#to stop it trying to kill their other dog. its snarling and barking and trying to kill their other dog.

[jvhdb]

my downstairs neighbours, who are fans of playing the same 10 seconds of the same 3 rave remixes - one of which is the thomas the tank engine theme tune - on repeat for hours at the highest possible volume each day, have recently discovered that they can also play andrea botcelli's con te partiro on repeat for hours at the highest possible volume each day. in between the same 10 seconds of the same 3 rave remixes (one of which is the thomas the tank engine theme tune).

[skyloftian-nutcase]

Congrats on the followers Skye! :D You said you still had slots open for writing prompts, so can I ask for either something with dad squad, or your au which I forget the name of but Link’s dog’s name is Friend? Maybe some kind of hurt/comfort :)

-Sky Floor

Link knew better than to say things can't get much worse, but the thought tried to cross his mind.

With the amount of times he'd faced his mortality, he'd hardly ever feared death anymore. Sometimes he wondered if it would be a relief to actually die. Not that he'd actively pursue it, of course, but it seemed a passive companion he sometimes longed for and other times pushed away.

But either way - he certainly felt closer to it now than he had for many years.

Gritting his teeth, the former hero dragged himself up by a low reaching tree branch, gripping his sword with all the strength he could muster. The iron knuckle he was fighting marched towards him, enough weight in each step that he could hear its armor clanging across the field. The good thing about these cursed monsters was that they were slow, but after fighting a veritable army of stalfos, lizalfos, wizzrobes, and a boss fight against the corrupted wind dragon, he was reaching the end of his abilities. Honestly, the fact that this behemoth was so slow just made it seem like death was taking its time to claim him. It wasn't as if he could just flee - they were too close to a village, and this thing would kill everyone.

Not that it wouldn't kill them if he died, but... still.

Think, idiot! This isn't the time!

Link managed to roll just as the iron knuckle swung its heavy axe at him, allowing him to get close and chink away at its armor. He got behind it, bashing its helmet with his shield before his leg finally gave out, making him fall to the ground with a grunt.

The iron knuckle turned, its helmet half off, armor damaged, but axe still at the ready.

Link closed his eyes, overwhelmed with pain, bracing for the hit as he feebly held up his shield.

Instead, he heard a snarl and a crash. Opening his eyes, startled, he saw the iron knuckle on its side, having been hit at full speed by Friend, who had torn a path across the field, teeth bared. She gripped wherever her powerful jaw could clamp down, grasping at one of the iron knuckle's arms and tearing it off.

Letting out a relieved breath, he rolled over to get to the enemy and reached weakly for its axe so it couldn't retaliate. Friend beat him to it, ripping off the beast's other arm, growling the entire time as her fur stood on end.

The iron knuckle stopped moving, its armor crumbling to ash and malicious smoke, its helmet remaining.

Link let himself collapse entirely, gasping for air. Friend was in his face in an instant, licking him and whining. He didn't have the energy to reassure her, and she barked at him in protest of it.

Before he could do anything, his sweet companion was nuzzling at his pouch, grabbing it and bringing it to his hand. He smiled tiredly at her, feeling blood seeping out of multiple wounds as she moved to try and nurse them. He hissed when she licked at his leg, but he couldn't shoo her away. Instead, he sifted through his pouch, trying to find anything that could help. He wasn't entirely sure he was stocked up for a fight like this or not.

Eventually, his trembling hand found a cool bottle, and he pulled it out, seeing a red liquid inside. That was promising. He struggled to uncork it, so Friend moved up to him and pulled at the cork with her mouth, letting him get to the contents. After nearly choking down the potion, he let out a sigh of relief, smiling at her. "Thanks, girl."

Friend panted happily, tail wagging as she licked his face once more. Then she nipped gently at his tunic, pulling him along the field as he spluttered. "Friend, what are you—stop it—"

The chonk didn't listen, dragging him as he hissed over every rock and stick he ran over. Eventually he tried to right himself to at least crawl out of the open area, and Friend crawled under him whenever he was about to collapse, supporting him. By the time he reached the edge of the forest he was exhausted, huddling in on himself under a tree. Friend barked at him and then took off running, though he had no idea what she was up to. He glanced around blearily, but he saw no other signs of monsters.

That was good enough for him for now. He closed his eyes, trying to save his energy. He didn't realize he'd fallen asleep until he blinked his eyes open to see that it was dark. And entirely too quiet.

"F-Friend...?" he asked shakily, shivering and trying to sit up.

Where was she? Was she okay? What had happened?

"Oh my gosh, there he is!"

Link squinted, seeing Friend charging towards him with two people following her. They were both immediately recognizable, what with the girl's fancier fashion style and the boy's large stature.

Oh, great.

"'M fine," he immediately insisted. "Taking a nap. Go away."

"You're not fine, look at you!" Princess Zelda argued as she knelt down beside him. "Fancy Hands, pick him up, we have to get him to the village!"

Link glared at Friend while the Gerudo teenager sighed and complied. Traitor.

Friend wagged her tail happily in reply.

"Put. Me. Down." he immediately growled when the other Link tried to haul him over his shoulders.

"Well, you heard him, Princess," the Gerudo quickly said.

"My orders supersede his, pick him up!"

"I will gut you."

"Princess, he doesn't sound like he wants to be carried."

"I don't care what he wants! He's bleeding, he could be delirious!"

"I'm fine."

"He says he's fine."

"I heard him, knucklehead, I don't care!"

Link groaned as his world started spinning. This was getting tedious, and he was in pain. "Just leave me alone."

"Look," the masseur said. "If you don't want to be carried into town, at least let us help you here. I could go back and get supplies from the healer."

Link bit his lip. He didn't like it, but it was a far better option than letting himself be hauled around. "Fine."

The Gerudo nodded, rising, leaving the princess and the pup. Zelda looked him over carefully. "You really did take on that entire army by yourself, didn't you?"

Link stared at her uncertainly.

"That's... incredibly brave of you," Zelda continued. "A mark of a true Hero."

Oh, for Farore's sake. "No. I'm not the Hero."

"Oh, come on!" Zelda argued, putting her hands on her hips. "You definitely are!"

"They owed me money," Link grumbled in reply.

"That's a lie and you know it!"

The argument went back and forth for a few more minutes before Friend finally finished it by laying her entire head over Link's face, silencing him. He tried to protest, his voice muffled in her throat, making the princess laugh and exciting Friend. She licked his face, whining a little, pawing at him.

"I'm okay, Cupcake," he whispered tiredly. The edges of his vision were fading to black. Friend whined again.

"Don't worry, girl," Princess Zelda said gently, petting the dog. "We'll take good care of him."

Link found that he couldn't be annoyed anymore, snuggling close to his sweet dog and falling asleep as they awaited the Gerudo teenager's return.

[clickerflight]

Voltober 30. Stakes and Torches - From Dust to Ashes

Author's notes: BEHOLD! Esial's very bad no good day. You get to read it in better clarity than he even remembers it!

Masterlist - Part 29

Content: Vampire whumpee, human whumpers, hunting, hunting dogs/dog attack, hiding, impaled, bound, burned, descriptions of melty vampire flesh, just a grief that is so so deep

@voltober

Impaled | Burned | Hunted Down

Esial’s bare feet pounded across the forest floor. He glanced back, hearing the loud noises being made by the animals that were with the hunters. He had been running for days, and while that would normally lead him to safety, the strange four legged animals he’d never really seen before always managed to find him again when he stopped to rest, trying to decide where he could go to be safe.

He had heard that a monster like himself had killed the ruler of the land, but it very clearly wasn’t him. He was just a hippo hunter. He barely interacted with any humans beside his grain giver. He didn’t deserve this whatsoever. He didn’t know what exactly the hunters would do to him if they caught him, but he had heard the screams of another monster and he did not want to be subjected to anything that could make someone scream like that.

He glanced back to see the animals coming closer, barking and baying, the sound of people behind them somewhere. Esial was losing ground as he had broken his ankle tripping earlier and it wasn’t healing fast enough, re breaking almost every time he brought his foot down.

He gritted his teeth, the pain a distant thought as he tried to hurry, but something sharp snapped into his calf, dragging him quickly down.

He slammed into the roots of a tree and was dazed for a long moment where the snarling, barking animals tore into him with teeth like knives.

He turned and backhanded one, kicking the other off and getting to his damaged feet as the animals whimpered and backed off, one of them limping badly.

He kicked another that had come from out of the brush, saliva foaming across its lips, before turning and limping away as quickly as he could. He gasped on the pain at every step, looking up at the full moon above. It was too bright. Too easy to see him. He had to find somewhere to hide.

He did not find a hiding place all through that evening, though his slow pace did not get him caught as he had managed to disable the animals enough to make some extra time as the humans stopped to tend to their new pets.

As his foot finally healed, Esial thought about his own. The crocodiles out in the river who attended him and even helped distract the hippos sometimes in the hopes of getting some extra food from Esial’s catches. He missed them terribly, and it was killing him inside that he might never see them again. He would have to find a different river to live beside and befriend a new family of crocodiles. But they wouldn’t be the same. He had known those crocodiles’ great great grandparents, and now he would never be able to return for fear of being hunted down again for something another monster did.

It wasn’t fair, and it drove him to tears, reaching for the amulet his father had made him to protect him from the sun after being turned by a monster for comfort.

His hands closed on empty air, his nails scraping his unprotected chest. He looked down in shock to find that the amulet was completely gone.

He stumbled to a stop, his breath coming in quick, fearful waves. Even if he had disabled the humans’ pets, even if he did get a head start, he would never make it without the amulet. It was the only reason he hadn’t been caught when the other monsters had been. He turned around, hoping it had fallen off recently, but he knew when he had lost it now. When those animals had brought him down, their teeth in his flesh, it had to have come undone, and he was too stupid to notice.

He keened, high and afraid before turning and bolting. He had to get far, far away from here. He needed to find somewhere to hide, somewhere the humans would never find him. He just needed to make it far enough to where they wouldn’t find him during the day. He could get away if he just had one more night. He had to. He couldn’t be caught, not after everything he’d been through.

Esial cursed himself for losing the last reminder of his father, of his destroyed village, as he ran through the night under the full moon.

…………………………………………………….

Esial curled up in the shallow bank he had dug into just as the sun was beginning to rise. He had found a dry riverbed and dug until he fingers were nearly scraped down to the bone in terror, feeling the coming rays slowly and surely start making their way closer and closer toward his exposed back.

But he’d made it. He’d climbed into his hole and pulled the dirt back in to hide him further, just in case. It was close, and hard to breathe, but better than being in the sun. He had been burned once, only once, but it was enough to put a terror deeper than the Nile was long into him. He closed his eyes, pressing his cheek into the dirt, exhausted from all of running on an empty stomach, as well as all of the healing.

He drowsed for most of the day, the cool dirt cushioning him, until he heard something that made his eyes shoot open in terror.

The barking.

There was no where to go. He could only hope he had hidden well enough they couldn’t find him. He didn’t even know how they managed to keep finding him, so he had no idea if he had done a good enough job. He tired to hold his breath, slowing his already lazy heart beat and hoping they wouldn’t hear anything.

He heard claws on the hard packed dirt and stones, heard the sound of panting, and closed his eyes again. He couldn’t take the anticipation as the creatures came closer and closer.

He heard someone shout out from farther away. “Find anything, boys? What have you got there?”

Esial heard snuffling and he shoved himself back as the animals began to dig at the door to his hole.

“No,” he whispered urgently. “Go away. I’ll kill you! Go!”

The animals did not listen, breaking through and shoving their noses eagerly into the hole, which Esial batted at, causing them to leap back with a startled yelp.

“Looks like the dogs found it! The monster dug itself a little hiding hole,” someone called out.

Esial hissed as he saw a man crouch to get a look at him. “I did not kill anyone. Leave me be!” Esial shrieked for the hundredth time.

The man smirked. “And I just have to trust your word on it?”

Esial’s fierce facade crumbled and he clasped his hands together, shaky and desperate. “Please, believe me! I’m just one of the hippo hunters. I will leave and never come back. Please!”

The man shook his head with a laugh. “No, I don’t think so.”

Esial pressed himself back in his hole as he heard something above him on the bank.

“Dig it out. Once the sun has it, it’ll be easy to deal with.”

“NOOO!” Esial wailed. “PLEASE!”

He coughed as a clod of dirt fell from the ceiling onto him and he turned in his hole, trying to find some way out of this. There had to be some way out.

“Papa!” he cried unthinkingly, but that only made him feel worse. His papa was dead and had been for years. There would not be anyone to save him. All it got him was mocking laughter from the hunters

The dirt gave way and fell on top of him and he fell flat, trembling under the weight of it, still only barely hidden from the sun.

He screamed and writhed as something sharp dove through the dirt and into his side, hooking into his flesh and pulling him up through the soil. He clawed at the dirt around him, but there was nothing to hold onto as the hook spear dragged him out of the ground, and very suddenly he was burning.

He screamed, his mouth melting around his teeth in the face of the sun as the hunters laughed, hauling him up.

The sun was cooking him alive, and there was nothing he could do but writhe and melt as the hunters heaved him up and away. He wasn’t even able to hear them over his screaming and the flesh melting into his ear canals.

He had no control over his body as he was put up against something that burned very differently from the sun, cold rather than hot, and more of it wrapped around him, holding him firmly in place.

He was bundle of nerves, only meant for pain, and there was nowhere his mind could go to hide from the fate. He was everlasting, and ever burning, and even just that realization nearly pushed him over the edge of sanity.

He didn’t know how long the pain lasted, only that he was certain all of his flesh had melted from his bones until finally the pain lessened, speckled in places, and then he was cool, only burning where the cold touched him.

His body slowly began to recoup itself, pulling his flesh back together, unsealing his eyes and mouth, and he gasped for air, opening droopy eyelids.

Night had fallen, and the stars indicated that it was quite late in the night. There were a couple of humans nearby, eating and laughing, feeding their ‘dogs’ and generally enjoying themselves.

Esial looked down to see bright chains wrapped tightly around his torso, arms, and legs, binding him to what felt like a pole. The pain of the metal was insignificant compared to the pain of the sun, though it disturbed him to see how his flesh still sagged over where it had melted onto the chains, bubbles still clear in his skin as his clothing partially hung off of his pelvic bones.

He looked up again, eyes blurred with pain and exhaustion as he spotted the light beginning to come up over the horizon again. He lowered his head and sobbed. “Please,” he whispered, tears refusing to come after spending so long being boiled alive. “Mercy.”

None of the hunters heard him over their revelry.

VTB Part 31

FDTA Masterlist

From Dust to Ashes Taglist: @whumpsday @honeycollectswhump @writereleaserepeat @tragedyinblue @hyrules-sleepiest-knight 

@why-not-ask-me-a-better-question @thecyrulik @gt-daboss @currentlyinthespiral @pigeonwhumps @not-a-space-alien @scatteriskity

[blackjackkent]

Took longer than expected, but we finally have the camp houseguest I was expecting when Alfira showed up.

It has been a relatively quiet night in camp. Rakha has been keeping to herself, as usual, listening in silence to the banter among the others - but she notices at once when Wyll sits up, his head cocked liked a dog scenting something on the wind. And she registers the look of absolute terror that crosses his face.

"Hellsfire. She's coming."

The portal bursts open in the center of camp without warning, a roiling mass of flame and brimstone. Rakha is on her feet instantly, her own fire magic curling around her hands.

Interloper. Intruder. Danger. Kill--

Wyll has a hand out, trying to press her back, to stop her from attacking. With significant effort, she pulls herself to a stop, both fists clenched and flaming at her sides. And she watches as the portal disgorges a tall, lithe, beautiful humanoid-looking woman.

Horned. Winged. Not a teeth-ling, not quite, but something similar. And supremely confident in herself. The woman ignores Rakha completely, settles into a comfortable contrapposto stance, and smirks at Wyll unpleasantly.

"Wyll," she purrs. "You've been naughty. And you know what happens when you're naughty."

"Gods damn it," Rakha hears Karlach growl. "Anyone but her."

Rakha's jaw is tightly clenched, her eyes fixed on the stranger. The last time an unexpected face entered their camp, it ended badly - and she can feel the tension zinging between her companions. Karlach knows this woman, it seems - and dislikes her. Someone from Avernus, presumably. If not teeth-ling, then devil.

And she knows Wyll. She is, Rakha can assume, the source of his abandoned vendetta against Karlach (and, based on some comments Gale has made in passing, likely the source of his strange magic as well).

But most immediately, she is an interloper and a threat, and it is half the beast that speaks when she snarls out the words, "Godsdamned devil. Get out of my camp!"

If the woman is troubled by the threat in Rakha's voice, she doesn't show it. "Now?" she says, with a mock-innocence that fools no one. "But I'm just getting comfy." She smiles coolly. "Call me Mizora. I'm Wyll's patron, the fount of his power. My pet's been unruly... and his leash needs a *yank*."

On the final word, she snaps out a hand and Wyll clutches a hand to his throat as he is pulled by an unseen force almost off his feet. He cries out with sudden pain, gasps for air.

"We had a deal, Wyll," Mizora says icily. "But Karlach's still breathing."

"I've taken more pleasant shits than you, Mizora," Karlach snaps. She's keeping her distance, hunched into a fight-or-flight stance, her face twisted from its usual good humor into pure rage. "And at least those can be buried after."

Mizora clicks her tongue. "That's no kind of talk for a lady. By the way, Karlach - Zariel sends her regards."

Karlach's scowl deepens. Wyll rasps out, "You told me devils only. She's a tiefling... not a monster..." His voice sounds terribly strained; his legs are trembling with lack of air.

Mizora smiles. "How precious. The little pupster's found his bark. Clause G, Section Nine - Targets shall be limited to the infernal, the demonic, the heartless, and the soulless. Karlach meets the criteria, pet. Trust me on this."

Rakha's eyes flick around the group rapidly, parsing out what she can of this latest in the long series of bewildering conversations that is her life. Wyll, it seems, has been tricked, and Mizora now come to collect when he refused to carry out the stated mission. She wants him hurt and Karlach dead.

That, Rakha thinks with some relish, isn't going to stand.

"I've heard enough," she says sharply. "You're not leaving this place alive."

She has a hand up, ready to strike-- and she isn't sure what stops her. It might be magic, something emanating from Mizora's fist... or it might be Wyll's choked cry of dismay, wordless. Either way, the blow never lands.

"Kill me?" the devil says, as casually as if she were talking about the weather. "I wouldn't recommend it. I die, and Wyll turns to a lemure and gets sucked right down to the Hells." She pauses, then smirks. "Which reminds me..."

Another burst of hellish light; Rakha staggers backwards from the flare of heat that goes with it... as it rises around Wyll and swallows him.

Narrator: Wyll burns in the fires of Avernus. The lightning storms of Dis strike his flesh. His soul passes through each layer of the Hells, gaining their essence - and their torment.

Rakha does not know what is going on, what this flash of light implies or what Mizora is doing. But she knows that Wyll is screaming in pain and Karlach howling in fury and fear. She hears Lae'zel curse from behind her, the sound of a blade being half-drawn, held in uncertainty.

She's almost on the point of ignoring the whole lemure business and hurling herself at the devil anyway, of getting her hands around the woman's throat and beginning to squeeze-- when the flames ease. The light dies, revealing Wyll standing there, breathing hard, seemingly unharmed.

Unharmed but changed.

Two long curved horns now curl out of Wyll's head. His neck and arms show a harsh, grooved texturing to match the scars that line his face. His good eye has gone a deep, blood-red.

He is no longer human. He is a devil, like Mizora. A devil like those he has hunted.

"That's better," Mizora says brightly.

"What the hells have you done?" he cries, anguished.

"A promise broken, a price paid," she says airily. "You knew the terms. Get used to the new form, pet. There's no going back. Some magic, even I can't undo. Now, let's see how the Frontiers fare without their precious Blade."

Rakha's vision goes white around the edges. For the first time that she can remember since waking up, she feels a flash of deep rage on the behalf of someone other than herself. The beast is roaring in her head and she wants Mizora's blood on her hands. She wants the devil lying as Alfira did, in a sigil of blood next to the sigil of fire where Wyll burned.

Mizora turns and looks directly at Rakha and gives her a slow, sly smile. "Karlach," she says, without looking away from the half-orc. "Keep an eye on him, would you? I'll be keeping mine on you. Oh, and Wyll-- don't forget. Our pact still stands. Ta-ta!"

And she vanishes, just as Rakha's hands are about to close around her neck.

-----

Rakha misses her footing as her target vanishes and slams heavily into the opposite wall of the cave. Her jaw works and she explodes into a roar of anger, slamming her fist into the stone and sending a jolt of pain up her arm. "Damn it!" she snarls.

But the sting of pain clears her mind a little. Mizora is gone. The moment has passed. The beast whines in agitation. There is no blood to be had...

Wyll and Karlach have both disappeared back to their tents. Lae'zel stands watching Rakha's temper tantrum with an unimpressed expression. "Did you not hear the devil?" she asks. "To injure her would be to condemn Wyll. What purpose does this display serve?"

"Vengeance," Rakha growls hoarsely. "She mocks him. Mocks us all."

Lae'zel lets out a heavy breath. "So she does," she agrees. "But the devil is gone, for now. See that you calm yourself. We will not have a repeat of last night, if I have to knock you senseless to ensure it."

[cyberneticlagomorph]

The venue, because that's what it is not a court house or anything of the sort, is a grand old theater with a blazing marquee that proclaims "TRIAL TODAY" in bold black letters.

A red carpet has been spread out from the theater's wide open double doors like a tongue lolling from a toothless mouth. Either side is lined with jostling reporters and flashing cameras that summon a seizure aura almost immediately. You grit your teeth against the sensation and hope it's something small this time and not a fit of spasms.

Vehicles of every shape, size, and description stands in an anxious line at the opposite end of the red carpet, with their occupants exiting with just as much awe and applause as if this were some Hollywood get together and not a bid for a little boy's life.

When your turn comes the crowd falls to a hush as the Great Crow slowly spirals down from a gap in the clouds and deposits the cage at the edge of the carpet.  You exit first, sunglasses on in a feeble attempt to block out the buzzing flashing seething crowd that pulsates around you like ravenous corpse worms. You spot a familiar face in the crowd the same second he spots you, but you're faster by a mile and haul the scrawny brown haired man up by his neck.

"YOU!" The word isn't a word, it's a bark, a hiss, a growl between clenched teeth.

One Peter Benjamin Parker writhes in your grip like a bug with its legs pulled off.

How fitting.

"It's PASSOVER! PASSOVER!!!" Peter, or Benji as you used to call him when you were kids, gasps as he tries to loosen your grip. He says the words like a payer, like they mean something. "You.... promised... Aunt... May..." You scowl and drop him, watching him quickly scramble to his feet, rubbing at a neck that's already starting to bruise.

"I should kill you where you stand."

"You should, I totally agree with you on that BUT you promised my dear Aunt (may her memory be a blessing) that you wouldn't, no matter what I did." Benji gives you the biggest set of puppy dog eyes he can give you, though the effect is lessened by just how many eyes that actually is.

"She moved to FLORIDA Ben, stop telling people she's dead."

Benji clasps his hands together and does his best to look somber, "Sometimes I can still hear her voice..."

You try and fail not to smile at his dumb joke.

Benji holds up his camera, "C'mon just a few shots, my rent is due and I PROMISE I'll make you and the kid look good."

You scowl again and flex your fingers in a surprisingly threatening manner.

Benji shrinks back just a little, "...I'll even turn my flash off?"

You punch him somewhere tender and keep moving up the carpet, ignoring your growing migraine and the dangerous roar of your empty belly.

Any other reporters that get to close face your wrath and end up with their skeletons rearranged without breaking their skin.

Zeb is flanked on all sides by family members and snarling hyenas, safely hidden from the ravenous paparazzi as you make your way inside the darkened maw of the theater.

[lilacella]

There will be some violence in this but nothing too gory. Also, I turned Greyback into a super villan kind of guy because someone has to take over this role and he is kind of predestined for it :)

Nightsky

Chapter 8: Bad moon rising

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As it turned out it was way less stressful for Sirius to move in with Remus than the other way around. They'd been happily living in the lopsided cabin for two years and to Remus genuine surprise, Sirius didn't seem to mind it at all. He had insisted on a new bed though, since Remus old one had threatened to break apart anytime they used it for anything other than sleeping. Remus hadn't been able to argue against that.

He turned around to see Sirius sleep next to him. He looked adorable. Remus gently stroked his cheek. His heart fluttered, even after all this time being with Sirius, sharing this calm initimacy, felt surreal. Sirius shuffled closer without opening his eyes. Remus wrapped his arms around him, burying is nose in Sirius hair. The rain was hitting the window pane and the weather outside was dismal but they were here, warm and cozy as you could be. Remus felt a wave of comfort and happiness. Finally, things were good.

Later, after the rain had stopped, he and Sirius decided to take a walk through the nearby woods. They often did that. Sirius turned out to be a lot more excited about nature, than Remus had thought. Being raised stuck in a city townhouse seemed to have left its mark. Often, Sirius would turn into Padfoot and Remus pretend that he was walking his - very badly trained - dog, whenever someone passed them. Today an older lady had scolded him for walking such a large dog off leash. Wasn't he worried about the sheep? Remus had apologized profusely while Sirius had barked at her until she scurried away and Remus had to supress a grin.

"You will get me into trouble!"

Padfoot looked up to him sheepishly, barked and then zoomed down the trail and then back again towards him. Remus watched, chuckling to himself. Fucking maniac, he thought adoringly.

When they approached the house again Remus stopped in his tracks. There was someone standing in front of their door. Someone that was looking at him now. Someone whos face he knew well, but wished he didn't.

Greyback. What did he want here? He looked over to Padfoot who was already snarling. Remus steadied himself and then firmly stepped towards the man who had cursed him with his affliction.

"What do you want?"

"Na na, Lupin. Where are your manners?"

Remus glared. Padfoot barked.

"Hold on to your dog," growled Greyback, regarding Sirius with a derogatory look. "I'm here to talk to you. I have something to offer."

"I don't need anything from you so kindly leave."

Greyback laughed hoarsely.

"Now don't you want to at least listen? I heard your dear father died. So sad. I offer my condolences."

"I do not accept them," Remus replied coldly. "Don't bring my father into this."

"You live in this thing?" Greyback threw a judgemental look at the cabin. "You must really struggle, huh? See, I could help you out, if you just joined..."

"Leave!," Remus said loudly. "I will not join your pack."

"Oh Remus...This isn't really an offer you can...argh....ow...get that stupid dog off of me before I kill it."

Padfoot had launched forward and sunken his teeth deeply into Greybacks leg. It made a nasty crunching noise.

Remus crossed his arms. "I'm afraid there's nothing I can do. He never listens."

"You bit a werewolf!" Remus exclaimed battling his shock and amusement.

"Is that an issue? It only works the other way around right?" Sirius asked, his toothbrush still stuck in his mouth, trying to scrub off the bits of Greybacks leg stuck in between his teeth.

"What? No, I think it's fine. Not that there would be much precedence anyway...I can't believe you actually did this." He couldn't surpress a chuckle this time.

"It worked didn't it?" Sirius spat out the toothpaste. "Made the fucker bugger off."

"For good, I hope. I don't like that he knows where we live." Remus frowned. "I don't want anything to happen to you."

Sirius smiled at him adoringly. "Remus...You really don't have to worry about me. If he tries anything, I'll just bite him again!"

Remus laughed. "What if you're not padfoot when he attacks you?"

"I just said, I'll bite him."

Remus snorted a laugh. "You're being silly."

Sirius put his hands on his shoulders. "I just want you to stop worrying. I will be fine. I just hope he leaves you alone. Otherwise...Merlin have mercy with him, because I won't."

**

Remus tore desperately at the ropes tightly wrapped around his wrists and ankles, fixating him on the chair. It was to no avail. The restraints only dug deeper into his skin.

"You can't do that!"

Greyback hollered.

"Of course I can my dear boy. Tonight, you will turn with us. I will make you taste blood. Don't you want that?" He lifted Remus chin, his long nails digging into his skin.

Remus grunted. He was trapped. Greyback had caught him by surprise. When he'd come out of the bathroom he suddenly had been standing in the cabin, grinnig wildly. Remus didn't have time to reach for his wand before the spell hit him, rendering him unconscious. When he had woken up he'd been tied to this chair in something that looked like an abandoned storage unit, halfway filled with shabby looking furniture.

"Please, just let me go," he pleaded. Greyback was right. Once he turned with the pack, once he hurt someone, there was no chance of him ever going back to his old life.

Greyback laughed again.

"No, no. So rude. I even got you a special treat! Don't you want to see it?" Greyback let go of him and limped towards the door. Sirius had done pretty substantial damage. Sirius! That couldn't be what Greyback was talking about right? He didn't have Sirius, didn't he? Remus felt like throwing up. Please, anything but this!

It wasn't Sirius. It was much much worse.

"Uncle Remus?"

Remus choked. Harry. Not Harry. How had Greyback gotten him.

"No," he said faintly. "Please."

"He'll be easy prey, won't you little boy?" Greyback dragged Harry towards Remus and trew him roughly to his feet before he locked the door.

**

When Sirius came back from a long day at work he was exhausted. He couldn't wait to get under the shower and then spend the rest of the evening on the couch, cuddled up with Remus. At least until it would grow dark. Then they would have to go down into the cellar. Sirius wasn't worried about that though. The wolf had become a lot more docile over the years and he didn't have much effort keeping him calm nowadays.

But when he reached the house he froze. The door was ajar. Remus wouldn't just leave it open like that. Something was wrong. An uneasy feeling overcame him. He drew his wand.

"Remus?" Sirius pushed open the door and entered, carefully observing his surroundings. Not a hint of Remus. But there were muddy footsteps, all over the floor. These were certainly not Remus'. Anger was boiling up inside him, mixed with a good serving of worry. Greyback. He must have taken Remus; and on a full moon! This could only mean one thing. He had to find him, quickly. Sirius hurrydly followed the footsteps back outside, into the woods, failing to notice the urgent noise of the Potters owl, hammering against one of the windows.

**

Remus was terrified. Harry was crying for his mom, banging at the locked door in terror, and there was nothing he could do. He had to helplessly watch and wait, the inevitable drawing closer with every minute. He was nauseaus and his head was aching terribly. Was Sirius looking for him? He couldn't tell the time, he only knew that the moon would rise soon. He could already feel it tugging at his flesh and his mind. The feeling had always scared him but over the years he had grown somewhat used to it, knowing that he wouldn't be alone when it happened. But this was different. This time there would be no Padfoot and no Prongs to calm him. Instead he saw himself confronted with the horrifying prospect of maulig his best friends six year old son. He wanted to scream, but he knew this would only upset Harry further and be of no use anyway. At least Sirius was safe. A faint relief in the view of the current situation.

Greyback got up and stretched himself. "Ahhh...Can you feel it? Soon, it will begin. Are you looking forward to it? You must be soo hungry?" He grinned with yellow teeth.

Remus wasn't hungry. Quite the contrary, he wanted to throw up. His panic rose and he once more struggled uselessly against his restraints.

"Oh, my dear boy. Don't worry, you will be free soon." Remus saw how Greybacks eyes turned yellow. It was starting. It was over. He closed his eyes in defeat, letting the transformation roll over him. The last thing he heard were fast footsteps approaching. Then the wolf took over.

**

Sirius stormed through the closed door. His hand tightly gripping his wand. The locking spell hadn't buged so he had done what he had learned as a kid. Just closed his eyes, imagining that the door wasn't there at all and walked right through it like a ghost. Maybe his parents questionably parenting had yielded some useful results after all.

There he was. Remus, tied to a chair, Greyback beside him. Both already writhing as their bones rearranged and fur started to burst through their skin. And there was a whimper coming from beside him. He tore his eyes open in shock as he realized who it was coming from.

"Harry?!" He didn't have time to ask what on earth his godson was doing here. If he was hurt. There where two werewolves turning in this room right now and there was no safe way for them to escape fast enough. Sirius grabbed the boy and hastily ushered him into a somewhat sturdy looking wardrobe.

"Quick, in here! You need to be really brave now okay? I promise, I won't let anything..."

He was interrupted by the howling of the wolves. He slammed the doors shut, sealing them with his wand and turned to face the rabid creatures that were charging at him.

As a cursebreaker, Sirius had seen plenty of werewolves by now. Small ones, big ones, brown ones and the classic grey wolf. Ones with big, almost sad lookig eyes, just like Remus and ones with teeth so sharp they ripped through their own lips. But the ones that haunted Sirius nightmares were the puppies. Bitten children, their wolves not fully grown. So small that Sirius could catch them with his bare hands if he was careful enough, and he often did - something Remus couldn't find out under any circumstances. But the puppies were so fragile. The regular slingshot spell would kill them in an instant. To imagine that Harry could turn into one of them, potentially escape only to be killed by an incompetent fool - unbearable. No, Sirius had to make sure he was safe. And he would, even if it cost him his life.

The slingshot hit Greybacks wolf right in the face, a strong rope tightly wrapping first around his neck, then and gradually around his entire body, rendering him immobile. Remus was another story though. Sirius wouldn't use the spell on him.

He wanted to turn into Padfoot but it was too late. Sharp claws dug into his shoulders and he was knocked back against the wardrobe, onto the floor. He barely managed to grip Remus snout, pushing him back, keeping the wolf out of biting range. The pain was immeasurable. Sirius had been scratched by a lot of things, another side effect of his career choice, but Grimsley had been right. Nothing quite compared to a werewolf. Remus couldn't bite him but he could still claw him open, and he did. Sirius knew that this wouldn't work for long. The pain would eventually make him pass out and then Remus would bite him. Then he couldn't protect Harry any longer. And Remus would never forgive himself. There was really only one thing he could do and it seemed futile. Sirius tried it regardless.

With all his remaining strength, and maybe some magical reserves, he pushed Remus back as hard as he could, and turned. The wolf charged at him again, its teeth stopping only millimeters away from Padfoots snout before it abruptly stopped and recoiled in confusion.

Padfoot was in agony. Remus claws had dug deep and he could feel warm blood running down his sides, soaking his fur. The dog panted. He could hear Harry whimper from inside the wardrobe and the wolf now became more and more interested in it. It started clawing at the doors, trying to get its paw in it to reach the human it smelled. Padfoot lifted himself up sluggishly and tried to nudge the wolf away from the doors. He could barely stand. Remus had also gotten well into his thighs and so the dogs hindlegs kept breaking away. He gently bit into Remus neck and pulled. The wolf whirled around, snarling and snapping. Padfoot stumbled backwards and fell back to the floor, whincing. The wolf turned back to the wardrobe.

He tried to stand up again, but found that he couldn't. Don't pass out, he thought. He needed to get a grip. Get up, you can break down later! Harry needed him!

But there was no way. His legs kept giving in, just sliding away under him. He barked at the wolf. A desperate attempt to avert its attention. And it seemed to work. Remus turned and trotted towards him, sniffing Padfoot, almost looking concerned - if a wolf could convey this emotion. Then, he started licking his wounds. Padfoot winced again. Another lick across his face, then back to where his skin was torn open and blood was trickeling out of him like water out of a broken tap. He couldn't survive this. There was just no way. And when he died, he would turn back and then nothing would stop the wolf from tearing its way to Harry. Sirius just hoped that the locking spells would hold.

With a gnarly cracking sound the wolf convulsed on the floor in front of him, slowly transforming back into the man he loved so dearly. They had made it. He had made it. How the fuck was he still alive.

The bleeding had suddenly stopped during the night and Padfoot, still incredibly weak, had crawled back in front of the wardrobe. Guarding it like a herd protection dog. A pretty fucked up one, but it had worked. And now, finally, dawn had come.

He turned back into his human form and groaned in pain. He looked down on himself. His clothes were drenched in blood.

He needed to get them out of here. He needed to get Harry out of here! Before Greyback...he threw a look over to where the slingshot had pinned him. He had tranformed back as well and seemed completely knocked out, a large red bite mark on his leg. Sirius smirked with satisfaction. He also wasn't moving. Not even a bit. Sirius struggled to his feet and dragged himself over to examine the other werewolf. He was dead. The slingshot must have crushed his windpipe. Or maybe circulation head been cut off for too long. Sirius was glad he hadn't used the spell on Remus. Even if it had gotten him to his current shredded state.

He limped over to the wardrobe and unlocked it with shaking hands. A terrified Harry looked at him with wide eyes. When he saw the blood on Sirius clothes he started crying.

Sirius knelt down, trying to comfort him.

"It's okay, Harry. It's over. You've been such a brave boy. It is over. You are safe now. I will take you home to mom and dad, okay? I'm sure they will be so happy to have you back."

Harry whimpered, still scared. Of course he was. All night inside a closet, hearing aggressive beasts trying to get to him. Sirius shook his head to drive away the thoughts. He needed to function now. He'd break down later.

"Come Harry, let's go." He stretched out his arms. Harry hesitated but then crawled towards him clinging onto him. It hurt like hell.

It took a good while for Sirius to get them out of the room. The stupid locking spell was still active and he could hardly drag Remus and Harry through the door with him. In his current state he wasn't even sure if he could make it himself. When the door finally opened Sirius stepped trough, holding Harry on one hand and using the other to levitate Remus unconscious body in front of him. It felt weird to maneuver him around like that. Sirius had wrapped his torn cloak around Remus naked body to offer him at least a little bit of decency.

To his surprise, the remaining members of the pack were all gone. He had shot down everyone he had encountered with stunning spells on his way in, but they must have worn off. Maybe they had all ran outside and were now awaking somewhere in the woods.

As they made their way trough the warehouse, he heard voices. One of them, he recognised. And so did Harry.

"Mommy!" He let go of Sirius hand and ran towards Lily who knelt down, holding her arms open and let out a relieved cry.

"My baby! Come here lovie! Oh God, are you okay? Let me look at you. Are you okay? James!"

James came running down a hallway and pushed his way through the group of Aurors, Lily had talked to. He sobbed in relief.

Then he noticed Sirius, the worry immediately returning to his face. He was clearly torn between checking on the blood covered Sirius and his son, but Sirius just gave him a thumbs up and gestured towards Harry.

**

"Are you sure you don't need to go to the hospital?" James asked skeptically as Sirius sank down onto the guest bed, trembling with exhaustion. Sirius shook his head.

" 'm fine. Drank my potion. Just need to sleep."

James and Lily had taken them all to their house. Remus was still knocked out on the couch downstairs and Lily was trying to comfort the traumatized Harry. A duty that James should join instead of fussing over him, Sirius thought.

James was gently tugging on his shirt.

"You should get changed into something that isn't blood soaked, maybe. And I want to look at your injuries. They must be bad. Damn, this is a lot of blood."

Sirius tiredly shrugged off his shirt and wrestled out of his pants, cringing in pain. James frowned.

"Weird."

"What," Sirius asked, lying on his back, eyes closed.

"The wounds are closed. They should remain open until they are sealed."

"Well I'm not complaining."

"Hmmm. Yeah me neither but...look at this, they are almost completely healed already."

Sirius lifted his head and looked down on himself. James had cleaned the blood off his skin with his wand and all that was left were some crimson marks. He frowned.

"That is weird."

"Sirius!"

They turned towards the door as a disheveled looking Remus barged into the room, still only clad in Sirius bloodied cloak.

"Sirius I'm so sorry!" He broke down next to the bed, clinging to Sirius knees. James bent down and ushered him gently onto the bed instead.

"James, I..."

"It's okay Remus. It's not your fault."

"I am so sorry," Remus sobbed.

"It's not your fault," James repeated gently. "I'll go look after Harry okay?" He looked over to Sirius, who nodded.

"Harry," Remus whispered weakly. "He must be terrified of me now."

Sirius ran his fingers through Remus damp hair. He was soaked in sweat. A common occurrence after the moon.

"You're running a fever, love."

"Don't mind me," Remus croaked. "How are you? I remember..." He frowned at Sirius wounds. Or rather at the lack of them.

"How..."

"Don't know. Don't really care either. I need to sleep. And so do you." Sirius shuffled and turned until he was lying in bed properly and could crawl under the duvet. Remus did the same, shrugging the cloak off and dropping it on the floor. He cuddled close to Sirius, bare skin pressing against his.

"I'm so sorry," he said, again.

"Remus, it's fine." Sirius put a hand on Remus cheek and looked into his eyes. "You need to understand that none of this was your fault. And noone blames you either, okay? Not me, not James or Lily and I am sure that Harry won't either."

Remus sighed. "But I do. I should have...I should have expected this. After he showed up, I should have been more vigilant. I..."

"Shhh." Sirius shushed him, pulled Remus head on his chest and cradled him in his arms.

"It's all going to be okay. I promise."

Remus pressed tightly against him, thoughtfully tracing the skin around Sirius scratches.

"How are they already healed..."

"You licked them. Maybe that fixed it." Sirius mumbled, already half asleep.

"You think?" Remus asked. "That would mean..."

Sirius head popped up again. "Wait."

They looked at each other. "Werewolf salvia could fix werewolf injuries?"

"That could be a medical breakthrough! I need to talk to Grimsley about that." Sirius tried to climb out of bed but Remus stopped him.

"You can still do that later. You need to rest. You've lost a lot of blood."

Sirius sank back down and cuddled back up to Remus. He felt awfully dizzy.

"You're right. You're always right, Moony."

Remus chuckled weakly. "Most of the time."

They held each other close, slowly drifting off to sleep while outside the rising morning sun slowly dissolved the thick fog of dawn.

[patiusarchivist]

Duel at the Arms Factory

Random drabble of Darth Nox in his apprentice days, enjoy:

Jadus whirled his double-bladed lightsaber, a constant scarlet whirlwind of deflection and carving through the Republic line as he made step for step into the weapon factory. Their desperate attempt to halt the young Sith kept their attention on him, even as their war droids were lumbering for him.

Unaware to the Sith's ancient assassin moving under the cloak of chaos, slipping into a bunker. The massive killer seemed to appear like a nightmare to the technicians' eyes as his crackling seratted vibro-blade carved into their flesh and bones.

The Sith Inquisitor waved his hand out, tearing a fist-sized hole through one battle droid and yanked its innards as slithering serpents to coil necks and yank limbs, parts becoming speeder-fast projectiles that buckled energy shields and ended lives without him stopping his pace. To stop is to be caught into the hailfire and he was not dullard enough to believe even he could stop a trench fireline stationary.

Fingers curling as he gathered his dark power from within. His hate. His anxiety. His desire. All of it became the electricity to dance through the pylons of his bones. The young lord blooming power became a beacon that called on the faint presence that he knew was lurking near. Throwing his hand out into a crackling cascade of lightning, webbing arcs crossing the trench and devoured droids and turrets.

Reaching for Republic soldiers making for repositioning, only to be caught and gathered by a pylon of emerald. "Ah, there you are." Lord Kallig sighed, following his near jolt of Sith Lightning that popped off the opposing lightsaber to meet into melee of a Jedi.

Armor-limbed but intent to remain their robes of righteousness, the Republic's force-equipped dog whipped himself forward to meet slash for slash. The hissing snarls of a Sith blade dancing with the rhythmic hums and barks of a Jedi's.

In the bout, the two were almost blurs. Whips of crimson and emerald. The former far more aggressive, trying to kill with each strike while the later defended with the flow of Soresu, keeping Jadus from touching his opponent's limbs and flesh with attempts to disable him. Just to find the Sith apprentice was just as cunning to reangle and redirect the attempts until they were locked, their blades crackling and showing each others' face.

Jadus' sneering scarred face under his hood, the disdain burning in his violet eyes. "Surrender, Sith and you may live comfortably in a cell." The Jedi defender offered. That earned a dry rumble of a chuckle, "Sorry, I lived long enough in a cage to be put into a gilded one, Republic boot-licker."

That earned a glare from the Jedi's brown eyes. He looked no older than Jadus, but such was the demands of their opposite faiths. Even the righteous zeal of the Jedi showed when their children-acolytes become their own personal militia in the demands of Republic as the Sith learned more and more. Such wasted potential.

Then the Jedi Guardian pushed Jadus back, giving the illusion of a greater physical strength.

He held his weapon two-handed before coming for Jadus this time as the Sith whirled his double-bladed weapon. And when he came for the opening thrust, Jadus whipped his bottom blade in a outward riposte and that engaged into another trading. Both looking into the tethers of fate, seeking an opening while dancing. However, several in particular caught the Inquisitor's notice.

This wasn't a duel as much as a distraction. He kept his eyes on the Jedi but his sixth sense reached out, feeling the several guns primed. The only thing keeping them from firing was the Jedi that kept himself in the crossfire while the soldiers made their ploy. Clever boy.

Too bad, they weren't fighting a warrior.

Jadus whipped his double-sabers and started to attack into the flurry of Juyo, the two treading on the edge of the trench. The earth under their boots starting to shift, threatening to yank either of them into the depth below. However, their training kept an exiliterating balance. The Guardian was keeping a mask of calm discipline and concentration, trying to keep focus on the slithering viber infront of him. All the while, Jadus was grinning in a dark glee.

He knew what the Jedi was up to. He knew it all took but one mistep on either of them to end up with death. And unlike the Jedi, Jadus welcomed it. Enjoyed it. And he wondered how long before the false sense of acceptance to Death in their precious code will be true for this one.

And in their locked eyes, he could feel it. The growing weariness.

It manifested into the Guardian suddenly making a step forward, shoulder slamming into Jadus' chest when he appeared to be make a downward arc. The blade poised to impale the Jedi retreated into his hilt while the emerald blade was ascending to run through the Sith in instead.

The lacking commitment threw the Jedi off, suddenly Jadus slipped past the thrust and spun. His telekinesis pulled the earth and a small typhoon of debris was whirling around the path, obscuring the firesquads of the battle. Only the flashes of blades crossing and slashing at each other.

"Damn it, hold your fire!" The sargeant commanded, "We need a clear shot!"

As the battle raged in the typhon, their eyes were barely seeing two until it seemed the crimson was winning and finally ran through the emerald swordsman. Their mounting anxiety and control was becoming one directive that wiggled into their subconscious: Shoot! Shoot that monster down!

And they will not remember who made the command before one squad fired first. The blue tracers of blasterfire hitting into the storm. The defending blade was a ugly color from the whirling dust. They kept firing, not hearing the call for ceasefire. Until one bolt caught the wretched Sith in the thigh. The next in his arm. Then more and more before finally, he screamed out and threw the whirling debris into an explosion, revealing a long Jedi crumbling with the sizzling blaster-marks on his body.

"I-it's me..." The young man whimpered before collasping into the trench. The Sith no where in sight. Remaining automatic turrets making adjustments, twisting towards their commanding officers and by a press of a command; open fired. Jadus watched from the cloak of twisted light, grinning at the massacre before delving deeper into the factory. "Good work, Khem."

The Dashade growled back, his arachic language becoming a disturbing second nature from their bond, "Next one is mine. I grow hungry." "Don't you always?"

[x-hollywoodghoul-x]

“Oh holy moly.”

The vault-dweller's persisting commitment to avoid using actual swear words was so nonplussing, that it briefly distracted The Ghoul from the visceral unpleasantness of his situation. She sounded like a fucking pre-war kindergarden teacher. It was absurd that she could shoot to kill and get her hands dirty now, but cussing was apparently where she drew the line.

It was difficult to see what she was doing back there, standing so close right up in his blind spot. The Ghoul didn't like it. At the first brush of contact against his side, he visibly stiffened, and gritted his teeth, but let her pull his tattered coat free from the impaled bolt - it would have yet another new hole to add to its vast collection, no big deal.

It took everything in him not to flinch from the fingers prising his bloodsoaked shirt away from the wound it had been effectively stapled into. He could feel that Vaultie was trying to be careful - it didn't make it any less viscerally uncomfortable to have the sting of fabric being peeled up off his messy entry wound, or to have cool air hit the newly exposed section of marred skin.

Reflexively, The Ghoul caught the hem of his shirt in a gloved hand, holding it at the point where the vault-dweller had raised it - just high enough to see what she needed to, and nothing more. His other hand restlessly hovered by his holster. Ready to yank the fabric back down and swiftly retaliate if she made a wrong move. It was easy to be braced for violence.

Cooperation was more challenging.

“Just- hold still, okay?”

"Get on with it," he bit back, trying to temper his breathing to better cope with the anticipated shitty time he was about to have to endure.

"Ain't got all day - annghh!"

The Ghoul broke off with a bloody snarl as she started to pull, head bowing, hand clenching spasmodically at the butt of his pistol. The reflex impulse to shoot at the cause of his terrible pain was difficult to curb. He channelled his energy into some emphatic cussing instead.

"Goddamn - motherfucking son of a bitch - fuck!"

Having promptly inhaled the jerky, Dogmeat had returned in a flash at the sounds he was making, and was now milling around and barking - as though she wasn't sure whether this was some new exciting game they were playing without her, or a genuine cause for intervention.

There was an awful scraping sensation of metal against bone, another bloom of fresh agony, and then it was over.

Breathing raggedly through gritted teeth, The Ghoul snagged Dogmeat by the collar and gave it a curt tug; the Malinois promptly quieted and sat, ears cocked back, staring behind him (at what was in Lucy's hands, no doubt) with slightly manic eyes and a panting grin.

"Leave it," he hissed at the dog, because the last thing he fucking needed right now was for her to frolic around with a crossbow bolt and impale her own mouth - ow, what the fuck was that?

At the sudden sting of a very large needle, The Ghoul whipped around and caught the vault-dweller by the wrist. The ferocity of his glare and the bruising force of his grip dissipated almost immediately at the sight of the stimpak in her hand.

Huh.

"...Shouldn't waste those," he informed her acerbically, wiping one of his less grimy rags over the rapidly closing wound to mop up the worst of the blood. A long time ago, he'd have done a more thorough job at patching himself up. But nowadays, some Med-X and walking it off did the job just fine. There was no need to spend precious caps on supplies that were no longer necessary for survival.

"You need 'em more than me."

Admittedly, he did feel much better. That didn't erase the fact that unless she had another stimpak squirreled away in that pack of hers, she'd probably be fucked now if she got shot - or had a chunk taken out of her by some wasteland beastie. Which left him with an annoying sense of obligation to cover her stupidly altruistic ass.

Stop making me feel indebted to you.

@okey-fucking-dokey

In a frenzy of agitated movement, Cooper folded, sucking in a deep breath of a mystery vial (and seemingly suffering for the trouble of doing so). 

"...Fine. C'mere, vaultie. Let's see if your angle's any better, then."

If there was an award to be had for making normal exchanges sound like threats, Lucy would have given it to Cooper. Now, admittedly, she’d have had her own reservations about asking anyone for help with something so precarious. Help or none, there wasn’t going to be a painless way of doing this, and this knowledge had made her companion more feral than usual. It was a simple case of shooting the messenger. Well. Hopefully not shooting the messenger, in this case. 

Drawing a sharp breath, Lucy steeled herself as she closed the distance between them, wearing her grimace only once she’d slipped into the ghoul’s blind spot to survey the point of impact. It was hardly the most gruesome thing she’d seen or done in her short time above ground, but the bristling ghoul attached to their problem was definitely an added complication. Incidents like these weren’t exactly covered in great detail in Vault-Tec’s handy dandy ‘First Aid for the Fine Citizen’. In fact, the general advice around this kind of thing was that you really weren’t supposed to remove what had impaled you.

A brief, surveying glance catalogued their surroundings. If the sound of gunfire didn’t attract trouble, the wasteland creatures catching the scent of blood and dead raiders certainly would. Cooper hadn’t moved a great distance since he’d been hit, and with his stifled coughing it was clear they weren’t going to be getting far with the iron still lodged deep in his side. 

Working quickly and quietly - working together- was going to have to become one of Cooper’s new priorities if they were going to avoid getting caught in another skirmish. 

“Oh holy moly.” The words tumbled from her at the first good look at what they were dealing with. Well, that was definitely going to need a stimpak once it came out. It wasn’t exactly who Lucy had planned on using the only useful item left from her scavenging on, but she supposed there was a stroke of luck in not being the one who was injured badly enough to need it. After pocketing the syringe from her pack, Lucy extended a tentative hand to carefully remove the entangled coat from the mess. An apology was written across her face as she lifted the hem of the ghoul’s shirt- just enough to catch a glimpse at the wound underneath it before carefully raising it enough for it to no longer be in the way. 

“Just- hold still, okay?” She didn’t know what the point in trying to placate him was, just that it felt fair to give warning for what was coming. 

Two hands found their grip on the metal, overhand and underhand locked into place. Lucy paused, just long enough for Cooper to feel the adjustment and to ensure he wasn’t going to move or protest before beginning to pull.

[casuallyimagining]

Fix You (1)

hybrid!Min Yoongi x female!reader

Summary: When you take in a stray cat, you have no idea he’s secretly a hybrid trying to escape his past. Can you help him heal?  Genre: hurt/comfort, angst, slow burn, fluff Word Count: 3,660 Rating: M Warnings (may not appear in every part): minor character is a dick to animals, mentions of a gun, main character injury (non-serious), discussion of physical abuse, emotional abuse, discussion of sexual abuse, discussion of self-harm

Notes: This is for the March project for @thebtswritersclub. The prompt word was ‘adventure’ and I mean, what’s more of an adventure than adopting a pet? Banner by @birbdae; thanks to @voiceswithoutlips, @taetaesbaebaepsae​, @hoebii​ and @aroseforyoongi for editing various parts of this for me.

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“That cat got into Rick’s chickens again. Killed a couple chicks. He said he’s going to kill it if he sees it on his property.”

Your dad had said it nonchalantly, barely glancing over his newspaper. Without a second thought, you were out the door. There was no way to be sure, not really, but the sinking feeling in your stomach made you run a little faster down your parents’ driveway.

You could have sworn you saw that cat slinking under Rick’s fence on your walk earlier.

Rick’s property neighbored that of your parents, but you wouldn’t necessarily consider him their neighbor. If you stood on their front porch, you could just barely make out Rick’s house through the stand of trees that served as the property line. Your parents had chosen to let their piece of the world be natural, carving out just enough space for a house and a decent sized yard all those years ago. It had made for some great childhood adventures in the woods: pretending fairies were real, living out your childhood fantasies of being some sort of wizard, making friends with the trees--normal kid stuff.

Rick, on the other hand, had turned his land into farmland, even though he neither farmed nor cared for the land. The vast rolling fields of Rick’s “farm” were mostly bare. He had a pond in one corner on the other side of the property, and he had a small cabin for hunting when game season started. Mostly, though, Rick raised chickens. Annoying things, the chickens were, not unlike Rick himself. It wasn’t uncommon to hear the hens’ incessant clucking from your parents’ house, and the roosters never seemed to shut up.

When you moved to the city to attend college, you were elated to get away from the chickens.

According to your dad, the cat had showed up in the woods a few weeks ago, and it had made an enemy out of Rick almost immediately. The poor thing was skinny--too skinny, like it had been living on the streets for a while--and though its dark fur was ruddy and matted, you could tell it would be a beautiful onyx if taken care of.

As you got closer to Rick’s farm, you heard barking and a sharp yowl, and you hurried in the direction of the sounds, afraid of what you’d find. Rounding the corner of the chicken coop, you gasped in horror.

Rick stood with his back to you, shotgun in his hands. His dog, an old bird hound with caramel spotted fur, had the cat clutched in his mouth, the dog’s teeth sunk directly into the cat’s shoulder. The cat, to its credit, had puffed itself up greatly, its tail nearly double its normal size. It was growling and hissing, and, despite the pain it was almost certainly in, was swiping at the dog with its front claws.

“Call your dog off, Rick.” Your voice was steadier than you thought it would be. You were out of breath from the run over there, and being anywhere near Rick with a gun and his snarling dog made you a little uneasy.

“Fuck off.” The man barely turned his head to you. “Damn cat’s been a pain in my ass since someone dumped it here. It killed four of my chicks.”

“Look at it. Of course it’s going after your chickens. You don’t keep them in their coop. It’s starving.”

“Damn thing should stay at your soft-ass parents’ house if it wants handouts.” Rick cocked his gun, pointing it at the cat. The cat’s copper eyes flashed to Rick at the sound. It looked terrified.

The fact that it knew what a gun was and knew to be afraid of it broke your heart a little bit.

“Call off the dog,” you said again, taking a step toward him, hands splayed out in front of you placatingly. “Calm down. I’ll get the cat out of your hair, and you won’t have to worry about it again.”

“Ain’t going to replace my chickens.” Rick’s voice was gruff, but he lowered the gun.

“I’ll pay for your chickens. Just call off your dog.”

He stared at the cat, the gun clutched in his hands but no longer pointing it at anything. For a second, you thought he was going to sicc the dog on the poor thing just to spite you and make a point. You had a feeling he was the type of person to do that. But after a tense stare down, he whistled through his teeth.

“Drop it,” he commanded the dog. The dog looked to its owner, and he repeated the command. It took a second, but the dog released its bite, and the cat slumped to the ground. Rick regarded the cat with a sneer before turning to you. “Take care of that thing. If I see it on my property one more time, it won’t be so lucky.”

You nodded tensely, and he whistled again. The dog trotted over to Rick’s side and the two walked off. You stared after him for a moment. A pained yowl drew your attention back to the cat.

The cat looked angry, and you didn’t blame it. Its tail was still puffed up, and you could tell that if it hadn’t just been attacked by a dog, its hackles would be straight up. Its copper eyes glared at you, its ears flat against its head. You approached cautiously, and it growled deeply in its throat.

“Hey, it’s okay,” you soothed, crouching down to make yourself less threatening. “I’m going to get you help. Is that okay?”

The cat hissed at you and attempted to back away. It made two limping steps before collapsing into the mud around the coop.

“That’s alright. It’s okay.” You sighed, unsure of your next steps. You didn’t want to traumatize the cat by coming any closer, and you really didn’t want to risk injuring it further by picking it up and having it fight you.

You looked at the cat, blinking slowly when you accidentally made eye contact with it. You had read somewhere that blinking was a way to show a cat that you weren’t a threat, and though you felt kind of silly, at this point, you were willing to try anything.

“What am I going to do with you, kitty?” you questioned, sitting down in the mud. The cat looked at you curiously, as if asking what the fuck you were doing. “I don’t want Rick to hurt you,” you confessed. “I’d like to take you somewhere safe.”

Truthfully, that was part of the reason why you were even visiting your parents. Your mom had told you about the cat, and how it didn’t seem to be wearing any collar, and while you were visiting them you wanted to try to trap it, either to bring it to live with you, or to take it to a nice shelter where it could get a good meal and hopefully find a nice family.

“Can I take you to the vet, at least?” You really were desperate, talking to the cat as if it understood what you were saying. The cat, to its credit, looked at you, copper eyes staring into your face before it blinked, just once, slowly and deliberately.

When you reached out to it, it didn’t growl.

You stood and approached the cat, doing your best not to make any sudden moves. You scooped it up gently, careful not to jostle his left shoulder too much, and cradled it close to your chest.

The walk back to your parents’ house was slow, but the trip to the vet was even slower.

It was a weekend, so the vet in your parents’ sleepy little suburb was closed. You had no choice but to pack your bags back up and make the trek home to the city to take the cat to the 24/7 emergency veterinary hospital.

You tapped your hand on the steering wheel. Traffic wasn’t usually this terrible on a weekend, but there was some sort of sporting event happening, so of course, all the roads into the city were clogged.

Stopped at a red light, you spared a glance toward your passenger seat. The cat laid on his side--it was a him, your mother had confirmed--his breathing labored. You could tell he was still on edge. His tail was still puffed up like a cat-of-nine-tails, and he kept eyeing you warily. But he had let you wrap him in a blanket and carry him to your car, and he had stayed on the seat, almost like he knew it was the safest place for him.

“Almost there, kitty,” you mumbled, changing lanes, finally free of the congestion. “Hang on just a little longer.”

Thankfully, the vet wasn’t busy, and you were able to get in with the assistant almost right away. You explained everything that had happened to her as she examined the cat, tutting slightly as she checked his shoulder.

“There are some punctures, but nothing that’s too worrying. I can bandage it and give you some antibiotics.” The assistant pulled her hand back as the cat swatted at her for touching his shoulder a little too forcefully. “Do you know if he has an owner? It would be helpful to know his shot records.”

You shook your head. “He just showed up in the woods one day.”

“We’ll get him a full round of vaccines, then, too.” Copper eyes met yours, and for a second, you thought you saw a look of concern cross them. But then he blinked, and it was gone.

The vet ordered an MRI, and thankfully, because it was a large veterinary hospital connected with the local university, they were able to do it the same day. So you ended up staying at the vet for two hours as they anesthetized the cat and did the scan. While the cat was waking up, the vet called you into the exam room.

“We checked for a microchip, and there was none,” the vet--Dr. Jung--informed you, his brow furrowed. “Based on the cat’s malnutrition and the condition of the coat, it’s likely he was a stray for at least a few months.” You nodded. The poor cat. “We should have the MRI results soon. I’ll give you a call in a few hours once I get a chance to read them. Normally, since he’s a stray, we would contact our foster network to see if anyone would be able to take him in. But since you brought him in-”

“I’ll keep him,” you said quickly. You were planning on it anyway. Just because he was hurt didn’t mean you were willing to give him up.

“Good.” Dr. Jung smiled at you. “My assistant is wrapping his shoulder now, and we’d like to just monitor him for a few more minutes to make sure he’s coming out of the anesthesia well, but you should be clear to take him home after that.” He placed a box on the table between you. “This is Clavamox. One millilitre twice a day for seven days. I don’t think he’ll develop an infection, but since he was so dirty, I think it’s probably better to be safe.” You nodded and pocketed the box. “We also gave him a rabies shot while he was here. It’s standard because he was bitten. If you notice any symptoms, please call us immediately. Once he’s feeling better, we can get him the rest of the vaccines he needs.”

You nodded. This was a lot all at once. And you didn’t even know what you wanted to call the cat yet.

Dr. Jung seemed to be able to tell you were feeling overwhelmed, because he offered you a comforting smile and patted your shoulder. “I’m going to go check on him. You can come if you want.”

As soon as you entered the room, groggy copper eyes were on you. The poor thing looked stoned out of his mind, but there was recognition there, and that gave you some comfort. At least he wasn’t glaring at you anymore. Dr. Jung’s assistant had wrapped his shoulder, so he had a bandage from his upper left front leg wrapped all the way around his chest and up around his shoulders.

“What are we going to do with you, kitty?” you questioned softly, reaching out and gently placing your hand on his head.

After checking the cat’s vitals one last time, Dr. Jung let you leave.

He was limp in your arms as you carried him into your apartment, still a little drugged up from the anesthesia. The whole way back to your apartment, he had sat in the passenger seat and looked out the window like a drunk, moody college student.

“It’s up to you if you want to stay, kitty,” you told him, gently laying him down on your couch as soon as you kicked your shoes off. Of course you wanted to keep him. You had grown attached to him in the few hours you had been with him. But if he was miserable, you were willing to help him find somewhere that was more suited for his needs.

He tried to stand, succeeding only long enough to give a dramatic wobble before collapsing back into the overstuffed cushion. While he was completely recovered from the anesthesia, Dr. Jung had warned you that the cat might be feeling the side effects for a day or so. You reached out to pet him, but his copper eyes slanted into a glare, and you pulled back.

Assuming the cat was hungry, you left him alone and headed into the kitchen. You had some chicken in the fridge, and you thought maybe he would enjoy some fresh meat he didn’t have to steal. You weren’t sure when his last real meal was, so you wanted to go easy on his digestive system until you knew he was feeling better. You’d have to stop and get cat food at some point, but for now, chicken would do.

You did your best to trim off all the fat from the chicken breast. You knew he wouldn’t mind eating it--cats ate weirder things from fresh kills, after all--but you figured with how thin he was, lean meat would probably be better. Carefully, you cut it up into small, easy-to-chew chunks and put some on a plate, wrapping the rest and putting it into the fridge for later. You used a dropper to evenly spread the required dose of the antibiotics onto the chicken in hopes that it would make it easier to give him the medicine.

Returning to the living room, you noticed that the cat hadn’t moved aside from doing his best to curl up as small as possible in the corner of the couch. You tried not to make eye contact with him as you pulled the blanket from the back of the couch and draped it on the cushions. You weren’t particularly keen on having raw chicken all over your furniture, but you sat the plate on the blanket anyway. There was no way you trusted the cat to be able to jump down off your couch at this point.

“Here’s some chicken, kitty.” You gestured toward the plate, and he eyed it warily, unmoving. You supposed he would feel more comfortable eating if you weren’t in the room. “Don’t leave it too long--it’ll go bad. I have to go do some work. I’ll be in my office if you need me. It’s just down the hall.”  As you stood up, you paused. You were talking to a cat. You were talking to a cat as if it could understand exactly what you were saying.

Maybe your parents were right. Maybe you had been living alone for too long.

Your mother had suggested you get a hybrid when you first moved to the city--a nice, loyal, protective one, like a German shepherd hybrid or a golden retriever--but you had never gone further than passively looking.

You were happy for the hybrids. A majority of them were still owned, but they could move about their lives freely and without question. It was illegal to treat them as servants, and all ownership had to be consensual, though you weren’t sure how well those rules were enforced. You didn’t really understand how someone could just own a hybrid--they were people, after all, even if their DNA was a little altered. It was weird to you, owning another sentient being like that.

Their lives were certainly much better than they had been. Some hybrids were naturally occurring, but others--a majority of them--had been created by rich and powerful individuals and the government in secret during some shady human experiments in the early 20th century. And, of course, because they were experiments, it created a whole host of problems regarding rights and discrimination.

But despite all the improvements, there was still a long way to go. There was nothing wrong with owning a hybrid if it was consensual, but that didn’t mean you were necessarily comfortable with it.

After a few hours of sitting at your desk working on your most recent graphic design project for work, you turned away and stretched. If you had to stare at the color chartreuse for ten more minutes, you thought you would go blind. It was time to check on the cat anyway, and you wanted to make sure you threw away any chicken that was left on the plate you had given him so he wouldn’t get sick.

When you entered the living room, you were immediately confused. The cat was gone, but so was your blanket. The plate was still on the couch, almost exactly where you left it, but it was entirely empty. Wonderful. You had taken in some sort of Houdini cat.

You grabbed the plate and put it in the sink, trying to look for your blanket as you went. You found it when you returned to the living room, the corner sticking out from under your TV stand. There was just enough space between the bottom shelf and the floor for the cat to fit under, and apparently he had taken the blanket with him. You couldn’t really blame him--it was April, and it was late evening, and your floors were still a little chilly.

“Hey kitty?” you called, bending down to see if you could see him under the shelf. You had thought about it while working, and at this point, you were just going to lean into the whole ‘talking to the cat like he’s a person’ thing. “It’s starting to get late. I’m going to go get ready for bed, okay?” You could just barely see his copper eyes hidden all the way under the TV stand. His pupils were blown wide to capture all the ambient light they could. “You can explore or whatever you’re comfortable with tonight, but please don’t ruin my stuff. Please be a good kitty.”

He blinked once and continued to stare blankly at you.

“Okay, well… if I don’t see you, goodnight.”

You stood and headed off to your bathroom to start your nightly routine. It only took you about a half an hour, but you were soon laying down in bed with your book. You had started it a few days ago, but you were hooked, and you were already almost done with it. The author had managed to somehow insert a space alien robot into today’s modern digital age, and you found it fascinating. You would never look at social media and influencers the same way after reading this book.

It was cozy in your room with the little bedside lamp on, snuggled up in your blankets. Your bed was soft--it was one of those that you could change it using a remote to fit your mood and preference, but you almost always preferred it soft--and you had plenty of blankets and pillows to make it comfortable.

You only had a few pages left when you noticed it, the shadow lingering in the hallway, slowly getting closer to your open bedroom door. It started out against the wall across the hall. When you next looked up after glancing down to your book, the shadow had moved to your doorway. He even had turned his head away like he was pretending it was a coincidence that he had ended up in your room.

He was walking with a slight limp, which was unsurprising given the bandage and the fact that he was attacked not even 12 hours before. He was much more lucid than he was when you first brought him home, though you could tell he was still a little groggy. You didn’t say anything to him--you figured if you did, he would bolt, so you let him do what he wanted.

After a few minutes--maybe 15 or 20--you closed your book quietly, careful not to startle the cat. You glanced at the doorway and didn’t see him, so you put your book on your nightstand and turned off the light. It took you a second, but you snuggled down into the blankets, pulling them tightly around you. You were just about to drift off when you felt it.

Something landed gently on your bed by your feet. It paused for a moment before slowly making its way up the bed to your head, its gait uneven. When it got to the other pillow, it laid down. You risked opening an eye then, and were met with copper eyes staring back at you.

He watched you warily, as if waiting for you to yell or kick him off the bed. When you didn’t, his eyes narrowed, and he slowly allowed himself to lay down, his head on his paws, curled up as best as he could be.

You fell asleep to the sound of him snoring lightly.

As always, your feedback is appreciated. Feel free to pop into my ask box with questions or thoughts about the series. I’d love to hear from you!

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[peachesandmilktea]

𝕸𝖆𝖑𝖊𝖋𝖎𝖈𝖊𝖓𝖙'𝖘 𝕮𝖚𝖗𝖘𝖊 - 𝕮𝖍𝖆𝖕𝖙𝖊𝖗 4

ꜱʜɪɢᴀʀᴀᴋɪ x ʀᴇᴀᴅᴇʀ

Previous Chapter. Masterlist.

Shigaraki Tomura is King. Villains won, heroes are no more, and there isn’t a soul in the world that’s more powerful than him. It would have stayed that way, if only you hadn’t kissed him.

TW : Blood, Mentions of Death.

The Nintendo DS lit up with a cute little sound.

You’d cleaned up the mess you’d made to contact Kirishima, put the wires back in the Plasma TV, plugged it next to your bed as if you’d truly been planning to watch random shows all along and not at all to contact the resistance unnoticed. With nothing else to do, you’d then slid the Nintendogs game card in the device, waiting as it switched on, eager to pet virtual dogs to get your mind off of your conversation with your best friend.

It would have been worse if it had been Bakugo.

He would have yelled, you knew. Would have stared at you with rage in his gaze, frown pulling at his thick eyebrows, lips into an angry snarl. Stop being so fucking reckless, he’d have spat on the other side of the screen. And then, the words he wouldn’t say, those syllables that would stay stuck on his tongue, caged in the safe comfort of his lips, never to be spoken out loud. We’ve already lost so many people, and you just go and bargain your life on a stupid plan, he’d mean. And you’d both have the same names in mind, heroes and civilians alike, friends and family and partners in arms, buried as far in the ground as they were into your pasts.

Kaminari Denki. Hatsume Mei. Toogata Mirio. Jirou Kyouka. Kendo Itsuka.

All Might. Ectoplasm. Mount Lady.

And so many others you couldn’t bring yourself to think about.

Instead of letting their faces fill your mind and their memory pull you deeper into the grief you were so desperately trying to avoid drowning in, you selected the Nintendogs game, letting a soft sigh slip through your lips when it started charging.

And then color filled the screen, cute little barks echoing throughout the room from the Nintendo DS’ tiny speakers. The previous user’s dogs appeared one after the other, and you blinked, not quite believing your eyes.

Their names were weird.

A cute little corgi. All Might’s Doom.

A golden retriever. Hero Destroyer.

A Shiba Inu. Villain King.

And then a pretty husky named Donguri-chan.

You frowned, the shadow of a doubt making its way inside your mind.

The previous user’s profile was still up, and his name sparkled in shiny letters when you clicked on it, your fingers slippery with nervous sweat as they lingered in the same places his had, what seemed like years and years ago.

Tomura, the game device said.

Judging by the profile, it hadn’t been used for more than a decade, meaning he would have been at most twelve or thirteen at the time. And it felt weird to imagine, almost disturbing to picture him at that age, playing with cute, tiny virtual dogs, giving them names as lame as any other twelve-year-old would have.

The normalcy of it made you want to vomit.

It was easier to see him as a villain rather than as a child who had yet to meet that fate, no matter that you knew the same hands who had spent hours clicking buttons to pet weirdly-named puppies would later hurt, destroy and kill. If he’d been a boy once, one with a heart and dreams and wishes, then you didn’t want to know him, didn’t want to picture little Tomura with his video games, didn’t want to imagine what it had taken for such a boy to become the villain king he now was.

And yet, you kept looking.

The photo gallery was even weirder.

It started with a picture of Kurogiri, taken from below, obviously because Tomura, no, Shigaraki had been small at the time. Then, it was a picture of that hand he used to wear on his face, his own little palm and fingers looking so tiny as he held it, as if he’d simply wanted to try the device’s camera without really knowing what else to capture. Another photo, this time of his shoes, always so stubbornly red. A pile of game boxes, maybe the ones he liked.

The last one was a photo of himself, dark, blurry, obviously taken by mistake.

He’d looked cute, as a child.

His pale hair was shorter, revealing his delicately shaped features more easily than his adult counterpart, whose white strands often fell in front of his eyes, nose, cheekbones, concealing the softness of his traits to the world. Long eyelashes, full lips, straight nose, sharp jawline; it was weird to look at them, familiar as they were, plastered on the younger face of a child. He would look pretty, you thought, if only he hadn’t grown into a filthy murderer.

It made you want to delete the picture.

And so you did, erasing the existence of that tiny boy from both the photo gallery and your thoughts, burying the image of his cute little face deep, deep inside your mind, until the only thing lingering in your thoughts was your burning hatred, and not the disgusting sympathy eating at your gut.

–

Gloves. Thank god he was wearing gloves.

Shigaraki’s fingers slipped when catching the doorknob to the witch’s room, when fire started eating through his chest again, when the sickness fell upon him once more, as if she’d somehow sensed his presence through the polished wood. And yet, when he knocked and entered, her gaze rising to meet his, her eyes softened for a single second before she let a frown take over her expression, an annoyed snarl pulling at her lips.

He blinked, almost unsure he hadn’t hallucinated it.

But then maybe he had - who knew what else this stupid curse would torture his body and mind with.

“I’m not giving it back,” she said, holding something in her hands, her grip tight as she pulled it against her chest in a protective gesture. “In case that’s what you’re bothering me for.”

His gaze fell on the little object clutched between her fingers.

“Is that my Nintendo DS?”

He hadn’t seen it in a decade, not since he’d gotten another newer device, and then another, and another, leaving the tiny Nintendo to rot in a closed, forgotten for over a decade. He’d begged Sensei for it, he remembered. Accidentally decayed the first one he’d gotten and cried himself to sleep for two days after that. He’d had to beg for it all over again but it had been worth it: the second one had come as a set with that Nintendogs game, anything else having been sold out at the time he’d asked for it.

He’d liked that one, had found it both calming and soothing in a way, no matter how stupid it looked.

And now, the witch was playing it, if the little barks echoing in the room were to be trusted.

“Are you playing Nintendogs?” he asked, taking a seat next to her without really thinking about it. He would let her keep the game if only to be nice, if only so she’d think he was being kind and start liking him a bit more. “Show me. Don’t you dare erase any of my progress.”

No matter that he hadn’t touched it in years - it was a principle of the matter.

When he leaned towards her to take a peek at her game, she caught his face in a single hand, still playing with the other. Fingers digging into his cheeks, gaze diving into his. Her voice was low, mockingly threatening as she said, “Stay away from me or I’ll make sure you feel every single ounce of my wrath falling down upon you.”

And it was stupid, because she was threatening him physically.

Tightening her grip as if she meant to break his jaw between her weak fingers.

Stupid.

So stupid that it made him laugh, a wolfish grin pulling at his chapped lips for the first time since she’d kissed him, for the first time since she’d taken every ounce of amusement from his life and torn it between the same fingers that now gripped at his cheeks.

“Like that’s scary,” he mocked, the words dying on his tongue when she raised her eyes to his, her lips parted in pure surprise as if she’d expected him to be such a monster he wouldn’t even have known how to smile.

She let him go. Turned away from him. Focused on the game instead.

“Never do that again,” she groaned. “I hate you more when you smile.”

Which was the truth, he noted. A filthy, buried truth that she didn’t enjoy spilling, but a truth all the same. And while his quirk didn’t tell him more than that, Tomura couldn’t help but wonder why. At times, she seemed to revel in her hatred of him, looking for any occasion to feed her rage, to push him further and further towards the inferno that fed on his flesh and thoughts. Other times, it just seemed to make her sad. Her gaze would be empty for a moment just like it was when she fixated it on the game again, fingers still as if she was too lost in her thoughts to click any button on the little device. She’d bite her lower lip, swallow, let out a soft little sigh.

That meant she was sadder than she was angry, he’d noticed.

Which also meant that the sickness was soothed, if just a bit.

Making her sad. A counterproductive solution in the long-term, but one he would use if needed. Once again, he simply had to find her weaknesses. She must have had many of them, judging from the way she’d curled up on herself, knees against her chest and eyes focused on her game, all simply because he’d smiled.

He peeked at the screen from behind her shoulder. She didn’t seem to mind that much now, simply flinching when she felt his warm breath tickle the skin of her collarbone. She glared at him then, trying her best to kill with a look, but didn’t push him away.

“What the hell does Kacchan mean?” He grumbled after noticing she’d adopted more dogs into the save and was carefully teaching that pomeranian with a weird name how to fetch.

“That’s Bakugo Katsuki, remember, the kid you kidnapped when we were in first year?” Her tone was sour but with a hint of endearment lingering in her voice. “I was surprised you kept him that long, to be honest. I would have canceled the abduction as soon as he opened his mouth.”

She didn’t seem to think much about the words spilling mechanically from her lips, but Shigaraki caught them all.

So, she’d been to UA.

And she was close to the leader of the resistance.

“That’s a stupid nickname,” he mumbled casually, careful not to let her know he was analyzing her every move.

She raised her eyes to him as he spoke, and he immediately knew what was going through her mind. That little spark in her gaze was back, the one that was full of anger mixed with playful mischief, both poison and honey melting in the deep color of her irises. A smirk tugged at her lips and, just like he expected, she’d seen an opportunity to rile him up and now refused to let it go, taking any chance to barge her way into his mind and make a mess there, drowning his every thought into childish annoyance.

That childish annoyance filled his chest when she almost purred, “Would you hate it if I called you Tocchan, then?”

No matter that he knew she’d say it, nothing could have prepared him for how weird it felt to hear it in her voice. He’d watched her lips, almost mesmerized, as she spilled the syllables of the nickname, let them roll on her tongue and coat her teeth with the mocking venom that filled the simple word.

It disgusted him.

(He wanted to hear it again.)

She waited for his reply, aware that there was no way he could avoid letting her know that he did hate the nickname, no matter the shy, furious blush that threatened to dust over his cheeks, knowing that she’d never stop using it after that, eager to steal every ounce of his dignity from his murderous hands.

For a second, he wondered over the best way to kill her, reveling in the thought, knowing he couldn’t make such a dream a reality and yet enjoying the fantasy all the same.

But then, his gaze fell on a weird mark that crept over her skin underneath the sleeve of her shirt. A darkened, nasty thing that made him frown, especially since it hadn’t been there when he’d cut her up.

“What’s that?” he asked, and she flinched when he caught her wrist, pushing the fabric of her clothing back until the mark appeared in the afternoon glow of the lazy sun rays pouring through the windows.

It was a burn mark. Shaped like a hand.

“I fell down the stairs,” the witch explained, as if that were a plausible explanation. And she wasn’t even trying to mock him, he knew, for her expression and gaze were as serious as that time he’d tried pulling information out of her in that damp basement of his.

“Dabi,” he groaned, electing to ignore her dumb excuses.

“No, I’m telling you, it wasn’t Dabi. It was there even before I kissed you.”

He blinked, more surprised even by her reaction than by the fact that she was taking him for a complete moron. Because why would she protect Dabi, of all people? Why would she go and choose to keep his deeds a secret, despite knowing that Shigaraki would be filled with rage at the thought? She was smarter than that, and it wasn’t like his dislike for Dabi, even tainted with some hints of cold friendship as it was sometimes, was a secret.

“I’m not a snitch,” she shrugged when his frown deepened. “Which has nothing to do with that information since I got this wound by falling down some stairs.”

It was almost as if she had too many weaknesses, and not a single one that he could exploit.

He could understand protecting one’s comrades. He hadn’t even tried threatening her after their first meeting despite knowing she was most definitely linked to the resistance, exactly because he knew she would rather die than spill their secrets. But why extend that privilege to others, enemies, even? That was nothing but weakness, though he could respect that, in a weird way.

Had it been him, he would have used anything against her. He would have drowned her whole team into discord, would have torn the ties that bound her to her comrades with his bloody, dirty hands, and would have left her alone, with no one else to rely on.

Either she was so certain of her victory over him that she didn’t bother.

Or she was simply different.

In a clumsy, honest way.

But it had been a half-truth.

“Not a snitch,” he repeated, each syllable made heavier by the doubt that weighed on his tone.

She caught it, of course, and smirked.

“Not a snitch when it has to do with me, villain.” She tugged at her wrist, making him let go of her sleeve so that it would hide the wound again. “Now, if we’re talking about your criminal activities, who knows? I’m not nice enough to keep your secrets should I see anything you’d like to hide.”

As expected from her.

She wouldn’t spare him any trouble, apparently.

“Such a hero you are,” he mocked, some kind of sourness in his tone. “Opportunist, spy, witch, aspiring murderer. But then again, it’s nothing I haven’t seen a hero do in the past. You just happen to be luckier than most with your quirk against me.”

The roaring fire came back, alive as ever as it burned through his chest, reducing his organs to what felt like ashes and dust, dead and rotting under his flesh and yet so painful he felt like clawing through his skin to tear them out and free them from the inescapable nature of her curse. Blood drowned his tongue, coated his teeth, slipped from his chapped lips and dripped down his chin, staining his hands when he wiped the crimson away with the sleeve of his shirt.

Her lips had thinned into a single line and she glared at him as if struggling not to kill him there and now, as if she’d had the power to do so. Ridiculous. Laughable, almost.

But he was sick of her game already, sick of feeling like he’d break into pieces if she somehow looked at him the wrong way, sick of having to kneel and hold back and submit to her whims in order to avoid more suffering.

What was the solution, after all? To seduce and please her, to lure her into a trap crafted by his hands, a sophisticated lie that he would make up with gentle words and soothing gestures towards her? To leave his dignity behind and drown himself into her desires, to be nice and caring and sweet and hope she’d look his way at last so he could avoid dying in excruciating agony?

Goddam pain that made it difficult to even think.

“Nothing to say?” he spat, bitter as ever. “Poor little hero, forced by the big, bad villain to face her own crimes, left without a chance to wash the blood on her hands. It stains, Witch. You’ll notice that soon enough.”

Silence filled the room, heavy as an anchor.

He broke it only once, letting out a deep sigh filled with raw suffering.

Then, standing on unsteady, trembling legs, he made his way towards the door, never looking back as he slammed it closed behind him.

–

Minutes after he was gone, your fingers were trembling still.

Hero, he’d called you.

Murderer, he’d also said.

The rage that pooled in your chest had been reflected in the pain that swarmed in his gaze and it wouldn’t leave him anytime soon, not if the burning fury that lingered in your heart still was to be trusted. You hoped he’d choke on it, suffer and beg for your mercy, or maybe, hopefully, die before you could see him again.

Because he’d been right, in a way.

You had blood on your hands.

Crimson stains that couldn’t be washed away, no matter how many times you tried.

That truth was painful. Difficult to deal with.

Maybe it would have been easier, if only Shigaraki didn’t look so much like the tiny little Tomura you’d seen earlier.

Like the dog-loving child he’d been, the one you wished you’d met before his life had been shattered by a too-cunning villain.

And not at all like the villain king you’d sworn to kill.

Such a murderer you are, you almost heard him say.

Hero, murderer.

Did it really matter when you’d both be dead soon?

--

regarding the names of the characters who died, i'll admit i went completely at random for most of them so it might not be definitive, sorry sdnksnk

Thank you so much for reading this chapter!! The next one is already written, I'll post it once I get enough opinions on this one hehe so please, please, please feel free to tell me your thoughts about it! It will make me post faster.

super grateful to my darling Geri, I based Shigaraki's physical description on her art which you can check out on her art account @obsidianne-art!!

[bisexual-bitch-blogs]

"Justice For Traveler"

Aether X GN Reader

Just little scenes that I thought of 😙 In this fic. Reader is a pyro claymore user.

POV You and Aether are best friends being the 2nd person to encounter during his journey. Paimon? She was just emergency food. Your very overprotective of Aether and it became worse when people started making the blonde male as their errand boy when he just wants to find his sister.

🌟--------------------------------------------🌟

"GRRRRR BARK BARK BARK GRRRRR"

Childe screams, clinging onto a tree.

"AAAHHH! GET YO F**KING DOG, B****!"

Aether smiles, 'brightly' at the scared red head.

"It don't bite."

You swung your claymore like a bat, chopping down at the tree, baring your sharp teeth, snarling.

"YES IT DO!!"

🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟

You stuck your middle finger at a what seems to be a middle aged lady.

"F**k off, Janette. Buy your own Ham."

Paimon was quick to slap a hand over your mouth and smack away the offensive hand while the blonde male bows down repeatedly, apologizing for your actions.

"I-I'm so sorry, Mary! N-Normally, they aren't like this! It's just a bad day for them..! I'm sorry!"

🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟

"Do you ever have one of those days where you just hold a weapon and everyone looks like a pinata?"

The white haired fairy hid behind Aether, trembling.

"P-Paimon is not pinata!"

Aether sighs.

"No. That's just you being hostile."

🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟

Kaeya was laughing while you chase after him. Shooting fire balls at him with your gigantic sword.

Good thing Lisa didn't call Aether cutie or else you would have tried killing her too. She questioned.

"Do you ever think they're evil?"

The traveler shook his head, watching the fiasco.

"They aren't evil. Its just they lack sympathy for others and goes into a dissociative state and commits atrocities."

🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟

Poor Jean is working so hard only to be told off by an angy gremlin.

"Ah, Traveler! What would you like as your reward-"

You interjected her with a harsh glare.

"After fighting a f**king dragon and all the errands that you all could have done yourself or left for others. You could at least try to find his sister. And no I don't mean putting up posters. I meant pulling investigations. Put the same amount of effort he did for you. All this time he could have moved on to Liyue and found his only kin by now, you donkey."

The poor blonde male couldn't help but look away holding his tongue. He would scold you but at the same time, you were right. His twin could be in Liyue right now and is going somewhere else far away.

"Therefore, f**k y'all. You guys don't deserve him. Let's go, Aether. We're not coming back until they stop being god damn lazy."

Intertwining his hand in yours. You drag him out of Monstandt.

🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟

While the blonde male was gathering silk flowers near Wangshuu Inn. Paimon leaned on top of your head, you huff in response of her weight.

"Just wondering. The way you are so protective of him...Do you like Aether?...Like as a um lover instead of of best friends?"

Without hesitation you said.

"Yes. I love Aether so much. I'd do anything for him. That's why. I can't have my feelings get in the way his goal. Especially his end goal...Returning to his world...But as long as he's happy. I'm happy as well. I'll bury my feelings and take it to the grave with me if I fall by his side."

Your eyes looked empty of light just thinking about it. It sends shivers down the flying fairy's back. Unknown to you, Aether was listening with a shocked face. If you look a little closer his ears are a little red. Paimon didn't like the look of a broken doll you had and tried to ease the tension.

"L-Let's have cream stew for t-tonight!"

🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟

Xingqiu kidnapped Aether and you didn't where they were which made you turn almost half of the Liyue Harbor upside down, committing arsons. Your flying companion was screaming at you to stop.

Suddenly, you heard your named being called multiple times by a familar voice. Looking around, you found your flustered bestfriend running towards you in........IS THAT A WEDDING DRESS??!!

Running at him at god speed. You leaped gracefully into a dogeza position, crying.

"MARRY ME, AETHER."

Paimon screeches.

"WHAT HAPPENED TO HIDING YOUR FEELINGS???"

You froze, blinking.

"Oh yeah. Scratch that. Step on me instead."

----------

Fluff done. Back into Nsfw I go 🤪 Next is a request for Diluc X Reader. No sneakpeeks! Mayb.....

[escaronarts]

ETSY STORE  II  FACEBOOK  II  INSTAGRAM  II  ESCARONARTS

For SALE HERE! 

You walk through the pouring rain, white clouds of breath escaping your cold lips as you push on. Water make puddes on the pavement and you try to avoid them the best you can. Its cold. And dark. In the distance dogs are barking. You make a quick turn and find youself in a narrow alleyway between tall buildings. Theres no street light in here, and yet you keep walking. Faster. But then you stop.

    Something move in the other end of the alley, appear from behind the corner. Dancing silhouettes on the wall. Pale shapes in the shadows. They are... hands. Many hands, crawling over the walls like spiders - attached to snake like, billowing arms, reaching, searching.

   You start to back away. Turn around to flee the way you came. But when a snarl cut through the night. And you realize that you are trapped. They block the way. Skeletal creatures resembling dogs only bigger. Black fur covering starved bodies. Blind skulls grinning wide, flashing sharp teeth. They are at least 8 maybe more. And on their ragged backs dousands of arms are reaching toward you. That is when you see the eyes.

You sit up so fast that you get dizzy. Heart beating fast. Night clothes drenched in sweat. The moonlight flow in through the window casting soft shadows over your room. Everything is silent in the house. Everyone sleeping. It was a dream. No matter how real it had felt. Only a dream. You fall back into bed. Relieved.

   In the distance dogs start barking and you stiffle a shudder. Youve had that same dream for a while now. But never before have those monsterous creatures come so close. Never before have you seen the hands. The eyes. You turn in bed, put the cover around you.  Time to skip out on late night snacks.

   Soft footsteps just outside your window break the silence. The sound of many feet. No, not feet. Paws. And no again, not outside your window anymore. Just outside your bedroom door. Heavy snarling breaths follow. Nails start scraping over your door. And then you see the door handle move.

*****

What do you think? Scared of the monsters you see before you? What would you say if I told you that these "monsters" arent truly evil but protectors of the innocent? Namely, protectors of animals.

You see, these beasts, the "Soul Seers" hunt those who deliberately hurt, kill and/or are cruel to animals. Thats when they notice you and start to show up in your subconsious, in your dreams. At first they are far of, mere shadows lurking in the background. You may catch a glimps of a big black animal, hear a distant bark. But if your cruelty continue so will their grasp of you and soon your dreams turn into nightmares. The barks will become more intense, draw closer. More and more skeletal paw prints will appear where you walk. Hand prints and nail marks will cover the walls. And the feeling of always being chased fill your very essence. And finally they will catch up to you, surround you, trap you, and fully see you. That is when the Soul Seers are able to tread into your reality and find you. That is when your time is over my friend, and there is no escape. But be sensible, can you even say you derserve to get away..?

Seers hunt in packs, up to 50 individuals in one unit. They exists in thousands. They are intelligent and fast, and even tho their skeletal heads are blind they have more than enough eyes to see  both in dark and light. When those eyes lock onto a corrupted soul they wont stop the hunt until said soul is devoured, and when it is, a new pair of arms, hands and eyes will grow from the Soul Seers body... Need I really explain from where they come?

MADE:

The Soul Seer is completely handmade, original and OOAK (one of a kind). Its head, neck, legs and tail are all hand sculpted, every shape, line and detail made with the outmost of care. The head is also casted for durability, and everything painted, shaded and highlighted in acrylics with small brushes, time and effort. The eyes (on the hands) are glossed for a lifelike look and everything sealed and varnished for protection. Its body is made of the softest and most high quality fauxfur that Ive trimmed over a very sturdy wire skeleton. It is also shaped so it looks like the ribcage is visible, and theres added blood stains in the fur, on the limbs and inside the neckline of hands. The Soul Seer is completely posable, from the neck, legs and feet, 7 arms and tail. It can take a wide variety of stances and is super durable (wont break even if you happen to drop him - is is not a toy for childen tho but a unique artwork. In total it has 12 hands - all hand sculpted one by one and seven of them (on its back) has glow in the dark eyes painted on the back of the hands. The Soul Seer is a truly unique artdoll, lots and lots of hours, skills, careful work and a part of my soul went into making it and I will never make another like it again. Enjoy and Thank You for looking! <3

SIZE: It stand 42cm tall (16.53 inches) and 37cm long (14.56 inches)

© 2020 Linda Escaron Lundqvist - all rights reserved

[ashintheairlikesnow]

if you’re still doing the ask game, I’d kill to see number five for either Jake, Jameson, or Jax. you know how I love my drug whump

I have so many prompts sitting in my inbox that are numbers to ask games that I can't remember what the prompts were... but I remember this one. This is as good a time as any...

CW: Pet whump, dehumanization, drugged whumpee, beating, described body/bones, brief emeto ref, restrained, sadistic whumper, collared, chained up

Direct Sequel to Deep Breath / I'm Ready. Part of the Jameson's Backstory mini-series.

-

"I have a system, dog. I have a method. I have a way these things are done."

Robert punctuates each sentence with another kick to his ribs, and the pet grunts with the impact, telling himself to let some of the pain bleed out into the man's boot. With his hands tied behind his back, a short rope linking them to his ankles, he's forced into an arch that leaves his most vulnerable places entirely unprotected.

Open.

On display.

Inviting the next blow.

At least whatever was forced down his throat dulls things a little bit. It's a mercy, he thinks, because Robert isn't done with him yet. The world roils and spins around him like the ocean on a stormy day. The pet is a white-capped wave when the next kick comes and something snaps inside him.

Watch it rain, a soft voice says somewhere inside him. A small hand grabs his own. Watch the rain fall, Johnny. Don't you love rain?

He whimpers, sweating into the blindfold, shivering reflexively as cool air hits the sheen of wet over his skin. He doesn't know who Johnny is.

"Please... please..." His pleading is weak, voice cracked and breaking.

But he just wanted to do the only thing he could to help the young man in the bathtub. He just wanted to help.

Now he's helpless.

Robert's boot, pulled back for the next kick, pauses at the sound. "What's that? You not enjoying this?" He exhales, letting out a thready laugh, before he drops into a crouch, running his hands over the pet's hair. Robert watches him flinch back, unable to see it coming. His thumb finds a spot rubbed bald by the straps of the muzzle and he runs over it, humming, finding the scarred places where the muzzle has cut in enough to make him bleed, over and over. The pad of his thumb is rough, calloused from his job. "You don't like taking your punishment, hm? Is that it?"

The pet holds as still as he can, panting, trying to push past the throbbing ache on his left side. Broken rib, maybe, or just bruised. He'll find out if it heals right or doesn't.

"Please-... please stop," He whispers.

That only gets him another laugh, meaner this time. "That boy had two more weeks of life left in him," Robert says, in a tone of perfect rationality. "I chose him special, and you got it in your head to ruin everything. I just don't see how I'm the bad guy here."

He sighs, and rips the blindfold off over the pet's head.

The pet looks up, struggling to focus, only to take a fist to the face as soon as he does. Knuckles crack into his jaw, but nothing breaks. It's a miracle he hasn't lost any teeth.

His head bounces off the floor, a flash of white behind his eyes. He hears a rough voice cry out in pain and realizes it's his own. The world, already a seasick cruise ship, bobs even more dangerously around him.

He's being blown around in circles, saltwater coming in too fast to bail out. He's going to be sick. He's going to throw up on the floor and drown.

Just like he drowned the man in the bathtub who begged him to do it, who said I'm ready, who held his hand, who struggled at the end and then stopped, and then-

And then...

The air had gone briefly cold after the man had stopped moving and the pet had felt a breeze through his hair, as if something in the man was leaving and moved past him on its way somewhere else.

He starts to cry, unwillingly.

His sobs comes out through gritted teeth, tears forced out of eyes he's closed as tightly as he can to try and keep them hidden. His body shakes.

"Two weeks you've robbed me of," Robert says, standing back up. He groans, and the pet can hear him moving around the room. He doesn't dare look up to watch him, not now. "Two weeks, and now it's all wrong. Now nothing happened the right way, it's all fucked up now. I have a system. I have a method, I have a routine, and you fucked it all up!"

The last words come out a deafening scream, and the pet cries out again, trying as hard as he can to duck his head and hunch his shoulders, wanting only to protect himself in whatever meager way he can. The sound of Robert's voice bounces around inside his fucked-up skull. The water is pulling him under now.

The waves lurch and break against him as Robert grabs him by the arms and drags him. Hog-tied, he can do little more than squirm as he's pulled back into the hallway, to the grimy bathroom.

The young man isn't in there anymore.

"I should kill you," Robert snaps, depositing him back on the cold tile, wet now with water splashed out from when Robert found what he had done and had dragged the body out, trying to revive it so he could hurt the young man more. "I should fucking kill you, you stupid dog. You ruined everything!"

The pet tips his head back until it touches the floor, looks up at Robert looming over him, all malevolence and rage. Beyond his fear, the pet finds a core of something that burns bright and hot, stronger than the smell from the basement. Something sharper than the knives he is cut with, something stronger than Robert's shouting or his fists.

The pet makes an expression that could be a smile or could be a snarl. It could be appeasement or bared fangs. His lip busted at some point and he feels blood on his teeth, tastes it on his tongue.

It makes him think of Nanda.

He lets the blood shift into his mouth, lets it pool on his tongue. Tastes the copper-salt, the hint of sweet. The taste of love, of Nanda's mouth, of his low voice, hands in his hair or on his hips.

Once he has enough, the pet spits blood into Robert's stupid fucking face.

"I hope the next one goddamn kills you first!"

Robert goes still, and silent. His eyes are ringed in white, like a horse about to bolt. Then his hand comes up to slowly wipe away the smear of pink-tinged saliva on his cheekbone running down to his jaw, marked with a five o'clock shadow.

"Fucking dogs don't know how to stop their bark," He mutters to himself. Whatever his plan in the bathroom had been, it's clearly not enough. He pulls the pet up, then lets him fall again. Stares around, eyes bouncing over the still-full tub, the ring of grime around the tub where the water still sits.

Then he just shakes his head. "No, no, no," He mumbles. "No no. Calm it, Bobby. Calm it. Think think think."

The pet stares up at him. His body holds more disgust in that moment than he ever thought possible.

Robert disappears back into the hallway, leaving the pet where he is. Outside the barred bathroom window there's a soft birdsong and the faint hint of sunlight. What time even is it? The pet never knows. The bathroom is the only window that isn't covered with heavy blackout drapes almost all the time.

He focuses on breathing, keeping things shallow to hold the pain in his ribs at bay as best he can. His wrists hurt from the ropes rubbing them raw, his muscles are pulled painfully taut and stretched.

Robert returns with the gag-muzzle, forcing the plastic bit between his teeth. His tongue pushes against it uselessly, working to try and make it comfortable even as his jaw already protests what it knows is coming. The straps slide over the bald spots, buckle into place. The pet shudders at the familiarity of the feeling and tries instinctively to jerk his head to the side.

Robert grabs him by the hair and forces his head back, giving a humorless rictus grin at the pained grunt forced from the pet's throat. "Oh, you don't like that, huh? Shoulda thought of that before you fucking ruined my system. My method. My routine."

You said that already, the pet thinks, but it occurs to him Robert probably doesn't remember that. He's never sure what Robert actually knows about his own words, how much sinks in to memory. He's always repeating things like it's the first time he's ever said them.

The rope between his wrists and ankles is cut and Robert pulls him up to his feet, shoving him forward. The drugs keep the pet struggling to hold himself upright, stumbling to one side or the other. He can still feel the waves - inside him, battering, trying to pull him back under the cold dark water.

He goes willingly enough, shuffling with his hobbled ankles, until Robert has him at the basement door.

The pet rears back in a sudden panicked realization, a muffled, unintelligible babbled plea coming out around the bit, behind the leather muzzle already making his skin pour sweat. He shakes his head wildly back and forth, tries to yank himself free.

Robert's laugh is wild and crazed this time as he shoves the pet forwards and it's either go down the stairs or fall.

The pet's foot finds cool smooth old wood that creaks and he whimpers, the smell flooding his nose making his stomach twist and turn. The next step. A third. A fourth.

The light is on in the basement, a single bare bulb shining a thin circle of light over the disturbed earth on one side. The other side is untouched except for some boxes and the chemical barrels, wreathed in dark shadows that let nothing escape.

"You like 'em so much, you can spend the night with 'em, huh? Just have a little sleepover with my friends here, hm? How's that sound? How that fucking sound?!"

The pet whines as Robert screams in his ear, shaking his head again and again as he is forced step by step down into the basement where they die, where he buries them. His bare feet touch down onto the earthen floor, coolly dry down here, chilly compared to the upstairs. The pet is shivering but it isn't really from the cold.

Goosebumps burst all over his arms and legs, a thrill of terror down his spine as Robert pulls him over to the shadowed corner where the boxes are. There's a hinged metal collar with a chain that attaches to the wall, and the pet realizes that Robert must use it when they're down here just before Robert throws him down on the ground and closes the metal with a snnnnkt over his leather collar, around his neck.

There's thigh bones, he thinks, in a pile over underneath the lightbulb. Just a bunch of fucking goddamn femurs, like Robert comes down here to play fucking barbie dolls with dead people, taking them apart and putting them back together.

Welcome to Malibu Barbie Dreamhouse, he thinks, and a manic horrified laugh bubbles up his throat. John Wayne Gacy edition.

A padlock is hooked through the front of the collar, cold metal slapping down against the top of the pet's collarbone. He looks up at Robert, who is right in front of the light bulb from his perspective, his face black and unreadable.

Please, he tries to say. I'm sorry. Please. All that comes out is muffled animal whines.

"You love them so fucking much, you can be best friends." Robert ruffles his hair. He grins, and the yellowy white of his teeth is all the pet can see of his face. "Enjoy your sleepover, dog."

He turns and leaves, ignoring the pleading whines of the pet as he climbs up the stairs, the creaking like a chorus, a harmony to the pet's cries for this to not be real.

The light seems to shimmer around its edges - it's just the drugs, he tells himself, it's just whatever was in those pills - and shift. Dead people could hide down here in the dark places, with their bony fingers reaching out to grab him.

He whimpers again, softer this time.

He manages to shuffle himself on his ass backwards until he hits the basement wall, smooth stone older than the house itself. His hands are still tied behind him and his ankles are still hobbled. Tears run from his eyes, drift along the edge of the muzzle, drip down from his jaw into the dirt. He sobs around the bit gag, whining until he can't remember if he even is human at all any longer.

Then he sees a face and gives a full-body shudder.

At first he thinks it's the drugs, but it's not. The young man who begged him for help, the reason he's down here at all, isn't buried yet. He's just lying on the ground under a worktable on the other side of the basement. His hands are still tied together in front of him, his soaking wet hair has begun to dry, frizzy and tangled.

Something about the face, though, gives him pause.

He's seen them dead before, their faces etched in horrified screaming, empty eyes wide and terrified. He's seen them trapped in their final agonies long after they're gone.

But the young man across the basement looks like he's gone to sleep there on the floor, that's all. His color's all wrong but the dim light keeps that from being too obvious.

He looks like he's sleeping.

He didn't die screaming under Robert's knife, or begging for it to stop as the blows kept raining down. He isn't tied to Robert's bed, he isn't anything like that at all.

The pet's fear is still in him, heart beating jackrabbit-fast against the inside of his chest, but he stares and stares at the young man's body and begins to understand that... he doesn't need to be afraid of them.

He doesn't need to be afraid.

He needs to be angry that they die like this, not afraid of them.

Anger is what keeps him breathing, what keeps him thinking, what keeps him alive.

He made Robert furious, but more importantly he took a victory from him, he took power from him. He took away control. He made it so Robert can't feel like he owns the young man in his death, like the body is his because he made it.

No.

As long as he isn't dead, that means he isn't out of time. As long as he keeps breathing, as long as he keeps thinking, as long as there are parts of him that Robert doesn't know, doesn't own, that he can't control.

As long as he stays angry.

As long as he has hope.

I'm going to get out of here, he promises the young man's body, the pile of bones, the rest of them under the soil. I'm going to escape. I'm going to do something, someday, when he gives me the chance.

I'm not like him.

I'm not like any of them.

I want to be like you, instead, but alive. I want to live.

I'm going to live.

For a second he smells water, he hears a voice he can't understand and tastes the young man's voice on his tongue, the taste of sage tea with milk.

The pet swallows and closes his eyes, breathing in through his nose, holding the air, breathing out again. The air shifts around him, touches his face just above the muzzle.

In the perfectly still basement, a breeze shifts along his skin, rustles his hair just a little.

Something moving past him on its way to somewhere else.

-

@astrobly @finder-of-rings @whump-tr0pes @raigash @eatyourdamnpears @orchidscript @doveotions @pretty-face-breaker @boxboysandotherwhump @outofangband @whumptywhumpdump @thehopelessopus @downriver914 @justabitofwhump @butwhatifyouwrite @newandfiguringitout @yet-another-heathen @nonsensical-whump @oops-its-whump @endless-whump @cubeswhump @gonna-feel-that-tomorrow @whumpiary @burtlederp

[someonestolemyshoes]

So... during the time skip, Hange is on a business trip to Marley. Levi stays home to deal with some installation or important project for Hange, gets injured in some stupid way, falls off scaffolding or something. And he doesnt think too much of it because it's such a stupid way to get injured. And he hides it even when it gets worse and Hange is the only one who notices because she knows him so well. BUT when she gets back, it gets worse. And Levi hates hospitals so Hange forces him to go <3

Hello! Thank you so much for the prompt :) I’m not super thrilled with the way this one turned out, but I had a lot of fun anyway, and I hope you enjoy it! Angst ahead, if that’s not your thing. 

(Drinking game: take a shot every time Levi says he’s fine) 

Levi was no stranger to pain. While he had been luckier than most, Levi had sustained his fair share of injuries. Bruises and breaks were commonplace. Pain became easier to handle, wounds less debilitating to endure.

It didn’t make them hurt any less.

**

It wasn't a particularly bad accident, but it was a particularly stupid one.

Hange had been tied up in meetings for days, stuck inside Sina with other military personnel, with carnivorous media, with business moguls eager to ensure their pockets would be well lined by any negotiation plans with Marley and their neighbouring countries.

She had taken Armin and Jean alongside her; Armin had a mind with similar mechanics to her own, and as such he was best suited to help her formulate a compelling case with their higher ups, while Jean had attended at Levi’s insistence. Hange had already made it clear that, with Armin gone, they needed somebody to oversee continued construction on the railway line, and Levi, uneasy with the idea of Hange being without an attack dog, had demanded Kirstein attend in his place. The brat was becoming something of a budget Moblit, always trailing after Hange whenever she was around—Levi thought he looked a little pitiful, following her around like an eager puppy, but he supposed he was grateful for it now, if it meant he had no objections taking a trip into the interior with her.

Levi had been left with the rest of the brood. Eren and Mikasa worked diligently, though Eren—distant and despondent as he had been since the Queen’s address after Shiganshina—remained sullen, while Mikasa alternated between shooting Eren looks of concern, and staring scathingly at Levi whenever he came into view. She tolerated him far better, these days, but Levi was unsure she’d ever fully forgive him for his public display at Eren’s trial.

No matter. She did as she was told, reluctantly as may be. Connie and Sasha, on the other hand, were proving problematic.

They lacked focus. The four of them were working on construction of a rail house near the coast, somewhere to store equipment for maintenance, with a few flat beds for workers to rest in between commutes. The walls were coming along, but the space was still lacking a proper roof, covered only by tarp to keep the metal beams and frames inside from rusting before they could be treated and on the tracks. Eren and Mikasa were working quietly on one side, while Connie and Sasha were goofing off on the other.

Levi clicked his tongue. The work was, in theory, far less hazardous than slaying titans had ever been, but they were still a couple of stories in the air on flimsily constructed scaffolding, without any gear to catch them if they fell. The drop wasn’t deadly in itself, but the inside of the half-built hut was full of great mounds of metal, beams and poles and wires covered only by papery thin sheets. A fall onto that, from this height, would result in breaks and bruises at best. 

"Oi,” Levi called, making his way around the rickety structure. Connie and Sasha either did not hear him, or chose to ignore him. That had been happening upsettingly often, of late; whatever intimidation tactic Levi had employed when they were still bratty kids had lost its effect. Connie teetered around Sasha as she tried to smear mortar on his cheek, edging along the scaffolding on only his toes until he made his way around her. Levi picked up his pace and called again, more of a snarl this time, a warning, but Sasha let out a shriek of delighted laughter as she managed to slap a trowel full of mortar on the top of Connie’s head. Neither of them heard him.

“You fall and break your necks and Hange will kill me,” Levi said. Sasha twisted to look at him but offered only a smile. Levi was within feet of them, when Connie moved quickly behind Sasha—he was doing nothing suspicious that Levi could see, but Sasha, awaiting retaliation, tried to scurry hurriedly away. Her foot missed the edge of the scaffolding, and there was a fraction of a second in which her eyes widened, body tilting, before Levi moved.

His hand closed around her wrist. With a sharp tug, he jerked her back onto the safety of the scaffolding, but in his rush to grab her he hadn’t the time to brace himself—with his weight unbalanced, the force of his pull sent his body careening forward, tipping over the edge of the plank.

He barely managed to release his grip on Sasha before he lurched over the edge.

Levi was no stranger to pain. While he had been luckier than most, Levi had sustained his fair share of injuries. Bruises and breaks were commonplace. Pain became easier to handle, wounds less debilitating to endure.

It didn’t make them hurt any less.

Levi hit the beams with a resounding clatter. Metal clanged and wood splintered, dust gathering in great plumes as Levi hit the tarp. The beams, built with enough strength to hold steam engines, had no give to them—Levi struck one solidly with his side and his body bowed around it. Something—his ribs, his spine—crunched on impact. The sudden stop made his neck whip down, temple cracking hard against the stone floor.

Every last drop of air punched out of his lungs and a white, dizzying pain exploded in his head. He slumped the rest of the way to the ground, gasping fruitlessly, but his chest, all empty, crushing pressure, would not expand, would not allow for a single wheezing breath.

He lay in a heap on the cold stone. Dimly, he could hear voices, the clatter of feet on wooden planks and the echo of sturdy shoes on the scaffold poles as the kids clambered their way down to him, but everything sounded muffled and distant, warbled by the pound of his pulse and the rush of blood in his ears. He blinked rapidly, squeezed his eyes closed to push the fuzziness from the edges of his vision, then gathered himself slowly, shifting to lay on his back. His every muscle felt tight, seizing from the shock of the impact and sharp, stabbing pain, but despite the tension, something in his side felt loose. He sucked in a few small breaths, pausing at every spike of pain before trying again, and then he pushed himself up to sit. His head felt thick and full, stuffy, too heavy for his neck to hold up. It throbbed with the change of position, a crack of pain so sudden he thought his skull might split in two. He resisted the urge to grab at it as the kids’ footsteps sounded close by, several sets of feet scuffing and clicking against the stone.

Levi pre-empted their concern with a wheezy, “I’m fine,” as Mikasa, followed swiftly by the others, rounded the corner and stopped short of him. “Get back to work.”

None of them moved. Levi focused his swimming gaze on them as well as he could, attempting a glare, but the corner of his eye and the side of his face felt fat, skin tight over the rapidly swollen flesh, and his breathing was tight, uneven, chest jerking with each attempt to fill his empty lungs. Nobody looked intimidated by the sight of him—in fact, all four of the little brats looked almost frightened.

“Captain…” Eren said. Levi scowled, fought not to wince.

“I’m fine.” Gritting his teeth to muffle each pained grunt, Levi grabbed a nearby beam and used it to drag himself up to his feet. His head spun, the ache intensifying to something almost unbearable, and that, coupled with the sickening grinding sensation in his side as he straightened up, was enough to make him sway on the spot. Mikasa was the first to step forward, hovering awkwardly. Levi suppressed the manic urge to laugh—there was some irony somewhere in Mikasa, grudge so steadfastly held, being the one ready to catch him if he fell. Levi shooed her away. His chest ached something terrible, a persistent, resounding swell behind his rib cage. It should be impossible to feel so full, so bloated, yet so empty at the same time.

“You should rest a little more,” Eren said, at the same time Sasha erupted with a wailed apology. Connie looked pale and guilty behind her.

“Hange wants this—shitty thing—finished, by the time—she gets back.” Levi hitched stilted breaths as he spoke. He took a careful step forward. His side screamed, and his head pounded, but he remained upright, which was good enough. He passed by Connie and Sasha, who both looked ashen-faced, and clicked his tongue against his teeth. They’re too tall now, so tall he almost lost his precarious balance when he stretched up to pat them both roughly on the head. Then he brushed past them with as much ease as he could manage.

“Hurry up. The damn walls won’t build themselves.”

**

Levi had expected to be better by the time Hange returned.

The pain had not subsided at all in the three days that passed between the injury and Hange’s arrival—if anything, it had intensified, and Levi’s bouts of dizziness and breathlessness were near constant. He hid it as well as he could from the others, compensating with vicious scowls and quick, barked instructions, but he couldn’t escape their concerned glances.

The building, at least, was almost complete. They had laid the rafters for the roof the day before, and were hammering on the felt when Hange, Armin, and Jean appeared in the distance.

The weather was blisteringly hot. Eren and Connie had removed their shirts long ago, while Sasha and Mikasa had tried fruitlessly to keep their hair off the base of their necks and out of their faces. Despite his lack of manual labour Levi was just as sweaty as the rest of them, though his skin was pale in comparison. He had argued, albeit rather feebly, to do his part in aiding the construction, but the damn brats had put their foot down on that, at least—as such, Levi had spent the last three days sitting beneath the shade, glumly watching their progress.

He stood when he saw the horses approaching. The others climbed down from the scaffolding, wiping sweat from their hands and faces. They cast Levi a sidelong look, and he glared in return.

“Not a word,” he reminded them coldly. Levi had already demanded that they keep the details of his incident quiet. The swelling on his face had gone down some with the aid of a bag filled with cold sea water, but the bruises were persistent, mottled from his eye to his ear. He could play it off as a far smaller incident than it was, so long as he could keep the ugly welt on his torso well hidden. The bruising there was dark, a deep, violent shade of purple, wrapping around his side and bubbling out over his back.

Eren looked uncertain. Mikasa gave him a stoic, level look, while Sasha and Connie still looked sheepish, avoiding his gaze. They had apologised profusely, and on multiple occasions,  for causing such a mess. Levi had, at their insistence, scolded them for messing around, but in truth he had little energy left to care.

Hange waved as soon as they were close enough. She kicked her horse on, Jean and Armin following dutifully behind her. The three of them pulled to a stop and dismounted, leading their horses to shade and water, looking tired, but satisfied. Levi kept his angled down, twisted to one side. He was prolonging the inevitable, he knew, but if he could get Hange talking about the meetings, or with some luck the upcoming expedition, or maybe even the mostly completed rail house, Levi could at least wait until they were alone before Hange battered him with questions.

All three of them had dark circles under their eyes. Armin yawned widely, he and Jean bumping into one another as they walked. Hange, as tired as she looked, strode forward with a delighted confidence—Levi, in spite of himself, quirked his lip in a small smile. It has been too long since Hange looked excited about anything. The prospect of an expedition had breathed some life into her.

“We’ve still got to work out some kinks,” Hange said, “but things are looking good. We’ll set up another meeting with Kiyomi. It might take a little while, but we’ll get out there ourselves. See the world with our own eyes, and—more importantly—let them see us.”

Connie and Sasha exchanged excited glances. Mikasa and Eren shared a more subdued look. Levi understood both perspectives—the prospect of venturing out into the world opened them up to a lot of risks. Each of them carried targets on their backs. One wrong move, and they would be in trouble. But, if all goes according to Hange’s plan, there would be plenty of reward. Freedom was worth any price they could pay, if only they can secure it.

Levi listened as the group reacquainted. Eren and Mikasa seemed pleased to have Armin back in their company, while Sasha hounded Jean endlessly until he relented, and surreptitiously pulled a small pack of cured meat from the inside pocket of his jacket. He had the decency to look embarrassed when he caught Levi’s eye on him, but his abashed expression quickly turned to one of confusion when he caught a good look at Levi’s face.

“The hell happened, Captain?”

Hange, who had been quietly engaged with Armin and the other two, looked around. Levi tutted and curled his lip, letting his fringe fall to cover part of his bruised brow.

“None of your business,” he said. His chest spasmed and he clenched his teeth, fighting the sudden urge to cough. “If you’ve still got the energy to stand around talking, you can get up there and help them finish the damn roof.”

Jean, who either hadn’t quite developed the same immunity to Levi’s brash tone as the rest, or was nervous about Levi scolding him for stealing food from the interior, nodded once and shrugged out of his jacket. Sasha’s eyes followed longingly as he hooked it over the nearby cart sitting on the tracks, but then her gaze shot back to Levi, and she scurried after Jean towards the rail house.

The others followed. Hange’s eye was still on him, and she waited until the group had scrambled up onto the scaffolding and picked up their tools before she crossed over to him. She bent a little, tilting her head to get a good look at his face. Hange let out a low whistle.

“Quite the bruise,” she said. Levi gave her a somewhat guarded look, and carefully shrugged one of his shoulders.

“Brats were messing around,” Levi said simply. “Caught me with a stray elbow.”

He didn’t dare look Hange in the eye long enough to determine whether she believed him. He nodded towards the rail house and said, “They’ll be done in a few hours.”

Hange beamed, bracing her hands on her hips. “They’ve made good progress! I wasn’t sure they’d get it finished by the time we made it back.”

“You wanted it finished,” Levi scowled, “those were your orders.”

“Calling it an order is a little harsh, Levi.”

“You’re our commander, Hange,” Levi said. “You tell us to do something, we do it. By definition, it is an order.”

Hange grimaced. It had been years since Shiganshina, years for Hange to come to grips with the position that had befallen her, and to her credit she had taken to it admirably enough, on the outside. It was only in small, private moments like this that she allowed herself to show doubt. The lack of cooperation from Hizuru had been a blow Hange had expected, but hoped to avoid—she had worked hard on her proposals and her negotiations had been sound, but the rejection stung nonetheless. With each new trial and each new error, Hange felt herself all the more lacking. Her distaste for her own position, for Erwin’s faith, grew stronger, and showed face more often.

Levi took in her sullen expression and winced internally. After a moment of heavy silence, he said, “They give you a hard time?”

“Who?”

“Zackley. The reporters. The kids.”

Hange let out a low chuckle. “Zackley’s as rigorous as ever. Picked apart every last thing we had to say, highlighted every possible flaw in the plan. Made us work hard, as usual. The reporters...asked a lot of questions we didn’t have answers to. They’ll smear our names in the papers tomorrow, no doubt, but it can’t be helped. We did our best. Armin was a huge help, though. He’s still a little nervous, but—so clever! So full of interesting ideas, and he negotiates well. He’ll make a good commander one day.”

“And Kirstein?”

“He’s an excellent paperweight,” Hange said, shooting Levi a sideways grin. “I appreciated the company, but I think we would have been fine without him.”

“Never know,” Levi said gruffly. He couldn’t be sure whether it was the heat of the sun or simply standing too long, but Levi was beginning to feel woozy. Breathing was still a chore, a concentrated effort to suck air into his aching chest and let it out again without choking, coughing, and more often than not he felt lightheaded. He nodded towards the boxes he’d been using as a seat over the last couple of days. “Sit. You look like shit.”

“For once, I don’t think you get to judge me for that.”

Levi had already begun walking stiffly to the boxes, and made no comment. He had no valid argument to give—he did look like shit, far worse than Hange, and he felt even shittier. He dropped a little heavily onto the box and bit back a grunt of pain.

Hange sat next to him. The box shuddered. Levi tensed as pain lanced through his side. He took in a quick, sharp breath, holding it high in his chest when the pain intensified. He could feel Hange’s eye on him and clenched his teeth, fighting to keep his face somewhat neutral.

“You sure you’re okay?” Hange said to him. Levi grunted. He busied himself taking slow, shallow breaths, staring resolutely ahead, avoiding Hange’s keen stare. “You look a little clammy.”

Levi made another quiet noise. Levi wasn’t very talkative at the best of times—this, he knew Hange was aware of, and most of the time Hange was content to fill the silence herself, but today she was quiet, and watching him too closely. Scrutinizing. Levi had often praised Hange for her powers of observation—she had an incredible eye for detail and a knack for spotting patterns and anomalies, a talent which had served the Survey Corps very well, but right now, Levi was cursing it. He didn’t need Hange surveying him.

He was hurting. He’d had a near constant headache since the incident, and his chest felt tight, riddled with pain both dull and sharp, stabbing whenever he breathed too deeply or gave in to the pressing urge to hack out a cough, but more than that, he felt unwell. Groggy, sickly, light-headed. His heart beat frantically, and his skin did feel clammy, cold sweat sitting on his brow. He stared ahead, blinking the fuzziness from his head and resolutely ignoring Hange’s steady stare.

Hange’s palm pressed to his forehead. The sudden touch made him jump—his muscles tensed, his ribs screamed in protest, and Levi let out a strangled groan, biting his tongue a second too late to trap the sound.

He was barely aware of Hange’s fussing as he fought to draw breath. Air grated in his battered lungs as Hange’s hand pressed flat to the back of his neck, her voice warped and muffled in his ear as she felt his sweat-damp skin. His vision tunnelled. He blinked rapidly to clear the black spots and wheezed in the humid air. His chest felt like it might split open, pressure billowing out from behind his ribcage, pressing agonisingly against his damaged bones.

He breathed short and shallow until the haze of pain lessened. Hange’s voice was loud beside him, the sharp, deep bark she used when she felt it necessary to assert her authority. Through the fog in his head he could barely make out her words, but he knew exactly what it was she was demanding. Sasha’s voice was meek in comparison, but it still carried over the distance enough for Levi to hear her.

“It was an accident,” she was saying. “It was our fault—my fault—”

Levi hissed through his teeth. Hange’s hands—one still at the back of his neck, the other curled around his arm—tightened their grip on him.

“Drop it,” Levi said. “Stop grilling them. It doesn’t matter what happened, I’m fine.”

Hange had the audacity to laugh, but there was no humour in it. “Fine? Levi, you can’t even move. You can barely breathe! What the hell did you do?”

“Fell,” he said shortly. His voice sounded weak, but he didn’t have the breath to put more force behind it.

“From where? When? Hell, Levi, when did this happen?”

“Hange, leave it.”

Hange turned her question to the rail house, and Connie answered immediately. Traitors, Levi thought scathingly. Mikasa explained without prompt that they didn’t know the extent of his injuries, that Levi had refused a proper medical examination despite the head wound that had left him unable to stand straight. She explained that they had managed with very little effort to get him to observe the construction from the ground, which, it seemed, was enough to concern Hange—Levi wasn’t the type to sit around doing nothing. He despised being idle and she knew it.

“You should see a doctor, Levi.”

“I’m fine—”

“No, you’re not. What else did you hurt? Just your head?”

Levi felt ill. Hange’s persistent questions were making his head spin and his entire body felt sore and spent. He mustered enough strength to glare at her, but nothing more. Hange was watching him carefully, brow furrowed in concern, but at his silence her expression hardened, and she stood abruptly. Levi bit back another groan as the box moved beneath him.

“You can ride, then?”

Levi squinted up at her. “Hah?”

“If you’re fine, you can ride back into town with me.”

No. “Sure.”

Hange stared at him a little longer, waiting, no doubt, for him to backtrack, admit defeat. Levi clenched his jaw and maintained steely eye contact. Hange narrowed her eye at him, then turned towards the rail house.

“Oi!” Hange called up, cupping a hand around her mouth. Six heads turned their way, popping up over the roof. “We’re heading back early. Leave the scaffolding when you’re done, we’ll send for it tomorrow. Good work!”

She turned on her heel and headed towards the horses, still tacked and tethered beneath the shade of a small copse of trees.

“We’ll go get your head checked.”

“Hange, I said I’m fine.” It was a weak argument, made even moreso when he stood too abruptly and swayed on the spot. Hange darted back towards him and steadied him with a hand on his shoulder, and a little of her angry resolve cracked, worry creasing her brow. She led him, more slowly now, towards the horses with her hand hovering over his back. He braced himself for the agony of her touch, if she pressed her palm against him, but Hange—perhaps in fear of not knowing what other injuries he had sustained—didn’t touch him.

“Humour me,” she said. “If you’re really fine, and it’s really nothing, no harm done. I’ll feel better knowing, and you—” she drew them to a stop by the horses and turned to face him fully, grinning, but the smile didn’t quite reach her eyes, “—you get to say I told you so.”

Levi said nothing. The thought of riding for hours on end made him feel nauseous.

“This is pointless,” he said. “I’ll rest here, if you’re so worried.”

Hange shook her head at him. She untied her own horse and Jean’s, holding the reins out for Levi to take.  

“We’re going back now, Captain. That’s an order.”

**  

An hour into the journey, Levi began to struggle in earnest.

No part of the ride had been pleasant—the heat was oppressive, and the motion of the horse required a fluidity in his hips and back that sent sharp jolts through his side with every step. Hange was uncharacteristically quiet, occupied instead by watching Levi from the corner of her eye. His head pounded with increasing intensity the longer they travelled, and between the pain, and the scorching sun, and his pitifully shallow breathing, Levi was feeling more faint by the second.

It was an unsettling sensation. Injuries were always difficult, but Levi had never felt so completely wiped out by physical damage in the past. Three days was enough time for his body to at least begin healing, but Levi had seen no improvement since the moment he struck the beam during his fall—if anything, he’d felt worse by the day.

Now, he was fighting to keep himself upright in the saddle.

They were approaching another clump of trees, great leaves wilting in the heat, when Levi, jaw tight and teeth bared, grunted out a request that they stop.

Hange looked torn. She wanted to hurry back into town, and was already impatient enough that Levi had requested they walk—”It’s too hot, for the horses”—but something on his face must have reflected the severity of his discomfort. Hange directed them to the treeline, dismounting and taking Levi’s reins while he did the same. His feet hit the ground and his knees buckled.

Hange caught him about the elbow but only after he had sunk to the grass. He felt shaky, weak, but more than that he felt vulnerable. Realistically, Levi knew that there was no shame in being hurt, in needing help, but he was a stranger to it. He had been self-sufficient since he was in Kenny’s care, and had grown up with the express understanding that showing weakness was a death sentence. And then again, in the Survey Corps—an injured soldier was titan bait.

There were no titans now, but Levi felt distinctly exposed, sitting in the long grass with his vision swimming and his lungs burning, barely functional.

Hange knelt next to him in the grass. She brought a hand up to his face, fingers curling against his jaw. Her gaze darted over his face, all of her righteous anger forgotten as she took in his state. Levi wanted to shake her off, to shake off the spinning in his head, to stand up and get back on the horse and continue their journey, but he couldn’t find the strength to gather his legs beneath him. Hange’s hands—one on his arm and one still on his face—kept him sitting upright.

“Levi…” Hange said slowly. Words sat on his tongue, reassurance that he was fucking fine, that he just needed a minute, but try as he might, he couldn’t get enough air in to voice them. His chest bubbled and rattled as he drew in a thin breath.

“Levi,” Hange said, sharper this time. Levi blinked blearily and searched for her. Neither of them were moving, but Hange’s image wavered and blurred in front of him. He swallowed. Wheezed. His heart hammered in his ears. Hange’s fingertips found the pulsepoint in his neck, pressing, counting. “Levi—what else hurts?”

Levi swallowed thickly, a nauseous tremor under his tongue. After a moment, he choked out, “cracked a few ribs, probably.”

Hange sucked in a sharp breath. “Let me see.”

He didn’t have the strength to fight her as Hange began unbuttoning his shit. He swayed where he sat, struggling to balance without her hands keeping him upright, until he heard Hange’s hiss as she uncovered the bruises wrapping his chest and back.

Levi looked down and grimaced. The bruising was worse than he remembered, stretching further up his chest, dark and mottled, the flesh tight and swollen.

“Levi, this is bad,” Hange said. “We need to get help.”

“Just need rest,” Levi said. His voice sounded slow and slurred in his own ears. Hange’s hand cupped the side of his neck, her thumb tipping his jaw up to look at his face. His eyelids felt heavy.

“I know it hurts,” she said, “and I know you don’t want to move, but—Levi, please. C’mon, I need you to get up.”

It had been a long, long time since Levi had heard that frantic tone from her. She sounded urgent, panicked. Desperate. Levi dragged his eyes open, but found he couldn’t focus on her face anymore. His lungs protested violently as he tried to speak, only coughing instead, dry and hacking. His chest burned.

Hange dragged him to his feet. Levi’s limbs felt heavy and clumsy, detached and completely out of his control. He leaned heavily into Hange’s side as she moved him across the grass.

“C’mon, Levi—work with me.”

Hange hefted him up onto one of the horses. Her horse, he realised, as she clambered up with him. She settled behind him, her arms gripping the reins either side of him. Levi tried to sit up right, but as she kicked the horse on, he slumped back with a low groan. Hange’s voice rumbled through her chest when she spoke.

“You good?” Hange asked quietly, and then, “stupid question, of course you’re not.” Levi found the strength to scoff, but it was a pitiful sound, and followed swiftly with another pained grunt and a fit of coughing. “Bear it a little longer, okay?”

Consciousness drifted, as they rode on. Levi was dimly aware of the sun on his feverish skin, and of Hange’s warm, solid body at his back. Her jaw brushed his head when she moved. Her voice was constant now, a rumble up his spine and in indistinct mumble in his ear. At times he could pick out her words, but his comprehension was hazy, mind unable to string sentences together, to find meaning in her chatter.

In this state, there was no focal point for the pain. It was consuming, indistinct but ever present, impossible to isolate in any one location. His whole body ached. His breathing was quick and laboured. There was no real respite even in this state.

Hange’s hand repeatedly found his throat, fingers feeling for his frantic pulse.

Time passed strangely. The ride seemed to last a lifetime, with Levi waking a thousand times to agony, consciousness barely breaking before he succumbed again to his feverish dozing.

At times, he awoke to new sounds and new sensations. The echo of multiple voices around him, all talking frantically over one. The scratch of crisp sheets beneath his bare back, the click of shoes on tiled floor. New, stinging, fiery pain, sudden and excruciating enough to make his body jolt in discomfort, followed swiftly by strong hands on his arms and legs to keep him still. Cool air blowing gently over his heated skin. His hand caught in a loose, tangled grip.

The aches in his battered body settled, localised. Levi felt it acutely in his chest, though the pressure no longer felt as intense. Breathing still hurt, but the air came easier now. He felt his lungs fill with it, little by little, for the first time in days. He opened his eyes, blinking rapidly in the light, then rolled his head slowly to look around.

The small window had been cracked open, the fresh, cool air lifting Levi’s fringe, tickling at his brow. Thin morning light poured in, illuminating the small, sparsely furnished room. Besides the bed he lay on, there was only one small table and a stiff, uncomfortable wooden chair.

Hange was slumped low in the chair. Her legs were sprawled out in front of her, her chin dropped to her chest while she slept. She had discarded her military jacket, eye patch, and glasses in a heap on the floor, and her sleeves were rolled up to the elbows, the top buttons of her shirt undone and splayed open. Her hair hung limp and ratty around her face. She looked pale and exhausted.

Levi’s tongue was dry, tacking to his teeth and the roof of his mouth. It took him three attempts to say her name, and when he did it came out raspy and ragged. He tried to move, to reach over and nudge her awake, to ask what the hell had happened since he’d last been lucid—but as he leaned over a sudden, white hot agony ripped through him, tearing into his side.

He gave a strangled groan and pressed himself back into the mattress, squeezing his eyes closed as he rode out the spasms. Wood scraped by the bed; Hange must have startled awake at his outburst. Levi squinted an eye open to see her blinking rapidly, rubbing her knuckles into her eyes before scooping up her glasses and taking in the sight of him.

The pain subsided little by little, though Levi didn’t dare move again. Hange sat on the edge of her chair and reached for him, her hand stopping short of his and falling to grip the bed sheets instead.

“How you feeling?”

Levi cleared his throat. “Like shit.”

Hange managed a weak smile. The bags under her eyes were considerably darker than they had been before, her skin paler, papery. Levi frowned at her. “You still look like shit.”

Hange waved him off with a small laugh, sitting back and scrubbing her hands over her face. She hung her head over the back of her chair, fingers pressing into her eyes beneath her glasses. She sat for a long while, observing the backs of her eyelids. Levi watched her through pinched eyes as the burn in his side settled to a more familiar ache.

“Don’t do that,” Hange said, voice strained by the stretch of her throat. “Don’t do that again.”

“Which part?” Levi said.

“All of it. Don’t get in stupid accidents. Don’t pretend you’re fine when you’re not. Don’t—”

She stopped short, then, with a sudden hitch of her breath. Levi watched her dig her fingers harder into her eyes, watched the bob of her throat as she swallowed reflexively. For a moment she was quiet, then she sat up straight and turned watery, bloodshot eyes on him.

Hange was strong. She was a far more emotionally available person than he could ever be, but she had an incredible capacity to compartmentalise. To switch off. To accept the necessity, the inevitability of loss, to evaluate and recalculate and move forward. Hange mourned—Levi had witnessed the aftermath of it plenty of times before, repaired broken tables and reorganised upended bookshelves in the wake of her disaster—but she mourned later. Alone. Felt all her fears and frustrations in isolation, away from prying eyes.

Hange wasn’t the type to cry at peoples besides and beg them to live.

And yet.

“Don’t leave me on my own.”

“It wasn’t that—”

“You dare tell me it wasn’t that bad and I’ll kill you myself.”

Levi clamped his mouth shut. Hange was glaring at him like she might really mean it. Instead of arguing, he said, “what’s the damage?”

Hange slumped forward, elbows on her knees and head hung low. “Broken ribs. Ripped up a few muscles in your back. Collapsed lung. The air pressure in your chest was restricting blood flow to your heart.” She put her head in her hands and dug her fingers into her messy hair. “You got so fucking lucky, Levi. If we hadn’t left when we did—”

He watched silently as Hange groaned into her palms. She breathed deeply, back and shoulders raising as she did.

“You could have died.”

“I didn’t.”

Hange’s head shot up. “By the skin of your teeth, Levi. You—” she took a long, steadying breath, but her voice still shook as she continued, “—you were barely breathing. You couldn’t talk to me, you would hardly even respond to me.”

“Sorry.”

Levi wasn’t sure what else he was supposed to say. Hange looked distraught, her composure tenuous. Levi’s fingers twitched on the sheets, itching to reach out and touch her, offer some kind of reassurance that he was here, he was fine—but he wasn’t fine, and moving so far was out of the question. He gripped hard at the sheets instead. “Sorry.”

“Not you as well,” Hange said quietly. Levi’s chest tightened painfully at her tone—she sounded so small in that moment. Scared. Levi wasn’t sure he’d ever heard her sound so frail before. “What am I supposed to do if you—” she cut herself off again, shaking her head.

“Same thing you always do.” Hange curled tightly in on herself. Levi turned to stare at the ceiling instead. “You keep going, Commander.”

“Don’t. Don’t do that.”

“One day or another, everyone you care about eventually dies. You said that.” He listened as Hange’s breath hitched, but refused to look at her. “It sucks. It hurts. But we keep moving forward.”

The mattress dipped by his hand. Levi rolled his eyes down, and found Hange hunched out of her chair, her face pressed into the blankets. Levi sunk his fingers quietly into her hair.

They lapsed into a painful silence. Hange hiccupped and sniffled now and then, while Levi scratched lightly at her scalp. After a long while, Hange spoke again.

“I know those were my words,” she said thickly. “But I can’t accept that. Not now. Not after everything.”

“Stubborn,” Levi said quietly. He pulled lightly at her hair until she raised her head, wiping her cheeks and nose messily on her arm. “Disgusting.”

Hange managed a bare, wobbly smile. Levi’s hand fell from her hair as she straightened up, and Hange scooped it up in both of her own. She played absently with his fingers, curling and flexing them, rubbing her thumb over the lines on his palm. She seemed to be gathering herself, brow a little furrowed in thought.

“I know we can’t guarantee anything. I know how uncertain our world is. But just—” Hange paused, closing Levi’s fingers around her own, then looked up at him with a fierce determination. “Promise me anyway.”

Levi blinked sluggishly at her. “Promise you what?”

“That you’ll survive.”

Levi tensed. “Hange…”

“Indulge me. Just this once, please.”

A promise of that kind was unrealistic, Levi knew this. Hange had said so herself: there were no guarantees. Except, that wasn’t quite true—death, at least, was a constant. The only inevitability they had. The island may be free of titans now, but the threat of attack loomed over them like a persistent storm cloud, black and heavy, ready to give at any moment. And accidents, as he had painfully learned, could happen in the blink of an eye.

Levi was resilient, but he wasn’t invincible.

But Hange was looking at him steadily, her resolve unwavering. She wanted his word here and now. Needed it, maybe, but Levi knew her. Hange valued honesty over everything else. There was no way she could feel at ease with such an empty promise.

Levi sighed.

“You’re a brat, you know that? Looking at me like that.”

Hange’s gaze held firm. Levi felt her grip on his hand tighten.

“I can’t promise shit like that, Hange,” he said. She squeezed his hand tighter still, and her body tensed, shoulders drawing up to her ears. “You know I can’t. Nobody can.”

For one horrible, gut wrenching moment, Levi thought she might cry again. She took a deep breath and closed her eyes but when she opened them again, her good eye looked terribly blank.

“You’re right. Sorry, sorry!” She let go of his hand and sat back in her chair, hands resting on her legs instead. Her voice sounded lighter, more like Hange, but there was something off about it. Something forced. Strained. She adjusted her glasses but didn’t meet his gaze again.

This was the Hange he knew. The Hange who could bury her feelings in the moment, squash them down and push them aside to focus on the rational, the plausible. Seeing her like that didn’t relieve him the way it should have. It left a sour taste in his mouth and a discomfort in his gut, knowing that he was the cause of the grief she felt she had to hide.

It was stupid, the whole situation—how a moment of carelessness lead to this; Levi bedridden, and Hange struggling to hold herself together.

The space between them grew stagnant. Hange seemed a little lost in thought, gaze caught blankly on Levi’s blankets, while Levi watched her, waiting for her to say something else, to change the subject, to be Hange again. But Levi was never one for giving inspiring speeches, and in truth, he didn’t know that anything he could say now would make anything better. Hange would do what Hange always did—wait until she was alone, and vent in whatever way she could.

And Levi, as soon as he was able, would do what he always did, too—pick up the broken pieces and mend as much as he could.

“You should rest.”

Hange blinked tiredly over at him. It had been an age since Hange looked well-rested, years since Shiganshina and the exhaustion of that particular battle had never left her. The burden she carried—everything Erwin had left behind and all that they had discovered since—was so impossibly heavy, the expectations put upon her too much for any one person to handle. Hange had enough to deal with, she didn’t need to be worried about him, too.

“Eat something, bathe. Sleep. I’ll still be here when you come back.” After a pause, he added, “I’ll promise you that much.”

Hange gave him a weak, wry smile as she fished up her eye patch, strapping it into place and righting her glasses over it. “I guess I’ll take that. And then tomorrow, you can promise me the same again.”

Levi rolled his eyes. “Fine, whatever. Go.”

“Alright, alright. I’ll nap for a couple hours and come back. You should sleep some more too, you know. It’ll help you heal faster.”

Levi grumbled in response, and grumbled louder still when Hange stepped up to the bedside, but he fell quiet when she leaned over, brushing his fringe back from his forehead and pressing a small kiss to his hairline. It was such a simple gesture, and nothing out of the ordinary—Hange had been a physically affectionate person as long as he had known her, always grabbing and hugging and kissing whenever she got the chance—but there was something so tender in it, this time. Levi’s eyes fluttered closed.

Hange lingered longer than was strictly necessary, and yet it still didn’t feel like enough. Levi could easily have let her stay close, feel the warmth of her breath and the softness of her lips on his skin until he drifted into sleep, but she straightened up after a moment and Levi was left instead with the cold breeze from the open window. Levi blinked sluggishly up at her. His own exhaustion barrelled in, making his eyes sting, lids heavy. Hange folded her jacket over her arm and pushed the chair into the corner, out of the way.

“I’ll see you soon, okay?” She said.

“Mm.”

“You’re gonna feel like you got crushed by a titan when the pain meds wear off, so make the most of it.”

“Got it.”

“And you should let the doctor know if anything changes. Straight away, don’t wait around.”

“I will.”

"And there are nurses around, if you get hungry or thirsty. The bathroom is just down the hall too, but they've got bedpans if you need to—"

“Hange.”

“I’m going, I’m going.” Hange had already crossed the room as she spoke, but she paused in the doorway, fingers curled around the frame. She deliberated with herself for a moment longer, then said, “hey, Levi?”

“Hm?”

Hange chewed on her lip, contemplating something, a faint blush building on her cheeks. And then she shook her head, gave him a small smile, and said, "Ah, doesn't matter. Sleep well."

She left quickly after that, closing the door quietly behind her. Levi stared at the space she'd vacated, brow a little furrowed; her hesitancy confused him.

But he was tired. His body hurt. His head felt thick and fuzzy, and without Hange's presence to keep him occupied, he consciousness began to drift. 

Tomorrow, he thought hazily. He would ask her tomorrow. For now though, he would follow his own advice; for now, he would rest. 

[vulpeskorsak]

Day 2 of Whumptober 2022: Nowhere to run

Day 2 of Whumptober 2022!

No. 2 NOWHERE TO RUN Cornered | Caged | Confrontation

Victor is my human fleshsmith inventor (KibblesTasty Homebrew class) from a long-running DnD adventure. This is an especially important/memorable episode from his backstory.

https://archiveofourown.org/works/42115344 (AO3 link)

Nowhere to run

“You’re on our turf, kid! Do you really think you can hide?” The deep raspy voice is followed by cruel laughter. “Even if you’re one of those invisible magic types, you can’t mask your scent!”

The sentence is punctuated by one of the dogs snarling in Victor’s direction, having already figured out where he fled.

Victor suppresses a terrified whimper by carefully sinking his teeth into his fingers. He has to be smart about it. He does not fully understand what made these people so mad with him. This is the third time this month they are chasing him. His ribs still hurt from the fall into a garbage pile he had to take escaping from them last time. And this time they brought dogs.

He looks down from his hiding spot on the crates. The large goliath named Makon seems to be the leader of this… operation to kill or capture him? Victor has no idea why they care about some 17-year-old kid. He is just a doctor’s apprentice. He knows his teacher has dealings with some shady people but it has nothing to do with him! He isn’t told shit. He does not know anything that might be of use to them. Are they trying to send a message? Do they want to hurt his boss? Lure him out? Despite them growing pretty close over the two years of his apprenticeship, Victor heavily doubts that is going to work. Doctor Jack is a practical man. He will not leave everything he has ever worked for and everyone who needs him for just one person. Victor respects that although he sure wishes there was someone to save him right about now.

Yet no one comes. So he has to act on his own. He quietly gets down on the floor and hurries deeper into the warehouse. He had no idea it was “theirs”. He was just looking for a place to hide. And now he has royally fucked himself, it seems. He will probably die in this gods’ forsaken place. Eaten by dogs. Or beaten by thugs. Likely both.

He shakes his head to stop the train of thought that was about to send him sobbing. He can do this. There might be another way out. A back door, perhaps? Or a window? Will they get even angrier with him if he breaks their window?

He can hear the large man laughing once again. He hears no steps but three chains clattering as they hit the ground and a snap of fingers. Makon and both of his companions must have stayed by the warehouse door and they let the animals go after him.

He has to hurry. He finally sees a small door on the perimeter-wise balcony making up the second floor so he scrambles up the narrow staircase towards it.

Locked.

His hands shake as he reaches into his pocket for the small kit of lockpicks. The young apprentice started learning how to use them recently after his teacher lost the key to the storage room and they had to break down the door to get in. He has no idea how the boss acquired it but he sure as hell is glad that he did.

He takes a deep breath and gets to work. He can hear the dogs still sniffing for him on the first floor. Definitely getting closer.

Thankfully, terror seems to amplify his senses. He has never been done with a lock this quickly before. Getting a bit too excited he tugs at the door a bit too hard, so it opens with a quiet but still very much audible creak.

The closest dog barks and he can hear it burst into a sprint. By the time it reaches the door, it is shut with Victor leaning on it as he takes in his surroundings.

Well, shit.

He is outside on a short bridge that is connecting apparently two warehouses. He has no idea what’s in the other one or if gets lucky opening the lock quickly again. And there is an angry dog a door away from his back. Its owner will soon join it.

He looks down but does not see a convenient pile of anything to land on. He shoves the kit back into his pocket trying to steel himself for the drop.

After a couple seconds he can’t hear the dog behind himself anymore, so he walks towards the middle of the bridge and carefully climbs over the railing. He crouches, grabs onto the bottom of the bridge and lets go.

Now that he is dangling from the bridge it seems like a very bad idea and that he should definitely get back up and try escaping through the second warehouse instead.

But he can’t chicken out now. There is no time to waste… is what he thinks right before something big and heavy hits him in the right shoulder.

Unable to keep hanging through the pain he yelps and lets go.

The ground turns out to be closer than it seemed. He lands on his back but it seems that nothing is broken. His head is spinning too much for him to assess the situation right away but he can hear a familiar voice shouting somewhere close.

He flips himself over and tries to get up. As he raises his upper body off the cobblestone his slowly stabilizing vision shows him two dogs sprinting towards him.

Victor prefers to not think about what followed.

[gamergirl929]

Taylor, I'm Your Biggest Fan (Alex Morgan x Reader)

Anonymous Request: Alex Morgan x Reader where reader is a huge fan of Taylor Swift so Alex invited her to perform at reader’s birthday party as a surprise. Bonus where reader freaks the f out when Alex introduce her to TS

Alex bites her lip to stifle a grin as she watches you dance in the bathroom, your air ponds blasting in your ears, no doubt listening to Taylor Swift.  

You dance unbeknownst to the fact that your girlfriend is watching you until you spot her out of the corner of your eye and nearly jump into the bathtub.  

“Jesus.” You pant, your hand on your chest and Alex giggles.  

“Don’t mind me, continue.” She winks and you roll your eyes, running some water and flicking it at the forward.  

“Hey!” She giggles, rushing into the bathroom and wrapping her arms around you from behind, pulling you back against her chest, your arms pinned to your sides.  

“This isn’t fair! I’m defenseless.” You pout, as Alex kisses your cheeks and neck playfully.  

“I can totally stop.” She rests her chin on your shoulder and you shake your head.  

“I mean, you’re the one in charge.” You shrug and Alex grins, nuzzling into your neck.  

“You know how much I like being in charge.”  

You snort.  

“Ohh, I know.”

A sudden knock sounds at your front door and Alex sighs.  

“We’ll continue this later.”  

“Can’t wait.” You grin, jumping when Alex gives you a playful slap on the ass.  

“Hey!”  

Alex bites her tongue between her teeth, sending a wink your way before taking her leave.  

The second she gets to the door, it swings open on its own, revealing Ashlyn, Ali and Emily, the three women beaming.  

“Can Y/N come out and play?” Emily grins, earning a flick on the ear from someone behind Ashlyn, that someone being Kelley.  

“Let us in Morgan, we’ve got planning to do...” She says as she jumps up, looking over Ashlyn’s shoulder.  

“SHH!” Alex shakes her head, waving her hands. “She can’t know you’re here! She’s in the bathroom!”  

“Who’s at the door?” You call from the bathroom, everyone scrambling to hide Kelley, who, Emily decides, to shove in a bush outside of your front door.  

“It’s just the usual suspects.” Alex yells and you shake your head, running your hands down your chest to straighten your shirt.  

“You bitch.” Kelley growls as she climbs out of the bush, in favor of sliding into the house and running into the kitchen, ducking behind the island in the center of the floor.

You walk into the living room, making your way straight to the kitchenette.  

“You here to steal our food again?” You ask as you round the island, unaware that Kelley has crawled around to the other side, looking pleadingly at Alex and the others.

“Depends on what you’ve got.” Emily grins as she moves towards the fridge, the two of you surfing its contents, giving Kelley enough time to make a beeline for the closet, basically throwing herself inside with a crash.  

“SHIT.” Ashlyn rubs her elbow, feigning injury, Ali coming over to inspect her uninjured joint.  

“I have some errands to run.” You huff. “Everyone loves bills.”  

You make your way towards Alex with a smile, gently gripping her hips as you pull her into a kiss.  

“I’ll be back later.” You grin, Alex leaning in to press another sweet kiss to your lips.  

“So, you’re leaving me alone with these hooligans?” She teases and you shrug.  

“Throw a hot dog or something outside and they’ll all go running.” You snicker, earning a flick in the ear from Ashlyn.  

“Not Ali and I, I mean, it’s obvious we don’t like hotdogs, we’re married.”  

You hear someone bark out a laugh, someone who sounds like they aren’t in the room, but when you turn around you realize it was Emily, the woman ducked down behind the island.  

“You’re a weirdo Sonny.” You shake your head, pressing another kiss to Alex’s lips.  

“See you later?”  

“Of course.” She beams, watching as you grab your keys and head out the door, the woman sighing as she watches you pull out of the drive and head down the street.  

“YOU HAD TO FUCKING LAUGH AT ASHLYN’S JOKE!?” Emily yells as Kelley crawls out of the closet.  

“I couldn’t help it! It was funny!”  

Alex pinches the bridge of her nose.  

“Why in the hell did I pick you guys to help me plan Y/N’s surprise birthday party?” She asks herself and Ali grins.  

“They’re just here for comic relief, let’s get started.” She claps giddily, Emily and Kelley scoffing.  

“Comic relief my ass.”

                                                            ***

“There’s NO WAY you got her...” Emily snorts, shaking her head, staring at Alex, who simply smirks.  

“Oh, I got her, and she’s coming.” She grins and Emily gasps, a hand on her chest.  

“Would you be my girlfriend too?” She asks, earning a flick on the ear.  

“No, stop it.” Kelley grumbles, rolling her eyes.  

“So, everyone is crashing at our house and we’ll all head to the venue early to get it all set up?” Ali grins and Alex nods.  

“Perfect! This is gonna rock bitchhhhhhhhhhhhh!” Ashlyn starts to dance in her seat, of course, being joined by Kelley and Emily.  

Alex’s phone suddenly rings and she grins, immediately answering when she realizes it’s you.  

“Hey hot stuff.”  

Alex rolls her eyes, shaking her head, giggling.  

“Hi to you too.”  

“Are the hooligans still there?” You ask, Alex’s eyes darting around the room as she nods.  

“Yeah, they’re still here.”  

“HI Y/N!” Emily yells and you snort.  

“I was wondering if you wanted me to pick up some pizza.”  

Alex hums, covering the end of the receiver with her hand.  

“Pizza?”  

Everyone nods, though Kelley’s bottom lip juts out in a pout.  

“What about me?” She pouts and Alex smiles.  

“We may have an extra... Someone...”  

“Something tells me I know who...” You chuckle and Alex’s eyes narrow.  

“How would you know who?” Alex scoffs, everyone’s brows furrowed.  

“I know Kelley’s laugh you know.”

Alex’s blue orbs widen as she stares at Kelley, the defender cringing.  

“If you didn’t laugh at Ashlyn’s joke, we could’ve surprised her when she got back.” Alex pouts and you chuckle.  

“Well now she gets to eat pizza with us, the usual?” You ask, the forward smiling softly.  

“The usual.”  

“GET BEER.” Kelley yells and you shake your head.  

“I’ll be back soon, don’t kill her while I’m gone.”  

Alex sends the defender a glare.  

“I won’t... I love you Y/N.”  

“I love you too Al.”  

                                                            ***

“MY SAVIOR.” Kelley beams excitedly when she sees you’d gotten her favorite beer.  

“Only the best for our Worm.”

“You spoil me.” She squeaks.  

You make your way towards Alex, wrapping an arm around her as you press a kiss to her temple, leaning against her.  

“Looks like you survived the hooligans.” You grin, Alex rolling her eyes as she leans heavily against you.  

“Barely.”  

Kelley pops the tab open with a click, sighing as she takes a deep breath.  

“My favorite sound.” She hums as she takes a swig from the can, grinning.  

You glance at Alex, shaking your head.  

“You’re an enabler.” Alex whispers, earning a loud snort.  

“I’ll be sure to reveal that in our next couples therapy session.” You snicker, Alex slapping you, hard on your ass.  

“Ew, don’t cop a feel in front of us.” Emily groans, the woman groaning louder when you give Alex the same treatment, smacking her on the butt, the woman squeaking.  

“No.” Kelley’s eyes narrow, a smirk stretching across her face.  

“Put down your beer and give me a hug asshole.” You open your arms, the woman reluctantly placing her beer on the counter before diving on you.  

You give the woman a tight squeeze, the woman groaning loudly, squeezing you as equally hard.  

“What are you doing here?” You ask, the defender’s eyes widening slightly when she realizes they hadn’t come up with a cover story for her recent arrival.  

“Umm... Was just in the neighborhood.”

Your brows arch in question.  

“Last time I checked; Utah isn’t in Florida’s neighborhood.”

Kelley gasps dramatically.  

“Are you insinuating, that Utah is the SLUMS!?”  

Your eyes widen.  

“No! No, I wasn’t!”  

Kelley pulls away from you with a pout, though her plan was working entirely in her favor.  

“I’ll just go back to the slums of Utah...”  

Alex rolls her eyes, she Ashlyn, Ali and Emily watching as you try to reason with Kelley, the woman feigning sadness.  

Everything was going to plan, well, somewhat seeing as you now knew Kelley was there, but if everything else worked out as planned, your surprise birthday party would go off without a hitch.  

                                                            ***

Alex rubs her hands together eagerly.  

Everything had gone to plan, the entirety of the USWNT here in Florida, setting up your surprise party for the evening.  

While they were getting that ready, the two of you heading towards one of the fanciest restaurants in town, something Alex had planned even before she’d set the surprise party into motion.  

Alex lets out a string of giggles when you stop at a red light, turning towards her, singing Love Story, to the woman.  

The song, OF COURSE, was by the one and only Taylor Swift.

The car behind you blares their horn and you growl, the light JUST turning green a hot second ago.  

“Yeah, yeah! Blow it out your ass!”

Alex pinches the bridge of her nose, shaking her head.  

“What am I going to do with you?” She giggles and you shrug, reaching for and taking her hand.  

“Love me? Cherish me?” You snicker, the woman rolling her eyes.  

“Yeah, I think I can do that.”  

You bring Alex’s hand to your lips, kissing the back of it with a grin.  

“I love you Al.” You whisper, the woman’s cheeks flushing as she beams.

“I love you too Y/N.”  

The car behind you AGAIN beeps and you snarl, glaring in your rearview mirror. 

“I’m about to go all Look What You Made Me Do on your ass.” You grumble angrily, Alex shaking her head.  

“Do you have to incorporate Taylor Swift into EVERYTHING you do?”  

You shrug, grinning cockily.  

“Are you jealous?” You tease, the forward rolling her eyes as she leans across the console, pressing a kiss to your cheek.  

“Nope. Taylor Swift has never seen you naked, I have.”  

You snort.  

“Alright, you’ve got me there.”  

You smirk.  

“If you play your cards right, you might see it again tonight.” You send her a wink, the woman rolling her eyes.  

“Shouldn’t YOU be the one playing those cards?”  

You snort.  

“But it’s my birthday Allllllllllll.” You whine the woman giggling as she intertwines your fingers, giving your hand a squeeze.  

“We’ll see.”  

                                                            ***

The smile that stretches across your face is filled with nothing but the purest form of love for the woman across from you, the woman who’s currently grinning as she fumbles over whatever Italian food she’d ordered, the waitress giggling as she writes it down.  

Alex turns to you, eyes widening when she sees you staring, the love sick look on your face making her cheeks flush.  

“What?” She asks with a chuckle and you grin.  

“I love you.”  

Alex beams, the woman taking your hand, fingers intertwining as she presses a kiss to the back of your hand.  

“I love you too.”  

Your fingers play with Alex’s, the woman’s skin delicate and soft, a complete contrast to the woman’s attitude.  

You hold your palm against hers, the woman’s hand just a bit smaller than your own, the woman giggling as she again intertwines your fingers.  

“Happy Birthday Y/N.” She whispers and you smile, leaning across the table to press a kiss to her lips.  

“Thanks Al.”

You bite your bottom lip to stave off your laughter.  

“You still can’t read Italian for shit.” You jest, the forward’s bottom lip jutting out in a pout.  

“Shut up.”  

                                                            ***

“Turn here.” Alex points down the street and your brows furrow.  

“Yeah, this isn’t how we get home.”  

Alex rolls her eyes.  

“Of course, it isn’t, I have something to show you, now park here.”  

Your eyes narrow as you turn to look at her.  

“If this is some role play thing- OW!”  You cry out as Alex punches you in the arm.  

“It’s not, shut up.”  

You bottom lip juts out, your best puppy dog eyes on display as you look at your girlfriend.  

Alex leans across the console, pressing a chaste kiss to your lips before she slides out of the car.  

“Follow me.”  

You chuckle as you too slide out of the car, slamming the door shut.  

“So bossy.”  

You hold your arm out to Alex, the woman gripping your bicep.  

“Lead the way.”  

Alex leans heavily against you, a grin stretching across your face as you whisper.  

“This is nice.” You kiss Alex’s cheek, the woman beaming.  

“It is. Anytime I spend with you is.”  

Your cheeks flush.  

“Stopppppppp.” You whine, the forward giggling.  

“No, you’re so cute when you blush.”  

You throw your head back with a lengthy groan, the forward giggling even harder as you pout.  

Luckily for her, she’d kept you distracted long enough to get you to the bar where your surprise was waiting.  

“We’re here.”  

You cock your head to the side, turning to look into what looks to you, like an empty bar.  

“Are you finally reenacting that scene from Coyote Ugly that I’ve been asking for?” You laugh, the woman pulling the door open and shoving you inside.  

“What’s-

“SURPRISE!!!!!”  

You nearly jump out of your skin when the lights flip on, revealing the entire USWNT, a number of them, mostly the kids, with noisemakers in their mouths, loudly honking.  

Unsurprisingly, Kelley, is standing on the bar, holding two beers, a number of your teammates on the bar as well.  

You shake your head, turning to Alex, the woman’s grin massive.  

“You planned this?”

She shrugs.  

“Maybe...”  

Alex squeals as you lift her into the air, spinning her around.  

“I love you so much.” You whisper, the woman grinning as she presses a kiss to your lips.  

“I love you too, but the night isn’t over yet.” She winks.  

The second you put Alex down someone jumps on your back, that someone being none other than Kelley O’Hara.  

“LET’S PARTY!”  

                                                            ***

“I have something else for you.” Alex pulls you away from Tobin and Christen, the two grinning, knowing full well what Alex was about to show you.  

“There’s more? You spoil me.” You wink, Alex shaking her head as she kisses your cheek.  

“Well, if you thought I was spoiling you before, you’ll DEFINITELY think so after this.”

Your brows furrow, the sound of a microphone being turned on alerting you to the fact that someone is on the bar’s makeshift stage.  

The curtain’s part and your heart stops, a familiar tune you know ALL too well starting to play.  

You can feel Alex’s eyes on you as you stare in disbelief as none other than Taylor Swift approaches the stage’s microphone.

“HAPPY BIRTHDAY Y/N, THIS ONE IS FOR YOU!” The woman beams as she starts to sing, Love Story sounding loudly throughout the bar.  

You turn to Alex with wide, teary eyes.  

“You got me Taylor Swift?” You ask, your bottom lip trembling and she grins, her arms slipping around your neck as your lips meet.  

“I got you Taylor Swift, now get out here and dance with me.”  

Alex pulls you to the dance floor, the two of you swaying back and forth, Alex’s arms slipping beneath yours, her hands splayed across your back.  

Your hands settle on her waist, your forehead resting against yours as Taylor sings.  

“Alex...?” You whisper, the woman’s blue orbs locking with your Y/E/C ones.  

“Yeah?”  

“I love you. I love you so much” You brush your nose against hers and she smiles softly.  

“I love you too.”  

The two of you are entirely lost in your own little world, just being together, your eyes shut as you rest your foreheads together.  

Eventually, the song ends, though the two of you don’t part, at least until you remember WHO had been singing.  

Your eyes widen as you turn towards the stage, eyes further widening when you realize THE Taylor Swift is making her way towards you and Alex.  

Alex leaves you, wrapping her arms around Taylor, giving the singer a tight squeeze.  

“You’re hugging Taylor Swift. Taylor Swift is hugging you.” You mumble dumbly. “Does that mean I can hug Taylor Swift?”

Alex giggles as she and Taylor pull apart, the women snorting when they see you literal shaking in excitement, a massive grin on your face.  

“So, Taylor, this is Y/N, she’s a big fan.” Alex laughs, your eyes still locked on Taylor.  

She giggles.

“I-I-I'm Y/N.” You smile, the blonde grinning.

“It’s nice to meet you Y/N I’m Taylor.”  

You let out a squeal, wrapping your arms around her, the woman chuckling as she hugs you back.  

“Holy shit I’m hugging Taylor Swift. Taylor Swift is hugging me.”

The two of you part, your eyes wide when you again see and realize that you’d just hugged Taylor Swift.  

“Oh my god, Alex, it’s Taylor Swift.” You squeal, the forward shaking her head.  

“I know, I brought her here.”  

Alex grunts when you tackle her, pulling her into a tight hug as you pepper her face with kisses.  

“I love you so so much.” You say in between kisses, the woman giggling as she tries, and fails, to dodge your lips.  

“I love you too.”  

You pull back, simply to look in Alex’s blue orbs before you lean back in, pressing the gentlest of kisses to her lips, the woman melting into it.  

The two of you are so caught up in kissing, that you don’t realize Taylor is back on the stage, the music again starting up, a love song that the two of you can dance to.  

You sway back and forth, a grin stretching across your face as you whisper in her ear.  

“Thank you for giving me the best birthday present of all.”

Alex giggles.  

“I had to pull a few strings to get her here...” Alex shrugs, brows knitting in confusion when you pull back.  

You shake your head, your lips splitting into a grin that takes up nearly half of your face.  

“No present could EVER compare to the greatest gift the world has ever given me...” You lean towards her, your forehead resting against hers.  

“And that’s you.”  

Alex’s eyes go glassy with tears, the woman closing the gap between the two of you, the kiss tender, loving, a kiss that leaves your lungs devoid of air.  

The two of you pull apart, the two of you wear love sick smiles.  

“I love you Alex.” You whisper, the woman beaming.  

“I love you too, Happy Birthday Y/N.”

The two of you are abruptly pulled apart by someone someone, that someone being Emily, diving on your back, the woman OBVIOUSLY drunk.  

“YOU’RE TOO SOBER!” She slurs, your eyes wide as you stare, horrified at Alex, the woman giggling as you’re dragged to the bar by the team’s children, Megan and Ashlyn doing shots together.  

“Oh no.” You mumble, Lindsey grinning, along with the other kids.  

“Oh, YES.”  

Alex makes her way over to Christen and Tobin, the two watching as Megan passes you a shot.  

Christen giggles.  

“You know you’ll be carrying her home after this right?” Tobin asks, Alex snorting in answer.  

“Oh, I know, it’s her birthday so, so she gets away with it.”  

Alex shakes her head, watching as you down three shots, one right after the other, grimacing as Kelley passes you another.  

“I’ll be sure to remind you of that tomorrow.” Tobin gives her a nudge, earning a mock glare from her teammate.  

“Please do.”  

                                                           ***

“WAIT.” You screech hours later, nearly every one of your teammates drunkenly jumping to their feet.  

You turn to the stage, gasping.  

“IS THAT TAYLOR SWIFT!? TAYLOR, I FUCKING LOVE YOU.”  

Alex pinches the bridge of her nose as you rush towards the stage, climbing on it and wrapping your arms around the singer, whose singing is abruptly cut off.

“Oh, Christ.” She mumbles as she moves to peel you off of Taylor.  

“Remember Al, she gets to get away with ittttt!” Tobin calls out and Alex groans.  

“Shut uppppp Tobin!”  

“I LOVE YOU SO MUCH TAYLOR!”  

“Y/N LET HER GO!”  

At the end of the day, Alex had to LITERALLY carry you to bed, but you had a great time that night, and that’s all that mattered to her.  

Alex eventually slips into bed beside you, you who’s dressed, messily in your PJs.  

“I love you Y/N.” She whispers and you hum, wiggling towards her and snuggling into her side.  

“I love you too Al. Thank youuu for the best birthday ever.”