#to violently crashing down into a depressive spiral

[viulus]

Uhhhh bipolar Harry du Bois. Is that anything

[fortheloveofwonderland]

Rusty | Chapter 17 | S.R

Previous Chapter | Next Chapter

A/N - this is where it starts to ramp up. Hold onto your hats guys, she’s gonna get bumpy.

Summary - After living in bliss for six months, things seems to be catching up on you. Is this the end of the road?

Pairing - Spencer Reid / Fem! Reader

Category - strangers to friends to lovers | angst | smut minors DNI

Warnings - blood, tears, medication, mentions of sexual activity, swearing, weight loss, depression, drinking, aggressive Spencer, violent Spencer, bruising, dissociations.

WC - 5.9k

Chapter 17 - Gunfight at the O.K. Corral

Six Months Later 

The gravel crunched while the sand flew up in violent plumes with each heavy, rapid step. The airless desert sprawled for miles in every direction, muggy and stagnant and not allowing fresh oxygen to replenish the supplies you were hurriedly losing. 

The sun was working its way out of the sky soon to dip below that blessed horizon and offer you some kind of reprieve from this heat that swelled around. But the humidity would remain, that oppressive humidity which was trying to suffocate you. 

Your limbs throbbed with every harsh pound of the desert floor, sending shockwaves up through the soles of your feet spiralling up your legs. Your heart pounded aggressively, your lungs desperately cloyed to any scrap of air they could find. 

Sweat clamoured at your forehead, rolling in beads down the side of your face, into your eyes. Your clothes were damp with perspiration, clinging to your frame. And then there was the blood. 

You could feel the warm, sticky claret as it trickled from an open wound on your bicep. The pain was dizzying, nauseating. And yet you didn’t stop running. 

If you stopped you would be caught. You were prey and they were the predator and the only way to defeat a predator was to outrun them. 

If you’d had half a chance you would have mounted Rusty, she would have gotten you away so much faster. But there was no time, it was life or death. And so you ran. 

You couldn’t hear much over the sound of your frantically hammering heart, stifled breaths and footsteps as you continued to hasten through the desert. You had no way to know if you were still being chased, hunted like a wild animal. 

The only thing you could rely on was your gut instinct and it was screaming at you that you weren’t safe, you weren’t out of dodge yet. 

So you ran and you ran. Even when your eyes started to blur and your head was spinning through lack of air, you ran. You ran and you ran and you ran. 

And then your gut instinct was confirmed when you heard another blast of shotgun. It was getting closer. 

Tears filtered out of your eyes, mixing with your sweat as they rolled down your cheeks. Was this really where it all came to an end? No, you wouldn’t let it, couldn’t let it. 

So despite the fact your body was trying to tell you to stop, you continued. You picked up your pace, pushing you to your absolute limits. If you stopped you were as good as dead. 

You were supposed to be safe out here, in the eerily named Tombstone, Arizona. For the past six months you and Spencer had lived blissfully on your new ranch, starting your lives together away from the danger that had been chasing you. 

You’d grown complacent. You’d been happy, settled. But now it was all coming crashing down around you and you couldn’t see a way out of this. 

Perhaps you should have known it would end this way. Maybe it was naive of you to believe the two of you could have a pseudo normal life. 

The sun's position in the sky left it directly in front of you and between it and your lack of oxygen you could barely see. So it wasn’t until you were practically right on top of it did you see it. 

In a former life it might have been someone’s homestead. Set back here in the middle of desert land it was now nothing more than a shell of what it would have once been. 

Its turquoise paint was faded by the elements and peeling at the edges. The old front door was boarded over and graffitied and appeared to be sealed shut. 

However just past the little dilapidated home was a large loft barn, similar to the one found on yours and Spencer’s ranch. The door was bolted shut and the deadbolt was incredibly rusty. You reached for it, your legs pleased to have a reprieve from running for a moment. 

Your breathing was ragged as you fought with the bolt, the fear pulsing through every nerve ending. You heaved and you heaved and eventually you managed to wiggle it loose and cloy it open. 

You got the door open just enough to slip inside and close it behind you. The barn was almost entirely shrouded in darkness apart from a small sliver of light that came in through a hole near where the wall met the roof. 

You squinted as you looked around. It was littered with hay bales and three horse stalls. There was a ladder on the far side which looked to lead to the second level. 

You crept towards it, giving the wooden ladder a little shake to test its stability. Little chips flaked off of it at your touch and it shook violently. Probably not safe.

But then you heard the shotgun ringing out again in the distance and you had to bite your tongue to stop from making a sound. There was nowhere to hide on the ground level. You had to go up. 

Trying to control your shaking limbs you gripped each side of the ladder before stepping up on the first rung. The ladder swayed as it took your full weight and you whimpered but powered on.

You hurriedly climbed, the quicker you got up the less likely you would fall if it snapped beneath you. The fourth rung gave out when you tried to put weight on it and if it hadn’t been for your steely grip you would have fallen.

You whimpered again, heart hammering heavier than before. You took the large step between the third and fifth rungs and continued your ascent. 

You were crying fitfully now, your entire body trembling. But somehow you made it to the top and collapsed on the dirty wooden floor. 

You still needed a better place to shield yourself. You couldn’t leave anything to chance. 

You pushed yourself to your feet no matter how hard your body fought for you to quit. Your revolver was tucked in the back of your pants, you needed a vantage point from which you could shoot if necessary, but also somewhere that was going to keep you concealed.

The floor creaked under foot, feeling like it may give way in places. There were sporadic holes in the wood which you had to manoeuvre around to save falling to your death. 

It was anybody's guess how long this place had been abandoned for, it must have been a long time given the state of disrepair. You just hoped that the floor would hold out beneath you. 

You found several bundles of hay near the edge of the second story for which you could crouch behind and if you could get a good enough angle maybe even get off a shot if needed. 

For now you threw yourself behind it on the ground, gasping to refill your aching lungs. You raised your hand to the bleeding wound on your bicep and hissed at the touch. 

It wasn’t life threatening but it throbbed wildly. It definitely needed checking out if you made it out of here. 

You left the wound alone and drew your revolver, wiping your sweaty brow on your arm. Your heart would not still, the fear that ran through your bones was incomprehensible.  

You had never been so full of terror in your entire life and that spoke volumes. You were never so scared when your stepfather beat you, not even the first time when his blow to your abdomen had forced all the air to leave your lungs. 

You hadn’t even been this terrified when you’d found Spencer unconscious and bleeding from his self inflicted forearm cut and you thought he was dead. 

This was a whole new degree of trepidation. This was your life on the line. One false move and it would all be over for you. 

You forced your breathing to return to normal no matter how much it burnt your lungs. You crept out from behind the hay stacks just enough so you could have line of sight on the barn door. 

You raised your firearm in a trembling hand in the direction, making as little noise as was humanly possible. You honed in your hearing to pick up on any little sound. You needed to be prepared. You needed to have the upper hand. 

You heard something in the distance, still a little way off and you couldn’t quite work out what it was. You noticed it a few more times and on the fourth, you realised it was a voice. And they were calling your name. 

Time felt like it was slowing down and ramping up in equal measure, you had no concept of how long you had been running, how long this chase had gone on for. You couldn’t keep track of how long you sat in the barn, waiting, hoping you weren’t found. 

Tombstone was supposed to be a fresh start, a new beginning for you and Spencer. You’d cultivated a life there in the last six months and you’d foolishly believed you were safe from harm's way. 

You’d talked through several options for relocation, your original plan of Mexico was quickly dismissed by Spencer. After his arrest he was terrified at the thought of returning. You settled on Tombstone as it was similar in its old west style ways to Bandera but with a slightly larger population. 

It was a good eight hundred miles west meaning it was unlikely you would be found. You went by the name of Elizabeth Parker, Spencer drew his savings out of his bank and the two of you only ever used cash. 

Tombstone was known for its O.K. Corral located on the historic Allen Street - an outdoor theatre which holds reenactments of a 1881 cowboy gunfight. It was dubbed, the town too tough to die. 

The town offered a glimpse into the past with its various museums, stagecoach tours, an underground mine and a Western theme park. It conjured images of gunfights and dusty streets, whiskey and Faro games, Wyatt Earp and Doc Holliday as well as a plethora of western movie scenes.

You were renting a ranch just outside of town until his old place sold. It had forty five acres of land which was slightly less than he’d had in Bandera but it was plenty for what you needed it for. 

The land boasted a four car garage, a large loft style barn equipped with six horse stalls with feed and wash bays. Willow and Rusty delighted in the extra space, as of yet the two of you hadn’t acquired anymore steeds or any cattle. It also included three fenced off pastures, an extra bunkhouse similar to his old lodge, a hay barn and a smokehouse dating back a hundred and fifty years. 

But the pièce de résistance of the ranch was the three bedroom Victorian home sitting atop a hill, giving the most wondrous views of the rolling terrain. It was an old white wooden building which had been extremely well cared for and included all its original intricate details, such as the glass door handles and sweeping porches. 

The property was rented out by an elderly couple who had long since retired down to Florida. As such the home was fully furnished which was perfect for the two of you as you had none, even if the interior was a little dated.

Worn stone steps led to a large, open front door with a swing chair on the front porch. Ornate antique light fittings illuminated the entrance way in the dark from either side of the front door. 

Inside the floor was all hickory dark wood, aside from the carpeted staircase. Huge oak folding doors separated the living area from the foyer but you insisted on keeping them propped open at all times for maximum light. 

The living room was spacious, double the size of his entire Texan lodge. It possessed floor to ceiling French doors at one end which led out to a vast fenced off backyard. The porch wrapped around the entire property and outside the living room on the deck were plush couches facing the horse stable and making it the perfect spot to watch the sunset.

The kitchen was incredibly airy, with a sizable granite island running through the centre. It was the most modern room in the house, kitted out with a state of the art stove and huge double fridge-freezer. On one side sat a dining table which allowed a field of vision out of the window to the front of the house.

There was a separate dining room which Spencer had turned into his own personal library. He’d purchased several floor to ceiling bookshelves and even more books to fill them with. He’d moved two of the big leather armchairs from the living room and set them under the back window. It was the place in the house he frequented most. 

One bedroom was to the back of the ground floor and the master and second guest room were upstairs. The focal point of the master bedroom was a colossal, vintage bed made in dark oak with intricate carvings of flowers in the headboard. Sliding oak doors led to an ensuite which housed an old clawfoot tub and a contemporary waterfall shower, which created a strange juxtaposition.

The tub was your favourite place in the house. It was situated in front of giant windows that gave an immaculate and unhindered view of the entire property. Over the last six months you've spent an obscene amount of time soaking in the bath and simply staring at the rolling greenery. To the other side of the bedroom more French doors led out to a large second floor balcony.

There was a small creek at the back of the property which you often took Willow and Rusty down to for them to bathe. But they weren’t the only creatures who enjoyed a dip in the water.

A few weeks after arriving in Tombstone, you and Spencer had discovered an abandoned litter of puppies in a cardboard box on the side of the road one day whilst riding your mares into town. 

The five little creatures were shivering and mewling in hunger, ten piercing blue eyes looking up at the two of you as though begging for your aid. 

You’d taken them to a nearby veterinarian who ascertained the four females and lone male were Catahoula Leopard Dogs of approximately six weeks old. The girls weighed in at around fifteen pounds while the boy was closer to eleven and much smaller than his sisters. 

They were all similar in colouring to Rusty, particularly the boy. He had a short, smooth coat which looked almost painted on, a large head with drop ears and a strong tapered muzzle. His undercoat was a muddy grey while he was mottled with dark red patches with seemingly no design. He had one unique splotch over his right eye, and his entire front left leg was the splotchy dark red. 

The female pups were rather aloof while the male clung to you, whining fitfully if you didn’t cradle him or stroke him in some manner. You’d fallen in love with him in an instant and, somewhat reluctantly, Spencer agreed to take him home. 

Now at close to eight months old, Copper was close to fifty pounds and still growing. By the time he’s two years old he could be anywhere up to ninety pounds. He had a thick, muscular neck, a long curved tail and stocky, rectangular build. He was intelligent and focused, their breed being known for herding and hunting. He had an abundance of energy which he worked off swimming in the creek and running laps of the fields. 

He was inquisitive and sometimes fiercely independent but he was also incredibly loyal and protective. You’d trained him quickly to be off leash and didn’t grow concerned when he spent some days roaming, only to return at night and cosy up with you on the couch in front of the stone fireplace or on the porch on warmer evenings. 

You grew a little wistful now as you thought of Copper and by extension, Rusty. What would happen to them if you couldn’t return to the ranch? Copper and Rusty were you faithful companions, you couldn’t imagine your life without them. 

You spent more time with the animals than you did with Spencer. You’d both gotten jobs in Tombstone in an attempt to assimilate with the locals and for the most part worked opposing hours, leaving little time to spend together. 

Four days a week you worked on guided pony trail rides. You rode upon Rusty while Copper followed along as you led groups of tourists through fields and deserts on the variety of ponies on offer. You also helped clean out the pony stables and groom the steeds when you weren’t leading tours. 

Spencer split his time between two jobs, both on graveyard shift. Three nights a week he led the guided Gunfighter and Ghost Tours from downtown Tombstone. It was a history packed walking tour which included such highlights as the legend and lore behind the Courthouse hangings, John Heath and Bisbee Massacre, China Mary’s opium den in Hop Town and the Tombstone General Hospital where patients died excruciating deaths. 

Another two nights a week he tended bar at the Four Deuces Saloon. Usually by the time you were returning home for the day, he was just leaving for the start of a shift. At least once a week you went with him to the Four Deuces and spent at least half of his working night propped up at the bar, keeping him company as it didn’t always get very busy. You would take Copper and he would curl up at your feet or flit between the locals for attention. 

But you’d gotten used to seeing each other less, it just meant the time you did get to spend together was all the more fulfilling. You often used your free time to read together in the library or curled up in front of the fireplace with Copper. 

Your sex life had been steadily getting better. Once his stronger meds started taking effect he didn’t experience the same level of guilt after the two of you were intimate and rarely dissociated. 

He did seem to have a preference for foreplay, usually happier for the two of you to spend hours using your hands on each other than having intercourse. He was particularly keen on worshipping you with his mouth but never let you return the favour. 

You did have sex from time to time and it was always incredible but Spencer seemed to have to be in the right frame of mind for that particular activity. But when he did have the impetus for it, it never just happened once in any given sitting. 

Sometimes he would fuck you three, four, even five times in quick succession, often staying inside of you once he’d gone flaccid and remaining there until he was erect again. But then it could be weeks, even a month of nothing but foreplay. You couldn’t exactly complain, you were still getting off but sometimes you wanted more. 

On the whole, things were great between you, right up until they weren’t. 

About two months ago Spencer started acting differently. It was little things at first, he became irritable easily, he was often quick to anger over silly little things. He blew up at Copper for chewing on the living room rug, a rug which Spencer didn’t even like, scaring the pup half to death. 

He became incredibly restless, unable to sit still for more than five minutes at a time before he was jiggling his leg or tapping his fingers or sometimes getting up and pacing the room. You had a suspicion he wasn’t sleeping either, you always fell asleep before him and he was always up before you.

Then he started suffering from headaches, once a week then every few days. He said the headaches made him sick, and being sick made him not want to eat. As a result he’d been rapidly losing weight as of late. 

But soon things seemed to get even worse. He was anxious all of the time to the point of being paranoid. He grew depressed, barely speaking to you and rarely going to work. On occasion he would struggle to control his speech when he did talk and seemed hypersensitive to sounds, getting even more irate with Copper on the rare occurrences he barked. 

And then you found several empty bottles of whiskey hidden away in a cupboard in the barn. You hadn’t realised it before but when you found them it made so much sense. He always seemed a little disorientated, sometimes slurred his speech and he was often chewing gum, probably to mask the smell. 

You confronted him about it and he’d grown aggressive, one minute he’d been placidly reading a book but when you challenged him with the empty bottles he’d suddenly lost it. 

You wished you could say he’d dissociated but it wasn’t what happened. His eyes didn’t become vacant and unseeing like they did when his mind divorced itself from his body. Instead they were sharp, laser focused and unyielding as he glared at you. 

He all but threw you against the wall and got up in your face, screaming at you, spital flying like he was a wild animal. 

“Are you fucking judging me? With the amount you drink, you’re judging me?”

“I’m just concerned. You said yourself you don’t drink because of your addiction.”

“Don’t fucking talk to me about my addiction! You have no idea!” 

“S-Spencer, you’re scaring me.” 

“Shut up! This isn’t scary, you’ve not seen scary. Not yet anyway.” 

He was right, you hadn’t. And he proved that point by slapping you hard around the face. You’d whimpered like an injured puppy and tears were quickly making their way from your eyes. 

He scoffed in response, taking a step back and grunting, “don’t fucking test me, Y/N,” before storming away. 

You heard him leave the ranch and less than a few minutes later you heard your car engine screech to life and then he peeled away in a flurry of dust. 

It was the middle of the night when he returned and you knew for a fact he’d been drinking. You could hear him stumbling on the stairs, knocking into walls. 

You were already awake, unable to sleep. Copper jumped up from his dog bed in the corner of your bedroom as soon as he heard the intrusion. 

You knew he’d driven home, you’d heard the engine and the tyres on the gravel again. You had no idea what to expect after his earlier explosion. 

He didn’t say a word as he entered the dark bedroom. You watched as he stripped out of his clothes to his boxers, almost tripping himself over on his pants legs. 

He crawled into bed and it was only then he realised you were awake. You involuntarily flinched when he raised his hand to the red mark on your face he’d caused earlier. 

His eyes, even in the dark, flooded with his sorrow. 

“I’m s-so sorry.”

His breath reeked of whiskey and his words were slurred. 

“I’m so sorry. I d-didn’t mean to. I love you. You know I love you, right?” 

You didn’t reply and instead he kissed you fiercely. And maybe it made you an idiot but you let him. You also allowed him to go down on you while he muttered how sorry he was and how much he loved you. 

In his state, the whole affair was rather sloppy and uninspiring and eventually you’d faked an orgasm for it to simply be over. 

And then he collapsed next to you and within seconds he was snoring. 

The following few months things just went from bad to worse. Spencer continued to drink and was quick to anger. He didn’t hit you again but he often shoved you out of his way or pinned you to walls while he yelled at you. 

He’d left bruises on your wrists a few times from holding onto you so hard in these instances. But they weren't the only marks he left on you. 

For the past two months his sexual appetite had been through the roof. The two of you had sex almost every night with increasing roughness from Spencer. 

He left bruises on your hips where he gripped you so hard whilst fucking you senseless, he left welts on your ass cheeks where he’d spanked so violently whilst pounding you from behind. He’d once even tugged your hair so hard he’d ripped some out at the roots. 

He’d gone from mostly foreplay to bypassing that step altogether. Sometimes you weren’t even prepared when his thick, heavy length was plunging into you, stretching you so much it burnt. 

And then his dissociations came back with avengence. Usually it was after sex and you could keep a watchful eye on him so he didn’t hurt himself and you could work to snap him out of it. 

A few times you hadn’t been present and you’d found him with a few new self inflicted wounds mostly confined to his legs and thankfully nothing that warranted medical attention. 

You should have known what was happening, you should have seen the signs. But you were so busy walking around on eggshells, trying not to anger him that you’d missed what was right in front of you. 

You’d tried so hard to cling to what you and Spencer once had, desperate to believe that this wouldn’t last, that the person he once was would come back to you. 

You still saw hints of that man. He was still able to make you smile in a way no one ever had. The small windows into the man he was gave you hope. Like when he surprised you with breakfast because he’d finally taught himself to cook bacon and eggs. Or when he read to you or held you so delicately you thought your heart might explode. 

When he took you for an impromptu picnic down by the creek just a week ago and between homemade sandwiches and making love on the grassy bank, he’d produced a ring. 

“Y/N, I know things have been…not great lately and I’m so, so sorry for that. But I love you more than I ever thought it possible to love someone and I want to spend the rest of my life with you. 

“I know it’s crazy, I know it’s fast. But when we decided to run away together we were kinda promising each other forever anyway right? And I know with you being a fugitive filing a marriage licence won’t exactly be easy, but we can figure it out. 

“Or you know, maybe we can’t get married for real. But at the very least I want you to have this ring as a symbol that I will never, ever leave you. And if you decide to wear it you’re saying the same. I promise I’m going to try and be better for you. I want to be the man you fell in love with. So, uh, will you marry me?” 

You were snapped out of your thoughts by the sound of your name being called again, closer this time. You sucked in a breath, clutching the revolver for dear life. 

The reality of the situation was clawing its way up your spine like a slow shiver. It tingled harshly within your skin, as though it was beneath the surface, weaving between flesh and muscle. 

There were a finite amount of ways that this could go wrong and only a few in which they might work in your favour. 

You’d evaded the law twice before this should be a walk in the park. 

The voice grew louder still and you knew they were close. As you levelled the gun again, the vintage engagement ring caught your eye and you felt a pit forming in your stomach. 

You loved Spencer despite what he’d become and you’d agreed to marry him or simply wear his ring as it would put you in unnecessary danger to fill out any paperwork with your name on it. 

If you’d even have the chance. You were already in a grave amount of danger and chances were you would most likely never get to marry Spencer even if you could. 

You heard footsteps now, heavy and unrelenting on the gravelly sand outside. Then you heard the shotgun being cocked and a voice called out, worryingly close.

“Y/N, you can’t run forever. Games over, you can’t get away so you may as well just come out.” 

You clenched your jaw violently to stop from making a sound. Your chest tightened and your heart started beating somehow harder. Your palms were clammy, causing the revolver to slide in your grip. 

The air felt thick and heavy and it had nothing to do with the desert heat or the stale old air of the barn. The tension rippled through you, fear pulsed in your veins. 

The footsteps grew even louder and you knew they were extremely close. The shotgun cocked and suddenly fired, sending a bullet screaming into the wooden wall of the barn. 

You made a small whimper, physically biting down on your tongue to stop from making too much noise. You could immediately taste the blood pooling in your mouth from your teeth piercing the muscle. 

Tears hindered your vision but you blinked them back, needing to remain hyper focused. There was no time for tears. If you got away, then you could cry. Or if you were captured maybe you’d cry then too. 

But not now. 

You tried to steady your shaking hand, tried to keep it levelled at the door on the ground floor. It was immediately going to be breached, you just had to pray that they wouldn’t find you. 

Things were just starting to get better and now this? Life was intrinsically unfair. 

For a fraction of a second you allowed yourself to mourn everything you stood to lose. Your beloved steed and trusty dog. The homestead you’d been building for the past six months. 

The love of your life. 

You fought back tears again and forced yourself to focus on the task at hand. There was no margin for error. One misstep and it was all over. You had to come out victorious. 

The barn door suddenly flew open on its hinges, creaking and crashing as it hit the wall with the force in which it had been opened. 

You stifled a gasp, hand still violently shaking as you tried to level the gun on the head of the shadow who stepped into the room. 

The figure was in complete silhouette as was the shotgun resting on their shoulder, pointing out into the dark barn. His footsteps were quiet and deliberate, just as he had been trained to do so. If it hadn’t been for the homicidal way in which he’d burst through the door, you might not have realised he was there. 

His slow movements meant you could probably get a shot off. You were a pretty good aim but given the amount in which your hand shook you probably wouldn’t get a headshot. But you could at the very least disarm him. 

You didn’t want it to come to that, you didn’t want to hurt anyone else. However it came to his life or yours you may have to rethink that. 

He cautiously traversed the barn, so silently he could be floating. How many hundreds of times had he done this in the past? This was his bread and butter, chasing and stalking unsubs. How many of them had outrun him, outsmarted him? Could you be one of the few who got away? 

He stepped into the small patch of light on the floor created from the open door and the hole high in the wall, meeting perfectly in the centre of the room. The sun was dangerously low in the sky but it illuminated him enough to see his haggard features. 

The sweat coating his face glistened in the small sliver of light. His brows were heavily furrowed in annoyance, his nose scrunched a few times as he adjusted to the scratchy scent of old hay and abandonment. His finger coiled around the shotgun trigger, shoulders squared and back straight. You could make out the small spots of blood on his shirt sleeve, your blood. 

He made quick work casing the room, eyes briefly flitting up to the second floor and you hurriedly threw yourself back behind the hay bales. Your breath was viciously trying to escape in rampant breaths but you held it down, couldn’t make a sound. 

Hidden away again you could no longer see his movements but the removal of one of your senses heightened the others. Your ears could now pick up on the almost imperceptible footsteps, the slow and steady breaths leaving his lips as though the exertion of chasing you hadn’t impressed upon him in the slightest. 

You could smell him now, the sour and musty scent of sweat combined with the harsh lingering aroma of shotgun fire. The revolver in your hands felt smoother, heavier and the metallic taste of blood on your tongue became sharper. 

He took a few more hushed steps, each one causing your heart to beat more furiously inside your chest. He was hunting, tracking, creeping; it ran through his veins, as instinctual to him as breathing. 

You dared to peer out from your seclusion to glance down at him, the frustration rolled off of him in waves. And then suddenly he turned, a full one eighty degrees on the heels of his boots until he was facing towards the door again. 

He huffed out a merciless breath, hand tightening around the shotgun. His eyes cased the front corners of the dark barn, quickly ascertaining there was no one hiding in the shadows. 

“Goddamnit,” he grumbled under his breath as he stalked back towards the open barn door. 

He took one step outside before he turned and gave the barn another once over. He lowered the shotgun to his side, shaking his head in dissatisfaction. Even though he was nothing more than a gloomy outline once more, you saw his jaw clench. 

Before he stepped away and continued his hunt in the cavernous yet baron desert, he panted out another thick breath and shook his head briskly. And when he spoke into the seemingly desolate void, his voice was so unlike anything you’d ever heard from his lips that it struck you at your very core.

This man was no longer the same one you’d come to know. He was but a vessel of evil, possessed by some kind of darkness the likes of which you had never seen before. His fractured mind had finally torn in two, his psyche now owned by whatever demons had lived inside of him for so long. It might be his body, but his mind had been taken over by some other spirit.

Spencer Reid was no more. That was only confirmed by the way he cackled manically before spitting out the words, “I will find you princess, mark my words. I will find you.” And then he vanished into the desert, leaving you utterly petrified and questioning everything you thought you’d known about the man you loved. 

@kalulakunundrum @voledart @katrina0-0 @bakugouswh0r3 @prettyboyandthefangirl @zooni92802 @marvellover1819 @babyspiderling

[cuddlytogas]

there was some Twitter madness recently where someone left a comment on someone's art to the effect of, "Ed shouldn't wear a dress, he's a man!" which I do disagree with on principle, but unfortunately, it brought out one of my least favourite trends in the fandom

so, naturally, I had to write a twitter essay about it. and I already largely argued this in a post here, but the thread is clearer and better structured, so I thought I'd cross-post for those not on the Hellsite (derogatory). edited for formatting/structure's sake, since I no longer have to keep to tweet lengths, and incorporating a couple of points other people brought up in the replies

so

I want to point out that the wedding cake toppers in OFMD s2 aren't evidence that Ed wants to wear dresses. Gender is fake, men can wear skirts, play with these dolls how you like, but it's not canon, and that scene especially Doesn't Mean That.

People cite it often: 'He put himself in a dress by painting the bride as himself! It's what he wants!' But that fundamentally misunderstands the scene, and the series' framing of weddings as a whole. I'd argue that Ed paints the figure not from desire, but from self-hatred; it's not what he wants, but what he thinks he should, and has failed to, be.

(Yes, I am slightly biased by my rampant anti-marriage opinions, but bear with me here, because it is relevant to the interpretation of the scene, and season two as a whole.)

The show is not subtle. It keeps telling us that the institution of marriage is a prison that suffocates everyone involved. Ed's parents' cycle of abuse is passed to their son in both the violence he witnesses then enacts on his father, and the self-repression his mother teaches, despite her good intentions ("It's not up to us, is it? It's up to God. ... We're just not those kind of people. We never will be."). Stede and Mary are both oppressed by their arranged marriage, with 1x04 blunty titled Discomfort in a Married State. The Barbados widows revel in their freedom ("We're alive. They're dead. Now is your time").

But even without this context, the particular wedding crashed in 2x01 is COMICALLY evil. The scene is introduced with this speech from the priest:

"The natural condition of humanity is base and vile. It is the obligation of people of standing ... to elevate the common human rabble through the sacred transaction of matrimony."

It's upper class, all-white, and religiously sanctioned. "Vile natural conditions" include queerness, sexual freedom, and family structures outside the cisheteropatriarchal capitalist unit. "The obligation of people of standing" invokes ideas like the white man's burden, innate class hierarchy, religious missions, and conversion therapy. Matrimony is presented as both "sacred" (endorsed by the ruling religious body), and a "transaction" (business performed to transfer property and people-as-property, regardless of their desires), a tool of the oppressive society that pirates escape and destroy. That is where the figurines come from.

When Ed, in a drunk, depressive spiral, paints himself onto the bride, he's not yearning for a pretty dress. He's sort of yearning for a wedding, but that's not framed as positive. What he's doing is projecting himself into an 'ideal' image of marriage because he believes that: a) that's what Stede (and everyone) wants; b) he can never live up to that ideal because he's unlovable and broken (brown, queer, lower-class, violent, abused, etc); c) that's why Stede left. He tries to make himself fit into the social ideal by painting himself onto the closest match - long-haired, partner to Stede/groom, but a demure, white woman, a frozen, porcelain miniature - because, if he could just shrink himself down and squeeze into that box, maybe Stede would love him and he'd live happily ever after. But he can't. So he won't.

The fantasy fails: Ed is morose, turns away from the figurines, then tips them into the sea, a lost cause. He knows he won't ever fulfil that bride's role, but he sees that as a failure in himself, not the role. It's not just that "Stede left, so Ed will never have a dream wedding and might as well die." Stede left when Ed was honest and vulnerable, "proving" what his trauma and depression tell him: there's one image of love (of personhood), and he'll never live up to it because he's fundamentally deficient. So he might as well die.

This hit me from my very first viewing. The scene is devastating, because Ed is wrong, and we know it! He doesn't need to change or reduce himself to fit an image and be accepted (as, eg, Izzy demanded). Stede knows and loves him exactly as he is; it's the main thread and theme of season two!

(@/everyonegetcake suggested that Ed's yearning in these scenes includes his broader desire for the vulnerability and safety Stede offered, literalised through unattainable "fine" things like the status of gentleman in s1, or the figurine's blue dress. I'd argue, though, that these scenes don't incorporate this beyond a general knowledge of Ed's character. Ed is always pining for both literal and emotional softness, but the significance of the figurines specifically, to both Ed and the audience, is poisoned by their origin and context: there is no positive fantasy in the bride figure, only Ed's perceived deficiency.

Further, assuming that a desire for vulnerability necessarily corresponds with an explicit desire for femininity, dresses, etc, kind of contradicts the major themes of the show. OFMD asserts that there is nothing wrong with men assuming femininity (through drag, self-care, nurturing, emotional vulnerability, etc), but also that many of these traits are, in fact, genderless, and should be available to men without affecting their perceived or actual masculinity. It thematically invokes the potential for cross-gender expression in Ed's desires, especially through the transgender echoes in his relieved disposal, then comfortable reincorporation, of the Blackbeard leathers/identity. It's a rich, valuable area of analysis and exploration. But it remains a suggestion, not a canon or on-screen trait.)

Importantly, the groom figure doesn't fit Stede, either. Not just in dress: it's stiff and formal, and marriage nearly killed him. He's shabbier now, yes, but also shedding his privilege and property, embracing his queerness, and trying to take responsibility for his community. In a s1 flashback, Stede hesitantly says, "I thought that, when I did marry, it could be for love," but he would never find love in marriage. Not just because he's gay, but because marriage in OFMD is an oppressive, transactional institution that precludes love altogether. All formal marriages in OFMD are loveless.

So, he becomes a pirate, where they reject society altogether and have matelotages instead. Lucius and Pete's "mateys" ceremony is shot and framed not like a wedding, but as an honest, personal bond, willingly conducted in community (in a circle; no presiding authority, procession, or transaction).

That is how Stede and Ed can find love, companionship, and happiness: by rejecting those figurines and their oppressive exchange of property, overseen by a church that enables colonialism and abuse. Ed is loved, and deserves happiness, as he is, no paint or projection required.

ALL OF THIS IS TO SAY: draw Ed in dresses! Write him getting gender euphoria in skirts! Write trans/nb Ed, draw men being feminine! Gender is fake, the show invites exploration, that's what 'transformative works' means! But please, stop citing the cake toppers as evidence it's canon. Stop citing a scene where a depressed Māori man gets drunk and projects himself onto a rich, white, silent bride because he thinks he's innately unlovable and only people like her can find happiness, shortly before deciding to kill himself, as canon evidence it's what he wants.

(Also, please don't come in here with "lmao we're just having fun," I know, I get it. Unfortunately, I'm an academiapilled researchmaxxer, and some of youse need to remember that the word "canon" has meaning. NOW GO HAVE FUN PUTTING THAT MAN IN A PRETTY DRESS!! 💖💖)

[cissyenthusiast010155]

Walls Broken Down ~Broken!Rita Calhoun xFem Younger!Reader

Summary— AU where Rita is friends with a young Reader (thinking 20s, whereas Rita’s in her mid to late 40’s). Rita has a past that haunts her, and one day it just all becomes too much. Reader is there for Rita as much as she can be.

Mommy… Master List

Requests & Prompt-List

Warnings: angst, implied anxiety attack, past trauma, implied small mental breakdown, fluff, age gap (all legal), comforting, physical comforting, happy ending fluff, etc.

Enjoy (;

She knew you hadn’t meant to. All you had done was brush her shoulder as she had walked past Rita to grab some utensils. But now Rita could feel herself trembling in her own kitchen. She could feel her knees wobbling and her lip trembling. Before she knew it, she was collapsing back against the pristine marble top counter, falling to the accented floor with her back to the dark walnut cabinets.

Waves of raw pain crashed over the woman. She could feel the tears already surfacing as the memories punched her in the gut, one after the other relentlessly. Memories of him. A past too terrifying to reconcile. Him invading her senses once more. Him taking advantage of her once more. Him, the man who had ruined her for anyone else. She felt so numb. She felt so violated. She felt so used. Rita’s mind replayed painful memory after painful memory, not able to stop. That one singular touch had sent her mind into a spiral.

As Rita came crashing down to the floor, you had dropped what you were doing and had rapidly approached the shaking brunette. But as you kneeled down to comfort and check in with her, you had extended your hand to the women’s back. Rita instinctively withdrew with sharp skill, a horrifying instinct drilled into her. She sucked in a breath as she avoided your touch, like it was a hot, scalding iron rod, curling up with her arms around her retracted knees.

Rita closed her eyes, and a tear escaped her left eye as she recalled all the haunting memories of her past, the ones that she had thought had surely been buried long ago. Seemingly not. Her limp, curled up form floated back to that day. All those years ago, she had been so young. She had been so innocent, kind of like you. Your touch hadn’t even been that bad, hadn’t even been intentional. But it didn’t matter. A flood of sadness came over the woman next, filling every sense of her being in a depressive state.

Rita couldn’t stop the following downpour of tears that emerged from her form. She curled even tighter into herself, shaking violently on the ground. In the back of her mind, she could vaguely hear you calling out her name in appropriate concern. But the ringing pain in her head was louder. The brunette sat on her kitchen floor; her tears ran down her body and pool on the ground. She managed to peek out of her cocoon, but she couldn’t look at you. Instead, her reeling mind tried to grasp the surroundings around her. From her position, She could see the heights of her living room, where her Bloomingdale curtains had once hung, but now with her remodel, all there remains are the new, empty gold drapery rods waiting for new, luxurious drapes to cover the glass wall. She tried to focus on those, the drapery rods.

Her mind was an abyss. Her life was a failure. Why did she even try? It was useless. She was useless. Part of Rita knew that was not true, but that part was currently tied up, duck-taped, and thrown in a closet, door locked and key lost. The new and improved part of her that she had spent curating was thrown aside. The new coats of platinum white on her walls were stripped to reveal the mundane beige of her college youth. This wasn’t your fault. It was her own. She deserved this. She deserved all of this. She cringed internally at how pathetic she was behaving, at how pathetic she was.

After a god awful amount of time of sobbing on the tile floor, Rita eventually could produce no more tears. She sniffled and slowly raised her head from her defensive curl towards you. And she was immediately met by your eyes dazzling with concern and naivety. You looked up to her like a mentor and here she was breaking down in the middle of her kitchen. How pathetic. Rita felt a pang of guilt ripple through her as you attempted to speak to her once more.

“Hey, Rita…Are you okay…?”

But Rita was in no state for verbal coherence. She nodded, as her lip trembled. She felt so small. Even though she was taller than you, even though her build was stronger than you, even though she was decades older than you, Rita still felt small. She felt like she was small enough for the world to swallow her whole without anyone noticing. She felt like she was small enough for him to come back and for her to not be able to fight back.

Your eyes softened as you nodded and cautiously extended a hand to the brunette. Rita couldn’t help the small gasp that escaped her lips at the kind gesture. That alone made her want to cry again. She slowly reached out and gingerly took your hand. With your help, the woman stood up on her wobbly legs. She took a deep breath as she stood. You didn’t know what happened, what was happening. But you were determined to be there for Rita.

Rita’s thoughts were still swimming, but now she had an anchor. Now, your consenting touch was keeping her tethered to reality. As you guided her to sit down by the kitchen island, Rita took deep breath after deep breath. She now knew that she couldn’t continue to ignore her past like this. No matter how many properties she owned, no matter how many times she remodeled and tried to cover it all up, no matter how many times she rebought her entire wardrobe, it would never go away. No, she had to properly heal. And as she squeezed your hand in gratitude and reassurance, she knew that she would be alright.

~~~

Rita Calhoun Masterlist

[arenee1999]

I thought I had found something special in OFMD and its fandom.

There have been characters through the years that I've identified with in a fairly superficial way. Studious, likes to read, awkward, lonely, bullied -- and my list of favorite characters paints a rather revealing portrait. But then I found Our Flag Means Death and I found myself identifying with multiple characters in a deep, visceral way that I have never had before. And I found a fandom full of people that felt the same way.

Then the darker side of the fandom began making itself known. Close minded, racist, homophobic, puritanical twats. The canyon that despises Ed and Stede, the gentlebeardies that despise Izzy. All of the people treating Rhys, Taika and Con like dogshit and treating your fellow fans even worse.

And yet, through that many of us still managed to love the show, the characters, the cast and crew and each other.

Then, right when literally everyone was expecting a renewal announcement we were told it was cancelled. Many of us fell into depression. We rallied as best we could to fight for our show. But we were still left reeling.

That same day one of my only friends (and the only one I could talk to about anything)  stopped talking to me. But I pushed that to the side and spent all my energy on the fandom, on Xitter, posting and talking and making as much noise as possible with everyone else.

Then March came around we got that announcement. Despite our efforts and a large portion of the industry on our side, we weren't going to see anything come of our efforts. At least not for the foreseeable future. Long term has yet to be decided, but short term there's no hope. Many of us that had been holding our depression at bay with frantic activity, crashed, hard. Some of us were still able to find solace in the fandom. Our love of the show hasn't diminished after all. So we reinvest in what made us love the show from the start and we let it heal us once again as best it can.

I'm one of the ones that crashed. And I was left with no one to talk to. I held myself together for awhile but eventually began to spiral. Tried pushing away everything because if I don't feel anything it won't hurt as much. I had made rather startling progress on extricating my last couple hyperfixations. And I was rapidly becoming dangerously, severely depressed. Then a month and a half ago I find out why my friend suddenly stopped talking to me. Apparently I talked about OFMD too much and he just couldn't handle it. I was simultaneously too much and not enough. And as I was suddenly and violently smacked in the face with a wave of despair, I dug around to figure out what pulled me out of the last few bouts of heavy depression I suffered. Because fuck knows, I was in desperate need of something. Turns out the last two times it was Taika (both directly and indirectly with Thor Ragnarok and OFMD) and before that it was HP fanfiction (for 10 years HP fic kept me mostly stable and functioning). Which explains entirely why my depression kept getting worse by leaps and bounds as I was in the process of purging all of that from myself as much as possible. So I took a good hard look around and decided my mental health was more important than protecting someone else's feelings. I immediately quit trying to unravel my core psyche and personality and was just starting to reach something resembling functional.

And now the fandom has once again erupted into puritanical, homophobic bigotry and hatred. And I'm finding myself shutting down. The joy I was just starting to find again in this fandom is gone. I see nothing but ash and dust. Even the clips of Ed and Stede's first kiss, that usually bring an immediate swell of joy, leaves me feeling nothing but numb.

If you are that full of hatred for an aspect of the show, be it a character, a pairing, a plot point, a cast or crew member, keep it to your fucking selves. Create closed groups, communities, discords etc. with the rest of the hate filled "fans" and spew your garbage where those of us that are here for what we love can't fucking see it. We do not need to be splashed with the muck from your cesspit.

Better yet, listen to DJenks -

[waugh-bao]

Man, Jerry Lewis sucks. He was not funny. Dean’s reaction shots were funnier than anything Jerry ever did.

And Frank and Dean were blood brothers and life partners. Their relationship is 100x better than any Jerry Lewis nonsense.

Humor is often subjective and I wouldn't criticize a person (or France) for finding Jerry Lewis funny, but I will say that I'm in pretty much the same boat as you. I don't find him funny and he/whatever character(s) he played make me so uncomfortable that I just cannot watch him. The voice alone makes me squirm.

On the relationship question, I feel much more confident making strong assertions. (RIP my inbox for that choice).

Just from a cursory view, Jerry and Dean were together for ten years, during a significant portion of which their relationship was more or less dysfunctional. We also don't have a great sense of their personal closeness, because most of our information about their relationship comes only from one side (ie Jerry) with an agenda of its own to push. Meanwhile, Frank and Dean met the same year Dean met Jerry, and were in some sort of professional partnership/contact for about 35 years, friends for 45. Literally Dean's last public appearance was to wish Frank a happy 75th birthday.

Jerry was always very invested in downplaying the importance and depth of Dean's relationship with Frank. I mean, it's not unexpected when you see that he titled his book about Dean, published in 2005, Dean & Me: A Love Story. The book is hilariously un-self aware but that could be its own 10k word analysis. Suffice to say that he describes himself, post-break up, as the person that was "closer to Dean Martin than anyone else" and Dean as “my partner and best friend", asserting a claim on him long after 20 years of radio silence and another 20 of occasional awkward interactions.

Whereas he argued that "where Frank was concerned, Dean could never totally let down his guard. And — in a not totally healthy way — Frank was drawn to that reserve." Never mind that he wasn't anywhere near close enough to Dean post-1956 to know jack about the workings of his personal relationship with Frank, the idea of Jerry Fucking Lewis criticizing anyone for having unhealthy interpersonal relationships is so deranged it's laughable. (Oh yeah, and Frank was the one who engineered Dean and Jerry's 'reunion' in 1976 and convinced Dean to do it/stayed with him through the whole appearance).

Professionally, jettisoning Jerry was one of the best things that ever happened to Dean. He went from second fiddle straightman in a popular duo to a genuine solo star, with hit records, popular TV shows, blockbuster movies, and in person residencies (with the Rat Pack and alone) that regularly sold out. Frank was hugely supportive of this and did everything he could to personally show it for Dean, including making an appearance on his first television show. In contrast to many of the later Martin-Lewis sets, Dean and Frank were known for working well as a team, and the Rat Pack movie sets, like Oceans Eleven, were notorious mostly for being good fun. Frank conducted the orchestra and picked the musicians for Dean's most critically acclaimed albums.

On a personal level they were likely each other's most important relationships. Frank had mental health issues. He was open about it: "Being an 18-karat manic-depressive and having lived a life of violent emotional contradictions, I have an over-acute capacity for sadness as well as elation." Dean supported him through those and his sense of humor/natural placidity were a huge boon to Frank in bad times. When Frank's mother, whom he was very close to, died in a plane crash, Dean stayed with him through the search for the wreckage, helped him through the funeral, etc. And when Dean's son, Dean Paul, died in a flight training accident years later, Frank did the same. He tried his best to pull him out of his depressive spiral.

It's evident in the everyday, too. They had neighboring houses in Pam Springs and raised their kids together. Frank had matching pinkie rings made for them and Dean never took his off. Jeanne, Dean's wife, said that "Frank adored Dean, Frank wanted to be with Dean all the time" and Deana, his daughter, called Frank his "closest friend." Frank was the last person Dean ever spoke to before he died, and Frank told his bodyguard, who asked why he was laughing so much after the end of their conversation, that even though Dean was the ill one he had managed to make Frank feel better: "That cuckoo bastard is still telling jokes…He’s sick and he’s still making wisecracks. I love him."

"We’re practically like brothers. Everything we do, we do together. We always keep in touch with each other and our families are always together. Well, we’re brothers. Everything is Frank and Dean."-Dean Martin

“Dean has been like the air I breathe, always there, always close by. He was my brother not by blood, but by choice.”-Frank Sinatra

[nicki0kaye]

Oh @seth-shitposts, it is INVOLVED

so to start this is an RP between @sidhebeingbrand and I, and it's one of several 'Watcher/Guard' AUs. TLDR: Kallus and Zeb are a complimentary set of force-sensitives. Watchers (Kallus) with heightened senses and Guards (Zeb) empaths that keep Watchers level and able to excel. These force-sensitives are revered in Zeb's culture and were limited to Kallus' immediate family in his own.

Kallus was extremely traumatized by how his own family ostracized and exploited him bc of his powers. When joining the Empire, he was implanted with a chip that regulated his senses for him, eliminating a need for a 'guard'. It also makes him basically invisible to Zeb, who would otherwise be able to tell 'oh that's a Watcher'. So anyway, Ice Date happens and by that I mean they crash land and Kallus' chip immediately breaks. Zeb is like !!!! and Kallus is immediately back in his trauma bc to him, that empathic help is a form of coercion and control. But if Zeb doesn't use his powers to settle Kallus, Kallus will spiral into sensory overload, so he's gonna fucking help, Kallus, holy shit.

It breaks Zeb's heart and honestly genuinely insults his honor that Kallus believes he can't be trusted and would use his abilities to rob Kallus of his agency. That's Antithetical to every vow he swore as Honor Guard. Which is why he lets Kallus do something Fucking Stupid like stay on the moon all alone after the Spectres arrive. This is a TERRIBLE IDEA and was NEVER GOING TO END WELL, but Kallus was so stubborn and Zeb felt so icky he couldn't bring himself to strong arm the mf into the goddamn space ship. He has to respect Kallus' agency or he's just as bad as whatever sleemo gave Kallus this impression of Guards in the first place (no, Zeb, that's not how ANYTHING WORKS) All this is to say; Kallus is left alone on the moon to devolve into a feral mess. And in one AU, he's picked up by a group of art smugglers who adopt him as their own and nurse him back to sanity! This is not that AU. In this AU, the ppl who find him realize "oh hey he's strong" and "oh hey, he's fucking non-verbal and violent" and sell him to some fighting ring in some asteroid somewhere. Where he stays. For months. Until the Spectres find and rescue him.

That's why he has that scarring over his nose and around his eye sockets; they kept a mask on him to limit his stimuli and it wasn't really removed and cleaned much, so it ended up rubbing his face raw in places. Anywho, he's saved, so everything's fine now, right? Well. It's me, so no. He and Zeb still have entirely different ideas of how this shit works. Kallus still feels like he didn't choose this, he's forced to accept this aid and Zeb is required by his vows and honor to provide it. It makes their natural attraction to one another suspect and Kallus is prickly AF about it. Zeb isn't handling this well bc he's got so much guilt about leaving Kallus on the moon to be picked up by slavers, he knows the connection he's forming with Kallus is something his culture recognizes as sacred and that he, personally, has been waiting to find his entire life, and Kallus Fucking Hates Him for it and it just! makes him feel so disgusting! There's this constant hot and cold happening, where they connect and then Kallus pulls away, or they work together just like a Guard and Watcher should, and then they get into a fight. The last straw is when Kallus picks a fight with Zeb and then turns around and asks for more missions with Zeb from Hera. It sends Zeb into a depression that scares the ever-loving shit out of Kallus. It's a wake-up call to just how badly he's handled this. And Zeb is done. He can't be Kallus' Guard. So they're going to Lira San and someone else can look after him, Zeb can't. He just can't. Kallus finally breaks down and apologies while in the Phantom on the way down to Lira San's surface. Gron, who was waiting for them at the designating meeting spot, finds these idiots crying at each other and is immediately like YEAH NO you two need a BREAK, flexes his empathic muscles and forces Zeb to have a goddamn nap, and then starts discussing how shit went so wrong with Kallus as they drive back to his cabin.

Zeb gets a few days to recoup while being looked after by a fellow Guard and Kallus gets to start learning the Lasat way of handling Guards and Watchers, this time with an open mind. When Zeb returns to the Spectres, its with the understanding that they need this separation but they're Both Invested in one another and wished things had gone better.

The next time Zeb comes and visits, he finds Kallus freckled, tan, well fed and in cute clothes with a cute braid. They immediately fall back into sync, into how they should have been from the start, a proper bonded pair. And while Kallus was learning how to be a Watcher from Gron, he's been helping local teens learn how to be Watchers too. It happened kind of by accident, inviting one struggling Watcher teen to their ranch turned into a whole gaggle of Watcher teens showing up every weekend.

so Unironically, Kallus has become a camp counselor. And it's been healing his fucking soul. He wants to be with Zeb, to be his partner and bonded and just. Date the mf, but he also wants to join the Rebellion properly. He wants to fix what he helped break. He hates having to leave the kids behind after becoming so involved and attached with each, but its the right thing to do. And when he returns to the Ghost to share Kanan's bunk, he brings with him a bunch of trinkets from his camp kids. He also brings a sash that Gron bought him.

So the pic is Kallus back on the field, healed and in a new, beautiful relationship and ready to fuck up the Empire.

outfit exploration for an AU where Kallus spends a couple months on Lira San with Gron bc Reasons

[darthmaulification]

you’re somebody else | din x reader

A/N: ahahaha i couldn’t stop getting drawn to this prompt on the list, and since it hasn’t been requested yet i wrote it for me. 💀💀 i’m actually really happy with how this turned out too. 😳

after writing this, the tone/vibe reminded me of a short story i read in my fear and fiction class in high school called Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been? by Joyce Carol Oates which was basically a psychological horror that i want to spoil nothing of, so i implore y’all to read it because i’ve linked a pdf here. 🙏😈

(title is flora cash’s song of the same name which i listened to repeatedly while writing this fic.)

hope you enjoy! 💗

prompt: 10. “who have you become? i don’t know you anymore.”

content: this just might be the darkest thing i’ve ever written, dark!din, haunted!din, tbh the darksaber is a warning all on it’s own, gn!reader, depression, very bad mental spiral (that’s made worse by a semi-supernatural force), implied that din verbally lashes out at reader, kinda a character study, implied Very Bad Things enacted by din 😬

word count: 936

At first, it started slow.

Din passed Grogu over to the Jedi, teary-eyed and breaking, and watched as the elevator doors slid shut like eyelids closing when all the life’s been drawn from the body. The helmet went back on and the mask did too, but no one said anything about that then, not while Cara and Fennec shared smirks at a job well done, not while Bo-Katan silently yearned for the Darksaber in Din’s hand.

Grief took hold next. It filled Din like water poured into a pitcher, until he was only hours of quiet weeping, long sleepless nights, and louder stretches of screaming and punching that left him with a raw throat and gashes on his knuckles. Grief replaced everything then, it replaced time, food, rest, and everything that was Din. 

You took the brunt of what was left of Din in the months directly after, painfully accepted everything the angry, broken, sad Mandalorian threw at you by always responding with an “It’s okay, Din” or a “You didn’t mean it”. You rolled with the punches as they landed, told yourself to be patient and considerate, reasoned that Din was hurt, and hurt people hurt people. 

In those early months, the sting of Din’s vitriolic words would fade easily, like lemon juice on parchment, which didn’t really make it okay, but it was bearable. Forgivable.

But those were the early months.

In retrospect, you blame two major players for what happened:

One, yourself. You had every single opportunity to stop it while you were ahead, but you were either too unobservant or ignorant to see what was really happening, or (if you’re kinder to yourself) you were also grieving so maybe it wasn’t all too much of a surprise to miss a few things when your heart was also trampled on the floor. And as much as everyone else tells you “It wasn’t your fault” and “No one saw it coming”, you know damn well the red flags were waved in your face time and time again.

It makes you angry, it makes you guilty, it makes you weep.

It all comes down to the second variable:

The Darksaber. It was never a good thing. It was always some ancient evil, fueled by all the blood it’s shed and all the lives it’s taken, masked by the façade (lie) that it made warriors into kings, made verd into Mand’alor. It spoke the tongue of a wronged, hurting people, because there is no other way to ensure absolute control quite like telling white lies and half-truths in all the anger of a Mandalorian.

So it laid it’s seeds in Din the moment it passed from Moff Gideon’s hand.

You didn’t notice then, but Din’s hand held the Darksaber tighter than any of his other weapons.

Months after Grogu is when you started explaining away the shift in Din, how he became different. You excused his gloominess for melancholy. (Din would get this faraway look in his eyes, like he was remembering something terrible.) Told yourself it was part of the healing process that he was angrier, it just made him more... violent than he’d normally be on hunts. (Din beat his bounties to gurgling, bloody pulps.) You would pretend to sleep when he sat awake at night for hours at end just listening to him speak in low Mando’a. (Din was speaking to the Darksaber. It would speak back.)

“Din isn’t dark”, you’d convince yourself when you knew he had done or said something cruel, something heinous, “He’s just upset”.

And it’s true, Din was upset. But not like you thought he was.

It all came crashing down one night, when you started to feel like you could recognize Din anymore.

He was soaked in blood, splattered with it like a child’s painting across his cuirass, his hands completely crimson. (”Din, what happened?”)

The helmet spoke to you first, then it was lifted to reveal a face you that wasn’t his face, not anymore, because that face looked pleased with the murderous handiwork, and those lips spoke your name in an unfamiliar voice, and oh my Maker, Din, the smile didn’t reach your eyes.

They weren’t his anymore.

“Who have you become?” You ask, voice trembling and you can’t stop the cold shiver that goes up your spine, or how your heart sinks to the pit of your stomach, and it makes you focus on the queasiness there and the metallic tang of blood. Din doesn’t say anything, but he gets that faraway look on his face, somehow both coldly distant and shockingly precise, and it terrifies you more than anything ever has. The world stops, Din stares, the Darksaber rests in his hand.

“Cyare, I don’t know what you mean.” He replies and it’s not Din’s voice you hear. It’s lost the gentle timbre, no longer rumbles from his throat like rhythmic white cap waves to a shoreline, no longer the voice that you would hear in loving secrecy, when it was you and Din beneath the sheets, when the night was your sanctuary. No, you no longer hear Din’s voice.

“... I don’t know you anymore.” The whisper hangs in the air like a body from a tree, all dreadful and sickening. The room constricts and falls away, the walls crumbling to the black void of shadows that line the corners and curves of the stranger you once knew, the lover you’ve lost like a childhood toy to the wilderness.

“I don’t know you anymore.” You repeat, staring at the man in front of you, oh what is his name?

What is his name?

[shinebrightlikeanarwhal]

Travis-centered plots because I Like fix it’s… (I just finished typing them all, I’m ashamed for my sinful brain oml)

- Larry and Travis having once been friends but being torn apart by Travis’ father. Larry keeping an eye on Travis for years but then turning his attention to Sal, whom in turn receives the sudden disdain of Travis.

Sal confronts Travis in the bathrooms one day and Larry listens from the door. Eventually Sal talks Travis into tears. He confesses to being jealous of Sal and not wanting Larry to stop focusing on him, even if Larry ends up hating him. How his dad would beat him if Travis and Larry ever got close again. Larry barges in and holds Travis close. They reconcile (Sal opting to let the boys talk, clearly not in the mood to see Enemies to Lovers tonguing den in the school bathroom.

They uproot and destroy the cult, blah blah blah, Happily ever after and Travis gets help for his trauma induced depression and anxiety.

- Travis has been off for a few days. He doesn’t antagonize anyone. Philip does more talking and ginger touching that Travis violently jerks away from. During class he barely responds and teachers don’t try to force him. Sal didn’t expect to find Travis sleeping on a bench one day. His worn shoes now tattered with holes at the bottom. His black eye prominent but accompanied by a busted lip and what looked to be severe damage to his legs.

Not sure how he did it, but Sal managed to convince Travis to come home with him. Introduces Travis to Henry and leads him to the bathroom where he washed off and got treated. His damage was severe and Sal really wanted to call the police but just seeing a fearful Travis weened him off the idea.

Larry was not too pleased to find Travis at Sals. He almost yelled until he noted Travis look at his raised hand and cower from him. Larry pausing and pulls Sal to the side to understand. Of course they don’t know the full story but it’s enough to have Larry texting the group for help. Most were curious about what could lead them to wanting to help Travis. Ash, however, seemed to know a lot.

They find out about Travis’ abuse, the cult. Travis helps a little. He is still terrified of them but they start to grow on him with time. He even allows contact with Sal rarely, who shows him his face during a bonding moment at the dead of night. Larry makes playlists and CDs to help Travis get accustomed to loud noises (many of which are songs Larry personally thinks Travis would enjoy.

After the gang destroys and puts the cult behind bars. No demons, no murders, and no dead friends. Sal manages to convince Travis to report his father, thankfully they kept his clothes to give to the state police, Todd refused to trust the local police after further investigating the cult and their connections.

Healing and coping, cuddling and coddling. Travis getting the love and attention he deserves! Could end with him dating someone or him just being under their care for a while.

—Salvis but Sal is a bit more aggressive with Travis. Fuck it ABO, Travis is a very spicy omega that pretends to be a Beta. Sal is a strong scented alpha, like it’s a musky and domineering scent compared to his appearance. Larry is an alpha, though his scent is murky and smoky, and he doesn’t act like the stereotypical alpha. Travis nitpicks them like usual, though sometimes they are too distracted by the nice smell seeping off of him. Larry sneers and asks if Travis mom scented him before school. Travis is upset at this. Much more emotional than usual. Sal notes the spike in scent and jabs Larry.

Uh oh, Travis is presenting in the bathroom, and beta Philip isn’t able to fight off the alphas coming to investigate the scent, thankfully Sal is here to soothe and calm the terrified Travis while his friends help fend off the other students.

Mr. Phelps is pissed about an omega son. Travis is constantly scented with distress. He isn’t allowed to talk about it but everyone can smell it. They are well aware of Travis’ fluctuating weight, fatigue and his tan skin turning pale and bruised worse than before. Larry is annoyed by this but can’t tell whether it’s the scent affecting him or his stern belief in protecting omegas from abusive alphas.

Sal hates it, he knows he felt the mate bond but Travis doesn’t seem to notice. Travis’ suffering eats away at Sal until he all but corners Travis and propositions him to save him from his father and give him sanctuary. It takes a lot to convince Travis. Heck, he has to promise Larry wouldnt hurt him (Larry later seeks Travis to reconcile their bad blood).

They get to know eachother. Sal is head over heels and watching Travis grow and blossom into his omega blood. Travis starts falling for someone else and Sal tries to be supportive (until he can’t even look at Travis without feeling heartache). But Travis notes he doesn’t love ____ And follows his heart to Sal. They bond, they love and boom, happy little family. (With three cute babies because Travis and Sal deserve happy families)

Larvis: roughly the same as the salvos ABO but Larry straight up picks up Travis and carries him home. Travis tries to fight but is swaddled and pampered until he’s fast asleep and purring in Larry’s arms.

Mr. Phelps doesn’t have much ground to stand on when he tries to take Travis back. Larry confirming that Travis is his mate and based off of Phelps’ beliefs he should reside with his mate.

Travis is surprised his father backs off so easily (because how could the pastor refute what he preaches?? Such blasphemy would be heard by the church blah blah blah). Larry and Travis talk and Larry admits that they are indeed mates, he never brought it up for Travis’ health. He was already struggling to care for himself, a mating bond would send his already feeble body and fragile mind spiraling. Larry also admits he knew they were mates ever since he presented, which wasn’t that long after entering highschool. But, Travis was so proud to be ‘normal’ and not some horny mess like the others. He also didn’t like seeing Travis harass and bully others, which probably aided in his aggressive rejection of the omega and prolonged Travis’ presentation.

Life goes on and Larry and Travis are happily married with four kids (two more in the oven, because Larry is a very affectionate husband). Cult was handled and Sal is NOT dead and very much the worlds best uncle.

-Travis having a hot girl summer.

That’s it. That’s the plot.

Thotty church twink marching about in short shorts and tank tops (sinful!) showing off his goodies to the masses. Larry shamelessly offers to partake, and gets thrown for a whirlwind when Travis’ phat ass is delightfully uncontrollable. Sal jokingly shoots his shot and winds up slumped in the back of the church from immaculate head.

Mr. Phelps is away so the thot is out to play. (Courtesy of Mama Phelps aiding and abetting her sons growth as a person. He may be throwing it back to the boys he once sneered at but at least he’s nicer to people)

-Travis being rescued from the Phelps home after a concerned report to the state police. The church closed and his father put behind bars for many accounts of child abuse and neglect and the disappearance of Travis’ mother.

Sal and gang are curious about what the new home will do to Travis after months of rehabilitation, and all damn near faint when they see Travis with long pink hair and a cute sun dress marching into the school. Directly towards them and apologizing for his horrible treatment of them, specifically Sal. They can’t believe his change at first but after weeks of watching him, he seems genuinely happier.

This new happiness starts to get unsettling to Larry, who watches Travis and Philip be closer than before. He shouldn’t care he hates Travis! But god he wished the boy would wrap his arms around his and march down the halls. He would kill to get surprise back hugs or do the hugging. He wanted to share lunch with Travis. Be hand fed meals and have his mouth cleaned whilst being scolded.

Fuck, he’s in love! He thought he nipped that in the bud when Sal started getting bullied by Travis. But no, Travis being rescued from his awful father and being a genuinely good person from then on was astounding. Hell, he even brought Sal treats as an apology for walking in on him with his mask off once. Sal said it was fine but Travis babbled ok about feeling bad because Sal looked terrified even though Travis didn’t think Sal was any less cool. (Yes, Sal cried in his room about how much it meant for someone to say that).

For fucks sake, Travis had pictures upon pictures of his new family and their pets. PETS. He had dooogs, god Larry lost his mind seeing Travis jogging around town with dogs in shorts and a sweaty, almost see through tank top!! He’s too gay for this.

He finally confesses, maybe tries to play it off as a joke, but Travis just smiles sweetly and pecks his cheek. He’s sorry but he’s already dating someone. Larry tries not to let his disappointment show, but he just can’t feel the need to go to school for a couple of days. Hides out in his tree house and just smokes. Cause, cmon.. who’d wanna date him?? All he does is smoke and play around! He hasn’t had a stable relationship in years and most he’s known for is sleeping with whoever he deems the hottest.

Sal notices his behavior and tries to comfort him, not sure why Larry is like this, by offering to introduce him to his partner. Maybe they have a friend Larry is interested in. Larry wants to be supportive but he really doesn’t care to see Sals new beau(ty). He really just wanted to camp out in the tree house and smoke away the pain. Or, he did until he sees Travis and Sal holding hands and nuzzling on the couch one day. Sals legs on Travis’ and Travis combing Sals hair. Larry felt like his world came crashing down, his best friend?? And his first and worst crush?? The crush that sent him spiraling for what could have been weeks? Sal is innocent, he didn’t know that Larry was madly in love with Travis. Didn’t know that Travis so politely rejected him and offered to cease contact if Larry felt he couldn’t be around him.

Larry wasn’t much of a romantic after that. He played around with whoever he felt needed love. His partying spiraling out of control in adult hood. Travis tried to contact him and help him find a good person, but any attempts to help Larry ended with Larry crying to him drunkenly. Asking why he wasn’t good enough, why he couldn’t have been Sal. Travis wasn’t allowed near Larry after Larry drunkenly made advances at him, he doesn’t blame Larry he’s extremely emotional, but Sal felt Larry would only get worse the more they stayed in contact, so they were kept apart.

Larry never loved anyone as much as he loved Travis Fisher.

-Last one was a sadder Onesided Larvis, this one is Larry teasing and cornering Travis so much that Travis tries to shock him by kissing him. He came home with some hickies and a very prominent limp.

They’re not saying, yet, but Wingman Sal is politely judging Travis into Larry’s arms. They are constantly alone together. Larry blowing Travis’ back out in an abandoned amusement park when the others split up to explore. “He sprained his ankle running from a shadow” Hmph, Travis smelt like axe. He HATES the smell of axe… but okay lovebirds.

Sal has 100% walked in on the secret lovers getting frisky when moms out. Later helps Travis shop for more pretty clothes, because who wouldn’t want a shopping body??? That’s almost illegal to not take the opportunity.

Larry eats ass. A lot. Travis can literally be on FaceTime shopping with Sal and Larry just slips under the covers and enjoys his fill of boyfriend cheekies~ yum!

Travis, as revenge, will give the gawk gawk 9000. Larry is NOT safe if he thinks Travis has forgotten the embarrassment of Sal chuckling and telling him he has to go walk his homework. He could be on the phone with his boss or Lisa and Travis will give the sloppiest top he’s ever had. (Praise the son for horni bratty bottoms)

[remmushound]

@brightlotusmoon @errorfreak88 Part 3 of my bay/rise crossover.

Leonardo didn't know where he was, and frankly he wasn’t sure he cared. He was more concerned about not knowing where April and Splinter and Donatello and Raphael were. His brothers— his family! He had reached out to them, felt his fingers brush against Splinters, and then they were being pulled apart again. Pulled away from each other. Then Leonardo was flying out of the rift, clinging with all his might to the only one he had managed to protect. Michelangelo. He landed hard, skipping across metal with solid thuds like a rock on water as he clung to the box turtle’s shell, his baby brother still hiding within. The bouncing eventually turned into a slide that brought Leonardo to crash against a wall. Pain shot through his extremities, but it only made him hold on to Michelangelo even tighter.

The minute they stopped, Michelangelo popped out his shell with a sharp yipe, his arms shooting out and wrapping around Leonardo to cling to him like a security blanket. Leonardo couldn’t help but smile and rubbed the younger mutants head in a comforting motion.

“It’s okay, hermano. Just a little bit of a bumpy ride.”

Michelangelo whimpered and his nose went back into his shell.

“Oh come on! Don’t be like that!”

Michelangelo pulled his arms and legs back in as well.

“Awww, come on~” Leonardo pushed himself away from the wall to lean over Michelangelo and peek into the shell as his shadowed face. “You know you wanna come out!”

“Where is out?” Michelangelo asked, his voice carrying a strange echo.

“Er…” Leonardo looked around. He didn't recognize the place, a giant metal ball with a spiraling floor design and a high ceiling, a blinking light at the top of it. He hummed and narrowed his eyes at the luring draw of the light, but didn't acknowledge it Past that. “Pokeball?”

“What? No we’re not!”

“Well how you gonna know if you don’t come out?”

Leonardo smirked and leaned back to give Michelangelo enough space to emerge. Michelangelo peeked his nose out once more.

“That’s it! Just a little more!” Leonardo encouraged.

Michelangelo’s full head poked out, and his neck too so he could look around at their surroundings. “Woah. This is so cool!”

“Cool isn’t exactly the word I’d use.” Leonardo whistled and stood up, reaching for his sword naturally. It was nowhere on his body.

“Hey uh— you don’t happen to have your yoyo, do you Miguel?”

“Um…” Michelangelo reached to his belt and frowned. “No. It’s gone somewhere… do you have your swords?”

“No.”

The structure gave a powerful groan and Michelangelo yelped, attaching himself to Leonardo’s side like glue. “It’s spooky here…”

Leonardo would be lying if he said that a similar anxiety hadn’t grown in his gut the moment they entered this strange place. Cold, dark, mechanical— everything Donatello loved, except without the eccentric nature. But he couldn’t be scared now. He has Michelangelo to look after, and right now his baby brother needed him.

“Hey hey hey, don’t get soft on me now!” Leonardo beamed, leaning down to Michelangelo’s level. “We just escaped the mother-freaking Shredder and you’re scared of a dingy little metal ball?”

“It’s not very little, Leo…”

Leonardo scoffed and waved a hand dismissively. “Potato potahto! Tomato tomatoh! Shredder, Giant Metal Ball of Doom! What’s the difference?”

Michelangelo didn't answer.

“The only one I can think of is that Shredder was waaaay scarier!”

“Oh really?”

Both turtles froze at the new voice. Leonardo gently placed his brother down, keeping an arm still wrapped around him to keep them both close.

“Well? What are you waiting for?” The new voice laughed in a mocking, wheezing tone, “Turn around.”

Leonardo could see no other option other than to obey. He gave Michelangelo a reassuring pat and held his brother just a little tighter before turning to face whoever it was that had called out to them.

The creature was big, a body near as broad as Raphael’s carapace and a shape that was loosely spherical. It’s entire body gleamed with a layer of slime that oozed out from folds on the sides of it’s head, and every so often a tentacle would reach up to gather the accumulating mucus and spread it throughout its body to keep itself moist. There was a crown on its head, a ridge higher than the rest of its body that slightly resembled the crown of certain dinosaurs. Leonardo could almost swear that whatever it was, was the brain of some massive creature, escaped from its body to do whatever it is that giant, tentacle-having brains do.

“Well?” The creature stroked feelers on it’s face, what could pass as lips parting to reveal tiny, dolphin-like teeth.

Leonardo only allowed himself enough time to blink before he forced his smile to come back and meet the strangers smirk. “Well what?”

The creature lunged forward, supported by pipes that extended out from the misproportioned battle suit, bringing it within inches of touching Leonardo. “Aren’t you scared?”

“Scared of what? A chewed up wad of bubble gum that gained sentience?”

It growled and one of its tentacles came down upon Leonardo, covering him in the thick, viscous coating of it’s body.

“Oh I’m sorry! Did I get some slime on you?”

Leonardo didn't flinch. He reached out a hand and poked the creature on the nose. “It is not slime, it is mucus!”

It growled and swatted Leonardo before pulling back again closer to its suit. “Who said you could touch me with your foul, disease-ridden hands?!”

“Hey hey hey!” Leonardo threw his hands up in surrender, “I bathe regularly! It’s Raphael you gotta look out for.”

“You think you’re funny, do you?” It squinted its eye at Leonardo.

“I think I’m adorable. Don’t you?” Leonardo put his hands under his chin and batted his eyes.

“I think you’re an obnoxious freak of nature.” It tried to draw forth a violent reaction, but Leonardo remained cool.

“Eh, aren’t we all?” Leonardo shrugged, “But this obnoxious freak of nature has a name. Do you?”

The creature seemed to consider Leonardo’s question for a moment before saying, “It’s Krang.”

Leonardo snickered.

“What?” Krang snapped, almost defensively, “What’s so funny?”

“Sorry— sorry!” Leonardo almost keeled over laughing.

“What’s so funny— what’s so funny, it’s just my name!”

“It’s just— ahahaha— did your mom hate you or something?”

Michelangelo started to finally get in on the laughing, and soon both brothers were almost falling over.

“I chose my own name— the Queen doesn’t have time to name all of us!” Krang defended, grunting as its features scrunched up.

“So you’re saying you have a face not even a mother could love?” Leonardo smirked, recovering from his laughter at will. “Man, that is depressing!”

“ENOUGH!” Krang shot two wired pipes forward to grab Michelangelo and Leonardo, squeezing them harshly. “Now you listen here, little turtles! I am not in the mood for games.” It’s eyes glanced between the brothers in an almost alien way, “And if all you’re going to do is play with me, then I’m going to put you away in my toybox.”

“Sounds fun!” Michelangelo piped.

“Fun?” Krang shifted to look at Michelangelo.

“Yeah! In a big box with a whole bunch of other people, having slumber parties every night!” Michelangelo hummed and sighed.

“Well, I’m glad you’re going to enjoy yourself. It’s an extended stay.”

Krang shifted slightly, its armor suit slow and topheavy, and at the press of a button on the suit the floor began to open up and reveal a spiraling display case. Rows upon rows of small, frozen containers. A thick layer of frosty smoke escaped through the opening and filtered out through vents. Krang hung the two brothers over the drop and loosened his grip just to feel the fear of his prisoners. Looking down into the endless abyss of bodies distorted by frost and age, Leonardo felt a sense of vertigo overtake him. It seemed Krang latched onto the fear almost immediately, judging by the evil expression on its face.

“Not so eager to visit the other toys now, are you?” Krang laughed and pulled Michelangelo and Leonardo back over solid ground, putting them down as the ground closed once more. “Now maybe you’ll play nicely.”

“Where are my brothers?” Leonardo demanded, “My family?”

“They’re fine. They were spit out somewhere or other. Does it really matter?”

“Yes.” Leonardo snarled.

“Hmm…” Krang rubbed their folds in concentration, “Then why don’t we make a deal, little turtle?”

“What kinda deal?” Leonardo returned to hugging his brother as Michelangelo cowered against him.

“I didn't just call you here to chat.”

“Well you’re sure doing a lot of talking anyway.” Leonardo grumbled under his breath.

“I brought you here for a far more important reason.” It folded its tentacles over its mouth.

“Care to share with the class?”

Krang huffed. “You have something that interests me— or more like had. You see, a year ago today I tried to take over the earth.”

Leonardo laughed. “Didn't do a good job— you didn't even make the news! I’m sure I would know if there was a broadcast about a giant brain in a robot suit tried to take over the planet.”

“Not your earth. A different earth.”

“There’s more than one?” Michelangelo asked.

“Oh, there is a plethora of earths, all slightly different from the last! But yours… intrigues me. It’s one of the more recent ones, and the use of your ‘mystic magic’ caught my attention.” Krang circled Leonardo like a cat with a mouse, “The way you teleport around with such ease, even without a beacon to guide you~”

“Spit it out, Gellatinous, I haven’t got all day.”

“You’re very impatient for someone whose at the mercy of one far smarter.”

“Eh, I can handle Donnie, but that has nothing to do with this.” Leonardo snarked off, “What do you want?”

“I have you, and I have your family, and I have your sword.”

“Great. And what does that have to do with the price of jelly doughnuts?”

“I want you to show me how to use the magic you possess, and afterwards I will let you and your brothers go back on your merry way!”

“I thought you were all knowing or whatever.”

“I never claimed that. I too need to learn like every creature does.”

“How do we know you’re not lying about letting us go?” Michelangelo pouted, sticking out his lip.

“Do I look like the lying type to you?”

“Yes.” Michelangelo and Leonardo said as one.

“Mm. Clever boys. Well, the answer is that you don’t know. But you don’t really have many choices either.”

“Mm. Fair.” Leonardo shrugged. “Whatchu need me to show you?”

“How to activate the rift that you’ve seemed to master.” Krang tapped its tentacles together.

“Oh that’s easy! You just take the sword and go woosh woosh,” Leonardo made vague gesture, “Then it goes all whoooooo whaaaaa bwaaaaa!” He made a motion of a rift opening. “Then you go all ‘take me so and so’ and badda bing badda boom, you’re done! That work?” Leonardo clicked his tongue and wink.

“What.” Krang narrowed his eyes.

“Well, you take the pointy part and go whish woosh, then slish slash, hundred yard dash, and you’re in Paris!”

“I— I don’t understand what you’re saying!”

“Well you take the thing and do the thing so it makes a thing then you go through the thing and bam: the thing is done! Take a break and get yourself a pizza for your hard work.”

“You’re getting on my nerves.”

“Exactly how many nerves does a brain have anyway?”

“I’M NOT A BRAIN I’M AN UTROM!”

“A who-trom?” Michelangelo tilted his head.

“AN UTROM!”

“You-tron?” Leonardo asked with a smirk.

“GRRR— just show me how to do it!” Krang pulled Leonardo’s sword out of thin air and dropped it into Leonardo’s hands. “And don’t think you can outsmart me!”

“Wouldn’t dream of it, K-Pop.” Leonardo took the sword and pointed it, dragging it to make a circle. His face illuminated the glow and he smiled.

“Yes!” Krang cheered, smilingly widely and holding out its tentacles to Leonardo. “Give it to me!”

“Yeeeeah, no.” Leonardo stared a moment and then winked before stepping through the blue and disappearing along with the mystic portal.

“NO!” Krang launched himself forward and grabbed at the space where the turtles had once been, “GET BACK HERE!”

[trashmenofmarvel]

Branded - Chapter 32

Pairing: Demon!Bucky Barnes x Reader

Summary: Broken from the time-loop, you and Bucky discuss next steps.

(This is a fan AU of Falling’s Just Another Way to Fly by araniaart​ . Please check out this incredible series for all of your demon Bucky needs.)

Chapter Warnings: Mild anxiety attacks and dissociation 

AO3

“You…”

If you were sweating like a marathon runner, then Bucky was panting like a winded horse that had been galloping too long for too fast.

“What… did you see?” He was perched on the edge of the bed, tail thumping against the covers in agitation.

You sat further upright, trying to catch your breath. You confirmed that, yes, you were back in your own room, in your own body. It was nighttime, cold, and the house was quiet because everyone else had gone to bed. The solid softness under your hands grounded you, confirmed that this was real and you were back where you were supposed to be.

You could barely process his question.

“I… I don’t know—“

Bucky gripped you by the shoulders and leaned over you, expression a mixture of fear and panic.

“What did you see? Tell me!”

“Everything!”

You winced and lowered your voice, not wanting to wake anyone, trembling violently in his hands.

“I saw everything.”

Bucky deflated, releasing you with horrific guilt written all over his face as he backed away from the bed.

“And…” You looked up at him, dazed, gripping the bedspread like a lifeline. “And I… didn’t just see. I was… with you…”

“No…”

“…in that place. The demon realm—“

“No, no, no, no.” Bucky stumbled back, his tail whipping around as he gripped the sides of his head. “That wasn’t you. That wasn’t you. It can’t be.”

“Bucky, please, look at me,” you quietly begged. But he wouldn’t. He shook his head, paced your room like a caged animal, but he wouldn’t look at you.

“It’s my fault. My fault. This wasn’t supposed to happen, something went wrong. Oh, God, what did I do? What did I do to you?”

He was spiraling and there was nothing you could do to stop it. As soon as you stood from the bed, Bucky flinched away, staring at you in naked terror.

“I can’t…”

He choked out the words, turned to your windowsill, and flung it open. The same windowsill he’d fled from twenty years ago. Wings ripped from his shoulder blades, shredding the back of his shirt, and he leapt through, disappearing into the darkness with a rush of air washing over you.

You stared at the open window for a long time. Long enough that the room had gotten cold enough to see your breath. And still you stood there, frozen, your mind a blank space as your body felt strange and far away.

Something warm and alive rubbed against your leg, a concerned meow bringing you back to the present. You shook off your daze and quickly shut the window, drawing the curtains back over the dark glass.

Picking up Monster, you returned to the bed and crawled under the covers, holding him tight as you shivered violently.

You waited for Bucky to return, watching the digital read-out of the old clock as it crept past midnight. The exhaustion of parsing through all the memories, of feeling as if you’d lived several lives over the span of just a few minutes, and then for Bucky to just take off… You were torn between fatigue and depression that felt more akin to grief.

As the clock ticked past two in the morning, you wondered if Bucky would be coming back. Maybe this was the thing that broke him. You couldn’t even blame him.

Burying your face in Monster’s fur, which may have grown damp against your cheeks, you let the exhaustion overtake you, pulling you into merciful darkness.

Except it wasn’t merciful. Confusing images swirled past you. Freezing bunkers, a red, dead world, a pretty rooftop garden with a kind, bald woman. She reached out to you, and you tried to grab her hand but you slipped backwards, out of reach.

Down, down you fell, through the freezing air, until you crashed into the snow, left broken and bleeding red against the white.

You awoke with a start, heart leaping in your throat. The room was cold again, and your back ached from the aftereffects of the horrifically realistic dream.

The noise that woke you repeated itself: Monster was hissing into the dark.

“Yeah, yeah, I know,” a low voice responded. “Don’t have to tell me. Move over.”

Monster spit his annoyance, but he wiggled out of your arms and jumped off the bed, vanishing out of sight in that way he had of doing.

“Bucky?” Your whisper had barely any strength to it.

“Yeah,” he answered. “I’m… I’m here. Can I… come to bed with you?”

You pulled back the covers without hesitation, shifting back to give him room. The room was dark but you could still see him slip under the blankets as the mattress jostled from the additional weight.

Your fingers brushed against his arm and you almost drew back.

“You’re freezing.”

Bucky released a snort, settling down into the bed as he rested his head on the pillow next to yours.

“I’ll live. My own damn fault, anyway. I shouldn’t have left.” He found your hands under the covers and squeezed them gently. “I’m so, so sorry.”

Despite how cold he was all over, you pressed right up to him, tucking your head under his chin as you hugged his arms against your chest, seeking comfort while simultaneously trying to warm him up. That was something you couldn’t forget from the memories. Bucky hated the cold.

“I forgive you.” You rested your chin on your favorite spot, his collarbone. “So long as you forgive me for what happened tonight. It wasn’t your fault. It was mine.”

“What? Why would you even say that? Of course it was my fault!”

Your shoulders hunched inward. How much could you tell him? You didn’t want Bucky to take the blame, but you weren’t sure if what the Ancient One had told you had been just for you and Strange.

Plus, Bucky had a complicated relationship with the sorcerers, and he already got weirded out by magic… Perhaps it would be better to wait to tell him the full truth when you actually knew what that was.

“Well…” You scooted a little closer. Even now you were craving contact, wanting to touch him even if it was selfish. After not having a body for so long, it was nearly a physical need. “Weird stuff keeps happening to me, right? The portal. The demons coming after me. Having a hobgoblin for a pet. That’s… that’s probably got something to do with me, at the very least.”

Bucky was quiet for a long moment. You waited, barely breathing, having no idea which way he would go. Continue to blame himself for everything, or allow someone else to shoulder the burden for once?

“I think we should talk to Strange,” he finally said.

You nearly melted with relief. This was good. Maybe you could talk to Strange and not involve Bucky at all with the weird time-loop, memory, magic stuff. At least Bucky could stop blaming himself for things he wasn’t responsible for.

Maybe Strange had been wrong about you being the magic equivalent of a dead battery. As much as you tried not to think about it, you knew something wasn’t normal if you were attracting demons left and right. What happened tonight just confirmed that something more was going on.

You just wished the Ancient One had been more clear about what she meant by training, not to mention that ominous bit of advice at the end. You were supposed to make a choice that would affect both of your lives? What the fuck? You were really beginning to understand Bucky’s frustration the wizards.

Hopefully, you could go to Strange for help without him finding out about the bond. It was a complicated balancing act you would somehow have to manage.

“I agree,” you said. “Your wizards are equipped to deal with this stuff, aren’t they?”

Bucky chuckled. He’d only been gone a few hours and you’d already missed that sound.

“They’re not my wizards, but yes.”

He made a low, comforting sound, almost like a purr, as he pulled you against his chest and petted your hair. Your eyelids drifted shut of their own accord, and you would have purred yourself if you could.

“Either way, I won’t run away again. I promise.”

Listening to his heartbeat, slow and steady against your ear pressed to his chest, you prayed it was a promise Bucky could keep. After the confusing but undeniable lifetime you’d spent together, you couldn’t imagine a life without him. You wanted to talk to him about everything you’d experienced in that place, but you were too tired, and Bucky’s breathing had already slowed to a steady rhythm. Tonight had taken a lot out of him, out of you both. The least you could do was get some rest.

But rest didn’t find you so easily. No matter how much you tried to push it out, the image of the dried-up corpse plagued your thoughts, and you eventually drifted into a restless sleep, dreaming it had your face. Long dead with a pentagram stretched across your shoulder.

Next Chapter

[screamting]

fic writer who asked for advice on writing bruce: the angle im taking is "more than anything, bruce is meant to be a father". hes a father figure in everything he does and i want that to be a focal point in my fic. yeah hes undoubtedly badass and accomplished but children are never afraid of him. more than anything, batman was birthed bc of compassion. thats what i want to write.

I started writing out a whole thing about parenthood but honestly it might be better than my computer ate it. But basically, instead of defining Bruce’s personality, you’ll be better off defining ‘fatherhood’.

I think that most people can agree that parenthood has a few necessary traits:

Attempt to protect children

Attempt to provide food and shelter for children

Place children in priority above the self (most of the time)

Teach everyday needs (usually manners and customs than algebra, but some parents ARE algebra teachers)

if All those traits aren’t in place, it’s probably not a parent. (but if you add in compassion and love, you get parenthood, which is maybe the difference between fatherhood and sperm donerhood)

I think what’s standing out in your ask is “ hes a father figure in everything he does” and “children are never afraid of him”

The thing I’m posing is this: not all abused kids hate their parents. sometimes, when someone takes away their abusive parent, that person is the villain in the scenario. Especially if the removal is violent and the child is right there to see it. If both parents are removed, the most likely paths will be foster care or homelessness. It’s easy and it makes sense to hate and fear someone putting you in that situation. So maybe the kid runs.

How do you chase a child and not scare them?

How do you turn that situation around into trust?

Bruce can’t adopt literally everyone in a bad situation (monetarily he can, but realistically he cannot parent that many people in a day), and Jason got adopted and was head over heels for a new pop, but how do you parent someone you may not ever see again? What about someone in juvy who’s in no place to trust anyone? Someone who’s been let down too many times? When he sees young adults with addiction knowing it’s a downward spiral but figuring it’d at least be nice to cushion the blow, knowing it will be even harder to turn it around-- and a process that takes years sometimes and you really need consistent support.

He doesn’t have to have a perfect, concrete answer to these situations, but I’m sure he’s encountered them on patrol in Gotham. Family (the ones you like) are meant to be the first line of defense when things come crashing down, and for someone like him who grew up with barely a thread to hold onto, I’m sure he wants to protect them. But either he pulls out a miracle cure, or he has to deal with the guilt of not parenting people who need it, right? Or does he just clamp down tighter over his own little family and try to separate them from the rest of the world and ensure they don’t endure what he’s seen out there? Does he project things he’s seen on the kids and miss their actual issues, or does he care so much sometimes people trust him, but they still don’t know if they want to tell him things?

I guess I’m thinking of when you’re driving down the road and you see a kitten on the side and have the instinct to pull over and pick them up, and then you have to ask if this new thing will end up hurting your current kids just by having one too many. parenthood feels like a series of very hard choices, and Bruce is admittedly very good at either making hard choices, or at finding a third option. So maybe he does strive for that miracle cure.

...I hope any of this was helpful, instead of just depression. I do however have a request that Bruce explains periods to one of his kids because I do very much want to see adult men (father figure is a bonus) who know about periods and are just chill about it. Like. Not even like “oh yeah i’m FEMINIST i know about PERIODS” but just like “ah. your bodily function has begun. you good? do you know what’s happening? hm. well. First of all let’s buy you a bidet and get you some pads but then we’re going to learn about uterine walls today.”

[emerald-echeveria-plant]

Bro I gotta stop making these ocs 💀

Name: Jeremiah Cassidy Shih

Name pronunciation: jeh-ruh-mai-uh Cas-si-di Sh-ih

Personality: non-talkative, hot-headed, secretive, hides his true emotions, and violent

Age: 15

Species: Human

Sexuality: Unknown

Gender: Male

Pronouns: He/Him

Looks: brown hair, blue eyes, white skin, and freckles

Backstory: (Dis is loooooong) Before getting in his past, we first have to talk about his mother, Anne Larson or as her actual birth name Chenguang Shih. Chenguang was the daughter of the notoriously known unhinged pirate, Baozhai. Baozhai ended up having Chenguang completely by accident after she had a one night stand with one of her crewmates. She decided to keep the baby, wanting to start a long line of pirates like her. Baozhai had the baby girl just around when her torment was finally being taken seriously by the royals. Unfortunately, Baozhai ended up passing away on her boat when a cannon caused it to come crashing down. Luckily, Chenguang was safe as she had been taken by Baozhai's right hand man, Ironbeard with her. He did his best to care for the girl, holding up the legacy his captain would've wanted. Yet, he was a wanted criminal along with the other crewmates that survived the crash, so taking care of her was very difficult. But Ironbeard still pushed through.

Unfortunately, Ironbeard and the other were caught by a couple of guards and locked away. A judge sentenced them to be publicly executed by hanging the next. As for baby Chenguang, she was taken away and raised by the captain of the guards. Her full name being changed to Anne Larson just a few days later. When the day arrived for Ironbeard and the others be hung, the guards were surprise to see that they had escaped during the night. Ironbeard swore revenge for his captain and that he would one day return. As for the baby, he couldn't find her and gave up as the guards were on his tail. He regretted to not have fulfilled Baozhai's wish and those guards were going to pay for what they had done.

As for Anne, she was raised to never know of the events that took place. Her adoptive father, also known as Maxwell Larson, had told her of Baozhai and how she was a psychopathic murder that deserved what she got. So, Anne grew up hating Baozhai despite the fact she was actually hating her own biological mother. As she grew, Anne became educated and sophisticated. She quickly rose up to be one of the smartest students in her class. Getting all A's and being presented with awards for her achievements. Anne was asked to join a university of astronomy which she gladly accepted.

While she was attending, she ended up meeting a handsome young man by the name of Aaron Brown. Aaron was the typical bad boy that would rather get into trouble then be in class. He was charming, funny, and very attractive... Aaron easily charmed Anne which made her fall in love with him. Instead of focusing on her studies, she'd often daydream about him. Anne just couldn't get him out of her head. Eventually, Aaron asked her out and they went on a date. Which spiraled into several dates... Which turned into them dating each other. Anne would often ditch class just to be with him. This caused her to fail her class. Maxwell was angry at her for this. He demanded she'd retake the year and to leave Aaron. Anne was too far in love with him and didn't give into what he wanted.

Instead, Anne ended up dropping out of the university to further pursue her relationship with Aaron. They got married a few months afterwards and left their home planet. Anne decided to work as a weaver as Aaron became a marine. A year into their marriage, it all came crumbling down. Anne became severely depressed as she realized she gave up her dreams of becoming an astrologist. Aaron no longer found her attractive and began to pursuing other women behind her back. They argued a lot more than usual and it began to get physical. Finally the rose tinted glasses came off and they began to see how bad their relationship was. Anne wanted to save their marriage because she couldn't bare the thought being alone. Aaron still wanting the good things that came in a relationship while secretly having side pieces, decided to work with her on their marriage. The two came to a conclusion that having a child would be the best way to solve it.

Six months later, Jeremiah was born. Surprise, surprise, their relationship didn't get any better. Poor Jeremiah was now thrown into the picture of a broken marriage. Aaron became abusive towards Anne and didn't allow her to leave the house without his say. She'd get hurt if he didn't listen to what he said. Jeremiah wasn't safe from his abusive nature also. If the lad dared to bother him, he'd be met with a smack to the face. For five straight years had Anne and Jeremiah endured the abuse of Aaron. Anne finally decided to break from Aaron's abuse when something terrible happened to Jeremiah. One night during a drunken rage, Aaron put his hands on Jeremiah and tore out his left eye with a broken bottle. The event made Anne realize how horrible the situation was getting and it wasn't going to change unless he did something about it.

So during the night, she grabbed whatever she could carry and escaped with Jeremiah. Anne went back to her home planet where asked a place to stay with her adoptive father. Maxwell would've turned her away but when he saw the situation she was very distressed. He quickly let her in, where she explained what happened to her over the course of the years she's been gone for. Maxwell decided he would help her get back on her feet and get her son some needed medical attention. With his connections, Anne was able to earn a job as an assistant for an astrologist. She began to focus on her mental health which got better overtime. The same couldn't be said for Jeremiah. His worsened.

The abuse of his father caused major trauma in him that he wasn't able to get over. He became quiet, easily angered by others, and had thoughts about violence. Since he only had one eye now, he was bullied by the other kids once he was able to go to school. This aggravated him and he'd often get into fights because of it. Anne decided to pull him out of public school and into homeschool because things were getting out of hand. Jeremiah was taken to several doctors to see what was wrong with him. Each time, he refused to say anything. Anne stopped trying to help him since he was refusing to help himself. Yet, he was just a child. A child who wanted help but didn't know how to say it. Maxwell, decided to take over for trying to help him. Or what he thought would help him. He sent Jeremiah to a boot camp where he'd be straightened out for his bad behavior. Jeremiah loathed Maxwell for this and promised himself he'd get revenge. Life at the boot camp was utter hell. He was pushed to limits that caused him to have mental breakdowns in private. Jeremiah didn't have any friends. This caused him to be the target of the bullying of the other boys there. Throughout the torment, he was able to find comfort in the tales of well known pirates. His favorite being of the insane pirate captain Baozhai. Something about her unhinged, eccentric personality and her cruel brutality against others whenever the messed with her, manged put a smile on his face. (Baozhai in an old photo: *tearing someone's guts out.*

Jeremiah: 🙂)

At fourteen years old, Jeremiah made surprising a discovery that he was biological related to Baozhai. He had overheard Maxwell chatting with another guard about how he was glad Anne never grew up knowing that she was related to that maniac. Yet now that Jeremiah knew, he was angry that this knowledge was withheld from him. Why would they do such a thing? He tried telling his mother about this... His mother called him crazy... crazy... crazy...

That was the breaking point for Jeremiah. For a majority of his life, he was told that there was something wrong with him and that he needed help. Often being titled mentally ill or not alright in the head... Despite knowing he was, he was just tired of being treated like one.

Jeremiah ended up running away from his home planet by hiding on a cargo ship. He wanted to start somewhere fresh, where he wouldn't be as well known. He also wanted to know more about Baozhai, since most books didn't have enough information about her having a child, other than speculated rumors. For a while, he traveled around places, in search for more knowledge about his grandmother aka Baozhai. That's when he walked into a small tavern. He tried to figure out where else he could ask about her. An anonymous figure in the corner asked why he was wanted to learn about these things. Jeremiah, in the best way he could, explained that Baozhai was his grandmother. The tavern exploded into laughter after hearing him say that. They mocked him for a bit until the anonymous figure silenced the entire tavern by shooting a random person. They stood up and recounted the tale of Baozhai's fall. How she wanted the death of the upper class to continue. It was originally her plan to make a line of pirates to be like her. Then it was all ruined because of the guards. How he admitted that he failed because he wasn't careful enough... It was Ironbeard recounting all of this. He decided to continue with what she would've wanted... If Jeremiah wanted to join him. Jeremiah quickly took the deal, seeing as there was nothing holding him back now. On the outside, it didn't seem he was all too excited but on the inside, he was thrilled to finally be apart of something... And that he'd get to be just like his idol.

Likes: sharp objects, creepy bugs, reading, drawing, smoking cigars, and cats

Dislikes: his left eye, being told he's crazy, others trying to get close to him, physical affection (even though he sorta wants it), and long conversations

Other: Jeremiah doesn't like being called Jeremy or Jerry or literally any nickname to his name. If someone calls him "Jeremy" he would literally rip out their tonsils.

[electrivolt]

// The way Volkner’s father tried to raise him was far from good, for many reasons. It started off simply as harsh and strict methods coupled with instances of neglect when he failed to meet his father's standards, but as time went on things sort of just... spiraled.

For most of his early years, Volkner had been largely ignored by his father, addressed when needed and told what to do. His accomplishments were largely in an attempt to please his father, unknowingly seeking his approval as much as he could, never quite getting it when something that could be considered surprising by normal children's standards was barely acceptable for his father, yet expected anyways. ( and yet people wondered how such a gifted child could crash and fall like he did— )

His taking in Shinx and starting to pick fights was largely his own anger and powerlessness at his own situation finding the only way available to him to let it all out, and part of it was his lashing out in an attempt to finally get his father's attention after being ignored for so long. This, coupled with Palmer's "bad" influence that his father was perceiving, is what started to lead his father's parenting down to a much harsher path. It started with being stricter than before with Volkner, and then turned worse.

In some twisted way, his father had started trying to implement the methods he used to train his own team. They both were wild and out of control, so in a way it should work, right? So long as he was careful and knew how to keep matters under control ( and he should know that well, if control was what he seeked— ) it would be fine, right?

And that's how he started effectively punishing him in an attempt to regain the control Volkner started wrestling away from him. The most common one was using food as a punishment, not allowing him meals when he misbehaved. Often Volkner would end up forced to go back to his room without food, and having to save what he did have in order to keep Luxray fed didn't help— and yet he was still too stubborn, only sometimes being quiet and better behaved to get something before he could keep going, more often ending up picking berries while he was outside to either sneak them into his room or eat right away. This is basically what has shaped the poor eating habits he carries nowadays, most days spent with barely a meal when he remembers ( and the depression itself isn't stopping it ), only worsened by his ADHD and constant forgetting of taking care of himself.

Verbal abuse became a frequent thing, an attempt at wearing him down coupled with gaslighting, the constant reminder that Volkner was all alone, the reminder over and over that he was overdoing it. That he was being ungrateful when his father had still tried to raise him despite how he was turning out to be. That his father hadn’t quite given up on him yet, for better or worse, and talking as if Volkner should’ve been grateful for that. Much more subtle, yet still very clear, were the various threats of getting rid of Luxray one way or another, his father still believing him to be one of the reasons alongside Palmer that his son started acting out.

Eventually, it escalated into getting rougher on a physical level, mostly grabbing and shoving whenever Volkner got too aggressive, just enough to force him to stop and rethink what he would be doing. With how often Volkner would get into quite violent fights, it’s always been easy for either of them to excuse whatever bruise was visible as a result of said gihts. ( not as if Volkner himself would want to admit to the truth to anyone— )

What perhaps might’ve been the worst in Volkner’s eyes, however, was the way his father tried to use fear to demand respect and keep control. While Volkner had always been wary of his team after all he had wtinessed during his father’s battles, it never had been much of an issue— his father never liked the mess they could cause around the house, and as such never allowed them to freely roam in it. ( unlike Volkner’s Luxray, yet another thing he despised, as trivial as it was ) Then, came the day his father pushed him into that battle. The intensity of the battle was stressful enough, but seeing the ‘mons turning against him like they did, threatening to harm him like they did— not only was that enough to cause lasting trauma, but his father was completely aware of this, and not above using his team to intimidate Volkner, even when he would’ve never allowed them to go any further than that. The Nidoking incident only further cemented this trauma and the effects his father using this to keep him under control would have.

[echo-three-one]

Whatever It Takes

Sequel to A Forgotten Memory

Soap and France joins Alexandra Ryder, an INTERPOL Agent tasked to eliminate all pieces of EMP-based weaponry as they investigate one of Berlin's cell towers for a possible source of a planned wide scale EMP blast. Will the team capture Augustus?

Chapter 11 to another story made by Ray (echo-three-one) Comments and Reviews appreciated! I hope you enjoy! Love you all ❤️

Previous Chapter : The Heart Knows what the Mind doesn't

“The Berlin Tower”

John ‘Soap��� MacTavish

Task Force 141 with INTERPOL

Berlin, Germany

Soap was kinda bummed that this isn’t a Nero case and that Ghost and Roach got to tag along with Captain Price on a possible lead. But he had to do what was instructed of him, it was a low chance for Augustus to be in this tower but he and France are on a joint operation with INTERPOL to disable the planted attachment on this tower. It’s for a great cause.

He nodded to Agent Ryder as she signaled them both to advance, he smirked slightly at France’s sight as she looked horrible at that camo paint. He noted to himself to tell her that as soon as this mission is over.

“Remember Sargeant, remind us about signs of Augustus and we’ll get there ASAP.” Soap remembered Shepherd’s words that will be his objective for this mission. He followed France and guarded her Six, secretly admiring her figure while he did it. He may show hostility toward the female soldier, but he kinda admires her determination, her attitude towards work and her face in general. He may be against relationships while on the job but he considered asking her out after all of this was over, with less EMP blasts would be better.

“Soap! Advance now! Can you hear me?” France hinted at him over comms as he quickly responded and moved to the next position. The huge iron tower loomed before the squad as they scaled the treacherous cliffside.

“Ryder, what’s the situation over there?” the pilot asked.

“Looks like illegal settlers found themselves a home at the base of the tower. We’ll be watching you from down here.” she replied, France caught a glance of Soap and they nodded to each other reminding themselves to be wary of Augustus.

Soap eyed his scope toward the settlement camp as the helo ascended up the tower, he noticed that they were detaching the houses of their roofs, revealing a missile-like structure.

“SAM!” Soap yelled over comms but he was too late. Rockets ejected from the machine and headed straight for the helo. The pilot fired a flare, deflecting the first wave of missiles but another one quickly followed, sending them to spin out of control.

The settlers followed the helicopter as it crashed down the cliff, making sure that no one escaped to tell the tale of the tower’s secret. This was their time to move, the unexpected diversion they created actually turned the battle into their favor.

"All teams advised to proceed with caution." Alexandra informed as the small group proceeded to rustle the leaves and advanced to the base of the tower.

"Doesn't this thing have elevators? Who in the world would think stairs would be appropriate here?" an agent complained upon seeing the spiraling steps of the tower.

"Let's split." Alexandra instructed.

"We circle back to the other side and plant c4 charges on the SAM sites on the far end of the settlement. Everyone nodded and the team's demolitions expert provided them c4 charges.

Soap carefully kept his while France continued to support Agent Ryder. This also splits the two 141 members in case Augustus is on the other half of the settlement. He nodded France a 'see you soon' gesture as the rest of the team parted ways and proceeded to objective.

Soap carefully crept across the small entrance of the village, eyeing his sights on the critical corners of the area. He knew most of the people inside investigated the chopper crash and that leaves their base wide open for a surprise attack. He continued hugging the thin walls of the settlement, signaling the rest of the small squad to cover each other.

The other team split up as they entered the base, taking care of the other side of their half.

It was too quiet. No weapons were being fired, could it be that the base is really empty?

"What's everyone's sitrep? Over." Alexandra whispered softly over comms.

"It's too quiet." Soap replied.

"Stay frosty." She replied. Soap signaled the two other agents to cover for him as he entered the house which housed one of the four SAM turrets.

"C4 is planted." he announced. Everyone else seemed to plant theirs as well.

"Let's regroup and detonate. I'm already seeing them fleeing back here."

"Rog." everyone else noted and stepped to objective. Then a single shot was fired, hitting one of Soap's team on the shoulder.

"Get down!" He roared as they looked for cover, and just like that, the team's cover was already blown and reinforcements were already on their way back from the crash.

"They're closing in. It's too critical! Try to stay away from the turrets! We'll have to detonate from danger close and extract!" Alexandra ordered over comms. Soap was too busy shooting tangos but they just kept on surrounding them.

The ground shook violently as one of the cornet SAM sites exploded, crippling the enemies which provided Soap a small window of opportunity to move away from the turret and shoot the nearby enemies.

"Let's push forward!" He commanded. It was a matter of life and death as the forces surrounding them began to regroup.

"None of our troops from the blast site are responding!" Ryder yelled desperately, the hope in her voice started to fade.

"Shit! We're doing a danger close detonation grab onto something!" The second quadrant team yelled as another explosion shook the ground. Instead of moving forward, Soap's team actually fell back as the large wave started to surround them, pressuring the team not to detonate the remaining two SAMs.

"We're surrounded by a helluva lot of tangos Ryder. You have to detonate the closest one to you so the bird can extract! We'll make a run for it." Soap yelled at the team leader.

"Shit! France, cover me while I make a run for it." Ryder yelled over comms. A few seconds later the third SAM site exploded, leaving Soap's SAM the only one left.

The blast's heat crawled through MacTavish's skin as he took one step back firing enemies conservatively. He threw his rifle straight at the closing enemy's head and switched to his sidearm. He took another step back and he already felt the warm surface of the humming SAM turret, looking up at the sky, ready to assault any flying object it sees. If only he could get his team so move at a safe distance away from it and finally click his detonator.

He peeked through the opening to check on his team, one already fell flat on the ground while the other one was taking heavy fire.

"Shit." he cursed and quickly hid his head as bullets started ricocheting toward him. He took a quick peek at his inventory and did the math. If he played his cards right, he had a slim chance of saving the other ally and actually making it out alive.

He took another peek and started his plan, but all that's left of his remaining ally was a lying dead body on a pool of crimson colored liquid. He was now alone. Mission Impossible.

He hid back and inhaled. He was running out of hope, he wanted to make it out alive. He wanted to ask France out for a date. He still wanted to see tomorrow's sunrise.

Soap desperately grabbed his trusty sidearm and shot each approaching enemy. One bullet per person meant he could fend off at least 48 of them, assuming he hits everyone in the head. His teammates were nowhere to be found and the rescue helicopter was already whirring at the distance.

Ryder and what's left of her team were slowly gathering by the extraction zone while Soap was still stuck in a pinch. It looked like the enemies didn't care about them and focused their attention on the remaining Scotsman. Strength in Numbers.

Overpowered and quickly running out of bullets, Soap ran for it, staying low on the ground, blindly evading flying bullets and clicking his detonator. He hoped to use the blast as a boost to further push him to France's direction but the way his body bent blew him sideways, toward the center of the base. Soap's body slammed against the makeshift walls as he rolled to the ground rendering him almost unconscious.

He coughed and struggled to get up, limping toward a safe wall, leaning against the soft walls, and gasping for air.

"It's no use, France. We can't stay here any longer. We have to ascend." Ryder advised as Soap struggled to get up, his vision blurred and his ears rang.

Soap wanted to talk but his hands were too injured to press the button, he rolled his eyes and scanned the area. His teammates were already gone, and he felt blood trickled against his cheek, while his mouth tasted like iron. With the last bit of strength he showed his game face and pointed his gun while his arms trembled from exhaustion.

"Last seven bullets. So this is how it ends." he chuckled, trying to make the situation a lot less depressing.

"One." he fired, the tango was close enough that he actually got pushed back on impact.

"Two." he fired, making an approaching tango cripple and fall.

"Three." he shot but missed, clicking his tongue.

"Four. Finally" he exhaled, squaring the target straight through the head.

"Fi-" he got kicked, causing him to drop the sidearm as he rolled to the ground.

"John! Noooo!" France's voice filled comms. Soap tried to reach his hand to the flying helicopter with the last of his strength, but it was no use. He couldn't move his leg or roll his body due to the stomps he kept getting. His vision slowly faded and the last thing he heard was France sobbing through comms.

Next Chapter : Uninvited Guests

Notification Squad my beloved

@beemybee @enderio @smokeywhalee @samatedeansbroccoli @ricinbach @whimsywispsblog

[hahanoiwont]

@bluerose2017 replied to this post: I feel that Frisk would get along so well with the more murder type sanses. Like Dust Sans from Dusttale, Nightmare, Killer, and Error. Frisk would understand their motives for being the bad guys.

Yes!!! oh boy, yes. ok ok let's go down a really self-indulgent path with this, alright? we're about to have good fun. which i will put under a cut bc it may get long. (EDIT: haha yeah it got long. multiverse shenanigans ahoy)

so let's say Frisk follows the path from Fall Into Grace. They go straight to Horrortale, and they stay there for a bit--sure, Ht!Sans starts out hostile, but the both of them slowly learn to trust each other. By inches, they try to come to understand each other. They both have in common that they were lurched from a deeply violent society into Regular Undertale (but spooky); they both clearly broadcast their trust issues, and therefore can work on them together. At the end of Horrortale, they're planning on sticking it out together on the Surface.

Then Frisk disappears. In Horrortale, their disappearance is while Sans is looking elsewhere--it's just like HT!Frisk's disappearance originally, except this time, they got everyone to the Surface first.

So now, Horror is having his triggers stomped on. Not a fan. He wonders at first if this is just what happens--maybe Frisk is meant to disappear, and HT!Frisk didn't mean to abandon the Underground to its fate. Maybe Frisk isn't a human at all, but some sort of apparition that appears periodically and vanishes just as quick. Maybe he's still starving and it's all a delusion his mind made for him as he's dying.

Or maybe Red crashes through, absolutely ready to shoot first and ask questions later. And suddenly Horror has his answers. Alternate universes. Obviously. Very stabby alternate universes.

Frisk, meanwhile, lands in Dusttale.

Dusttale, to my knowledge, is the AU where the human (whether it's Frisk, Chara, or the player is unclear to me) does genocide after genocide, resetting dozens or hundreds of times until not only does Sans remember, he also goes insane. Given the inevitability of all his friends dying, and how his low stats prevent him from fighting the human until they've killed enough people that his karma effect becomes useful, he decides he's going to kill everyone, gain the LV for it, and then kill the human as soon as they come around.

This is not a great situation for Frisk to be wandering into. Given that they're nearly identical (clothing aside) to their Dusttale counterpart, and Sans is insane anyway, they're not likely to see mercy in this world. Frisk walks in, sees that Sans is crazy, dies, walks in, sees that Sans is crazy, dies, walks in...

Eventually, a la WT!Swapfell, Frisk figures out the right ways to dodge as much as possible of the initial ambush; but they can survive for minutes at a time, if that. This Sans's stats are hopelessly inflated, and he doesn't play fair. It comes down to their DETERMINATION versus his, in a mirror of the same struggle that drove him crazy in the first place. This time, Sans is inevitably killing every monster, and Frisk is the one who can't save them. But, in a conflict of interests like this, Frisk is always going to win--they have an unfair advantage, straight out. They're simply more DETERMINED.

Eventually, Sans is stumbling bleakly through his genocide, disassociated to the point of hardly understanding what he's doing and why. He kills people because he kills people. He has a vague certainty that he's keeping them safe, but he doesn't understand how. He knows that he used to be different. He knows this is somehow Frisk's fault. But his ability to remember across RESETs is being buried under his inability to think straight under the massive trauma. He doesn't understand why he's killing his brother. He knows he doesn't want to. He knows that Frisk can probably tell him, but he also needs to kill Frisk very quickly, before they can gain EXP from...the piles of dust?...because there are no surviving monsters to kill.

He finally stops before killing Frisk and asks them why. Why are they making him do this over and over again? Why are they looking at him like that? Why is everyone dead? Why, when he's felt so numb for so long, does it still feel like it hurts?

Frisk has no idea why this Sans has killed everyone. Months have passed in increments of a day or less, as Sans swiftly and efficiently executes all of his neighbors. He's learned every place that people will go, and he shows up where the most people are congregated at a given point in time, leaving nothing but dust by the time Frisk gets through the Ruins. They've never gotten out in time to save a single monster. They're pretty sure Sans is possessed, or something, because this isn't something he would ever do (insert irony with Red's desire to kill literally everyone in Underfell).

When Sans doesn't kill them right out the gate, as it were, they begin to hope that whatever has been forcing him to do this has let go, or at least worn out enough that he's beginning to fight through it. They're not totally wrong--whatever is left of Sans is waking up, a little bit, as he leaves behind his scripted execution.

Frisk goes to Dust and tries to hold him, rocking back and forth like Red would do for them when they woke up out of a nightmare. He almost kills them for it, but what's the point? They'd just come back, and Dust would have to kill everyone one more time. He's tired. He lets them do what they want. It mostly makes him feel worse, but he doesn't stop them.

There's a strong parallel here to Going Big; Going Home. In that story, Red went into a deep depression spiral for months following his realization that he couldn't bring himself to kill every monster in existence even if it would save his brother; in this story, Dust has killed everyone already and no longer sees any point in much of anything, struggling to understand what has happened to him and why he did what he did. He wants to Fall Down quietly, but his newfound stats and his desire to survive until he's sure Frisk is dead won't let him. Also, Frisk is standing in his way.

Seeing as Dust is apparently going to be docile and passive for the time being, Frisk takes his hand and walks him through Snowdin.

They see a vision of a massacre.

Piles of dust, items lying around as if people just dropped dead in the middle of whatever they were doing. Doors are hanging open from where people went to greet their friendly neighborhood skeleton and ask what he was knocking for, only to die in seconds. The Underground was only somewhat prepared for a human to go through and get violent, and they weren't prepared at all for one of their own to kill them. Frisk sees every evidence of a very efficient, merciless slaughter. Dust is looking blankly at it all, like he can't quite put together what it means.

Frisk gets a strong feeling that they shouldn't visit their brothers' home.

Instead, they bring him to a cabin far removed from town, visible only from Glyde's ledge, and push him to sit in a wooden armchair. They pat his hand to tell him to stay there while they look through the cabin for dust. They don't find any. Dust could have told them they wouldn't, except that he's having trouble finding his voice right now. He waits where they put him until they give him the all clear.

He's supposed to watch the human. They're supposed to be doing something for him to watch them for. But the kid in front of him seems mostly interested in holding his hand and trying to smile for him. He sits in stasis, with his drive all run out but without anything else to turn to.

The first week is mostly silent. Frisk doesn't speak, and doesn't really communicate anything that Dust would need a response for. Dust chats with his hallucination of Papyrus sometimes, but since Frisk can't see him, the conversations end there.

On a given day, Frisk will set Dust up in the chair with a book that they've decided he'd like, sometimes with a blanket or a glass of milk to go with it, and they'll venture out to the Underground. Dust will shadow them from a distance as they investigate for survivors. There aren't any. They'll come home with some supplies and fill up the cupboards. Dust will already be there, right where they left him, with the book opened up to a random different page than before. If it's towards the end of the book, Frisk will decide that he liked it and try to find more books of that kind.

They'll go to the kitchen and try to put something together for dinner, and Dust will take all the cooking implements from them and actually make the thing they're trying at. He silently revokes their cooking privileges when they try to shatter a bottle of vinegar into a salad. Papyrus says he should have just eaten it. He also says that Dust is infecting Frisk with his horrible tastes in food, just like he's probably infecting them with the dust on his hands. How long until they're a killer like him? Dust tries to argue that they were the killer in the first place, but the words ironically die in his mouth. The truth is bitter, and he's not even sure what it is anymore.

After that, Frisk is allowed to taste test and get ingredients, and otherwise they're watching with their eyes and not their hands.

Once the food is eaten and cleaned up, Frisk will bring out something for the two of them to do together. Board games, card games, hangman, puzzles. Frisk always deals for two. Dust doesn't see a point in fighting them on it, which Frisk decides is a very hopeful sign. Sometimes he breaks the rules and just sort of moves one thing to another spot blindly, but he is moving!

Frisk usually wins these games on account of being the only one paying attention, but since they let him keep his illegal moves, he wins Sorry by sorta pushing his pawns into his safety zone on the fourth turn. After the game, Frisk always decides it's bedtime, gives Dust another book, and leads him to a bedroom, where they leave him to take it from there. Rinse and repeat the next morning.

The second week, Dust starts glancing at the titles of the books he's given, and maybe the summary if it seems interesting. He tells them not to bring him encyclopedias anymore. They bring him a dictionary instead. It takes him four minutes to decide whether killing them is an appropriate response.

(Verdict: no. It wouldn't make a difference, anyway.)

The third week, he walks with them on an outing. Frisk steers away from population centers and takes a back way through Waterfall to look at the lights. They sit there in silence--even Papyrus is quiet. The echo flowers have each had their messages replaced with a single, loud clap. Nobody says, "Why are you doing this? What--Sans, wait, wait--!"

The fourth week, Dust starts reading the books he's supposedly been reading all day during the night. It's weird to feel bored in the ashes of civilization. He tells Frisk short, single-sentence descriptions of the more interesting ones. They seem happy. Dust is pretty sure there's some sort of Stockholm syndrome going on here, but he's not sure which way it goes.

One universe over, Red and Horror are searching through a universe that seems like it's had some extradimensional interference, but it can't possibly be the one Frisk is in, because it's a dead Underground. As far as they can tell, there are no survivors. Still, they keep coming back to it--it's the only potential positive they've found. And even though the universe seems to be a dead end, things keep moving in it--a book vanished here, a cupboard rearranged there. It's like someone is very stealthily looting the place.

After seven weeks of quiet, routine days with quiet, routine ups and downs, Dust is taking charge of a few things. He tells Frisk what groceries to get, and decides what to make for meals. He's attempting his first joke in a long time when he dryly bans Monopoly forever, but somewhat to his surprise, Frisk listens. The Monopoly board doesn't come out again. He's not sure what to make of this--that the person who drove him crazy is the person who's trying to make him sane. Most of the time, he chooses to forget that there's anything but this. Two people exist in the world, and one of them is an unstoppable killer and the other is a patient, even-tempered pacifist. He can't even tell which one is which anymore. It's whatever.

Left to his own devices, Dust may have spent years or longer like that. The Underground may not have the resources to sustain all of its inhabitants without things like farmers or energy, but it's got plenty for two people. But Frisk writes a very short letter for him, saying, can we try again? Can you not kill Papyrus? I miss him and I want him to be alive.

Well, with an argument like that.

Dust doesn't really want to see a RESET. It feels like it isn't worth it, having everyone alive again just to watch them die. Even if Frisk doesn't kill them, who's to say Dust won't? Even if he doesn't kill them, who's to say that Frisk won't, either? Maybe the Underground will just cave in. Dust is sure he can't have that life again, surrounded by living people when even Frisk and his hallucinations seem like a crowd sometimes. He's pretty sure his LV stopped going down a few RESETs ago. He doesn't think he can be Sans again.

Eventually, he decides it doesn't really matter what he wants. Frisk will do whatever they want and there's nothing he can do to stop them.

After the RESET, Dust wakes up to his brother's voice, telling him it's time to start the day, and also his brother's ghost, already with him as always. He goes to the square just to see if he's gonna lose it and kill everyone, and now that he's looking, he notices the split-second flinches when people recognize him. Most of them don't even notice it in themselves, but they know he's something dangerous. He heads to the Ruins door and waits.

It's easier once Frisk comes out. No one in the Ruins is dead. Dust and Frisk both didn't kill them, this time around. If he sticks really close to Frisk, he can pretend everyone's apprehension is just for the human in their midst. After all, Frisk is just as much a killer as he is. It's not his fault his LV's stuck at 20.

Frisk has a tough time making friends. The people of the Underground seem to expect them to be some terrifying killer, and everyone seems to want to protect each other by killing Frisk. It doesn't help that Dust doesn't like people in his space much, and flashes his spooky-eye look at anyone who gets within about three feet of the two of them. They're not quite sure who he thinks he's protecting, but they trust him to have good reasons to do what he does.

The only time Dust leaves their side for any significant period is when they're with the real, alive Papyrus, who frets about his brother. Sans has gone missing, he explains, but no one will believe him because they've all seen him around. But he hasn't come home. People who don't come home are missing. So Sans is missing. He's certainly missing dinner, and Papyrus needs to get him to come home before he eats nothing but ketchup and grease for his meals. Frisk knows their own Papyrus well enough to see what he isn't saying--that Papyrus needs to get him to come home before anything bad can happen to him. That Sans disappearing when he seems so listless and blank can't be a good thing. That Papyrus is scared for his brother.

Dust can't stand to see his living brother. The idea puts him in a cold sweat. If Papyrus is living, then Papyrus can die. He prefers the phantom--cruel as he is, at least he'll never leave Dust alone. Dust can never hurt him and never kill him. Frisk can't even see him. As long as Dust is alive to see him, Papyrus's ghost is safe.

When Frisk breaks the Barrier, Dust disappears quickly afterwards. They find him standing alone a little farther down the cliffside, isolating himself; and they grab his hand again like they always do, to bring him back home. They're surprised when they fall out of the world--they almost forgot. They'd almost hoped it wouldn't happen.

Dust doesn't try to stop them. Just like always, he follows them through. He kind of hopes for oblivion, for an end to choices that he always makes into mistakes, but he's not so lucky. He wakes up to Frisk's frantic shaking in a patch of flowers far Underground. This is Underswap, and Dust is about to have a horrible day.

I think in this AU, I'm going to leave Killer's story--mostly because I don't know his backstory very well, just that he's Nightmare's right hand man and assorted other factoids. And since Nightmare isn't technically a Sans, just the embodiment of negative emotions, his universe wouldn't even be in the running for Frisk to land in--similarly, I am too charmed by Error's story to change it. So here's where I think this goes from here.

Nightmare arrives in Horrortale, intending to recruit Horror. The guy's life is miserable, there's no reason for him not to hop out of his universe to cause mayhem as long as it's better than starving. But the universe isn't the same anymore. Nightmare considers wrecking stuff in order to snack off of negative emotions, but Horror and Red are scanning the hell out of the universe, so Horror is able to pick up on a hole being punched in it and appear in a matter of minutes. He asks why Nightmare is here, and Nightmare says honestly that he was here to recruit him as part of a small team to complete certain missions, embodiment of negativity, eternal struggle in the multiverse between Nightmare and Dream, food and five-star lodging provided, etc. But it seems like he's got something going here, so...?

Nightmare is honestly fairly impressed that someone noticed him entering the universe so quickly, and he's hoping Horror may still be interested. It's too bad that Nightmare can't get Horror's lifelong trust and allegiance by rescuing him from a bad situation, but he's certain he can make it work. He only has one minion as of right now, that being Killer, and he'd like to have at least one more (if only so Killer will stop bothering him when he's trying to Plot Evilly. Also, Dream has two friends to Nightmare's one minion, and Nightmare can't be lagging behind, that's just unacceptable).

Horror may not need immediate rescue himself, but he sure knows someone who does. He asks a few careful questions about the multiverse--would i be able to visit other universes on my own? Yes. am i allowed to interfere with other universes? Encouraged, even. Especially where spreading misery is concerned. can i take someone out of a universe if they don't belong in it? What an oddly specific question. Nightmare is beginning to think he'll have a way to endear himself to Horror, after all.

Horror dismisses his questions as mostly being about the job he'll be doing--after all, if he's fighting people who travel between universes, of course he'd want to know if there are ways to track people across universes, or to tell if there's someone in a universe that doesn't belong there. Nightmare lets it pass without comment for the time being, but decides to keep an eye on the situation, to try to figure out what exactly Horror is looking for. If he's willing to leave his whole life behind and set himself up for a lifetime of fighting just for a chance to find it, then Nightmare has an easy way to earn his eternal loyalty. Muahaha.

Now of course, this is all for Evil reasons and not because Nightmare isn't sure how to make people like him if he doesn't provide some service or do some great favor for them. He certainly hasn't seen people love his brother for the happiness he provides, and said "I could do that >:( I could do Good Things for people and then they would Like Me and not hate me >:( and in fact I would do it while being Very Evil so I know they'll like me for me and not just because I'm, for example, a paragon of light and hope in the multiverse >>:( and then I would have better friends than Dream. and he will be super jealous. because i will have friends who like me. so there >>>:( this is what WINNING looks like, brother >:("

Now this would leave Red in the awkward position of being in the wrong universe and also missing in his own universe. I am not sure what I want to do with him here--he could come with Horror, and just sorta hang out as a Bad Sans. I know he's not normally one, but he comes from Edgy Universe so I could see it? But also, I know canonically Error steals from Red's chocolate supply, so I think it would be kind of hilarious if Error's been pissed bc his stock isn't being replenished, being as Red isn't around to buy more. And Nightmare could just. dump Red back in Underfell. Both as a favor to Error, to try to secure his loyalties at least a little, and as a show of how Powerful and Evil he is for his brand new recruit. Both options are tempting...I am undecided. But uh, something happens with Red. He is somewhere. Horror probably wouldn't just ditch him in Horrortale on his lonesome.

Now, Horror and Killer get along alright. Killer's got the sarcastic fast-talker charm, and Horror is getting used to being able to hold conversations at a normal speed again. And both of them get along with Nightmare. Killer is witty and challenging, and Horror is loyal and hardworking and (VERY important) knows how to cook great meals. No more mediocre fried rice. Scrambled eggs are no longer mysteriously watery. It is shocking how much home life improves with good food, and Horror is a big fan of having a seemingly endless pantry. His stipulation that a portion of everything gets sent home to Papyrus is a pain at first, but it's not so bad once it gets ingrained as a normal part of mealtimes. Sometimes his Papyrus visits, and that goes about as well as meeting family members of a dear friend for the first time can go. A bit awkward, but it settles into something positive.

The only weird thing is, with every new universe, Horror insists on making sure there's no one there who isn't native to that universe before havoc can begin. It's not a huge pain or anything, and it is a good move strategically, but it's a very specific request. Once it happens enough for Killer to get curious, it isn't long until the cat's out of the bag--a story of a sibling accidentally cast aside, a world that was cruel and unfair to them, a misunderstanding that made their brother think they were horrible and abandoned him to an awful fate when actually they'd done nothing wrong, and an endless journey that never seems to point home. And Horror was willing to put aside everything to try to bring them back--if not home, then at least to somewhere safe. To build new common ground together, after the old grounds went up in flames. To understand their side of it and see that they weren't wrong even if things looked kinda bad on their end, actually everything they did was completely justified, Dream--

Suffice to say that Nightmare is sympathetic. That is, he can see the strategic advantage to helping Horror find this sibling of his, and reunite them. Because then he'll have an endlessly loyal minion, and probably also an endlessly loyal minion-in-training. Obviously. He doesn't even believe in brotherly love, so obviously it's not out of some imagined desire to see his friend family underling scrape a happy ending out of what seems like an unrecoverable falling-out (complete with literal falling, in this case) with his sibling. It's just a matter of spending a tiny amount of effort searching for a months-old trace of a magical trail that's interrupted by not existing in some parts on account of time travel.

Killer iirc can't feel much of anything but hate, but he doesn't hate Horror, and it's not like he's forgotten what emotions are entirely. He does want the guy to be happy. They're kinda buds and Horror watches obscure competition shows at 3am with him when they both can't sleep. It'd be a little awkward to have a Frisk around, but at least it's not Chara. Most people he meets on a day-to-day basis are technically versions of him, anyway, and it's not like he can't differentiate them. He'd put up with it for Horror's sake. He'll only stab them if they're possessed, probably.

Thing is, when they do find Frisk (eventually Nightmare thinks to call in a favor from Error), Frisk is traveling universe to universe with some apathetic LV 20 Sans who is still trying to figure out when murder is and isn't the way he wants to solve his problems. Namely with other Sanses, since he has enough self-hatred that he can't imagine it's much of a loss. Thing is, he fcking hates it when Frisk time-travels, and it makes Frisk miserable, too, so he can't just murder every Sans who annoys him even slightly...but most Sanses don't take kindly to some LV 20 stranger wandering through...which means everything would just be easier if they were to go missing...not like more dust on his hands is gonna make a difference, right?

But no, Frisk always insists on going back to when the local Sans was alive, and it's just a waste of time and energy. So Dust mostly doesn't kill anyone who isn't a real jerk first. Mostly.

This is the scene that Nightmare & Co come upon when they finally catch up. They have to take a moment to regroup, because who even is this guy? He never leaves Frisk's side for long (local Sanses have a tendency to ambush and kill him for being a violent lunatic if they can get him alone, and then at least one party dies, and then time travel, etc.), he talks to thin air, he's generally Kinda Creepy.

Their initial thought is to try to get Frisk alone, but Dust in this time has noticed that they're being followed by a group of very suspicious characters, and tells Frisk to go on ahead while he lurks. It comes to a pretty devastating battle, between Dust's combat prowess and the gang's equally impressive abilities (Killer having done his own geno run, Nightmare having an impressive body count and also massive raw power on account of being kind of a demigod, and Horror himself being no slouch in combat). Frisk sits over in the next room like they're in the waiting room for a dentist's office, poking at echo flowers and waiting for their brother to be done with Mysterious Errands while ignoring three separate variations of Megalovania in the background.

Then Frisk figures, wait, there are a maximum of two Sanses...but three Megalovanias...that ain't right. Also, Dust said he wasn't gonna kill the local Sans this time. He didn't promise, but he said he would try, so he really shouldn't be sneaking off to pick fights. This is the conclusion Frisk comes to about six seconds before the wall is destroyed by stray blaster fire.

What they see through the wall is Dust, teleporting right out of combat to make sure they didn't get hurt or vaporized, and out of the rubble they can make out a goopy octopus Sans, a Target Sans (which makes other Sanses...walmart brand? food for thought), and a Sans that takes a second to place, because they really weren't expecting to see Horror here. And fighting Dust. Frisk is disappointed in him.

When the dust (magical and otherwise) settles, everyone ends up having a civilized conversation by the combined forces of Frisk and Nightmare. Killer and Dust were having fun, but not much was getting accomplished with massive property damage. It comes out that Nightmare's crew was coming by to get Frisk and rescue them from their endless tumble through the multiverse (which Error claims is giving him a headache anyway), and Frisk is very happy to agree to that part, and also to go live in a cool castle "for the time being." Allegedly, they will find somewhere else to stay soon, because Nightmare is not running a daycare for wayward interdimensional youth.

Frisk's condition is that Dust has to come with them, since he's been hopping through dimensions following them for so long now that they don't know what they'd do without him. Literally, every time the Barrier comes down, he waits for the hole in the world to open, takes a couple warm-up steps, and dives through after Frisk--he hasn't found a universe he could stand to stay in, yet. He hates the idea of living among people he remembers killing over and over again. At least if he follows Frisk around, he's with someone who seems to care about him for mystery reasons, and he might some day find an AU he'd be okay with. Maybe whichever one they settle with, if they find a way to stop falling. Which, it seems like they've got an opportunity here.

Nightmare is a-okay with gathering another unhinged duckling to take under his wing and occasionally let loose on unsuspecting universes (it's enrichment!!). He's seen that Dust is a great fighter, not too broken up about collateral, and having him around will make Frisk happy and therefore Horror will also be happy, therefore eternal loyalty, profit, etc.

(It has been a long time since Nightmare has been able to make someone he loves happy. It's been even longer since it's been so easy--what's one more mouth to feed? What's one more person who thinks Nightmare is capable of good without changing who he is?)

So Dust and Frisk end up moving in and Dust takes his place with the Bad Sanses.

Now there are a million things that could happen from here--well-meaning intervention from someone who discovers these psychopaths have kidnapped an innocent person for Clearly Nefarious Reasons, an intro scene between Frisk and Error (Error mentions that he's stolen their SOUL in uncountable universes and Frisk has no notable reaction to this, which really sucks the fun out of it for Error, so they end up watching trash TV together until Horror comes in to get Frisk for supper), Red's reunion with Frisk is gonna be great in any WT spinoff and especially in this, and general family sitcom shenanigans would be fantastic (can. can Dream babysit Frisk while everyone else is out. Nightmare absolutely forbids it bc Dream is a bad influence he doesn't like his people meeting Dream bc what if they like Dream more than they like Nightmare but what if it happens anyway. Ink wanders through while Error is babysitting and decides to Help, leading to an awkward day out with the Star Sanses, most of whom do not know Frisk at all. Ink forgets exactly who he's babysitting for and assumes they'll just come by and pick Frisk up eventually, which does happen, but there are a lot more accusations of kidnapping going around than is really necessary. Frisk and Blue are happy to see each other again at least).

Anyway this is,, a fantastic idea. rife with opportunity. I love it so much thank you for proposing it. wow,,