#the fuck you mean those buildings could have collapsed on us

[thetimelordbatgirl]

How it feels finding out your former college is among the schools found to have the bad concrete in their buildings:

[tiredofthehumanlife]

Is he mine? Fucking obviously.

also btw I color code my titles I don't pick them like this for the aesthetics of it

Barbie dolls: Touya Todoroki x gn! reader

Word: 6.5k

Summary: Touya almost died on national television and disappears from from the public's eyes with no way to contact him you decide to keep your pregnancy a secret from him

Warning: You get pregnant! idc of its m!preg or abo or magic or just bareback fucking that got you there I'm just telling you you got pregnant, you keep the baby btw, your son is named Kaito (which according to name berry means sea so there), your son refers to you by Ren and Rena which is a gender neutral term for parent it's like mom and dad essentially, you fuck dabi at one point it's not smut it's just mentioned, Touya goes to rehab and so if he's ooc then it's rehabs fault not mine, I am kidding but he is definitely not exactly dabi core dykwim, you grieve Touya even tho technically he's alive it'll make sense when you read it but you cry a couple times just fyi, idk man, mentioned once that you wanted children before w Touya, 'crotch goblin' used I j feel like that's some shit dabi would say but I digress, Elmo reference tell me if you find it, possible allusions to Kaito being autistic but like boo fucking hoo idk, mention of blunts, SIDs mentioned once, also mentioned that you may or may not have anxiety especially over your son, yeah okay lmk if you any blue words I didn't do that on purpose

part two

Before the war, you knew Dabi. You knew Touya, as well. When he was watching over you from the shadows during the day, he was Dabi. When he was buried in your arms hiding under your sheets, he was Touya. You kept him close to you, there wasn’t another way you’d like to live. You hated to say it but you needed his eyes and hands on you. You didn’t care what he did during the day or even at night as long as he wandered back to you through your door. You didn’t care if you both sat on the couch and stared at the TV or if you ripped his clothes off with greedy hands, as long as you could feel the abnormal heat of his body on yours. Maybe that made you morally questionable, you didn’t care. You knew who you were and you knew who he was. You knew your lungs would collapse if you couldn’t see those blue eyes again. 

After the war that all changed. Watching your lover almost kill himself on live television made you feel sick to your stomach. You had to leave the building entirely, only to find it broadcasted all over the screens of passersby’s phones, billboards, and the small television behind the counter of every convenience store. You hid under your sheets, hoping when you woke up they would smell like him because he was lying next to you. 

You heard of his whereabouts through coworkers' gossip, news articles, and murmurs from the public. None of whom knew you had kissed him goodbye the morning before, having no idea what was to come. You read every article you saw. You eavesdropped on every conversation. You bought every magazine that even slightly mentioned the Todoroki family. You knew the only way you’d know if he was okay was through the third-person retelling by a reporter. 

He was in severe recovery. He was in one piece, technically. His father was paying for his bills. He was likely to be alright. 

Really that’s all you needed, yet somehow it still wasn’t enough. You needed to see him and hold him. You wondered if he was eating solids or if he was on a tube. You wondered if he needed you to add another row of staples. You hated when he asked that of you, you couldn’t turn him down when he looked up at you with his pleading eyes. It made you feel sick to your stomach but you were the only one, besides himself, he trusted to do it. What you would give up now to groan and complain about having to replace his staples. 

Slowly as time pulled along, Touya made the news less and less. You took fewer magazines from their rack, his face didn’t make it to the television, and you felt his image slipping away from you. 

Your sheet smelled more like you than they did him. His clothes had been through the wash multiple times now. You kept tossing them into the dirty hamper straight from the dryer because you couldn’t bear to throw them away or hide them in a closet. Your stack of newspapers and magazines stayed stacked at the corner of your desk. You cried when you had to sweep up the dirt from his boots by the front door. Then you cried for crying over that.

You felt pathetic the way you started to hate him for all this. You wanted to slap him and jab your finger in his face. You wanted to call him a selfish bastard.  You cried in your kitchen when you realized you accidentally bought his favorite foods as second nature. You couldn’t wrap your head around the fact that he had just slipped from your life like that. 

He was alive, yes but alive in the same way a relative across the world was. You knew they were out there but it’d be a cold day in hell before they were in your living room. 

You slowly pieced yourself back together. His clothes were folded and put away on the shelf of your closet. You stopped looking at them when you started to get ready for the day as time went on. You stopped buying his food. You threw out most of the newspapers, only keeping the pages that really mattered. You folded them all up and shoved them into a drawer in your desk. You stop seeing him everywhere in your home. You stopped seeing him in your mind. 

Just as you were getting back on your feet, the world played a sick trick on you. You found out you were pregnant. After some thinking and a lot of it, you made your decision. You were keeping it. Yes sure it came out of nowhere. Yes sure your baby would be raised in a single-parent household. You always wanted this. You thought of asking Touya about it sometimes but you always chickened out. Now you wouldn’t be doing it with Touya, but you could have the life you wanted. A child. You were ready, you felt it in your bones. 

You had the baby. For months before the due date, you had scoured for name ideas. You wrote down names you heard over conversations in cafes. You read every article. You considered naming your baby after Touya. You scratched that idea after realizing you’d like to have his consent for that. You thought of him on your couch over seven months ago. He would’ve said ‘Hell no. Don’t name one of those crotch goblins after me.’ You bought books on the very subject. You slapped post-it notes to your fridge when you found one you liked. Yet all that came crashing down when you finally had your baby in your arms. 

You were fucking worn out. Your hands felt like they were going to cramp from all the squeezing you did to the handrails and your poor nurse. Your hair was sticking to your face. You felt like you stinked. Your lungs felt heavy and your ribs felt tight. With your little ‘crotch goblin’ in your arms you felt a smile grow on your face. 

His face was scrunched up in a cry, a tiny fist pressed against his cheek. You gently rubbed the side of his face with your finger, trying to calm him down. His cry settled as he pushed his face toward you. You whispered a hello. You were fully encapsulated by him, your son, you paid no attention to the doctor still between your legs. Your baby let out a coo as he opened his eyes, staring up at you.

You knew babies could really see at this age, he was probably just looking in the direction of your voice. Whether or not he could see you had no effect on the color of his eyes. You knew them. They were the same ones who would stare at you from across your room as you got ready for bed. The same ones that would plead you for new staples. The same ones that sat across from you during dinner. The same ones that reminded you of the cold and freezing sea. 

“Kaito.” You muttered, earning a coo from him. You nodded. “Yeah? Do you like that name?” he huffed and pushed his nose towards your arm. You hummed. “Kaito it is, then.” 

A year and a half went by before you ever heard from Touya again. You were doing some cleaning while Kaito was at daycare, hurrying so you could still have time for relaxation before you had to go pick him up.

You loved him dearly but a toddler was a lot to handle. Especially alone. You found a daycare nearby that you trusted, and your mental health picked up drastically. A few hours of silence on the weekends and time to work from home without a toddler trying to lick a socket was all that you seemed to need to feel whole. As you were throwing his toys back into the large basket on the other side of the living room, you heard a knock. You paused before throwing the toy truck. You moved to the front door, peeking through the peep hole. 

A woman with white hair and streaks of red, glasses, and a blue sweater was waiting at your door. You pulled away from the door, unlocking it and swinging it open. She smiled at you once she saw you. 

“Hi, can I help you?” You asked, smiling but feeling terribly awkward about the whole thing. She nodded. 

“Hi, I’m Fuyumi. My brother, Touya, was finally released from his mess of operations and hospitals. And he-“ Your smile fell when you finally registered the name. Yes, you heard it but you just didn’t think you’d ever hear that name again. It had just floated over your head. You realize this was his sister standing in front of you. You closed the door so you were squeezed between it and the frame, smiling like it was a perfectly normal thing to do. You couldn’t let her see the tiny rain boots, light-up sneakers, and brightly colored toys on your floor. Fuyumi glanced at you over the frame of her glasses, a slightly confused look passing over her face before she schooled it. She pulled her bag from her shoulder, rummaging her hand through it. 

“-is finally in rehab. They’re letting him have pencils now after strings being pulled by our father. Anyway, he-um- gave me these letters. He told me I needed to find you. He said he wouldn’t trust anyone else to give these to you. He considered our mom, but he said-“ 

“Letters?” You repeated, watching her hands as they dug through her bag. She nodded, looking up at you for a brief second. 

“Yes. here they are, finally.” She pulled a stack of three letters from her bag, sticking them out to you. You quickly took them from her, taking the top one. You shoved the other two into your back pocket, tearing open the envelope. You yanked the folded paper from the envelope, unfolding it as fast as possible. You skimmed over the words, trying to move your eyes along the lines faster than you could. 

‘Love -don’t care- I haven’t stopped thinking of you- wish you could come to see me-I need to see home- your bed- do you think of me-I’m not sure how much longer-I can’t add you to my visitation-I miss you.’ You paused, staring at his signature at the bottom. ‘Yours, Touya’ was simple but he didn’t talk of his feelings. Ever.

You were lucky if you found out he liked dinner. You traced over his name with the tip of your finger. You stopped, looking up at the woman in front of you. She was watching you intently like every move was being cataloged. You slowly straightened your shoulders up and pushed the letter back into the envelope like you didn’t care at all. You put the envelope with the other two in your pocket, pretending you weren’t itching to read the other two. You cleared your throat, staring at Fuyumi like a child caught misbehaving. 

“He tried to get your name on the visitation list but they wouldn’t allow it. You had to be family.” Fuyumi said, giving you a soft smile. You nodded, feeling Kaito’s finger painting on the fridge staring holes into the side of your face. 

“Might’ve been for the best. I don’t know I’m really the same person he…liked before.” You said, squeezing the door a little closer to you. Fuyumi shook her head. 

“I’m not sure if that’s true. He’s told our entire family about you. I don’t think the change would keep him from you. However, I don’t really know you, do I?” Fuyumi said, clasping her hands together in front of her. You nodded. It’s a bit weird knowing that she had a nephew a few blocks away and she didn’t even know if you and her brother were really dating at all. Well, you weren’t now but were you ever? You snorted and shrugged. 

“It’s a lot of change.” You said, watching her closely. She hummed, pulling her bag closer too pher. 

“Well I have to go, I have lunch with Shoto soon. Just, think of sending him back a letter. I think it would be good for him to hear from you.” Fuyumi said before walking away from your door and heading for the sidewalk. You watched her go for a moment, feeling stuck in your place. You felt like you were watching Touya walking away again. You sighed before going back inside to finish reading the letters. 

You read the letters over and over again for a month. You read them so much you didn’t need to see the paper to think through his words. You spent your free time staring at the handwriting. You dissected the word choice, punctuation, and tone. You need to know every thought that went through his head. Kaito asked you what they were, in the words and format of a 1 ½-year-old would. You redirected him to his toys and started reading them only at night when you were alone in your room. You sat up in bed most nights, staring at his clothes on the shelf of your closet and picking at your nails. 

You thought through your two options. 

You could break his heart and tell him you couldn’t be with him. You had changed, you were someone new. You couldn’t see a future. You moved on. You had a new partner, one that didn’t have their face on the news. Whatever it would take to get him to move on. He needed someone else, someone not like you. Someone without a kid. 

Your second option was to tell him. Everything. He had already been through what a year or so of medical operations? That’s what Fuyumi said, wasn’t it? Now he was stuck in rehab, they just gave him access to pencils. He was slowly rebuilding himself. He was obviously making progress in the right direction, communicating. That was a big word for Touya. It was over paper but still. He used the word love eight times in those letters. Kaito would have to get adjusted to his family growing up. Change is hard for young children. Change is hard for you. You‘d be forcing this responsibility onto Touya. He’d either support Kaito or not. Either way, he’d have that thought in the back of his mind. Touya was barely standing on his own two feet right now. Most likely figuratively and literally. You couldn’t add a new stressor to his life. He’d throw a table or something and get his pencil rights taken away again. 

You made the mature decision to break his heart instead. You wrote it out carefully and edited it. You made sure it came off the right way. You sealed the envelope and addressed it using the information from the back of his letters. Maybe it wasn’t something that would make you liked by any of the Todoroki family, but it was better for them. You knew it. You told him it was the change. You had changed too much. You listed all the ways you weren’t the person he thought you were anymore. Of course, you jumped over the child-sized elephant in the room. 

You couldn’t bear to think of him crying over your letter. You wondered if his tears were still bloody. Most likely, that didn’t seem like something that was healable. You ignored the ache in your heart, pulling your son closer to you in a tight hug. You couldn’t think of Touya stuck in a sterile rehabilitation center. You couldn’t think of him reading your letter more than once. You couldn’t think of Touya at all, so you focused on Kaito instead. 

You didn’t get a letter back. You didn’t get any of his siblings at your door. Instead, you took Kaito to daycare, worked, took Kaito home, and went to bed ready to repeat. You and Kaito went on little adventures on the weekends, going to the park, play dates, swimming lessons, zoos, and museums. You couldn’t love your son and life more.

He was getting bigger. He was developing his own personality now, such a sweet boy he gave you cavities. Kaito was so bright. He was the smartest kid you knew and you weren’t biased at all in saying that. He was so beautiful and tiny. You wanted to wrap him up in a blanket and keep him in your pocket forever. Some days he would run through the living room like a plane and all you could remember was when he fit in the crook of your arm. He was so curious he asked you about the world every day. Some days he came home from daycare with a fun fact you never knew. 

The day he manifested his quirk was on the weekend in the backyard. You were on the back porch, watching him run back and forth through the oscillating sprinkler. You sipped your tea slowly, easing your anxiety about him slipping.

Kaito flung his hero doll through the water. It thunked in the grass, face first. Kaito yelled that he was coming to save the hero. He pressed his wrists together, jutting his hands out like a stream of power would rush through them. He jumped up, pushing his hands out again and giving himself a sound effect.

As he passed through the water you saw sparks and flames envelop his hands and fly straight to the ground toasting the ground next to his doll to ash. Kaito landed in the burnt grass, freezing and staring down at his hands. You jolted up onto your feet, setting your tea down and rushing towards him. 

Kaito slowly turned around towards you, a scared look on his face. You scooped him up, wrapping him in a hug. Kaito pressed his nose into your shoulder, holding onto your neck tightly. It’s a bit scary to see fire shoot out of your hands as a three-year-old. You stared at the ring of burnt grass, thinking back on the fire around his fingertips.

It wasn’t blue like his father’s, it was red like a campfire. A part of you was happy, he wouldn’t have to struggle to control a quirk as hot as his father’s. Another part of you was sad, you kinda liked the idea of your son growing up to be a hero and showing the world his blue flame was still hero material. Maybe Touya could find it out that way. You didn’t even know if Kaito wanted to be a hero. Maybe he’d do something simple. A third part was scared, fire is easily destructive. Kaito was new to it, he didn’t know how to control it. Your house could be in ashes in days. 

Touya would’ve been worried if he had been on the porch with you. Hellfire, like his father. Like the father he tried so hard to destroy and landed himself in the hospital and rehab. What made his father like that? A father like Enji fathering Enji? That’s how it works isn’t it, like passing sand from hands to hands, the trauma follows you in a terrible circle. 

Well, your son would have less sand, he’d love who he is. You pulled Kaito away from your neck, leaning your head back to get a full look at his face. His eyes were glistening and he was pressing his fist to his cheek. The image of him as a newborn in your arms passed over you. You wiped at the tears on his cheeks, kissing them afterward. 

“You got your quirk, Kaito. Isn’t that so exciting?” You said, smiling widely to settle his anxiety. Kaito pulled his hands from his face, looking at you confused. You bounced him on your hip and started spinning around, squealing about his quirk. You rested your hands on his back, dipping him down so he hung upside down just a little. You passed his head through the sprinkler, making him laugh loudly. You pulled him back up, dancing away from the sprinkler and the burnt grass. Kaito shook his wet white mop of hair out, drizzling you with water. 

Two and half years pass before Kaito starts school. He’s settled into the routine. He knows the time you give him breakfast, the time he gets dressed, the time he brushes his teeth, and the time you leave. Kaito would rather burn all his toys than be late for school. He’s made plenty of friends there. He’s already been invited to two birthday parties in the few months he’s been there. You wonder if daycare was that beneficial to him. 

Kaito walks his clean plate to the sink, standing on his tiptoes to gently set it in the bottom. You praise him before finishing your own. Kaito heads towards his room, ignoring your words entirely. Every morning he was on a mission to get to school at exactly the right time. Once he tried to get you to force him to go to school while he was sick. He whined about his perfect attendance before you told him he could watch TV. He dropped the subject after that. A knock sounds at your door. You look over your shoulder before concluding it was the mail. Sometimes they needed your signature. 

“Kaito, you better not forget your jacket! It's cold out!” You shouted so he could hear you through his door. You stared at his face peeking through his door as you swung open the front door. You pointed at him sternly, earning an eye roll. Damn you, Touya. You turned to face the mailman, face falling at the man in front of you. 

His hair had grown out and the dye had long been gone. Touya’s scars looked… healthier. Healed a little, paler and a little more moisturized. His staples were removed. You assumed they had been replaced with stitches that had healed over a million moons ago. Half his piercings were gone, a stud in his nose and two in each ear were all that he had left. Or at least was wearing today. His clothes were more put together, relaxed but not in the scrambled way they were a few years ago. Touya stood bolder now like he found something inside himself during rehab that made his chest puff out. His eyes were all the same. You thought if you ever saw him again, you'd only see Kaito in his eyes. You only saw Touya. 

“I finished rehab.” Touya finally said. Your silence stood in the air, like a confession of everything. You realized he could see into your home, slowly moving towards the door frame and holding the door tightly against you. Touya watched you with a look you'd only seen once before. In the middle of the night in your dimly lit living room, a movie in the background as the two of you kissed for the first time without sexual intent behind it. 

“Evidently. You look good by the way, rounded, healthy. Um, what exactly are you doing here, though?” You asked, leaning back inside to look at the clock. Three minutes before Kaito left his room. Five if he was having wardrobe malfunctions. You leaned forward again, pretending you weren't on a time crunch. 

“I know you sent me a letter. I know you said you didn't think I'd still care for you because you've changed so much but I think it's pretty obvious I've changed too. I just wanted to ask if you could give us a second shot we could try again as the new versions of ourselves. Every day I was in there I've been thinking about you. I haven't been able to-” You leaned back again, one minute, three with malfunctions. You put your attention back on Touya, nodding to signify him to continue. He paused, pulling his hand from his coat pocket. “-Am I interrupting something?” He asked. 

You froze, dragging your eyes away from the clock. You met Touya's eyes, staring at him with wide eyes. You weren't getting out of this, you wouldn't be able to. You sighed, pinching your brow. 

“No, I'm sorry Touya. It's very sweet and genuine of you to ask this but I really think there's just a big-” you waved your hands between the two of you. “-hurdle between us that we'd have to get through. I just think you should find someone else to love and cherish or whatever it is people say.” You threw your hands down, looking at his face again. He looked cold, he looked like the man who would show up at your door almost six years ago with blood staining his clothes. Touya shook his head, a new look meeting his features. He furrowed his brows. He stared at the step in front of him. 

“I just don't understand. I feel like this came out of nowhere before the letters, everything was fine, and then all of a sudden you were too different-” Touya said. Your heart dropped to your stomach when you heard Kaito’s door open. 

“Rena! Can you help me button my pants? The button is hard.” You could hear the pout in Kaito's voice. It reached Touya’s ears. You know it did. He froze, eyes glued to the ground. You didn’t bother trying to hide the wreck of a child’s home behind you anymore. The cat was out of the bag. You kicked the front door back, revealing all the toys and children’s books thrown across your living room. Kaito ran up to you, holding his pants up with both hands. You squatted down, pulling his pants together. As you slipped the button through the hole, Kaito greeted Touya. 

“Hi! I’m Kaito. Do you have a quirk?” Ever the extrovert, Kaito wanted to be friends with everyone he met. You zipped Kaito’s pants up. You turned back, pulling his sneakers from the shoe rack. You might as well while you’re already on the floor. You glanced up at Touya to see him staring open-mouthed at Kaito. Kaito was unaccustomed with this reaction, gripping onto your shoulder. 

“Touya. My son asked you a question.” You said, pulling Touya from the depths of his mind. Touya dropped down to his knees, getting on eye level with Kaito. You pulled Kaito’s sneakers on, tying the laces and pulling over the Velcro strap. Usually, he put his own shoes on but with the new friend, you thought you should do it. 

“Hi. My name is Touya. Yes, I do have a quirk.” Touya responded slowly. Kaito was his, there was no way Touya hadn't realized that. It wasn’t frequent that you ran into someone with those eyes, that hair, and that smile.

You looked at Touya as you pulled Kaito’s other shoe on. Touya moved his focus from Kaito to you. His mouth was still a little agape, staring at Kaito with eyes that only you could understand. Kaito squealed, he loved showing off his quirk. You pulled back, leaning away from him, watching his hands. A whoosh came with the balls of fire enveloping his hands. Sparks flew around the edges. He grinned down at his ablaze hands like a crazy person. You smiled at his excitement, looking over to Touya. He stared at Kaito’s hands, face unreadable. 

“Okay, Kaito. That’s enough. No quirk in the house, you know that.” You said, wafting his hands with air. It never put the flame out but it made Kaito laugh. He put his fire down, a few disgruntled sparks flying after. After an unfortunate incident involving your arm and his quirk, you both learned that Kaito needed a few minutes to cool off before he touched something again. The scar was still on your upper arm, a tiny handprint the size of a three-year-old. You didn’t mind it as much as you thought it would. It only reminded you of your son. 

“Hands up.” Kaito held his arms above his head as you pulled on his laces. You looked at Touya as you tied them. Touya leaned forward and held his hand up, all fingers down except for his pinkie. Almost like a pinkie promise. You and Kaito both stared at his hand as his pinkie caught aflame. It looked like a little blue birthday candle. Kaito’s eyes lit up like his hands, a giant grin pulling at his cherub cheeks.

”Woah! Do you have fire too? It’s blue! That’s so cool!” Kaito said, his little hand reaching out for Touya’s. Touya and you both moved faster than light. Touya shot his hand away, the fire extinguishing, and his arm held far away from curious hands. You pushed Kaito’s hand away, sending it back to his side. Kaito looked confused, facing you. 

“His fire is very very hot, Kaito. It’ll hurt if you touch it.” You explained, pulling the Velcro strap of his shoe over the top of his foot. Kaito hummed, fiddling with his hands over his stomach. You stood up, Touya following. Kaito looked over your shoulder at the clock and then down at the graph you had under it with a picture of the hands and what step in your routine it meant. Kaito gasped, rushing away from you for his bedroom. You smiled awkwardly towards Touya. 

“Is he mine?” Touya whispered, his tone unsure if he was ready for the answer. You watched Kaito pull his jacket on before slinging his backpack on. His coat was just a little too big for him. It kissed the tips of his knees and every time you saw it you thought of Touya and his jacket hanging on your coat rack. 

“Yeah, he's yours.” you wanted it to come out with strong conviction.

‘Yes, Touya he's yours what are you going to do about it.’

‘No Touya he's mine but he's genetically related to you, yes.’

‘What do you want from this information, Touya'?

‘Get off my property Touya. Kaito isn't your problem’

All those months you spent planning how you'd beat him to pulp when you finally saw him again fell apart the second you looked into his eyes. Maybe that was Kaito's effect on you or maybe it was just the effect Touya always had on you. 

Touya nodded like he was accepting his fate, watching Kaito run up to you with your shoes. Usually, you didn't have your baby daddy standing on your front porch and you could get your own shoes. You pulled your shoes on quickly, keeping an eye on Kaito as he ran out the door towards the car. 

“Why didn't you tell me?” Touya asked, following after you as you locked your door and joined Kaito at the side of the car. 

“Not right now, I have to get Kaito to school so he can keep his perfect attendance.” You said, reaching over to pinch Kaito's cheek. He groaned and pushed you away, throwing his backpack into the backseat. Kaito pulled himself into his booster seat and buckled his seatbelt. You smiled at him, pecking his cheek and muttering praises to him.

Touya stood behind you, watching the whole ordeal and wishing he hadn't lost the first five years of his son's life. He didn't get to watch Kaito grow from a carrier that locked into the base to a car seat with a back to a booster seat. He didn't even know Kaito's favorite color. He didn't know anything about him. So with all that stirring in his mind, he whispered the one full sentence he could piece together. 

“Can I come too?” You pulled away from Kaito, looking back at Touya. He looked scolded. His shoulders were slumped and he was clasping his hands together at his stomach. He stared at you with wide eyes. You remembered when you grounded Kaito for trying to sneak out of the house at night. He wanted to go to the park, you had to explain that the park was something you visited during the day. He was sad at being grounded. 

“Yes! Rena, can he come? He can tell me at his fire! And his scars, they're so cool!” Kaito kicked his feet, thumping them against the back of the passenger seat. Your heart stalled at the mention of Touya's scars. 

“Kaito. Don't say-” you scolded only to pause when a warm hand rested on your shoulder. You had forgotten how warm Touya was. You missed not needing to pull your space heater from storage. You stared at Touya, eyes wild with concern. He shook his head, lips pressed in a tight line. 

“It's fine.” He muttered. You looked back over to Kaito who looked more than joyous to bring his new friend to school. You sighed, shrugging and moving for the front seat. 

“Get in.” You said, sliding into the driver's side. Touya quickly shut Kaito's door and slid in on the other side of the back seat. 

The entire drive you felt strange. You didn't like having your back to their interaction. A part of you worried Touya was teaching Kaito how to roll a blunt. Or maybe how to set your fire in your sleep. Maybe he was still bitter from the letter and all this was an act. 

The moment Kaito laughed so hard he started wheezing you took back all the negative thoughts you had about Touya. Kaito leaned over into Touya's lap, patting his leg as he wheezed. Touya chuckled with him, a relaxed smile on his face. He gently patted Kaito's back, turning his pat into a rub. Kaito sucked in a gasp of air before it quickly danced behind his teeth and transformed into another laugh. Touya panicked, a new worry that he was doing this all wrong, already turning into his father. His eyes shot to yours in the rearview mirror. You didn't catch them, focused on the road. He saw your smile and small laugh and felt his shoulders relax. 

Kaito had a hard time saying goodbye to his new friend in the school parking lot. Kaito complained and quickly latched onto Touya's arm, pressing his cheek into his scarred flesh. Touya patted his mop of white hair and wished him a good day. Kaito seemed to accept that, launching himself into the front seat to hug you goodbye with his arms around your neck. Kaito glanced over at the clock on the screen in the center of the dashboard. He muttered something and rushed out of the car, jogging towards the crosswalk. You and Touya watched as he was walked to the door by one of his teachers. 

You both sat in silence and stare at the door even after Kaito is long gone. Touya left the back seat and plopped himself into the passenger side next to you. You wanted to pull yourself out of your head and face him, but your eyes were glued to the door. 

It's been a long time since he was a baby. The first few months were hell on Earth. Everything sent you into an anxious spiral, his breaths were one second too long apart. You worried he was getting too much tummy time. You worried he wasn't getting enough tummy time. You worried about his diet. You worried about the sound of his cries. You worried about his number of cries. You worried about the cradle cap. You worried about SIDs. You worried sick over your son. 

To make matters worse, you worried sick over his father. The first year and then some you wracked your brain thinking about him. Where was he? What was he doing? How was he feeling? What state was his body in? Could he still feel? What was he feeling about you? Had he already moved on, found a cute doctor, or something? Was he too far gone and close to death that he didn't even have the time to consider things like that? Why hadn't he said something to you yet? Would he even like you still? Would he even like your son? Would he even want to know if he has a son or would ignorance be bliss for him?

By the time you had finally settled your anxieties over your son's father, Kaito taking up all your capacity for worries, his letter arrived at your door.

You stared at the door to his school, the brightly painted sidewalk making you feel warm. Touya was next to you now, staring at the same school. You knew where he was, what he looked like, the state of his body, his thoughts on you, and what he was doing. You could hear his breathing in your silent car. You knew it all and yet, you still worried for him. You wanted him to touch you again. His hand on your shoulder sparked something that went dormant after five years. 

“He is so…” Touya's voice fell like he wasn't sure the word to choose. You knew how the man from five years ago would respond. 

Annoying. 

Gross. 

Snotty. 

Clingy. 

Sticky. 

Have you had him tested yet? for anything because that child is just- 

“beautiful.” Touya finished. You felt the air in your car slip out the window. You dragged your eyes from the school door, looking at him. He wasn't looking at you, staring at the school. You furrowed your eyebrows. That word you had not expected at all. You thought you'd have to drive Touya home in silence and fully cut contact this time. 

“What?” you said, staring at the side of his face. Touya looked at you, finally meeting your eyes. Your shoulders sank. He unfortunately always had this affect on you. 

“Your son is so beautiful. He’s just like you. I look at him and all I see is you. Kaito is just…” His eyes traveled back to the door Kaito had disappeared through. You wouldn't see him again for a good six hours. 

“I can't explain it but he's just so perfect. I just don't understand how such a sweet person could have anything to do with me. Which is how I felt about you all those years ago. He is a carbon copy of you, you know that?” Touya said, a small smile playing on his lips. He sighed and stared at you, watching your face. 

“He is beautiful.” You paused, keeping your eyes on Touya. You stared at Kaito some nights when he was asleep in your bed from a nightmare and only saw a chubbier and less scarred version of Touya's face staring at you. 

“He looks like you,” you muttered, starting your car again. Touya sat back in the passenger seat, pulling the seat belt down.

“I have photo albums at home. Would you like to see?” you asked as you pulled out the school driveway back towards your home. Touya rubbed at his face. He quickly nodded. 

“Yes, I would,” Touya whispered, looking out the window. 

part two

[bullet-prooflove]

The Farm Boi Series: Wild Boy - Dennis Whitaker x Reader (NSFW)

Tagging: @kmc1989 @cosmic-psychickitty @sargeant-sad-eyes @caffeinatedwoman @hooks-martin

Summary: Dennis has a surprising reaction to his mother's protests about your relationship.

Companion piece to:

Peppermint - The taste of peppermint will always have a special place in Dennis’s heart.

The Morgue Thing - A miscommunication between you and Dennis almost ends things before they begin.

Written In The Stars - Your first date with Dennis takes place underneath the stars.

In The Park - Dennis reveals a secret after the two of you spend the night together in the park.

Virgin - There’s a rumour going around about Dennis.

Debauched (NSFW) - Karaoke night ends a lot differently than it did the first time around.

Symphony (NSFW) - Dennis has never eaten pussy before…

Pretty Boy (NSFW) - You and Dennis take the next step in your relationship.

Firsts (NSFW) - Dennis experiances alot of firsts during your first night together.

Permanent Marker - You find out about the betting pool.

Denny’s To Do List - Dennis realises he’s in the midst of a sexual awakening.

The Porn Boom (NSFW) - Dennis isn’t like the other man you’ve been with.

Bite (NSFW) - Dennis doesn’t mean to edge you.

Wild Flowers - A crown of wildflowers leads you and Dennis to discuss the issues he has with his family.

A Friend of Denny’s - Your relationship with Dennis takes a turn when his parents come to town.

A Cold Day In Hell - Dennis tries to make amends for his actions.

Gardens of Babylon - Dennis has made his choice, now it's time for you to make yours.

My Future Wife - Dennis makes a promise to you at Jana's celebration of life event.

Despite the rough start to your trip your first night in Nebraska is wonderful. You’ve spent the evening at Nana Whitty’s kitchen table being regaled with stories about Dennis’s childhood. His brothers are a boisterous bunch, who have just as many questions for you as you have for them. They’re fascinated by your job, by the life Dennis leads in the city.

When they leave to return to their parent’s farm just over the fence the two of you retire to the guest bedroom for the night. Calling it a room is an understatement, it’s more like a rustic hotel suite with a huge bed made of cherrywood from the trees that litter the farm. The sheets are white and crisp with a fleece lined comforter folded over the bottom.

Dennis in his native habitat is wild.

You don’t know if it’s the Nebraska air or the fact his mom hates you so much that drives him, you just know your farm boy’s dommy side has come out to play and you are 100% here for it.

He is fierce and relentless in the moment. His hand gripping the headboard, using it for leverage as he drives into you like a force of nature, his cock hitting that sweet spot as his punctured moans carry through the air. Your fingertips dig into his back as that release starts to build for the third time tonight. It makes you loud, crazy loud so Dennis claps his hand over your mouth and that, it heightens everything for you.

“Oh sweetheart, you like that.” He teases, leaning in close, his nose grazing yours. “I think we might have just unlocked something for when we get home. I could see you with one of those naughty toys in your mouth, moaning around it as I fuck you.”

His fingers slide between your lips, pressing down on your tongue and you suck them deeper, your breath coming out in lovely little pants as your skin flushes, your pussy tightening around his dick.

“Oh that’s it baby.” He mumbles, his hips arching, quickening as he chases your release. “Show me how much you love this dick.”

You hit that high with a scream, one that he stifles with his palm again as you grip him so fucking hard that he has no choice but to follow you over the edge. He buries himself inside you, erupting in long hot spurts that have his hips pumping until you’ve milked every single drop of his ecstasy.

“Fuck.” He breathes, collapsing against you, his face coming to rest in the hollow of your throat.

“I think being rebellious gets you off.” You murmur against his temple, your fingers combing lightly through his flaxen hair. “You enjoy claiming me when you’re being told you can’t have me. It plays into some sort of forbidden love kink.”

“I don’t like being told that I shouldn’t be with the woman I love.” He informs you, his mouth ghosting over your collarbone as his thumb seeks out your nipple piercing, toying with it. “Not when she’s so fucking good for me.”

“She’ll come around.” You tell him, your lips capturing his when he tilts his head up to meet your gaze. “She just needs to see what a catch I am.”

“You are a catch.” He mumbles into your mouth. Already he’s hardening again inside you, the tip of his dick kissing that perfect little space. “You are the best thing that ever happened to me.”

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[feelfreetopleasemexo]

Okay, okay, hi thereee author I hope your having a great dayyyy. I usually don’t request things but uh, my Hawks obsession is too much to handle and neeeed to get this out (it invades my brain). Sooo I was wondering if you can do something smutty ofc, I know the fucking your boss trope isn’t the best but reader is his new side kick and she’s pretty bratty until one day Hawks has enough (maybe she says something that strikes a nerve in his bird brain) and fucks her on his desk, bondage by those feathers PLEASE GOD uh- all the works your comfortable with ofc but I’d give anything to get railed on his desk, 👹 all the teasing and he just makes a complete mess out of themmm. TANK YOU FOR READING 🙇‍♀️ if you don’t like hawks uh, pro hero Bakugo orrrr Dabi orrr really any of the boys. 😇

Daddy hawks coming in hot!

Birds of a feather cum together

Not only did you get accepted into Hawks pro hero agency, but you actually got a personalised letter from him accepting you. Usually they’d send out generalised letters thanking you for picking them and about how pleased they were to accept you, all that formal crap, instead you simply got a letter through that said

‘Fellow feathered friend, Meet me outside my headquarters in Kyushu on Monday night at 7pm. Let’s see how fast those feathers can fly. If you can somewhat keep up with me, you’ll be accepted. If not, then better luck next time. ;)’

Your heart jumped into your throat as youd only just noticed the letter as it had slipped under your coat as it fell through the door. It was Monday. It was 6.35. Kyushu was about a 45 minute fly from where your house was, so you didn’t have time to change, you just had to make it there on time.

6.59 you collapsed at his feet, feathers a bushy mess, forehead drenched in sweat, and your shorts now giving you the biggest wedgie youd ever experienced in your life. As you tumbled to his feet, he let out a short laugh and smirked down at you, a crumbled mess of feathers and exhaustion beneath him. You panted out an apology and before you could fully catch your breath, he pinched your pale yellow wings making them completely fold back against your back and made you jerk upright.

“Hey! What was that for?! My babies are sensitive Yano!” You instinctually snapped back, you were used to people trying to touch them ever since school, but you hadn’t subconsciously registered that maybe screaming at your new soon to be boss wasnt the best introduction following that hideous landing.

“Oh wow baby bird, you’ve got sharp beak on you dont you.” He laughed, crouched down and offering a hand. “Don’t worry I know, my babies get super sensitive too, especially if I’m horny.” His golden eyes glint at you as his smirk grew slightly. You quickly hurried to your feet, ignoring his gesture and brushing the dust from your wings. Flustered you squeak out,

“Oh fuck. I mean….oh fuck.. AHH. Im sorry Hawks I just. I was running late and then I embarrassed myself with that shitty landing, and then you touched my wings and I don’t let ANYONE do that and just….” He seemed captivated by your flustered explanation, standing up and leaning against the building with his arms folded and looked at you over his tinted glasses.

“You sure do a lot of squawking dont you, sure you’re not an eagle? Those bastards never shut up.” He let out a loud laugh as he walked over to you and stood beside you to walk towards the town together.

“Is it going to all be bird based jokes today?” You rolled your eyes, but the smirk on your lips still spread across. You felt him put his hand around your waist and tightened his fingers, before letting off a sharp laugh and started running. Before you had time to register where his hand was, he had taken flight with you gripped closely to his side. When you reached a couple hundred feet in the sky, he simply let you go.

“Bye bye baby bird.” He winked and blew you a kiss, as you plummeted towards the concrete floor. Luckily you managed to spin around and spread your wings, but as you tried to reach your full wingspan youd realised he’d put a tiny clip onto a few of your smaller feathers so you couldn’t keep your balance as you flew. What kind of sick game was this?! You ebbed and flowed through the sky, trying your best to recalculate your trajectory and keep a steady speed, but because you were falling so fast and now had turned that speed forward to fly, you were going far too fast for your limited wings to control, so as you quickly approached a building, you clamped your wings around yourself and turned yourself into a nose dive. Creeping closer to the floor, a second before you hit it you managed to release your wings and glide effortless, narrowly avoiding a scrambled bird omelette painting the side walk. As you had encapsulated yourself, youd managed to pry off the shitty little clip and rejig your feathers so you were back to full capacity. You flew quickly back up to where he had dropped you, to find him laying on his back pretending to sleep. You fluttered your wings into him, in an aggressive manner, and asked him,

“What the fuck was that about?! I didn’t even feel you put this crappy thing on them!” You flicked the clip to him, it narrowly missing him as he moved his head and his eyes remaining closed.

“You felt a pinch didnt you? Cmon I wasn’t hiding the fact i put it there, it’s not my fault you didn’t notice.” He fluttered one eye slightly open and winked at you, then swooped off and teased you to chase him.

“What? Never played kiss chase before?” He then did his best impression of sonic the hedgehog as he span around still flying with incredible speeds, “YOURE TOO SLOOOOOOW”

You grit your teeth at his childlike teasing, but couldnt help but find that it tickled you inside. Was your new boss a massive nerd too? You always thought he was the cool hot new hero, lapping up the fan girls and always wondered if he was extremely fast at…..

Suddenly he appeared behind you and swooped you up in his arms, carefully tucking your wings back, and kissing the side of your cheek. Flustered, you tried to wriggle free from his arms, only to feel him tighten his grip. You desperately wanted to turn to face him, hoping that for some random reason he’d make out with you midair, declare his sudden love for you and youd fuck right there above everyone else, but you decided to keep your eyes forward and pretend that he definitely couldnt notice how flustered your cheeks were. He carried you down and let you stand to your feet, you didn’t see the need for him to carry you all the way back down, but you desperately appreciated the chance to be in his arms none the less.

“So baby bird. You didn’t dieeee, congraaaats. And the way you saved yourself so quickly was actually pretty decent, so I guess it’s…WELCOME TO THE AGENCY! Your complimentary nest will be sent to you in the mail tomorrow. See you here at say, 11am?” He winked at you and flew off, leaving you to excited jump about that youd finally been accepted.

After a couple of months of being at the agency, it quickly became apparent that you guys kinda just stood around a lot. Hawks was so fast and so damn good at being a hero, that there really didn’t leave much for you guys to do. After cleaning the office for the thousandth time, he called you into his voice over the tannoy. You rolled your eyes at your college who’d youd gotten pretty close to, as she teased you about running along to daddy. You flicked her wings and went to his office.

As you entered, he held up a sigh that simply said

‘Slam the door as hard as you can.’ You shrugged and obliged. As soon as the door slammed, three feathers dropped from the ceiling as you heard your friends voice screech in pain.

“She’s so predictable. She didnt think I’d notice….but I bet she hasn’t noticed all my little spy feathers around the office hiding. How else do you guys think I know everything that goes on? You all really do never shut up.” He giggled, spinning himself around in his chair.

“And to what do I owe this fabulous invitation my oh so glorious king?” You bowed, pretending you were medieval. He giggled slightly then puffed his chest out.

“So. You think im hot ey?” You suddenly jolted up right, face as red as his feathers, before nearly wrapping yours around yourself to hide from this embarrassment,

“What, I never said that. Who said I did?! I’ll fucking kill her….” You whispered as you trailed off, looking towards the door. One of his feathers floated down to his hand, twirling it in his fingers,

“I told you. I have these little babes everywhere, means I can hear. Everything.” He stared you down, as his smile grew deeper and darker. You become quickly more uncomfortable as your wings started to come to your sides, ready to engulf you at another uncomfortable truth.

“So what if I do….im not the only woman in the world who thinks you’re hot. Cmon, you know this, you lap it up at any given opportunity. “ You avert your gaze down to your feather as you softly brush them, desperately trying not to look uncomfortable. “Im sure you’ve discarded prettier one night stands than me, so why does it matter what I….” He took his feet from off his desk and stood up, his smile slightly fading.

“One night stands? Cmon im classier than that. It takes a lot more than a pretty face to distract me, let alone keep me still enough to fuck..” the carefree tone of his voice shifted slightly, almost annoyed that youd assumed he’d had flings. Look at him, how does someone so confident,someone so fucking sexy NOT fuck whoever or whatever he wants.

“You’ve actually probably fucked more people than me….” His eyes still staring into you, you quickly snap your eyes to his assuming the same annoyed assumption.

“What’s that supposed to mean? You think I get around?!” Your feathers ruffled slightly at this statement.

“No im just saying, it’s probably higher than my 6…” his voice softer, trying to break the awkward tension quickly filling the room.

“Oh go sit on an egg.” You rolled your eyes, he was clearly lying about this number.

“What? Don’t believe me?”

“Someone like YOU doesn’t fuck 6 people and then walk around like THAT.” It accidentally came out a lot meaner than youd originally meant.

“Someone like me? What’s that supposed to mean…” his eyes suddenly narrowing, turning a slightly darker golden, almost brown. “Go on. Speak up.”

“Well, I just mean, Yano, you’re cocky. Sure of yourself. Maybe a little…. arrogant….?” You were quickly digging a deep, dark, death pit for yourself the more you spoke.

“So THATS what you think of me is it….fucking brilliant.”

“HEY! I never said it was a bad thing, it’s a statement. It’s good to be confident, it’s a good public imagine…it. It’s hot as hell….gives off daddydom vibes kinda thing.” Flustered, you cant actually believe that last part came out….. As your eyes widened at your own stupid slip of the tongue, he appeared infront of you, the gust from his speed making your hair fly back off your shoulders. He peered out from over the top of his golden tinted glasses and you swore you could feel him looking your soul up and down. He grabbed at your waist and pulled you closer against him, his lips so close your breath almost fogged up his lenses. He pulled you closer as he walked backwards and then spun you so your ass hit against his desk. He placed his other hand on the desk behind you and slowly pressed his body against yours, forcing you to lay back ontop of his paperwork. He took his hand from the desk and used it to pull your thigh up and hooking it around his waist as he pressed into you.

“Scared baby bird? I knew this would be the only way to get you to shut the fuck up.” Your body trembled beneath his, why did his body fit so perfectly into yours? Why was he doing all of this now?

“Like you could scare me. What, you gonna make me lucky number 7, or are you just gonna tease me like you always do bird boy.” You smirked back at him, your eyes looking up at him from your furrowed brow. He pulled your left wing out, out stretched it then tightly plucked a few feathers out, making you yelp. You tried to slap him,but he caught your wrist, put your feathers sideways into his mouth then squeezed your wrist as tightly as he could,making you wince again under the pressure. He let it go then leant down to your neck, trailing the sides of the feathers in between his teeth so they tickled your jaw, then he spat them at you and grabbed your cheeks tightly, sitting back up.

“Yano, I heard a funny thing the other day….” As he started speaking, he plucked another feather from your wing. “They say that if you like the smell of another persons sweat, it means you’re sexually compatible. Yano, olden day stuff. But then it got me thinking. If you like smell of their wings, does that mean the same thing? Cause…” he smells the feather slowly, eyes fluttering at your aroma. “You smell like caramel.” He stabs the feather into your shoulder, the sudden pain making you jolt, it wasnt hard enough to draw blood but it was sharp enough to sting like fuck. “I also heard, that you had a sex dream about me. And that I tied you up and hurt you….is that why you took last week off? Too scared to face me after your little fantasy….”

“HOW DID YOU…” you blurted, trying to sit up, but he used his hand to force you back down.

“Now THAT one was a lucky guess.” He leant close to you, whispering into your ear, “ do you want me to hurt you?”

Suddenly, you found yourself nodding. Your mind had desperately screamed for your lips to say no, terrified this was all some kind of sick joke he was playing on you because you insulted him, but your body screamed for him, ached for him. You needed him in a way youd only ever dreamt about. After you nodded, he dragged his tongue up your neck, and nibbled at your jawline. As he was doing this, you didn’t even see his hand reaching down into his desk draw, or the fact he had pulled out handcuffs. He quickly grabbed at your collar and forced you up, bit the end of your nose and flipped you over, your stomach now pressing hard into his desk. He held your hands behind your back and cuffed you. As he tightened the cuffs, he pushed his hips into your ass, you could feel how hard he was already, and your pussy started to throb at the feel of him. He pulled your arms up your back, causing you to wince, as he let out a lower laugh. He then took his belt off in one swift motion and wrapped it around his hand.

“Now. Does my baby bird have a safe word? Or should we think of one together as I teach you some manners?” His voice deep, dark, cutting through you like a hot knife in your ears. Before you could answer he smacked the belt across the top of your ass. The sting made you yelp and arch your back, it wasnt exactly hard,but the surprise impact startled you.

“No answer? Okay….lesson one. Answer when spoken to.” He stepped away from you as you then suddenly felt your legs being pried apart, then your ankles being tied to the legs on his desk. Suddenly your skirt was hiked up over your ass, and you felt extremely exposed. You could hear his footsteps behind you and as you tried to turn your head to see where he was, he forced it down with his large palm, forcing you to keep your head still.

“STILL no answer? Hm.” He slapped the belt at the back of your thighs, significantly harder this time, the welt raising almost instantly. You tried to muffle your scream but the sheer force of it broke through your throat.

“CATS!” You screamed, as you suddenly chuckled behind you.

“Your safe word is….cats?” He couldnt contain his laughter. “ I mean…. I get it sure, but really….cats?”

“They scare the fuck out of me okay…I used to get chased a lot by them as a kid you prick …” another slap across the back of your thighs.

“Manners, remember?” He traced the outline of your raised flesh lightly, as he then plucked another feather. “You’re not gonna have many left by the time im finished, are you baby bird? Just means you’ll have to stay in my office and wait for me whilst I work I guess.” He leant down and nipped at your ear, as you tried to buck him back off you. Another burning hot slap punished your thighs. The tears started to well in your eyes, as you sniffled, trying to hide your tears.

“Crying now are we? Is that really all you can take? I’ve seen you get the shit kicked out of you and laugh,but a few belt smacks gets you crying? Huh, here I was thinking youd actually be good enough to keep up with me but…guess you were right. Maybe I am too cocky.”

You stifle back your tears as you try to reply,

“Maybe if you let me breath in between smacks I might be able to…” he interrupts you with a smack to the back.

“Lesson two. Appreciate what’s given to you.”

“HEY! You almost got my wings!”

Another smack to the back.

“I can tell this lesson is gonna be a hard one for you to grasp, maybe we should go straight to lesson three…” he unties your legs,then grabs your cuffed hands and pulls you up, pressing you against his window, showing you off to the whole city below.

“TAKE what I give you.” He starts to undo his trousers as he uses his foot to spread your legs again. You can feel your wetness dripping down your legs, as the excitement almost becomes too much for you. As he presses your face against the glass, he leans over your shoulder and looks at you.

“Now. Im going to fuck you. If you’d rather I didn’t, then just say your safe word and I’ll uncuff you and let you go. But if you don’t? Then I hope you’re fucking ready.” He kisses the side of your cheek so tenderly, that it almost seemed like another person was just bruising your ass and thighs. As he pulls away from the kiss, you forcefully spit at him. Your eyes lock as he wipes the spit from his glasses, and as he hangs his head slightly he lets out a disgustingly dark laugh.

“Ready it is then.” He rips your shirt in half and presses your tits against the glass, as he pulls another handful of feathers from your wings and shoves them into your mouth. He reaches down and rips a massive hole in your pants, as he then inserts a finger into you forcefully.

“Fucking shit birdie, you’re tiiiiight,” he compliments, pressing his forehead into the back of your head, inhaling your sickeningly sweet Carmel aroma. As his arm rocked back and forth aggressively, he could feel your wetness running down to his palms already. Your moans filled the air like it was stealing the oxygens space. He added another finger, and as your moans became louder he added one more. You winced at the third being added, so he took it back out and continued to rock harder and faster until your body start to shake. After you rode your first high, he kissed the back of your neck and took his fingers out of you, shoving them to your mouth to clean for him. As you licked your cum off his fingers, he forced his head inside of your entrance. You gasped as he let him fingers fall, then teased you with his head until you were arching back to receive more of him. His devilish laugh only made you push back further as he pushed you harder into the glass.

“More? What do we say?”

“P..please.” You stuttered, the tears staining your face now, begging for more of him to fill you up. As he looked at the tears on your cheek, he wiped them away and then grabbed onto your hips. He forced you onto your back on his desk as he spread your legs and towered over you. His hot stare burning deep into yours, his let out a small chuckle as he guided himself to your entrance again.

“Sure you wanna do this? Just say the word and I’ll stop.”

You looked your glossy eyes to his and tried to spit at him again, your throat dry from crying, only a small amount came out, instead of hitting him it sprayed slightly onto your stomach. He looked down at the pitiful mess you had made and laughed.

“Dont say I didn’t warn you baby bird.” And with that, he thrusted himself completely into you. The shock of his girth made you gasp, the air escaping your lungs, it forcing your eyes to see stars. Keeping it deeply imbedded in for a moment, his own eyes clasped shut and a moan escaped his lips.

“F, fucking shit, you are tight. Go fucking damn.” He started to chuckle at himself as the sheer tightening of your walls around him, as he started to rock back and forth, thrusting upwards. Each thrust felt calculated, controlled, just enough force to edge you slightly up the desk, but not enough to completely shatter your cervix….yet.

As his pace quickened, you could feel the electricity rise in your stomach, just then he reached down and started rubbing your clit in small circles with his thumb. The wave rising higher and higher inside of you, and as it was about to come crashing over you he stopped rubbing, and slapped you across the face. That was more than enough to cause you to come crashing down, spilling all over him, now dripping down his thighs. He grabbed your throat and started tightening his grasp as you shook more violently, your crashing seemingly picking back up again instantly, as he thrust harder and faster into you, you could feel every inch, every tense, every vein in his cock burying deeper and deeper inside of you. As another wave quickly crashed over you, you could feel thrusts starting to slow, his cock starting to widen inside of you, he was close. As he noticed youd stopped shaking as much, he pulled out of you and pulled you by your hair onto your knees. He spat on your face as you looked up at him, before he shoved his cock covered in your cum deep down your throat. He held it there as he started to shake, your throat being filled with his hot cum. After jerking three or four times, he pulled your head back and ordered you to open your mouth.

“Show it to me before you swallow it.” Your glossy tear stained eyes looked up at him as your mouth opened, showing off how raw and fucked your throat was, and how absolutely drenched in his cum it was. He slapped the side of your face as you swallowed it. After swallowing, he leant down and uncuffed your hands, scooping you up in his arms, pressing you gently to his chest. He sat down in his chair as you both panted desperately to catch a breath between you.

You lay your head into his chest as your breathing started to slow, looking up towards him to find him staring back down at you. The smile on his face was less a smirk, and more admiration this time. You giggled and buried your head further into his chest as he let out a big sigh of satisfaction.

“So baby bird….hows it feel to be lucky number 7?”

“How it feel to be lucky number 148?” You retaliated, tired enough to struggle to keep your eyes open, but not tired enough to tease. He jolted his head down to you, as you let out a small chuckle. “Im joking bird brain, your number 3 don’t worry.” Significantly happier with that number he let his head fall back against his chair, pulling you tighter into his chest.

“I am sooo glad I told them all to go home early just as you came in.”

[runninriot]

Damn You, Capitalism!

inspired by and written for @sidekick-hero , hope that helps getting through the day 🖤 because work sucks (i know!) - but eddie sucks harder 😏

1.231 words | cw: contains smut, nsfw, mdni

also on ao3

Steve has been drowning in work lately, it's a nightmare.

Eddie tries his best to support him, to make things as little stressful for him at home as it can possibly be.

He keeps the guitar unplugged when he's working on new music, to keep the noise at a minimum.

Always makes sure there's some meal ready for Steve to grab and microwave when and if he remembers to eat.

He reminds himself to do the dishes as soon as he's done with them because he knows how much Steve hates when the sink is full of dirty plates and forks and mugs.

Eddie even finally figured out how to use their new washing machine - he's not stupid, just lazy, and- why does that damn thing need so many buttons?

So, yeah. He's trying, really, because it breaks his heart every night when Steve comes home from work, looking one moment away from collapsing. Always tired, always moody, just- miserable.

Eddie wishes he could do more. Wishes he could take some of Steve's stress away, help him relax. Ease his mind just for a while.

And- look, he knows what would probably, most definitely help, that's not the thing. The problem is, Steve can barely even stay up long enough to kiss Eddie goodnight as soon as they're in bed. So any attempts of trying to have some one-on-one quality time with his husband aren't really up for debate right now.

Right?

Right.

He'll just have to wait for this massive project to be over and done with.

---

As Eddie crawls into bed shortly after Steve, he finds him quietly snoring, already fast asleep with his face mushed uncomfortably against his pillow.

Even in his sleep, he looks exhausted and it makes Eddie mad how much that job is demanding of Steve.

He pictures himself in front of the corporate building that holds his husband's soul captive, angrily stomping up and down the pavement while waving a sign that reads Damn You, Capitalism! and the thought makes him laugh.

He realises too late that he's been making an awful lot of noise, instantly shuts himself up with a hand over his mouth when Steve stirs awake and looks at him through bleary eyes.

   "Is everything okay?"

Steve sounds knackered (he learned that word from his British co-worker) and Eddie hates himself for ripping him out of his well-deserved sleep.

   "I'm sorry, baby. Everything's good. I didn't mean to wake you up. Just go back to sleep, okay? I'll see you in the morning."

Eddie leans down to kiss his forehead before he turns off the light and lays down next to him, trying to be as still as he can to let Steve drift off peacefully again.

But the damage is already done. Even without looking he can sense that Steve has trouble falling back asleep and it’s confirmed by the heavy sigh Steve lets out.

   "Can you-" His voice flitters quietly through the room, "Can you suck my dick?”

    Oookay, what?

Eddie can’t help but snort at those words.

Steve must be dreaming. Maybe he did fall back asleep after all.

   “I’m being serious, Eds!” Steve sounds almost offended.

He then rolls to the side and even in the dark, Eddie can see his big eyes staring straight at him.

So, not sleeping, then.

   “Babe, are you sure? I’m just asking because- well, we haven’t done anything for weeks and I miss it. God, do I miss it. But you’ve been completely out of it not even 5 minutes ago and-“

What the hell is he even going on about?

His perfect, beautiful husband wants him to suck him off. Why the fuck is he still babbling instead of using his mouth to do exactly that?

   “I just think it’d help me sleep?”

Steve uses that honeysweet voice of his, the one he knows Eddie can never say no to, the one he always uses to get what he wants. And- like, what is Eddie if not a very devoted, very helpful, very loving husband that would quite literally do anything for his man?

---

Steve’s boxers are gone as quickly as the blanket before Eddie makes himself comfortable between his husband’s spread legs.

It’s almost embarrassing how much he’s already drooling just thinking about the perfect weight of Steve’s glorious cock on his tongue but- excuse him for not keeping his excitement in check when he’s literally been suffering from Steve-withdrawal for weeks now!

Still, he tries to take his time, not wanting it to be over too quickly. He can hear in Steve’s pleading moans that he won’t last long, can taste Steve’s desperation in each drop of precum that hits his tongue as he licks the tip.

It’s heaven.

It’s so good Eddie wants to cry.

    Fuck, he missed this. Missed the familiar stretch of his lips when he takes Steve in, the familiar sound of Steve’s husky voice, the scent of freshly showered skin, the feeling of sinking deeper and deeper on his lover’s cock as he swallows him down like he’s starving for it.

His hips can’t seem to keep still, wiggling and rubbing against the sheets where his own cock is searching for friction. But his focus is on Steve, he can take care of himself later. This is just for the beautiful man that is the light of his life – he deserves it. Deserves to be worshipped like the divine creature he is.

   “Ed- Eddie, oh God! Oh fuck!”

Steve’s words spur him on. He finds the perfect rhythm, uses one hand to pump Steve’s cock while his tongue curls around the tip. His other hand strokes the sensitive skin on his inner thigh, dragging his nails up and down, knowing too well that it drives Steve just a little insane.

   “Babe, I’m- I- fuck! Don’t stop. Please, don’t stop. I’m so close!”

Eddie wouldn’t dream of it.

Not when it makes him so happy to hear and taste and feel his husband slowly falling to pieces. When, with every staggering breath, Steve crawls a little closer to the edge.

Until finally, Eddie is rewarded with a mouthful of Steve’s love; a sweet gift, despite the bitter taste, he swallows with pride, not wasting a single drop of it, taking it all in.

Beneath him, Steve’s trembling through his orgasm, legs shaking and breath uneven. He stops Eddie with a hand in his hair, tugging just lightly to make him look up.

   “Com’ere, baby. Wanna kiss you.”

A little reluctantly, Eddie leaves the perfect place between Steve’s thighs and crawls on top of him to comply.

They kiss slow and soft, no hurry, just their lips finding each other in the dark with gentle pressure.

   “Love you so much, baby,” Eddie whispers against Steve’s lips as he feels his movements slow down.

And as he kisses his way from Steve’s mouth to his cheek, to the tip of his nose, his closed lids and his forehead, Steve’s breathing eases into a steady, calm rhythm.

He’s asleep again, hopefully dreaming of beautiful things as he sinks deeper into Eddie’s embrace, lets his husband's warmth envelope him where they’re lying side by side.

Steve deserves it.

Because tomorrow, he has to fight his way through the constricting clutches of capitalism again.

Man, capitalism really sucks.

But, Eddie laughs to himself, he can suck harder.

[vodika-vibes]

hi vod'ika!! is there any chance I could request a Neyo one shot? maybe something fluffy where he's aggressively making sure the reader takes care of themselves? thank you!!!!

Baby, It's Hot Outside

Summary: In the middle of the worst heat wave in Coruscant history, your loving boyfriend aggressively makes sure you take care of yourself.

Pairing: Commander Neyo x F!Reader

Word Count: 956

Warnings: None, reader is described as wearing a bikini

A/N: This story is brought to you by the fact that it's really fucking hot outside. I hope you like it~

Click HERE to be added to my taglist

It’s hot.

The kind of hot that makes you want to lay in front of the freezer with the door open, or to sit in an ice bath just for some relief from the heat.

The air conditioner is doing what it can, but it’s so hot that it can barely keep up.

More importantly, because of all of the people using so much power all of the time, due to the sheer amount of heat, city officials announced earlier that they’re implementing rolling blackouts. Which means, for 8 hours a day, you’re not going to have any power at all.

The notice you got said that the rolling blackouts should only happen at night.

Which is super. Save for the fact that it’s just as hot at night as it is during the day. The only difference, of course, being that the sun isn’t beating down on your poor apartment at night.

You grimace as you realize that you’re sticking to the material of your couch, and seriously contemplate just biting the bullet, so to speak, and spending credits to go to the indoor beach just down the road.

You’re already lounging in your bikini, after all. It’s just that hot.

Instead, though, you decide to try laying on the floor. Maybe it’ll be a little cooler there.

It won’t be, but you can hope.

You don’t even lift your head when you hear the sound of your front door opening. There’s only so many people who know the code to enter the apartment building in the first place, and even fewer who know that code and the code needed to enter your apartment.

A familiar voice reaches your ears as you hear Neyo cursing up a storm in the front hallway.

That causes you to lift your head to peek at your boyfriend.

Your normally unflappable boyfriend is dropping his armor on the floor like it personally offended him, and his normally perfectly controlled curls are wild around his head. Plus, the dark material of his blacks are soaked in sweat, you can tell from where you’re laying.

“You good, Neyo?” You ask from where you’re half sitting up on the floor.

“I’ll live,” He replies, his voice exhausted. And then he turns to look at you, and his brows creep up his forehead, “Are you planning on going swimming?”

You laugh and fall back to the floor, “No. Yes. Maybe.”

“Well, it does have to be one of those options.” You hear Neyo walking over to you, and you turn your head in time to see him strip off the top of his blacks. A happy hum slips from you and you roll onto your stomach, kicking your legs up behind you, so you can admire him.

“See something you like, Princess?”

“Mm-hmm,” You rest your chin on the palms of your hands as you entertain yourself by tracing his tattoos with your eyes. You’d get up and touch him, but honestly, it’s too hot for that. “How was your morning?”

He glances at you, and huffs out a quiet laugh, “Miserable. We spent all morning working outside until some of the shinies collapsed from the heat. They’re going to be fine, but they’re in medical right now.”

You frown at the thought, “Are you okay?”

“I’m fine. Or I will be once I shower and cool down a little.” His dark gaze flickers to your face, “Have you been hydrating?”

“Meh.”

“Don’t you ‘meh’ me. It’s karking hot, cyare. You need to hydrate.”

“I had some lemonade a bit ago.”

“That’s not the same thing, and you know it.” Neyo scolds. You watch him vanish into the kitchen for a moment, and then he returns with a half frozen water bottle, which he sets on the floor in front of you, “Drink.”

“Bossy.”

“Yes, I am. And you love it. Drink the water.”

You huff but properly sit up so you can safely drink some of the water. Annoyingly, the ice water makes you feel slightly less like you’re about to keel over and die.

“Feel better?”

You pout at him, “No.” You lie, badly.

“That’s what I thought.” He lightly trails his fingers over the top of your head, “Wanna take a shower with me?” Neyo asks as he crouches so he’s closer to eye level with you.

“Won’t that make us both hotter?”

“Well, I was planning on taking a cooler shower than normal, to help keep the temperature down.” Neyo lazily drags his calloused fingers down the back of your head and then to your jaw, “But now I’m thinking that maybe a cool bath would be better.”

“That does sound nice.”

“Doesn’t it? We can both cool down, and I get to hold you. Best of both worlds.”

You toss him a small grin, “And so the truth comes out.”

“Hey, I’ve never denied that I like holding you, cyare.” He shrugs, completely unashamed, and you laugh.

“I’m not against it, but you should grab some candles.”

He shoots you a weird look, “Cyare, it’s so hot outside I’m pretty sure that the street signs were crying.”

“Yeah, but the blackouts are going to start soon, and there’s no other light sources in the bathroom. So, candles.”

Neyo sighs, “Right. Those.” He leans in and steals a kiss, “As you wish, cyar’ika. Go run the bath for us while I try to find the candles.”

“Sure! After one more kiss~”

“Spoiled.” He chides, but even so, he leans in and presses a slow kiss to your lips, as if he wants to savor the kiss. And you melt into him. The heat isn’t so bad, after all. Not when you have Neyo here to enjoy it with you.

@heidnspeak

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[glitter-stained]

Seen mentioned that DC doesn't actually take big swings anymore rn and while I haven't read enough to know for sure I do agree that I feel that vibe, so here are some big swings that I, as candidate for future CEO of DC, would install if I were to be elected:

-bring back permakilling. Everybody dead right now? Dead. Boom, sorry. Note that for those whose dead status is unclear/questionable due to crisis mayhem (i.e. Wendy Jones) this doesn't count. But yeah Alfred is dead and going forward if you kill a character, they're gone. That includes plot-twists about faking one's death, though I might make exceptions for a really good plot idea, but generally, no.

-shut down Arkham Asylum entirely. To me the concept is unsalvageable, I understand the idea behind it being rehabilitation but #1 no you can't fix him it's not a brown haired fictional man who kills people it's a prison that doubles as a mental healthcare facility, #2 the entire justification for the prison/psych ward amalgamation that is Arkham builds on the idea that the root cause of violent crime is mental illness. Either fully make it a prison and make a separate mental healthcare facility in a place that is not severely haunted, or nuke it entirely and start over with two different concepts.

-this one I believe comes from the amazing @paigeoforacle so I will just put the link for the details of that idea but yk how a lot of people look at rebirth Barbara and be like "this isn't my Barbara Gordon"? You're right. It isn't.

-kill the Joker.

-let characters get weird/intense. I'm talking Rose Wilson finding Grant Wilson's preserved corpse and trying to Frankenstein it back to life, Jason Todd building a super intricate death saw trap for himself in an attempt to commit addressed suicide, Mia Dearden going on dates with way older men she met on tinder and immediately using some grand complicated stratageme to escape the date (ie go to the bathroom and climb into the restaurant's vents) just because she's trying to prove something to herself. Dick needs to be having Shakespearen inner monologues on his relationship with Bruce, and Donna needs to be fucking her clone/alternate version of herself based on the genuine belief that this will fix her. This kind of messy.

-epic fight scene where Starfire kicks Superman's ass. Modern DC writers and a lot of fans have ideas of "who could beat who" and power-scaling mixed up and that needs fixing. Also it'd be awesome.

-make more beloved heroes explicitly mentally ill, and a wider panel of mental illnesses. Dick Grayson schizoaffective disorder diagnosis I'm especially rooting for.

-hey speaking of him remember when Superman fought the KKK irl? Let's bring that back. Let's get Superman to help fight the ICE.

-bring back goofy villains. And I don't mean go back to the era of goofy villains only/completely, I'm a horror enjoyed and do love some thrillers/darker themes, and detective stories, but I want them to coexist with goofy villains. No Chuck Dixon cannot convince me that Condiment King is scary, I want Batman to be fighting a villain of that level of goofiness one night and then a demon who turns his victim's flesh inside-out the next. Never let them know your next move!

-give Batman a yellow ring. (Also take advantage of that to remind everyone how powerful the GL actually are.) "but i'm tired of evil batman arcs!" big swings aren't supposed to make everyone happy and i will say, i'm tired of evil Batman arcs with no consequences. He modified a person's dna to strip away their agency through paralyzing fear. He's not getting out of the yellow lantern arc this time. (And I personally vote for Guy Gardner beating his ass).

-make the birds or prey (with the real Barbara Gordon) fight the CIA. And make Green Arrow fight the US-Army.

-Erase Trinity out of existence somehow. Actually collapse that whole future dimension or something. Idk if it's the same universe or not but also erase red haired Lian Harper from the possibility of existence.

-more mix-ups/variations in genre! Oh the GL are magical girls? I wanna see more magical girls tropes in GL stories. DC stands for Detective Comics the bats are all detectives I am not seeing nearly enough agatha cristie types stories anymore. None of that is to say you can't also have epic superhero fights in these stories, I'm saying to mix the genres. We have time travel and spaceships and aliens, go sci-fi with it!!! Make star trek references! Go nuts!!

-make the characters do bdsm (explicitly). As in you don't have to write explicit sex scenes but I want like one character who wears a bdsm collar 24/7, getting interrupted by a phone call while their partner is in the other room and they're struggling to pick up the phone because they're in shibari, have a character kneeling at the feet of another, shit like that. Fuck with platonic bdsm especially. And especially within the batfam.

-bisexual Dinah coming out yes but also Dinahollie discover poly.

-make Barbara 10 years minimum older than Dick.

-I said before no more random resurrections but you can and should definitely put your heroes/characters in time-out for some good time! Get creative with it. Oh that character has a huge healing factor? Get chained to a mountain in the Promethean Eagles dimension buddy (don't worry about the name babe, this plot's about to deliver.)

-kill Tom King.

[rtblack]

A Night is all I need – Chapter 15

“What the fuck are Immune Ones now? God damn! I’m sorry. I’m sorry. Huuu. Okay, I’m me again!”

Nade walked past Sarah and slightly opened the door to peer through. Soldiers were running left and right.

“Everything’s okay, Sarah. You’re still human, and I’m sure all this is quite the shock for you. Well, comparing your reaction to mine back then, I gotta say—it’s actually pretty good. Okay! I gave you the example with the 100 energy. There are two more cases.

There are times when a human can take more energy—still not all of it—but enough from a demon. Usually, these are strong humans with strong wills. What happens then is, yes, they get possessed and turn into ghouls, but they retain a part of their ego, sometimes even all of it.

The problem is, the wicked energy of the demon still flows through them. So even though they’ve kept their mind, they often turn evil or go feral. This kind of ghoul is bad for us—but also for the demon, because most of them don’t infect others, and some can’t infect anyone at all.

Now come the Immune Ones. The name says it all. These humans are immune. They still absorb the demon’s energy—but they don’t go insane, and they don’t transform.”

“An immortal being in a mortal body. I think I know where this is going. Immune Ones can use the demon’s abilities! And how do they differ from the Dark Priests?”

“Well, a Dark Priest is a human who’s basically a servant of a demon. Through a contract, they can use some of the demon’s abilities—but never gain the full power.”

BOOOOOM! The whole building shook violently. As Sarah lost her balance, Nade caught her by the waist.

“I can’t explain everything now. Let’s survive this shit first. Are you ready?”

He looked deeply into Sarah’s eyes. She gulped and finally nodded.

Nade opened the door completely. It was silent—no soldiers in sight.

“Sarah, is there a secret way to leave this building?”

“And what about the presidents?”

“They’re cooked. Or rather—the whole world is.”

“What do you mean?”

“Why do you think those presidents were gathered here—and not the others?”

Sarah’s eyes widened. She tried to fight the thought back, but couldn’t.

“We have nuclear weapons. Damn! We’re fucked! No! We’re going to the presidents. We’ll stop Kale. We can still save the world! And I don’t care what you say—if I have to go alone, I will! Are you with me or not?”

Before Nade could answer, the ceiling above them cracked and collapsed. A ghoul fell through, holding two severed soldier heads—one in each hand. The sight paralyzed Sarah for a moment—just long enough for the ghoul to open its mouth wide.

Before she could react, Nade was already over her, spinning mid-air and kicking the ghoul’s head clean off. He landed gracefully, and when he turned around, Sarah noticed it immediately: His eyes were glowing in a deep, strong violet.

Without concern for the situation, he simply said, “By the way, you recognize an Immune One possessed by a demon through the eyes. If the iris—the colored part—is violet and the sclera—the white part—is still white, it’s an Immune One. But if the sclera is black—it’s a demon. Sarah, get it together. Understood? SARAH!”

“Yes! Huhuhu!” She fanned herself with her hand. “Damn, your personality really changed. Where’s that nerd from before?”

“Hahaha. That nerd’s on holiday.”

In the conference room

All the presidents were dead. Their brains had been ripped out and their chests pierced. In front of Kale stood a black box, open, with a small computer inside. Nade and Sarah entered the room. Sarah was shaken by the sight—but she couldn’t miss one thing: Kale’s eyes.

(Sarah: He’s a demon!) Violet irises. Black sclera.

Somewhere unknown

Two people sat atop a pile of over a hundred ghouls: a man and a woman.

The woman had long blonde hair, wore baggy dark-blue jeans, and a tight white top. Her skin was smooth and pale. She was Seraphina.

The man beside her was broad-shouldered, bald, with a full, wild grey beard. He wore caramel shorts and a green top.

The woman stood and gazed into the distance, mumbling, “I think I should go to England. Look after our sons.”

Her eyes began to glow with strong golden light. “What will you do, Abaddon?”

Abaddon remained seated. His eyes glowed too—violet, with white sclera.

“Well… I think you felt that, right? There’s a demon on this side. It’s getting serious. I should find them… and let them know what’s going on.”

overview

to chapter 16

back to chapter 14

[bigheadbrooke-9]

⭑.ᐟ Unusual ୭ ˚. ᵎᵎ

𓍼────────𓍼

Eddie Munson x afab!reader

♱ ZOMBIE APOCALYPSE AU

Summary: Four months into the outbreak, survival was all that mattered. I had been alone until I found Eddie Munson—someone I barely tolerated—lurking nearby. Despite our differences, we teamed up, navigating the ruins of our world together.Then, everything fell apart.A sudden horde forced us to run in opposite directions. Now, lost and alone again, I had no idea if Eddie was alive or dead. But I had to find him—no matter what. ♱

A/N: This idea has been on my mind for a while, and I finally decided to bring it to life. I’m incredibly grateful for the support—40 followers and over 1,000 likes is more than I ever expected. Thank you all so much! ♱

Warnings: anxiety attacks, mention of a close death, zombies. If you don’t like it don’t read

Wc - 1.2k

“Eddie, can you hear me?” I pressed down on the button of my walkie-talkie, my voice barely above a whisper. Silence. Then, just static.

I swallowed hard, peeking around the crumbling brick wall of an abandoned building. The street ahead was eerily empty—no movement, no groans, no signs of the undead. But that didn’t mean they weren’t lurking. It had been hours since we got separated, and every passing second without contact gnawed at me. I knew Eddie. I knew his limits, his fears. He could face a fight, handle close calls with raiders, even talk his way out of the worst situations. But zombies? That was different. That was the one thing he couldn’t handle.

We had been scavenging for supplies when we heard them—hundreds of them. The sheer number was overwhelming, their guttural snarls filling the air, echoing off the hollow remains of the city. In the chaos, we ran, splitting up in opposite directions. I had been searching ever since. I refused to go back to base without him. That wasn’t an option.

Taking cover inside a half-collapsed storefront, I crouched behind the counter, gripping my walkie-talkie so tightly my knuckles turned white. What if he was in trouble? What if he was—

The radio crackled.

“Y/N… are you there?”

I exhaled sharply, fumbling to turn the knob to respond. “Eddie! Oh my god, are you okay? I was so fucking worried!” I let go of the button, waiting anxiously for his response.

More static. Then, breathing—shaky, uneven breathing.

Shit.

He was panicking.

I knew that sound too well. The rapid breaths, the struggle to stay composed—it was an anxiety attack creeping in, the kind that could paralyze him if he didn’t get it under control.

“Hey, hey, calm down, Eddie. Where are you?” I kept my voice steady, controlled, pressing the button again and waiting.

A few seconds passed before his voice came through, small and trembling. “I’m on Sherry Lane… by the gas station.”

I frowned, quickly pulling out the crumpled map I kept tucked in my bag. That was at least a thirty-minute walk from here—maybe less if I took the alley shortcuts, but those were risky. I didn’t care. I had to get to him.

“That’s far, but I’m coming, okay? You just need to hang tight and try to breathe. Can you do that for me?” I spoke gently, hoping my words could ground him.

On the other end, I could hear him sniff, his breaths uneven. “Please h-hurry…”

My heart clenched. “I will. Just stay where you are.”

Shoving the map back into my bag, I hoisted the heavy pack onto my shoulders and slipped out of the building, making sure to stay low. The streets were dark now, the sun having fully set. That made things both easier and harder—easier to move undetected, but harder to see what was coming.

“Alright, Eddie, listen to me,” I murmured, keeping my voice hushed as I moved along the edge of a broken-down car. “Go to the back of the building, away from the street. Try to stay quiet. Take deep breaths, in through your nose, out through your mouth. I’m right here, I’m not going anywhere.”

I could hear him following my instructions, his shaky inhales mixing with the static of the walkie-talkie.

Fifteen minutes. That’s all I needed.

But then, as I rounded a corner, I saw them.

A horde.

They hadn’t noticed me yet, but it was only a matter of time. Dozens of them, their slow, shuffling movements blocking the direct path to Eddie.

I cursed under my breath and immediately turned on my heel, retreating into a narrow alleyway. I had to find another way—fast.

I yanked the worn, crumpled map from my bag, smoothing it out with trembling fingers as I scanned for another route. There was only one other way to get to Eddie, and while it was technically faster, it was also far more dangerous. A direct path meant moving straight through a street teeming with the undead. But what choice did I have? Every second that passed, Eddie’s breathing grew worse, crackling through the walkie-talkie in uneven gasps. He was spiraling, and I had to get to him before he completely broke down.

I adjusted the straps of my bag, took a deep breath, and bolted through another alleyway. The street ahead stretched into the darkness, the gas station barely visible in the distance. It wasn’t far, but every step felt like a mile with the threat of death lurking around every corner. As I rounded a bend, I caught sight of a lone zombie clawing at a shattered storefront window, its grotesque form illuminated by the flickering remnants of an old neon sign. It hadn’t noticed me yet. Moving as quietly as possible, I edged past it, holding my breath until I was safely out of range.

My eyes flicked up to a two-story house nearby. That was it—Eddie’s temporary shelter. A faint light glowed from the second-floor window. He was in there. I pressed the walkie-talkie to my lips.

“Eddie, open the window. I’m right here.”

For a moment, there was nothing. Then, I saw movement. Slowly, he turned his head toward the window, his movements sluggish, as if he wasn’t fully present. He pushed it open weakly before slumping back down against the wall, disappearing from view.

Shit.

I scanned the street once more, making sure the coast was clear, then sprinted for the house. My heartbeat pounded in my ears as I reached the window, tossing my bag inside first before pulling myself up and through, landing with a quiet thud. I wasted no time securing the window and quickly moving to the closet to block any potential light from seeping out.

When I turned back to Eddie, my stomach twisted.

He was slumped against the wall, his head resting back as he stared blankly at nothing. His usually expressive face was drained of life, his eyes hollow and exhausted. I stepped closer.

“Eddie… are you okay?”

The moment my voice reached him, something in him snapped. His head shot up, and before I could react, he lunged forward, wrapping his arms around me in a bone-crushing embrace. I stumbled slightly as he buried his face into my shoulder, his entire body shaking violently. He wasn’t just scared—he was falling apart.

A muffled sob escaped him, and I felt my heart break just a little more.

I didn’t hesitate. I wrapped my arms around him, one hand instinctively moving to the back of his neck, my fingers threading through his tangled curls as I held him close.

“Shhh… you did so good, Eddie. Thank you for waiting for me,” I murmured, my voice soft and reassuring.

His grip on me tightened, his breath warm and ragged against my skin. “I-I can’t do it,” he choked out between sobs. “I can’t handle being alone. It—it gives me so much anxiety. It’s draining, it’s terrifying… ever since that day, I—I—” His words crumbled into another wave of trembling cries.

I knew what day he was talking about. The day I found him.

It had only been three months since we became partners, but I knew Eddie better than anyone. He wasn’t just afraid of zombies—he was terrified of isolation. He had been alone when the outbreak began, and when I met him, he was barely holding it together. That day still haunted him.

He had told me about it once—how a zombie had grabbed him from behind, how he had hit the ground so fast he thought it was over right then and there. He got lucky. If he hadn’t fought back, if he hadn’t reacted fast enough, he wouldn’t be here now. Ever since then, he couldn’t handle the thought of being left alone, even for a second.

And now, after today, that fear was stronger than ever.

“I know, Eddie. I know you’re scared,” I whispered, continuing to rub soothing circles into the back of his neck. “But you don’t have to do this alone. I’m here. I’m not going anywhere. You hear me?”

He nodded against me, his breath still uneven, but the weight of my words seemed to settle him. I kept talking, murmuring reassurances, grounding him as best as I could.

“Don’t think about what’s out there. Just focus on me. Everything’s going to be okay. I’ve got you.”

He let out a shaky exhale, the tension in his body slowly easing. His grip on me didn’t loosen, though—if anything, it tightened. I could feel his exhaustion seeping into me, his body growing heavier as the adrenaline drained out of him. He was still shaking, but less than before. The worst of the panic was passing.

I ran my fingers through his hair, scratching his scalp lightly. I knew this always helped him relax, and sure enough, I felt his breathing slow as his body melted into mine.

“Next time…” he mumbled, his voice barely audible. “Next time, we go the same way. I don’t care what’s going on.”

I nodded against him. “Next time, we stick together. I promise.”

I meant it.

Because seeing him like this? Seeing him break like this?

I never wanted to go through that again.

This story will be a series, as I have a deep appreciation for zombie apocalypse AUs. I find them both engaging and versatile, making them an enjoyable setting to explore. Expect multiple parts. :) ꪆৎ

[sfmothdaddy]

Brain rot I guess

Something was wrong with Johnny, Ghost could feel it in his bones. The usually bouncy and bubbly persona of his Sargent had been changed somehow. Sure the lad kept up with jokes, and the playful banter during missions... but something was off. He could feel the man eyes on him constantly, and often it looked like the man was going to say something to him but seemed to change his mind mid thought and shift to a safer topic.

Price had sent Johnny on a mission, a collaboration to bring in more information to take down Makarov, and Ghost couldn't help but feel.... something when he wasn't Johnny's overwatch, but that was neither here nor there. That was just life in the SAS for two Alphas who were good at their jobs. Still didn't mean Ghost couldn't have feelings about it.

Before this last mission, Johnny had gone down to records, something about an issue with some filing. Told Price he wouldn't miss anything, and he'd be right back. Price hadn't been bothered, probably because it was an issue the man found and Johnny just had to sign his life away again, nothing out of the ordinary, surely. When the lad returned he looked the same, had that pre mission determination on his face but to Ghost there was.... something behind his eyes he couldn't quite place.

"JOHNNY!" Ghost screamed, watching his body hit the floor after the gunshot, how could he fucking not. Everything around him happened in slow motion and so fast that he couldn't see at the same time. Bullets were fired as the building shook, Price had to physically push Ghost back out of the room and into cover as that snake slithered away and Johnny's body was burried under rubble. Somewhere Price was switching between barking orders and blaming himself, but Ghost.... Simon could do nothing but stare at the blood on his fingers. Odd that he'd never noticed before.

After immediate exfil, a team was sent back to retrieve Johnny's body. Ghost wanted to go but he wasn't cleared from medical, apparently he'd also been wounded but hadn't felt a thing. How could he? Price thundered into his room the next day, ranting about the higher ups, how they went over his head and Johnny had been cremated, against his last wishes, because there would have been too many questions from his family and it was "better this way". As the man paced, Ghost spoke up. "I want to do the notification if it wasn't done already. I need to.... I need to be the one to tell them." Price nodded, solemnly.

The next day in his dress uniform, both he and Price looked at the cute little cottage and knocked on the door. Idily Simon wondered why Johnny never talked about this place, sure he'd waxed poetic about some things from home, but never said a word about the cottage and attached farm. When the door opened a soft and sweet scent slid out and Simon had to halt the growl in the back of his throat. A woman blinked up at both of them, wearing one of Johnny's old PT shirts and a subtle swell at her stomach. He could feel the color drain from his face as Price cleared his throat. "Mrs McTavish?"

"Och, please I'm still getting used to that. You must be some of John's friends? Come in." He and Price shared a look as they stepped into the home that somehow smelt.... like everything Simon ever wanted.

"Ma'am we've..." Price started, tryingnto find the right words.

"A few days ago, during a mission Johnny was... fatally wounded. Ma'am I'm sorry, Johnny didn't make it." Her eyes laser locked with Simon, but something behind those eyes hardened, not collapsing into grief like he thought they would.

"Johnny's not dead." She shook her head, one hand sliding down over her slight bump. "He's alive."

"Ma'am... we were both there when it happened." Price tried again but she waved him off.

"You don't understand, he is alive no matter what you saw or think you know. I can feel he is alive. Our bond is still in place, I would have felt it break the moment he was dead."

"Bond?" Both Simons and Prices eyes slid up to her unmarked neck.

"Aye, we've been mated fer months, made it official our last cycle." Seemingly feeling their eyes on her neck she rolled her eyes. "We didn't go the traditional route for bites for a reason. But is still 'ave 'is mark on me." She pulled the hem of her shorts up just enough to show off a clear bite mark on her inner thigh. "Our relationship was never quite traditional the the common sense, we were much more... old school about some things."

Price and Simon exchanged glances, this changed things. Something behind Prices eyes turned stubborn and angry all at once. "We didn't know the lad was mated."

"Course you didn't." She waved the words away, "I'm private, and my job makes it hard for me to befriend many...Johnny was the exception. He didn't leave room for ya to say no to 'im." She sighed and sat heavily on the arm of the couch. "He was working up to it, I think. Wanted to invite you all round once this mess with Makarov was over."

Simon stiffened, she knew? "He wasn't supposed to disclose details about-"

Price was cut off when she laughed, "He didn't disclose shit. I'm in intelligence, I know who you are and your movements. I knew the mission brief before Johnny left here." With a soft groan she rubbed her temples. "This is gonna be so much fucking paperwork."

"Who do you work for?"

"I'm American, I work alongside your Kate Laswel, I'm sure she could verify, though I hadn't gotten around to changing my last name at work yet."

"Kate knew about this?"

"No? As far as I'm aware she had no idea of mine and Johnny's involvement went past me being his watcher once while she was in a briefing. As I said, Johnny made it impossible to resist. And while technically fraternization is frowned upon, I'm not SAS so before you try and throw that in my face, know that I'm three steps ahead of you."

She stood and paced behind the couch before pulling out a cell phone from a drawer and making a call. Her voice seemed to slide into something inky and dark, with a Russian lilt as she spoke. "Good morning Colonel, it seems a common enemy has taken something that belongs to me, and I want it back." There was a pause while someone spoke on the other end. "You tell that spineless coward that he has 48 hours to return him to me, or I will burn him and his empire to the ground. He will remember why I was given my name. And if I find out you and your men aided him, you will suffer the same fate. Am I clear? I will see my mate returned to me, or everything will be in flames and there will be nothing left of either of you to send to your families. Your skulls will adorn my wall."

The call ended, and Price blew out a breath. "Damn I miss flip phones and their satisfying ending to phone calls. Now I need to find gear that will fit my bump."

"We will find Johnny." Simon vowed but she shook her head.

"Your government covered this up, do you really think they would give you the authority to go out there and look for someone KIA? No, we both know it. However, I do have a reputation I can use and I will follow through with to get him back. He has a lot that he needs to answer for, including why he hadn't talked to you about me, but that was his one and only ask, that he handles it. So now I must retieve my wayward idiot and bring him home to do what I told him to do weeks ago. Just like a bloody man, make me do all the work."

[lilacskyly]

Honored Ones: Yandere Satoru Gojo x Reader

(This might be bad idk :,> not that proud of it)

Throughout Heaven and the Earth, he  is the honored one. 

Then what does that make you?

“Oh goddess~ You aren’t hiding from me, are you?” you heard Satoru Gojo coo as his steps echoed throughout the abandoned building. You covered your mouth, trying your best to cover your shaky breath. “You can’t hide from me forever~ You know we’re bound… right goddess?” You heard him laugh and then a chain rattled. You froze, staring at your wrist to see the spirit bind chain that was shackled to your wrist. “Stop fighting me. You already know I can sense you… right?” he questioned. Tears fell out of your eyes just as Gojo teleported in front of you. “Found you~”

You jumped before he covered your mouth. He put a finger to his lips, “Sssshhh my dear…. Ssshh… I’m here… those special grade curses are gone… there’s no need to cry!” He smiled for you before planting a small kiss on your forehead. If you didn’t know better, he would’ve just been his normal self. But, after you saw him kill those curses and some of his fellow jujutsu sorcerers for ‘getting in the way’, you knew you couldn’t trust his smile.

“S-satoru…”

His smile only grew upon hearing his name come from your lips. God.. those perfect lips of yours. He was practically salivating.

He snapped himself out of his thoughts. “Yes my goddess?”

“W-where are the others?” you asked.

“The others? Oh… you mean the pests. They're gone now. They can't bother us now~” he whispered in your ear. “You cryin’? It's okay my goddess… you're safe now.” 

He took your hand in his and lifted you off the ground. Despite your fear of him, you hugged him and started crying even more. He engulfed you in a hug as well. “Never do that again.” he said, getting scarily serious for once.

“I-I won’t! I swear I won’t!” you cried. He knew better than to take your word for that.

He sighed, “Let’s go home goddess. You’ve had a long day..”

You couldn’t track how long it took you to get to his place. Time always seemed to mush together when you were with him. You couldn’t tell if that was a good thing or not. Gojo locked the door behind you two when you entered his place. He collapsed on the sofa, pulling on the spirit bind chain to get you to come over. 

“Y’know goddess, I never imagined being this close to you…” he started. “After all, you’re barely a jujutsu sorcerer my dear… it’s a miracle we even met.”

“... y-yeah… I-I’m sorry, I’m really weak..” you said, looking down at his hands. 

He shook his head. “Stop lying to yourself. You may not be as strong as you want… but soon enough you will be.”

“H-how?”

“I’ve been hinting at a surprise haven’t I? I think it’s about time I finally reveal it.” he smiled softly at you.

You tilted your head, confusion spread across your face. “W-what do you mean?”

“You’re almost entirely mine, my precious goddess~ Did you figure out what I’ve been doing yet?” he asked innocently. 

Wait. He didn’t.. He fucking wouldn’t.

He smiled after seeing your expression. “You’ve figured it haven’t you? You’re so smart my goddess! I’ve been putting drops of my blood into your food I’ve prepared for you… and you know how your cursed technique works.. Right?”

Of course you did! You weren’t stupid.. Were you?

“Your cursed technique isn’t very practical… at least for you. You have to quite literally consume a part of a person to gain their strength. But but but! If you ingest too much, your life becomes officially theirs to control. It’s funny really.. You get stronger but you become less and less you the more you do so!”

“G-gojo… w-what..?”

“Look my goddess… I know someone as holy as you could never be mine… so, I’m taking fate into my own hands. We will be together now, forever. No matter what you do, you won’t be able to die as long as I’m alive. You can’t even escape me in death. We’re bound, remember goddess? You’ve sealed your fate the very moment you agreed to this.” He grabbed your wrist, showing the spirit bind you two established. You both had to ingest some of each other's blood to even establish it. You just wanted to be stronger… to be protected by someone…

You should’ve died to those curses in that building earlier.

Before you knew it, Gojo tore at his wrist till it bled heavily. He held it up for you to drink his blood. He chuckled as you looked at him in horror. “H-how… how long have you..”

“Oh, since we made the pact. I’ve had my sight on you for quite a while my dear.” he said nonchalantly. “Now, drink up. Haven’t got all night.”

You shook your head causing him to laugh loudly. “Seriously? You’re still being stubborn? You really don’t get it dear… you’re mine.” His blue eyes pierced your own, seeming to tear into your brain. “Now, drink.”

Your body moved without you as you downed his blood. The taste was repulsive, you hated doing this. Gojo however seemed to be enjoying it as he petted your hair muttering ‘good girl’ every now and again. He pushed you away after some time. “Now now dear, we don’t want to suck me completely dry, do we?” he teased.

“Mhm…” was all you managed to say.

“Y’know… the pact is fully made now, right? Ha! How funny! I can literally control you now!” he laughed lightly. “We can claim this world as ours… and ours alone. After all, we’re gods… together we are the honored one…”

He pulled on the now fully materialized chain around both your wrists and hummed cheerfully. 

“Let’s go have some fun, shall we?” 

[werewolfoffeverswamp]

tbh i dont know if i’ve ever made a single piece of art i actually like in an academic setting. they’re always haphazardly done last minute and the subject matter is always so. hm. it’s a little boring. the only times i think i’ve come close to making something i was proud of in school is when i was pushed to my mental breaking point and i just started fucking doing whatever i wanted. so today i’m rating them

in my sophomore year i was in sculpture class and had to make a smooth plaster sculpture. the amount of manual labor required to sand down a sculpture that had to be at least 3 feet in some direction is not something i wanted to deal with. as you can see my sculpture is not smooth. the design i was happy with— the sculpture itself i was not.

it was titled “Mistakes” or something along those lines. my classmates stood up for me in critique when my professor said it was lazy and unfinished. not one of my peers said a bad thing about it. we smashed the sculptures apart behind the building when critique was over. i still want to cry when i think about it, it was an extremely special experience for me.

10/10 i actually wish i still had it and i have been meaning to make a tiny version out of clay. such a special piece to me, very formative

this piece was made at the end of my college career when i first started testosterone. i wanted to make some sort of tribute to it for my final piece— i’m of an extremely divided mind when i think about it. there are parts that look clunky and not developed properly… thrown together, as i believe my professor Jason said. i am, however, happy with certain technical aspects of the piece! the formation and shading of the hand and the syringe is something i really like, and did a lot of layering to achieve. i used a paper cutout to make the repeated syringes on the bottom left, another new technique i tried and was happy with the results of.

the text WAS thrown on last minute in an effort to spice up the piece but it’s a reference to the song Crosseyed and Painless by Talking Heads. it’s a song i’ve always identified with in a gender way, with the first few lines being “Lost my shape, trying to act casual./Can’t stop, I might end up in the hospital.” i felt on the verge of collapse constantly in the early days of my transition. it was like i had lost my shape and was destined to end up hurt in some way. i wish the text was more well thought out, it could have been done in a more uniform way and i think it would have looked a little better.

the wasp head is also a reference to an old oc of mine, who was a man with a wasp head named Gene. i wish i would have used different colors, the black and yellow i used should have been warmer. mars black instead of ivory. whatever again it’s technical stuff.

6.5/10 i could technically go back and fix this one bc i still have it, but i have better things to do rn.

the hand dino came into the world in a fiery manner. for the final project we had to make a piece with the dimensions of minimum like 4ft by 4ft, and by this point i was burnt out and the most exhausted with art i’d ever been (besides maybe sophomore year ig 🤔) and i told my professor i couldn’t do a project that big. he made the mistake of telling me to do what i could manage, which ended up being a roughly 12in by 12in piece of oil painting paper.

in many ways i like the concept of this piece. the idea of it. it’s fun! it’s combining realistic elements with cartoonish ones in a way i enjoy.

however. looking back, i genuinely think it would have been a cooler concept on a bigger scale 😭 which is so frustrating.

7.5/10 i wish i’d had it in me to do it better.

and how could we forget dear body horror babe? made in my first semester of sophomore year and done with ink and charcoal and conte crayons, it was an assignment one of my more eccentric teachers wanted us to do where we randomly splattered ink on a paper using ink-covered coins and tried to come up with a drawing just from the happenstance of where the ink coins landed.

i chose a more abstract route and basically turned every ink splat into an eye and tried to come up with somewhat distorted body imagery to evenly fill all the space on the paper. you can find a lot of stuff going on in this piece.

11/10 but also not done at my lowest point, just during the steady decline.

ok can i be frank for a second. i fucking hate this piece. so what you’re seeing is an 8ft by 4ft thin block of particle board, carved by hand in low relief to ink and print on old bedsheets.

my professor for this relief class was strict about the theme of the class, which was political art. she insisted we make art relating to a political topic and our beliefs on it. and this isn’t to say political art is bad in any way, but it’s truly not something i want to FOCUS on creating necessarily. the fact that it was MANDATORY is the issue here. one of my classmates refused to make purposely political art and instead chose to make a beautiful piece of the sun and moon as lovers. i wish i had just done the same and refused to make strictly political art. if i’m honest i just wanted to make an epic wood carving scene of a dark and eerie night outside draculas castle. instead, as you can see, i chose (somewhat arbitrarily in an effort to make the project into something i could enjoy carving) environmentalism.

technically i don’t mind this piece. the composition is fine and the detail in some areas i’m very proud of. other areas not as much. my teacher also forced me to do what i think is over-carve some areas to fill the piece with texture. i do not like it and i wish i had kept some areas fully un-carved, even if it didnt print right. i don’t care.

also what’s worse about the whole experience of this piece is that it was part of an event called Blocktoberfest and my school partnered with a local state college to make and print these huge blocks on their campus. the reason this is bad is bc the state college students did whatever the hell they wanted for their designs and we saw some really cool subject matters, from aliens to occult symbolism. and their school’s art department had a couch in it and ours didn’t. :/

also blocktoberfest was an insane amount of physical work bc rolling those big ass rollers in ink and then a giant block and then ink and then the block and ink and block was a lot of effort. i was sore after it. and it lowkey felt like me and my classmates were doing all the work and like maybe 5 people from the other school were helping. whatever. whatever anyways

1/10 genuinely pisses me off to look at. wish i would have just done draculas castle

^i also think it’s worth mentioning about this professor: no one really liked her. she made it very clear that she thought there was a right and wrong way to create art. and she fully believed she was right about everything bc she was old and wise. and she was also gay so maybe she had some credit. but her art to me always felt a little uppity and she was also really rich. she let us visit her studio and we did our final critique there of a piece i made that i absolutely hated everything about. i dont even have a picture of it bc it pissed me off so bad. she also was lowkey racist towards a few of my classmates so i really don’t like her.

anyways that’s all the pieces i want to review currently. let me know what you guys think about em if you want. i hereby ask for you to critique my art.

the difference between making art for a deadline vs making art purely bc you enjoy the process and outcome is so crazy. it actually makes me sick with sadness. i don’t have the resources to create freely yet. anyways art under the constraint of academia is so frustrating for me specifically. like whatever. whatever

[dame-zoom-a-lot]

Henrycapolypse

Prompt: Time Travel: Break-it Worse | Word Count: 2449 | Rating: M | POV: Jeff, Henry, Spider (OC) | Relationships: None | CW: Torture, Major Character Death(s) | Tags: Protective to the point of psychotic uncle Wayne, Bitching El, Twilight-zone-esque weirdness

This is an entry for @corrodedcoffinfest's May Mayhem Bingo.

Ao3 link

divider by @/saradika-graphics

One of the few upsides of living in a town that's literally in pieces is that no one really gives a shit what goes on in the school hallways. When Higgins saw them sneak Wayne into the building, he just shrugged and went about his day. He probably thought Wayne was just here to pick up some of Eddie's shit. Less for him to throw out. He barely spared a glance at Dustin, who was crying so hard Steve was basically carrying him.

Steve is still carrying Dustin, who's too tired and hiccupy to walk on his own. Robin is clutching the box of Eddie's memorabilia they're going to use in the funeral. Wayne is walking ahead. He looks kind of dazed, like if he might float away and disappear. Lucas is straggling a little behind the pack, eyes firmly on the ground.

And yes. Jeff is still mad at the kid for temporarily shacking up with those basketball douchebags. But he's been assured multiple times that it was all an act. And everyone could use a little grace right now. So he slows down a little to walk besides Lucas.

"'m sorry," Lucas mutters, when Jeff gets right next to him.

"Yeah, that sucked," Jeff mutters, "but Erica said it was a necessary act so."

"I should have stepped in at the garage," Lucas says. He sounds far away, like he's playing and replaying that horrible day.

"And we shouldn't have said anything," Jeff says.

Lucas shrugs miserably and doesn't look up from the floor. Erica sneaks a glance at them before resolutely looking forward, lest anyone figure out that she cares about her brother actually, quite deeply.

"Look," Jeff lightly punches Lucas in the arm, "I believe Eddie didn't do it right? And if I'm going to believe, against all physical evidence, that Eddie didn't kill those four kids and rip the fabric of reality through some demonic ritual, I'm going to believe that you had some sort of a plan that got fucked sideways. And I'm going to believe that you're already sorrier than you have any reason to be." He grabs the younger boy by the shoulder and wheels him around. "So I'm good. We're good. Are we clear?"

Then Lucas cries.

Jeff wraps the kid in his arms and shoos the rest of the group along.

Erica darts ahead like she's just...

Well, she darts ahead like she's just seen something awful, like her older brother break down in tears right in front of her. Fortunately, the school's become quite used to seeing kids randomly collapse into a sobbing fit in the middle of the hallway about something or other. At least fifty people fell down the chasms that suddenly opened up all around town. More are missing. In a town this small, that means everyone lost someone.

"I'm alright now," Lucas finally says when he manages to get enough air to talk. "Thanks."

"Anytime," Jeff says. He gives the kid a final hug. He's too skinny. Feels like he might break. Like the rest of this town. "Man, we've got to pack some muscles on you kid," Jeff babbles as he leads them towards the drama room, "get ready to start hauling amps."

Lucas squeaks out something in protest but cracks a small smile. Maybe they can start healing.

No. They cannot start healing.

"So let me get this straight," Jeff inhales deep then exhales out. Calm. He's got to stay calm. "Eddie didn't do those murders, obviously. But we do know who did the murder. And we know who created the murderer. And none of you can say anything because of some stupid NDAs?!"

"Yeah, it was all--" Steve starts.

"Well I'm gonna guess that the NDAs meant jack fucking shit if you told all of us anyway," Doug points out, "we can go to the press! Clear Eddie's name!"

"Look, this isn't a joke. But the government's already killed people--" Steve starts.

"So what? We let everyone continue thinking that Eddie did this?!" Gareth yells.

"Enough!" Wayne yells so loud his voice echoes. So loud that it feels like the picture of Eddie they put up for the funeral might fall over. Jeff has never heard Wayne raise his voice.

"No one's gonna buy that there's a supernatural serial killer created by the gov'mt," Wayne points out, "and the ones that do will be too nutty to be of any help."

Like always, Wayne's got a point. Gareth kicks a chair in frustration.

"But I'm not doing nothing," Wayne continues, "this guy that created the monster is still 'live and kicking?"

The quiet girl, the one with the buzzcut, nods.

"And he's been doing more of this research?" Wayne asks her.

"Yes," she says.

"And where is he?" Wayne asks.

His tone is gentle. But he has this wild look in his eyes that remind Jeff of the one time he saw Al Munson.

"Wayne, what are you...planning?" Doug asks hesitantly.

"The less you kids know, the better," Wayne says simply, "Supergirl? Where is that man?"

"You can't kill him," the girl says simply.

"I never said--"

"I know. You can't kill him. Too much protection," the girl says.

Wayne purses his lips. "I can pull in some favors."

"So can I," the girl says, "You can't kill him alone. I know some people. They're bitchin'."

Jeff did not expect to hear that word from a girl who looks like an American Girl doll with its hair buzzed off.

"So we're doing it then," Gareth declares, chin up, "we're going to kill him."

The girl looks around the room a little doubtfully, as if she's trying to assess how much help they might be. Jeff puffs up and does his best to look big. Doug 'subtly' shows off that he can push the big-ass oak table they have. Gareth clears his throat and twirls his drumstick, throws it in the air, fumbles it.

The girl doesn't look convinced. But she shrugs and says yes anyway.

El's 'bitchin' friend, Kali, casually wipes the blood flowing from her nose. The two guards, hopefully the last guards before they can get to this Brenner, look right through them, lost in the world that Kali created. Gareth carefully leads another kid who's apparently disabling all the security systems. He can't do that with his eyes open, so Gareth is guiding him.

Huh, so drugs really do give people superpowers. Shame his mom probably hasn't even heard of LSD.

The guards continue to look at nothing. Kali nods at Jeff, who takes his crowbar and drives it into their skulls. There's a quiet crack, and the two slump to the ground.

The first kill was impossible. Doug threw up. Gareth's hand shook so hard El had to finish the job for him. Wayne just chopped through them like it was nothing, but that wild look is back in his eyes and he's walking with a stoop as if he's getting weighed down by all the lives he just took.

But after the second kill, it just started to feel like another errand. Walk. Bash a head in. Walk some more. Bash another head in. Rinse. Repeat. He knows, deep down, that he'll never recover from this. He'll see the face of those men in his dreams until his dying day. But this is for Eddie, for Hawkins, for all the little kids who got trapped in that lab then mowed down like vermin.

Still, he wonders if the guards had family.

El smashes the door behind the guard open. A prim guy in a too-neat suit and too-neat hair turns around. His eyes widen momentarily. Narrows.

"Eleven," he sneers, "eight, six. To what do I owe the pleasure?"

El, who had been nothing but resolute, crumples at this. Panics so hard that she accidentally warps the space around her, blocking all exit in the room. Wayne steps forward to hold her. He murmurs something and she buries herself into him. Brenner chooses that moment to try to run. But then he stops.

"He always underestimated me," Kali says simply. She circles Brenner then kicks him hard in the knees. The man crumples. She stomps down this time and Jeff hears a crack. "Didn't think visions were much use if I couldn't also blast people's heads open."

"Remind me to never underestimate you again," Jeff says. She smiles.

"Get him in that chair," she says. Jeff and Doug work together to drag him onto the chair. They have no ropes, but it's not like he's going to be able to go anywhere with his busted kneecaps. That was the deal. Kali gets them to Brenner. Then they'll let her take it slow. She stalks forward with a smile. Brenner wakes up with a start, sputtering.

"Hi papa," she croons. Then she grabs one of his nails with a plier and digs in. Brenner screams and screams as she goes meticulously goes through all ten fingers. Jeff covers his ears and reminds himself that he has to do this. They have to do this. This man is dangerous and as long as he lives, there will be more Vecna. More Hawkins. More Eddies. They have to do this.

Kali is jamming her pliers into Brenner's mouth when he finally says something that's not 'please' or 'stop'.

"I can make everything right!" He screams.

Kali pauses at that. She stands back. "What do you mean?" she asks.

"I discovered more implications of the wormhole we developed to open channels to the other dimension," Brenner babbles, "in laymen's term, a time machine. I can pull One out of the past and you can kill him here. That'll correct our timeline. Make it so none of this ever happened. You'll get your town back. You'll get your family back. You'll get everything back."

"That's stupid," Doug scoffs, "even if I believe you, which I don't, it'll create a time paradox."

"No, no," Brenner pleads, "it's not exactly time travel. It's multidimensional warping. The math all holds up. If we can just try--"

"I've never had something good happen from a good old 'the math all holds up'," Wayne growls.

"What have you got to lose?" Brenner asks, "if I'm wrong, finish killing me. But if I'm right..."

They all look at each other, then at the broken husk that's Brenner. It's stupid. Impossible. It doesn't even make sense. If they bring Vecna here from the past to kill him, and none of the terrible things ever happened, why would they have brought Vecna back here to kill him? But, he does have a point. What have they got to lose? Eddie is gone. The town is gone. Jeff's hands are irrevocably soaked in blood.

"It better be fast," Gareth finally snarls, "but sure, fuck it, we'll try your stupid time machine."

"It'll be fast," Brenner says desperately. "Press the button in that big machine in the center. It's already calibrated with One's DNA. I just need Eleven to channel her power to create the wormhole."

"You built a machine you can't run without El?" Wayne asks mildly.

"I trusted that she would ultimately see the grander vision," Brenner says, sounding very calm now despite his missing finger nails and busted kneecaps, "I had a rendezvous arranged."

Wayne takes one look at El's stricken face. "I see."

"But now that she's here anyway, we can--"

They never hear what Brenner would have said. Wayne strides forward and bashes his head in with the butt of his gun. Brenner slumps forward then topples off the chair.

"El, do you think you can make this thing work without him?" Wayne asks in that same terrifyingly mild tone. El nods and steps forward.

"And with the power of AI, we've managed to buttress our fraud detection by fifty percent, cutting costs by two hundred million dollars, or approximately ten percent of Q3 profits," Henry says grinning. The board nods, deeply impressed. "We're planning to spend a little of that to beef up our lobbying efforts. We've had some state regulators asking about the claims denials. Nothing to worry about, but we could use some friends."

"How much would the lobbying cost?" One of the board members ask.

"Cheap," Henry answers, "a lunch with a senator only costs five thousand dollars. And you'll see in slide ten that our lobbying efforts have had a twenty percent--"

The room swims.

Henry staggers back, suddenly overcome with nausea. Shit. Is he having a heart attack? He falls back, and braces himself for the impact. But he... Keeps. Falling. Falling. Falling...

Into a pile of himself. There's a five year old Henry squalling as he gets crushed under the piles and piles of his likeness. A mottled, burned, hideous version of him roars in panic as he struggles to stand. He's getting pushed up towards the ceiling. He can hear machinery popping, hissing, can hear different versions of himself materialize into the already cramped room. He can smell the rot of dead bodies beneath the writhing pile. Henry tries to turn and run, but his legs are trapped between a giant, hunk of marble and some evil looking alligator. The gator steps on him as it tries to slither away, but it doesn't get very far, not with the amount of shifting, wailing, panicking bodies roiling under it.

The last thing Henry sees is the ceiling coming towards him.

Then darkness.

The web shakes.

The spider rises from its slumber, confused. Its web is not supposed to shake. It is supposed to grow. Infinite branches stretching out farther even than the spider can see. Heedless of time and space and reason for none of that has a place here, a place that existed before any of those things poked their heads out from the ether.

Yet the web shakes.

The spider watches as a single, imperceptibly tiny thing gets torn out of every single branch of its sprawling web and hurtles towards one strand.

And these are tiny things. As small as the life of one being. But collected together, from every single strand, it gets heavy. Big enough to notice. The strand in question starts to bow, weighed down by the combined weight of the googleplex of dust (less than dust really). The spider skitters to the strand in question, which is already warping enough to take the whole section down with it.

The spider loves all the individual strands of its beautiful web, but it's not going to let a single line take the entire thing down. The spider snips the strand out with its fang and lets it sink, down, down, down into the ether.

[alovesongtheywrote]

Nightmare Academia P.5 | Spencer Reid x Reader

♥ Summary:  the prank war continues- you steal spencer's mugs, he uses one of your worst fears against you, and you're both dicks to each other [Prof!Spencer Reid x GN-Prof!Reader]

♥ Warnings: reader makes a mean comment about spencer being fatherless, spencer picks at the reader's insecurities- y'know, normal fare. also, spiders. ALSO, MENTIONS OF THAT RABIES EPISODE FROM SEASON 9.

♥ A/N: i know this has been mindless shenanigans so far, but the next few chapters will contain hints of plot, i promise

♥ Word Count: 1525

Series Masterlist

You didn’t have to send the typewriter in again.  For the most part, this was a good thing- it meant that Reid was no longer torturing his students by making them write their notes and assignments by hand.  It meant that your students were no longer lingering on the edge of collapse.  It meant that the student body was dealing with healthy levels of stress.

It also meant you’d lost your main method for bothering Reid.

While you wouldn’t complain about Reid going pro-tech (or at least tech-neutral) it did mean that you couldn’t send the typewriter to Reid’s classes without being a massive bitch.  Before, when he had been tormenting his students, the annoying click of the typewriter had been a punishment.  It was all fair game.  

Now, you would have to find something more creative.  You would have to get crafty- punishing Reid for his various slights against you whilst being annoying, but not disruptive.  

So.  You decided to steal his mugs.

The idea crept over you like a bug, wiggling into you until you just had to do it.  So, you did.  You waited until he was teaching, and you snuck into his office.  The lock on the door was university regulation- and therefore, it was easy enough to bypass with a lockpick and the tiniest bit of skill.

Like that, you were in- and you were overcome with the realization that this was the first time you had ever really been in Reid’s office.  He’d been to yours plenty of times, he was the one who dropped off the typewriter after every class, but you never had a reason to come to his office.

At least, you hadn’t had a reason until now.

You were surprised by how familiar the space was.  It was warmly lit, filled with books and various trinkets.  The walls were covered with his doctorates and degrees.  Mathematics, Chemistry, Engineering, Psychology, Sociology- fuck that guy for being smarter than you.

You didn’t have time to dwell on that, though.  You were on a mission.  A mug-related mission.  

You searched the office, looking through drawers and swinging open cabinets until you found what you were looking for.  Behind Spencer’s desk inside a small cabinet, they sat- mugs.  Honestly, the sheer number of mugs tucked into such a small space was kind of impressive.  You certainly had options.

Eventually, you selected a dark blue mug designed to look like the TARDIS.  That was cute.  You did your best not to find it too endearing.  You promised yourself that you wouldn’t find anything in that office endearing.

And then, upon standing, you immediately broke that promise.

On top of the cabinet that stored all his mugs was a copy of Pride and Prejudice.  Your fingers brushed across the cover.  That alone was enough to charm you, but then you noticed, beneath the book- an article.  An analysis of Pride and Prejudice.  You would know the words on those pages anywhere.  You wrote that article.  

You felt heat building beneath your skin as a blush crawled up to your face.  You pulled away from the book as if it had burned you.  Kicking the cabinet door closed, you collected the mug in your hands, and you raced from the room as fast as you possibly could.

-

Reid enacted his vengeance swiftly.

Clearly, he was still in contact with that FBI tech girl of his- and CLEARLY, she was less of a tech girl and more of a mind reader, because she somehow found out about your phobia of spiders, and then she told Reid about it.

You knew all of this because one morning, you walked into your office to find a mug sitting innocently on your desk.  Inside of it, a rubber spider.  You, however, didn’t know it was rubber.  

You had spent the night before grading assignments, helping your GED students edit their papers, and crying over a really cute baby goat.  Needless to say, you were sleep-deprived- and it was in this sleep-deprived state that you flung the mug at the wall on instinct because you thought there was a spider inside of it.

Luckily, Reid, in his infinite wisdom, had predicted that this would be a possibility- or you assumed he had.  The mug was a tough thing, and flinging it at the wall hadn’t even put a chip in it.  The fake spider was also fine (which was good, because if it had been alive, and you had killed it, you probably would’ve cried again).

Once your racing heartbeat had returned to normal, you tried to calm down by grabbing one of your actual mugs from its actual place in a large drawer beneath your desk.

A fake spider sprung out at you the second you opened the thing.

You screamed, slapping the fake creature right off of its mechanism and across the room.  Once you were done having a teeny tiny panic attack over that, you took a closer look at your mug drawer.  Reid had put his engineering degree to good use, rigging up a mechanism that would let the fake arachnid jump at you once you’d triggered it by opening the door.  You were pissed- and a little bit impressed- but mostly pissed.

The last straw was the actual spider on your ceiling.  It wasn’t put there by Reid, but you still blamed him for it.  Once the little critter was gently placed outside, you stormed off to Reid’s office.  You didn’t care that it was the first thing in the morning, nor did you care that you had a class starting in a few minutes.  The only thing on your mind was Spencer Reid, and the many ways you could insult him.

You practically kicked open his office door, hitting maximum rage as you stormed inside “You DEEPLy UNFABULOUS POOL NOODLE.”

“Good morning, Dr. (L/N).  Sleep well?”

“No.  Fuck you for asking.  Fuck you even more for the SPIDER in the MUG.”

Spencer didn’t even look up from the paperwork on his desk, “At least it was fake.  The bacteria colonies that are currently gathering in my mug are very real.”

“Oh, come on, Reid.  I’m not using it.  I have some decorum.”

He flipped a page, “I find that hard to believe.  So, what kept you up, (L/N)?  Crippling self-doubt?  The crushing weight of reality and your inability to find a place in it?”

You brushed off the self-doubt comment.  He couldn’t know that was half of what kept you up grading papers so late.  

“Oh, baby, I know my place in it- it’s twofold.  I’m here to be dumb and annoy your terrible self,” you walked over and pushed all his papers to the side just enough for you to take a seat, “And I’m all out of dumb to be.”

Finally, Spencer looked up at you, “So here you are.  Y’know, insecurity doesn’t look good on you.”

“And fatherless behaviour doesn’t look good on you, yet here we are.  ANYWAY, my special little science boy, I am here to inform you that you’re gonna need to get more mugs.  Why?  Because I’m going to take everything you have, and I will leave you with nothing.  It won’t be today, nor will it be tomorrow, but one day you’ll come into work to face the most terrifying of all the Earth’s horrors- a lack of mugs.”

He paused, lips parted slightly as his eyes danced up and down your face.  Honestly, he probably would’ve been more upset about the fatherless comment if you hadn’t followed it up with such a monologue.  Now he just felt the need to one-up you.

He’d heard somewhere that less is more.

“Actually, the most terrifying of all Earth’s horrors is probably rabies.  Y’know, the BAU once had a case where a serial killer forcibly infected his victims with the disease in order to kill them.”

“Excuse me?”

The pure horror in your voice was delightful.  Spencer looked down to his wrist where his watch lay over his cardigan.  Of course, he already knew the time- he just didn’t want you to see the massive grin on his face, “Oh, shoot.  I have a class to teach.  Help yourself to the mugs, Doctor.  I hope you like arachnids in yours.”  

You sat in shock as Spencer grabbed his bag and threw it over his shoulder.

“Wait, Reid, I’m still on the rabies thing-”

“Bye, (Y/N).”

“‘Bye?’  The fuck do you mean ‘bye?’  Get back here and explain the rabies thing!”

He did not get back there and explain the rabies thing.  He just left you in his office with the terror of rabies hanging over your head.  Moving quickly, you stole your mug of the day and left.  That evening, while Reid was revelling in his temporary victory, you made a call that you never thought you would make.

“Hi, is this Derek Morgan?  Yeah, I’m a criminal justice student,” you lied, “I just had some questions about a case of yours involving rabies?”

Reid would rue the day he brought up the rabies thing- on that, you and SSA Morgan agreed.

♥ Tags: @icarusignite

[astrid-sama]

Bones Never Forget (Twilight x Tokyo ghoul crossover)

Tokyo was burning.

The flames reflected off the glass of the buildings, turning the city into a giant lantern about to go out. The sky was black, swallowed by smoke, and there were no stars. Only the relentless light of the blaze. Only the sounds of collapsing structures, footsteps, our fractured breathing.

Our world was breaking apart.

Anteiku had fallen. Not just the walls, the tables, the teacups.

It was our illusion that had crumbled.

The illusion that there could be more for us.

That we could live in peace.

Be accepted.

Be a family.

And with Anteiku, we lost him:

Yoshimura.

Our refuge.

Our silent father.

There was no time to mourn. Only to run.

But I… I could still feel him.

I felt his gentle gaze.

His silence heavy with meaning.

His goodbye never said.

And Irimi. Koma.

They weren’t just coworkers.

They were part of our family.

Part of what kept us balanced.

They reminded us that even monsters can have a heart.

Now they were only ash.

“Sakura! Move!”

Touka’s voice snapped me from numbness. It was tense, desperate.

Her eyes found me like claws—frightened and hurt.

We ran.

Each step felt like sinking deeper into a world that rejected us.

We ran through blood, rain, broken glass.

The air reeked of smoke and burning flesh.

Sirens screamed all around.

Kaneki ran next to me—scratched, trembling hands, hair plastered to his forehead, eyes empty.

But underneath the mask there was something:

Not hope.

Determination.

The raw, fierce will to survive.

Hinami clung to her backpack like an anchor.

Rain ran down her cheeks like tears.

She had stopped sobbing, but her body shook with small tremors.

Inside me… I felt fire too, behind my ribs.

In my heart.

In my mind.

I couldn’t breathe.

Every step dragged me back.

Jason.

His twisted smile.

His voice before breaking a bone.

His laughter when I cried.

As if I were his—an object.

“Don’t think about it.”

I hissed through clenched teeth, spewing the blood in my throat.

But my kagune pulsed.

My body remembered too clearly.

It refused to forget.

We turned down an alley.

It was narrow, cramped, full of garbage and wet scrap metal.

A metallic stench wrapped us.

At least here, the sirens sounded distant.

Touka collapsed against a wall, gasping.

“We can’t go on like this. They’ll find us.”

Her voice hoarse, more a whisper than a protest.

Kaneki stood motionless—like a broken mannequin.

“We’ll make it.”

He said it quietly, but it felt like a declaration of war.

Hinami looked at each of us—searching our eyes. So big, those eyes, yet too deep for her age.

“Where are we going?”

Her voice trembled, but it wasn’t fear. It was someone who still dared to hope. Like only a child can.

Suddenly, metal boots clanged behind us.

The alley turned from refuge into trap.

“Ghouls spotted! Three to the left! One wounded!”

A robotic voice from a CCG communicator echoed off the walls.

Touka whirled around.

“Fuck. They saw us.”

On instinct, I grabbed Hinami’s arm and pushed her forward.

We ran.

I heard a shot. Something whistled past.

BOOM.

The wall beside me exploded into bricks.

We hit the ground.

Dust filled my lungs, choking me with smoke and blood.

A second shot. A quinque sword stabbed into a dumpster just steps away.

Hinami screamed.

Kaneki lunged up—our human shield.

His kagune unfurled with a hiss—alive and red.

His eyes—no longer vacant, but sharp, merciless.

“GO!” he shouted.

Touka joined him—kagune ready, hands shaking.

I grabbed Hinami and squeezed us through an opening between two buildings.

The fire-escape took us to a slippery rooftop.

War drums pounded in my chest.

Another shot. The railing blew apart.

Kaneki reached us last—coated in dust and blood.

A deep gash streaked his side.

“You okay?!” I yelled.

He didn't answer—his gaze fixed on the black sky.

Behind us—screams.

“There! On the rooftop!”

A spotlight bathed us.

For a moment—we were exposed. Naked.

Ghouls—targets.

A shot rang out.

A whistle in the air.

Something grazed Hinami’s ear. She screamed.

Touka spun—her kagune unleashed with a snarl.

“They’re getting a bead on us!”

I dove over Hinami—shielding her with my body.

A second shot tore through the rooftop’s edge. Shards rained down.

The concrete bled.

Kaneki stood—backlit—eyes monstrous.

Rize danced behind him—unseen but living—his movements slow, precise.

“Get down!”

His voice was no longer human—it was an order.

Touka grabbed Hinami—I followed.

We jumped into darkness.

A balcony caught us—like a gut punch.

Our bodies cried out—bones complaining.

But we were whole.

Above us—another shot.

An antenna shattered into fragments.

Kaneki jumped last—landed on one knee, gasping.

No words needed.

We ran.

Through smoke, through screams—into the shattered city's core.

Then we heard him.

“Mes chers amis! Par ici!”

A shadow stepped off the rooftop—light as a night breath.

He bowed theatrically—long coat swirling like smoke.

Tsukiyama.

Impeccable as always.

Even in chaos—he could’ve been from a stage.

Eyes sparkling, hair glossy.

A dark red stain on his collar—wine, I hoped. I knew it wasn’t.

“No time for conventions!” he declared—arms open as though greeting us at a banquet. “I’ve arranged everything. Passports, papers—even snacks.”

That staged theatrical tone sent chills down our spines—as if this were a game.

Touka shot him a look—one that spoke of murder—but knew it wasn’t an option.

“I don’t trust you.”

He smiled—tilting his head.

“My dear Mademoiselle Kirishima… right now, you don’t have another choice, n’est‑ce pas?”

Kaneki turned to me—his gaze…

It was distant.

I recognized it, because my own was the same.

Rize.

She was there—in both our minds.

"We are the same, Ken… we are hunger."

"You can’t rid yourself of me."

I could hear her laughter—inside me—echoing behind every thought—like a snake biting its tail.

Kaneki and I… possessed by ghosts that never stopped biting.

I nodded.

“Let’s go.”

The refuge lay beneath an abandoned factory—masked by a rusted hatch that groaned its protest.

We descended—step by dark step—in silence.

Only footsteps.

Only breath.

No words—just the echo of metal staircases and condensing breath in humid air.

Darkness swallowed us—but for the first time—it felt less terrifying than the world above.

Tsukiyama perched on a crate—like a king without a throne.

“A few days here. Then you leave.

All is in order. No one will look for you in some random town in America.”

Kaneki stepped closer—eyes narrowed.

“Where?”

He smiled.

“Forks.”

Touka snorted—flopping onto a blanket.

“Never heard of it.”

“Exactly.”

The night passed.

We slept in shifts. One watched—others feigned rest.

Silence held memories—whispers that refused to leave.

Kaneki and I remained awake.

Back to back.

Two souls broken. Two brothers bound by more than blood.

He sat in a corner—I watched him furtively.

His eyes were extinguished—but from time to time—they flared—briefly—then emptied again.

I knew it.

He saw Jason too.

He felt Rize too.

We were never really alone.

Even here—underground.

“Still hurts?”

His voice fragile—but it was the first real one from him.

“Always.”

I replied unconsciously. The truth.

Silence.

“If you could choose… would you still be this…?”

I turned carefully.

“This… how?”

“A ghoul. An experiment. A monster.”

I paused, then answered:

“If that means I don’t leave you… yes.”

A shadow of a smile brushed his lips.

And for the first time—we recognized each other:

Two survivors.

Two living scars.

Two days later—a dawn found us ready.

At the airport—we were shadows among people.

No one watched us.

But we saw everything.

We boarded the plane—light luggage, heavy hearts. I sat by the window.

Clouds offered false calm—a soft, white lie.

Hinami slept.

Touka stared into nothingness.

Kaneki held a book—but never turned a page.

I gripped my coat sleeve—under it—my scars.

Those etched by metal.

By Jason.

By myself.

And then it happened.

I was back in that room.

Skin slick against leather chair.

Wrists bound by tight, slicing straps.

My fingers trembled—at least those that remained.

Fluorescent lights flickered above—feeble.

And then… I felt it.

Snap. Snap.

Him.

Jason.

He walked lightly across the stained floor—slow, deliberate steps.

His suit pristine. White shirt spotless—except for that dark bloodstain at the collar.

His eyes wide—too wide.

His head tilted—like a curious bird.

“Sakuraaaaa,” he crooned in a sing-song voice—sweet as rancid honey.

“Are you ready for another lesson? We made progress yesterday, didn’t we?”

He stepped forward—maniacal grin widening.

“One thousand… minus… seven?”

He smiled.

Mouth too wide. Teeth too white. Eyes empty.

I stayed still.

“No? Still? You are so stubborn!”

He snapped around to a stainless surgical table, picked up something, returned with forceps raised.

Metal grazed my hand.

I gripped the armrest—but it was useless.

CLACK.

Pain exploded.

He had removed my pinky.

“ONE!” he sang, like a kindergarten teacher.

“One thousand minus seven… is?”

“T–t…”

I tried to speak, but no words came.

“Ooooh… wrong answer!”

CLACK.

“TWO!”

Tears streamed down. My heartbeat throbbed in my ears.

“…Nine hundred… and… eigh–”

Mistakes.

CLACK.

“NINE HUNDRED–EIGHTY–SIX!”

He laughed.

Snap. Snap.

“Nine hundred…”

Sob.

“Eighty… nine…”

“No, no, no! Tsk tsk, distracted!”

CLACK.

Another finger.

Another snap.

“NINE HUNDRED–SEVENTY–NINE!”

“Sakura…”

He leaned in—running the forceps across my cheek.

“You don’t want to be human, right? Humans cry. Humans scream. You don’t, Sakura. You matter. You endure.”

He laughed.

“SAKURA!”

A shout.

Reality hit me like a slap.

I woke gasping—the roar of the airplane, the seat’s leather.

Hinami’s hands shook me.

“Big sis… big sis look—we’ve arrived!”

Forks appeared—a beacon of hope.

The sky was gray.

Endless trees.

Rain fell gently—like a caress after torture.

No one awaited us.

But in the distance, beneath low clouds,

I felt something watching us.

And yet—for now,

we were alive.

And for a monster,

that was already everything.

[bestworstcase]

@cryptidblues tumblr ate this one too, maybe drop tumblr support a line to check if you’ve been erroneously shadowbanned 

Oscar is dying! He’s dying! We’re getting the full weight and crisis of the merge in volume 10 I NEED IT. The image of him collapsed on the sand as the sunrises with his back to the long memory OOUGH just like Ruby and crescent rose after she drank the tea, before the tree took her. The reversal on “I don’t want to be me anymore” / please let me stay myself. The lad is being eaten alive! From the inside out! By an unstoppable brain parasite that will kill him! And Replace Him! I Need the slow build up of horror from Oscar and everyone involved. “And Oscar…just isn’t himself” they’re place setting. Getting the table ready. Ooh yknow he’s hiding those merge episodes/attacks from his friends. I NEED the existential terror and dread! BUT I NEED THE CATHARSIS OF OSCAR BEING KNOWN, SEEN & SAVED TOO ;-;

NOT to make a post oscar about ozma instead but the thing that is really, really pulling the hinges off for me is the implication that this is happening because oz started actively fighting the merge. as long as oscar resisted and oz kept up the drumbeat of “this is inevitable, there is nothing either of us can do,” the curse kept on quietly eroding oscar as the boundary became thinner and thinner between them. it was, for lack of a better term, stable. 

the moment oz tries to resist, the curse starts trying to rip him forward. to force him to take over, inflicting what seems to be torturous amounts of pain on both of them. the subtle, silent, invisible violence that was inflicted on oscar before explodes outward to attack both of them. 

how many times have i said this curse is specifically designed to make it impossible for ozma to change? that the whole point is to prevent ozma from ever changing his mind or defying the god of light? never doubt me. the literal fucking instant ozma tries to break free, the curse becomes YOU DO NOT HAVE A CHOICE. 

the curse had a failsafe the whole time.

/ozma tangent

oscar though. this poor kid. like the greatest burden on his shoulders in the last four volumes has always been that no one wants to openly acknowledge what’s happening to him and the nature of the merge’s violence being so completely internal means that no one has to look at it except him. and he’s been so isolated in that existential dread but he’s also grown so accustomed to being treated like just. the next ozpin. that when the violence abruptly becomes externalized in reaction to oz’s resistance, oscar… hides it. keeps it to himself. somewhere deep down the idea that it doesn’t matter to anyone what happens to him got lodged in his brain so deeply that he keeps it hidden!!

and i’m obsessed with the emotional complexity the layers of what he’s feeling with regard to ruby, because it’s not as simple as that he misses her and aspires to her optimism; there’s also some underlying resentment there (“you were always so sure that everything would work out…right up until the moment it didn’t” <- paraphrasing) because she was wrong and he wishes he could borrow her certainty but she was wrong. she fell. she was wrong. 

BUT AT THE SAME TIME, everyone else believes that they’re gone forever. that they’re dead. oscar doesn’t. he’s thinking about it in terms of where they might have gone, what might have happened to them, he’s doing research because deep down, there’s a teeny tiny spark of hope that hasn’t been extinguished yet. so there’s this subtext of i wish i had your certainty. even though you were wrong. i’m still trying to find you. we’re still fighting this. you always saw me for who i really was. i don’t know who i am anymore.—there’s this tension throughout the monologue between bitterness and hope, and i don’t know if oscar is even capable of seeing that he is still hopeful or that he does have, if not ruby’s kind of certainty, something of his own that rhymes. he’s feeling this bleak about everything and still trying to figure out where they are because he doesn’t believe they’re dead. 

it was oscar’s idea to put the memorial where the portal had been. it’s taller than a person and shaped like a door. it’s a memorial but it’s also a symbol; the portal is gone, but they were inside it still, we should build our own door so they can find their way home. and then they do, according to the context given. the blacksmith gave them a doorway that went right through their memorial.  ETA: never mind, misremembered

ruby confronting and facing his mortality after running away from it for three volumes to galvanize her to really try to save him vs oscar doing whatever he can think of to somehow save her while roiling in all these complicated painful feelings about how no one cares to know how he’s suffering because it isn’t like there’s any real hope for him. tasty!