paused the interrogation and contacted Hotch to tell him what you had found. He replied telling you to take a break as they searched for Mitch Lewis. 

In an attempt to distract yourself, you reached for your phone and messaged Sherlock. 

NapoleonOfCrime: Hi.

He replied almost immediately. 

SherlockHolmes1887: Hey.

NapoleonOfCrime: So you read ‘The Valley of Fear’ in one night just to try and prove me wrong? 

SherlockHolmes1887: If that’s how you want to interpret it :) 

NapoleonOfCrime: And?

SherlockHolmes1887: And…they are very much in love. It’s almost blindingly obvious. 

NapoleonOfCrime: “It has been an intellectual treat for me to see the manner in which you have grappled with this case.” The definition of enemies to lovers.

SherlockHolmes1887: Enemies to lovers? 

You don’t think you ever smiled as much as when you did with him. 

NapoleonOfCrime: It’s better you don’t ask, or else I’ll be sending you links to Moriaty x Sherlock fan fiction.

SherlockHolmes1887: What are you doing right now?

Your fingers danced along the tiny keyboard on the phone screen.

NapoleonOfCrime: Work. You? 

SherlockHolmes1887: Work. 

NapoleonOfCrime: How is it? 

It made you nervous that he didn’t reply instantly. 

NapoleonOfCrime: Don’t worry, this isn’t me trying to figure out what you do or who you are. I like the mystery. 

SherlockHolmes1887: Horrible. But it’s not really work that’s the problem. There’s a girl. 

It hurt a little to know there was a girl, of course it did, but you didn’t mind. What you cared about was how he seemed distressed. 

NapoleonOfCrime: If you want to share, I’m a good listener. 

He typed for what seemed like an eternity. 

SherlockHolmes1887: We, her and I, have worked together for years. She’s smart and funny and beautiful. So beautiful. But she hates me. I messed up when we first met, I was so nervous around her that I just ignored her. Whenever she tried to speak to me, I would walk away or just act like she wasn’t there. And, now, I am finally more confident, she can’t even be near me without glaring in my direction at least once. 

You yearned for someone to talk about you that way. No one had ever told you that you were beautiful. You didn’t need someone to tell you because you didn’t believe it, it’s just that sometimes, on the inevitable bad days, you want to feel wanted. 

NapoleonOfCrime: I’m sure if you explain it to her, she will understand - you said she’s smart. I can see why you like her. 

SherlockHolmes1887: Yeah, I fell hard. 

I fell hard. 

You recalled what Hotch had said, “Cause of death, blunt force trauma to the head.” 

You recalled how the cut was messy and hesitant whilst the rest were neat. 

 You recalled how it was done postmortem whilst the rest were the cause of death. 

You ran out of Penelope’s office, straight to Dr Spencer Reid. 

“Spence,” you shouted.

You were both alone in the room. 

Spencer looked up from his phone. It was strange, to see him on a phone. You had always thought he was the type of person to hate technology. Instead, he seemed thoroughly invested in whatever was on his screen. 

“Who are you messaging?” You asked, acting causal.

“No one,” he said.

Lie.

“A girl?”

“No.” 

Lie.

Spencer’s face had gone bright red. It was cute; it made you smile. 

Why did it make you smile? 

You decided to change the topic before your face went red. 

“Do you have the coroner’s report?” You questioned. 

He dug through the many files covering his desk and held it up for you to see. 

Blunt force to the frontal lobe, that confirmed your suspicions. 

You stared into Spencer’s brown eyes.

“I know what happened to Sharon Lewis.” 

You explained how it must have happened. Sharon was reported missing by her friend at 19:37. She was supposed to be meeting her a 18:00. Mitch Lewis was at a bar from 17:30-20:01, this was confirmed by camera footage. This means that Lewis can’t have kidnapped his wife. Or, perhaps, she never went missing. She tripped getting ready to see her friend and fell down the staircase. She would have died upon impact.

Spencer nodded in agreement with your theory.

“When Lewis got home and saw his wife’s body sprawled out at the base of the stairs, he saw an opportunity…” 

“He dragged her downstairs to the basement, explaining the deep scratches on her back noted in the coroner’s report.” You said, “Lewis worked in construction, he had a table and tools down there, he said so in one of his interrogations. He placed her on that table and cut her. He butchered her. And then did the same to others to try and recreate the high of killing his wife.” 

“We need to call Hotch.” 

Four hours later and Mitch Lewis had confessed and was in police custody.

Derek and Emily had found Selene Harker chained to the very same table Lewis had carved his wife like a cold slab of meat. 

The team was on their way back from Quantico.

You found Spencer sitting on a bench outside the FBI building. Spinning the silver ring your grandmother gave you around your index finger, you sat down next to him. 

You both stared forward, at the road. 

You were glad that you weren’t the only one who was affected by cases like this. You were glad that you weren’t the only one overwhelmed by empathy. Your mother once told you that empathy without boundaries was self-destruction but you were just glad that after so much time in this field, you still felt something. 

Spencer eventually broke the silence. 

“It scares me, Y/N, how easy a life can end.” 

Spencer clutched his cane so tightly that his knuckles went white. 

Gently, you eased one of his hands off it and held it in yours. 

You could hear your blood rushing in your ears. It was deafening. 

“You know, when I was a kid, I was always tripping over things. I walked into doors, tables, you name it. My mum would call me ‘Crash.’”

He laughed dryly whilst your world began to crumble around you. 

You dropped Spencer’s hand. 

“Sh-she called you what?” 

Spencer turned to look at you, confusion and worry were etched across his face, “Y/N? Are you okay? What’s wrong?” 

It’s not that you were upset, in fact, you felt almost the opposite of that. 

Your voice was steadier than you expected when you spoke.

“He is the Napoleon of crime, Watson.”

“Y/N?”

“He is the organiser of half that is evil and of nearly all that is undetected in this great city.”

“It can’t be.” 

Spencer held his face in his hands. 

“Disappointed, Sherlock Holmes 1887?”

You said it mockingly but you were terrified of what Spencer would say. 

“No, Napoleon of Crime. Not even a little bit.”

True.

“You told me to explain how I felt to that girl so here goes. The first thing I noticed about you was your smile. I saw it from the other side of the room. And, Y/N, it was contagious. Just looking at you made me smile. You are so beautiful and so intelligent and I have wanted to tell you how desperately I liked you since the day we met.” 

He cradled your cheek with one hand. 

“And now I know that this whole time, as well as being the person I can see myself falling in love with, you are my best friend, my favourite, my person.” 

“I hate you, Spence,” you say just before you kiss him. 

Smiling against your lips, you hear him whisper, “Lie.” 

[wanderingmind867]

Nico knew Octavian was a legacy - a descendant of Apollo many generations removed. Now, he couldn't help thinking that Octavian looked like a watered-down, unhealthy version of Will Solace - like a photo that had been copied too many times. Whatever made a child of Apollo special, Octavian didn't have it.

Jesus Fucking Christ, Rick. Stop bullying this poor kid. Next you're gonna say he looks like a product of incest or something. We're already half way there. The implication that legacies look like watered-down, worse versions of regular demigods…this feels like some sort of eugenics metaphor. That's how my brain reads it. As some kind of weird parallel to incest causing genetics to decay.

And it also screams eugenics to me. As it's implying octavian is worse because he's got gaunt skin and bloodshot eyes and all these ailments. Rick Riordan tried to make Luke (a man who used similar logic as this when he pretty much said we need to let everyone fend for themselves under the titans) a tragic villian, but Octavian is the pure evil one? Really? The pure evil one is the one who's described as anemic, gaunt, barbarous, a loser? That one? Because I don't know… In laying it on so thick, you make yourself come off as a bully. And I will never support bullies. Even when it's an author pretty much bullying his main villian.

[gallifreyanhotfive]

Random Doctor Who Facts You Might Not Know, Part 72: More Academy and Pre-Leaving Gallifrey Stuff Because Why Not

Sorry I'm in too my pain to come up with a better title right now lmaooo. Mostly about the Doctor because they occupy the mind.

As a small child, Theta Sigma had an imaginary friend named Binker. (Audio: The Abandoned)

Later, the Sixth Doctor claimed that while most people had imaginary friends, he had had an imaginary enemy in Mandrake the Lizard King, which was really a dead lizard pinned to old engine parts that he would battle with his deadly stick. This phrasing suggests that the Sixth Doctor does not acknowledge any imaginary friends his childhood self might have had. (Audio: The Widow's Assassin)

The Rani claimed that sentimentality was the reason the Doctor graduated with "just a Double Gamma." (Audio: The Rani Elite)

According to Sardon, the Doctor is no common criminal because by the latter years of his first incarnation was a distinguished member of the High Council and was widely regarded as a potential President. He was difficult and rebellious, however, and went too far when he quarreled with his colleagues over something obscure over principle. He then stole an old Type 40 TARDIS and fled. (Novel: World Game)

The Seventh Doctor claimed that he had always believed evil to be a genuine force. This had given his young self quite a name on Gallifrey as most of his contemporaries considered the ideas of "good" and "evil" to be archaic and out-dated. They thought his preoccupation with that morality was incomprehensible. (Novel: Strange England)

Before leaving Gallifrey, the Doctor had successfully campaigned for the ban of a special chemical. This chemical was a weapon sometimes called a disruptor agent that acts as a catalyst to convert vertebrate blood into acid. The formula for the chemical stuck in his brain well enough that the Second Doctor was able to later recreate it. (Short story: The Ages of Ambition)

The Doctor had made powerful enemies on Gallifrey on account of his controversial views on the non-interference policy. (Audio: The Beginning)

The Doctor was told stories about the Kin when he was a small boy on Gallifrey. The Time Lords imprisoned the Kin in a complex of small rooms out of temporal phase with the rest of the universe. So long as the Time Lords existed, the Kin would be in their prison. When the Kin got out, there was still a Time Lord left in the universe - the Eleventh Doctor. (Short story: Nothing O'Clock)

In his youth, the Doctor feared that Grandfather Paradox was hiding under his bed or underneath the table in the refectory or making noises he could hear outside at night. (Novel: The Gallifrey Chronicles)

As a young man, the Doctor read about an infection on Gallifrey that had happened over one thousand years before his birth. The Spore - which was actually the von Neumann seeding probe - killed several hundred thousand Time Lords before it was dealt with. The Time Lords engineered an inherited immunity into their genes, so they would never be vulnerable again. Everything organic seemed to be necrotic and decaying to a black gunk. (Please skip to next bullet point if you are squeamish about descriptions of bodies.) When the Eighth Doctor investigated an outbreak, he found a body wearing boots, jeans, and a checkered shirt. Inside the clothes was a mess of bones barely held together by a few pieces of remaining flesh. The skull had a few pieces of white hair, but the scalp and other pieces of soft organic matter were gone as black slime ran out of the cuffs. (Short story: Spore)

The Doctor used to sit by the sea a lot in their childhood, watching and listening to it. He used to think that that was where the dead went, that they were all out there in the sea, and that you could hear them whispering in the waves. (Novel: Matrix)

Three students at the Academy who often conducted rebellious and anti-hierarchical activities include: the Master, whose title was earned from his constant bullying of others, a good cosmic theoretician but but not very good in practice; the Doctor, who often carried out silly chemical experiments with a friend called Drax; and the Rani, who "was brilliant at everything, and chemistry in particular." (Short story: The Legacy of Gallifrey)

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[tinalbion]

"You Reap What You Sow" ||

Part 2

𝐑𝐞𝐚𝐝 𝐏𝐚𝐫𝐭 𝟏 𝐇𝐞𝐫𝐞

𝐏𝐚𝐢𝐫𝐢𝐧𝐠: Cooper "The Ghoul" Howard x fem!Reader

𝐑𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐧𝐠: 𝐌𝐀𝐓𝐔𝐑𝐄! Mentions of death, decapitation, abuse (physical and mental), implied (but not mentioned) sexual abuse, manipulation

𝐋𝐞𝐧𝐠𝐭𝐡: 4.5k

𝐒𝐮𝐦𝐦𝐚𝐫𝐲: You had a bounty on your head and a familiar Ghoul has taken that bounty, so upon catching you, he escorts you back to the compound you escaped. Will you be able to convince him to let you go, or will it be for nothing?

© 𝟐𝟎𝟐𝟒 𝐓𝐢𝐧𝐚𝐥𝐛𝐢𝐨𝐧. 𝐃𝐨 𝐧𝐨𝐭 𝐬𝐡𝐚𝐫𝐞, 𝐜𝐨𝐩𝐲, 𝐨𝐫 𝐭𝐫𝐚𝐧𝐬𝐥𝐚𝐭𝐞 𝐦𝐲 𝐰𝐨𝐫𝐤 𝐭𝐨 𝐭𝐡𝐢𝐬 𝐩𝐥𝐚𝐭𝐟𝐨𝐫𝐦 𝐨𝐫 𝐚𝐧𝐲 𝐨𝐭𝐡𝐞𝐫!

You were already exhausted with the sun so high up, causing your skin to feel as if it was melting, but you continued to make your way through the wastes beside your bounty hunter friend, and he hadn't been in a particularly friendly mood today. When you tried to ask him something, you were mostly met with silence, so you just dropped it altogether and continued to walk. As the sun began to sink again, you had distanced yourself from the Ghoul, wishing you had more of a plan to escape from his hold. 

Sure, he hadn't tied your hands together and pulled you along forcefully since you'd given him no reason to, but that didn't mean he wouldn't end up doing so at one point or another. He still kept a watchful eye on you and made sure to match your pace, ready for anything that was to happen. 

But neither of you was prepared for when two strange men approached you both from the left, catching you off guard as you hid behind the Ghoul for safety. He looked down at you, confused as to why you'd seek comfort and safety from him, but he hadn't given you a reason not to. 

“‘Scuse me, but we want that,” one of the men, the taller one, pointed directly at you. “Heard there was a bounty on her, and we ain't one to turn down some caps.”

The Ghoul scoffed and stared at them, obviously not amused. “She's already taken, as you can see, and I ain't got time to deal with lowlifes such as yourselves. Finders keepers.”

You tugged on the sleeve of his decaying duster and caught his attention. “Those two belong to the Condemned, the compound Axton is a part of, where I ran from. He probably sent them to kill you since you brought me this far, keep the money for himself…” You wouldn't have put it past the asshole, but You did recognize the two men even though you couldn't place their names or occupations. 

Upon hearing this new information, the Ghoul lifted his head and stared at the two men, reading the situation. “Well, my little friend here says you work for the asshole who put the bounty out, and I normally  don't have a problem with disposin’ of those who stand in my way, but now I feel downright disrespected with what's goin’ on here.” He placed his hand gently on the hilt of the gun and watched them both start acting nervous, their eyes darting back and forth from each other to the bounty hunter. 

“Look, either way, Axton is getting his little whore back, so–”

With speed you'd never experienced firsthand before, the man's head had exploded. Blood, brain matter, it all shot out and projected far as his now lifeless body crumpled to the ground. You jumped, your hands still holding onto the Ghoul's coat as his gun shifted over toward the other man. 

“Now, you got somethin’ to say against all this, or are you gonna run back to your compound and tell your man Axton that I better get what I'm owed?”

The man looked terrified and slunk back until the Ghoul had placed his gun back into its holster, then he looked down at you. “You're okay, girl, stand up,” he instructed, and you obeyed him. “C’mon, let's get you back before anything else decides to irritate me.”

You stuck close to the bounty hunter and although you could have easily done that yourself, the fear of seeing people that were under his pay, people that you've seen speaking with him, it caused you to freeze in the moment you needed to be clear-headed. As silly as it seemed, this man who was going to turn you back to where you ran felt like more of a safer option. 

“Mister Bounty Hunter… please, I'd rather not be given back to him…” You said, your expression was sullen. 

“Look, sweetheart, I ain't got much of an option right now, these chems you see me inhalin’? These keep me from goin’ feral, you understand? And that's where the bounty comes in, a man’s gotta survive one way or another. I got more important things to worry about right now, as awful as your situation is.”

You did understand, you wished you could have done something to make both your lives easier, but there was only one way to do that, and it would be easier said than done. Before you spoke up further about it, you felt a hard tug at your ankle and you went flying to the ground. 

You fell hard and let out a yelp, the Ghoul spun around and watched as the man who you both thought retreated had roped you by your ankle and was struggling to completely bind your legs together. You had been thrashing around, kicking and screaming at the man as you landed your foot against his jaw, but he reacted quickly and punched you in return. You were slightly stunned, but you had thrown your bag off your back and reached for the pistol in your pack, then shot him square in the neck. There would be no time wasted, you weren't one to take it lying down anymore. 

The Ghoul had stared at the scene in interest, a smile grew across his face as he walked over and rolled the limp body off your legs. “Well, seems like you're a little killer, huh?” He chuckled and removed his knife from its sheath, then cut you free of your half-tied bindings with one quick thrust of the knife upward. 

“I do what I can to get by, much like yourself,” you said, your voice a little shaky. “Thanks…” You stood up and dusted yourself off, then looked around before you grabbed your bag, gun still in your hand. 

“You're a curious one, you know that?” The Ghoul said, staring over at you. When you didn't answer and only greeted him with a puzzled look, he scoffed. “Had a gun the whole time and you didn't think to use it on me?” 

You looked away and slid your pack on, then you looked back at him. “Told you, I don't got a shot against you.” 

This made him laugh, he let out a belt of laughter and shook his head. “Been on this  planet for over 200 years and yet I can still be surprised.” 

His back faced away from the seemingly dead merc, but you took notice of the movement a little too late. The man lashed out toward the Ghoul, but you leaped at him and pushed him out of the way, your gun still in your hand, but the way the man threw himself had knocked you back. He plunged a knife deep into your shoulder, and you let out a howl of pain.

“Can't wait to see what he does to you, you bi–”

You brought your gun up to his head and blasted him. He dropped heavily into your lap, his blood splattered all over you, the ground, and your gun. 

You were shaking as the Ghoul got you to your feet, but you clung to him as if your life depended on it, you were just so tired of Axton and the bullshit he constantly put you through, and it finally caught up to you. You sobbed as you buried your face against your captor's chest, just wanting to live a life without Axton, but he'd haunt you until one of you died. 

“I'm sorry,” you groaned, the knife still lodged into your shoulder as you bit your lip. “Dammit.” You sniffled, wiped your face, and slid your pack off your shoulder carefully, hoping not to aggravate your wound. 

“Why’d you do that?”

“What, kill him?” You asked in confusion, tears still welling in your eyes while you dug for a stimpack. 

The Ghoul scoffed and looked at you in disbelief. “You pushed me out of the way, you fool,” he admonished. “You ain't got healing like I do, why'd you do somethin’ so stupid?” He placed some pressure on your wound and grabbed the stimpack from your shaking hand. “Breathe in,” he instructed. 

You did as he told you and that's when he administered the stimpack, then you winced at the pain of him pulling the knife out, but immediately holding the wound to slow the bleeding. You looked up at him with a small smile despite all that. “Thanks.”

“Don't pull nothin’ like that again, you hear me?” He began to help you dress the wound as expertly as he could, though he was a tad rusty with having to deal with mortal wounds. 

“What, you'll still get paid regardless. I'm only gonna get worse when I'm back there…” You looked down at the ground and felt the closeness you both shared, but you didn't comment on it. 

He was the first to pull away, but it took him longer than expected. “Come on,” he urged. He had nothing more to say, he had to think. 

More time had passed and you finally stood before the poorly constructed walls of the compound, and you were visibly distraught. “Mister, please,” you said as you turned toward him. You were no longer afraid to release the tears that threatened to fall. “I can't, you saw just a small sliver of what he's capable of, he will beat me senselessly, string me up. I just wanted freedom…” You looked back at the compound and tried your best to remain composed. “What if we take them out? All of them? I know the combination to his safe, I know where everything is stashed, I could help you.”

The Ghoul stood there in silence, listening to your words, words of desperation and bargaining. And as much as he wanted to simply ignore it, he knew he couldn't. Not anymore. You'd stuck your neck out for him, you'd not given him any trouble as he escorted you back, and somehow you managed to grow on him. How, he had no idea, but the sound of killing all these bastards seemed more than satisfactory. Killing them all so they didn't hurt anyone else like you, take their earnings, it all seemed fair, especially after sending someone to take him out and keep the caps for themselves. 

“Even if I were to entertain the idea, sweetheart, there ain't a guarantee you'll make it out of there. I can handle gunshots, you're gonna be a walkin’ corpse riddled with holes.” 

“I know their shifts. I paid attention when I was keeping track of when and who would be where. I can make it happen, I promise. Just please, help me take them down and you can help yourself to whatever you want.” 

The Ghoul looked away from you and brought his attention back to the compound, his eyes stared into the area as he mulled over your words. He let out a sigh, hung his head, and smiled a little. He was going to do this for a smoothie, a human, and for what? Maybe it didn't sit well with him that you took a stab wound for him, that he felt like he owed you for something you didn't need to throw your life on the line for. After what seemed like a good, long while, he turned back to you and sighed. His eyes wandered over your face as he recalled his past, something he tried not to do regularly, and a small smile played at the corner of his mouth. 

Again, he just sighed. “You better come through, you hear?” He warned, his hand raised and his finger pointed at you. “But if anythin’ happens, I ’spose you could call me Cooper…”

Your eyes lit up and you stared at him in awe. “Like…Cooper Howard…?” You gasped and smiled so wide you thought your cheeks would hurt. 

He scoffed. “Yeah, that's me, just don't go tellin’ people, you understand?” 

With a burst of excitement and a lapse in judgment, you threw your arms around him despite feeling the sting of your wound, and you hugged him. He didn't realize how big of a deal this was to you, your heart soared with delight at the news, and it was almost like an old part of your life was here, comforting you in tough times. “Oh, I'm definitely loving our chances now.”

The Ghoul just sighed and patted your shoulder awkwardly, wanting to support you in his change of heart. “I hope I don’t regret this…” he whispered to himself.

The ringing in your ears was causing you to squeeze your eyes closed as you tried to focus on anything other than the sound, but it gradually increased and you did your best to try and remain out of the crossfire as you hid behind one of the walls inside the compound. 

You and Cooper had gotten halfway through the building already, both of you easily working together when it came to taking down the men you knew so well, but you felt nothing except a growing sense of freedom the more men fell. You'd grown up with a lot of them, sure, but none of that mattered once they had begun to follow Axton's orders and put you in harm's way. You wouldn't admit to it, but the satisfaction you felt when they would fall to the ground as they bled out almost was too wicked for you to take any joy in, but deep down, you relished it. 

According to your memory, you and Cooper had taken down about fifteen of them so far, and you only had fifteen– bang– fourteen more to go. Axton would be holed up in his pathetic excuse of a ‘panic room’, which you knew the code to, so he'd be the best to save for last. You peeked around the corner, your pistol in hand as you looked for any more on this floor. 

“I think they're all running up to protect their stash now, they're gonna be crowded in a room on the top floor. Axton would want all his riches to be the top priority, the greedy bastard.” You stepped out and pushed on with the Ghoul right beside you, following your lead as you guided him through the compound. 

“There any coverage between us and that door?” He asked, his gun still raised as he looked over at you. 

“Yeah, there's a double wall up there, no doors,” you replied and paused when you saw someone cowering in the corner. You gasped and ran to that person with a relieved expression. 

“Oh my gosh, Toby?” You knelt beside them and placed a hand on their shoulder. 

Cooper was about to interject, afraid to take up too much time dwelling on checking on survivors, but the person known as Toby looked up at you and their expression was shocked. It was a Ghoul, just like him; not yet feral. Toby smiled and stood up, greeting you with a tight hug. 

“Oh, you're back, you're back! I thought you would have been killed, or worse!” Toby sobbed as they hugged you, pulling you tighter and tighter. 

“Toby, you have to get out of here, go outside the compound, and stay hidden till we come out.”

“You're doing it, aren't you, you're finally taking him down?” The Ghoul looked relieved and terrified, and yet the smile that spread across their face spoke volumes. 

You smiled in return and nodded. “Yeah, Cooper and I are, now come on, go, I'll find you after, okay?” You gave him one last hug and pushed on with Cooper by your side. 

You'd finally made it to the last floor, and you were both greeted with heavy gunfire. You pressed back against the wall with Cooper on the other side, and he looked at you as he counted down on his fingers from five. After it ended, he spun toward the door and just began to blast the mercenaries, all shots landing where they were supposed to. You followed in behind him and tried to keep up, taking down any stragglers with your pistol as you kept it aimed high. Whenever you shot another, they'd look at you in horror, realizing that you were finally fighting back. Some of them seemed to know it would have happened eventually, others seemed betrayed that it was you, but you wore the same expression as you gunned them down. 

Remorseless.

You’d been counting down, naming each one of the men in Axton’s employ as you shot them, remembering their faces, recalling all the times they’d done you wrong. With each bullet put into them, you felt lighter, a heavy burden was released from your shoulders. But you knew you needed to get to your main problem before you would feel any semblance of comfort. But now that you thought about it, you felt comfort being here with Cooper, which was an odd thing to say considering he was there initially to bring you back to this hellhole. But you’d both grown on each other, though he would never admit to it, but you hoped that he would after all was said and done. 

Once the last man had fallen from a shot to his leg, Cooper walked up to him as he crawled away, then stepped on the wound and stepped down hard, and he laughed as the blood came pouring from the wound while the man cried out. The Ghoul didn’t let up as he leaned closer to the man.

“So cowpoke, where’s your boy, Axton, huh?” 

The man who you knew as Luther had looked up, horrified to see the hand cannon he held pointed directly at his face. “L-L-Look, he’s in there,” he pointed to the right where his room had been, “I don’t got nothin’ to do with what he did to her! I swear!”

Cooper looked over at you for confirmation, but you looked away from him, your face filled with unwanted recalled memories. All of his men stood by and turned a blind eye to the things he’d done to you and many others, you wouldn’t soon forget. Cooper turned back to the bleeding man and smirked slyly.

“Seems that she says otherwise, partner, guess it ain’t your lucky day,” he said with a faux frown as he raised the gun to his head and shot without hesitation. He walked back to you and stood beside you, looking at you in silence for a moment. “You ready to take on this son of a bitch?”

You swung your pack around and dug for your box of ammo, filled your gun, and then looked into the Ghoul’s eyes. “I’ve been ready. But you gotta be careful, he’ll have heavy weapons on him, so don’t let him get you off guard.”

“You don’t gotta worry about me, sweetheart, I think I already established that.” He reached a gloved hand toward your face, and it lingered there for a moment as it hovered near your cheek. Cooper decided against it and sighed, then looked back in the direction of the room.

You wondered what he wanted to say to you, but maybe it wasn't something meant for right now, instead, you two had something to deal with. You walked toward the room and typed in the code you distinctly memorized despite not being allowed inside, and the door swung open to reveal Axton with a large turbo Plasma rifle, the only one in his collection. He pointed it directly at you with a smile on his face. 

“Shoulda known it was you,” he scoffed. “After all I gave you here, a place to stay, food to eat, safety?”

“You didn't give me anything other than scars inside and out,” you spat back. “You had this coming, whether it was from me or someone else. You get what you get.”

His eyes darted to the Ghoul and he let out hearty laughter. “Oh, this is even better, what, employing a Ghoul to help you? Always were obsessed with them.”

“They're friends! Toby is my friend!” You yelled and shot off a round straight at him, but he immediately dropped and dodged it before it could hit him. He just laughed at you and shook his head.

“Always were a lousy shot. So, Ghoul, she employed you, promise you that you'd get whatever you want in here?” He waved around the room and scoffed again. “She lied. She ain't shit, and neither are you.”

“Well, actually…” Cooper said with a playful smile on his face, “I was the bounty hunter who planned on turnin’ her in but after seein’ so much of who you are? Gotta hand it to the little lady, I ain't impressed with how this is goin’.”

Axton just laughed and shook his head. “Oh, so you're betraying me, too? Damn, what did she do, give it up to you to get you to change your mind–”

Cooper let off a shot that hit him in the shoulder and blood spurted out, but he didn't go down, not yet. “Better watch your mouth, boy,” he warned. 

Axton groaned but laughed and shook his head. “Oh man, she did, didn't she?! It's all she's good at anyway.”

“Enough!” You screamed out as you began shooting at him, not taking into account that you should have kept a level head of things. You tried to hit him, but he shot the plasma rifle at your feet, which caused you to stumble back and fall on your ass. 

Axton laughed and grabbed a pistol, then aimed at you to finally silence you, but Cooper easily shot it out of his hand, causing it to stumble and fly off somewhere. He ran up on the man and slammed his foot hard into his stomach, and Axton lost his footing and fell. Cooper didn't give him time to recover, instead, he ran up and kicked him again, this time across the jaw. 

Axton let out a yell and spat blood out onto the floor, but he was just laughing, and as he looked back at you, sneering. “You think this is gonna make things better? I own you,” he said as he pointed at you, “and you ain't gonna finish this.”

“She might not, but I will,” Cooper said as he held his hand cannon up to his head. 

“No!” You shouted, your hand reaching out toward him as you stared at the Ghoul. Your face was soft as you looked at him, and sure you hadn't known him long, but the lengths he was going to just to protect you… it meant more to you than you could put into words. you walked up to Cooper, who stared over at you quizzically. “I wanna do it.” 

Axton just laughed again. “You're gonna do it? Better off letting the Ghoul do it.”

You swung your gun around toward him and aimed directly at his forehead as he sat on the ground, trying his best to pick up his pride. “I don't need anyone to do my job for me, Axton, you think I'm weak? But I'm not, I've taken out more of your men than you've taken out bounties. I'm better than you in every way.” 

This got the man howling in laughter as he sat there below you, staring up at your gun. He felt that you wouldn't do a damn thing, and you would just fall for his ways again. You would let him live and he'd take you as his captor once again. “Sure, sweetheart, whatever lies you fed yourself, you can keep on believing them all I know is I'm gonna fucking  kill you–”

Your finger pulled back, the explosion of his head and brain matter splattered everywhere, and his body fell back. No more words, no more threats, no more danger. You stared at the man who once beat you, hurt you, did unspeakable things to you, and you finally felt that weight release from your shoulders. Your body suddenly felt weak, you stumbled and almost fell, but Cooper was there in an instant. His arms enveloped you as he lowered you to the ground so you could take a moment. 

You stared down at him and huffed. “Only he can call me that,” you spat and continued to stare down at him.

Your eyes didn't leave the scene of Axton's decapitated body, it felt too good to be true, like a sick dream that you'd wake up from. But your companion placed a hand on your cheek, pulling your attention away from the gruesome scene and made you face him. There was contentment in the way you looked up at Cooper, a small smile tugged at the corner of your mouth as you stared up at him. 

“I did that, right?” You asked him in disbelief.

Cooper gave you a small smile. “Yeah, you did ya little killer, c’mon, let’s get you out of here.”

“What about your pay? There are chems too, you’re gonna need those, please, get what you need. I’ll be okay… I’ll sit over here, you grab all of what you can.” You wandered over to the corner and sat down on the floor, away from the large pool of blood slowly making its way around. 

You waited for Cooper to grab all that he could and gathered a large amount of chems, caps, and whatever else he could fit into his pack, then he sauntered up to you and grabbed your hand to pull you to your feet. “Alright then, I got all I could hold, got some for you too, you ready?”

You looked over at him and seemed taken off guard by his question. “What do you mean?” 

“Well, are you comin’ with me or not? Didn’t think you’d wanna stay here.”

Your eyes stared at him for a good while, but you weren’t sure what to say now that you were here, and now you had the opportunity to leave. “Really? You’d want me to go with you?” You asked softly. 

Cooper scoffed and looked off at the destruction you both caused. “I ain’t gonna leave you here alone, sweetheart. Not gonna lie, you’ve grown on me, and as much as I’ve done in this lifetime, I ain’t that much of a monster.”

You couldn’t help but laugh and look around the room, then back at him. “I guess that’s the best choice I could ever ask for, huh?” You asked softly, smiling wide. “So… you really mean it?”

Cooper turned around and shook his head with a smirk. “I mean if you’d rather stay here, then-”

You grabbed him and pulled at his shoulder, causing him to turn to face you. He looked surprised, but his eyes widened when you pulled him into a soft kiss. He didn’t pull away, he just stared at you as you pulled away from him, but you seemed much more reserved now. 

“Sorry… but yeah, let’s get going, if that’s still on the table…”

The Ghoul just laughed and reached up to ruffle your hair. “Well, it ain’t all canned peaches and marmalade up here, but I ‘spose havin’ you as company will lighten it up a little.”

You placed your gun in your pack and sighed as you slipped it over your shoulder, but the smile you wore after kissing Cooper was one that you’d wear for quite a while. “I think I can agree with that.”  

[bunnibitez]

Messy Hands - Part Two

Mafia!Miguel x Shy!Reader AFAB

Summary: Miguel just can’t get you off his mind. As a result, he’s always there when you need him most, whether you like it or not.

Word count: 4.6k+

CW: 18+ so MDNI, NSFW, mentions of blood, acts of violence, SA(NOT MIGUEL), stalking, jealousy, possessive behaviors, toxic relationship, mentions of death, slow burn, no use of Y/N

A/N: IM SO SORRY THIS TOOK SO LONG FOR ME TO GET OUT BUT I PROMISE ITS GOOD!!! THANK YOU TO MY BETA READER @jshookthighs I FUCKIN LOVE YOU

Part One here

Time never stops.

It marches on, dragging the corpse of yesterday behind it. Time never ceases and neither does the on going battle behind closed eyes and clenched fists. No matter how many deep breaths are sucked in between gritted teeth, no matter how much he prayed, begged, kicked or screamed, time marched on. Taking it’s toll on the world and his soul as it did. With time came its companion, decay. A devious creature that preyed on the innocent and beautiful, corrupting it with it’s touch. That’s how Miguel began to see it all. It was a matter of time until his brain too rotted away until his skull was nothing more than an empty cavity to host his rage rather than his conscience. Every day he could feel the threads of his sanity being pulled taut, and every day he doubted how much longer he could go without being the cause of a fucking masacre.

Wrath.

Rage.

Justice.

So much “justice” due. That’s how he saw it. So many people had done wrong by him; tore him apart, brick by brick. Hurt the people he loved most just to get to him. Until one fateful night, he was left with nothing but a beating heart pumping weakly in a dirty alley, left to die. His chest still tightens at the memory of her. Stolen innocence snuffed out too soon. And yet the ones to blame were left unharmed, hidden behind the ivory walls of their mansions, never truly getting their hands dirty.

Cowards.

If only he had the chance, he’d slaughter them. Watch the life drain from their pathetic bodies as they’d squirm and writhe in pain. Begging for a bullet. But Miguel would take his time with them though, he was patient and knew better than to grant them a sliver of mercy. It was the only lesson his father ever taught him.

But that all would come in due time. Miguel was patient, capable of biding his time until his prey found themselves tangled in his web and unable to escape. But until then much like time, Miguel marched on; dragging a little corpse behind him.

——————————————————————————————————————————————

Weeks had since passed at this point, breezing through late spring and bleeding into early summer. The days after the mysterious brute entered Bellagino’s were tense, leaving Mr. Caparelli flighty and panicked. The stout little man could often be found pacing in the kitchen, muttering to himself with a distraught look painted on his face. You didn’t dare ask why he seemed so frightened since his ‘friend’ came to visit, mostly because you yourself seemed a little terrified of him as well. In lieu of your best efforts and his divine features, the man was cold and seemed pestered by your presence at your last encounter. Despite this though, you seem to find yourself staring at him more and more. Since the meeting with Bellaginos’ owner, Miguel had begun to visit the quaint little restaurant every other week or so.

Miguel couldn’t find the motive behind his actions truly. He raked his brain for an answer, disturbing the cobwebs in his head to try and understand why he had to mindlessly sit here and watch. Sit and watch this run down old restaurant like a dog. Sit and feel his shoulders slump as the soft hum began to tune out the buzzing in his mind. He’d come in and plop down at the same little table in the center of the room and the owner would bring him the same ice water with lemon.

For the first two weeks, he had attempted to convince himself it was purely to ensure that Caparelli wouldn’t run out on him. Sure, getting to watch the pretty little thing behind the register try not to stare was fun, but these were just business trips. What did it matter that he started coming in twice a week? What did it matter that he’d feel a twist of disappointment when he’d walk through the creaky little door and not see you in your usual spot because it was your day off? It was just business.

That is until finally he had no choice but to confront the truth. It came at him, sitting in his lap, oozing through his gut and making his stomach tie in knots. It made him nervous and queasy, forced to hide it all behind a stonewall mask. It felt foreign, his thoughts jumbled as he began to lose focus on it all.

‘There��s no way. It’s just work.. It’s just..’

It was a warm night in July and an unusually busy Friday evening at Bellagino’s, due in part to the ongoing festival at the Brooklyn Bridge Park. Fairy lights twinkled overhead in the outdoor dining area, each seat filled with couples and gaggles of laughing friends. Miguel almost didn’t recognize the place with it so full of life. The building had an unfamiliar glow to it that simply complimented it, turning it into the homely feel of a little Italian cottage. Turning his attention to the windows as he approached, he saw you, floating around tables with a smile on your face. His lips parted slightly as he watched you, glowing like an angel in the warm lights.

In your element, twirling to avoid guests with ease, plating food and drinks without spilling a drop. You moved with grace and poise, completely unbothered and confident. It was a complete parallel to how you acted when Miguel was there.

That’s when he felt it. A tugging at his chest and the tightening of his lungs as he held his breath. He could feel his heart thrumming as he stood there, starstruck. For the first time, it wasn’t just a subtle hum, it was a goddamn symphony. A cacophony of harmonious melodies blended together to form the tune playing behind his eyes as he gawked in awe. He couldn’t think straight, his own thoughts being muffled out and pulled to the back of his mind. Sweaty palms clenched into tight fists as he closed his eyes and tried to shake out the cotton filling his head.

‘Think O’Hara… Breathe dammit…’ he reminded himself.

A large hand brushed back loose curls as he inhaled slowly through his nose. He knew he couldn’t stand there staring at you all night like some love stricken fool. He forced himself to move, to draw closer to the siren that called his name without even knowing he was there. His knees buckled, faltering for only a moment as he approached the door. Pushing through, his nerves got the better of him for just a split second and his instincts slipped as his eyes merely tracked you throughout the bustling restaurant. Forgetting to duck his head like he usually did, the top of Miguel’s forehead smacked into the doorframe with a soft thud.

He winced, inhaling sharply as he stumbled inside for a moment. He grit his teeth, more so from annoyance rather than pain. He shut his eyes, hoping to drown out the throbbing at the front of his skull if he rubbed it hard enough. He was grateful that almost everyone else seemed too enveloped in their own mindless conversations to even notice he’d arrived.

Almost everyone.

Approaching Miguel, you looked up at him. His hulking frame would’ve been intimidating had it not been that he slouched a little as he held his head. For the first time since you met him, it made your eyebrows draw upward in concern.

“Sir, are you okay..?”

It took Miguel a moment to open his eyes, his scarlet irises glancing down at you. Slowly he took in the shape of you, nodding his head sheepishly as he swallowed. His hand fell away from his head as he tried to regain his composure. This had been the first time since your initial meeting that you’d spoken to him. Once again, that honey voice triggered the euphoric hum in the back of his mind. Once his gaze met your eyes, he felt his heart skip a beat. They were dazzling and full of genuine concern for him. The kind of eyes that men write poems and hymns about. Sweet irises that he could swim in, but he feared that if he dove in, he’d never come up for air. He’d never seen eyes like yours before. So awestruck that the only response he could give you was a low hum.

You looked down, feeling your bravery caught in your chest. Your eyes darted down to your feet and you cleared your throat, trying to remember the usual script you ran through when a customer arrived.

“R-Right, well… Table for one..?” You asked sheepishly, reaching for a menu. For a moment, Miguel feels his heart stutter. All the confidence you just had somehow managed to seep away in his presence. The way you kept your gaze glue to the floor made him frown, biting the inside of his cheek gently. He could feel the tension rising, an awkward wall you were starting to build. For half a second, Miguel felt a twinge of panic wash over him. He looked at you, searching your body for an out, a way to make things better, to make you less afraid. He swallowed thickly, scrambling his brain to try and think of something to say to lighten the mood or even make you laugh.

“Does it look like I’ve got anyone with me?”

‘Fuck.’

It comes out flat and sarcastic, not charming or teasing as he meant for it to. He internally cringes at himself as he sees the way you retract from him.

“Oh… yeah… Sorry, sir.” You mumble out and begin to guide him to his usual spot. The broken tone of your voice feels like a punch to the gut. A twist of his innards that has him wishing he could turn back time. He’s never been this awkward or nervous before. Usually his callous behavior is intentional and pointed, but now he feels it just makes him look like an ass.

“I’ll be right back to take your order…” Soft spoken and sweet, you place the menu down and walk away. Once seated, he pinches the bridge of his nose in self frustration, squeezing his eyes shut as he lets out an annoyed sigh. He’s never been like this before, never been this much of a mess because of a woman. Usually his suave and charming nature takes over and he’s able to seduce anyone he damn well pleases, but for some unknown reason; you broke him. He groans quietly and shakes his head slowly, feeling the butterflies now pooling in his stomach.

‘Aye carajo, get a hold of yourself..’

It feels like his brain is on fire, criticizing every way the interaction went wrong. He feels his gut twist, pinching his nose with enough force that it starts to hurt and his knuckles turn white. The throbbing only continued as his frustration grew. His face practically morphs into a snarl as he sits and waits. Opening his eyes, he glares down at the menu before him, a pleather bound book with the edges peeling away. He tries to refocus his attention on literally anything else than his blundering attempt at conversation.

Miguel is left grumbling to himself when you return to his side. Silently you place a glass of ice water with a lemon wedge bobbing about the glass beside him. Fear beats quickly along side your heart as you wordlessly reach out your other hand, gently clutching a crude ice pack. It was nothing extraordinary, a little sandwich baggie filled with ice chips and wrapped loosely in paper towel. It’s placed on the table beside the water with care. Miguel eyes it for a moment. He feels his stomach twist again but this time its a different feeling. It flutters and it’s soft with smoother edges than before. His cheeks just hardly flush a soft pink as his features remain contorted into a grimace. Without turning his head more than two inches, he looks at you from the corner of his eye. Your eyes are once again glued to your feet, trembling hands reaching to the pen and notepad tucked into your apron. With your head down and your nose nearly buried to the paper of the little booklet, Miguel can’t see the heat that’s spread across your face.

“A-Are you ready to order..?” You squeak out in a voice hardly above a whisper.

Miguel swallows, clearing his throat as he lifts his head. The pink on his cheeks is beginning to darken as your gaze peers over your little notepad and into his crimson eyes. His face melts from frustration, his brows furrowing just a little as he stares back, trying to remember his words.

“No.. I.. Just the water is fine.” He manages to force out. His hands are absently pulling at the cheap white fabric tablecloth as he looks at you. He swears that if he could freeze time at this moment, he would. The way your gaze softens as you look at him, has him biting his tongue just hardly. The butterflies are flapping wildly about in his stomach. Miguel’s canines dig into the tender flesh as he tries to ground himself, distract himself from how pretty those lashes would flutter as he forced you to look up at him from your knees. Would you let him hold your face still while he pounds into you- he wonders.

Your eyes flit back down to your book and you nod your head.

“Y-Yes sir. If you need anything, j-just call for me.” You hold the little name badge pinned to your chest for him as if he hadn’t eyed it the first twelve times he came in to watch you work. With that, you turn on your heel and leave him. Scurrying to another table while Miguel is left merely watching.

The subtle throbbing beats against his head like a drum before he glances down at the icepack you brought over. It feels so tiny in his hand. He lets out a little groan as he presses the baggie to his forehead, relishing in the relief it just barely provides. He can’t help the smile halfheartedly pulling at the corners of his mouth as he sits there.

‘She really didn’t have to do that…’

But he hardly has a chance to bask in his appreciation when he hears it, just barely audible amongst the chatter.

“Aww c’mon sweet’art. I bet I could show ya a real good time.” The man drawls out, clearly drunk from the second pitcher of sangria he and his buddies were splitting. He’s got a toothy and sloshed grin spread across his face as his hand glides up the back of your thigh. You look mortified, eyes silently screaming for help.

Miguel feels his lip twitch as he rises up from his seat.

“S-Sir please stop..” You squeak out, too quiet for the pickled bastard to hear or care. His hand is pulling back, gearing up for a smack, when suddenly a wide tan palm wraps itself around his wrist. It’s grip is tight and overwhelming when Miguel yanks, nearly dragging the drunk out to the ground in the process.

“No la toques, pendejo.” Miguels spits with venom as he twists the man’s arm. The usual hum that played in your presence was washed out by his rage. No one should be allowed to touch you, especially not some wasted shithead. Gritting his teeth, Miguel has to remind himself that he’s in public. Eyes fly to watch the scene unfold. He grumbles lowly as the man cries out in pain before Miguel practically tosses him back into his seat. He scrambles, nearly falling out of his chair to get back from you and Miguel.

With parted lips, a little gasp escapes you. Miguel feels his conscience flooding in as he looks back at you. Wordlessly, he jerks his head towards the door and starts heading for the exit. His eyes are cold, commanding almost. He grumbles something out loud to Caparelli about leaving in Spanish as his grasp nearly tears the creaky little door off it’s hinges. His eyes trace over you once more before he turns his back on you and lets out a gruff, “C’mon.”

Sticking close behind, you slip out the door as he holds it open.

——————————————————————————————————————————————

The night air is warm, the remnants of the summer heatwave still staining Nueva York. It’s mostly quiet aside from the drone of car engines as they pass by. You’re silently keeping pace with Miguel, feeling your chest rattle from the whole interaction. Frightened, confused, and over in a flash. It makes you ball your hands into tight little fists, frustration quietly bubbling up in your chest. In that moment, you froze, retracting into your shell in the hopes that you could avoid confrontation all together. You’re biting back tears as they prick at the corners of your eyes. Your mind is brewing with what ifs and how badly it could’ve gone when suddenly, his voice pulls you from your thoughts. It’s low and sultry with the fleeting taste of a Spanish accent. You couldn’t really hear the words coming out of his mouth, too busy being lulled by the sound of him. You jerk your attention to him, eyeing his lips for a moment before forcing your gaze to meet his.

“Hm?” Is all you can manage.

“I said, do you live around here?” His voice cuts through, fully grounding you and bringing you back to the present.

“O-Oh.. yea. About five blocks thata way.” You tip your head to the left. “I can just walk.”

Miguel nods his head before starting to lead the way down 48th street. You open your mouth to protest his accompaniment but let the words die in your throat. Walking side by side with your head down, you could only let your thoughts wash over you again.

Miguel lumbered on the side of the concrete closest to the street, grumbling as he kept his eyes forward. Loathing boiled inside his stomach, frothing from his mouth in a string of Spanish curses and death threats.

“If I ever see that fucker again, I swear… Llevaré su piel como un abrigo.” He growled to himself, plotting and mentally preparing for the literal hell that he was going to drag that stranger through. His fists were clenched tightly at his side, burning white until he heard a soft sniffle. Pulling himself away from his thoughts, he turned his head to face you.

Your eyes were still glued to the sidewalk beneath you, tears rolling down ruddy cheeks despite how hard you tried to keep them from spilling. The quiet sounds you made were a result of the runny nose that accompanied your tears. It all just felt so overwhelming, so scary. In a moment of quiet and scarce vulnerability, you tried to be brave. But it was so so hard.

Miguel felt his heart sink in his chest. Thoughts of annihilation and revenge washed away. Softened eyes stared down at you silently as he tried to form the right words to say to you to make the pain and fear melt away. But he couldn’t. Miguel was all too aware of the fact that he lacked the necessary eloquence. It pained him to see you trying to bottle it all up. His teeth sunk into his cheek as he scrambled internally. Finally, he loosened his tightly balled fist, letting it hang limp.

Rough, large knuckles brushed up against the back of your dainty hand. The gentle ghost of a caress, hardly grazing your flesh, almost like he was afraid you’d shatter. Warmth radiated off his hand as once again, it swept across your skin, featherlight. Your head lifted, attempting to gaze up at Miguel, but by this time, he’d turned his head away from you in a shallow attempt to hide his growing blush. Whether it had been due to your tear-blurred eyes or your own volition, you stepped hardly an inch closer to the giant, a faint smile tugging at the corner of your mouth.

The rest of the trek back to your shabby apartment was quiet, muted were the sounds of Miguel’s grumbling. They were drowned out by the sounds of your indistinct humming. It was nearly impossible to hear, but it was the only thing Miguel could focus on as the two of you passed through your neighborhood. Entering a large, ten-story building, Miguel was only able to remember where he was in the flickering yellow lights of the hall to your apartment door.

Standing before your apartment, he swallowed thickly. Palms sweaty and the hair on the back of his neck standing on edge as you turned your back on him to unlock the door. You looked so small, so delicate, and so fucking pretty. He felt his heart race in his chest, nearly forgetting all together the events of nearly twenty minutes ago. Right now he just wanted to come inside with you and hold you in his arms. He wanted your body pressed against his chest, lulling him to sleep in the comfort of your bed. He wondered if those sheets smelled as sweet as you did, felt as soft to the touch. He tried to wondered if he’d prefer to rest his head amongst your pillows or your thighs, but he already knew the answer.

‘Please… please let me come in cariño… let me make you feel better… let me take care of you, just for tonight…’ he prayed to himself as he watched you open the door with caution.

Doe eyes stared up at him as his lips parted to speak. Just your gaze forced him mute. Rubbing the tears from your cheeks and smiling up at him with warmth and fondness, he thought he was going to fall to his knees right then and there.

“Thank you.. I-I really appreciate everything, sir.” You said gently, hardly above a whisper. It made Miguel savor your voice. The way it made his brain tingle and swim felt better than any liquor he’s ever had. He wanted to hear more of you, but more than anything he wanted to hear you say his name.

“It was no trouble at all. But please chula, from now on just call me Miguel…” He tried to offer the same warm smile you did but could hardly manage anything more than a sweet little smirk. Despite his expression though, you could see the light in his eyes. It was dull and flickering, but it was there, growing. You nodded your head and gave an airy half chuckle.

“Heh okay… Well then, good night… Miguel.” You spoke in the sweetest tone you could manage. Miguel felt a shiver travel down his spine. His cheeks flushed lightly and he swore he could feel his heart pounding behind his eyes. The way his name fell from your tongue made him weak and practically feral. For a moment he considered sweeping you off your feet and fucking you into the couch just so he could hear you say his name like that again. But instead he stood there, attempting to bite back his animalistic urges with his canines as you began to slip into your apartment. The door gently closed as he watched, standing there and thinking about all the ways he’d make you scream his name.

He tries to shake the thought loose but can’t. He can’t stop thinking about how sweet and obedient you’d be. How much you make his heart flutter and how crazy it drives him. Miguel feels a stirring in his chest, a queasiness that makes him feel sick for a moment as reality strolls back in. The fires of rage being stoked once more in your absence as he remembers what brought him to your apartment in the first place.

He can practically already taste blood on his tongue when he recalls the drunk from the restaurant. How terrified he made you, how something worse could’ve happened had Miguel not’ve been there. Through the haze of his anger he makes a decision, you’ll never be without protection again. He’ll always make sure you’re safe, constantly under the watchful eye of the family. Fuck if he could, he’d guard you himself, day and night.

No matter what or how, he’d keep you safe from the scum that roamed this city. He wouldn’t let the only pure thing in his life be tainted or taken away. Not again. God forbid anything did happen to you, Miguel would have to burn the whole city to the ground.

From that day forth, whenever he couldn’t watch over you himself Miguel would have one of his Spider’s watching over you. Jess or Ben would be the one’s usually sitting in an unmarked vehicle outside of Bellagino’s, stalking in the shadows to make sure you got home safe, reporting back to Miguel as he worked.

For a short while it satisfied him. That is until one night Jess reported she saw you opening the door for some friends, ushering them inside with glee as they carried bottles of wine and board games. Jess tried to explain it was fine, beyond normal even. But Miguel didn’t care. In fact he’d stopped listening to her the moment she said there was a man amongst the group of 4 that were permitted entry. Who the fuck was he? Why did he get to be so close to you? Jealousy washed over him, filling him to the brim.

‘It’s just for her protection…’ that’s what he told himself. Over and over again. Even when he had Peter install the little devices inside your house, while you were off at work. Miguel felt a tinge of guilt, sitting and watching you work with a smile on your face from his table. Meanwhile hidden surveillance cameras were being put in your bedroom, your kitchen, your bathroom, and your living room. It ate at him a little that he worried so much. But how could he not? He couldn’t let anything bad happen to you. This was for your safety, he knew better than to let you out of his sight. The last time he wasn’t watching carefully enough, it cost him… her.

No. He wouldn’t bury another person he cared about. Not when he had the power to do something about it this time. Not when you just started to warm up to him. You finally started to look him in the eye when he sat down at his usual spot. You finally started to smile at him and bless him with that angelic laugh. You started to loosen up and even stop and chat for a few minutes. Once on your break, you just sat and talked to him for the whole thirty minutes, telling him about your day and terrible jokes you thought he might like. All just to see him smile and laugh back at you. He couldn’t just let you slip away. Not when he knew what he’d do if he lost you.

As little as you knew it, you were holding his shattering mind together, keeping him from falling apart. If only you understood how much he needed you.

——————————————————————————————————————————————

Time never stops. It marches on, dragging the corpse of yesterday behind it. Time never ceases and neither does the on going beating of hearts and whispers of hope that pray for a better tomorrow. With time came its companion, decay. A mysterious creature that made room in the world for new hope and potential. Miguel didn’t always enjoy time’s passage, nor did he adore it’s companion decay. But with the two, a third party marched, carrying a flag of promise and beauty. With time and decay, tread growth. A glorious and shining ray for tomorrow, growth lit a path for time, giving way for hope.

Everyday that he saw your glowing face, he could feel his heart beating and mending, little by little.

But Miguel was patient, slowly learning to accept time and the company it kept. He knew to bide his time and earn your trust. He knew that with time, you’d be his.

Part 3

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