amulyaamica

[stil-lindigo]

SPREADSHEET OF PALESTINIAN ESCAPE FUNDS‼️TIME SENSITIVE

Operation Olive Branch is a continuously updating spreadsheet of Palestinian escape funds where progress towards their goals is being tracked. As of right now, there are over 100 funds listed there.

Any amount of money can make a difference. With their recent decision to bomb Rafah, the only remaining “safe” territory in Gaza, Israel has forced Palestinians into a corner by giving them nowhere else to go. The international community has given Israel the ability to act with impunity - it is long past the point in time to rely on those in power to hold Israel to any standard of compassion.

Today, I want you to look at this document, choose a fund, contribute to it, and share it. The people in Rafah are living on borrowed time. Free Palestine.

[runariya]

Three-Shot: Infinity (JJK) • 3

pairing: alien!Jungkook x human!reader genre: alien!AU, dystopian!AU, dark, angst, S2L, eventual fluff and smut warnings: MDNI, 18+, distrust, panic attacks, trauma response, anger issues though kinda entitled to..., physical pain and bruises, fluff, fluff, and fluff, Jungkook can purr, mention of Stockholm syndrome, discussion about bonding, kissing, huge size difference, smut, big cock Jungkook because duh..., oral (f. receiving), squirting, unprotected sex (please wrap it if you don't aim to get preggy folks!), knotting, bonding, please lmk if I forgot something word count: 4.361

a/n: This work is purely fictional. All characters and events are entirely imaginary and do not reflect reality. Please do not use this story as your own. No translations are allowed without permission. Thank you for understanding! 💕

This story was inspired by the song 🎵Jaymes Young - Infinity🎵

01 • 02 • MASTERLIST

The door of the dock closes behind you with a heavy hiss as you're dragged inside Jungkook's spaceship, your heart pounding in your chest like a drum. His grip is unrelenting, digging into your arm, still tender from his earlier grasp. The beeping of the door closing sounds ominous, ticking like a countdown to your impending doom. Contrary to your panicked assumptions, Jungkook doesn't drag you to the cold, sterile white room. Instead, he steers you towards the cockpit, his steps purposeful and heavy. He forces you into your seat, buckling you in with rough, swift motions that leave no room for protest.

His face is thundering with fury, contorted with anger so intense it seems to carve lines into his skin like lightning. A vein throbs violently at his temple, and his jaw is clenched so tightly you can almost hear his teeth grinding. The bioluminescent markings on his body pulse fiercely, bright white now, the calming blue completely vanished. The sight fills you with dread, certain he’ll unleash his wrath upon you the moment you're in space, far from any possible witnesses. The very thought sends chills down your spine.

Jungkook rises to his full height, his presence looming over you like a dark storm cloud. He strides to his seat at the control panel and begins punching buttons with a force that’s clearly fuelled by his rage rather necessity. The ship hums to life, the vibrations beneath not comparing to the power he holds over you. You don’t dare look at him directly, but out of the corner of your eye, you see his fists clenching and unclenching, his jaw still ticking with barely restrained anger. The tension in the cockpit is palpable, thick enough to cut with a knife.

As the ship ascends, breaking free from Thraxor's orbit, Jungkook activates the autopilot with a swift, angry motion. Within seconds, he unbuckles himself and strides towards you, his shoulders tense, his eyes ablaze with fury. You shrink back into your seat, your body instinctively curling in on itself in a vain attempt to shield against the inevitable onslaught. His wrath feels like it's going to crash down on you with the force of burning lava, and you are sure, in that moment, that you won’t make it out of this alive.

Jungkook's voice explodes in the confined space, "What were you thinking? Are you mental?" He starts pacing back and forth, his steps heavy and agitated, his hand repeatedly raking through his blue hair in frustration. Each pass through his hair seems to fuel his anger, making him look more disheveled and ferocious. You don’t dare meet his gaze, the fear of provoking a physical response paralysing you. 

"You could have died! You could have been taken! Do you think so little of me that I would trade you for anything in existence? And to a Silvex of all species!" His voice rises with each accusation, a storm of emotions crashing over you. "I've never done you harm, but clearly, I've been living in a fantasy, thinking you trusted me." Every word, every increase in volume, sends a jolt of terror through you, the prelude to your punishment setting your fear ablaze.

Abruptly, Jungkook halts his frantic pacing and spins to face you, his eyes burning with intensity. The sudden stillness makes your breath catch in your throat, your heart hammering as you brace yourself for the inevitable. "Why did you run? What the fuck did I do wrong?" he demands, his voice a raw mixture of hurt and anger. The words hang heavy in the air, and you’re too petrified to respond, your mind consumed by the dread of the pain you’re sure is coming any second now. 

"Look at me!" Jungkook’s voice reverberates through the small space, a command that feels like a physical blow. You flinch, pressing yourself deeper into the seat, though you know there's no real escape. He strides toward you with fury in every step, kneeling down abruptly and seizing your arms. His grip is firm, one hand on the bruised limb, sending a sharp jolt of pain through you that you manage to hide. "Look at me," he repeats, his voice dropping to a low, insistent tone.

Your eyes snap up, locking onto his intense gaze. You suppress a whimper, the pain in your arm throbbing in time with your racing heartbeat. His eyes are a swirl of emotions, more than just anger. In the depth of his gaze, you see panic and a raw sadness that you hadn't expected. His grip, though strong, feels less like a threat and more like a desperate plea for understanding.

As you're forced to look into Jungkook's eyes, the intensity of the emotions you find there throws you off balance. The fury is present, but it’s the panic and sadness swirling beneath the surface that dominate his gaze, emotions so uncharacteristic for him that you feel a pang of confusion and shock. His eyes glisten with a barely noticeable film of tears, his struggle to control them evident in the way his expression tightens and his breathing hitches.

"Someone could have taken you. How am I supposed to protect you from harm if you sprint full force into it?" His grip tightens again slightly, the pressure sending a shockwave of pain through your already bruised arm. You flinch involuntarily, a small, pained whimper escaping your lips as you try to pull away from the agony.

At the sound of your whimper, Jungkook releases you as if scalded, his eyes widening in shock as he takes in the bruises on your arm. He curses under his breath, standing up abruptly and leaving the room in a rush. You take the brief respite to steady your racing heartbeat and ragged breathing, the adrenaline still surging through your veins making it difficult to calm down. But as Jungkook returns, your nerves flare up again, a fresh wave of nausea washing over you. The years of survival instinct are hard to shake off; the tiniest incident still sends you spiralling back into a state of heightened alertness and fear, a deeply ingrained habit that you can’t easily break.

Jungkook kneels before you again, his demeanour noticeably more composed than it had been just minutes earlier, yet the sadness lingering in his eyes remains palpable. With gentle hands, he unscrews a tube of ointment, squeezing a generous amount onto his fingers before carefully applying it to the bruises mottling your arm in angry shades of red and blue. The cool ointment soothes your inflamed skin, but it’s the unexpected tenderness of his touch that surprises you the most.

His voice, now soft and melodic, reaches you, "I'm sorry I hurt you. I forgot about my strength and your fragile body. It shouldn’t have happened. I...I can’t promise it won't happen again, but I promise I’ll be more thoughtful." The sincerity in his tone is disarming, chipping away at the walls of fear you’ve built around yourself.

The apology catches you off guard. In all your life, no alien, least of all a Nepturian, had ever apologised to you. Tears well up in your eyes and begin to fall silently down your cheeks. Jungkook notices your tears and his expression softens even further, a tenderness in his gaze that feels like a balm to your battered soul.

"You're safe with me. I’ll protect you with my life, you hear that?" His words, filled with a gentle promise, seep into the cracks of your heart, easing the pain and fear that have taken root there. The adoration you see in his eyes is unlike anything you've ever experienced, and it stirs something deep within you.

"I'm sorry," you sob quietly, the emotional and physical fatigue weighing down on you as the adrenaline finally begins to ebb away. You slump into yourself, the exhaustion taking over as Jungkook continues to tend to your injuries with a care and compassion that both confuses and comforts you.

Jungkook finishes treating your arm with careful precision and begins to rise, but your uninjured arm instinctively reaches out, your fingers clutching his shirt in a desperate plea. He looks down at you, his eyes wide with surprise, and then meets your gaze. You don't dare look up, fear and uncertainty keeping your eyes fixed on the floor. Gently, he loosens your grip and leaves the room, returning shortly without the ointment.

His footsteps are steady and calm as he approaches you. Standing before you, he carefully slips his arms under your thighs and back, lifting you with a gentleness that belies his earlier anger. You tense momentarily, unsure of his intentions, but as he carries you to his seat and places you on his lap, holding you securely with one arm while the other deactivates the autopilot, a sense of safety washes over you.

As you nestle into his warm, strong chest, the tension in your body begins to dissolve. For the first time since the human race ended, you feel truly safe. Jungkook’s protective embrace is a sanctuary, and the rhythmic beating of his heart lulls you into a deep, restful sleep. Your body, worn from fear and adrenaline, finally relaxes, surrendering to the comfort and security he provides and you longed for your whole life. 

You wake to the steady rhythm of Jungkook's breathing and the reassuring beat of his heart. His strong arms still cradle you securely on his lap, and his hand moves gently over your head and through your hair. There's a low, purr-like sound emanating from his throat, deeper than anything you've ever heard from him or any other Nepturian. It's strangely comforting, and you wonder if it's akin to the way cats purr when they're happy. Your thoughts drift to this curious noise, but they’re quickly interrupted when Jungkook notices you’re awake. He stops stroking your hair, and the purring ceases. You startle, a sudden wave of anxiety washing over you. Is it still alright for you to be so close to him, or has he changed his mind?

Your heart races as panic sets in. The comfortable safety you felt mere moments ago is overshadowed by a creeping fear. You stand abruptly, trying to put some distance between you and Jungkook. But his hand catches your wrist gently yet firmly. “Stay,” he says softly.

You look into his eyes, which are nearly black, reflecting the stars and distant galaxies passing by outside the ship. You always thought his eyes were emotionless, but now that you're close enough, you see beyond the distant facade. There's a depth of longing and hope that you never noticed before. His grip loosens as you remain silent, and he reluctantly lets you go. You walk around his seat to the other side, feeling his gaze following you with a mix of curiosity and concern.

You climb onto his lap again, this time facing the other direction. As you settle back into his hold, his strong arm wraps around you from the opposite side. “I’m more comfortable facing this way,” you whisper, feeling a sense of relief wash over you when Jungkook visibly relaxes at your words. He shifts into a more comfortable position himself, and the soothing purr resumes. 

Resting your hand on his chest, you inhale his scent. The whole ship carries his scent, but this close, it’s far more intense and comforting. He smells like what you imagine home should be. You watch his markings pulse in time with the heartbeat you feel beneath your fingertips, each beat confirming your past assumption. Without the fear that usually clouds your judgment, you trace every line of his markings with your eyes, appreciating their intricate beauty.

You know you're being naive, perhaps even reckless, but the comfort you feel from the promise he made is too precious to dismiss. Deciding to savour this peaceful moment for as long as it lasts, you gather all your courage. Your curiosity gets the better of you, and you ask in a tentative voice, “Why do you have different markings?”

The purring stops, and Jungkook takes a deep breath, the sigh he releases resonating loudly in your ear. You brace yourself for a negative reaction, but it doesn’t come. Instead, he begins to explain. “Are you familiar with Nepturea Nova?” he asks, and you shake your head. “A long time ago,” he continues, “an ancient prophecy was etched into the sacred stones of the Temple of Luminescence. The prophecy spoke of a time when Nepturea Nova would face a great darkness, threatening to engulf the entire planet. It foretold the coming of a chosen Nepturian, whose markings would differ from all others, symbolising a unique connection to the core energy of Nepturea Nova. This chosen one would be the key to harnessing the planet’s true power and restoring balance.”

Jungkook falls silent, letting you process what he's said. The information is overwhelming, raising more questions than it answers. “And you’re the chosen one?” you ask, your voice trembling slightly.

He hums in response, tensing even more as if he's afraid of your next question or how you’ll react. “And how are you supposed to restore Nepturea Nova’s balance?” you probe further. Jungkook's tension increases, and his markings pulse more rapidly. You lean away from him, searching his eyes that now avoid yours, staring instead at the vast emptiness outside the spaceship. His gaze mirrors conflict and a hint of fear, making you uneasy.

“Jungkook?” you call his name, desperate for the truth rather than being blindsided by it. He clears his throat and finally explains, “The prophecy also mentioned a being from beyond the stars, one who would share a powerful bond with the chosen Nepturian. With me. This being was described in terms that could only be understood as human.”

Panic sets in, and you scramble off his lap, fear clouding your judgment. Jungkook hurries to explain, but his words only send you into overdrive. “According to the prophecy, this human would be essential to unlocking the full potential of the chosen one and the energy of Nepturea Nova.” You bolt from the cockpit, your mind racing with the fear that Jungkook needs to sacrifice you for his planet. You were right not to trust him all along.

Jungkook calls your name, his footsteps echoing as he chases after you. You try to reach your room before he can catch you, but just as you're a few meters away, his next words halt you in your tracks. “You’re my mate! That’s the bond!”

Your breathing is heavy as you slowly turn around, your hands shaking uncontrollably. Jungkook stops at a distance away, his shoulders slumped in defeat. He repeats softly, his heart broken on his tongue, “You’re my mate,___. I’ll protect you for infinity.”

The weight of his words sinks in, and though fear still grips your heart, there's a part of you that yearns to believe him. In the vast emptiness of space, amidst the remnants of your shattered world, perhaps this bond is the anchor you've been desperately seeking.

Months slip by as you and Jungkook traverse the galaxies, each day blurring into the next in a kaleidoscope of starlight and shared moments. At first, you weren't sure whether to trust Jungkook with his revelation of the prophecy and your supposed role as his mate. The idea seemed far-fetched, a desperate myth clinging to the remnants of a world you barely understood. But Jungkook, true to his word, gave you all the space you needed. He never pressed, never forced, responding only to your needs with a patience that slowly melted away your fear.

As the days turned into weeks, you found yourself seeking him out more often, drawn to the comfort and safety he provided. You began to spend more and more time on his lap, the place that had come to symbolise your sanctuary. Conversations flowed easier between you, his deep voice a constant balm to your frazzled nerves. Each exchange chipped away at the trauma you carried, and with every passing day, your trust in Jungkook grew stronger. You reflected often on the feelings blossoming within you—wondering if they were born from the safety he provided or if they were simply a byproduct of your circumstances. But even if it was a kind of Stockholm syndrome, you found you didn’t care. Jungkook was attractive, caring, and protective—more than you ever could have hoped for. As the days shot by like the stars outside your ship, you let your emotions flow freely, accepting your fate as it would come.

One late evening, after leaving the bustling planet of Targulais, you find yourself once again nestled on Jungkook’s lap. The sense of safety you feel with him extends beyond the confines of the ship. Whenever you venture out, he never lets you out of his sight, his imposing stature and the species he is, warding off any potential threats. 

Tonight, you are both enjoying a kebab-like dish, its spicy aroma filling the small space. You hold yours with both hands, struggling to keep its contents from spilling, while Jungkook handles his with one hand, the oversized food looking like a mere snack in his grasp. You know you’ll be full after just a few bites, a fact that always delights Jungkook as he happily devours your leftovers.

“I assume we’re not bonded yet,” you say, looking up at his profile. “How do Nepturians bond?”

Your question blindsides him, causing him to cough violently. You pat his back, your small hand likely feeling like a feather to him than real help. Once he manages to clear his throat, he simply replies, “Sex.”

A tiny “oh” escapes your lips, and you both resume eating as if nothing unusual has been said. When Jungkook finishes his kebab, you hand him the remains of yours, which he accepts with barely concealed glee, a smile lighting up his face that makes your heart melt.

“What if I don’t want to have sex?” you ask after he swallows the last of only two bites he used. 

Jungkook shrugs. “We don’t bond. It doesn’t matter to me.”

You lean away rom him, searching his face. “What about Nepturea Nova?”

His big hand begins to run soothing circles on your back, and if you could purr, you would. “You’re more important to me,” he says, his tone and eyes filled with sincerity that takes your breath away. He searches your face for any reaction, and for a moment, you are too shocked to respond. Just as his hand reaches up to touch your face, you gather all your courage, cup his face with both your tiny hands, and kiss him softly.

It is your first true kiss with anyone, unforced and mutual, filled with positive emotions. Jungkook responds immediately, his touch on your face and back delicate and loving. When you break away and look into his eyes, they shine brighter than all the suns you have ever seen.

“I love you for infinity,” he whispers.

Your throat tightens, unable to voice your feelings yet as verbally as he does. But you know, and he knows too. It is enough. You are enough.

Barely a week passes when you find yourself not just sitting on, but straddling Jungkook's lap. Your first kiss days ago had become the catalyst for your deepening desire. His tongue dances softly in your mouth, the gentle stubble on his upper lip grazing your nose as your breaths mingle with the slight moans escaping you both. Jungkook's purr forms a soothing backdrop, intensifying your longing for him. 

Your hands trace the muscles of his torso, his defined shoulders, and his strong arms, his marks that pulse steadily with his grounding heartbeat. His pecs are firm under your fingers, the vibrations of his purr noticeable.

You've been kissing and grinding against each other for the past hour, as if he were your oxygen and you his. You're soaked at this point and don't want to stop. As you reach the hem of his shirt, he stops your hands and breaks the kiss. Panting, Jungkook asks, "Are you sure?"

You nod, trying to kiss him again and resume undressing him, but he stops you once more. "Are you really, really sure?"

You scan his face, noting the fear and doubt in his eyes. But you are certain—you want this, you want him, and you want to be bonded for life with him.

Smiling, you place your hand on his cheek, stroking his cheekbone as you take a breath and finally say, "I love you for infinity, too."

Tears of joy collect in Jungkook's eyes as he crashes his lips onto yours. With one swift movement, he lifts you in his arms. You giggle with a small yelp, not having expected the move, but immediately cross your ankles behind his waist and wrap your arms around his neck. As you get lost again in the sweet taste of his mouth and the soft feel of his blue hair, Jungkook carries you to his room and gently lays you on his bed, crawling over you.

He kisses his way up your body, over your clothes, his big, veiny hands tracing your shape. They start kneading your breasts as his purr intensifies. You moan softly when he kisses and licks your neck, so gently, not daring to leave marks on your sensitive skin. 

"Tell me if I hurt you too much, love," he whispers.

You breathe a "yes" as Jungkook slowly undresses himself and then you. He's gorgeous-muscular, strong, and breathtaking. His girthy, long cock stands proud and leaking before his abdomen, pulsating veins running up to its angry red tip, contrasting with his blueish skin. The sight of his tight balls makes a wave of arousal spill out of you onto the sheets, which causes Jungkook's eyes to snap to your weeping hole. You don't feel ashamed at all, his hungry, loving eyes scaling your confidence to another level.

"You're so beautiful," Jungkook breathes out as he lowers his towering form to your cunt, taking a long, slow lick of your juices. He takes his time, eating you out as if savouring every drop. It's the best sensation you've ever had, his tongue strong and heavy within your walls, stretching you out. You know you're near when the purring starts to vibrate on his tongue and his big fingers play with your pearl.

He moves to his knees, looking at you with hooded, lust-filled eyes, his cock bouncing from want and his fingers scissoring your hole. You come undone, squirting all over the bed, his hand, and his cock.

"Fucking hell, __. You're a goddess. Fuck!" Jungkook moves over you, kissing you deeply while continuing to finger you, swallowing every moan you give him. "I need to bond with you. Please let me bond with you."

"Yes, Jungkook. I need you. Please claim me." You run your hands through his soft hair and across his big, muscular back. His muscles flex as he adjusts his leaking head to your entrance.

"Tell me if it hurts, love," he breaths.

You nod, pushing your hips up to signal you're ready. Jungkook pushes forward, his head entering you with a little resistance despite your soaking wetness. He moans loudly as he pushes inch by inch into your tight hole, your walls greedily swallowing him with pulsating urgency.

"You're so tight," Jungkook presses out, his face contorted with the effort to control his instincts. Your walls flutter at his words, taking them as a compliment. When he's finally balls deep, you let out an elongated moan.

Your cunt can't stop fluttering, wanting all of him. He starts slowly pushing back and forth until it gets easier to move. 

You learn he's vocal, moaning and grunting melodically with every push. It spurs you on, kissing him more lovingly, moving with him to give him as much pleasure as he's giving you. He caresses every inch he can reach, his tall build enveloping you, making you feel tiny but oh so powerful.

When your moans increase in volume and you feel euphoria vibrating in your veins, Jungkook picks up the pace, pushing his cock into your leaking cunt over and over. The squelching sound echoes in the room.

"I'm close," he moans. "You sure you want to bond?"

Sweat drops fall from the slope of his nose onto your face, and that alone nearly pushes you over the edge. But you restrain yourself, wanting to come with him so badly.

"Yes!" you nearly scream, wanting him to finally make you his for eternity.

"Yes!" you nearly scream, wanting him to finally make you his for eternity.

Your name leaves his lips in a moan as he finally comes undone. The sight is mesmerising—his eyebrows knit together, his eyes squinting barely open, watching you with unrestrained love. His big cock pulses, his seed filling your cunt as it sucks him further inside, milking him for all he's worth.

"Jungkook," you moan as euphoria overtakes you in an intensity you've never experienced before. It's like meeting him at the bottom of the ocean, where time is frozen and only you and he exist. You feel his knot grow inside you, making you moan and come a third time as Jungkook pants and moans above you.

His markings start to pulsate violently, switching their colour from white-blue to all the colours of the rainbow. He looks ethereal, and you can't stop coming down from your high; the sight is too overwhelming. Jungkook tries to pump the knot a bit further inside you while moaning just as uncontrollably as you.

Then, all the scars littering your body from a time you accepted to forget, start to shine in the same colours as his markings. They dance around your body, transforming to match Jungkook's. He looks down at you, full of love and fulfilment.

"I love you for infinity," he smiles as his cock and knot soften inside you. 

"I love you for infinity," you echo, knowing that in this moment, everything is as it should be.

01 • 02 • MASTERLIST

a/n 2: thank you so much for reading! lmk what you think - also: drabble requests and character asks are open

Like what you read? You can find more here!

All Rights Reserved © @runariya 2024

[acourtofsnakes]

Desolation - Freefall, Chapter 4 || The Bad Batch x Jedi!Reader

Summary: Can you always trust a Force vision? Knowing what Anakin saw of his mother, you've always believed in them. But the things you see... They might just be the end of you.

Warnings: 18+, TBB Season 2 finale spoilers, extensive injuries, descriptions of drugs, blood, falls, canon violence and weapons, swearing, nicknamed reader (Ghost)

A/N: A good chunk of this chapter will describe in detail the events of the finale. I wrote this chapter shortly after watching it and needed to get that emotion out somewhere. I am more than happy to send an edited version without those scenes, just shoot me a message✨

Series Masterlist | Series Playlist

Now

During your time with the boys, you had never felt a hand of violence. Never seen anger in their eyes, never seen them look upon you in disgust or confusion. You had never watched their expression glaze over when you went on an infodump about something, and they never rolled their eyes when you struggled to explain the howling storm inside your head and chest. 

Even after everything, Crosshair never laid a hand in you with the intention to hurt. Ever. 

There may have been fury in his eyes sometimes but there was never violence toward you. 

Not from any of them. 

Not like now. 

Your body screamed, howled with agony every time your heart struggled to beat, to push blood around your shattered form. 

Every breath was a mixture of fires hotter than Mustafar, ice colder than Hoth and lightning fiercer than Kamino. As if someone was pouring jet fuel into your lungs and setting it ablaze.

You didn’t feel the cold anymore though, so that was something. 

Everything was a drug fuelled haze, the very life, the Force, in you choked and restrained, leaving you shaking, numb, cut off from the world and the living energy of everything. 

It was like being in a pit in the darkest, deepest corner of the Galaxy. 

Of course, there were days where you were in somewhere just like that. 

Not a pi though, but a box. 

A coffin, almost. They’d found it in the rubble of the Clone War, copied its designs and commissioned a handful to be made for moments like this. 

If it could hold Darth Maul, it could hold you.

That’s what they said. 

You’d never be able to break out of that, regardless of your power being up by what Anakin’s used to be. 

Don’t worry about her, she’s too weak to be a threat. Not anymore. 

Were you still a threat? 

You didn’t know now. 

You flexed your fingers as much as you could, feeling the dried blood crack on your skin, thick and itchy. 

They hadn’t bothered to clean you off before they hauled you in here, the screams of their brethren still echoing from your loss of control, the moment where you snapped and let that beast rage free. 

I let it out, Crosshair. 

But you weren’t there to see it. 

None of you were. 

The liquid they pumped into you felt heavy in your veins, sick, wrong. It dragged through your body, leaving it icy cold and numb. The force presence in your soul was limp, whimpering in agony from the effects of the cage, so ravaged that it couldn’t even alert you to the fact this drug was poison of the worst kind, chugging slowly towards your brain. 

It was slow enough that you felt it, felt the way it left nothing behind, dragging the life from your body so delicately, so painfully that it was as if you felt every single limb go dead and weak. 

You were effectively paralysed, lungs feeling like duracrete was being poured into them, each breath like shallow fire. 

It slowed down your heart, so slowly you swore you could hear each tendon and muscle pushing blood that was too thick and too cold into unresponsive veins.

Then it reached your mind.

It paused, as if assessing where to begin but then it tore through your mental shields, destroying you so potently from within that you were out cold in less than a second, flung into a heavy oblivion that weighed in from all sides, stuffing down your throat and ears, strangling you within your own body, leaving you defenceless and subservient as that crackling, thundering fight dragged out of you in an instant.

~~

You were crushed in that awful place for what felt like forever yet no time at all, for then you were dumped into the middle of a storm, the sky roaring in fury, crashing, echoing like it was trying to come apart as harsh lightning forked across the sky with enough power to make the hairs on the back of your neck stand on end.

Then you were knocked sideways between one blink and the next, suddenly on a traincart hundreds and hundreds of feet in the air. It was rocking heavily side to side, that sickening screech of metal protesting as it barely hung on. 

Bright, searing bolts shot past on all sides, whizzing through the air from the TIE fighters advancing in relentless waves. 

It was clear that luck was not on the boy's side, even though you flung your hands out to try and deflect the bolts. But nothing happened. Nothing. 

“Hunter!!! Hunter, we need to get this cart moving, they’re going to swarm us.” You looked around frantically for something, anything to help… Yet Hunter didn’t respond. He just kept firing, like he hadn’t heard you. 

That was weird. 

You frowned at the side of his face, drawing your sabers and you lifted them to try and deflect this way - but the shots went straight through. 

It’s like… Like you weren’t here. 

Present yet invisible. 

Confusion clouded your mind until a memory surfaced from the fog, one of Anakin, frantically pacing in front of you, sandy hair in wild disarray as he recounted the dreams he had been having of his mother, how he was there with her but could do nothing. 

Visions, brought forward through the force, sometimes seconds in advance, sometimes right in that moment. 

Which meant whilst you were here, bound and gagged in a beskar box, your boys were fighting for their lives. 

And you could do nothing to help. 

There were no words for the terror you were feeling, side by side with Hunter as he fought for his life, shooting down TIE fighters with nothing but his blasters, but for every single fighter that fell from the sky, another took its place, battering the cart with relentless shots. 

“Hurry up, Tech!!!” Wrecker’s strained voice rumbled from somewhere behind you, and you spun round to see Omega and Wrecker hovering at the end of the card, Wrecker’s hands wrapped around the very framework of the adjoining one and his muscles rippling as he fought to keep it stable. 

But then that meant…

Your heart dropped somewhere to the ground below, and you raced across the cart, the debris causing you no trouble as you simply passed through it like a phantom. Thankfully, that would mean your weight couldn’t shift anything, because…

Because what you saw over Wrecker’s shoulder was enough to churn your stomach and rip away every single breath and coherent thought you had. 

Tech was dangling below the destroyed cart, his grappling line looped around the frame as he pulled himself up as quick as he could, one hand over the other, up up up but it felt like he was gaining no ground, still stuck in the same place as another wave of attacks rattled the entire structure. Metal screeched and rumbled, the sound tearing through your limbs because there was only one way this thing was going to end.

Omega sobbed, dancing on her feet behind Wrecker, her bow drawn in readiness but the tears building in her eyes were going to make any target a blurry mess. You would know, you felt the same. “Come on, Tech, just a little more, you have to hurry!!” The fear in her words was so potent, so raw that it caused a sob to wrack in your chest and you looked down at Tech, wishing you could be there, could be truly beside these boys so you could help.

You could have had him up now, safe, all of them safe. 

“I can’t keep them back for much longer, there’s too many of them!!” For the first time in the entire time you knew him, there was panic in Hunter’s words, a franticness that was so different to his usual composure. 

It was like that moment in a bad dream, the second right before you fell, that one moment where primal instinct told you that you couldn’t make it. That nothing you did would get you out of this. 

Tech looked over his shoulder at the rising attacks, the whir and hum of more fighters approaching, the onslaught of enemy fire becoming something that would be impossible to fight, even if you had been there with sabers in hand, “Wrecker, you must take Omega and Hunter and leave me, get back to Echo. Now!” 

No, no no no no no - you knew that tone. You’d heard that tone from so many of your friends, so many of your loved ones over the years. And it always ended in agony. 

“No.” Wrecker’s snarl was more animal than human, violent almost in its outright intense refusal. “Don’t you dare. That’s an order, Tech.” 

Omega was choking on sobs now, trying to get past Wrecker but he was managing to block her as well as hold onto the bars, “Tech no, please!! Please don’t do this, you can get up, you can do it!” She threw her bow to the side, ducking underneath Wrecker’s arm and she flung her own out into open space, “Here! Take my hand, take it!! I can pull you up - please Tech!” Her body was hanging far too close over the edge, and Wrecker shifted, his boot coming across to in front of her knees, bracing her but he made no moves to stop her - he couldn’t. 

Tech slowly looked up, his honey eyes heavy and weighted. Knowing. “When have we ever followed orders, Wrecker?” He sounded weary, as if… As if he’d already accepted what was to happen. He lifted his hand, his blaster nestled between his fingers and he took aim at the bolts holding the cart to the line, his aim as sure as Crosshair’s, as calculated and perfect. “Bring Ghost home safe.” 

And then if in slow motion, his finger squeezed down on the trigger, the blaster bolt cutting through the air, through your heart. 

Time sped up again and your silent scream tore through your body, helpless to be heard or to help, yet echoed by Wrecker’s roar of anguish as the structure slipped through his palms, cutting deep. 

Omega’s mirroring scream as both Tech and the cart fell, his eyes drifting to the space where you were, widening for a second as if he could see you there. 

~

Before you could do anything, you were flung sideways, everything going black before it exploded into colour again, damp clouds flashing past your vision, the sickening sense of every organ, every drop of blood being propelled the opposite way as your body hurtled toward the ground with unstoppable force.

You were in Tech’s body.

It was only when the clouds, smoke and debris blocked his vision that he allowed himself a cry of fear, instantly snatched away by the wind, his breath coming in short, sharp pants. 

Through the haze of terror in his brain, he frantically tried to think of a way out of this, think of something he could do, something he could use to stop his fall and get back to his brothers - but he came up empty. There was nothing. He couldn’t do anything.

He could only watch the display through his visor, the number of feet dropping so quickly that the symbols were a blur as the ground came racing up toward him. 

At least he managed to save his brothers, give them the chance they needed to escape, to get to you and save you. 

Bring you home, finally.

A sense of peace washed over him, washed over you, the pair of you spinning through the air, down, down, down. 

When his descent dropped into triple figures, he closed his eyes. A single breath, drawn in, filling his lungs, his last image not that of the debris rushing down to meet him, but of his family. 

All of his brothers, together, laughing with Omega. 

Of you, in the middle, laughing with your head tipped back and not an inch of a stormcloud weighing down on any of you. 

Double figures.

Then single.

Then… Nothing.

He was gone. 

~

Yet, if you thought this vision would end there, you were so very wrong. 

Now, you were in Hunter’s body, silence raging in his head above the chaos of battle around him, because he could no longer hear his brother’s rapid heartbeat. 

He heard the impact, the thud of bone on duracrete, the screech of metal - a cacophony of sounds that would hound him for the rest of his days. 

He couldn’t think. 

Couldn’t do anything.

Tech was gone, he was dead, and he could do nothing to stop it. 

He had failed his brothers, and he had failed you.

He wasn’t a leader, and he never would be. 

A leader wouldn’t let their family die. 

Seconds flew past, maybe hours and you were suddenly with Hunter, Omega, Echo and Wrecker, into the parlour. 

The very still, very quiet parlour.  

Empty. 

Desolate. 

Like a literal ghost, you travelled through the Force alongside Hunter, as he knocked on the door to a back room and entered. 

Omega was sitting up in the cot inside, hugging Lula to her chest, tears still tracking silently down her bruised cheeks.

Whatever had happened in the latest vision jump had caused her injuries as well, scrapes on her arms too. Something else that ripped guilt through him, and you. 

“Tell me this is all a dream, Hunter.” Omega’s voice was so torn, so broken as she looked at Lula’s face, hands squishing her plush body, “Tell me none of this is real and I’ll wake up and everyone will still be here.” 

Hunter swallowed, his eyes squeezing shut for a second, pain evident in every line of his body, “I’ve been thinking. Maybe it’s time we stop fighting and… rest.” Even now, the words felt foreign in his mouth, “The time we had on Pabu, it was what we all needed, I think.” He looked down at his hands, hanging loosely between his spread thighs, “We’re going to clear things up officially with Cid, then head there. To stay. Be a.. Be a family.” 

Omega’s lower lip trembled again, a sob breaking free and her little body bowed forward over her knees, crushing Lula to her chest, “A family? Half of our family is gone, Hunter.” Her words were almost indistinguishable through her sobs, pain that a child should never feel, even though technically, she was older than them.

But without the accelerated ageing, she was still a child. And despite how well she kept up, she wasn’t a soldier. 

Hunter’s face collapsed, his back straightening as he watched her crumble, his own eyes glassy and he whispered, near silently, “I really wish you were here, Ghost.” He shuffled over on the bed, winding an arm around Omega’s shoulders, and then coaxing her into his chest. 

You were almost expecting it this time, being going through the Force, but it was only a few metres now. 

The main parlour, only an hour later by the looks of the dusty chrono on the wall. 

Wrecker looked up from his slumped over position at the bar, their usual table too painful and too full of memories, “She okay?” His voice was devoid of its usual fervour, his usual energy sapped from him. 

From your space across the parlour, you could see the anguish etched on his face. 

He was the strong one of the team, the literal muscle that always forced their way through any situation where delicacy didn’t work. 

He was the one holding the train cart. 

He should have been strong enough. 

He should have saved Tech. 

Hunter shook his head, pausing in the middle of the parlour, at a loss at where to put himself, “No. Not at all.” He sighed, head ducking down to stare at the floor, his hands curling into fists, “I don’t know how to make this right, Wrecker. We were supposed to save Ghost. We were supposed to get Crosshair back. We weren’t supposed to…” 

Wrecker turned on his stool, facing Hunter and by theory, you. “This wasn’t your fault, Hunter. This…” He sighed, slumping even more, “It just went wrong.” 

Hunter opened his mouth, but he froze, the hairs on the back of his neck standing up again with sluggish warning. 

But, yet again, for what seemed to be the hundredth time lately… he was too slow. 

The parlour was filled with the unwelcome sound of swift feet marching in, controlled and precise footsteps, the clatter of armour plates against one another. 

The doorways were suddenly choked with the imposing presence of the Commando’s, their visors glowing the dim white-blue that was a painful reminder of your sabers. 

Wrecker was off his stool in an instant, his rage and pain fuelling him as he leapt for the closest handful despite the brace around his neck. 

“Wrecker!!!” Hunter lunged for his brother, yanking his blade free but more Commandos came flooding in, cutting them off from each other. 

He too engaged with the closest enemy, delivering a swift blow to the Commando’s arm, causing him to drop his weapon and allowing Hunter to plunge his blade between the armour on his chest and helmet. 

Yet again, you were helpless, watching the battered remnants of your family fight for the lives mere hours after they’d been ripped apart looking for you. 

You had no idea where Echo had gotten to, or if Omega was okay, pinned helpless in this vision like a butterfly. 

Wreckers grunts and growls echoed under the blast of weapons, the crashing of furniture as bodies and blasts flew into it. 

But the boys were broken, inside and out. 

They were injured. 

Their usual deadly precision was tipping closer to a frantic desperation, clawing at escape and defence rather than their unbreakable offensive manoeuvres. 

Everything blurred to sound and colour before Wrecker’s roar of agony shattered the cacophony, his body being pulled to the ground by the stinging clash of a dozen stuns, forcing him to his knees whilst restraints were slapped on him.

Hunter’s head whipped toward him, his growl of anguish swallowed as he too was taken down with a vicious punch to the head, leaving him reeling and collapsing to one knee. 

“Stop fighting, Sergeant. Or your brother joins the rest of them.” The Commando holding Wrecker jammed a blaster into the side of his head, safety flicked off and finger hovering over the trigger. 

But the thing is, Wrecker didn’t even try and fight. At full strength, he could have easily overpowered them… But he just stayed there. Back slumped over, head hanging as low as his brace would allow him. There was no fight left in his body, no spark. 

He’d given up. 

Hunter snarled at the Commando, fighting against the hands working to pull his arms behind his back, hair falling in his wild eyes, teeth bared. 

He was an injured animal on the back foot, desperately trying to protect his broken pack, to tear apart the enemy and hold onto whatever semblance of safety they had left. 

You were forced to watch as Hunter was restrained, a hand gripping the back of his head, forcing it down toward the ground. His eyes flickered as another set of footsteps appeared behind you, revulsion written clear on Hunter’s face. 

Yet that wasn’t what scared you. 

What terrified you the most was what you felt in his signature. 

Guilt and pain so potent it nearly choked you, fury that could rival the fires of your own, bitter desperation, but underneath all that? 

The faintest trace of hopelessness and fear. 

~

Before you could try and help to no avail, the edges of your vision started to blur and you felt the overarching suffocation of that previous darkness. 

The vision was coming to an end, muffling your ears so all you caught were the faint snippets of words. 

“A shame about your brothers.”

“-Could do nothing to help them.”

Omega’s scream of fear, so young, so helpless. 

“-Broken promises.” 

“-found your brother outside.” “-killed him, of course. I have no use for clones who aren’t whole and CT-one-four-oh-nine should have died a long time ago.” 

Oh stars, no, Echo. He was… No no no no. 

Hunter and Wrecker’s combined roars of anguish. 

The hissing spark of them being stunned. 

With a scream that echoed in your own mind, you tried to swim back through that oppressive shroud, needing to hear, needing to know - 

“-We caught him helping you. Warning you.”

“…such behaviour cannot be condoned, of course. He might have been useful but he was a traitor. First to you, then to the Empire.” 

“A waste of a good soldier and sniper, but necessary.” 

Crosshair was gone too. 

It was too much, too much to bear. 

The vision was nearly fading, your family falling apart one by one, and right before your head broke the surface, you heard blaster shots. 

Three of them, the impression of their fire like muted lightning in oblivion. 

Three shots, for three remaining members of your family. 

Then silence. 

There was no relief when reality came flooding back by way of the cage. 

The agony was too raw, too potent, too fucking suffocating. It wrapped beskar hands around your throat and restricted, it ripped your heart and lungs from your chest. 

It tore through you with a pain unlike anything you’d ever felt before. You’d lost your family. You’d lost your friends after the Order, and that almost broke you. But you didn’t see that. You were with the boys. Your boys. Family. 

And you just watched them die. 

You just watched them die and you weren’t there to save them. You could have. You could have stopped Tech falling. You could have stopped Hunter from losing control for the first time and Wrecker being used as bait. Crosshair wouldn’t be dead trying to protect them and Echo wouldn’t have been shot outside, alone. And Omega…

You were supposed to save each other, that's what you did, you looked after one another and fought anyone who tried to change that. 

The hands pulling you from the cage felt simultaneously like fire, burning your skin, your bones, making you want to rip them off yet you also couldn’t feel them. 

You couldn’t feel anything except this pain, this agony and fury and rage that you couldn’t save them, building up and up and up. 

The pressure in the room filled too, the air becoming charged, zapping and pinging against people's skin but they passed it off as an off-charge from the cage. 

Fools. 

Their clipped words to put you back in your cell, restrain you until you gained consciousness fell against your body and to the ground uselessly.

Falling. 

When do we ever follow orders? 

He was right. 

Something snapped. That energy, the link to the rest of the world came roaring back to life, almost knocking you back.

With a hoarse scream that was more tortured animal, more tortured beast of vengeance than human, you exploded. 

Force-fuelled lightning crackled out from your fingertips, from your feet, your eyes, everywhere. It burst from you like you were the centre of a galaxy-shattering storm, filling the room with its blinding white glow, shorting out the electronics. 

The sparking, forked tips found their purchase in the scientists surrounding you, burrowing under armour and helmets to bare skin, to vital organs and frying them from the inside out. 

You fell to your knees, fingers scrabbling on the ground as you vowed an unbreakable promise to the galaxy, to the Maker, that you would make every single person suffer, find every single one who’d ever hurt your family, your boys, and you’d rip them to shreds. 

Then you’d join your family. 

Tears streaked your face in an endless torrent, chest caving open and you were still sparking and exploding like a star, so you were helpless to notice the gas filling the room, the polished boots suddenly inches from your face. 

You didn’t even feel the disturbance in the force, the vile poison spreading through the room and making the life energy itself recoil. 

“Well, this is just fascinating, isn’t it?” 

That voice. That voice saying his words. 

That quiet, silken, sick voice that stole along the corridors of this facility, more monster than anything. 

Everything was growing hazy and dark, your senses screaming at you that there was something wrong with the air, something tainted and foul but it was lost to the pool of darkness, sinking to the bottom like rocks. 

His boot moved to tuck under your chin, forcing your head to lift from the ground and for your tear-filled eyes to meet his unnaturally blue ones, one half of his face in shadow. 

Hemlock smirked at you, face full of violent delight even as his workers smouldered and smoked around him, and you snarled at him, ““I had a feeling that would work. Now, let’s get to it, shall we?”

He removed his foot as quickly as he’d lifted your head, causing your chin to smash into the floor and your teeth to sink into your lip. 

You couldn’t move, couldn’t breath, couldn’t think. 

It was almost a relief to succumb to the gas in the air and drown in the dark again.  

Hunter jerked awake, that sense of other pulling him from slumber, telling him to get up, that there was danger. 

He lifted his head from the bunk, finding his hand curled around his blade already, yet the Marauder was silent. As always. 

They were in the middle of hyperspace, so the chances of danger were few and far between - but you never know. 

He swung his legs over the side of the bed, sitting up and he paused for a second, just to listen. 

Nothing. Just the sounds of his brother's breathing. And Wrecker’s snoring.

Yet he couldn’t shake it, the ripple down his back, the tightness to his skin. 

It was a cold breath along the back of his neck, a flutter in the air around him, something deeper than a gut feeling. 

His fingers tapped along the hilt of his blade before he sheathed it, the faint sing of metal providing a small pocket of calm but he was too agitated, too wound up. 

Waiting. 

Something was inherently wrong, but it was nothing here, nothing he could see or touch. But it was there. 

He rose from the bed, moving through the ship on silent footsteps, keen eyes roaming the dark recesses and shadows, checking everywhere even though he knew.

He knew deep down what this was, what had pulled him from his slumber. 

As he passed out of the bunk area, his gaze snagged on the fact there was an empty bed - another empty bed. 

Hunter moved through to the front of the ship, the glimmering lights of hyperspace casting a cobalt glow over everything, softening the instruments and chairs, the metal hull. He’d often wake up in the middle of the night and find you here, cross legged on the floor, just watching out the windows as the galaxy flew past. Sometimes you were looking for Purrgils, other times you were lost to memories that he didn’t want to break you out of, so he would just sit by you, his foot resting against your leg to let you know he was still here. 

Right now though, it wasn’t you seated in the empty cockpit, it was Echo. 

He was leaning forward, elbows on his thighs and his head in his hands, apparently lost to memories too. His foot tapped absently on the floor, and it was that agitated movement that told Hunter that he wasn’t the only one who felt this disturbance.

“You felt it too.” Hunter sat down in the pilot’s chair, spinning it round to face Echo, his agitation clear as day and humming in the air. 

Echo lifted his eyes to Hunter, then his head, his pale golden eyes shadowed, swallowed up by memories that Hunter couldn’t fix. You were the only one who had that ability, you and Rex alone. “Back when I was an Arc Trooper, with Ghost… She’d have these moments.” He hesitated, as if he didn’t feel right sharing this information. But he wasn’t blind, he saw the connection you had with Hunter, knew that he was probably somewhat aware, “Moments where… where everything built up inside her. She used to say it felt like pressure, like something waiting to snap.” 

His eyes were glazed still, moving to stare unseeingly at some point in the corner. 

Hunter half mirrored Echo’s position, leaning over, forearms on his thighs and his hands dangling between as he willed his body to be still, despite that humming agitation, “Like she has now?” He refused to talk in the past tense when referring to you. 

Echo nodded faintly, his hand curling into a fist and then relaxing, “Being a Jedi Commander, she had to muffle it, learn to not let it control her and to let it go. She would try mediation, but we could see it in her eyes when it was threatening to swallow her.” He barely blinked, entire body rigid, “Rex would try and help her the way he helped General Skywalker sometimes, but it wasn’t enough. Something else was battling her, the rage from losing her family, the fact she never quite fit in…” Now he moved, ducking his head to stare at his scomp with a tense jaw. 

Hunter watched his friend, his brother, almost seeing the memories hovering around him, the battle going on in his mind but he stayed quiet, letting Echo take his time and talk. He’d learnt that from Rex. Sometimes being a leader meant knowing when to back off. 

His brother sighed softly, brows lowered heavy over his eyes, “I was with her the first time it happened. It was after a hard mission, we lost a lot of men and a couple of Jedi too. That, combined with…” He hesitated, still loyal to his Jedi Commander, even now, “Combined with something.. It triggered her and she just exploded.” He twisted his scomp side to side absently, “It was like being in the middle of an electrical storm. There was lightning everywhere, from her hands, her body… It blew across the field and turned half the rubble to ash almost instantly.”

Hunter sat up a little straighter, because they’d all seen the hints of that force lightning, seen you wield it in the most dire situations. 

To him, it was an asset. A weapon you could utilise, something part of you, something… beautiful, actually. 

Yet it had been so ingrained into you that force lightning was wrong, it was a mark of the Sith, that you almost always fell victim to guilt, frustration and endless darkness afterwards.  

Echo was still talking, “It didn’t hurt me though.. She never hurt me.” He touched a hand to his chest, palm splaying out over it, “But I felt it. I felt a glimmer of her pain in my own chest.” Now he looked at Hunter, his expression one Hunter had never seen before on his brother but he recognised, “And I felt it again tonight. And I know you felt something too.” 

He looked at Echo quietly for a second, denial coating his tongue like acid, then he swallowed, his own fists curling up on his thighs, “We don’t know that, we don’t know that there’s something wrong.” 

There couldn’t be. Because if they’d both felt it, if Hunter’s senses had felt it from wherever you were… You weren’t just in pain or in danger. 

You were in utter turmoil. 

Echo opened his mouth to argue, but he was cut off by the scuff of boots, and Tech’s voice, “Neither of you are wrong, Hunter.” He walked into the cockpit, doing a double take at Hunter in his spot. His fingers twitched on his datapad, gloves flexing but he kept walking anyway, pressing a few buttons in the instrument panel, “My scanners picked up a significant disturbance in the force at the same time you both felt something.” 

Hunter blinked a few times, looking up at the side of Tech’s head, “You’ve been monitoring the force? How is that even possible?” He paused, “Why didn’t you tell us?” This last question was more a demand, his voice hardening but he couldn’t help it. This was important, something they all should have known. 

Tech glanced at him over his shoulder, his own honey eyes unusually hard, as was the tone in his voice, “Rex.” He stated it so bluntly in response to the first question that it left no room for argument, “To answer your second question, you are all aware that I have been monitoring a number of data points to look for Ghost. I did not realise I would need to give you an extensive list.” That bite, the cold tone of his voice told Hunter everything, that they were all dancing on a knife’s edge at what this data meant. 

A shrill beeping cut him off mid-sentence, cutting through the air of the ship like a wounded animal. 

There were footsteps at the door, and then Wrecker’s voice as he reached up to cover his ears, “Aahh!! Make it stop!!” He glared at Tech’s datapad, the source of the sound. “What is that?!” 

Tech frowned for a split second then looked down at the pad, “That would be another alert that I set up to monitor comms chatter.” He tapped a few things, then that frowned returned, “Interesting.” 

The tone of Tech’s voice immediately set Hunter on edge even more, something tiptoeing down his spine, waiting. “Tech.” He tried to keep the irritation and impatience out of his voice, because it wasn’t his brother's fault but he knew something was about to happen, and he’d already made Tech snap at him once. 

“It appears we have been sent a comms message from the Ojoster sector. A planet called Weyland.” He adjusted his goggles, tapping the screen, “I have begun a decoding program on the message.” 

Echo was frowning, looking at Tech but unseeingly, like he was trying to work something out, muttering the name over again. 

Hunter cocked his head, leaning further across his chair again, arms crossed over his chest, “Echo? What is it?” He observed his brother carefully, “You know that name, don’t you? That planet?” 

He shook his head slightly, “I don’t know. It sounds familiar, maybe, but only in a passing comment. I’m sure…” He trailed off, then lifted his head to look at Hunter, something in his eyes.

There was that feeling again, a whisper in the back of his mind, that voice that taunted Hunter with the knowledge he couldn’t grasp yet. “Tech, any chance you can hurry that message up?” Each second was feeling like an eternity, an anxious energy humming through his body, making him want to pace, to run, shoot something, find you. 

Hunter quelled this uncharacteristic franticness, allowing himself a deep, slow breath. 

Rex wouldn’t lose his head over this. He would be calm, efficient. He would gather all of the information and then make his plan. 

Except, as his eyes drifted to Echo again, he remembered a time when Rex was anything but that steady presence of calm. He was almost wild compared to his usual demeanour, desperate even.

Because he knew something wasn’t right and his brother was hurt. 

Just before Hunter thought he might explode out of his skin, Tech straightened, “Here. It’s ready.” He pressed play on the datapad, and Hunter was sure no one missed the way his fingers trembled as they all leant in.

There was a burst of static, an echo, before a voice came over - a droids flat tone, “The storm is coming. I repeat, the storm is coming.”

Nobody moved.

Nobody breathed. 

The comms message plinked and then played from the beginning again those words echoing around the ship and their very souls.

That message was a distress code, a code given to you when you were separated. The Batch had a code for themselves, but this was yours. 

Except that wasn’t what the issue was. 

“Hunter…” Echo was even paler than usual, his golden honey eyes heavy, knowing.

You had never, ever used your distress code. Not even when you were facing down an entire army, not even when your ship was tumbling through space with no engines, no fuel, no brakes.

Not even when you’d been taken from them in an explosion that Hunter still heard in every hour of his waking and sleeping mind. 

So it could only mean one thing.

“It’s a trap.” Even Wrecker’s voice had dropped a level, a similar expression of sickness but growing anger, fury even, that you’d been taken in the first place.

Something rose in Hunter’s chest, a roaring beast of rage, terror, guilt, but above all, fierce protection. That heat seeped through his blood, clearing his head and he yanked his helmet back on with a roll of his shoulders, “Of course it’s a trap. Which means Ghost needs our help more than ever.” He rose from the pilot's chair, a sergeant commanding his army, “Tech, change course from Moraband to Weyland. I want the fastest route there, now. Someone contact Rex and see if he can meet us there.” He turned to face the lights of hyperspace, letting out a breath as he finally realised what those senses were screaming at him, and they finally had a course for you. 

We’re coming, Ghost.

[countlessrealities]

{ @mcltiples & @evilmcg - mentioned }

The end of the call is followed by a long silence. If asked, Morty wouldn't have been able to tell how much time passed, because it feels like a minute and a decade at the same time. The world around him seems to evaporate, leaving behind nothing but paralysing darkness. It's like his body can't move, and yet his mind is working, rushing, whirling, so fast that he can't keep up.

On the other hand, thought, a part of him wonders if there's anything he's supposed to keep up with. After all, what he has just been told makes no sense. It shouldn't make sense, because it should be impossible.

Meg is dead. Killed by that useless bad copy of theirs.

If he were fully honest with himself, he would admit that he doesn't really want to know, and that's why he refuses to glance at the clock once he starts resurfacing from the numb daze he has fallen into. Acknowledging how many minutes have ticked by would mean acknowledging how deeply the news has affected him and he refuses to do it.

He can't accept each and every emotion that's storming in his chest right now. The fury, the bitterness, the jealousy, the thirst for revenge, they are acceptable. It's what he is expected to be feeling. But all the rest? He can't afford those emotions, he can't afford their implications.

Sadness, anguish, grief. And a dark and violent feeling he can't name. The visceral need to rip apart the whole universe because he has been brutally robbed of something that was his.

Gritting his teeth behind sealed lips, Morty takes a slow breath through his nose. He had known that something was off the moment his counterpart had called him. They never speak on the phone unless they have agreed to do so. Usually they text each other. If something is truly important, they show up in person.

This is important, vital even, despite the fact that he would never call it that out loud. And yet, not only his counterpart has chosen not to deliver the news face to face, but he has also told him that they'll see each other in person "soon".

And isn't that a whole different kind of painful grip around his heart. He isn't welcome now, there's no room for him by his other self's side. It's all her, and it makes him think that it will always be now that she's been turned into a tragic leading figure.

As for him, this is the tale showing him that, in spite of what he thought, there has never been a real main role for him in it. There have always been only two, and neither has ever been his.

His grip tightens around the glass of liquor he doesn't remember pouring, but he doesn't realise what he's doing until the sound of glass breaking reaches his ears. The pain of the shards cutting into his palm doesn't register, nor does the wetness of his own blood pouring out on the surface of his desk.

What his mind registers, instead, is the firm grip of cold fingers methodically pulling the fragments out of his flesh, before leaving just to return, mere momenta later, with gauzes for the wounds and a rug for the mess.

"I-I'll clear your schedule for tomorrow," is all Rick's says, once he has performed his tasks.

The hand that has been removing the pieces of glass squeezes lands on the president's shoulder, too tight for comfort, but he knows that it's welcome. This is what Morty needs now. His physical presence, too suffocating to be ignored, and his mind pushing into the teen's, rough enough to feel like a violation.

His Master needs to be grounded, in a way that only Rick can provide, just as he needs to relinquish control to the only person who can be trusted with that. And what his Master wants and needs, Rick never fails to provide.

"L-Let's go."

The boy steps through the portal that has been open, quiet and pliant like a puppet, no questions asks, putting up on resistance against the hand guiding him. Behind him, instead, Rick walks steady and purposeful, gray blue eyes alit with a ice-could blaze where Morty's amber globes are dull and glassy.

Meg's fate in itself doesn't faze him in the least. He has no attachment to her, no interest in her outside what was her role in his owner's life. What sparks his silent, deadly fury is the effect that her death is having on his Morty and it's enough to make him ravenous. Only one thing will quench his copper-flavored hunger: the slow, prolonged sheer agony of the hand behind her murder and, consequentially, behind his Master's pain and torment.

What he craves, he will get, and the third iteration of the president won't be allowed to stop feeling until he has enough. Then, he'll be wiped from existence, back to the nothingness he should have never come out of. Reality will be set right.

Because no one is allow to break his Morty. No one but him.

[ask-healthy-light]

Unfortunately, Sunburst added, though he had received a response from all those to whom he had sent a scroll, it was difficult to say for certain when they were to arrive, and he knew not whether all their trapped friends had much time to spare; but then, Luna quietly spoke up, and calmly added she and Nox would do their best to grant them as much time as possible, chilling Sunburst to his bones.

As Luna and Nox slowly wandered over to the Palace, Eclipse, breaking through their fear using most of their remaining strength, asked the two Princesses to wait a moment, since they doubted that the Royals would listen; and if they were unsuccessful in helping their friends leave the dungeon, they asked them to reach out in another way, or to ask those who were not blocked by a physical barrier.

The Princesses nodded to the scared Alicorn and the terrified Young Wizard next to them, whereafter they set off to the Palace yet again, not stopping until they made it to the first group of Guards, who, feeling a twisted aura around them, stepped aside for the two without a word; and mere moments later, Nox and Luna stood behind Cadance and Shining, but did not even have to announce themselves.

The two Crystal Royals started to feel uneasy, and their legs started to quiver uncontrollably, but they knew not why this was so, until they turned around, suddenly coming face-to-face with Luna and Nox, who did not utter a single word; and they looked around in haste, trying to find any Guard who was not paralysed by fear, but to no avail, as even the Praetorian Guards quivered in their armour.

Even though neither Luna nor Nox had moved a muscle, Cadance and Shining felt their heartbeat rise, and their stomachs fall, before they tried, yet failed, to steady their breathing and their voices, and asked the two what they wanted; and the two calm, yet furious Princesses slowly moved forwards, speaking as if they were stating a fact, telling the Crystal Royals to open the underground prison.

The patience they were shown by the Princesses greatly unnerved Cadance and Shining, who started to repeat what they had told them and others before, claiming they could not open the entrance for the safety of the Empire; but Nox merely shook her head as Luna let out a deep sigh, and told them that their better judgements had failed, since the current threat was trapped, along with their friends.

The threat of whatever Shadow was held down there was present for they knew not how long, yet now they claim that they could not open the entrance again, not even when friends and allies were stuck there along with it; perhaps, Nox added, as she gently put her paw on Cadance's shoulder, which was tense beyond belief, their worries were unfounded, and little more than mere whispers and thoughts.

A short distance beneath where Luna and Nox were speaking with the two Crystal Royals, Celestia was standing before Amethyst and Light with her wings spread, which she slowly lowered as she worriedly looked at the shadowy Pony in front of her; for though the Fallen King's fury was unmistakable, the eyes she saw told her there was more going on, so she stepped back to talk with Amethyst and Light.

Luckily, when Celestia stepped away from the bars, Sombra slowly started to calm down, shrinking in size as the surrounding shadows flowed away, leaving nothing more than a grey figure in the corner, not looking at the trio; but before Celestia could utter a word, Amethyst sweetly took her hoof and warmly thanked her for coming here to help, allowing the gravely concerned Princess to smile again.

But as Celestia embraced Amethyst to further reassure the Old Librarian they would figure out a way to help Star, Light told them the shadowy Pony had turned around, and was silently looking at them, wearing a familiar expression, and kind eyes; and Amethyst kindly asked the grey Pony how they were feeling, as they seemed to have become calm again, to which they quietly replied in a gentle voice:

"It has been so cold… I cannot remember when I last felt such warmth…"

(Thanks for reading! And if you enjoyed, please reblog! Thanks in advance!)

Send an ask or request! | Start at the beginning! | Next part!

Featuring: Nox Lunarwing from @nox-lunarwing Solar Eclipse and Twilight Sparkle as Twilight Eclipse from @asktwilighteclipse And King Sombra from @ex-king-sombra as the Pony behind bars

[stardustloki]

You lied to me

The pilot's name is Luke Skywalker.

His master had told him he had killed Padme, and his unborn child along with her. But could he really be responsible for her death if his son lives?

Or: Darth Vader confronts Sidious. He should perhaps have thought this through a bit more (or, at all).

Read it under the cut or on ao3 here

The pilot responsible for the Death Star’s destruction was called Skywalker.

Luke Skywalker. A perfectly normal name on Tatooine. It shouldn’t matter that Luke was the name he and Padme had agreed on if their child had been a boy. Logically, there were probably quite a few Luke Skywalkers in the galaxy.

And yet.

Your son, the force whispered insistently to him, your son, your son, your son.

He’d managed to hold it together until Fett had left, having been suitably rewarded for bringing him the name of the young man. He didn’t know what had happened after that.

Now it was several days later, and Vader was kneeling before Sidious, in one of their increasingly rare in-person meetings. Since the revelation, his thoughts had had time to settle, twisting themselves into a conclusion he didn’t like, a conclusion that evoked a fire inside him that felt both alien and entirely natural.

Still, he reeled off his monotone report as he always did, and waited for Sidious’s response.

“Something troubles you, Lord Vader.”

The sense of self preservation he’d honed over the years made him slam down his shields. “It is nothing, my master,” he replied hastily, the lie flimsy even to him - he knew he hadn’t been able to keep the bitterness from leaking into the force as he spoke.

“Come now. I would think that after all these years, you would know it wise to voice your thoughts in my presence.”

All these years.

It was these three words that prompted Vader’s next low utterance, his quiet accusation leaving his vocoder before he’d even considered its implications.

“You lied to me.”

And in the silence that echoed, Darth Vader knew that he’d crossed a line, knew that he could never take those words back. It was this knowledge that allowed the feeling inside him, the blazing hot agony of injustice, betrayal and grief, to escape the cold, empty shell of anger that he’d been entombed in these last twenty years.

Anakin Skywalker rose. “You lied to me!”

The sheer fury coursing through him allowed him to brush aside the voice inside him that told him he’d raised his voice at his master, that he’d stood without his permission.

“How dare you?” Anakin demanded. “I trusted you, I trusted you, and you lied to me. You made me think that I’d killed her!”

Sidious stared back at him, impassive, contempt rolling off him through the force. “Those are quite the accusations, Lord Vader. But I’m afraid I have no idea what you are referring to.”

Anakin could kill him. It would be easy.

“You told me I’d killed Padme.”

Sidious chuckled. Anakin could kill him. It was the way of things, wasn’t it? The apprentice killed the master? “By your own admission you strangled her. I fail to see how I have misled you, my apprentice.”

“Padme gave birth to a son, my son, Luke Skywalker. How would she have done that if I’d killed her?” he demanded.

Anakin could kill him. Anakin would kill him. Without giving Sidious a second to sense his intentions, he ignited his lightsaber and-

Click.

Searing agony screamed through his body and he dropped, lightsaber powering off as it hit the floor beside him. He couldn’t move his limbs, he couldn’t move anything, even his mechanical breathing was paralysed. His body begged him to gasp for air, but he couldn’t so much as twitch his throat as the waves of pain coursed through him.

Sidious had done something to his suit, Anakin realised. In between the excruciating haze he tried to reach out with the force, tried to undo whatever his master had done to the panel to cause this, but the force slipped through his grasp, scattering away like sandbugs before a storm.

“You forget your place, Lord Vader,” Sidious told him. Through red lenses, Anakin could see the man towering above where he lay on the floor.

No, he wanted to scream. I forgot it, my place isn’t here. Isn’t serving you. And Darth Vader is what you called me, not who I am. Not now.

“So Amidala survived long enough to give birth to a child, the force-sensitive pilot who destroyed the death star, if I were to hazard a guess. I ask you, Vader, what does this change? When you reached out and wrapped the force around her throat, watched as she begged, choked, suffered. What does that make you?”

His mind cringed away at his words. They couldn’t be true. He didn’t want them to be. He’d loved Padme Amidala with everything he’d had. He’d turned away from everything he’d known, become a sith for her.

He’d felt her life force fade beneath his force grip as she’d cried and struggled. He didn’t remember much from Mustafar, but he knew that he’d wanted her to hurt, wanted her to suffer for betraying him.

His master was right, it changed nothing.

Something clicked in his suit and the agony that had paralysed him vanished, leaving him with an ache that, while much worse than the usual background pain, was bearable. His limbs twitched as they came back online. Breath was forced into his lungs and he started to breathe again.

He felt the presence of Sidious pressing down around him, covering him until that was all he could sense through the force. He didn’t bother putting up shields this time, his master would see what he liked.

“I’m surprised you tried to kill me, surely you remember what happened the last time?” Sidious asked, a mocking hint of the caring, grandfatherly smile on his lips.

The downside to being able to move was that Vader flinched. Sidious smiled wider. Still Vader didn’t attempt to move from where he was. What would be the point?

“What claim do you have to the Skywalker boy, when have you ever been his father?” his master asked lightly.

And Vader would have liked to argue against that, but, unbidden, images of Tatooine flashed through his mind. Don’t look back, slave markets, families separated, children whose blood parent owned both them and their parent. Luke was of Tatooine, he would know the truth too. Having a genetic connection didn’t mean you were family.

Vader wanted him, even so.

“Nevertheless,” Lord Sidious interrupted his swirling thoughts. “You will bring the boy here. He is strong with the force, if he can be trained, he should be.”

Vader pushed aside the part of him, the part that sounded like it was screaming in Padme’s voice, that recoiled from the thought of Luke being near his master. Instead, he settled on the happier thought of having Luke by his side. Perhaps, his son would accept him? Perhaps, they’d be able to make up for lost time.

“However,” Lord Sidious continued. “If he resists the dark side, we will have to dispose of him.”

Vader tensed. That couldn’t be allowed to happen. It couldn’t. For so long he’d been alone, his master the only one who truly understood him. He could not lose his son before he had truly found him.

But, as Lord Sidious’s presence continued to press down on him, he accepted the truth of the situation.

Luke wasn’t his. But Vader was the Emperor's. If his master required him to kill Luke Skywalker, he would do so. Just as Vader had killed Anakin.

[allium-acetosa]

rumex - pokemon oc

adult | they/them

born and raised in spikemuth , they lived as a fairly popular DnB DJ in galar performing under the stage name 'fury swipes'

they were thrown through a space-time rift and arrived in hisui - they lived nomadically around the region for quite some time

after their arrival they didn't actually see another human being for about a month , causing them to pick up some quite strange habits (their favourite hobby is wrestling wild pokemon , especially alphas , and they are probably less averse to eating pokemon than the average person might be)

the stereo and mp3 player they carry around with contains a lot of the music from their DJ sets in galar - occasionally it helps to jog their memory a little

they occasionally do part-time work for the galaxy team's supply corps - they gained a fairly extensive knowledge of foraging while away from human contact

they're good friends with arezu , who they first met in jubilife village , and also have a friendship with sabi (since they both spend their time wandering around hisui) who they view almost like a little sister

of course they also are dating melli who am i kidding they're an xcanon but we leave that for other posts

ref :

their partner pokemon are :

scizor - their ace , they met him as a scyther with a serious injury to one of its scythes while they helped him as best they could he still has very limited movement in the claw on the same arm after evolving

luxray - originally caught to help power their stereo , she now helps them attack and paralyse tough opponents

flareon - while he packs some punch , rumex has a strong dislike for cold weather and he helps to keep them warm in hisui's less forgiving areas

rhyhorn - she doesn't battle but rumex uses her for transportation (and to race around for fun)

[dayslikecrazypaving]

Fic: The Blade

Early season four - Brax/Romana/Leela/Narvin OT4-ness with oodles of angst.

Rated T for description of injury

Leela wasn’t aware of much pain as her own blade passed between the lowest pair of ribs beneath her heart. There was an unpleasant sensation of pressure, and then it was replaced by the feeling of cold rage trickling down her spine. She couldn’t see her enemy's eyes. That really angered her. She wanted to see the creature who’d dared use her own weapon against her, to see the look of disbelief and horror as he realised she’d repaid the favour. Her left hand wrenched the hilt of her second knife deeper. She brutally twisted the shank of the knife upwards till she felt the telltale deflation of his lung. She felt the rush of air past her face as her assailant fell heavily and bonelessly to the floor.

In the melee, Romana looked over Brax’s shoulder in horror as Leela slumped to her knees, her hands clutching the hilt which was occupying a hideously foreign position in her own chest. She felt Brax grip her shoulders in a vice-like clasp as she tried to barge him out of the way to get her best friend. Paralysed by Brax’s hold, Romana had no choice but to watch Narvin fight his way towards Leela, as he bellowed her name. Romana had never seen the look of fury contorting his features before as he dispatched every single assassin between himself and the human. Romana had seriously underestimated Narvin’s ability with a staser, as guard after guard fell.

Leela was examining the knife she’d removed from her own torso academically. With the pads of her fingertips, she inspected the edges of the blade in a detached manner. She felt down each side for knicks created by its passage against her bones. Blood ran in rivulets down the front of her leather dress, seeping into the seams and blooming into the patterns of the dehydrated animal skin.

Narvin skidded onto his knees in front of Leela. He pressed his hand deep against the wound in her torso, trying to staunch the flow. Warm blood bubbled between his fingers as Leela clutched his arm in agony as the pressure of his intervention breached the adrenaline induced shock of the attack.They needed a portal. Now. The fright induced by the sight of Leela’s wound had pervaded his entire nervous system. The fear rattled around his consciousness as he tried to figure out how to help. He racked his brain for his first aid field training undertaken the best part of two centuries ago.

He couldn’t let this kill her.

Narvin heard Romana verbally demolishing K9 on the communicator back to the axis. Her tone of voice approached apoplexy as K9 waffled about needing to calibrate something. Romana was scared too. That wasn’t a good sign. Narvin turned to shoot a glare at Braxiatel, who was still holding Romana back. He pushed his order towards Brax as hard as he could without words. Take control. Do something. Romana can’t rule for you without Leela at her side.

A dark look of understanding passed between the two time lords. Brax snatched the communicator from Romana - and barked a series of override commands to K9. Before Romana could become irate regarding the fact that Brax had placed contingency coding into her personal computer, a portal fizzed into existence behind them. Brax snapped at Romana to prepare the med bay. Romana was not used to being spoken too in that tone, especially not from Brax, nor was she predisposed to following orders, but she didn’t need to be asked twice. Stepping through the portal, she ran out of sight of Brax and Narvin.

Brax advanced towards Leela and Narvin. Narvin crouched over her prone form, desperately trying to stop the bleeding through sheer force of will as his hands were proving ineffective. Brax could see Leela was drifting in and out of consciousness, she’d lost more blood than he would’ve liked but there was still hope. He’d not foreseen this outcome though. He had either been left in the dark by his future selves, or they didn't know, or this was not supposed to happen.That was the most concerning option.

Pushing Narvin aside with an unceremonious universal gesture of needing space, Brax scooped Leela from the ground. He tried to be as gentle as possible when balancing her weight but he knew he was causing her pain. He inwardly winced as Leela’s face became more drawn, her lips tight with the strain. Clutching her closer to keep her still, he spun and started back towards the portal.

Bracing his foot against the chest of Leela’s attacker, Narvin retrieved her knife. It made a disgusting squelch as her weapon broke free. His stomach roiled. Regardless of the fact that both blades were covered in viscera, Narvin tucked both of Leela’s knives into his boots. Those knives had their own biographies- Leela wouldn’t want to be parted from them, regardless of if she was still breathing or not. He followed Brax home, with a yell to K9 to close the damn thing behind him.

Narvin hustled through to the medical bay. Leela lay on a bed, as Romana spoke firmly but calmly to her as she tried to wrangle the bodice of Leela’s dress away from the wound. Using a pair of curved bladed surgical scissors she was trying to remove as little of the leather as she could so it could be patched later. Leela was inadvertently not helping as her body writhed against the covers, trying to evade the pain. Narvin scanned the room to see how he could help, the bay was sparse but functional, and was at least clean. Narvin glanced down at himself and the state he was in. He saw that the red soil of the alternative Gallifrey from the fight had blended with Leela’s blood, starkly coating his white CIA issued robes. He unclasped his outer robe, shrugging off the garment as quickly as possible.

“Brax, Narvin, hold her still” Romana commanded, “she needs to move as little as possible for the dermal regenerator to work.” Brax had been washing his hands behind Romana in the med bay sink. At his President’s request he moved to the opposite side of the bed and placed one hand on Leela’s shoulder and with the other grasped her hand, restraining her. He leant down, to murmur to Leela.

“My Lady Leela, you mustn't fight this. Romana is trying to heal you. You cannot fight tomorrow’s battle, if you lose this one today. I know this hurts, we will find something to quell the pain as soon as the wound is closed,” Brax told her softly. Leela’s warm hand trembled on its own, and started to worry about the physiological effects of shock. Leela opened her eyes. He could see that her bright blue eyes were watery with tears. She couldn’t meet his gaze but she turned her face towards him, and squeezed his hand tighter as she tried to relax. Brax moved closer, and placed a kiss to her forehead as Romana prepared to close the wound. Romana was dousing the area in saline, clearing the coagulated blood and grime. Straightening his back upright, Brax could see that Narvin was furiously scrubbing Leela’s blood from his hands in the trough-like sink.

“Narvin we need you” Brax called out, carefully trying to eliminate the encroaching anxiety from his voice. Looking briefly like a pig bear in the headlights of a landspeeder, Narvin quickly moved to the end of the bed. He held onto Leela’s calves, and nodded to Romana to begin. Brax watched as Romana composed herself with a lengthened exhale that steadied her hands.The internal cauterisation was going to be painful. They’d got no anaesthesia suitable for Leela’s biology. It was a medieval situation.

Romana gritted her teeth as she worked and tried to detach herself from the reality of operating on her closest friend. Humans were so ridiculously fragile. It was easy to forget that with Leela. She was such a force of nature that seeing her this vulnerable was hard. Leela cried out as Romana reached the outer layers of the wound, where there were more nerves. Leela began to twist and thrash as the pain began to overwhelm her. Romana risked a look at Narvin who’d increased his weight placed on her legs. He looked as pale and drawn as Romana felt. She decided the best thing to do was finish as quickly as possible.

Of course Leela is too stubborn to pass out. Narvin realised, watching as Brax desperately tried to comfort Leela with soft words and gentle touches. Narvin decided he couldn’t watch her go through this alone any longer.

Contact.

At his whisper, Brax and Romana turned in astonishment as Narvin attempted to create a telepathic link to Leela. Leela’s mind was so different from his own. The vibrancy was overwhelming. He’d never glimpsed wells of emotion like this before. The agony she was experiencing had fractured her stream of consciousness, compromising her ability to frame her own thoughts. Narvin kept as far back as he could, on the very edges of her awareness, to keep away from anything she might not want him to see. He knew this was trespassing. He hoped desperately she’d forgive him.

Romana resumed the procedure. As she reached the connective tissues, he reached out and grasped the nearest strand of pain as it flashed across Leela’s mind and internalised it, trying to dissipate its intensity throughout his entire nervous system. Narvin could feel Leela relax mentally and physically as she found the burden shared. He couldn’t shoulder it all though, not without delving deeper and he couldn’t bear to do that without her permission. He spoke to her, as gently as he could, silently, as Romana finished.

I’m sorry Leela. I know this is selfish, I couldn’t bear to watch you in pain. I hope you can forgive me for this intrusion. You are doing brilliantly. Not long now. Romana has nearly sealed the wound. Keep breathing deeply.

Leela couldn’t, or didn’t want to respond. Romana stood back with a deep sigh. It was over. Leela needed to heal with sleep and fluids. She called Narvin’s name softly and watched as he disengaged himself from the mental link, looking exhausted.

She ordered Brax and Narvin from the room for a moment. She wanted to preserve Leela’s dignity as far as she could. She made Leela as comfortable as possible, removing the remains of her dress. She placed a gown retrieved from a cupboard over Leela - and secured it as best she could without moving her. Finally Romana tucked Leela in as tightly as she was able, hoping to keep her warm.

When he was given permission to reenter the bay, Brax busied himself clearing the bed and area of whatever he could, removing the visual reminders of the trauma as quickly as possible. Now that Leela was stable, he needed to care for Romana. Brax knew Narvin would remain with Leela regardless, he confirmed this before escorting his lady away. Whether she’d admit it or not, Romana needed care as much as anyone, despite her indomitable character.

Narvin watched with a not insignificant pang of loneliness as Brax curled his arms around Romana and guided her back to her quarters. As he pulled a chair from the corner of the room, and prepared to sit down, something sharp jabbed into his lower leg. He swore profusely. He’d forgotten.

He retrieved both of Leela’s knives from his boots, and grimaced as he cleaned them with spare gauze. He decided not to think about the composition of those stains. Settling down beside Leela’s bed, he placed her most favoured knife back in her hand. In her sleep, Leela’s muscles reflexively tightened around the hilt and then relaxed.

“Thank you”. Leela’s voice was slightly hoarse. “For returning my blade,” she swallowed and continued “ and for taking some of the pain. It has been many years since I shared my mind. It was good to see your spirit, even though I cannot see you now.”

Narvin was floored. He hadn’t expected this, her grace and understanding. He wasn’t sure how to respond.

“Rest. I’ll be here when you wake up”

Leela sank back into sleep, knowing Narvin was standing guard.

[astarionancuntnin]

Death is Not an Escape

pairing: astarion x fem!tav

rating: M

cw: Dead by Daylight crossover AU, lovers to enemies, spoilers for Astarion's quest/act 3, angst, graphic depiction of violence and death, you guessed it - more angst.

a/n: iykyk, but very small one shot inspired by the title that's a quote from Dead by Daylight, could you believe a single sentence got me cooking this?? and yeah im talking map, mori, backstory and all that jazz. insane. id love to know what yall think!

read on ao3

my masterlist

or keep reading down below~

It wasn't supposed to end like this.

They were supposed to be the heroes that saved the city, to have a future together, a happy ending, just like in those bedtime stories she remembered from her childhood.

But after going through the rite of Ascension…

No. Not anymore.

Whatever he might've felt in the past was long gone, overshadowed by his greed and pure hatred towards the woman he once trusted, after she had interrupted the ritual.

“You couldn’t let me? You couldn’t let me?!” He shouted as he got to his feet.

It didn't make any sense, and she never understood how they got there. They were fine, they had each other, they loved each other, she thought. It should’ve been enough.

“I was so close. I could’ve had it all, but you took everything from me!”

She had only wanted to help him, make him see the good within him, that he didn't need a ritual or otherworldly powers to prove he was enough — that he is enough. He had survived so much already, and with Cazador gone, he would be free at long last, but he refused to hear her out.

“Cazador won after all. I’ll never escape the hell he built,” he murmured. “And if I can’t escape, then no one can. Not them,” he said through gritted teeth as he picked up Cazador’s staff to smash it against his leg, sealing the fate of the seven thousand souls in the cells before turning to her, growling. “And certainly not YOU!”

That was the first time he tried to kill her.

Their companions stepped back from the fight, as a cold, black fog slowly appeared around the leader and her lover, separating them from the rest of their party.

Astarion didn’t hesitate to land the first blow, and continued hacking and slashing, barely giving his rival a chance to block, even less so to counter attack.

“Astarion, please, I don’t want to hurt you!” She shouted between two strikes. “We don’t need to fight!”

“This is no fight, this is an execution! You are not getting out of here alive, I’ll make sure of that!”

His dagger speeding towards her head, her own blade barely stopping him in his tracks before pushing back against him, making him step back momentarily.

“I won’t kill you!” She cried.

His chest heaving, dagger still in hand, and fury in his eyes, he shouted as he ran towards her, “You already have!”

A kick to her stomach sent her flying against a nearby pillar, knocking the air out of her lungs, leaving her barely conscious, as darkness threatened to swallow her whole.

Before she could get her bearings back, he grabbed her by the collar, pulling her up to face his wrath. Her breath cut short as she remained paralysed, fixated on his bright, ruby eyes, that depicted nothing but hatred anymore.

“You might’ve stopped the ritual, but you won’t be stopping me from this.”

She closed her eyes as she felt the ghost of his blade dive into her, and she welcomed the darkness swallowing her whole.

-

She thought it was the end, and she had accepted it too.

Heartbroken over the sudden change of heart from the man she had fallen in love with, completely shattered over the outcome of his liberation.

She thought she did what was right, she thought she was helping. She would've died if it would've made him feel better then.

But when she opened her eyes, she was back in the higher levels of Cazador’s mansion. Except it felt… different.

Wrong.

The atmosphere had shifted dramatically, and that was no small feat considering the already sombre decor; the air was colder, muskier, some type of machinery, completely unknown to her, laid here and there, along with hooks dangling from wooden pillars, and some wooden pallets were dispersed, conveniently placed as if to be dropped at a moment’s notice. She wasn't familiar with the mansion, but she was certain these weren't there the last time they visited.

She let her curiosity get the best of her, as she walked further around the newly decorated palace, before a sordid scream from not too far away made her step back, reaching for her weapon.

A weapon, she noticed, that was no longer in her possession.

“Come out, come out, little mouse.”

His voice reverberated through the halls, and with her heartbeat only growing stronger, pulsating in her head, she had no way to know the exact source of the voice, until—

“There you are.”

She turned around to stumble face to face with a man she no longer recognised, his face twisted with hatred and something else she couldn’t quite place, but she knew meant danger. As if his very soul had left him.

As she blindly stepped back into a corner, she rushed to try the surrounding doors only to realise they were all blocked, leaving her cornered with this predator.

“Nowhere left to run now, darling.”

The word that once rolled off his tongue like a sweet caress was now spat out with venom.

“And looks like all your friends have abandoned you.”

She turned back to him, standing defensively, ready to start running past him if need be.

“What did you do to them? What happened?”

“What happened,” he mocked her tone, “was that I was given a second chance. A chance at power, control — vengeance.” He stepped closer towards her, pointing his dagger towards her. “Everything, you have taken from me.”

“Astarion—”

“SHUT. UP.”

She froze, startled by the raise in his tone, and he continued.

“You are no one here. Nothing. You don’t get to decide for me anymore. No one does. I am the Master. I make the decisions. And just as you sentenced me to an eternity in the dark, I will doom you to the same fate.”

“I did not doom you Astarion, Cazador did! I saved you, you need to realise that!”

“Cazador was my ticket out of this miserable existence! With the Ritual of profane Ascension, I would've been safe — I would've never feared the sun, or anything else for that matter! But you — you took that from me.”

“I will not apologise for saving you from yourself, Astarion. You weren’t yourself, you were blinded by the illusion of the powers this ritual could give you, you didn’t want that—”

“HOW DARE YOU PRETEND TO KNOW WHAT I WANT?”

She stayed silent, tearing up, as his words echoed through her as they did in the halls of the mansion.

“My whole life I’ve been stripped of free will,” he continues, anger seething through his teeth. “Nothing but a puppet to my master, and then you came striding along, pretending to be this rightful hero when in reality, you’ve been doing the exact same thing to ALL of us!” “What?! No, Astarion you’re mistaken! I’ve been nothing but supportive to all our friends!” She tried to look for his eyes when he turned his head aside, refusing to look at her. “Please, tell me, what can I do to redeem myself, there has to be something! It can’t end like this, we… we can’t end like this…”

Her head fell as she quietly sobbed, unable to look at this man she had broken apart, unable to look at the consequences of her actions.

For a moment, she thought he had left. Hearing nothing but the reverb of her cries across the halls, alone with nothing else but her grief, until she saw his feet appear in her field of view.

“Anything?” He said, his voice lower, lacking the anger he had but seconds ago.

She lifted her head back to notice his traits had softened, and hope flitted back into her desperate heart.

“Anything.”

He carefully raised his hand up, brushing aside the strands of hair covering her neck where he used to feed in the past, the last bruises from those memories still recovering.

“Let me drink from you.” He cupped her cheek, softly holding her. “Let me taste you, reminisce about what we had.”

She gulped as she nodded repeatedly, with tears falling from her eyes and he wiped them away with a stroke of his thumb.

“Shhh, s’ okay dear,” his hand left her cheek to wander behind her neck, pulling her aside to expose his feeding spot. “It’ll all be alright.”

She yelped as he bit down the soft of her flesh, never used to the icy sensation his fangs provided as they penetrated her skin.

He groaned as he drank, as if her blood reeked but he pushed through to drink more. As if the act now disgusted him.

He pulled back, panting, to take a look at the woman he once loved, mouth bloodied from her crimson. “I won’t forget this.”

And when her eyes met his, they were once more filled with rancour, with his frown back where it used to be, creasing the lines on his pale face. “Or any of the things you’ve done for me.”

Her confusion soon turned to surprise, as her mouth flew open when she felt a blade pierce her abdomen.

He leaned into the crook of her neck, one last time, and growled, “And I'll never forget what you've taken from me.”

She screamed in pain as he twisted his dagger, tearing apart her insides, before pulling back, only to dive back in, again, and again, and again, until her voice gave out and the light in her eyes faded out as she collapsed on the floor, lifeless.

—

Death.

It’s what she was expecting; it what it should’ve been.

Endless darkness, the cold taking over her body as her eyes closed, the pain of her wounds settling down as she drifted out of consciousness.

But instead, she awoke once again, with a fit of coughs overtaking her as her lungs burned with each new breath of air she took, gasping back to life.

Her hand flew to her side, where she felt Astarion stab her, only for the wound to be long gone, as if it had never been there in the first place.

Just like the holes in her neck did.

She could’ve believed it would've been all naught but a Gods awful nightmare, if it wasn't for the strange place she awoke in.

A campfire, but none she was familiar with.

Around it, three other women sat, silent, as they watched it crackle. Dressed in attire she had never seen before; all bloodied and yet — just like her — no sign of pain or injuries on either of them.

At a quick glance, she deduced that they were all human, but nothing about them made them feel familiar. Even amongst themselves, they seemed to come from different worlds. Certainly they weren't from her realm, but then, wherever could they be from?

Before she could even muster the question aloud, the dark fog that had enraptured her in Cazador’s dungeons now surrounded them, as they all got on their feet, ready for whatever was coming for them.

As if they knew, as if this was a routine.

The fog swallowed them all without a second thought, hungry for their suffering

-

When the fog dissipated, she was once again in Cazador’s mansion; the twisted version of it, that was, but there was no mistaking it: this was the very same place.

The three women with whom she had been at the campfire before being transported, were nowhere to be seen though. She was all alone, as if they had never existed in the first place, a figment of her imagination.

She was just here, Astarion had killed her, she felt it — she was sure of it. And yet, here she stood, intact, right back where she started. Had it happened at all? Was any of this real? Was she going insane?

Was this death?

A loud ‘clink!’ startled her out of her state of shock and got her to start looking for an escape.

Her mind rushed, dread settling in as she kept trying to find reasoning with what exactly had been going on. She wasn’t new to strange occurrences, but this — this was something else entirely.

She ran for the door from which they had entered the mansion when they first arrived — before all this mess came to be — only to be met with a metal gate instead of the wooden door she remembered.

Next to it, a switch which she instantly tried to pull, only for it to remain stuck.

Panic instantly overtook her as she kept trying to pull and pull for it to open, refusing for this to be the reality — she needed to escape, she couldn’t do it over and over again, this couldn’t be real, this was —

Her heartbeat only grew louder and her instinct pushed her to leave the useless door, and run.

Run away, run as far as possible, and hide.

Sprinting away from the door, she went up the stairs where she dropped a pallet to block the way up, gaining precious seconds she might need if her killer was closer than expected.

Feeling that the danger grew closer, she kept running, making her way into an open room that she slammed shut the second she passed its threshold.

She took one step back, then a second one, her heart still beating away in her chest and she didn't understand why the terror she felt wasn’t going away.

“Well, well, what have we here?”

She turned around abruptly, pinning herself against the door when she heard the voice of the very man who had killed her.

“Astarion,” her voice shook with uncertainty. “What in the Hells is going on?! What is the meaning of this?!”

He chuckled humorlessly, “What’s wrong, dear? Don’t like losing control? Don’t like it when you’re stripped of your freedom?”

“How can you be so relaxed about this?! You killed me!” She shouted.

“And I’ll do it again, and again, for the rest of your pathetic, little life.”

She shook her head, her voice trembling, “I don’t understand… any of this…”

He tilted his head, eyeing her up and down, “I was given visions; visions of people screaming, of gory sacrifices, of deities swallowing people whole, and at that moment I understood my purpose, and I know for a fact that whichever God put us here had the right idea, for once. They stripped you of your weapons, your friends, your freedom, and gave me the powers I was owed.”

She blinked away the additional confusion his answer created within her, “Where are we, truly?“

“This — is my new playground. And you, my dear, are my newest toy.”

He took a step forward, his wrist turning around, making dance the dagger he had used to kill her once already.

“I promise to make each of your deaths as painful and gut wrenching as the previous one, if not more.”

Her heartbeat only grew stronger, threatening to burst out of her chest as he approached her once again, with nothing but death on his mind.

“Better start running now, darling.”

This wasn’t death.

This was her purgatory.

And just like Astarion’s chance to live in the sun was taken away, she would never see daylight again.

Thank you for reading! Comments, reblogs, and likes are very much appreciated <3

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[wolken-himmel]

In which (Y/n) manages to get kidnapped by Malleus, who has turned into a dragon after going into a frenzy because he wasn't able to find her.

Bringing her to a tower, he absolutely refuses to let go of his newly acquired treasure. There is no such thing as escape when an attention-seeking dragon wants to cuddle.

Request by @amypop122.

"(Y/n), my little treasure? I know it's late... but can I come in? I had a horrible nightmare—"

Malleus, clutching his pillow in his arms, stood in front of the door to your bedroom, his fist still raised after having knocked against the door gently. His pyjamas with little dragons printed all over the fabric were wrinkled due to the sheer hurry he had jumped out of his bed with. The poor dragon fae was still shaking from the horrible nightmare he had just been vexed by; your agonising screams as he couldn't save you from death rung in his ears, not leaving him any rest.

Malleus dreamt that you had died.

So, the first rational thing he did when waking up, his skin coated in a layer of cold sweat and his eyes ripped open as wide as saucers, was to immediately teleport to your bedroom to check if you were alright — and maybe even sneak his way into your bed if you didn't mind. After all, no one could harm you if you were right in his arms.

Waiting minutes where silence prevailed, nothing happened — not even a soft stir of your body or the crumpling of your blanket could reach his attentive ears. Growing scared, Malleus pushed the door open, a frightened expression on his face. What if you weren't in your bed? Then... then something bad must have happened, right?

As he snuck closer to the bed you should be resting in, Malleus prayed with all his heart that you were safe and sound, and that you were simply too caught up in deep slumber to react to his knocking. His feet were as light as a feather as he maneuvered over to your bedside, gently lifting up the bundle of blankets to see if you were hiding underneath them.

You weren't there.

The blanket slipping out of his hold, he remained frozen for a good few minutes. His eyes were ripped wide open in disbelief that his nightmare seemingly had managed to become reality. A blood-curdling scream escaped his lips. Malleus sank to his knees, his pillow falling to the ground, as sobs and cries escaped his lips. Clutching his head in desperation and fury, the gruelling whispers in his mind, telling him that he had failed to protect you, became stronger until he could no longer drown them out.

Letting out a loud roar, Malleus felt wings sprouting from his back. A bright green light enveloped him, hiding the maniacal expression on his face as he transformed into a beast. His pale skin was replaced by black scales, and his hands turned into paws with claws as sharp as razor blades. Soon, he wasn't human anymore but a beast that could wreak havoc and burn a whole village down with its fiery breath. His tail was big enough to almost throw over the desk in your room as the dragon quickly exited through the opened window to soar through the sky in search for his missing beloved.

That night, some NRC students and staff swore they could see a majestic dragon fly across the skies and hear distant roars, filling them with fear and the dawning feeling that something would go horribly wrong soon.

"I swear... I can't believe I have to drag you two back to the Heartslyabul dorm again..." you hissed under your breath as you continued pulling Ace and Deuce by their collars, their paralysed bodies somehow even heavier than they usually were. It didn't help that Grim was lazily sleeping on Ace instead of helping you, only increasing the weight you had to pull. Your eyebrows were furrowed in utter anger; you could have been peacefully sleeping in your bed if it weren't for these two idiots having somehow managed to get cursed with a paralysis spell.

"Sorry, (Y/n)..." Deuce mumbled, only able to move his lips and eyes. A satisfied smile curled up on your lips. At least one of the boys still possessed common sense. "We won't do it again..."

"Woah woah, no need to lie there, Deuce," Ace replied, still trying to shove Grim off of him, but always failing because he couldn't move his limbs even a centimetre. Laughing sheepishly, the red-head started to grin. "We all know we're gonna do it again..."

You let out a groan, all hope that had built up dissipating. "You two! I feel like I'm your mother—" you seethed through clenched teeth, stopping and letting go of their collars, so that their head fell down onto the cold earthy ground of the courtyard. They let out pained groans, cursing you under their breaths while you merely laughed at their suffering. Grim bolted slightly, sending out a little hiss before returning to his slumber.

"Mommy (Y/n)," Ace mused, sticking his tongue out.

Narrowing your eyes, you put your hands onto your hips. Angrily, you bent over them to wag your finger in front of their eyes in an attempt to scold them. "Stop it. That sounds weird."

"Who's the father?" Deuce asked with a little grin on his lips.

Laughing, Ace replied, "Grim of course."

"You two!" Throwing your hands up in resignation, you were about to continue scolding them until the frightening sound of a dragon roar filled your ears. Wincing when a sudden gust of cold wind was swept your way, you shot your paralysed friends an alarmed look. "Guys, did you hear that? I think it was a dragon..."

"Are you trying to scare us?" Ace mused, rolling his eyes. "Come on, we're not some little babies."

You straightened your back, arms still stretched out towards the sky as if frozen in fear. "No, I really heard something—" you hissed, fear filling your (E/c) eyes. Before you could finish your sentence, you felt a pair of big claws wrap around your arms and pulling you up into the sky. Struggling, you screamed your lungs out as the boys grew smaller and smaller the higher you rose into the sky. "Guys! What's going on!? Hey! Deuce! Ace—"

"(Y/n)!" Deuce and Ace shouted simultaneously, trying to climb to their feet so they could chase after the beast that was carrying you away into the distance until it vanished in the dark night sky. Of course, they failed miserably, which left them no choice but to simply lay in the grass until the paralysis spell had worn off. They continued screaming their lungs out in hopes that someone would hear them, but no one did — or at least no one bothered to react.

"Can you two please keep it down?" Grim yawned, covering his ears with his paws. "I'm trying to sleep here..."

"(Y/n) just got kidnapped by a dragon!" Deuce yelled frantically, his eyeballs moving into every direction out of pure panic and frustration. "The dragon just swooped in and—"

Grim let out an annoyed hiss. "So hallucination is a side effect of the spell you were cursed with?"

"Grim! Shut up!" Ace yelled, almost crying out in utter irritation. Again, he was trying to shove the cat off his stomach, but failed. "We're telling you the truth, you lazy cat!"

"The truth can wait till tomorrow morning..." Grim mumbled as he snuggled into his paws, starting to snore loudly.

Ace closed his eyes, exhaling. "Great... we're doomed..."

"Hey! Let go of me, you dragon!" you yelled as you struggled in the beast's mighty grip. He simply let out a roar, which immediately silenced you into submission. Giving up with your attempts of escape, you let out a frustrated sigh. Instead, you focused your gaze onto the ground beneath you to figure out where you were and where he was taking you.

It was a clear night, allowing you to see how far up in the air you really were. You kind of felt nauseous, and immediately decided that looking down had been a bad idea. Gulping and taking deep breaths to calm your pounding heart, you simply hoped the dragon wouldn't drop you mid-flight.

A little gasp escaped your lips once you realised that you were flying towards the Diasomnia dorm — a tall tower in the far back of the castle-like building, to be exact. You furrowed your eyebrows, almost laughing at how absurd and hilarious the situation sounded. Somehow, this dilemma made you feel like a princess from one of those medieval fairytales, being kidnapped by a dragon and locked away into his tower full of treasures until your prince would come and save you.

The dragon's wings were strong, and so in no time you had reached the tall building. He slipped right through the rather small opening of the tower, and more or less tried to lower you to the ground gently — which he rather failed at because of his large size. You fell to your knees, and immediately scrambled to crawl over to the wall of the tower, pressing your back against the cold stones aligned to form the protective walls.

"Who are you!? And why did you kidnap me—" you screamed, causing the dragon to wince in dismay. Your chest was heaving up and down in pure horror as the creature stayed still, gazing at you with bright green eyes that reminded you of someone in particular. The moment where you thought he was communicating with you was interrupted when the dragon began to fold his mighty wings back into their original places on the sides of his body to clear up some space for you.

You averted your gaze to the smooth black scales that covered the dragon's body completely, aside from the equally as black horns that sprouted from his head. You let out a little gasp upon realising how exactly big the dragon was; his head alone was as big as your torso. The tail probably was even longer than your arm span. Your jaw fell down in admiration, and you felt the sudden desire to run your hand across his smooth scales.

The dragon looked at you curiously, almost smiling as he took in the awe radiating off your eyes the more you gazed at him. Proudly exhaling his nostrils, he let out a playful roar.

The roar made your heart skip a beat in fear, and you felt your breathing stopping for a moment. Averting your eyes to something different inside of the tower, you hoped to calm your wildly beating heart. You gazed around the interior, finding the window the dragon had used as an entrance on your right, and on the far left was a door that probably revealed a staircase used for the normal way of entering the tower. On the wall across from you lay heaps and hills of gold coins, the occasional diamond and jewel, as well as shimmering jewellery, poking out from underneath. There seemed to be a magical barrier around the collection of treasures, one that you recognised as being used to prevent intruders from passing through.

You were snapped out of your little excursion when you felt something prodding your stomach. Tensing, you lowered your gaze to find the dragon's large head laying in your lap, his snout poking your stomach to gain your attention while his curious eyes were trained at your face. The corners of his mouth curled up into a smile once he knew he had your full attention. You let out a little laugh upon realising that the dragon shared more similarities with a little puppy than a monster personality-wise. Hearing your laughter seemed to make him happy, too.

Still hesitant, you raised your hand to put it onto the dragon's head. He watched your moves with big eyes, and nodded subtly when he realised that you were waiting for permission to touch his scales. Smiling softly, you ran your fingertips across his soft yet sturdy scales, causing the mighty beast to close his eyes and relax into your lap.

"Oh, you're quite heavy—" you huffed as you stopped petting him, which earned you an angry huff that immediately made you resume. Chuckling at his rather adorable antics, you hummed a soft tune that made his tail wag back and forth happily.

"Hm... do you have a name? Or should I just call you Mr. Big Scary Dragon," you asked, causing him to pry one slitted eye open, thus revealing the shimmering emerald underneath the leathery eyelids. You laughed softly. "I used to call Malleus that..." His eyes seemed to draw you in, hypnotising you in a certain way. They made you feel at ease — comforted. The effect was the same as a certain dragon fae always had on you.

That's when your eyes widened in shock and realisation, and you jumped, causing an angry growl to escape the dragon's throat.

The beast raised his head to glare at you, only to find you slowly inching away from it, just as if you didn't want to startle it again. A little bit hurt that you were still scared of him, the dragon let out a few cries and cooes that made your heart sink in pity.

"M-Malleus?" you stuttered out, shaking to your very core. "Is that you?"

Tilting his head to the side, the beast nodded. His mouth twisting into a happy grin, he carefully ventured towards you. He urged you to rise to your feet, which you did with a little yelp escaping your lips. Nudging you farther away from the wall with his snout, he let out a few assuring cooes that made your heart flutter. Hesitantly, you stumbled into the direction he pushed you into.

"Why... are you a dragon?" you asked, but received no answer. It seemed like he couldn't talk as a dragon, but at least he could understand you.

Eventually, Malleus let out a little bit of smoke through his large nostrils, turning around in circles in the same spot like a cat looking for the perfect resting place. Once his gigantic body lay on the ground, he extended one arm to tug at your shirt with one single claw. You let out a little sigh as you let yourself be guided towards him. Just as you arrived, his mischievous tail swiped right under your feet, causing you to fall right into his waiting arms. The dragon let out a satisfied breath as he wrapped his arms around you, trapping you successfully.

Your body went rigid when you felt his hot breath running across your cheek, his body warming yours and shielding you from the unrelenting cold of the tower. This was... quite comfortable, you had to admit. You were tempted to just close your eyes and fall asleep after such a hectic night, but you knew you couldn't. So, you tried your best to wiggle yourself out of his strong arms so you could sit up right and gaze into his curious yet annoyed eyes.

"Malleus..." you mumbled, reaching out with one hand to stroke his snout, which earned you quite the adorable reaction: He leant right into your touch, purring like a little cat. Smiling, you couldn't help but laugh. "I'd love to cuddle with you all night— but I need to get home... we wouldn't want Deuce and Ace to freeze to death, would we?"

As if he was jealous, Malleus stubbornly shook his head and only pulled you closer to him. A few threatening growls and whimpers escaped his throat as he nuzzled his head into your shoulder, seeking to bury himself in your scent. Sitting up again — but this time you had to put up way more effort — your hand ran along his cheek, which caused a little hitch to appear in his breath as he forced one eye lazily open. It seemed like he wanted to sleep, but would also take every speck of affection you would reward him with.

Sighing, you explained, "Come on, dear... They're my friends."

Refusing, he continued to shake his head stubbornly. Funnily, he looked like he was pouting. In a way, he looked jealous to you — especially with the way his tail angrily pounded against the ground while his arms simply tightened around your waist, almost cutting off your air-flow.

"You don't need to be jealous, Malleus~" you cooed as you evaded his paw that tried to push you down into his arms again. Instead, you leant forward to press a sweet kiss to the space inbetween his eyes. He sucked in air through his nostrils as a gesture of surprise. Then, his eyes turned soft and adoring. "You know you're the only dragon whom I love—"

Your words seemed to satisfy him very much, causing him to nuzzle his snout into your cheek. He even opened his mouth to drag his coarse and slitted tongue across your cheek, which caused you to giggle softly as you pushed him away. He snorted, breathing a little bit of fire accidentally. Luckily, you remained unharmed by ducking just in the right moment. Hopefully, he wouldn't burn your hair like he had burned Lilia's.

"Malleus!" You laughed, having trouble of not getting overwhelmed with the way he alternated between licking your face and nuzzling his snout into your neck. "Stop it! T-That tickles—"

Malleus let out a playful huff, warming your body with his warm breath.

"You never told me you could transform into a dragon..." you mused, causing him to cease his affections temporarily. "Neither did you tell me that you had a tower to store your treasures in within the Diasomnia dorm."

Sheepishly grinning down at you, he raised his long neck until he could put his jaw onto the top of your head lazily. You let out a few squeals, running your hand along his neck, which evoked a few adorable purrs from the big lizard. He craned his neck as much as he could in response to your pleasing touches. Whispering sweet nothings about how cute he was, you couldn't help but slowly feel at ease around this threatening and mighty dragon — your beloved dragon.

"Great, now I'm trapped in a dragon's tower—" you mused, continuing to run your hand up and down his neck whilst letting out a few amused chuckles. "When will my prince come and save me?"

Malleus immediately froze, not looking the slightest amused by your joke. He removed his head from on top of yours, and opted to glare at you with such intense anger that you gulped. You backed up until you couldn't any more with your back tightly pressed against his body. His face neared yours, and he looked angry — very much so.

Laughing nervously, you carefully bent forward to wrap your arms around his head in an attempt to soothe his fury. While embracing him, you pressed a soft kiss to the side of his head. "Oh well, who needs a prince if the dragon is adorable and handsome and smart and cute and—" That was enough to make Malleus calm down again. This time, he curled his neck around for it to lay stretched out across your lap, his head right next to your thighs. Now, you were indeed trapped by a large puppy.

"I love you, Mr. Big Scary Dragon~" you cooed, giggling.

Malleus let out a few satisfied cooes when you ran your hand across his horns, closing his eyes as he drifted off into peaceful slumber. He knew that no nightmare could awaken him if you were there by his side, your touch keeping the mean and nasty echoes at bay. Just for safety, his long tail snuck around your feet, holding them in place in case you decided you were brave enough to attempt and make a run for it.

You let out a little huff, seeing no chance of escape. Whenever you tried to move your feet out of the loops his tail created, his tail's grip would tighten and he would let out a little hiss. Giving up, you simply sank into his body, evoking a very content exhale from the dragon. "You really are a protective one..." you murmured as you snuggled into his body that was curled around you.

Malleus was at peace. Cuddling with his mate like this really made him forgot all about his nightmare earlier.

Grinning, you cooed, "I didn't know you always meant it literally whenever you called me your 'little treasure', Malleus."

[fulltimemoaner]

If you're still accepting a prompt? Maybe a little drabble of Zhongli getting hurt after he protects Childe but since Zhongli is a prime adeptus, he heals quickly so he's not even fazed but Childe still panics and fusses over him, getting angry at Zhongli for taking the blow for him. Meanwhile, Zhongli is confused why Childe is so worried.

always accepting prompts anon!!

+++++

The arrow is still deeply seethed within his gut, sending electric jolts down his spine, his body doused in the residue of Childe’s Obliteration, hair dripping wet and body paralysed for those few seconds that it takes for his geo energy to blast the measly elemental power away, the warm power of his stone resonating deep within his chest. He takes a deep breath and drives the end of his polearm to the ground for support, his eyes searching for Childe’s form in the crowded battleground where they had been ambushed by a gang of treasure hoarders. His eyes are wide as saucers when he sees a man closing into the Snezhnayan from behind, and he almost acts on instinct, kicking the end of his spear hard enough to send it flying right into the mortal’s head, a deadly shot that sent the lifeless body tumbling a few feet away.

“Behind you!” Childe screams from across the field, and before he has any time to react, Zhongli feels a cold blade press against his throat.

“Fatui bastard!” The treasure hoarder screams, pulling the ex Archon flash against his chest. “Take another step and I’m cutting him open.”

Childe is approaching, slowly, warily, hydro blades clutched on both hands. “You don’t want to do that.” There is the telltale laugh, verging on the thin line between consciousness and insanity. “You can choose a dignified death.”

Zhongli regards him with a level nod, his amber eyes observing ten, maybe twenty, thieves closing in on Ajax from behind.

“Don’t you move an inch, Mr. Zhongli. I’ll take care of this.”

Zhongli watches him reaching out for his mask, and a part of him promptly refuses to let him go for that trick. With all caution thrown to the wind, he elbows the thief in the gut and feels him double over. The knife slides across his neck and makes a gush so deep he can feel the blood raining down his clothes, but it’s alright, it’s collateral damage. Chidle’s eyes darken and a tidal wave starts forming beneath him, emerging into the size of a colossal sea creature crafted out of the finest hydro powers. Zhongli runs towards him before the wave can crash against them, just in time to spread his arms out and form a protective shield around them.

When Ajax opens his eyes again, he is certain that the mortals have been crushed like insects underneath the tidal waves. There is a quiet serenity within Zhongli’s shield, knowing that outside the golden aura lay massacre. He lets his daggers evaporate and kneels down, next to the panting adeptus to inspect the damage done. “Take a deep breath,” his tone is low, serious, and Zhongli seems nonchalant, even as Childe tears the arrow out of his stomach. His chest is fluttering like a fish’ out of the water, and Ajax can imagine his lungs pooling with blood from his gushing neck. He presses a hurried hand against the ugly cut, gripping with an aim, his own heart overwhelmed with worry. “You’re in shreds.” The Fatui whispers, an edge of fury tinting his voice. “I told you to stay still.”

“I didn’t-“ Zhongli coughs violently, because, adeptus or not, his neck was still gaping open. “Want you to use that.”

Ajax bites his lips and tips his head forward, trying to suppress a violent reaction and a cry of frustration. “We need to find a doctor.”

Zhongli shakes his head, his lover’s hand already doing enough to constrict the flow of blood. Childe observes the pale skin on the ex archon’s face, the contrast it creates against the crimson lining of his lashes and the vibrant amber of his eyes. “You don’t know how long you can last without your Gnosis.”

“I will be alright.” Zhongli insists, not wishing to grace the Bubu pharmacy with his presence under any circumstances, not with the suspicious owner and the little creature that could probably sense the sheer adeptal energy vibrating off him. When he looks up, he sees Childe’s furrowed brows and twitching mouth, the fury evident in his barely restrained expression.

“Sometimes you should learn to listen.” Ajax glowers, gripping his lover’s neck tighter than he intended, the jerking motion enough to pull him forward and make him wince over the friction the wound in his throat received. “I’m worried,” The ginger gasps out, his chest throbbing with a confusing feeling. A mixture of care, unmeasured care, and the need to smother Zhongli in his weakened state. His brain hurts with the clashing emotions and there is nothing more he wants than to shut it up, more than he wishes to twist that beautiful neck and hear it snap underneath his fingertips. Childe feels the panic flare from within, not understanding the sudden urge to sincerely hurt his lover, so he chooses to blame it on the turmoil and the grip of the Abyss on his conscious.

“You know it takes more than that to kill me.” Zhongli whispers, feeling the murderous aura radiating off the ticking bomb that the Snezhnayan was at the best of times. “It’s already healing.”

“It’s not a matter of knowing.” Childe has to bite his inner cheek until it bleeds. “It’s a matter of chance.” He slowly withdraws his hand, watches the cut disappear quickly from the God’s skin. He throws his head back with a laugh, his eyes half lidded. “Morax’s spears rained down from the sky and built the earth.” His voice was laced with irony and malice. “Morax is sustaining wounds for a mortal lover.” Childe spits, his hand grabbing a fistful of dark locks to bring Zhongli’s stoic face close to his. “Only I am allowed to kill you, you understand that?”

Zhongli’s expression softens into a gentle smile in spite of the awkward angle his head is bent in. He thought that through the jumbled words and emotions that the human had just slurred out in his post slaughtering bliss, he managed to find some sort of meaning. “It’s only human to worry, Ajax.”’

Childe grits his teeth at the unfiltered grief in his gut. Feeling somewhat more level-headed, he pulls on a pained smile. “Stop reminding me of my mortality.” And finally, Zhongli chuckles, his eyes closing easily. Ajax grabs the chance to kiss him and apologise, his stained gloves caressing the already faded wound on his adeptus lover’s neck in gratitude.

[mymelodramaticjournal]

Jegulus Post-Dark-Mark-Reveal Angst

Apologise, the voice in his head demanded, say it was a mistake. 

Lie if you must.

Apologise, so that I can forgive you, came softer still. 

Because oh, how James bled to. 

But Regulus did not open his mouth. Instead, he met James’ gaze, his glacial eyes cold and unrepentant, and said nothing. 

James felt the fury melting from his face, his eyes growing round with horror. Regulus was giving up. Regulus had betrayed his promise. Regulus had chosen not to speak, and in doing so, doomed them both to die. 

James’ anger slammed back into him with enough force to kill all the hope he’d held still in his heart. 

‘Get out.’ He whispered with such wrath, the likes of which he’d never before known. 

Regulus flinched at the venom in James’ quiet order, as though he’d missed the words entirely and instead could hear the humming under James’ skin. The way the rage sang along his bones as it broke them, and the quiet creaking of James' skeleton as it rearranged itself, his ribs hardening around his heart. 

Regulus' eyes flickered across the older boy's face in almost imperceptible panic. Searching.

He cannot find me, James realised. I’m lost. 

A sick satisfaction reared its head in response to that, a serpent rising up to bare its bloody fangs to its twin, a twisted shadow against a left forearm. Satisfaction at the prospect of Regulus being disgusted by the thing that stood before him, reformed, unrecognisable. Never had the two boys looked more alike.

Good, James thought viciously. Let him see what I’ve become, what ugly thing loving him has turned me into. How it feels when I look upon him now, stood paralysed, unwilling to speak, and can no longer find anything of the boy I once loved.

Look at me, the part of James that still wished to be seen begged. 

Blaring, deafening silence met his wordless plea. His misery beat numbly in response. 

Once a naked flame, bruised lips, now cold blooded, poisoned tongued.

Look at us. Look at what you’ve done.

[zemossunshine]

Sunshine Chapter 15

Pairings: Zemo x You  Bucky x You

Summary: Falling in love with a villain. This will start sweet and then go very dark.

Tags: Explicit. Mature. Not for minors. Dark. Angst. Knife play. Depression. Suicidal thoughts. Self Harm . Vomiting. Nightmares. Sleepwalking. Torture. Smut. Broken Bones. Blood. Injury. Violence. Rough Sex. Rape. Kidnapping. Spanking. Unhealthy Relationships. Mental Health Issues. Anal Sex. Orgasm Delay. Fear. Blow Jobs. Sexual Violence. Suicide Attempt. Reference To Domestic Violence. Sleepwalking. Memory Loss. Gen Violence. Threats. Manipulation. Manipulative Relationship. Murder. Death. Loss Of Parents. Implied Alcohol Abuse. Threats Of Rape. Non Consensual Drug Use. Emotional Manipulation. Gaslighting.

Warnings for this chapter: Threats & Violence.

Unbend the broken. Unsay these spoken words. Find hope in the hopeless. Lyrics owned by James Arthur.

–

The Next Day

–

You woke up in a bedroom you didn’t recognise, then you remembered you are being held captive. Oddly a very comfortable captivity. Bizarrely Zemo is taking care of you. Still there was the basement, which unfortunately was just beneath you. Zemo got what he wanted, you power, your disgusting power. You just had to get out of here and you could finish the job without Zemo in the way. You liked pain, it was irrefutable, but you wouldn’t use you power. You wouldn’t accept this. You sat up and Zemo was in a chair just beyond your bed. Just ignore him. You had no idea when you last had a shower, you got up, stalked past him and moved to close the door. Once again Zemo stopped it in its tracks.

“You will bathe with the door open or I will bathe you.” His voice was low, it was a warning.

“No, I will be showering alone, with the door closed. And I told you to stop touching me.” You tore the bandage wrapped around your knuckles, which Zemo had clearly put there. You shot him a warning glance and then you see it, his knuckles were white, he was trembling, he was trying not to lose control. He blinked lazily twice and the façade he was holding onto dropped. His teeth bared, his eyes were a hot blazing fury. Like he could tear you apart with his hands and honestly you thought he might. You just made a mistake. A very big mistake. Silently you walked back until you hit the cold shower door, trying to go unnoticed and unseen. Instinctively you placed your arms behind your back, that’s what bore the brunt in the basement. But in the basement Zemo was cold, this was something else. Someone else.

Zemo took one step towards you and your mouth went dry. You looked down at your feet as you watched his feet draw up in front of you. You tried to stay calm, but your chest was heaving.

“Give me your hand.” There wasn’t any humanity in his voice. Zemo wasn’t in there any more. In shock you held it out, he brushed his thumbs over your grazed knuckles delicately then snaked his hand up and held your wrist. He stroked your pulse point where you know he can feel your heart erratically pumping cold blood through your body. You held onto the fact he didn’t have any weapons in his hand, you weren’t currently on the way to the basement. You had to believe you had some sense of control. Zemo slammed his hand into the glass above and you jumped. He breathed in your ear and you felt every hair on your body stand on end.

“I don’t think you truly understand the ramifications of your situation. Don’t fool yourself into thinking you hold any advantage here. You do not. You are living under the false pretence of thinking that you have any choice in what happens to you. You do not. You haven’t even stopped to question which part of the world you are in. You are completely isolated. You are alone. You are in my home and no one is coming to save you. You belong to me."

You took in his words; you were absolutely fucked. There was no way out. You were once again utterly at his mercy, but he had no mercy to give. Paralysed by his presence, but now with fear. You couldn’t move, not that you would even dare to. He utterly petrified you. When he stopped stroking your wrist and moved his hand to your hip, the implication was clear. He wanted you to know he could do whatever he wanted to you and there wasn’t a single thing you could do to stop him.

“You believe the basement is the worst that could happen to you? I was forced to escalate that situation very quickly. I could make that experience last years. I once told you what I was capable of, do you remember? You cannot begin to comprehend the amount of fear I can put into you. You will reminisce about the freedoms I am granting to you now.” Zemo moved his hand from above you and unhooked something from the back of the door. He moved his other hand from your hip and ghosted it down your thigh. He held something dark and satin under your eyes.

“Get. In. Before I change my mind.” He growled. You weren’t sure you could, but his threat forced you to move. You grasped the material gently, giving his hand a wide berth and turned your back to him, clinging on to any modicum of modesty you had left. You tugged your t-shirt and sports bra over your head with trembling hands and slip into the robe. As you pulled down your leggings and underwear you wondered how this could be the same Zemo you knew. The same man who danced with you, cooked for you, had you had you screaming on the kitchen table. Zemo in the basement . You did know this version of Zemo, you read all about him, he even told you the first time you brought him whiskey. They were all the same man. And now he was holding you in his house. Zemo could be kind too. Just ask to shower alone nicely, be polite, what’s the worst he could do? Your legs nearly gave out at that thought. You were well aware of his worst. You took in a breath and turned back to him, holding out your hands to balance yourself. He wasn’t there. Your eyes darted around as Oeznik ran towards you.

As soon as Oeznik had you in his arms, the panic rose in your chest. You could hear your heart pushing blood through your veins, You started to hyperventilate and clutched onto to Oeznik. You closed your eyes and you felt your body go numb. Sweat poured down your face and you felt everything around you close in. You were too shocked to cry. Oeznik started to count in your ear to ten over and over. Eventually your breathing matched his words. You couldn’t bring yourself to let go, Oeznik was the only comfort you had now. You couldn’t go through that again, or be taken to the basement, so you had to ask.

“What did I do wrong?”

“You almost died. I know that has happened before. But you weren’t under his care then. He is furious, but with himself.” Oeznik started to rub your back, a gesture trying to tell you that everything would be ok. This is not fucking ok.

“Oeznik, this is insane. Please let me leave.”

“You know I can’t do that. Quite frankly I don’t know what he would do even if I tried. I’ll speak to him. Listen to me, one of us has to watch over you now, you cannot be left alone. But if you undress it has to be him, you don’t have to do this today.”

You knew you had to eventually. If Oeznik managed to calm him down later then this had to be the worst of anything that was coming it just had to be. You wouldn’t survive another hour of being this scared much less another day. You told Oeznik that you would be ok and Zemo stepped back into the bathroom, he kept his eyes averted on the ceiling. You turned on the shower and waited for the glass to steam up. You quickly removed the robe and let the heat wash over you.

–

You decided not to speak for the rest of the day. You stayed by Oeznik’s side and at some point Zemo left you with him. You watched Oeznik make meals throughout the day, which he offered to you. But you couldn’t quite bring yourself to trust him fully. When he made himself a drink he saw the longing in your eyes as he raised it to his lips, he gave it to you and smiled softly. If he is drinking it, it must be ok. You ran to him when your heard gun shots outside. Apparently Zemo was just blowing off steam. You wanted to ask Oeznik if he would be willing to remove all of the weapons from the house. But you thought better of it.

–

By the time evening came, you were dehydrated, hungry and the pain across your body started to sink in again. When Oeznik lead you to the same room as last night dread filled you. You hoped you could avoid Zemo for a bit longer. You pushed yourself far back into the chair wrapping your legs underneath you. Oeznik remained by your side, he pulled a bottle of pills from his pocket No, please no. Zemo was notably softer.

“Sunshine I do not wish to do anything against your will. But you are potentially dangerous and you are in pain, We could litigate what may or may not happen and you are welcome to use your powers against me, but Oeznik is with us.” You nodded. Oeznik handed you two of the pills and you swallowed them dry.

“You need to careful about the pain you take on moving forward. During our time in the basement, you questioned what you had done wrong. I am responsible for that. You blamed yourself for James’s nightmares. Hydra are responsible for those.” Zemo stood up and you flinched back, he sat down again. You couldn’t just switch off your emotions, it didn’t matter what he said. Oeznik pulled out a second bottle of pills Fuck. Zemo spoke again.

“Those will calm your nerves, but it’s is your choice to take them.”

“The last time you told me to relax I couldn’t move.” You didn’t want to anger Zemo again, but you didn’t want to take them either. Oeznik threw the bottle across the room to Zemo.

“That’s fair Sunshine, perhaps I could make use of these.” He poured some pills onto his hand and drank them down with whiskey. He nodded to the whiskey sitting next to your table, which now was in a plastic glass. You shook your head.

“Oeznik tells me you haven't eaten and you are barely taking in fluids.” Zemo looked at you with concern.

“I don’t know what you are putting in it.” You shrugged.

“I apologise for my actions earlier today. My emotions got the better of me. I frightened you and that was never my intention. I would like to have a conversation with you and I need you to speak freely.” Zemo was pleading with you, you didn’t want to speak at all, let alone freely. You had no idea what he might do.

“It’s white isn’t it?” Zemo questioned.

“It’s been white all day. It’s broken.” It was even white during the shower incident. Which felt impossible.

“You previously told me, the colours change rapidly. You can tell me if that happens. You have no reason to fear me.”

“Zemo you can’t possibly expect me to believe that. You won’t let me leave. I just want to go -” Where? You didn’t have a home. A lump formed in your throat and you swallowed in down. You couldn’t get into contact with Fury, even if you still had a phone, even if he still wanted anything to do with you. You couldn’t approach anyone in case you hurt them. Zemo didn’t finish your sentence. You both sat in silence. You had enough and got up to go to bed. Zemo stopped you when he spoke.

“Yes. Yes, I will let you leave. Once I am satisfied you won’t harm yourself. I would like your stay here to be as comfortable as possible. What is your favourite food?”

You sat back down. You didn’t have a favourite food. Food was just food, you had to eat it. You didn’t want to eat anything he gave you regardless.

“You don’t know, do you? Do you have a favourite book?” Zemo squinted his eyes and waited for you answer. You didn’t have one.

“I tried to ascertain these things during our time at the Raft. I should know these things about you. You don’t have a favourite colour. Or a favourite place. Or... The only thing I have ever been able to determine that you enjoy is music. Were you aware of this?” Zemo asked. You shook your head. You just didn’t bother with insignificant things. They just didn’t matter.

“Perhaps we can get some of your personal items from the Raft. What did you keep in your room?” Zemo smiled softly at you. Not much.

“I already have my clothes and a pillow. Bucky brought it all for me. My old stuff is in storage, Fury provided it all, I don’t need it.” You shrugged.

“I had more personal items at the Raft. Do you not find that strange?” Zemo had a look on his face you couldn’t quite place. You shook your head again.

“Can you tell me what you do enjoy. I will have it sent here.” Zemo nodded to Oeznik. You were exasperated by this little chat already. You looked around.

“Whiskey, I guess. But you already have it.” You still didn’t pick up the liquid left for you.

“When did you first taste whiskey?” Zemo tilted his head. With you. You knew he wasn’t going to let this go.

“Fine. I like coffee.” You huffed out. Zemo looked down into his glass.

“Who first introduced you to coffee?”

“Hydra.” You answered. Zemo mouthed it as you said it. You frowned. What is going on here?

“Sunshine have you considered the possibility that you only enjoy things because other people do?”

“Zemo you told me my entire life was a lie yesterday and now I don’t know what I like? Just stop.” You sighed.

“I’m simply stating you haven’t had the opportunity to discover those things. If you will allow me, I have the resources to do that whilst you are here.” Zemo still had his soft demeanour. You rolled your eyes. Fuck that. He smirked, he seemed to enjoy you being defiant and not scared.

“You wore the same shoes as the prisoners, used the same soap as us. You didn’t tell me it was your birthday back at the Raft, we didn’t celebrate. Why?” Zemo stood up to refill his glass, you didn’t flinch this time.

“I just don’t care about trivial things.” You didn’t, they weren’t important.

“I know Sunshine, you just want the world to be a better place. I fear it’s come at a great detriment. Somewhere along the way, you have forgotten about yourself. Your entire life has been chosen by others. I’m not certain you know how to-” Zemo looked as if he felt sorry for you, somehow his voice was even softer. How to what? “When you were rescued by Fury, I surmised your powers made you stay. I believe it might be more then that. Fury asked you to stay, so you did. When we were waiting for the helicopter after our mission, you wanted to leave. I could see it on your face. But you couldn’t, because you were instructed to go back to the Raft. During your employment at the Raft, you didn’t leave for months. Because no one told you what to do with that time. You did everything I asked to do at the Raft. I’m not sure you are entirely capable of making a choice for yourself.” Zemo sighed. Of course I am that’s ridiculous. And yet you were struggling to think of an example.

“I didn’t want to take the pain pills back at the Raft.” A small choice but Shit, according to your powers you wanted to feel the pain.

“I asked you to train me at the Raft.” You nodded.

“You were advised to train by Ross. Once the guards failed you, you sought out the only alternative.” Zemo shrugged.

“Ok I choose to start dating after I was rescued. Wanda, she-” You eyes widened. Wanda set up your blind date and it was Bucky. You fell silent, trying to think of any example, this should be easy.

“Sunshine, what happened when you met James?” Zemo tilted his head. He didn’t seem angry and Oeznik was still by your side, so you decide to answer him.

“We just went for coffee and then he walked me home.”

“I assume James being a gentleman asked to walk you home. You walked the world’s most deadly assassin to your door.” Zemo chuckled.

“That’s not fair. Bucky isn’t an assassin and with how my gut instinct used to work, I would have known.” You said firmly.

“It changes rapidly doesn’t it? What defence would you have had? You allowed James to walk you home because he asked. When I brought you here, I specifically told you that no one would find you, no one would hear you. Like James you knew who I was, who I am. Perhaps at the very least this experience will stop you being so trusting. Only in the last few days have you started to make decisions for yourself, but you are only doing that because you are frightened.”

“Zemo are you saying I was programmed to do what I’m told? Like Bucky I’m brainwashed? That’s why I don’t know what I like?” You didn’t see how Fury could have missed it, but it was a possibility.

“No Sunshine. You have always had the freedom to choose. You did this.” He glanced at Oeznik. Your heart started to race. You tried to pull apart what he said. There had to be one thing you liked, that you chose. Zemo reading to you, watching him work. But you weren't ready to admit that, he would know that already anyway. You wrapped your arms around yourself. Have I really done this? You just wanted people to be happy and they were, but was it because you did everything you were asked and not just you? Was it really that different to not miss your old things? You felt your tears spill over, you didn’t want to cry in front of Zemo. But you couldn’t help it. You looked at Zemo who was half out of his chair staring at you.

“I chose you.” You managed to choke out. Not the best decision you had made, but it might be the only one you ever had. Zemo explained more about your life with utter clarity despite not being there again. You sunk into yourself and sobbed. If you thought you wanted to die yesterday you were wrong, this was unfathomable. Oeznik scooped you up and held you in his arms. After a few moments you jumped out of his arms. You could hurt him in this state. That only made you cry harder. You wished Hydra killed you. Or Bucky did, or Zemo.

Next Part: https://www.tumblr.com/zemossunshine/672459371132928000/sunshine-chapter-16?source=share

[gothic-aesthetic-gal]

🦉𝔗𝔥𝔢 𝔑𝔦𝔤𝔥𝔱𝔟𝔦𝔯𝔡 𝔞𝔫𝔡 𝔱𝔥𝔢 𝔏𝔦𝔱𝔱𝔩𝔢 𝔅𝔞𝔱 🦇

Tanz der Vampire Krolockxreader

Warnings: Some mild violence and gore (in keeping with the level you might read in classic gothic literature)

🦇🦇🦇🦇🦇🦇🦇🦇🦇🦇🦇🦇🦇🦇🦇🦇🦇🦇

Chapter 18 - Finale

He pushed you, not hard, but enough to topple your balance, and you tumbled over the edge. The air began to rush around you as you dropped over the precipice and down into the darkness like a stone. You were too paralysed by fear even to scream and you braced yourself for an impact...

which never came. You were swept into the folds of Krolock's soft cloak as he clutched you tightly to him and returned to the balcony.

As soon as your feet were solidly on the ground, the Count swiftly stepped in front of you and protectively gestured for you to stay put. As he lunged for the duke the crack of the rifle sounded again - the shot tore through his shoulder, but it only slowed him down a mere second. The panicked duke fumbled in his breast pocket and withdrew a bottle of holy water. He tossed it directly into Krolock's face and he recoiled in pain hissing in fury and stumbling for a moment, clasping his hands over his eyes.

Herbert and his student were fighting the final pair of the duke's men and Koukol was still out cold. There was no one else to help you now.

Before Krolock could recover, a glint of silver under the light of the moon flashed its teeth. Realising that the hunter was two paces from driving the silver stake into Krolock's heart you swiftly grabbed the cutlass from the floor and ran at him.

Putting yourself between them you took up a defensive stance.

"Get out of my way!" He snorted.

"Not for the whole world, I cannot allow you to kill him" you answered resolutely.

He laughed coarsley.

"He is the undead, unholy. If he has no soul then how can he die?"

"What would you know about having a soul? About feeling and compassion?" You spat, fury bubbling up inside.

Krolock's cries of pain were still audible behind you.

"A man must be prepared to set aside such weaknesses, you would not understand... I will warn you once more. Stand aside or I will be forced to hurt you".

You glared at him and tightened your grip on the hilt of the sword.

Seeing that his words had no effect, his hand grasped the dagger. In a flash he lunged forward and having no choice, you thrust your blade forward to meet his attack. There was the scraping of metal on metal, flashing in the moonlight, before it was abrutly over.

The look of surprise in his eyes surely matched your own as you looked down to see that the cupped hilt rested against his abdomen as the blade had pierced him mid forward strike and run him through. With a terrible groan he fell to his knees and in shock you let the sword fall with him. The silver stake slid from his grasp and you hurriedly took it from him and secured it within the tattered remains of your dress.

You were aware that time was short, as you saw the duke hurriedly fumbling with the rifle to reload it. Krolock was still writhing in pain behind you.

With surprising swiftness you pulled the sword from the hunter, bracing your foot against his shoulder to do so, before you crossed the balcony. You grasped the rifle with one hand to push the barrel away. He had just cocked it as you did so and tried to wrench it from you.

You struggled with him for a moment before he threw you against the wall. You still clung to the barrel fiercely, aware that to let go was to die, but the impact and pain of your ribs hitting the stone wall caused you to lose the grip on the sword. As soon as it hit the floor he kicked it aside. You used your free hand to grasp the barrel as well, now more able to push back.

"You could have had everything a young (woman/man/person) in your abject position could ever had hoped to gain." He taunted.

You mangaged to hit him in the face with the barrel by suddenly swapping pulling for pushing. This enraged him further and he freed a hand to slap you across the face. The blow was dizzying and stung terribly.

He finally wrenched the rifle from you and tossed you to the floor. You landed roughly and let out an involuntary cry of pain. Standing over you then he pointed the barrel directly at you.

"Why? I can only assume you have long suffered from an instability of the mind. Why protect this demonic creature?"

Looking up at him you replied:

"He is not the one who attempted to force me into a marriage and stands over me now threatening to end my life... you lack fundamental human understanding and compassion. I could never subjugate myself in such a way as to marry you - not willingly."

No sooner had the words left your mouth before you lunged toward him and drove the silver stake deep into his thigh with as much force as you could muster. He screamed in surprise and the rifle discharged with a deafening crack that echoed from the castle walls.

You fell backwards once more, staring blankly at the starry sky above as all noise was suddenly drowned out by the ringing in your ears. For a brief moment you thought you were still outside the castle door; a lost (girl/boy/child) lying in the snow, exhausted and afraid.

Turning your head to the side your vision slowly swam into focus enough to make out the dark shadow of the Count rushing towards the Duke, who was struggling to remain upright now. The folds of his velvet cape brushed past you where you lay motionless on the cold stone.

In a flash of grey, Herbert's figure also rushed toward your attacker, followed by that of the other vampire. The three of them encircled him and, despite his fervent grovelling, he quickly vanished from sight with a desperate scream as they bore down upon him.

As your other senses slowly returned, a sharp pain in your right thigh made itself known. Everything had the quality of a dream, and you were quite dazed and confused. After withdrawing a hand from the site of the pain it was red and wet - with blood. Your brain struggled for a moment to comprehend that it was your own.

Realising that you were injured, you tried to sit up to assess how badly you were hurt, and found that you could not manage it. The pain was intensifying as you gradually regained clarity of mind.

You gazed up at the starry sky once again and wondered if this really was the end - with a strange and unexpected feeling of detachment about the whole matter. The sky was beautifully clear of clouds and the moon's silver light washed over the valley.

You were only pulled out of the shock when Krolock hurriedly crouched beside you, and gathered you in to his arms. As he cradled you to him and parted the hair which had fallen over your face to the side, the gravity of the situation began to set in.

"Y/n, don't leave me. Listen to me now," he pleaded.

You gazed up at his beautiful dark eyes, and reached a hand up to cup the side of his face.

"I don't have to".

A solitary tear rolled down the vampire's white cheek as he nodded solemnly.

[shriketimes]

sunday august 2, 1987

The energy in Shrike Heights is different. It has been since the very first attack, but there’s been even more of a shift since the latest tragedy struck only two days ago. Residents are frightened of the mall, and Eddie Prince is no different. He can’t seem to shake the fear that’s spread across the entire town like an invisible haze of smoke, and considers himself lucky to have had the past two days off of work, glad to be anywhere but the very place where another innocent person lost their life. Unfortunately the break from Shrike Mall is about to be over; he gets himself ready for the afternoon shift at Come What May, the expression on his reflection in the bathroom mirror changing from nervous to startled quite quickly as a loud smash comes from the living room.

He hurries out and is overwhelmed by the sight. A wooden arrow is alight with bright flames that burn the rug covered with glass from the broken window it seems to have been shot through. Eddie is frozen in panic for only a moment before he rushes to the flames threatening to catch his couch on fire. He attempts to stamp it out, but isn’t able to do so quick enough before his pants are burning too; he shrieks as his skin burns viciously, and quickly drops to the floor, once again crying out in pain as he rolls over the broken glass until the fire is distinguished completely. The burns aren’t severe, neither are the small cuts the remnants of his window have littered his body with, but his fear is near paralysing. He arrives at work more than forty minutes late.

monday august 3, 1987

While Ian Vogt hasn’t been present for any of the many attacks at Shrike Mall, he’s hurting perhaps just as much as those targeted by the sickeningly cruel killers. His world has been changed so dramatically because of the attacks, in a way that is so painful it’s hard to even comprehend, but he has no time to let the fear or the fury consume him; he has more responsibilities now than perhaps ever before, and is definitely unable to abandon them, no matter how overwhelming they may get. He shivers as he steps out his front door, the night air being cooler than he thought it would be; he shuts the door softly behind him to avoid waking the injured person inside, and he expels a tense breath of air he hadn’t realised he was holding in so carefully.

He hurries up the steps from his basement apartment, heading towards the dumpster swiftly in hopes of returning to the warmth of his bed as soon as possible. The plan goes smoothly until wet paint shining under the streetlight across from Sundown Apartment Complex catches his eye. After throwing the trash bag into the bin he can’t help but linger in the cold, curious eyes focused on trying to decipher what is written on the wall of the building across from him. Against his better judgement, he crosses the street to investigate; only then does he realise it’s not wet paint, the stench of blood flooding his senses. Stumbling backwards out of shock, he pulls his shirt over his nose in an attempt to escape the smell, reading the messy scrawl. ‘No one does good. Not even one’. While he doesn’t completely understand what the words are meant to mean, the feeling he gets while reading is immeasurable discomfort. He’s quick to run back to his apartment, his breath caught in his throat until he locks his door securely.

tuesday august 4, 1987 

Wyatt Griffin decides he’s in no mood to hang around the mall for any longer than needed, not today. The energy throughout town hasn’t been quite right for a while now, and today he can’t seem to shake his own bad feelings, feelings of dread and suspicion that he can in no way begin to explain. He feels as though something is wrong, but even as the feelings grow and spread into such a strong sensation, he assumes he’s being paranoid like the rest of the town are - and rightfully so, he thinks. Not even five minutes after his shift ends, he’s skating down the sidewalk, eagerly headed for home, still not thinking there’s any validity behind what he feels until he’s overwhelmed by the sight of the Hunter headed for the sidewalk he skates across. 

It’s the first time he’s laid eyes on one of the killers, and the sight has caught Griff completely off guard, his board wobbling as he stands up straighter to look at the infamous wolf mask while skating past the threatening figure. Even with so much fear coursing through his body, he trusts he can get away; he’s good at skating, and depends on his abilities to not falter as his body works hard to propel him further and further from harm's way. Despite his wishful thinking, however, he looks behind him, understandably paranoid and frightened. As he looks back at the Hunter - who he has thankfully distanced himself from a substantial amount already - he doesn’t watch where he’s going, not able to dodge a small piece of rock on the sidewalk that is enough to send him flying off of his board. He lands hard on the ground, the impact splitting his skin open on his elbow, and he slides across the asphalt just enough to leave his bicep and forearm grazed and bleeding. Despite his pain, he immediately gets back onto his feet, picking up his board with a shaking hand and running as fast as he can away.

wednesday august 5, 1987

Sora Aikawa finds only the slightest bit of comfort in walking home during the daytime; he thought he would feel safer with the sun shining so brightly over head, illuminating all surroundings, making any danger or threat easily visible and clear to see. Unfortunately, his anxiety was still sky high, his heart beating against his chest harder than his feet were stomping on the ground as he desperately walked as quickly as he could in hopes of arriving home safe as quickly as possible. He’s the only one in sight, and the loneliness only heightens his feelings of stress and panic; was there a reason other than paranoia that left him alone on a street usually littered with others? He can’t help but feel like something is wrong, and he believes it so wholeheartedly, no matter how much he tries to tell himself that he’s only overthinking and that things will be okay.

Before crossing the last road he has to before the final stretch of sidewalk finds him at his place of residence, Sora is sure to look down the side street, watching out for cars. His eyes widen as they find not a car, but instead, the Jack-O-Lantern killer standing completely still in the middle of the road. He tries to scream, but no noise escapes him. His theory of feeling safer sounded by daylight becomes completely void; if anything, seeing the Jack-O-Lantern in this environment is even more chilling, especially so close to home. Sora is frozen with fear until Jack takes his first step towards him. He runs, as fast as he possibly can, trying to ignore the tears that blur his vision and trying to gasp for air while not daring to look behind him. He feels faint upon reaching his apartment, shaking hands fumbling with the lock and the handle quickly - though it feels like he’s taking forever to get inside. Either way, he makes it unscathed, albeit more distressed than he thought he could ever be.

thursday august 6, 1987 

While traffic in Perkin’s - and throughout the whole mall, really - was slow, Mathew Lahde’s workload seemed to be never ending. For a shift where he saw such a small amount of people, he certainly had a lot of paperwork to do, and by the time he was ready to leave he was exhausted. There was something about the consistent state of stress and fear Shrike Heights residents happened to be under that drained his energy faster than usual on days like this. His eyelids feel heavy and his mind is scattered as he leaves the building; it doesn’t take him long before he realises his keys have been left behind, forgotten on his desk. With a loud sigh, he begins to make his way back to the clinic, taking the back entrance to save himself time and effort. 

As he walks through the empty back corridor used only by employees looking to make a quick exit, he isn’t paying much attention to his surroundings; the poor lighting assists with covering up a snare trap that has been set up using rope and the exposed pipes up the wall and on the roof. Mathew’s foot is caught in the trap, though it seems to have been made for a much smaller target as the worst that happens is his ankle is pulled harshly, a pop sounding before the area begins to throb with pain. He’s sure it’s at least sprained, and while it hurts his mind doesn’t focus on the pain, instead focusing on getting himself out of there. He’s sure no one would set a trap if they didn’t plan on coming back to see what they caught. “God damnit.” He hisses, frustrated upon other things now, his fingers burning from friction as he hurriedly attempts to loosen the knot pulling the rope so tightly around his swelling ankle. He surprises himself by getting himself out of the flimsy trap before anything can find him stuck there, his heart beating so hard and so fast that he almost thinks he can hear it echoing through the empty corridor as he makes his way to his office as fast as his injury allows.

friday august 7, 1987

Another Friday night spent working at High Scores only solidifies Diego Muñoz’s dislike for children. Especially those with sticky hands all over the arcade games, screaming at the top of their lungs, on a sugar high from all the candy they can somehow consume without getting sick. He felt as though he should be surprised at how people can simply continue being at a time like this, having fun, going out with friends amidst tragic attacks, though at the end of a tiring shift he thinks that nothing can surprise him anymore, not right now at least. He’s thankful to have reached his home free of all reminders of the arcade, though his exhaustion quickly turns into anger as he looks up to see someone has spray painted a large X over his front door.

He’s confused as to why someone would have done this, seeming to have regained quite a bit of energy as he walks swiftly towards the scene to inspect more closely. While he’s well aware Shrike Heights has it’s fair share of disrespectful residents (having just spent the night with quite a few of them at High Scores) he can’t think of a single reason why somebody would target him with the graffiti. Even despite the consistent attacks on the town, Diego doesn’t once think about the Shrike Heights killers until he’s close enough to his door to see that it isn’t spray paint marking the once clean, white surface. “What the fuck?” His confusion grows, as does his level of fear. Why would somebody paint an X over his door in blood? He stands there in a state of shock and confusion, a slight worry building up in his chest as he wonders if the outside of his apartment is the only place affected.

saturday august 8, 1987 

It had been awfully quiet at Tracks for a Saturday. It only really made the shift more unbearable for Aisling Marrero, who unfortunately had the closing shift all by themself. They aren’t particularly scared as they hurriedly make their way out of the mall and to the parking lot, but they can’t seem to shake the tenseness that they feel as they make their way out into the muggy night air. They glance from side to side as they make their way through the dimly lit lot. It’s understandable to be nervous, with everything happening so recently. Snap out of it, they think, exhaling deeply. Very suddenly, they hear the sound of feet against gravel somewhere in the distance behind them. They turn quickly, eyes desperately scanning the area to find the source of the sound only to find nothing. You’re being paranoid. It’s probably just an animal.

They turn back around and continue walking - the sooner they get the fuck out of there, the better. But before they know it, there is a sharp thwip in the air, and they feel something pass their head with such speed that they don’t even notice their cheek has been cut until they feel the blood dripping down their cheek. An arrow hits the asphalt with a clatter. They hold their hand to their wet cheek, noticing that their fingers are coated with blood. That’s when the stinging starts. They whip their head around once more to spot their attacker - but there is still nothing and no-one to be seen.

sunday august 9, 1987 

Being out in the open isn’t a concern for Osamu Hamasaki like it seems to be for others right now; rather, they’re quite glad to be breathing in the fresh air after such a long shift in the mall that was beginning to feel so suffocating, given everything that was happening. They let themself stand in the entrance of the mall for a moment as they take their breath, letting the last of the day’s sunlight warm their skin before they begin their journey home. They’re not fearless, of course, but they feel close to safe as they walk past the cars in the car park, finding comfort knowing that the circumstances aren’t like they typically are when an attack happens in the mall. At least, that’s what they think. 

They continue to walk casually from the mall, before they quickly stop moving upon seeing an arrow fly past their face. It hits the windshield of the car Osamu is passing, the sharp metal arrowhead leaving a large shatter in the thick glass. They turn their head to the direction of the shooter, their eyes scanning the area intensely, but they don’t see a single person that could be responsible. The illusion of safety they built up in their mind is long gone now, though they can’t bring their feet to move forward. Their eyes lock onto the sight of the smashed glass, they swear they can still feel the wind of the arrow flying past on their nose, and they know that if they were only an inch forward from where they stood now, they would likely be dead.

monday august 10, 1987 

Marzipan Medina makes her way home from her afternoon shift, relieved that she’s escaped the closing shift. After a particularly rough day, she’s eager to get home, so decides to take the shortcut home on her bike. The wind whips through her neat, copper hair, ruining the perfect curls that were so carefully styled earlier that morning. The speed in which she’s riding is very unlike her, but she closes her eyes and exhales slowly, relishing the feeling of the wind on her face. It ended quite abruptly.

She hits something so aggressively that it throws her from her bike, over the handlebars, sending her crashing into the pavement. Her head hits the ground and her side scrapes against the concrete. It takes nearly no time for her to recover, getting to her feet and straightening her dress out despite the dizziness. Her arm is bloody, and there’s a scrape wound above her temple, the damaged skin screaming with pain. Shit, my bike… she approaches the bike to check the damage when her ankles are met with a thin wire, strung tightly across the footpath. Her brows knit together as she inspects it. Odd. 

tuesday august 11, 1987 

The sunlight is almost blinding as Sabita Borra opens the door. She’s woken up a little later than she’d planned, hoping to have some time for herself before she has to take herself to the mall for another shift at Art Murmur. She hasn’t even had the chance to have breakfast yet, but her neighbours dog had been barking, which was routine for the animal when the mailman stops by. She figures it best to bring the mail in now before she forgets about it. As she approaches the letterbox, the neighbours dog continues to bark. For an unknown reason, it seems to bother her, the sharpness and loudness of the bark really drilling into her head. “Hey! Calm down, it’s just me. What’s your deal today?” she asks the canine. Though she can’t see the dog, she knows it should be able to hear her. 

She reaches for the letterbox, pulling the hatch open. The sight immediately makes her sick. A dead rabbit has been placed carefully inside, blood pooling at the bottom of the box. The smell of flesh hits her and she slams the lid shut, immediately holding a hand to her stomach, the other covering her mouth as she gags. She’s thankful she decided to check for mail before breakfast - because she definitely would have just lost it. The reality of the situation starts to sink in. Either she’s more at risk than she originally thought, or someone is playing a very sick prank on her.

wednesday august 12, 1987 

Kenzi Carlson curses as she rummages through her bag in an attempt to find her house keys. She shuffles through the array of objects that she’s collected in her bag today, struggling with the VHS tape that seems to be making the search even more difficult than it needs to be. For a moment she feels her insides bubble with anger at the possibility of having lost the key. Thankfully, she feels it and tugs it out of her bag as she walks to her door. When she raises her head, she stops in her tracks. This has to be a fucked up joke. Even though she thinks that to herself, she doesn’t believe it. Everything inside of her is telling her to get as far away from Shrike Heights as possible. 

A knife is pinning a note to her door. “Nowhere is safe,” is scrawled on a torn piece of paper. Now, that she believes. Her panic manifests as anger, and she rushes to pull the knife from her door. Her hand grips the knife a little too far up and slices three of her fingers. “Fuck!” she pulls back, her fingers dripping blood onto the doorstep beneath her. She uses her other hand to pull the knife free, grasping the note with her bloodied hand so that she can scrunch it up (despite the searing pain in her fingers.) Kenzi tosses the knife into the street and hurries inside to tend to her wound, feeling more restless than ever.

thursday august 13, 1987 

The sun is setting on Shrike Heights. The mountains in the distance contrasted against the pink and orange sky was certainly a sight to be seen - and it was so picturesque that Cassie Rivers could have sworn it was something right out of a story she’d read. She was so focused on the view as she walked down the footpath that she hadn’t even noticed the sound of wheels on the pavement until they were right next to her, a person either side of her on roller skates. Their bubblegum colour scheme caught her attention, but she doesn’t say anything. As they continue down the path, Cassie starts to feel uneasy. The two roller skaters are swerving closer and closer - and it isn’t long before one of them nearly knocks her over. “Watch it!’ she says sharply, only just managing to dodge them in time. The skaters don’t utter a word - not even so much as an apology. Instead, they begin to laugh at her in a tone that is most definitely mocking. “Knock it off.” They both swerve into her again, arms out, ready to shove, but Cassie is lucky to dodge them again, their hands just brushing against her as she takes a few steps backwards. She frantically scurries into someones garden, knowing very well that the skaters can’t reach her there, running as fast as she can in the opposite direction - keeping to rough terrain as best she can.

friday august 14, 1987 

As of late, nobody who gets the closing shift is particularly happy about it. The same can be said for Hazel Grace, who has thankfully locked up a little earlier than many of the other stores - eager to make her way home. The other stores surrounding Jennifer’s are all closed, but from across the way she can see others that have their grates half-open as employees finish cleaning. It makes the girl feel a lot more secure - not that safety in numbers has proven to be valuable here at Shrike Heights - but she’d much rather face a threat with a group than face it alone. Hazel takes all but two steps before she hears an unfamiliar sound. Before she has a chance to see where the noise is coming from, two roller skaters whip past her so fast that it sends a gush of wind in her direction. Her heart beats fast in her chest and she exhales shakily. Are they even allowed to do that? She thinks to herself. 

Before she has a moment to relax, the skaters spin around swiftly, skating back towards her, faster than before. She freezes in her tracks, unsure of which direction to move in order to get out of their way. Of course Hazel assumes that they’re just a couple of punks coming up from Donna’s Roller Disco. But even then, she can’t help but feel there’s something a little off about them. Before she has time to react, the skaters take hold of her and slam her against the wall of the store front beside them. Her head collides with the wall with a sharp crack, and she slides down the wall as her attackers disappear down the nearest escalator. Hazel feels the back of her head, and sighs with relief when she realises her head has not been split open.

saturday august 15, 1987

On her break, Gemma Cameron had decided to check out one of the latest coffee shops to open in Shrike Heights, not within the mall, but a couple blocks away, beside an old Thai restaurant that’s seemingly been there forever. Though it was a rather disappointing endeavour, she takes the coffee with her anyway on her way back to the mall (where she’d probably discard it before getting her regular from Double Shot Cafe). There isn’t really any particular reason for her to be any more aware of her surroundings than usual, especially during the day when everyone is assumed to be safe. So when her shins are met with a tripwire, she’s caught off guard. She stumbles forward, coffee flying out of her hands and landing harshly on the footpath, coffee splattering the ground. Thankfully, she manages to catch herself before she topples over completely. 

Brows knit together as she crouches down to inspect the wire. Both ends are fastened to trees on either side of the footpath. Perhaps, if I pull hard enough… she tugs on the wire, which only tightens the trap. She moves her hands to the complex knots in the wire that are holding it to the tree, but her efforts are unsuccessful. The wire is bound too tightly, and the only way to release it would be to cut it. With a heavy sigh she stands up and steps over the wire, making a mental note to remind someone to remove the wire when possible. At least she doesn’t have to deal with the shitty coffee anymore. 

[cailjei]

For the gift exchange of @worstloki . My giftee is @palletprincess . I truly hope you enjoy this!

The sound of a door creaking woke Thor from his slumber. A thin ray of moonlight passed through the drapes, illuminating the room. His gaze immediately snapped to the door. Loki stood there, his face looking otherworldly pallid under the light of Asgard’s moons. He seemed unsure of what to do.

Thor sat up in his bed. “Brother?”

There was a pause, before Loki asked timidly “Can I come in?”

“Of course.” Loki stepped through the door uncertainly. “What happened?”

Loki hesitated for a moment. He casted his gaze on the floor. “I had a nightmare.”

Thor scooted over to make room for his brother, pulling off the bedcovers and patting the now empty space beside him. Loki slid under the blankets. It was impossible to see it in the dark but now that they were near each other, shoulders and arms touching, Thor could feel his brother trembling. “What was the nightmare about?”

“I don’t remember.” Loki answered a bit too quickly. It was a pitiful attempt at a lie, which was weird coming from Loki, who usually was so artful at his deceits. Nonetheless, Thor was tired enough to let it go. “It’s alright. Let’s just go to sleep.”

Thor had almost fallen asleep, when he heard Loki whisper. “It was so cold. Their eyes were glowing like embers, burning in the dark. And they came for me. The Jotnar monsters.”

Thor knew that his brother was scared of the Jotnar. It was the only threat of their nursemaid, Hilde, that had actually taken root. And ever since Hilde had understood it, she had used it ruthlessly. Every time his brother was causing mischief, Hilde would say that the Jotnar would come and steal him in the night and eat him. Loki, despite putting on a brave front would pale every time he heard it.

“They won’t come. And even if they do, I won’t let them take you.”

“You promise?”

“I promise.”

They were suspended above the void, Loki’s fingers wrapped around one of Gungnir’s ends as Thor tightly held the other. Loki looked more vulnerable than Thor had ever seen him, since they were both children and Loki slipped into his bedchambers, in the middle of the night, seeking help to ward off his nightmares. Thor could see Loki breaking a little more every moment that passed, but he could never have guessed that Odin’s words would send him over the edge, not until he saw his expression, shifting from desperation to resignation. Loki’s fingers loosened their grip and Thor screamed as his brother let go, because there was nothing else he could do, nothing that could keep his brother from falling into the abyss. And then he was being hauled up to the bridge by Odin.

“Loki!” Thor yelled, feeling paralysed, staring over the edge, at Loki who seemed to get smaller and smaller with each passing second, as if he was being consumed by the darkness surrounding him. For a wild moment, Thor had half a mind to follow him, but the urge passed before he could realise it. Then he heard Odin uttering some arcane words in an ancient tongue. Loki’s form was enveloped by white light, and suddenly he disappeared. Thor terrified turned to his father, who was gazing onto the bridge again. He followed Odin’s stare only to find his brother, laying in a heap, prone and unmoving. Thor looked questioningly at Odin.

“It’s a sleeping spell. It will keep him calm until we can get him to the infirmary.”

Thor ran to Loki and turned him over. Loki’s face was slack, youthful in his senselessness, all evidence of his previous madness erased. He didn’t know what else to do, other than yell at Loki what the Hel he was thinking, or crush him into a hug and never let go. Since he could hardly manage the first, he had to be satisfied with the latter. So he gathered Loki into his arms, pressing him tightly in his chest and got up, following Odin to the healing ward.

The days following his failed coronation were the most difficult thing Thor had ever had to endure. It felt as though the world had turned upside down and yet he still had to pretend that everything was as it used be. He had to attend a lot of council meetings regarding inter-realm relations, as well as the fate of his brother. Odin had declared Loki to not be of sound mind and -as much as Thor hated to think about his brother that way- it made their job of defending his actions against the council and the representatives of the other realms so much more easier.

And as terrible as it was for him, he could only guess how horrid it was for Loki.

Loki who had not spoken a word since being rescued at the broken rainbow bridge. When Thor visited the infirmary, he mostly stared into the distance, ignoring him. At the rare occasion when Thor said something particularly stupid, Loki would turn and look at him with dull eyes. To be honest, Thor himself did not know how to feel about Loki and about what Loki had done. He alternated between guilt and fury and worry and sorrow.

And then there was their family secret.

Three days after the incident at the Bifrost, Thor’s parents had bid him into Odin’s study. “We need to talk to you.” Frigga had said. “It’s about your brother.” And Thor had come. His parents had both seemed awkward at first, as he took the chair in front of them. Odin spoke first. “Your brother is not our son by blood. He is our son by heart.” The words felt like one of his many practiced speeches.

Thor did not know what to say, he did not even know what to feel about it. All these years and the thought had never crossed his mind. Looking back now he could see how different his brother had always been, both in appearance and personality. And yet, Thor could not think Loki as anything other than his brother. Odin went on, apparently unaware of Thor’s shock, his gaze turning distant.

“It was years ago, during our war with Jotunheim. After I fought Laufey, I found him, abandoned in a temple, left to die of exposure. Laufey’s son. I will confess, my first thought was that I could use him, I could unite our realms through him. So I brought him home. I may have had plans for him, but soon enough they all changed, as I came to love him as if he were my own. Perhaps I erred, in hiding from him what he was. But that was not my intent. I thought him to be happy. I truly thought him happy.”

“It can’t be. He cannot be one of them. The Jotnar are monsters! Loki is... clever and witty and wily and... and not a monster!” Even as he said that, he thought of his brother, hell-bent on destruction at the Bifrost, feral and wild, crying and cackling. And on this occasion alone, Thor could imagine him blue-skinned and red-eyed, monstrous. The next moment he felt sickened by his own train of thought.

“They are not monsters Thor. Don’t ever say that again.” Frigga hissed. “He is your brother, regardless of his race.”

Thor just gaped. “All these years, you let us believe -you let both of us believe- that the Jotnar were monsters! That they were nothing more than monsters! How could you, when the one you call son was one of them-”

“We never taught you as such. But we couldn’t control the people’s opinions... And after the war the Aesir’s hearts were hardened against the Jotnar.”

“But you could have taught us otherwise. You could have taught us the truth.”

His parents had nothing to say to that. At last Odin spoke. “I will admit that we could have handled it better. But, in all honesty, I had thought that he’ll never know. We only sought to protect him from the truth.”

“So that means that he knows?” Thor asked in the end, even though he had the sneaking suspicion that he already knew the answer to his query. For there was no other explanation for his brother’s sudden bout of insanity.

“He does.” Answered Frigga.

Thor had heard enough. He excused himself and left. He had a lot to think about.

The next day, after Thor completed his obligations, he headed towards the healing chambers. Loki was there to heal, but the healers had no idea how to aid him. His magic was bound, much to his dismay. Thor visited daily, but today he was there for a different purpose. After he reached the door, he stilled himself, readying for the battlefield that this conversation will be. Then he knocked, mostly to inform Loki of his presence, and entered without awaiting for his response.

Loki lay on the bed, curled on his side, his arms wrapped around his waist and his back on the door. For a moment, he wondered whether his brother still slept, but once Thor noticed his breathing pattern he could tell that Loki was awake. Thor sat on the chair beside the bed, as usual.

“Loki, turn to face me. Please. We need to talk. It is long overdue.”

Loki did not answer him. He did not turn around either. Thor struggled not to sigh audibly. “I know what you are.” Loki’s breath hitched. “But I also know who you are. My brother, my best friend, my closest confidant. My equal.”

For the first time in four days, Loki spoke. “You must have lost what little wits you had about you if you think to call a Jotun your brother, much less your equal. I would have thought that by now, we both have learnt that I am neither.” His voice was raspy from disuse and thick with disgust.

“That is not true. As children we’ve played together and as men we’ve fought together, side by side. I know you as I know no one else. You may not be my brother by blood, but that is not the only measure of brotherhood. The Jotnar are not monsters. And you are not one either.”

Loki finally turned to face him. “And they would have it that I am mad. Whence did that sudden love for the Frost Giants came? You had no qualms about slaying them all. You said so yourself. And yet, one of them is standing right before you, wrapped in false Aesir skin and instead of making good use of your prized hammer, you call it brother and dilly-dally your time making polite conversation with it!”

Thor was momentarily stunned. He hated the way Loki seemed to think about himself. He was also unable to discern what his brother was referring to. In the end, a distant memory clawed its way on the forefront of his thoughts. “I was but a child. I didn’t know any better. And I was wrong to hold such opinions.” Loki’s eyes widened in surprise. There was a brief pause. “You shouldn’t talk about yourself that way.” Added Thor at last.

Loki chuckled bitterly. “But a few days ago, you were ready to kill them all, to start a war with them over petty insults, to make them learn their place. And in the space of a three day vacation on Midgard you changed completely. All those years, I was the only one to see your flaws, your arrogance, your temper, your impulsiveness, your tendency to act before you think and I did my damnedest to try and change them, and when that proved impossible, I did what I could to keep you away from the throne, before your hot-headiness doomed Asgard. And as if you did not already set an impossible standard, suddenly you return from your banishment, all flaws wiped away, ready to consign me to your shadow, forever this time. For how can I escape it now?”

“I wouldn’t have ruined Asgard!” Thor felt genuinely hurt that his brother seemed to hold him in such low regard. His aforementioned temper began to rear its ugly head again.

Loki laughed, hysterically. “You wouldn’t have done it all at once. But given a few centuries, I am certain-”

And Thor exploded. “You didn’t just do it for Asgard! You always were jealous of me. I never did understand why, for what petty reasons-”

Loki’s face hardened. “Of course. This is what I am, isn’t it? Everything I do is either from envy or from spite, there is always some sort of malicious intent behind my actions. Everything that’s ever wrong, it is that way because of me, it could never be you, the golden son, the flawless, glorious prince, the mightiest warrior of Asgard. This is what everyone believes, isn’t it? I am a trickster, the Liesmith, a snake in the bosom of the royal family, finally revealed for what I truly am-”

“I do not believe that.”

“And I don’t believe you. All those centuries of being dismissed as the lesser prince, my talents belittled as yours were cherished, of being in your shadow until I became one.”

“I never thought myself as your better.” Even as he said that he remembered, not a week ago, saying to his brother to know his place. He flushed. “I didn’t mean- I was just angry-”

“Ha. You always are. Angry or upset or-” Loki cut himself off and breathed deeply through his nose. “I don’t want your sentimental nonsense. I am not interested in your worthless excuses either. Go.”

“Loki...”

“Leave me be.” Loki said, his voice flat and cold, turning away and curling into himself again, in a movement that reminded Thor of a snake coiling in preparation for brumation.

Stubbornly, Thor attempted to start again the conversation, but his efforts were all for naught. In the end he left, having achieved none of his goals.

That night, sleep would not come for Thor. Certainly, it was not for lack of effort. The conversation with his brother was replaying in his mind, over and over. Sometimes, Loki frustrated him to no end. Other times he got angry on himself, for his mishandling of the situation. He tossed and turned until giving up finally when only the smallest moon was still hanging in the night sky.

It was true that his brother’s seidr was scorned since it was considered a womanly art. His cunning and keen wit were appreciated by few when applied to strategy in battle, but Loki’s preferred method of manipulating social circumstances and lying, even by omission, were thought as cowardly. ‘A warrior’s way is as straight as the sword he wields.’ Were the words of their weapon-master, Tyr. Tyr had often berated Loki for not leaving up to that standard. And Thor- he didn’t recall berating exactly, but he most certainly teased. He didn’t have malicious intentions, he didn’t want his brother to feel bad, but in retrospect, he could see how his comments, or the ones by their friends could be taken as offence, even if at the time they were received with a wicked smirk and a retaliation in the form of a snide remark, usually about the intelligence of the offending party. And, on second thought, although he held Loki in high regard, he had underestimated his brother’s talents in the past. Loki had spoke true, he had been arrogant and thoughtless. He still was, from time to time. Perhaps he ought to admit to his faults. It wouldn’t solve everything, but just maybe it could be a start, the new beginning they both seem to need.

When the morning arrived, Thor mustered the courage to go to Loki’s room again. He rapped his knuckles on the healing room’s door, ready to burst in without permission, when Loki’s tired, thin voice came to him through the wood. “Have I not make it clear enough yet that I do not desire your mindless chatter?”

Thor could not help the smile that graced his lips. If you excluded the weariness in his tone, Loki almost sounded normal, like every time Thor interrupted something he deemed important. How Thor wished everything was that simple, as it was during their youthful squabbles. “Can I enter? Please, brother.”

A sigh was heard from the other side of the door. Thor could almost imagine the exasperated expression in Loki’s face. “My wishes do not really matter now, do they?”

“Of course they do and if you truly think there is no hope to mend what is between us, then I will go. But, if you hold even a sliver of hope in your heart, let me in.”

Another sigh, softer this time. “Come in.”

Thor opened the door, standing awkwardly in the doorway. Then he ventured forth, taking the chair beside his brother. “I have thought long and hard about this. And I wanted to apologise, for I have indeed wronged you.”

If anything, Loki seemed annoyed at this. “Is this your attempt to appease me for my imagined slights?”

Thor pressed on. “I have underestimated you in the past. I failed to recognise that while our skills may differ, they are of equal importance. In fact, when it comes to ruling, cunning, diplomacy and the ability to decide with your mind rather than your heart, are perhaps more important than prowess in the battlefield.”

Loki gaped at him. “You can’t mean that. You witless oaf! I... I almost killed you! And you apologise for merely-”

“I do not believe you intended it. Had I not been a mortal, the strike would not have killed me.”

“I- I was so angry, I did not think-”

“Sshh. It is alright.” Thor hesitantly put his hand on Loki’s nape. When Loki did not pull away, but instead leaned into the touch, Thor pulled him closer still, until their foreheads touched. For the first time in this bleak week he felt something like hope. Things were not well. But they could be mended.