#tw for graphic murder stuff i suppose

[averyxvaughn]

Love and Hate // self para

No one knew the true meaning of suffocation quite like Avery Vaughn. Her life for the first fifteen years were not exactly peachy perfect, but she still had her parents. She still had a home and a pack who never tied her down or displayed the implication free will didn't exist. Avery knew she would have done absolutely anything for her family, so when her cousins requested her assistance on a vampire situation, she was a fool not to jump at the opportunity. Interviewing, surveillance, dropped right in the middle of the action. Av could not recall when the excitement turned to horror. Max Lieberman knew about her part from the beginning, despite Griffin suggesting she remain hidden as a secret, and fuck...did she pay for it. In the end, so had Max. Her cousin inevitably received his wish of violence. There was no turning the vampire in for his crimes to the council, there was no justice providing them the undeniable proof, only vengeance.

Vengeance and the fact that lining up their stories proved worthless when the council uncovered the truth anyway. What was left of Max Lieberman had been unearthed, but they never bothered placing the three conspirators on trial for his murder. Instead, her entire family was rounded up by the dictators to face their punishment. Her Aunt Cassie and Uncle Wilburn failed to keep their twins under control while her parents couldn't snuff out the rebellion from her. In the eyes of the council, it never mattered whose hand Max died at, they were all guilty. Cassie and Wilburn were the first to die, fighting until the very end, before Calliope met the same fate. Avery remembered the blood, so much blood, mixing with her cousin's red tresses before she could no longer tell where Calli's hair ended and the scarlet liquid began. Her family cut down, one by one, left and right, before she realized what was happening. And her parents, god, her parents tried, but no matter how loud she screamed, Avery watched them die before her very eyes. She would have welcomed death's merciful embrace knowing it meant seeing them all again, however...it never came. The council purposefully leaving Griffin as the final kill was a mistake on their part, giving him the opportunity breaking free long enough to drag them both from the horrifying massacre. Their parents were gone, her cousin was dead, now the only two people they had in the world was each other.

That was ten years ago.

A decade later and being under his guardianship didn't become any easier. If anyone asked, Avery found immense satisfaction knowing the council finally received their comeuppance for making her an orphan, but at her cousin's hands? His ultimate downfall into madness. Av could barely walk the streets without the watchful eye, much less attend school, which immediately became out of the question despite only having two years of high school left. The first few years living with Griffin were by far the worst when she fought tooth and nail against the rules just to find her bedroom door locked when he thought that was what's best for her. Avery found, however, the rebellious nature and backtalk lost its edge. He continued acting as if his actions were all for keeping his cousin protected while she suffered in silence, watching her uncertainty of Griffin's promise never to hurt her grow by the day. She knew he wouldn't lay a finger, but there were moments she doubted her judgement.

This day, in particular, did not differ from all the times her well-intentioned guardian barricaded the werewolf in her bedroom. That reason for the imprisonment, though, became a hot topic he was only allowing her to drop once before she knew he would take matters into his own hands. Her boyfriend, her first boyfriend, Jace. Despite the fact being a wolf wasn't good enough for Griffin, the hidden truth that his parents were Winslow pack former members certainly would've spelled danger had he known. Her father taught her how to give second chances, and Jace wasn't a bad person. He understood her plight, was the best listener, and he grounded Avery in a way she never encountered. One visit to go see him, just one. She waited until Griffin vanished from the house, a feat that tested her patience to the extremes, before she utilized a bobby pin to jimmy open the lock keeping the door jammed closed. The click of the knob was music to her ears, singing a song of freedom and a small thrill breaking the rules.

Leaving the mansion was easy, walking the nearly abandoned streets was the harder part. Avery learned paranoia at an all too young age and now was not the exception either. Some would claim it's worse knowing she could never trust anyone in this town who isn't held under Griffin's control. Who knew if the lonely man at the diner wasn't planted at his stool to survey when she ate at Andre's or the nice librarian she borrowed books from hadn't been reporting back to her cousin of her whereabouts. Even the trust in her limited friends list was compromised believing any one of them could betray confidentiality just to remain on Griffin's good side. An important rule Avery lived by, remain tight-lipped around everyone, she never knew who may whisper in an undesirable ear.

Av mainly stuck to the shadows during the course of her walk, her hood pulled over her head and remaining close to the walls of every building she passed. Don't get noticed and do not ever lower your guard whatsoever. Every small sound sent her eyes darting back and forth, peering behind her every so often to ensure she wasn't being followed. That's the advantage of being a werewolf, she could sense the danger lurking around any corner with simple ease and protect herself from all harm. Though, not many attempted to place a target on Avery's back when retaliation led along the path of certain death by fire. A slow execution.

It's a risk Jace took every moment he spent in her company. He was a childhood friend from early school days she reconnected with after a happenstance run-in at Andre's diner and the rest was history. Av couldn't forget how nervous he had been when he first asked her out to a point where she thought he was joking. A cruel prank, gaining some sick enjoyment seeing her reaction when he yanked the rug from under the blonde's feet. There was no punchline, though, just a boy looking to provide a semblance of happiness. In the year they were dating, Avery detested admitting to anybody that she was falling for him even if love seemed a strange concept. It was a notion she questioned her Uncle Spencer about one day who seemed to merely suggest the possibility that she finally found her mate based on the emotions that were described to him. A mate, her mate, imagine a crazy idea like that.

Avery finally reached the front porch of Jace's house he shared with a roommate and stopped at the door for a brief pause while she tugged at the coat hood, fixing her blonde tresses until the locks were smoothed down neatly. It was stupid making any effort looking nice for a fucking boy, but her boyfriend deserved a mostly put-together girlfriend. Slipping the key Jace had given her a month ago from her pocket, she stuck it in the doorknob and unlocked the latch before swinging the door open. "Jace, it's just me." Avery called out into the silence and stuffed the key back in her pocket. "Sorry it took me so long to bust out of my chains, Griffin's being a real asshole lately if you-" The young woman stopped in her tracks almost immediately. Something...something was off. Jace usually came out to greet her by now and his human roommate Matthew spent a lot of his free time playing video games in his bedroom. There was no indication of sound from Matt's room, no controller, no television, not even the game's obnoxious noises and beeps. Dead silent. "Jace, this isn't funny..." She entered the living room, noticing the bag of takeout on the coffee table waiting for the couple, but still no sign of her boyfriend.

"I swear to fucking god you two." Avery turned on her heel to take a step toward the kitchen when the wave of nausea hit the wolf like an immense slap to the face before the freight train kicked her hard in the stomach. Blood. Unmistakable, undeniable, she knew the foul stench from the moment it flooded into her nose. "Fuck." A million thoughts clouded Av's mind, each worst than the last, keeping her feet planted on the carpet. If she walked into that kitchen, what would she see? A bloodbath crime scene? Jace mutilated beyond recognition? A twisted part of her hoped Jace wasn't at home, that he had gone out to grab their dessert, but the only way to know for certain was taking a peek. Avery slowly walked the length between the living room and the kitchen's entrance, swallowing down the bile caught in her throat as she stepped through it. A small silent gasp hitched within the blonde's chest in horror. There Matthew was, sprawled out on the table's flat surface facing up, the large gash gracing his neck forming a scarlet ribbon dripping from both sides. "Oh, fuck, Matty." She stepped closer with hesitation, hand over her mouth and gaze taking in his mutilated form. Avery noticed the gaping hole in his chest just as the toe of her boot brushed up against something sticky. Looking down, she realized quickly what it was. Matt's heart. Alec. A trademark Merriman move.

"Jace." The panic finally began setting in. Avery turned around and fled from the kitchen, zooming through the living room and darting down the hallway where she knew Jace's bedroom resided. The smell of blood wafted in the air again, a different scent from Matthew and providing the answer she knew all along. But she was bound and determined to believe otherwise, that maybe he was still alive. Bleeding out, but unconscious, waiting for someone to rush to his aid. Avery finally reached the room, but found the door locked from the inside. "Jace!" She banged on the door's surface with her fist as hard as she could, turning the knob every which way before slowly crushing the brass in the palm of her hand. "Come on, Av, you can do this." The wolf pressed her shoulder against the wood as a test before bringing her body back and using her entire body to slam against the door. No dice. She attempted again, this time with a frustrated huff, failing to pry open the second go around. "Fucking son of a bitch!" She finally mustered any strength she possessed and rammed into the door, hearing the hinges and bolts finally give way and splintered the wood to pieces as Avery stumbled into the bedroom, colliding with the edge of the mattress.

Nothing, absolutely nothing, prepared the werewolf for the nightmare she came upon. Jace's corpse had been skewered to the wall above his headboard using one of the wooden posts of his bed's frame. Scorch marks and burns littered every inch of his flesh that she could see. Blood poured from his mouth, she wasn't sure where the source was, but something told Av his tongue had been sliced out. Red streaks trailed down the wolf's cheeks as if he cried tears of blood, their origin coming from the black holes where Jace's eyes were ripped from its sockets. "No, no, no, Jace, no!" Avery pressed her palms to the mattress' surface, losing her balance for a moment. This wasn't happening, this couldn't be happening. She couldn't grow dizzy, not here and now. "Fuck, shit, I'm sorry, Jace. I'm sorry. I'm so sorry." She climbed on top of the mattress and steadily rose to her feet when she reached the head of the bed, wrapping her hands around the makeshift stake and yanking as hard as she was able. The post gave way as her arm snaked around Jace's waist to support him as he slid down the wall, adjusting the position so she could lay her boyfriend on the mattress, pillow respectfully tucked under his head. "Oh, god, I'm sorry. Forgive me." Av collapsed beside him as a sob escaped, palms brushing over his vacant face and smearing the blood all over her hands. It didn't matter, nothing mattered. "This is my fault, it's all my fault."

"Someone's clearly been a naughty girl." Avery's head snapped up toward the doorway, coming to land on one of the two last people she wanted to see right now. Alec fucking Merriman, returning to the scene of the crime. No doubt sent back here to come retrieve her after she found her little surprise. Alec folded his arms across his chest and nonchalantly leaned against the doorframe, glee touching the smirk stretching his lips. "Secrets are no fun when you don't share with everyone, sweetpea." He pushed off from the frame and stepped further into the room, "Oh, come on, don't give me that look."

Avery wiped her tears away with the back of her sleeve and shot a death glare at the man as she rose to a standing position beside the bed, "You and him both did this, didn't you? Why is it I can never have one happy thing in my life without my cousin fucking everything up?" She spat at Alec vehemently. God, she was livid and she would've been damn sure to show it. "I am so sick and tired of being treated like a goddamn princess he can lock in a fucking tower whenever he chooses." It's so unbelievable how many times she should remind Griffin that she was family, not a prisoner chained to him by blood relation that must follow the rules.

"You had to see this coming, Avery." Alec lifted his eyes in a roll and surveyed the little blonde spitfire who obviously did not appreciate a favor when she saw it. "You lied to my best friend that knows you like the back of his hand. Did you really think you could hide the fact that you were sucking face with a mutt who had a connection to the same fucker that tormented his mother? Your Auntie?" He scoffed incredulously, "He had to go. Now, his little roomie was collateral, I will admit, but you know us, kiddo. We get carried away sometimes." Alec breathed a chuckle and shook his head slowly before sighing, "Alright, enough fucking around. Time to leave."

Av remained where she stood, arms at her sides and fingernails digging sharply into the flesh of her palms. It's a rage she never once experienced in her entire life, no matter how many times she tossed aside the resentment at her cousin's overprotectiveness. Nothing concealed the truth that Griffin was fucked in the head. Psychotic, truly believing he was doing everything right raising his cousin, when it could not be further from the truth. "No." She hissed through clenched teeth, "You can both fuck right off. I'm not going anywhere with you."

"Now, Avery," Alec adopted a tone that suggested he was scolding a young child, which in his mind, he definitely was. Avery could play the brat sometimes when Griffin was nowhere around, leaving his bestie to pick up the slack of the dirty work. Like he honestly cared if she saw him as the bad guy. "Griff's expecting you and if I come back empty-handed, it's probably my heart that will be on the floor next." He waited a moment, giving her the chance, but she didn't budge. Fucking typical. "Okay, we're doing this the hard way." Alec crossed the room and grabbed Avery's forearm, ignoring her protests as he dragged her back through the bedroom's exit.

"God, you're such a fucking barbarian, let go-" Avery struggled under his grip, but found her ability to fight back was slowly dwindling away. There was no point digging heels into the carpet and resist a forced return back home where a lecture will be surely waiting. Down the hall they went, through the living room, past the kitchen and out into a heartless town taken over by somebody she once recognized. Jace was gone. She could say no goodbye, no apologies for what she brought upon the two bodies littering this house. She never told him how she felt every day, terrified to speak the three little words that could change everything. Her first serious relationship tainted by bloodshed and unforgivable murder. Jace, cut down in his prime, became a symbol of everything she could not have in this world, something she didn't deserve. This is her fate, a punishment. Love and hate was such a fine line when it concerned Griffin.

Avery knew it should have been time to accept this is how things will always be for her while her cousin walked the streets, never caring who he hurt even though he did not realize how much he was hurting her.

[carpe-diem-since-1899]

In the angels/fallen angels AU, why did Race fall, and does he regret the decisions that led to it (my computer is not letting me type question marks for some reason)

I love you I love you I love you/p

Um tw for mentions of sexual harassment, kidnapping attempt, murder attempt, and actual murdering (non of these are graphic)

So on Race’s last assignment as an angel, the girl he was sent to help had a stalker. (not the reason he was helping her but the dude was a handful) He was rich, very creepy, harassing her wherever she go and kept trying to get her to marry him (or more accurately, sleep with him), so generally a walking red flag. And because it was the medieval period, also the fact that angels aren’t supposed to actively magic stuff away (they are like the bestie that’s there for you with a lot of good luck to share but they can’t directly intervene with things), there wasn’t much they could do

It went on for a few years, with Race trying his hardest to help, but the man was very stubborn. After Race almost breaking the not intervening rule when the man tried to kidnap the girl one time, the girl’s family had enough and skipped town. They lived a pretty peaceful life in the new village, the girl was doing great and married someone she loved, and Race was another few years away to move on to his next mission

The stalker found the girl’s new address, tried to kidnap her again, and threatened to kill her if she didn’t go with him. Race got there just in time, and got so furious he snapped and went full angel on the man and smote him. The girl’s husband arrived, they rushed the girl to safety and Race made them promise to never tell anyone what happened, he cleaned up the evidence, and heaven got the news and dragged Race back to heaven

On paper, Race “Violated the holiest rule of being an angel and committed unspeakable crime” because a) He broke the not intervening rule, and b) He killed a human when he wasn’t assigned to do that

Race didn’t feel bad about the fact that the creep was dead, but he did feel guilty that he couldn’t protect the girl better, and things ended up that way. The fact that he killed someone makes him feel pretty disgusted but he’ll do it again in a heartbeat if that means the girl is safe

At the end of the day thought, what he regretted the most was not being able to say goodbye to Spot

[murder-and-toast]

TW: references to human experimentation on children, descriptions of slightly graphic experimentation, human weapons, corrupt government, hinting to future murder

Yves sat in his chair, making his teal glowing grass-like blade appear and disappear. His teal sideburns and eyes glowed as the blade showed up but dulled once it vanished. Then a door opens, moving Yves's attention from the blade to the door, causing him to readjust how he was sitting to properly face the chair across from him,

"Mr. Aries," the new man started

"I'd prefer to just be called Yves," Yves said with a polite yet professional tone

"I apologize, Mr. Yves," the man starts, "So, continue what you were telling me the other day"

"So there was this place that I had learned about at one point and there were children apparently. I had been told about how they had been getting some human genetics swapped with other humanlike creatures and then organs later on," Yves pauses for a second, "I never fully believed it until I met this kid who was being tested on there, his name was Betzalel. He always had his right eye covered and was said to have angelic powers, although he never wanted to use them due to the danger they would cause."

"I see, and Betzalel is the guy you had with you when you came here to discuss this stuff, correct?" The man questioned

"Yes, I met him when we were both quite young, he got out of that terrible place. No, we both did. I wasn't born there, my sister, Cecile and I were dragged back there, our father had worked hard to try to save us from that life but his attempt had failed in the end," Yves chuckles slightly

"What is your relation with Betzalel now?"

"I have a deal with the creature he got the genetics of, I pledged myself to it for now, although I'm not gonna live long compared to Betzalel I swore to use my life time to protect both him and the power he withholds from being abused," Yves moves his arms behind his head and looks up at the ceiling, "I only came here so he'd have a place to go when they day eventually does come. But first I have to get at least him and my sister out of being government property since the two are just gonna continue to be used at pawns while there. I don't enjoy being used by the government but if it makes it so those 2 can live decent lives then I'll find a way--"

The door creaks open and Betzalel pops his head in, "hey, Yves, I know you're having a really important conversation right now, but I just got a call from our boss that there's a new mission"

"Well, I suppose this will have to continue another day" Yves looks towards the man across from him before pushing himself out of the chair and going towards the door, and leaving with Betzalel

[nightcoremoon]

spiderman 3 wasn’t bad because of bully maguire

spiderman 3 was bad because it was a chopped up incoherent mess of conflicting ideas, tones, GENRES.

TW rape mention. yes, really.

sandman and harry would have been good. sandman and venom would have been good. harry and venom would have been good. and all three at once could even have been done satisfactorily. but together it was a horrible disaster. none of them had their time to shine. flint was a magnificent way to tie into the first movie. harry was a magnificent way to end his character arc. topher grace, much as I love him, was horribly miscast for eddie brock. venom, fine, but not eddie. tom hardy played both well. but I think hardy is a much stronger actor than grace. one played charley fucking bronson and the other played eric fucking foreman. y’all gotta know your reaches! but anyway it’s fine I guess. it made for a decent viewing in no way home (which I have my own laundry list of gripes about). but even then, that’s not the biggest problem with the movie. and no, the emo peter wasn’t a problem either (it actually makes perfect sense for his character; it’s what peter himself thinks is cool, not what actually is cool). and NO it wasn’t wasting dr connors not once not thrice but TWICE.

the SECOND biggest problem is with the editing.

ok so individual scenes look passable to… beautiful. the introduction of sandman is obviously the highlight of the film. it was a very important pioneer for graphics design technology, and in my mind it’s probably the single most important thing in the history of making cgi look true to life (for all of its glory… and all of its horror). all of the fight scenes are well choreographed, visually stunning, and advanced the plot somehow. all of the character defining scenes were well done save for one character in particular who I will discuss momentarily. the scenes are good in their own rights. but they’re out of order. peter dancing in the street looking like dahvie vanity was not supposed to happen after supposedly killing uncle ben’s murderer, it was SUPPOSED to happen after getting the job over brock. and everything else was nonsensically crammed together like tetris sardines. it RUINED the pacing. there is a 40 minute period where venom does not appear or speak, and he is supposed to be the main villain of the movie. that’s the second biggest problem.

the biggest problem is Mary Jane.

Kirsten Dunst did as good a job as she could with the material she was given. but what is her character arc in each movie? be the love interest who needs to be saved from everything all the time. that’s it. the green goblin is attacking and MJ is in danger, Peter rescues her and she gets a crush on him. those rape dudes are attacking (told you) and MJ is in danger, Peter rescues her. they kiss. oh no the green goblin is attacking AGAIN, MJ is in danger AGAIN and Peter rescues her AGAIN and she falls in love with him. and so on. all she exists to do in these movies is get kidnapped and make peter’s spider dick hard. it is such a damn shame that those movies happened before the feminists really pushed to have women with agency in films and books and video games and stuff. remind me what aunt may did in these movies again? or gwen, or betty, or… anyone who was female? contrast with the amazing spidermans and the mcu spidermans. AND SPIDERVERSE. totally different beast there.

MJ’s character is unlikable, peter’s character does shitty things that make him temporarily unlikable, and their dynamic together is very… bland. you could cut MJ from 2 and 3 very easily and still potentially have a cohesive movie. raimi has strengths and he has weaknesses and his weakness is ingrained subconscious misogyny. oops. we expected better from the man whose claim to fame was a movie where a tree rapes a woman? 🤔 yeahhhh I don’t like evil dead 1. 2 and 3, good and phenomenal, but 1 is like. :/

so it’s nothing to do with the easy answers and it’s everything to do with the director is a little weird and Sony has never made a good business decision in its life.

[aubreyprc]

safe in these arms of mine

prompt - you’re safe . i’m here

summary - emily gets taken by their recent unsub, someone they named the three day killer. they know they have three days to find her, aaron refuses to let them get to four.

word count - 3.3k

TW / mentions of torture (not graphic), alluded / implied hint of SA (not graphic or mentioned)

He thinks he’s probably watched the CCTV footage more times than he’s ever watched anything, rewinding certain moments in hopes of something that will give them a clue, something that will tell them where she is. who he is. anything.

Watching her drop to the ground, even after seeing it hundreds of times, still makes his heart fall into his stomach, the sight of the man picking her up over his shoulders, carrying her like she was dead weight. like she was nothing still making him feel sick, still making him feel guilty. not that he could ever tell anyone why. Not that he can really act on how terrified he is.

To everyone else’s knowledge, they’re colleagues, friends, just like he is with the rest of the team. He can be worried, they’re all worried, all scared of what could happen, all nauseous at the idea of what she could be going through, but he can’t be anything more. Because to everyone else’s knowledge, they're just friends but in reality, behind closed doors, away from prying eyes, FBI policy’s and fraternization rules, they’re something. They’re more than something.

What started off as casual, turned into coffee and coffee soon turned into dinner, dinner soon turned into staying the night and four months later in the darkness of her bedroom, his fingers tracing patterns on her spine as she lay in his arms, the three words slipped out of his mouth… and ten seconds later she repeated them, a soft smile on her face. a smile he has never forgotten.

A smile he would kill to see again.

They’re eight months in now, getting to the point where keeping them a secret was becoming impossible, Jack far too young and unpredictable to not blurt out something that would cause the penny to drop.

As he watches the footage for the millionth time, the guilt is almost overwhelming, his palms cut to pieces from how harsh he is clenching a fist. He knows if they don’t find her, that if day three comes and they still don’t have a location, that he’d never forgive himself, he wouldn’t know how to. He wouldn’t want to.

He was supposed to be with her.

Jack was with a friend, and they’d had plans to stay at her apartment, order take out and just be without a four year old demanding their attention for most of the night. But they’d argued. A stupid argument. So stupid that he can’t even remember what started it, or what it was even about. All he remembers is her bitter laugh before she walked out of his office, all but slamming the door behind her as she walked back into the bullpen and grabbed her stuff, he remembers watching her go, remembers telling himself that he’d call her when he got home, or maybe he would go over, make it up to her.

He prays he still gets the chance to. Prays that the last memory he has of her… of them… won’t be her walking away from him in anger. That their last conversation won’t be something he can’t even remember.

“You’re going to drive yourself insane if you keep watching that.” Dave tells him as he walks into the office, “it won’t bring her back. It won’t give you any more information.”

Aaron remains silent, his eyes peeled on the screen, her facing in the direction of the unsub, her face in full view of the camera.

“Reid has something on the unsub…” he says, but Aaron can’t bring himself to hear it. “I know this is hard but—”

“You don’t know.” he says, turning to face his friend, “you don’t know.” he repeats and the older man nods.

“You’re right. I don’t.” he accepts, before staring at him, “but I know you love her.” he says and Aaron’s eyes widen, “and I know she loves you. And I know she’s counting on us.. on you to focus, to put our feelings and our fear on hold and find her.”

“I can’t even think about what she could be going—”

“Then don’t.” he tells him, “don’t think. Help her. Help her by doing what you can. Here. Now.”

Aaron nods, standing and following the man out of the office and into the briefing room.

They all refuse to go home, refuse to waste time when she has so little of it, refuse to do anything but find her, the thought of what she could be going through knocking every single one of them sick.

The entire building feels eerie, everyone on egg shells around the team, scared to say the wrong thing, scared to say anything. Everyone loved Emily, and her absence noticeable at any time, and so the entire situation has the bullpen in silence, the only sound being the muttering of the agents on the case as they work alongside the team to find their missing member. Their missing friend.

They all know what this unsub does, have all read the case files, seen the pictures of the women he’d taken and killed over the last few weeks, have heard in detail what he does to them before hand, and it becomes the elephant in the room, every single person knowing exactly what Emily was going through, knowing far too much about what could happen if they don’t find her, but no one ever says anything, no one comments, no one even brings it up, because they can’t. The knowing itself is enough, they shouldn’t have to talk about it too.

Aaron is the only one who tortures himself by looking at the other cases, reading over what they went through before he killed them, how he killed them, and what he did to them afterwards. It’s the same every time, the same marks and bruises on each woman they found, all killed the same way around the same time and all found in the same place, beaten, bloody and cold, all with signs of a struggle, as if he’d toyed with them, given them to opportunity to fight him off… each woman died in pain, alone and scared, and the idea that Emily might go through that, the fact that he could be doing to her what he did to all the others makes him nauseous, it makes him murderous but mostly it just makes him want to scream, cry, shout, and he can do neither, not yet, not when he still has the chance to get her back. Not when there’s hope that he can save her.

And he will. He has to. Loosing her is not an option.

“Stop.” Morgan says as he enters his office, “reading the files won’t change this. If anything it will just make it worse.”

“There could—”

“Reid has the files memorised…” he says, “there’s nothing in there.”

He closes the file, rubbing a hand over his face as he leans on the chair.

“How is he this hidden?” he asks, “we’ve been trying to find him for three weeks and all we have is that he’s male, in his thirties and…” he stops, shaking his head as he thinks about what he does to the women he takes.

“I know.” he nods, “but we’ll find him.”

“Will we find him in time?” he asks, the silence between them lingering as the other man remains without an answer.

“We can only try.” he tells him, “and trust that she’s strong enough to wait until we do.” he says softly, before leaving the office.

He sighs as he opens his draw, grabbing his wallet before pulling out a picture he hides behind one of Jack, a picture Penelope took just a few weeks ago when she just had to capture the moment as she stated on the email she forwarded the picture on. He smiles every time he looks at it, her grin sending warmth through him as he looks at it, the blissful happiness on their faces as they sit in their own bubble, his own smile on his face as he looks at her. He rubs a thumb over it, his heart aching in his chest as he swallows.

I’ll find you.

And they do. On day three.

They speed through the traffic, each of them tense with anxiety as they sit in the SUV, neither knowing what they’re going to walk into. If they’ll make it on time.

The warehouse is huge, the smell of blood, sweat and death hits them as soon as their in, each going in a different direction as they search for her. For him. For anything.

Aaron hears them before he sees them, leans against the wall as he calculates what his next move should be, signals for the team to head in his direction as he tries to block out the sound of her choking, dreads to think what he’s going to be met with when he turns the corner.

Reid and Morgan head his way first, are on the other side of the building when he spots them, and on his nod, all three man make themselves known, turning the corner with their guns out, but all can see is her. The way the only reason she is still standing being due to her arms being hung above her, her head lulled to the ground, no movement, not even a groan and he doesn’t think he’s ever felt panic like it before.

He has no intention to chase the man when he runs, grateful that the other two take off in a sprint after him, and he heads towards her.

He stands in front of her, heart hammering in his chest as terror fills his body and slowly cups her face, moving her head up to look at him and when he’s met with her tired, but open eyes, the relief that fills him is enough to make him want to cry. But the fear in her eyes, the sheer terror that stares back at him has him pushing it away, his focus on her.

“You’re okay.” he whispers, quickly freeing her hands from the chains above her, wrapping an arm around her waist as he does, catching her as she all but falls into him, a soft cry leaving her throat as her arms drop, the only reason she doesn’t being that he has her, wraps her protectively into him and all she can do is look at him, shock, exhaustion, pain, terror and everything in between meaning it takes her a few moments to register what’s going on, to register that it’s Aaron but it’s obvious the moment she does. The look of terror turning into relief as she relaxes, letting him pull her into his arms and she goes willingly into them, her face in his chest as she breathes, tears threatening to fall down her face as she allows the last few days to process. There’s a bang from the other side of the room that causes her to flinch, to tense in fear and he runs a hand down her back.

“It’s okay..” his voice is soft, soothing and he smiles at her when she lifts her head to look at him. “You’re okay. It’s over.”

“Can we get out of here?” she asks, her voice dry and rough, a hint that she’s been without water for days and he nods.

“Of course.” he says, gently wrapping an arm around her waist as he helps her walk out of the room.

She gets the all clear from the hospital and is free to go that night, her ribs bruised but not broken, her arms strained but no damage to the ligaments, a concussion she might feel for a few days, but no bleed, no damage, is told she’s lucky, and she wants to scream, feeling anything but luck as she sits in the passenger seat, her mind replaying the last three days on a loop, the man’s face, voice, touch lingering with her, can feel his hands on her skin, can hear his voice as he toys with her, can see his face so clearly he might as well he sat next to her but she’s lucky, because he didn’t break her ribs, she’s lucky because he didn’t kill her, how does she explain that she wishes he did?

Aaron walks them up to her apartment, his hand around her waist as she uses him to hold herself up, a lump in the back of her throat as she tries to pretend as though she hasn’t spent the last three days tortured, laughed at, broken.

“I’ll go and run you a bath,” he says softly as he enters her apartment, she simply stands, her hand clinging to her throbbing ribs as she nods. “Can I get you anything?”

“No,” she says with a tired smile, “I’m good. Tired.”

“Would you prefer a shower—”

“No,” she says quickly, before smiling as best she can, “A bath would be great.” she nods and he smiles, slowly walking over to her and waiting for her to lean into him before wrapping an arm around her waist, helping her up the stairs as she winces in pain. He’d do anything to take it from her. For it to have been him instead.

-

He sits on the floor next to the bath at her request, stroking gentle patterns onto her hand as she stares ahead and he waits, knowing she has to be the one to talk first, knowing he can’t rush this.

“The last woman you found… she couldn’t have been older than twenty.” she says, her eyes still staring ahead of her.

“Yeah..” he whispers, “found her just before we…” he stops, “you saw her?”

“He killed her right in front of me…” she says, turning to look at him, “she was begging me to help her, I could hear her crying but…” she stops, looks away from him.

“There’s nothing you could have done, Em.” he tells her, “you know that. It’s not your fault.”

She doesn’t answer, simply continues to stare at the wall ahead. He wants to ask, he needs to, but he doesn’t know how. Isn’t sure he wants to know. He’ll have to read the police report anyway, sign off on her being back on duty in a few weeks and he wonders if that might be easier. To read it rather than hear it, but he also knows he needs to hear it from her, needs to let her be the one to tell him, tell him what, he isn’t sure.

“Do you want me to sleep on the couch?” he asks her gently, smiling softly when she turns to face him, “I’m not leaving,” he tells her, “but if you want some space tonight, if you want some time to work through this, I’ll sleep on the couch.”

She smiles slightly, linking their fingers together as they rest on the side of the bath and she slowly shakes her head.

“I don’t want to be alone.” she whispers, and he nods.

“I’m here,” he tells her. “Whenever you’re ready to talk… I’m here.”

“I know.” she says, “I’m exhausted.”

“Come on.” he says, getting to his feet with a groan that makes her laugh slightly, before he helps her up, wrapping her in a towel before walking them towards the bed. He hands her an old jumper, one that nine months ago, used to belong to him, and a pair of joggers, kissing her head slightly.

“I’ll grab some water, I’ll be right back.” he tells her and she nods, watches him go as she takes a deep breath, focuses on getting into the clothes rather than the silence, rather than the memories of the last few days.

By the time he’s back she’s already in bed, her eyes staring at a spot of the wall across the room as she curls into the duvet and his heart breaks when the creek of the floor makes her jump.

He places the water on her bedside table, runs a gentle finger across her cheek as he passes her and gets himself in bed, turns to face her when she rolls over, taking her hand gently when she rests it on his chest, smiling when he links their fingers.

“Derek said you kept reading the other women’s files.” she says softly, he looks at her and nods. “He pretty much stuck to the script.” she tells him, looking from him to their hands. “I wish you didn’t read them.” she whispers, tracing his fingers with her own.

“When your ready to tell me, I’ll listen.” he says, “I’ll wait for you to tell me.”

“You’ll read the report before—”

“I’ll wait for you to tell me.” he whispers; she nods.

“Okay.” she whispers, “thank you.”

“Get some rest,” he tells her, “I’m right here.”

She smiles before she leans up to kiss him, wrapping herself around him as she inhales, the scent of him calming her, the feeling of safely taking ahold of her as she sighs, closing her eyes.

“I love you.” she whispers as he kisses her head and he smiles.

“I love you too.” he tells her, and waits until shes asleep before allowing himself to fall asleep too.

It’s barley been three hours when her scream jolts him awake. He sits up instantly, terror taking over as he registers what woke him and he turns, slowly reaching out to cup her face as she cries in her sleep, completely taken over by a nightmare, by a memory, by fear.

“Emily,” he whispers, trying to wake her carefully. “Em, sweetheart. Wake up.” he says a little louder, tapping her face gently as she gasps, her eyes opening instantly and she sits up, hyperventilating as she cries, a hand on her chest as she struggles to breathe and he holds her.

“You’re okay.” he whispers, “just breathe. It’s okay.” he soothes, a gentle hand on her back. Her breathing evens out pretty quickly but her tears do not, her entire body shaking with fear as he holds her close.

“You’re safe now,” he tells her, lifting her face to wipe her tears as she looks at him. “I’m here.” he says, “You’re safe.”

He slowly lays them back down, wrapping his arms around her when she clings onto him, resting herself in his arms.

“I love you.” she mutters as she slowly breathes, allowing herself to succumb to sleep.

“I love you too.” he whispers. “You’re safe. I’m here.” he repeats, hoping it soothes her, hoping she feels safe with him.

It’s obvious she does when she doesn’t wake until late that next afternoon and goes searching for him as soon as she realises he’s not next to her.

She finds him on the couch and heads towards him, smiling as she sits next to him and rests her head on his chest, relaxing the minute his arms wrap around her.

“You weren’t in bed.” she mumbles as she closes her eyes.

“I’m right here.” he whispers, “I’ll always be here.” he promises, and he smiles when she mumbles a small I know, before falling back into a dreamless sleep.

[lovely-laurent]

behold: part 2 of the murder trial fic. i feel like it focuses a lot on the *trial* part but dont worry im getting to the good stuff. slow burn, baby.

Concept: laurent is a prosecutor, Damen is a defense attorney, and Jokaste is accused of murder.

tw: references to murder, graphic depictions of crime scenes.

part 1 -- ao3 link

**

“Let the record show the presence of the jury, the defendant, and all counsel.” Judge Vannes gave Laurent a pointed look. “You may call your first witness.”

“The state calls Penelope Fotos.”

Penelope, a young Akielon woman, came out into the courtroom. She was sworn in, and took a seat in front of Laurent.

Laurent gave her a stoney look. “Can I have your name, please?”

“Penelope Fotos.”

“And did you know a man named Adras Leos?”

“Yes.”

Laurent asked the young woman several questions, eventually establishing to the jury that she was a friend and potential girlfriend to the victim. She explained how they met, the nature of their relationship, and detailed the handful of dates the two of them had gone on. She also detailed how she had discovered the body the day before she and the victim were supposed to go on a business trip to Patras, where they would be staying at a five-star resort at the expense of the victim’s employer. It was successful enough. Penelope was well-spoken, though very nervous. Occasionally, she would go into more detail than necessary, or misunderstand the question, to which Laurent would politely, yet sternly, redirect her focus to the matter at hand.

“And while you were there,” Laurent asked, referencing the funeral, “Were there a lot of people there?”

“Yes,” she said.

“And was there someone there by the name of Jokaste Dimakos?”

“Yes.”

“Is she in court here, today?”

“Yes.”

“Can you point her out for me, please?”

Penelope looked at Jokaste. “She’s sitting at the end of that table, wearing a blue shirt.”

Laurent looked up at Vannes. “Your honor, may the record reflect the identification of the defendant?”

Vannes nodded. “Yes.”

Laurent asked the witness about her interaction with Jokaste. “How did she approach you?”

“She came up to me and asked, ‘Are you Penelope Fotos?’”

“At any point, did she say, 'I'm the one who killed Mr. Leos?'"

“No.” She visibly stiffened, eyes looking down at her hands. It was typical for a witness to become uncomfortable under Laurent’s straight-forward, direct approach to matters as grim as the death of a loved one.

“Did she ever tell you why she was there?”

“No.”

“I don’t have anything else, thank you.” And with that, Laurent took his seat for the defense team to take over.

Damianos, the lead defense attorney, was a very tall Akielon man. He was tanned, with dark hair and dark eyes. Laurent had heard of him before the trial. He was esteemed in Akielos, where he had practiced law for several years. People hailed him as justice-driven, but Laurent found it hard to believe. It was hard to call someone “justice-driven” when they were spending their time getting admitted murderers out of spending time in jail.

But maybe he was biased.

“Good morning, Ms. Fotos,” Damianos said, shifting through his papers as he stepped up to the podium. His voice was good-natured and pleasant, which was ridiculous. If he was going to try to get a cold-blooded killer free, he should at least sound passionate about it.

“Good morning.”

Damianos picked up on various questions Laurent had asked, going into more detail and nit-picking things Laurent hadn’t dwelled on. Many of the questions had nothing to do with the victim, or Jokaste for that matter. Though, it wasn’t exactly surprising. There wasn’t much the defense team could do to try and wash clean Jokaste’s image, even less they could do with someone who didn’t even know her.

It wasn't all bad. Damianos was horribly handsome, and watching him was fun enough to make up for the pointless examination. His face was relaxed, hiding any tension he might have felt from the pressure of a doomed defense. His demeanor was personable and sympathetic, a stark contrast to Laurent’s cold edge. And his muscles. Those were worthy of a trial all on their own. Surely, it was criminal to come into court with a jacket that tight around his biceps. At one point, Damianos raised up his arm to fiddle with the projector, making his muscles strain against his jacket. Laurent wondered, if at least briefly, what he looked like without a shirt on. Probably like the guys he used to drool over when he was a teenager.

He must have been drooling again now, because the lead detective, Jord, who was seated beside him, leaned over and whispered in his ear. “Are you paying attention?”

“I’m always paying attention,” Laurent whispered back, looking down at his notepad and scribbling down a note. It wasn’t a very meaningful note.

“And it’s your testimony that Adras Leos never said Jokaste Dimakos was a stalker?” The question was pointed, and for once, his tone was forceful.

The witness stuttered, caught off guard by the inflexible question. “I don’t--- I don’t recall him ever saying it. He might have, I don’t remember if he had said it at that point. The only time I ever recall hearing her name was after we found him--- his---” Eventually, she gave a weak nod and stopped talking.

“I have nothing further, your honor.” Damianos gathered his papers and went back to his table. Laurent’s eyes tracked him as he sat back down.

“Re-direct?” Judge Vannes said, looking at Laurent.

Laurent stood and went up to the podium. He slammed down his pad of paper and looked the witness in the eyes. She squirmed. “The victim had told you the stalker was a female, correct?”

“I-- Yes.”

“And did he ever tell you what this female stalker had done?”

Damianos sat up straight "Objection, it's hearsay."

Judge Vannes considered, but eventually said, "Overruled"

Laurent raised an eyebrow at the witness.

“She had slashed his tires several times, she had slashed the tires of a girl he was dating before me, she had sent her threatening emails. Um, she sounded dangerous. She would hack into his emails and read his messages and break into his house.”

“I have nothing else, thank you.”

Judge Vannes glanced over at the jury box. “Do any members of the jury have any questions for this witness?” A pause. “I see no hands. You may step down. The state may call their next witness.”

Penelope stepped out, and was promptly replaced by Laurent’s next witness, who was sworn in and took a seat.

He made eye contact with him from his place at the podium. “Can you tell me your name, please?”

“Huet Babin.”

“And who do you work for?”

“Arles police.”

“And what do you do?”

Huet Babin went on to explain that he was a patrol officer, and that he responded to emergency calls. Huet answered Laurent’s questions in very few words. He didn’t linger on any detailed explanations, but instead allowed Laurent to ask a follow up question. Their dialogue was quick-paced as he explained how he had found the body, how the victim appeared to have been there for a couple weeks and suffered a deep neck wound, several stab wounds, and a gunshot wound.

“I’m going to show you a couple of photos.” Laurent held up a photo. “Please take a look at exhibits 175, 176, and 177.”

“Yes.”

“What are they?”

“They’re photos of the body at the crime scene.”

“Are they true and accurate depictions of the body as it existed on the night of June 19th?”

“Yes.”

“I move for the admission of exhibits 175 through 177.” Laurent briskly handed the photos to Damianos.

Judge Vannes looked at Damianos. “Any objections?”

Damianos peered through them. “No objections, your honor.”

“Exhibits 175, 176, and 177 are admitted.”

Laurent went on to discuss the photos with the officer. He would put each photo up on the projector and ask, “What is this?” to which the officer would explain. The photos were of the crime scene. Particularly, where the body was found, which was the shower stall in the bathroom. Laurent asked about blood found at the scene, to which the officer explained that there was no blood on the body or the stall, but was instead blood on the sink, in the bedroom, and in the hallway. Laurent asked about the layout of the house, to which the officer explained.

When he was done with his questioning about the crime scene, he concluded by saying, “I have nothing further, your honor.”

Judge Vannes looked over at Damianos. “Cross examination?”

Damianos pursed his lips. “We have no questions for this witness, your honor.”

Of course they didn’t. What could they have possibly talked about?

“Do any members of the jury have any questions for this witness?” A pause. “I see no hands. You may step down. Ladies and gentlemen, we will take the evening recess at this time. Please be back in the designated area at 10:30 tomorrow morning. You are dismissed.”

The members of the jury walked out, meanwhile Laurent packed his papers back into his briefcase. Jord stood and flattened his suit jacket. “Goodnight, I’ll see you tomorrow.”

“Have a nice evening,” Laurent said, voice flat. He looked at his phone, the old photograph of Auguste lighting up the screen. He had several text messages from Nicaise, though none of them were very meaningful. They were mostly complaints about the paperwork he was paid to fill out, the phone calls he was paid to make, and how dreadful the life of a paralegal is. Laurent rolled his eyes. He took another second to look at the picture of Auguste before he locked his phone and put it back in his pocket.

[yandere-daydreams]

Title: Duplicity. 

Word Count: 2.6k

Written for an anonymous commissioner.

Paring: Yandere!Hanako/Reader & Yandere!Tsukasa/Reader.

Synopsis: The afterlife is very, very lonely. It effects come spirits more than others, but Hanako’s gotten close to so many humans, and he’s been left so many times... You can hardly blame him for wanting to be selfish. You can’t fault Tsukasa for wanting to keep his favorite toy close, either. 

TW: Death, Graphic Violence, Blood, Imprisonment (via Ghost Mechanics), and Emotional Manipulation.

No one should have to watch themselves die.

You guess you didn’t, really. Or, you did, but you didn’t watch as closely as you could have. You’d like to say that you faced your end bravely, that you were cunning and quick and did your damnedest to make sure your assailant left your encounter only slightly better off than you did, but you’d never been one for self-flattery. As soon as you realized you couldn’t escape, as soon as you’d caught the glimpse of something glinting in the dim, flickering school lights and managed to put a name to it, you’d clenched your eyes shut, threw your arms over your face, and begged for mercy. You could remember the pain, if you wanted to, the intensity of it, but you don’t try to. You could recall the feeling of your own blood flowing over your fingertips, but you’d really rather not. You know that, one moment, there was something, and the next, there was nothing. Black, frigid nothing. For a few seconds, you couldn’t think of anything worse than that nothingness.

And then, there was something, and you realized there were things much, much worse than nothing.

You think you would’ve found a way to stay dead, if you knew he’d been the one to kill you.

He’s still bent over your unmoving body when you reform, on your knees and beside yourself, your skin translucent and your chest so much more hollow than it used to be. You let yourself linger on the sensation for a moment or two, attempting to inhale and exhale before realizing how odd it feels to breathe when you don’t have to. You’re still caught up in the change when your attention drifts, first to the dark stains littered across the tile floor, obscured by the darkness, and then to… yourself. What used to be you. You, but not you.

Dead you, with a familiar knife still rooted in its diaphragm, and a familiar boy straddling its waist.

It’s disorienting. He isn’t panting, but his chest is heaving in silent, uneven sobs and his eyes closed as tightly as yours had been. With one hand clamped around the hilt of his knife and the other pressed to the ground, supporting his nonexistent weight, he draws his weapon out, then with only a slight hesitation, he plunges it back in. Out, then in, again and again and again until something breaks underneath him, your ribs caving in with a sickening crack. His eyes fly open, his shoulders tensing as he scrambles backward, but it’s a short-lived panic. All it takes is a quick scan over the corpse underneath him, and with an exhausted sigh, he drops his knife, relieved that you’re as dead as he is.

You’re not sure whether the cold feeling that runs through you is betrayal or disgust, but you don’t have much time to decide. A scream hitches in your throat, emerging in a stifled croak, and Hanako turns towards you, all wide-eyes and parted lips, as if he’d gotten caught rummaging through Yashiro’s back or playing with Kou’s staff, rather than killing his friend. He has time to lift a hand, to open his mouth, but if he says anything, you can’t make it out. Not over the blood suddenly rushing past your ears.

“I don’t…” You mumble, taking a step forward, then one back. You drive your nails into your palms, hoping to ground yourself, but it hurts less than you thought it would. You’re not sure whether that’s a reason to be relieved, or just a new source of distress. “Hanako, I don’t… Why are you--”

“It’s not what it looks like.” The words are hasty, spouted in such a rush, you can hardly differentiate one from the other. He wasn’t expecting this part. “I mean, it is, but you don’t understand. I didn’t want to hurt you.”

You don’t respond. You don’t want to respond.

You turn on your heel, and you run. As fast as you can and as far as you can, and thankfully, Hanako doesn’t try to follow.

~

Surprisingly, it’s Tsukasa that comes to find you first.

Holing yourself up in a storage closet wasn’t your smartest decision, but it wasn’t like you had much of a choice. You were scared, you are scared, but it was the only thing you could think to do, after realizing you wouldn’t be able to leave Kamome. You’re still hugging your knees, fruitlessly attempting to warm yourself up when he walks through the closed door. You’re not sure where you ran to in your desperation, but it’s not like he has a reason to move secretively, nor does Hanako have a reason to stop him from doing so. You’d promised to visit sometime after your graduation, sometime during a break, as stupid as that turned out to be. The staff wouldn’t return for weeks, let alone the students.

Disturbingly, the thought crosses your mind that your body might sit there, undiscovered and decaying, until the first day of the next school year. In an effort to distract yourself, you decide you would rather face Tsukasa than linger on it.

When you bother to look up, he’s hovering in front of you, his eyes as wide as his brother’s and twice as unsuspecting. You attempt to melt into the wall, and then, for fear that you actually might, you stop. “What do you want?”

“To see you,” He answers, no trace of malice or discontent audible in his voice. He’s uncomfortably close, the distance between the two of you minimal, but you're glad for the space. You’ve seen him be far less courteous to spirits he’s known for a shorter time, spirits he’s far more fond of. “I don’t think Amane was as gentle as he could’ve been. I wanted to make sure you were alright.” He thinks, for a moment, before he adds a brief explanation. “It’d be boring if you were already broken.”

“Like you’d care,” You mumble, letting your gaze fall to a dusty corner someplace behind him. “I’m dead, aren’t I? That probably goes with at least one of your schemes.”

At that, he grins. “My brother and I worked together,” He admits, rubbing the back of his neck as he floats upward absent-mindedly, his head bowing and his cheeks turning pink with the barest hints of a flush. “He was really stubborn about it, though. He didn’t come to me until the very last minute, and even then, he was so specific about the rumor he let me spread for you…” Tsukasa laughs, the noise high-pitched and half-suppressed, more of a giggle than anything. “You should’ve heard some of the stories we were going to try! Sakura made it look so easy, but--”

“A rumor?” The question slips out before you can stop it, the subject instilling as curiosity as revulsion. “What do you mean you ‘spread a rumor’ for me?”

“Oh, that was my part!” There’s a clap, a roll that left him lying on his back, and despite yourself, you begin to uncurl. Just enough to make him more excited than he had to be. “I was supposed to set things up, give you a rumor to slide into, my big brother just had to get you here! I did all the boring, business stuff, and Amane got to do the dirty work.” Tsukasa lets out a disappointed huff, pursing his lips. “He was so mean about it, too. He said he didn’t trust me to be responsible, whenever that means.”

It’s a numb sense of shock, a dull wave of luke-warm information you only barely don’t know. Hanako’s betrayal makes sense. You don’t like it, nor does your awareness do anything to soften the blow, but it does. He’s a spirit, someone who did something awful enough to warrant an afterlife full of duty and obligation. You feel stupid for not realizing he would be willing to do something awful to you, too.

When you speak, you nearly forget he’s meant to respond. You want to hear yourself talk more than you want to hear his grim clarifications about a story you have a feeling you don’t want to know. “How’d you get him to do it?” You ask, already fearing his response. “Hanako didn’t seem… I can’t believe he would--”

“I didn’t have to,” He chirps, cutting in without hesitation. He really doesn’t have to.

The way his smile widens is enough to silence you on its own.

“It was all Amane’s idea.”

~

When Hanako finally comes to you, it’s only because you come to him, first.

Or, you leave your closet, at least. It seems pointless to avoid him, even if your legs start to shake before you can make it to the girl’s bathroom, the ghost of a heartbeat racing in your chest and your vision going dark at the edges without warning. It’s a terrible feeling. Everything is duller, when nothing’s life or death. Sensations are fainter, the world around you seems dimmer, and no matter what you do, you can’t seem to get warm. Although, you aren’t sure if that’s because you're dead, or because you’re trapped in a dark, dank school building you’ve never seen past sunset. In the end, you give up about a hundred steps away from Hanako’s domain, you back against a wall and your legs crossed underneath you.

It’s a pathetic position, but you’re pathetic.

No one with any dignity would crawl back to their murderer so quickly.

He’s kind enough not to say anything. There’s no friendly greeting, no callback to a better time in your companionship, just a deep breath and a solid thud as he falls against the cheap, plaster wall, then another when he hits the ground. You try to resist the temptation to look at him, to see if he’s just as miserable as you are, but it’s a futile thing to fight.

That doesn’t mean you don’t regret it, though. He’s… different, for lack of a better way to put it, less lively than he usually is. All troubled eyes and wilting posture and thoughtful glances in your direction that get taken back so quickly, you have to wonder if he’d ever offered them in the first place. He’s sad, obviously, he’s guilty, but there’s something missing. Something absent from his display.

It dawns on you abruptly. As unwelcome as it is unpleasant.

He’s guilty, but he isn’t sorry.

He doesn’t regret what he did to you, he’s just disappointed he got caught.

Still, he’s the first to speak, his voice listless and downtrodden. Like a child who’s just been put in time-out and forced to apologize. “I’m sorry. I calculated wrong, I… I thought it would take more time. I didn’t think you’d have to see anything.” He pauses, something troubled flitting over his expression. You might’ve missed it, if you hadn’t known him so well. “I wouldn’t do that to you. I didn’t want to--”

“I don’t want to hear it.” Your tone’s far from authoritative, the declaration more sober than strict, but Hanako falls silent all the same, giving you a moment to gather your thoughts. Not that there was much to think over. “I don’t think I really care about that. I’m angry, I’m absolutely angry, but… There’s nothing you can say to fix this.” You feel him bristle next to you, folding into himself as his eyes narrow at nothing in particular, but if he’s going to interrupt you, he doesn’t make a move to do so. His acceptance is a small relief, but it’s a relief all the same. “I just want to know why. We’re friends, Hanako. If I did something to make you think I deserved this, all you had to do was tell me. I would’ve transferred to another school, or stopped bothering you. I could’ve left. You didn’t have to--”

“I did.”

You snap towards him, moving to speak, but Hanako reaches out before you can, his fist claiming around your sleeve. It’s a sickeningly childish gesture, a sickeningly desperate one, meant to stop you from leaving before the thought could even cross your mind. “I want you to stay. It’s not--” His voice cracks, his whole body tensing. “I couldn’t just sit back and watch you leave. I couldn’t watch you move on, not after Yashiro took the first chance she had to run. I didn’t want to. I’m selfish, and I didn’t want to.”

For a second, you’re too stunned to speak. You’re confused, you’re disoriented, that crushing, oppressive dizziness only getting worse every time you try to associate the scared kid sitting at your side with the same boy who ended your life. “I would’ve come back,” You stammer, grasping for something to say, a sentiment that would comfort you as much as it soothed him. “I graduated, but I wasn’t going to leave you alone. Yashiro visits every time she gets the chance, I would’ve done the same thing. You know that, Hanako, you knew that when you… When you decided to do this.”

“Nene’s growing up,” He spits. “She’ll stop. She’ll get busy with her university classes and meet a boy and forget about me, about us. I’ll be a bad dream, and you’ll be her annoying underclassmen. In a few years, Kou’s going to care more about exorcising spirits than befriending them, if he cares at all. He might forget, too.” He drops your sleeve, pulling into himself, but it’s hardly an improvement. Like this, he just looks withdrawn, spiteful. Someone who knows what kind of trap they’ve been caught in, but still refuses to completely submit to it. “They always forget. You would’ve, if I let you.”

You want to deny it. You can think of a thousand reasons you wouldn’t, a thousand moments you’ve done more than enough to prove you’d never willingly abandon him, and yet, all your arguments and disputes and defenses disappear the moment you turn towards Hanako, finally looking at him in earnest. You think he’s going to be angry, furious, violent, and yet, your expectations couldn’t be farther from the truth. Rather than balling his fists and steeling himself, he’s shaking, trembling, rubbing furiously at his eyes with sleeves that are just a hair’s width too long, every tear he misses falling to his chest, unnoticed and neglected.  You can’t hear him crying, but you almost wish you could. The sobs that rack over him are silent, his jaw locked in place and his teeth grit to the point of pain, but the few noises that slip through are pitchy, pitiful, evidence that something much louder is coming, something Hanako won’t be able to control. Something no one should have to go through, not alone.

Something you don’t want to see your friend go through alone.

You don’t think. You rest a hand on his shoulder, tugging him towards you gently, and just like that, Hanako’s face is buried in your shoulder, his arms wrapped around your midriff and yours resting limply on his shoulders, giving him permission to be as close as he wants to be. It’s not amnesty, but it’s sympathy, and that’s enough for Hanako to melt into you, to cling to you like a lifeline.

To make you think you might be able to forgive him, one day. Even if the idea seems incomprehensible, now.

So wrapped up in optimistic thoughts, you don’t notice how tight his grip is, as he clutches at your shirt. You don’t pull back when he goes quiet too quickly, or mention how easily he’s convinced to go still. You don’t feel the tiny, contented smile soon pressing into your skin, small but just as self-satisfied as any grin or smirk could ever hope to be. Involuntary, but genuine.

More genuine than any tear Hanako could ever force out, at least.

[mayclair]

also, i need more book recs so just give me whole list and i won't mind, i just need something to read

this turned out longer than it was supposed to be oops

percy jackson and the olympians — rick riordan (five part series that you should read because percabeth <3 but seriously it’s v interesting how he uses old greek myths and (sometimes unintentionally LMAO) parallels them to the events in the books)

the raven cycle — maggie stiefvater (rich kid and his three friends go on a quest to find a dead welsh king and make friends with a tiny feminist and her family of psyhics along the way need i say more)

the folk of the air — holly black (when i say it’s the best enemies to lovers i have ever read i’m not kidding but there’s a lot political stuff intermixed with the fantasy parts so a lot of people don’t rlly like it)

these violent delights duology — chloe gong (romeo and juliet retelling set in 1920s shanghai guaranteed to rip ur heart out of ur chest and stomp all over it)

red, white, and royal blue — casey mcquinston (bisexual son of the american president falls in love with the prince of wales and chaos follows)

if we were villians — m.l. rio (six theater kids trying to find out who murdered their one friend in their fancy actor college but make it dark academia with marauder vibes<3)

heartstopper — alice oseman (graphic novel where nerdy gay kid falls in love with rugby jock and it’s just . So Fucking Soft)

legendborn — tracy deonn (amazing book based on arthurian legend by a poc author that discusses a lot of v important racial issues also it has a shit ton of plot twists i love it so much)

the seven husbands of evelyn hugo — taylor jenkins reid (retired 70s movie star evelyn hugo tells the secrets behind her seven marriages and reveals who her true great love was and it’s just so heartbreaking 10/10 will ruin ur life)

the song of achilles — madeline miller (achilles and patroclus’ entire story on how they went from strangers to friends to lovers that will make u sob and regret u ever read it<3)

also!!!! check the tws before reading bc some of them have quite a lot lol

[themysteryofwriting]

Masterpost

Sanders Sides OneShots

What Happened Before Accepting Anxiety - what I think happened that caused Virgil to sink out

The Creativity Split -my interpretation of the Split.  Warning for slight U!Pat and gaslighting

Analogical Clothes Prompt - some fluffy Analogical with Logan stealing Virgil’s clothes

Moceit No Mom prompt - fluffy Moceit prompt with a bit of demiboy Patton or Patton in a skirt where Patton is oblivious til the end

Royality short Pat prompt - no further explanation needed

Can’t You See It - Analogical One Shot. Virgil wants the others to know about how loving Logan is...and that he’s a giant memelord.  Is that so bad?  Hints of background Roceit And Remus being himself

Who say you have to leave your past behind you - my first one shot with Rachel. Some stuff has changed about her since this but it has a special place in my heart.  Hinted at Past U!Pat and Remus being himself. Dee speaks in lies ofc.

This is the Worst Ending - oh boy.  okay this is what I call my angst :tm: If you are senstive to any of the following: don’t read Unsympathetic Patton, multiple major character deaths, blood, Sayori like scene, string imagery, gore, depression, brainwashing, emotional manipulation,murder, strangulation, eating disorder(kinda), stabbing, gaslighting There was a part 2 but......it didn’t last long, i wasn’t proud of it

Puppet!Ray Origins - the first part of my fnaf au! (i literally only have this part and the end so far).  Warnings for U!Pat (he’s Afton), along with child death. However some cute Logan and Ray interactions

Puppet!Ray: End of Everything: continuation of FNAF AU.  This time the Henry scene at the end of FNAF 6.  The fic I got to use the tag ‘is it still fluff if everyone dies’ on.  TW: Hinted Unsympathetic Patton because of who he replaces

And They Were Roommates - a hurt/comfort fic writen for the sanders gift exchange last year.  LAMP fic, nonbinary Dee, college AU, supportive boyfs all around

Prinxiety Prompt - takes place post DWIT, Virgil and Roman talking/flirting

Moxiety, Mobster Patton - again, nuff said.  no death, actually pretty fluffy for the prompt.  maybe a little kidnapping?

Movie Night: cute fluffy LAMP

Logan Prevents A Murder: QPP Analogical, Virgil debating murdering Roman

The Bane of Protectiveness: Ray was there when Roman....and she couldn’t stop him   TW: Suicide, Self-deprecation, self-hatred

MM3: The Murder: based of a Murder Mystery from a discord server, how Talyn’s death played out  TW: death, murder, vomiting, planned murder, drugging a drink, Unsympathetic Logan

How Ray Became Anxiety: Little clip from an au of mine where Ray becomes anxiety, along with keeping protectiveness. TW: character death, Virgil ducks out, Patton and Roman are jerks

Fighting the Dragon Witch isn’t Therapy: after POF, Roman will do anything to prove himself  TW: Temporary Major Character Death

Random Fandom One Shots

Peter Meets Angel - short one shot about my oc meeting Peter (Marvel)

Mitsue Goes Off:  Mitsue was already having a bad day, so when the LOV kidnaps her, she’s going to give them a piece of her mind (MHA)

We Have Mic - Mic gets kidnapped, Aizawa has something to say bout that (MHA)

Scar to Remember - Overhaul left a mark on Mitsue (MHA)

Demise Of A Gamer (DR) - Chp5 of SDR2 from Chiaki’s Pov

Friends Protect Each Other- Tubbo goes to visit Tommy during his exile...and finds Dream with him  TW: manipulative Dream

Original Writing

Saving The Moon - a short story I wrote for a contest a few years back

Never Trust A Newbie- short story written for a writing camp

The Hug Wizard- if you know, you know

Spiritfarer Hug Wizard: o w o

Soulmates Don’t Have to Be Romantic (finished :D )

my platonic soulmates series, starring my oc Ray

Part 1

Part 2

Part 3

Part 4

Part 5

Soulmate GC

Based off my soulmate story, a gc with the members messing w/ each other. Crack fic.

Chp 1

Chp 2

Bad Things Happen Bingo

The Collector - Logan collects people. TW: U!Logan, Kidnapping, Taxidermy on a person, blunt force trauma, character death, implied use of a date rape drug, major character death

Pressure Doesn’t Always Make A Diamond: Reminding a side for their mistakes was never a good idea.  Especially when they feel guilty about it like Patton did.  TW: Unsympathetic Deceit, Unsympathetic Logan, constant guilt-tripping, self-hatred, self-deprecation, blaming someone for something that isn’t their fault 

 He’s Not Yours: Patton’s parents....aren’t the best  TW: emotional abuse, yelling, numbness

Keeping Them Pure: Patton just wanted to make sure his kiddos wouldn’t get corrupted by those nasty dark sides  TW: Unsympathetic Patton, Kidnapping, Forced holding, chains

The Past Can Haunt You: Remus keeps getting left by those he cares about  TW: Abandonment, Self deprecation, Childhood Trauma,  the split, implied unsympathetic light sides

Snakes Don’t Like the Cold: Dee is part snake...so what happens when he gets trapped in a freezer  TW: Unsympathetic Roman, locked in a freezer, hypothermia

All It Takes Is One Mistake: It’s very easy for the Ego to crack  TW: Roman angst ,cracks, roman needing to talk to people

A Game of Paranoia: Something seems off to Rantaro as he goes through this game

You Just Need a Push to be Good: Patton couldn’t let those dark sides keep corrupting Thomas  TW: Unsympathethic Patton, using shock collars as punishment

‘I’m Fine’ And Other Lies: Introduction of Mitsue, my bnha oc.  Mitsue gets hurt in a fight and doesn’t realize how bad it is until it’s too late  TW: mention of blood, hospitals

They Never Saw It Coming: a small one shot with my own sides.  Warning, the title is a really bad pun.  TW: graphic eye injury

The Collector: What Happened Before: a sort of prequel to The Collector, Patton thinking over what happened TW: hypnotism, mind control, U!Logan

Replaceable?: takes place post POF, Logan’s reaction to what Janus did 

Those Left Behind: Ray was there when Virgil left them

You’ll See: From my given to Overhaul AU: Why Mitsue works with Overhaul  TW: Forced Starvation, Kidnapping, Parents not caring

Why Roman’s Sword Isn’t Allowed In the Common Room: All I’m gonna say is this is not as much as a crack fic as it sounds. TW: stabbing, coughing up blood, fighting

Scar To Remember: Mitsue wasn’t left okay after Overhaul got a hold of her

We Have Mic: Someone kidnaps Mic to get to Aizawa.  TW: Kidnapping

Don’t Hurt Ray Or Else: Even while with the lights, Virgil is going to protect his sister  TW: Morally Grey/Unsympathetic Patton, Outing Someone, not Accepting someone,  Transphobia?, mentions of fighting someone

Even In The Face Of Death, Logan Ignores His Feelings - a day to relax goes wrong when Remus decides to mess with Logan  TW: blood, stabbing

Trapped- Virgil gets kidnapped while out in the imagination.  It doesn’t go well. TW: kidnapping, panic attack, flashbacks, claustrophobia, implied pranking, implied fighting

Who Knew Sleep Paralysis Could Be Deadly?- Talent Swap AU with Makoto and Kyoko  TW: stabby stab, K-nife, sickness, sleep paralysis

Kokichi’s Sacrifice - Kokichi’s POV of Chp 4  TW: major character death, strangulation

A Well Needed Lesson - Byakuya has had enough of the Ultimate Lucky Student, Kyoko responds in return

Oh Look, A Yandere - Mic gets kidnapped by a yandere and has to try to escape TW: Yandere, kidnapping

Bad Things Happen Bingo Part 2: New Card, New Category

To Manipulate A Protector -Orange goes after Virgil? Or is that just a trick? TW: Kidnapping, implied fighting, manipulation, being controlled

Some Apologies Go Nowhere - after chp 4, Kokichi tries to apologize to Shuichi. Key word there is try

No One Noticed...- What if Shiro hadn’t been the only one Replaced? TW: Abandonment, heavy doubt, replaced and not noticed

Of All People Why’d it have to be Deku? - Bakugou and Midoryia switch bodies. Chaos ensues. TW:… cussing I guess?

A Broken Disc- Spoilers for the March 1st Tommyinnit Stream  TW: Major Character Death, Attempted Manipulation, Flashbacks

not again...: Nagito gets kidnapped...again  TW: kidnapping, locked in small place

Goodbye Green- Who ever said the Creativity twins were supposed to be separated?  TW: Morally Grey Patton, having to leave someone you care about

One Step Behind: Phil’s POV of what happened that fateful day  TW: Major Character Death, Stabbing, Bleeding Out, Explosions

Adrien’s Realization

Lila Bashing fic where Adrien finally realizes that ‘Hey what Lila is doing to me isn’t good’

Chp 1-  TW: Unrequited flirting, unrequited crush, Lila hate(?)

Chp 2- TW:Self doubt, bad advice

Another Path

After All Might tells Izuku he can’t be hero, Izuku decides it might be better to take another path to help people. Planned mix of actual story and chat fic

TW: slight All Might bashing

Prologue

Chp 1

Chp 2

[herglowinggirl]

can you see an ending to SOK where yun lives / yun redemption? i've been thinking a lot about the trend of abused kids never getting over their abuse and dying instead, and i feel like FCYee does a good job of writing yun and i don't want to say he's guilty of this trend, but sometimes i wonder if there could've been another ending. sorry if this ask is weird/uncomfy, you don't have to answer. have a nice day!

ok so...I am writing a meta about this (familiar anon i see you) but I feel like it’s worth answering here, too. this is less of a meta and more my personal thoughts so there’s no graphic descriptions of anything but I’ll put it under a cut because it got long, tw for canon typical violence/death.

short answer: yeah, there were workarounds but nothing that wouldn’t change the motifs, themes, plot points of the novels. I think the novels set out to make a different point on abuse than atla (think “it was wrong and it was cruel” as opposed to avatar “the obligation to be more than the sum of her grievances with the world” kyoshi) which isn’t a bad thing, necessarily. also, like, atla was a kids show and the kyoshi novels are ya and they very successfully make points on moral ambiguity and who gets to live and who gets to die. I agree and think f.c. yee handled it pretty well and yun was “meant” to die based on his backstory and evidence discussed below + the fact that he’s emulating the cycle of abuse by the end of the book. could it have been done differently? absolutely. was this story meant to? not really. you already said that it doesn’t feel like yun was killed off instead of writing about him dealing with the impacts of abuse, because the impacts were dealt with and explored just...he died at the end anyway, because of the places dealing with that stuff lead him. quoting a line from below the cut but yes, yun apologism on main. but I very much prefer to do it within canon, I think. 

but would I want to see a version where yun lived? a little, yeah, because I wanted, well, justice for him. I wanted him to reunite with rangi and kyoshi and meet team avatar and live out the rest of his life happy and free from jianzhu because I love yun’s characterization, but as a character he has a bigger part of the narrative than being someone I’m attached to. I think that also begs the question should he have been used in those narratives of abuse the way that he was if someone like me (whose relationships could be classified under “complicated” at the very least) could relate and love him, especially for a YA novel? also not sure. maybe it’s not that deep, especially because what’s already been written and published is all but set in stone (and I am not very interested in writing fix-it fanfiction, just building on canon). 

so those are my personal thoughts summed up (there’s extra rambling on why he was supposed to die + a plot workaround below). when all is said and done, this is a storyline I turn to in order to cope, but if there’s anything similar that perhaps ends with the survivor alive...any recs would be appreciated, from anyone! thank you for asking and making sure I’d feel ok ruminating on it <3 I hope you have a nice day too!

contextual evidence...zoryu going “some people will always change you back to who you were,” rangi asking kyoshi why she didn’t stop yun and kyoshi’s only answer being that seeing him had turned her back to her unsure state, yun trying to rid kyoshi of her fans and all her character growth during the final Boss Battle™...these things are a theme. you can’t strip the books of this touch of some are always meant to end, esp b/c that stuff was set up in trok (I always seem to come back to kyoshi asserting her only duty was to protect her loved ones in yokoya and then her duty becoming something much larger) so I feel like you couldn’t get rid of yun death without significant workarounds in the motifs and plot points in the novels.

that being said, I’m sure there are and were plot workarounds to killing yun. there’s an alternate universe out there where the novels ended with yun being a parallel to lao ge (I’ve talked about how they parallel each other before I think it’s very spicy; here and here), where he becomes jianzhu’s successor and just like lao ge kept kyoshi accountable on the other side of things, this time to the bureaucracy of the earth kingdom instead of lao ge’s agenda. this would also tie up when lao ge said something along the lines of “jianzhu does good work.” the novels are in no way perfect and the ending and pacing in the last third of the book do feel rushed to me (although the last kyoshi pov chapter ends sooo sentimental, enough for me to call f.c. yee a sap) but I feel they do establish the ways that kyoshi is going to cope with being a political figure, but I’ll have to elaborate on that somewhere else, so I digress.

the truth of it is this, and it is very harsh—yun was always supposed to be dead. we see it in how he and kyoshi have very similar backstories and the ways that jianzhu and kelsang are also pitted against each other their kids (well, kelsang’s kid, jianzhu’s pupil) end up dealing with the reasons why they were brought in. kelsang saved kyoshi from the goodness of his heart, he took her in and raised her like his own child (this makes me very emotional...) whereas yun was taken in because he was thought to be the avatar. then it turns out that kyoshi might be the avatar, but she is still kelsang’s daughter first, with kelsang honoring her wishes to keep it secret and letting her comfort him on the iceberg, and then when he believed kyoshi over jianzhu. establishing kyoshi’s humanity is really important in the novels so we can give kelsang a big thank you to him and then later to rangi to make sure kyoshi loves and treats herself well. 

what i’m getting at here is that if yun hadn’t been taken in for being the avatar, he would’ve been dead and it’s a form of uh...narrative checkov’s gun in a way? there’s only so long you can make something of yourself by beating tourists at pai sho. kyoshi and yun both had expiration dates and only by the grace of jianzhu and kelsang did they survive. yun reassures himself that life is a game and “he will survive a turn longer.” his story is always about doing the next thing to survive, to prove he’s worthy of the survival and salvation given to him by jianzhu. kyoshi’s story is not about deserving avatarhood, it’s about becoming the avatar. it’s a key difference in the way the narrative treats them. if he’s hadn’t been mistaken for the avatar, he would literally be nothing. he’d be dead. 

and there’s only so far you can go playing the person who deserved avatarhood if you’re not the avatar, and I think that mainly accounts for discrepancies in the idea of justice and how yun and kyoshi get to act on it because believe me, I would’ve loved to see yun tear the whole thing down. like, to see kyoshi have to kill yun for destroying the system (this is an oversimplification*) and then have her declared the “breakdown of negotiations?” like alright...sure, jan. let the boy kill a few people!! eat the rich!! murder isn’t even that bad anyway (/joking).

*yun is literally declared the residue of kuruk’s generation’s sins by hei-ran. this theme of legacy and cycles of abuse is emulated to him which brings me to acknowledge that yeah, it’s really shitty to see him killed when that theme lives in both him and kyoshi. it is a symbolic ending to the cycle of abuse when kyoshi “puts him away” (did she have to say that!!!) but that shit hurts, man. however the line “I’m sorry I said you would have to live with your pain. Because you won’t,” serves to acknowledge that by the end of the duology, yun himself has become an abuser. he’s shoving kyoshi into boxes, tries to kill rangi (to be fair rangi tried to kill him minutes/seconds earlier but he did try to kill her mom for allowing a man to try to kill him. it’s almost like...a cycle), he holds people hostage, terrorizes and murders several people in his pov chapters...at least lao ge was subtle about his work. 

so yes, yun apologism on main. but I very much prefer to do it within canon, I think. 

[askintothevoids]

Poetry Runs in the Family

TW: Death mention, violence mention, murder mention, bad feelings

“You feeling alright?”

Jane’s voice coming out of nowhere about scared the shit out of Buddy. He hadn’t been expecting company, he hadn't for awhile.

“I’m fine.”

He kept his eyes trained on the wooden floor, noticing every grain that tied together into one big piece and every big piece became the entirety of the floor. It felt too big for his world.

“You look like hell, Keke.”

“When do I not?”

Jane looked at him for a moment. He was tired looking, those sticky feelings of failure and emptiness laying in the bags of his eyes. His hair was in shaggy oily curls, their yellowish bronze dying upon the hand of stress.

“I suppose you’re right.” Jane said, sitting on the bed next to him.

Jane gulped down her nervousness. Buddy was still sitting there emotionless, cemented to the spot.

“You shouldn’t be so hard on yourself. You’re a good kid, Keith.”

Buddy trained his piercing slate eye’s at Jane’s own green ones.

“Why do you call me that?”

“Call you what?” Jane asked, tilting her head to the side.

“Keith. You’re only one who does.”

“I dunno. It’s your name, it's a good name. Besides would you rather I call you Keith Guillaume for fifteen years? Even worse, Keith Toulouse, even?”

“That’s fair. What’s with marketable middle names in this family?”

Jane laughed.

“We’re french, we have like nine aunts named Marie Geneviève. Literally, mom gets called Logan Jean by half of our extended family.”

Buddy nodded, somewhat enjoying Jane’s company.

“I suppose Harper Barbara and Daniel Jesse don't exactly roll off the tongue.”

“Nope, the magic of the human name, huh?”

Buddy sat up a little straighter, realizing something.

“I thought you were from a fantasy universe, is France still a thing there?”

“Yep, it’s just a smidge bigger than yours, and more people and magic.”

“Huh, interesting.”

Jane nodded, fondly sighing at the thought of her home.

“Let me tell you, my brother, Keith, he was just great.” Jane said, “Obviously you’re him, but not quite. I’m sure you feel the same way about me. But my brother, he was smart as a whip, and could make any tune. Excellent talent, he could’ve been a bard.”

Buddy quirked his eyebrows in confusion.

“Did something bad happen to him?”

She nodded, a pained look in her eyes.

“Yeah, he uh, he was killed in a ransacking of his home, beaten with a club. His husband and his kids made it out safely though.”

Buddy swallowed uncomfortably. He’d never been good at icky, sad ridden emotions.

“That’s good, not the dying part, but the people that survived.” Buddy awkwardly consoled.

Jane shook her head, giving him a tough smile.

“It’s fine. I’m no stranger to death, no need for condolences.” Jane stated, “I sound like one of those angsty graphic novels. It’s fine, stuff happens. People hate people.”

Jane laughed sadly.

“There’s only tragedy in love and war, Keith.”

[azure-firecracker]

What would Kate and Eva do if they were the only ones who got trapped in the basement with Riley?

OOH I LOVE THIS ONE AAAAAAHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

TW: Blood, pain, graphic descriptions of stabbing, knives, mentions of murder.

@thatboleyngirlreads this wasn’t written for you specifically, but I thought you might enjoy this one.

Kate sighed as she plopped back down on the sofa next to Eva. Annleigh and Reeses were still upstairs getting ice with Riley and Cairo, which made for a very awkward dynamic between the two.

Kate glanced over at their new flyer. She was pretty, Kate could admit that. Maybe even beautiful. No, definitely beautiful. 

Wait, was she blushing?

“I like your pin.” As she said this, Kate felt her face growing hotter and hotter. “Oh crap. I literally already said that, I...”

Eva laughed. Of course she had a pretty laugh, too. “Hey, it’s all good. It’s been a crazy night.”

Kate grinned, rolling her eyes. “Now that’s an understatement.”

A noise at the top of the steps pulled both their attention away from one another. Riley had just come back into the room, wearing her usual enormous smile and closing the door behind her as she entered. 

“Thank you so much for coming back here! I know it’ll be a bit hard, but...”

“I...just came to get my things.”

Riley’s face fell. “Oh.”

“Where are Cairo and Reeses and Annleigh?”

RIley’s perky smile came right back, but it almost looked forced. Kate couldn’t blame her. It had been a long night. “Oh, they’re still getting ice. They’ll be right down.”

Still, she couldn’t shake the feeling that something felt wrong. “Well, we can’t practice without them.”

“Right! Good point!” She turned to the door,  ponytail bouncing. She turned the knob, but instead of opening the door, she kept jiggling it like she was in a bad comedy movie. She turned around, looking slightly scared. “All right, very funny. Who locked the door?”

“WHAT?!” The girls spoke at the same time. Kate felt fear filling up her body. This wasn’t good.

Eva leapt up from the couch. “Well, is there a key or something?”

Riley nodded, looking around frantically. “Yes! There is a key...somewhere...in this basement, and I will find it! In the meantime, you can try to...uh...text Cairo and Annleigh, and see if they can let us out!”

Snapping out of her haze, Kate whipped out her phone and began trying to access her messages. Her hands were shaking, but she felt Eva’s hand on her shoulder, which helped calm her down a little.

“Why is the WiFi not working?”

Eva turned to her, panic starting to really take over her face. “There’s no cell service?”

“Not in the basement!”

Kate sighed, slumping back against the sofa. “Well what the fuck are we supposed to do now?”

Eva clapped her hands together, clearly trying not to believe the worst. Not in a fake peppy sort of way like Riley, but in a trying to see some semblance of hope sort of way. “Well, I mean...they’ve got to notice we’re gone soon enough.”

“No they won’t.” The sound of Riley’s voice, darker than usual, from the other side of the room, startled Kate and nearly made her jump. “They got their stuff already. You two were so busy trying to stop them that you left your things down here. But they didn’t.” She looked up, and Kate was surprised to see tears in her eyes. “They’re not gonna stay. Why would they?” She sighed, glancing at a photo on the shelf behind her that could only be a young Cairo and Riley. “Cairo was right.”

Kate was in shocked. She’d never expected to see their own peppy captain looking so...broken.

In a flash, Riley’s broken expression was gone, replaced by her usual peppy smile. “You know what? Maybe this is a sign. Eva’s new to the team, and I was gonna ask Reeses to be your sort of guide, because she’s new too, but she knows the team so well, but Kate’s a Junior. It makes more sense if she does it. So how about I go see if my parents hid the key in this...bathroom, aand Kate, you can teach Eva some of our cheers! Good? Okay great!” And, ponytail swinging, she disappeared into the bathroom, closing the door behind her.

Kate turned to Eva awkwardly. “You...don’t have to learn the cheers. I mean, they’re pretty easy. Being the highest ranked flyer in the state and all, I’m sure you’ll pick them up, no problem.”

Eva cocked her head at her. “Was that supposed to be sarcastic?”

Kate felt her face growing hot again. “No. That’s just...how I sorta sound a lot. Sorry.”

Eva smiled. “No, I get it, actually.” She grinned. “It’s kind of cute.”

If Kate were the fainting type, she probably would have fainted then and there.

Instead, she leapt backwards on the couch. “Well...uh...we can learn the cheers, I guess. Only if you want to, though!”

Before Kate could find out if Eva did indeed want to learn the cheers, Riley came back out of the bathroom. When she caught sight of the two, she froze completely in her tracks. While her mouth kept on the same peppy smile, her eyes changed completely. In a split second, they seem to shatter, almost like glass, to reveal something dark and...terrifying, lurking underneath. Almost subconsciously, Kate felt herself backing away, and she saw Eva doing the same.

“Kate...I thought you were going to show Eva the new cheers.”

“We were just getting to that!” Kate sounded disingenuous, even to her own ears. She was just suddenly so nervous.

Riley sighed, leaning on the arm of the sofa. “You know, Kate, it’s really disappointing when members of this team let us down. We work hard, and some of us want to go to Regionals, and we want to be something more than...” she stared Kate right in the eye. Her blue eyes looked more and more broken with every word, the darkness coming closer and closer to the surface. The more she said, the faster she spoke, as though she could barely control what she was saying. “Than the worst team ever.”

Kate felt a nervous laugh escape our lips. “RIley...what are you talking about?”

Riley turned away so that Kate and Eva could now only see her back. “I was just so excited to be the captain. I thought I could turn this team around. But some things...some people, they’re just such big problems that they ruin this team for everyone else. There’s really nothing to be done.”

All of a sudden, Kate felt the pieces snap together in her head. Of course.

“It was you. You killed Chess and Farrah.”

RIley spun around, eyes wide and wild. “But Kate, I had to! Our team was infected! When you have a tumor, you don’t just...sit there, you cut it out, right?” She stared at them. “Right?!”

“Riley!” Kate stared their captain in her eyes. She’d known Riley was fragile, but not like this. Never this. “It’s all right. Eva and I are...here for you. Do you have the key?”

Riley nodded wordlessly.

“Alll....all right, then.” Kate glanced at Eva, who she noticed was subtly sliding her phone about of her pocket. So she needed a confession. “Why don’t you just...let us go? We promise we’ll come right back. Just...give us the key.”

Riley’s eyes filled with tears. “I...I can’t.”

Eva nodded, phone behind her back. “We know it’s hard. We understand, really. But we want to help you.”

Riley’s whole body shook. “No. No. No!” So quickly that Kate barely registered the motion, she pulled a knife from her jacket, pointing it at Kate and Eva, who both backed up instantly. As she did, Kate spotted the key sticking out of Riley’s coat pocket. If she could just get close enough...

“Look, RIley. We’ll do the cheer if you want. All you have to do is ask. You’re right. We’ve been pretty unhelpful. I think we owe it to you to...be better teammates, you know?” Just a little closer...

Riley’s eyes narrowed. Kate wanted to yell at herself for every moment she’d ever been snarky and sarcastic, because Riley was clearly not buying her nice girl act at all.

In a flash, Riley’s eyes moved over to Eva, landing on her phone. “Oh, I see, Eva. This is how it’s going to be.” 

There was a blur of motion, and suddenly, Kate found herself in Riley’s grasp, with the captain’s left arm wrapped around her, pinning her arms to her sides, and her right hand pressing the knife against her leg.

The knife cut through the flesh of her right thigh, and all she could feel was pain. Her vision disappeared, replaced by flashes of black and white. She could feel her own blood soaking her leg. She couldn’t think, she couldn’t feel, she couldn’t...

The knife dug in deeper, and it all got a hundred times worse. She felt tears of pain and fear in her eyes.  At long last, Riley pulled the knife out of her leg, leaving pooling blood behind. But in another flash, she was pressing the knife against Kate’s throat. Kate could feel her throat about to bleed.

God, was she really going to die like this? In pain, alone in a basement with a girl she’d known for one night and a murderous cheerleading captain? Was she really going to die after her best friend had been killed and she’d been left all alone?

Everyone she’d ever loved had left her behind. And now she was dying, and she’d never get the chance to see them again, and none of them would even remember her.

And then, very faintly, she heard a voice, through the haze of pain and fear.

“Riley, what are you doing?”

“You want that recording, Eva? Fine. But she dies.”

“You can’t do this!” Eva’s voice was growing more desperate by the second. Even in her haze, Kate could tell. “You need a team!”

“You really think I couldn’t replace every single one of them with another diversity scholarship in two seconds?” 

Kate felt the floor creak beneath her feet. “Please, Riley. Just...give me the key. I won’t tell. I’ll erase the recording, I promise.” The genuine fear in the flyer’s voice was surprising. “But don’t kill her.”

Riley laughed. Kate felt her arm twitch, and she saw something shiny flying through the air. “You want the key? You can have the key. But if you leave this room, with or without erasing that recording, she doesn’t come with you.” The knife pressed closer into Kate’s neck, and Kate winced in pain. “You know, Kate, it’s been so hard keeping you on this team, cause you’re so good, but you’re so fucking annoying.”

Kate had to bite her tongue to keep herself from screaming. 

“Why can’t I erase the recording and leave?”

“Because then you’d just tell everyone. And that would mess everything up, wouldn’t it? The case is closed. There’s no evidence, no fingerprints. I made sure of that!”

“Why would they believe me?”

“They wouldn’t. But they might believe her.”

Kate opened her eyes just in time to see the realization dawning on Eva’s face. “You were never going to let her out of here.”

“Oh, I was. I didn’t expect to tell you everything. I really am sorry about that.”

Eva was barely a foot away now. “Let her go.”

“Erase that recording.”

Eva sighed, glancing at the key and the phone in her hands. She held them out to Riley. “Fine. You win. You get both of these. You can even have me if you want. Just don’t hurt her.”

Riley laughed as she wrapped her right arm completely around Kate’s neck, leaving the girl temporarily unable to breathe, and used her left arm to reach for the phone.

In another flash, Eva dropped her phone on the ground, grabbing Riley’s left wrist. Riley’s right hand plunged the knife closer to Kate’s neck, but Eva’s hand was already there, grabbing her wrist. The two were suddenly locked in a battle of strength as Kate tried desperately to claw Riley’s arm away from her neck.

At last, with one final push, Riley went flying backwards, slamming into her own trophy case with a crash before laying still on the ground. Without Riley there to hold her up, Kate felt herself plummeting to the floor, but she felt arms wrap around her waist, supporting her and catching her before she could hit the cold, hard stone.

She opened her eyes, still gasping for air and crying from the pain. “I thought you were the flyer and I was the base.”

Eva laughed, relief filling her eyes. “I think we’re allowed to make exceptions to that rule.” Kate groaned as she tried to sit up, leaning on Eva’s shoulder. “Why didn’t you just take the key and leave? Why bother staying here with a murderer?” Eva’s eyes widened. “Because I wasn’t going to leave you alone here.”

“You just met me.”

“So what? You don’t leave people alone like that.”

“Yeah,” Kate muttered to herself, “but people have a knack for doing it to me.”

Eva didn’t appear to hear her, but she pulled her in even closer. Kate felt her face growing hot again.  “Look, Kate. What just happened was crazy. But I like you. You seem like a really, really good person. And you’re definitely not someone I’d ever leave behind.”

“Even in a locked basement of death?

Eva laughed. “Especially in a locked basement of death.”

***

Eat your hearts out, Kateva stans!

This one was SO much fun! It’s definitely been my favorite mini fic I’ve written so far, though I’m not sure exactly how mini it was by the end.

Anyway, hope you all liked it as much as I liked writing it:)

[horrortamer-archive]

==> Scar: Fear no longer.

TW: Mentions of past abuse, graphic depictions of death, murder, and misgendering. Please do not read if these subjects upset you.

One of your biggest fears while you were sailing was meeting Aranea Serket again. You had heard rumors that she had served her own jail time and was waiting execution when you left. Since then, you heard she had escaped the city and taken to the seas under the title Marquise Mindfang. You hadn’t run into her in the past 20 sweeps and you took this as a blessing.

You and your crew docked at the next port to search for more crew and pick up supplies. This port town was not exactly a place you would normally stop as a royal, but as a defect you must get used to scum and villainy. After all, you are now among them. It’s dirtier, more run down. Your iconic ship pulling into port did draw eyes, after all, near everyone on the planet has been alerted of your disappearance. You pulled up a hood on your cloak to walk freely in. You would have your first mate by your side if anything were to go wrong.

For hours, you two had passed through bars and perused the streets looking for new crew to hire. The primary goal was to find a free helmsman who already has ports installed and offer them standard crew pay. Not shockingly there are very few in the world, so you will be investing in a gasoline generator later if the venture still proves to me unsuccessful. 

While sitting in one of the bars to scout, your first mate left you alone to grab a drink as a reward to himself. But you refuse to be off your guard. While he was away, you heard a female voice loudly shout nearby. “Oh my moons and stars! Njorde?” The way the woman said your voice made your spine stiffen up and your heart race in fear. Your brain wants you to run. Run far away. Then she comes into your vision past the blind spot the hood created.

Aranea Serket. It’s like she never changed. She was growing out her hair and her face had definitely aged. Her multiple pupils were boring holes into your face as she looked at you with joy and shock. Like you were some kind of animal to admire. Fear and pain were very visible on your face.

“Oh my, Njorde, you have… grown.~” There was a bit of a flirty chuckle as she moved to fit across from you, uninvited. “It’s been so long. I’m happy to see you haven’t stopped being handsome. I’m shocked you can grow a beard. I mean, I have been shocked. I’m shocked you’re ALIVE first of all. You’re made of some really tough stuff. Maybe some of my luck rubbed off on you.” The sound that she let out sounded like a cackle. Disgust gripped your stomach and squeezed it tight. Her voice. Her face. It made you nauseous.

But you smile. You force a smile on to your face. It’s fake, but she doesn’t give a shit. You know how her pan used to work and you doubt it ever changed. She thinks you still love her. The world and the moons and the stars revolve around her. “It is nice to see you again, Aranea.” you lie.

“Ooooooooh!~ Someone pupated well. You became a handsome man with a voice to match.” And that made you want to throw up. Of course you’re not publicly out in your timeline. Why would she know you weren’t a man? You can give her that, but you know, even if she knew your gender, she would have still said that.

You stand up and she marvels at how tall you’ve grown. Oh you can see there is lust in her eyes. You have seen that look long before. It’s the same look she gave you when you were both arrested every single time. It made your heart sink and your stomach rise. And yet you continue to smile. “Why don’t we go outside and catch up? Someplace we can be alone. I don’t think everyone in the bar needs to hear of our dirty adventures.”

Aranea liked that. She really liked that. When she stood up next to you, you had to keep yourself from laughing. She was only about 7 feet tall, and you know she will insist that she is 8. You walked behind her. You made sure she wouldn’t leave your sight. She started babbling as she led you someplace. You weren’t listening to her and whatever big lies she was trying to feed you. Once a while she would ask you a question. How did you escape prison? How did you become orphaner? Is it true that you’re defecting? Why did you choose this port to go missing in? Are you done sailing? Would you like to join her crew? Every time, you refused to answer. “Get us alone and I’ll tell you.” you insist. And she believes it. She honestly believes it. You almost feel bad.

After about fifteen minutes of walking, you’re in an ally together. This was obviously a sketchy place in town. A place that a tourist couldn’t leave with their wallet or possibly die in. And she trusts you here.

“So?” she asks “To start off, how did you escape prison?? I need to know! I already told you I escaped. Fess up!” She seemed so genuinely excited.

The woman who put you in prison. The woman who tormented you for almost ten sweeps. The woman who almost killed you because she no longer found you useful. The same bitch who stabbed you and gave you scars for failing jobs and then turned around as you wept on the floor and papped you and kissed your face and told you she loved you. She did genuinely think she was a good moirail.

She does genuinely want to control you again.

You take a deep breath and sigh it out. “I didn’t. I was released by order of the empire.”

She laughed in your face. Like she could never imagine it. “THE EMPIRE? What would the empire want with YOU? Just be honest! You fucked your way out, right? Did you fuck the royal orph--”

Before she could finish her sentence, your big fist decked her in the face. She fell to the ground with a scream. She stopped out of shock before she started yelling at you. You couldn’t hear her. You were fueled with a rage you have not felt in a long time. You got on top of her on the floor. Your left hand squeezed her neck just enough where she could breath but she couldn’t speak. You could see that she was trying to reach for her sword, but before she could, you placed another blow to her face. Then another. Then another. You’re sure you’ve broken her nose at least. But you won’t stop until her skull is shattered and her jaw is broken and her brain is bleeding and she stops breathing. You won’t stop until she pays for the hell she put you through. You won’t stop until she’s fucking dead.

You think you’ve lost yourself. You don’t know how much time has passed. You look down at what you’ve done and… you’re not disgusted. Actually, you’re full of joy. You wipe your bloody hands off on her clothing and flip her face down onto the cobblestone ground.

You text your first mate. You need to leave immediately. From where you’re from, you’re supposed to eat someone who loses a battle like this but you’re not willing to eat something so dirty.

You’ve finally killed your abuser.

Now you have absolutely nothing to fear.

[thewhumperinwhite]

Just for fun: Soulmate AU

I was reading a fanfic about an au where you’re born with a mark representing your soulmate somewhere on your body and i was feeling sappy, and this uhhh.... got WELL out of hand;;; So I’m gonna post it in two parts because otherwise it’s longer than I’m comfy putting in one tumblr post. (i’ll put it as one complete piece in ao3 when it’s complete, though.) Also, i wasn’t even sure this would be that whumpy when i first had the idea but UH

Please note!! This oneshot contains a fairly graphic suicide attempt. I’m tagging it accordingly, but please err on the side of caution and be safe.

TW for: suicide attempt, gore, implied parental abuse, drowning, mild internalized ableism, underage whumpee (at this point Kent is 17, Sol is 19 and Pax is about 21).

@whumpitywhumpwhump

----

Sol Michaelis has two soulmate marks instead of one—an eye with a slash through it sits just under his collarbone from the day he’s born, and then when he’s two a second one slowly filters in, twin patterns of three lines around each of his wrists, just above the veins, in delicate summer-sky blue.

To be honest, Sol doesn’t think about it that much. He’s got too much to do, always—he’s in every sports club where they’ll let him play on the right team, and he always has to force himself to study if he wants to do good in school; he doesn’t tell anyone because his dad’s a genius so he can’t let anyone know he’s stupid, but it takes him three times as long to do anything as he knows its supposed to, always. It doesn’t leave any time to think.

About three times a month, he has nightmares about drowning, where he braces his hands and tries to push up out of the water but there’s a big hand around the back of his head and it holds him under, and he wakes up gasping for breath, pinned down against his sweaty pillow by the feeling that it’s his fault, that he deserves it somehow, that it’s only justice.

He honestly believes they’re just normal stress dreams, and they usually don’t stick in his head that long. And he’s always so busy. He’s busy in high school and then all of a sudden he’s busy surviving instead, busy finding jobs he hates and doing them as many hours as he can, and just barely making rent and food money, and he really doesn’t have time to think about soulmates.

And then in the middle of a workday he drops an entire tray of dishes because his wrists are on fire.

----

With the caveat that they have never met, Pax Field sometimes resents their future soulmates.

There’s a specific flavor to feelings when they aren’t yours—you’re not quite feeling them, you just know they’re happening, in some room and brain you aren’t actually a part of. But you can’t ignore them, either, no matter how much you try. And Pax always tries. Their own feelings are plenty without worrying about the feelings of absolute strangers, thank you very much. And they’re never good feelings, or at least hardly ever; always cold prickly sorrow-embarrassment-shame around their wrists and hot itchy anxiety-fear-loneliness over their heart.

Occasionally at night, when Vic is out doing unethical science or whatever and they’re alone, they put their hand over their heart and rub the skin there, or they massage their wrists as softly as they can, and try to—feel outward, which they’re not sure is even possible; whisper into the skin of their wrists that this stranger should fucking relax, fucking lighten up a little. Once they woke up from a nightmare—unrelated to soulmates, presumably, since it prominently featured Vic—and rolled over onto their stomach so they could press both wrists against their heart and bury their face in their pillow and cried, hard, because they didn’t know what was happening but they knew it wasn’t fair and they also knew there wasn’t anything they could do about it. Then they woke up in the morning and did their absolute best to forget about it, because they don’t know these people and anyway they aren’t going to waste their time on things they can’t change.

But they’ve never felt anything like this.

It’s a Friday evening and they are, by the grace of god, alone in their apartment, which means no one has to see them stagger and then fall hard onto their knees in the middle of the hallway, staring at their wrists.

The little blue marks there don’t look any different, which seems insane, because they have never ever been more sure that something is wrong.

It isn’t like being in pain—it isn’t like being in their own pain. It’s like seeing a car accident on the news and hearing your phone ring at the same time and knowing you can’t get there fast enough, but you run out the door anyway, because you can’t do anything else, you can’t do this, you can’t lose him, he can’t do this.

Even though Pax knows while they run into the bathroom, slipping and sliding on nothing and having to catch themself against walls and doors, that whoever “he” is, he already has.

They saw this in a movie once, where someone had to warn their soulmate about a murderer or some fucking dumb thing. So it probably doesn’t even work, and their soulmate’s going to bleed to death on expensive bathroom tiles before Pax even gets to meet him.

But they can’t not do anything. They turn the shower all the way to hot, and the sink all the way hot too, and they close the bathroom door behind them and stuff a towel underneath—and the bathroom mirror still isn’t fogging up quick enough, so they breath on it, hard, too, even though that’s objectively dumb. Then they stand at the sink, staring at their own wild-eyed reflection as it fogs out, one hand clamped white-knuckled around the opposite wrist, which burns with pain that’s so much worse for not being theirs.

 ----

It doesn’t even hurt that much anymore, actually.

Well, it does—it stings like a really terrible papercut, except much deeper and almost the whole length of his forearm. But it’s getting easier to ignore, even when he makes fists and squeezes to make the blood come out faster.

Kent kind of thinks, at least based on the movies he’s seen, that you’re supposed to strip naked before you do this, and he knows that would make the least mess. But he’s in the bathtub, and he’s stripped down to his boxers and a t-shirt, so it shouldn’t be too hard to clean up, anyway. And the maids are mostly older ladies, or young ones working through college, and stuff, and he’s too embarrassed to let them see him naked, even if he never has to know about it. He’s sitting cross-legged on the floor of the bathtub, with his hands in his lap, so the bottom of his boxers are getting wet and sticky, but that’s getting easier to ignore, too. The blood is bright against the white porcelain, by far the most he’s ever seen, and it’s hard to look away from. Kind of pretty, even.

His heart is going a little faster, now, and he thinks he might be sweating. He squeezes his fists again. It’s taking longer than he thought it would.

Maybe he should make another—

People are looking at him.

Kent sits bolt upright, looking around the empty bathroom. He has a sudden urge to hide his arms behind his back, and he thinks he can feel an embarrassed flush in his cheeks.

“I-I,” he says, like he’s going to try to explain, even though he has no idea what he would say.

“Oh, god,” the brown-skinned boy with the round face and black hair says. He’s on the floor in the middle of a big kitchen. There are people around him but Kent can’t see them as well. It isn’t like looking through a window, or like the boy is here with him; it’s simply the new experience of seeing clearly into a room he is not in.

“Call for help,” the darker-skinned person says. Their hair is long and lose around their shoulders in tight waves. It’s dyed a violent pink. They’re staring into their bathroom mirror with more intensity than Kent has ever been looked at with, and they must be mad at him; he grabs one of his wrists and squeezes it with his other hand, makes blood bubble out and gush over his hand and onto his leg.

“Fuck,” the black-haired boy screams. He’s kneeling in front of a metal dishwasher with a foggy reflective surface and he throws himself towards it, grabs the sides of the dishwasher with both hands. “Don’t!”

Kent loosens his grip, panting. He’s staring straight ahead, seeing the blank tile wall of his own bathroom and the industrial kitchen behind the black-haired boy and the bathroom behind the person with pink hair. His heart is pounding now, rabbit-fast, in a way that’s starting to feel scary.

“Don’t do that, baby,” the black-haired boy says, and his voice is shaking like he’s in pain, even though Kent knows, somehow, that he can’t be, that Kent would know if he was hurting.

“Who’s in the house with you?” the pink-hair-person barks, and Kent shakes his head, because his father is home but his father can’t see him like this, he can’t, he’ll make sure Kent doesn’t die so he can drown him himself. “Call for help!”

Kent shakes his head again, harder, trying to scoot back away from them, except they aren’t really here so there’s nowhere to go.

He’s lifted his arms, now, holding one wrist in the hand, and now there’s blood down both his forearms and slick on his legs, soaking into his boxers and the bottom of his t-shirt, and he’s—beyond embarrassed, scared, doesn’t want them to see this, doesn’t want anyone to see it.

Kent doesn’t think of the golden sun that’s always sat on his chest, over his heart, and he doesn’t think of the smaller slashed eye beside it, because he is not thinking of much at all, but he’s always been glad they were easy to hide under his clothes. Not because he was ashamed of them, but because if no one else saw them they were his and nobody else’s. Sometimes those marks are the only parts of his body he likes, the only parts he never wants to hurt.

Both marks are warm, now, but the rest of him is becoming cold so fast that Kent doesn’t notice.

“Oh, god,” the black-haired boy’s voice says again. He hits his fist lightly against the dishwasher, like he wishes he could come through it, and Kent stares at him, because he’s lovely, and he’s sad, and it’s Kent’s fault.

“I-I—” he says quietly. “I’m sorry.”

“God damn it,” the pink-haired person says, and their voice is wild, almost a roar. Then they say, “Where are you?”

Kent shakes his head. “I—I don’t—”

“Are you in the city?” they snap. Their hands are braced on the bathroom sink, and they’re lovely too, and Kent didn’t mean—he didn’t think— “Hey!” they snap their fingers, eyes blazing, and Kent crashes back to earth with a start. “Are you in the city?”

Kent nods helplessly.

“Where?”

Kent blinks rapidly. Their eyes are so bright that he mumbles an answer before he’s even decided if he wants them to know or not.

“I’m calling an ambulance,” they say, diving for the pocket of their sweatpants.

“That’s near me,” the black-haired boy whispers. “That’s near me, that’s near me, I’m coming to get you!”

Kent balks, scooting back in the blood along the bottom of the bathtub, shaking his head rapidly. “You—you can’t,” he says, and then his mind goes blank with terror, because more than not wanting to be seen in bloody boxer shorts, “My father is home!”

 ----

Sol only kind of hears this, because he’s already scrambling to his feet and wrestling his apron off over his head.

“You can’t just run off in the middle of your shift—” his boss starts, and then cuts off because Sol’s apron has just hit him in the chest.

“Then fire me,” Sol says, and he takes off across the restaurant floor at a dead run.

The address is ten or eleven blocks away—the restaurant where Sol works is right at the edge of the fancy part of town, and the blue-eyed boy’s house is in the heart of it. Sol doesn’t have a car, but it makes objective sense to wait for a bus or run to the train station. He does not consider this for even a second.

Sol runs, hard, his work shoes pounding on the pavement in time with his breath, and it doesn’t occur to him that it’s a summer night, still hot, or that he’s wearing his binder, or that the sidewalk is crowded with strangers who yell and dart out of his way. He doesn’t see any of them, doesn’t feel his ribs aching, doesn’t feel anything except that the blue lines on his wrist are pulsing—warm one second, like he’s going the right way, and cold the next, because his soulmate is dying.

Sol is drenched in sweat by the time he grinds to a stop in front of the tall fancy apartment building—and he knows immediately which one it is, because there’s an ambulance parked out front with it’s lights flashing.

Sol rounds the side of the ambulance and the stretcher is halfway in, and he stumbles sideways and almost falls—but he can feel the warm pulse in his mark and the boy on the stretcher gasps and moves, arching his back slightly.

The EMT about to shut the ambulance door turns at the sound of Sol’s pounding footsteps, looking alarmed, and Sol raises his arm and waves it over his head.

“He’s my soulmate!” He pants, holding his arm out so the EMT can see the mark, pulsing and flickering in a way that makes panic burn the back of Sol’s neck, but definitely giving off a soft glow. “He’s my soulmate. We’re soulmates.”

The EMT frowns, and then opens the door back up and lets him clamber inside.

Sol’s never been inside an ambulance before; it’s cramped, with two EMTs hovering on either side of the stretcher, now staring at Sol, but Sol barely sees them because the boy on the stretcher is looking at him too, and there’s blood everywhere—they’ve put tourniquets around his arms, but only just now—and Sol loves him.

Sol holds up his arm, still panting, hard. The paramedic on the boy’s left frowns at him, then down at the boy, and then tugs the collar of his t-shirt down.

There’s a big yellow sun over the boy’s chest, glowing bright and steady, like it’s mocking the weak stutter-pulse of the glow at Sol’s wrists. Sol flushes, feeling almost embarrassed, like his mark is showing off.

The EMT sighs and gestures for Sol to sit down.

The boy on the stretcher gives a little gasp. His eyes follow Sol when he awkwardly arranges himself on the little bench next to the stretcher, bright blue and reflective as glass. The EMT on his right leans over to scribble something across the boy’s forehead with a black marker—“TK” and the time—and the boy blinks at Sol around the EMT’s arm, his lips slightly parted.

“Hey,” Sol says softly. He wants badly to take the boy’s hand, but it’s covered in blood and he’s worried he’ll hut him. He pats his knee awkwardly instead, and the boy gasps again, sounding punched-out and rough but not pained, exactly. “My name’s Sol. I’m one of your soulmates.”

“I’m sorry,” the boy whispers, staring at Sol, and it sinks into Sol’s belly like a punch, and he gasps, hard, because he can feel it, not like it’s his own but still so strong he can taste it: shame and guilt and heart-fluttering panic.

Sol folds forward, the wind knocked out of him, and lowers his head to touch his forehead, as gently as he can, to the back of his soulmate’s bloody hand.

“I’m not mad at you,” Sol whispers, and he hears the boy gasp again, his breath starting to come in hard quiet sobs. “I’m not mad, baby, I’m not mad, I’m not mad, I’m not mad.”

[s-oulpunk]

Vendetta (1/3) - Stenbrough

Summary: All Bill really wants is a shoulder to cry on.  All he really wants is for someone to tell him it’s going to be alright.  Robert has never let him down in that regard.

-

Bill hasn't been the same since his brother's disappearance, and the only man that seems to understand him is Robert "Bob" Gray. It doesn't matter that he's three times his age, Bill craves that understanding. He craves for someone to look him in the eye and tell him that everything's going to be okay. Unfortunately, there's always a price to pay, and Georgie was only the beginning.

TW: Violence, Manipulation, Non-Con, Kidnapping

Notes: This is a lot darker than my other fics, and, basically, I am so sorry.  The non-con stuff isn’t super graphic, but it is there so please be careful.

There are three parts to this fic.  I promise I will post them all, but updates will be slow.  All the chapters are really long and I’m busy with a lot of other things, so it takes me awhile to finish.

Also while this is technically a Stenbrough fanfic, their relationship isn’t the main focus of the fic.  It carries a lot of the plot but, overall, the fic is about Bill’s journey.

Read on AO3

Part One:

The Disappearance Of Georgie Denbrough:

Georgie Denbrough has been missing for half a year when Robert Gray shows up.  He just waltzes into Bill’s life, with a charming smile and sympathetic eyes that tell stories Bill can’t quite understand yet.  If Bill stares into them long enough, he thinks he can start to see pieces of some of those stories.  And they chill him to the bone.

He doesn’t know why.  He doesn’t know what exactly the stories are (and a part of him doesn’t know if he will ever want to), but Bill doesn’t need to know to feel the chill that runs down his back.

Robert Gray’s eyes are haunting.

And yet the rest of him is friendly enough, so Bill tries to not let himself worry over his eyes too much.  Instead he focuses on the warmth of Robert’s hand on his shoulder, on the way he smiles so wide it nearly splits his face in half, on the kind words he utters when Bill comes to him sobbing at odd hours of the day.

His friends don’t see it that way.

They see Robert and they see, to put it plainly, a creep who jumped at the opportunity to spend time with a bunch of fifteen year olds.  And they have no qualms about letting Bill know about their true feelings.

“You’re gonna get fucking murdered, Bill,” Eddie had said a few days after Robert’s first appearance. “You’re gonna get kidnapped and raped and then you’re gonna get murdered, is that what you want?  They’re gonna find your body in the basement of some creepy old house or, or, or deep in the woods or, like, in his bedroom.  And your skin’s gonna be all gross and decaying.  Or, fuck, what if he’s like some crazy cannibal?  They’re gonna find you with chunks of flesh missing and an eyeball in a martini glass and he’ll be making some kind of crazy, fucked up, dinner using your insides - Fuck, Bill!  Is that what you want?”

Bill thinks Eddie has quite the imagination.

All Bill really wants is a shoulder to cry on.  All he really wants is for someone to tell him it’s going to be alright.  Robert has never let him down in that regard.

“He’s a guh-good guy,” Bill had told Eddie. “You jj-juh-just have to give him a chance.”

Eddie had merely scoffed and told Bill he would never, ever let Robert Gray get close enough to do that.

Bill thinks that’s a tad bit unfair, but Eddie refuses to budge.

Sometimes, when Bill looks into Robert’s eyes, he can see why.  But those moments are fleeting.  They’re only a few seconds of gut twisting, vomit inducing anxiety before he remembers who he’s talking to and he’s overrun with unshakeable guilt.

In the weeks since, his friends still haven’t come around.  But they will eventually, Bill’s sure of it.

As of currently, they’re crowded into the clubhouse.  Richie and Eddie are curled up together in the hammock, lost in their own little world.  Bev is smoking by the open trapdoor.  Ben and Mike have combined efforts to put various posters and photos on the walls.  And Bill is sitting in the far corner, softly murmuring his latest story and trying very hard not to think about the fact that Stan is sitting so close he might as well be on his lap.

Stan doesn’t say a word throughout the story.  Instead he listens attentively, like Bill’s thoughts are worth paying attention to.  It makes Bill’s heart melt just a little bit.

When he finishes, he puts the notebook down gently, and turns to stare curiously at Stan. “So?”

“I didn’t like the ending,” is all Stan says.

“That’s ww-wh-what you said about my last one!” Bill exclaims.

“It’s too sad,” Stan says. “Sean never gets to go back home.  All his friends and family are looking for him, and he’s stuck trapped in his own head forever.”

“Robert luh-luh-liked it.”

Stan scoffs loudly. “Do I look like Robert to you?”

This, admittedly, does earn a chuckle from Bill.

“Just because it’s ss-suh-sad doesn’t mean that it’s not good.”

“But Sean deserves to be happy, don’t you think?”

Bill considers this for a moment.  Then, “Nope!” he says, popping the P.

“Why not?” Stan asks, lurching backwards to stare at him incredulously.

“Because I mmm-muh-made him,” Bill says. “And, therefore, I can dd-do whatever I want with him.”

Stan hums softly because, technically, this is true, but, “Why don’t you use your power for good?”

There’s a beat of silence.

“That rr-ruh-rarely happens in real life,” Bill murmurs.

It’s so much sadder than their previous conversation, and much more serious.  Bill almost feels bad saying it.  But it’s true.  People are rarely happy in real life, and if there is someone in the sky looking out for them, they sure as hell aren’t changing their ending to please their friend.  Even if said friend is cute as a button.

“I guess so,” whispers Stan. “But don’t you wish it did?”

“Yeah.” Bill does.  All the time. “Sometimes.”

Stan shuffles closer, tucking his head between Bill’s shoulder and neck.  Bill tries to ignore the heat that sprouts there, spilling through his veins and out to the rest of his body, making him tingly all over.  But he can’t.  As soon as it gets his attention, he’s gone.  The clubhouse disappears, replaced by Stan and the warmth that fills his veins.

“I think you’re gonna be alright,” Stan says. “Whoever’s writing your ending is looking out for you.”

Bill fiddles nervously with the corner of his notebook. “Robert thinks we mmm-muh-might still be able to find jj-juh-juh-Georgie.”

“I...Yeah.  Maybe.”

Stan looks so defeated.  Like he knows Bill won’t listen to whatever he has to say.  Which, in all honesty, he probably wouldn’t.  But that doesn’t make Bill feel any less guilty.

“Are you still looking for him?” Stan asks.  But he knows the answer.

“Yeah,” Bill says. “Robert usually huh-helps me.”

“That’s nice of him.”

“Mhm.  We’re supposed to go ll-luh-look down by the barrens later today.”

“Oh.”

Bill can feel Stan stiffen beside him.  He’s got his legs pulled up to his chest, arms wrapped securely around his knees, and Bill’s sure that, if he were wearing shorts, his fingernails would be digging into his skin, judging by how tightly he’s gripping his knees.

“Robert?” The intrusion, while Bill loves all his friends, is unwelcomed.  These moments with Stan feel intimate.  Special.  Richie doesn’t get to interrupt just because he overhears something he doesn’t like. “You’re still talking to that freak?” He’s swinging slowly in the hammock, a worn out comic in one hand, Eddie wrapped securely in the other.  But he’s not paying attention to either.  Instead he’s got his gaze fixed on Bill, his glasses making his infuriated eyes seem 12x bigger.

Bill rolls his eyes. “He’s not that bad, Rich.”

“Not that bad?” Richie says. “Eds, did you hear that?  Robert’s not that bad!  Not at all!  We better shout this from the rooftops.  Hey, Losers!  Robert’s not that bad!”

“Sh-Sh-Shut up, Richie,” Bill groans.

“We’re just worried,” Bev says.  She flicks some of the cigarette ash onto the ground. “You can’t blame us for that.”

It’s true, he can’t, but, “Yuh-You don’t have anything to be worried about.”

Bev hums softly.  She clearly doesn’t believe him.  It infuriates Bill a little bit, but he wills those emotions away.  These are his friends, of course they would be worried.

Stan must sense another quarrell coming on, he’s got a fifth sense for that kind of stuff, because he gently taps Bill’s knee and murmurs, “Write me another story.”

And who is Bill to argue?

-

Bill doesn’t like the barrens.  He had been so hopeful when he first started searching here, so sure he would find clues.  Subconsciously he had hoped he would find Georgie just sitting there, patiently waiting for his big brother to find him.

But he never did.

And now the barrens represent that failure, that loss.  He doesn't know if he’ll ever be able to step foot in them again without remembering the brother who didn’t come home.  And yet he’s still down here constantly, still searching for possible clues.  He still never finds any.

“This is useless,” Bill hisses. “Hh-huh-he’s not down here.  He’s not-” He sniffs harshly.  He can already feel the tears stinging at his eyes. “This is sss-stuh-stupid.  Dad’s ruh-ruh-right, he’s-” Bill grits his teeth.  He can’t afford to think like that. “We need to look somewhere else.  If he ww-wuh-was here, he’s not anymore.”

Robert glances at him curiously. “Where do you want to look?”

“I-” Bill doesn’t have an answer.  Because he’s looked, quite literally, everywhere.  He’s searched every inch of this god forsaken town, then searched it again, and again, and again.  There’s nowhere else to look. “Maybe he got ll-luh-lost.  In the woods.  Maybe we jj-juh-just have to look harder.”

It’s pathetic, really.

On some level, Bill knows Georgie isn’t in the woods.  He knows he isn’t anywhere.  No seven year old can survive for half a year on their own.  And yet he can’t admit it, even to himself.

“We’ve checked the woods, kid,” Robert says with a heavy sigh.

“But - But -” Oh, nononono, Robert’s giving up on him too.  The one person who didn’t judge him, and now he thinks he’s gone crazy as well.  Not that Bill can really blame him.  Sometimes he wonders about his own sanity. “We haven’t looked that dd-deep.” Bill knows he sounds desperate, but he can’t stop it. “Maybe - Maybe we’ll ff-fuh-find something.” Before Robert can respond, because Bill knows that look in his eye, knows he won’t be getting the answer he wants, he hurriedly adds, “I can do something for you.”

That catches Robert’s attention.  It always does.

He hesitates, and for a moment Bill worries his answer isn’t going to change.  But then he says, “Alright, get in the truck,” and Bill doesn’t think he’s heard a better suggestion in all of his life.

He practically runs to the truck.  Not that it matters.  He still has to wait for Robert to open it, because he has, like, a million locks on the damned thing.

Robert unlocks it with a chuckle, like Bill’s a child who just asked the sugariest cereal at the grocery store.

“Okay,” Bill says, as soon as they’re both seated. “I think we sh-sh-should check past the town limits.  We huh-haven’t looked-”

“Bill.” Robert chuckles again. “Aren’t you forgetting something?”

Bill’s heart sinks to the bottom of his stomach. “Nn-Nuh-Now?”

Robert looks at him pointedly. “There won’t be time afterwards.”

Which, Bill supposes is true.  Once he starts looking, he doesn’t stop until he can’t see two feet in front of him.  Even then, oftentimes he has to be dragged away.

But he hates this part.  It makes him feel weird, like there’s dirt trapped under his skin that he can’t dig out.  Being able to wait a few more hours would be nice.  Nevertheless, a deal’s a deal.

“Alright,” he murmurs. “Yuh-Yeah, okay.  Just-” Maneuvering himself into the right position is, admittedly, harder than it looks.  The truck is cramped and by the time Bill manages to find a semi-comfortable position, Robert’s already growing impatient.

Bill’s barely managed to get Robert’s belt open before calloused fingers are grasping at his hair, pushing him down, down, down until air has become a precious resource.  Luckily, Bill doesn’t have to do too much work this time.  This happens sometimes, if Robert gets too rowdy too fast.  He’ll take control of Bill’s actions, ignoring if he gags or if his face turns purple, forcing him to go as fast or as slow as he wants.

As much as Bill hates having to work hard at something that is, admittedly, disgusting - not that he’d ever dare say that to Robert’s face - having Robert control him is always so much worse.  Bill’s sure Robert wouldn’t ever hurt him, but it’s clear in moments like these who has the control.  If something went wrong, Bill wouldn’t be able to get away.  He can’t move an inch.

But he shouldn’t be worrying about that.  Because nothing’s going to go wrong.  Besides, Robert’s doing so much for him, this is the least he could do.

It seems to take forever before Robert’s finished.  But once he is, Bill jumps back, cheeks still puffed wide like a hamster.  This is the worst part, he thinks.  And the longer he waits, the worse it is, but he can’t get himself to take that last fucking step.

“Good?” Robert purrs.  Bill nods, even though he wishes the ground would swallow him whole, because what the fuck else is he supposed to do? “You look so pretty like this.” Bill wants to cry.  Which is a stupid fucking reaction.  Who cries after - after - after that? “C’mon.” Robert’s got a hand on his cheek, thumb gently brushing the bone. “I know you can do it.” And, God, Bill just wants him to stop talking.  So he does it.  He swallows as quickly as he can, fighting his instinct to gag it all back up. “Good boy.”

Bill turns quickly, forcing Robert’s hand to slip off his face. “Can ww-wuh-we go nuh-now?” he asks.  He stares straight ahead as Robert starts the car.  It doesn’t matter.  It doesn’t mean anything.  He’s still fine.  He’s still good.  He’s still redeemable.

-

The next day, things are not better.

They didn’t find anything relating to Georgie, the Losers still think Robert’s a creep, and, to make it all worse, Bill’s throat feels like it’s on fire.

“You don’t sound too good, Billy,” Eddie says. “You might be getting sick.”

Bill hums softly.  “Mm-Maybe-” he winces at how rough his voice sounds. “-Maybe I sh-sh-should go home.”

“Just rest here,” Stan suggests. “You can stay in my bed.”

“I - I don’t wanna get you ss-suh-sick.”

Stan shrugs. “It’s fine, I can change the sheets.  I know how to do laundry.” Richie wolf whistles from across the room. “Oh, fuck off!”

“We can make you soup,” Eddie says.  He’s already gathering the ingredients, so Bill supposes there’s no point in arguing.

He drags his feet up to Stan’s room, ignoring the growing pit in his stomach.  He should just tell them the truth.  It’s not that big of a deal, right?

It’s not until he’s curled up in bed that he notices Bev standing in the doorway.

“I know you’re not sick,” she says.

“I am,” Bill insists. “Doctor E-Eddie said suh-so.”

Bev gently shuts the door behind her. “Doctor Eddie’s also never had his throat fucked before.”

Bill winces. “That’s nuh-not what happened.”

“Don’t play dumb with me,” she hisses. “I’m not an idiot.  You have to stop doing this.”

“I’m not doing ah-anything wrong!”

“You protected me from my dad, you think I’m not gonna do the same for you?”

“It’s not th-th-the same.  Wuh-We’re just friends, Bevvy.”

“He is not your friend, William.” Bev regards him warily. “I won’t tell the others.  But I think you should really think about your so-called friendship with Robert.” Bev turns to re-open the door.  At the last minute, she turns back to face Bill. “Stan wants to know if you’re staying over.  Ya know, parents out of town.  Losers sleepover.”

Bill nods. “Pp-Pruh-Probably.”

Bev smiles softly. “Cool.  And think about it, Bill.  Alright?  We really do want to help.”

And then she’s gone, leaving Bill alone with his thoughts.

The worst part of the conversation is that Bill remembers having the same talk with Bev a little less than a year ago.  Their places had been reversed then.  Bill had dragged her away from the prying eyes of the rest of the Losers and begged and begged until she broke.  She told him everything that night.  And he held her through all of it, clutching her to his chest as Beverly Marsh, perhaps the strongest of them all, sobbed into his shoulder.

The memory is still raw, and not one he’s willing to share with anyone.  She told the rest of the Losers the next day, but that night had been something private.  Something that wasn’t meant to be shared.

It had been one of the most terrifying nights of Bill’s life.  Second only to realizing Georgie wasn’t coming home.

The thought almost makes him chase after her, almost makes him tell her everything.

Except it’s not the same.  Because nothing’s wrong.

Robert’s not his father.  Robert’s his friend.  He holds him when he cries, and listens to him when he needs to talk about Georgie again and again and again, and takes him wherever he wants to look for his baby brother, even if he knows they won’t find anything.

He’s sure if he explained that, she would understand.  He didn’t understand either at first.  But, “It’s just like a trade,” Robert had told him. “Remember how I drove you to town limits?  I even bought you lunch afterwards.  I do so much for you.”  Which, admittedly, is true.

It’s not like Robert’s holding him down or ripping his clothes off.  Bill goes willingly, even if he cries afterwards sometimes.  But Robert says that’s normal.

“Knock, knock.” Stan’s standing in the doorway now, a piping hot bowl of chicken noodle soup in his hands. “Eddie’s insistent that this will cure you.”

“Mmm.  Doctor’s oh-orders,” Bill says, making grabby hands at the bowl.

“Doctor’s orders,” Stan repeats, a fond smile on his face.

He closes the door gingerly behind him before crossing to sit on the edge of the bed, soup balanced carefully on his lap.

Bill looks forward to these moments with Stan.  These quiet, intimate moments where it feels like anything is possible.  It’s these moments that make him think maybe this godforsaken town is wrong, and the way he feels about his friend is okay.  It’s these moments that make him think maybe Stan feels it too.

“Are you gg-guh-gonna spoon feed me soup?” Bill asks as he fumbles to sit upright.

Stan just shrugs. “I mean, you’re sick.”

Bill nods gravely. “Deathly ill.”

That makes Stan crack a smile, but he quickly ducks his head in an attempt to hide it from Bill’s prying eyes.  Bill sees it though, and it warms his heart far more than the soup ever could.

“Alright,” Stan murmurs. “Open wide.”

The soup, to put it lightly, is not good.

Out of all the Losers, Mike and Ben are probably the best cooks.  But judging by how anal retentive Eddie is, Bill has no doubt that he refused their help.  He can practically see him, in his head, shooing away his friends as Ben desperately tries to salt the slowly warming broth.

He doesn’t say a word, but Stan must notice the way Bill’s face contorts as he tries to force the soup down because he murmurs a quiet, “Sorry.  Eddie thought adding anything else would take away from its quote unquote healing properties.”

Stan’s always been able to read him like a book.  All the Losers are close, but something’s special about his friendship with Stan.  Bill’s never had to say a word for him to know exactly what he’s thinking.

“Ff-Fuh-Figures,” Bill says.

“He just worries about you,” Stan says.

“He sh-shouldn’t have to. That’s not his jj-juh-job.”

Stan shrugs. “You would do the same for him.”

Bill doesn’t answer, because he knows it’s true.

-

At around 1 in the morning, Bill decides he can’t stay over any longer.

He’s got the bed to himself, on account of him being “sick,” but the rest of the Losers are spread unceremoniously across the floor.  He has to tiptoe over their sleeping bodies, nearly tripping over Mike’s legs, to get to the door.  And, of course, Richie and Eddie are cuddled up directly against it.  He nudges them away with the top of his foot until there’s enough distance for him to slip out, which he does as quickly as possible.

He grabs the phone in the kitchen, which he’s sure is far enough away that it won’t wake the others, and quickly punches in the numbers swimming through his head.

The phone rings once, twice, three times.  Enough that he thinks maybe he won’t pick up.  But right as he’s about to hang up, a quiet voice rumbles through his ear, “Hello?”

“Robert!” he chirps.

“Billy?  What the hell are you doing up at this hour?”

Bill gnaws nervously on his lower lip.  Of course Robert’s asleep, he should’ve remembered that tiny detail.

“Sorry,” he says. “I shouldn’t huh-have woken you.”

“It’s alright, kid,” Robert says. “I’m up now.  What do you need?”

“Can you pick me up?” Bill asks, before he can talk himself out of it.

“Sure,” Robert says through a yawn. “You at your house?”

“I’m at mm-muh-my friend’s house,” Bill says. “Hang on, I’ll guh-get you the address.”

Once he’s sure Robert’s going to come, he sets about writing a note for the Losers.  He knows there’s pen and paper back in Stan’s room, but it’s too risky going back there, so he settles for digging through the office until he finds what he needs.

He’s halfway through said note when a soft noise startles him.  He whips around, half expecting to come face to face with a knife-wielding murderer.  But it’s just Stan.

“What are you doing?” he asks.

He’s blinking sleepily, obviously barely staying awake, and his hair is sticking up in all directions.  His pajamas are a little too big on him, which is a sudden change from the Stanley that refuses to wear anything unless it fits just right.  It’s suddenly too difficult to not imagine Stan in one of Bill’s oversized flannels.

It’s all so overwhelming that Bill nearly forgets to respond.

“What’s that?” Stan asks again, gesturing weakly to the pen in Bill’s hand.

“I - Uh - I’m guh-gonna go,” Bill says. “I just - I dd-duh-didn’t want you to freak out in the morning.”

Stan cocks his head curiously, and it’s so cute that Bill nearly calls Robert to tell him he’s changed his mind. “You’re leaving?”

“Yeah,” Bill murmurs. “I’m ss-sorry.  I don’t wanna get you guys sick.”

A more honest man would have told Stan that he’s terrified of facing Bev’s wrath again tomorrow.  But Bill never claimed to be an honest man.

“Is your dad picking you up?” Stan asks.

“I - Um - I called Robert.”

That makes Stan pause. “You gave Robert my address?”

“How else is he gonna puh-pick me up?” It’s a lame argument, but it’s all Bill’s got.

Stan seems to be at a loss for words too, mouth opening and closing like a fish out of water. “But - But - Why - I don’t want-”

“It’s ff-fuh-fine, Stan,” Bill assures him. “He’s not even gonna come inside.”

“I don’t know if that defines fine,” Stan grumbles.

Robert pulls up less than a minute later.

Bill scrambles to give Stan a hug before rushing outside to meet him.  The summer air keeps most of the cold at bay, but it’s still fairly chilly, so Bill throws himself into the car as quickly as he can.

“Th-Thanks,” Bill says.

“Don’t mention it,” Robert says.  He sounds much more awake now than over the phone. “You alright?”

“Mhm,” Bill says. “Jj-Juh-Just had to get out of there.” It’s then that Bill realizes the street they’re on doesn’t go to his house. “Wh-Where are we going?”

“Back to my place,” Robert says. “Figured we might as well just rest there.  That alright?”

Bill figures that sounds reasonable enough. “Yeah.  Th-That’s alright.”

In all honesty, it is fine.  What’s Bill gonna do at home?  Sit and stare at his ceiling all night and then not talk to his parents the next morning because they don’t care what happens to him?  Sounds fun, but he’ll have to pass.

Bill’s never been to Robert’s apartment before.  It’s smaller than he expected, but nice nonetheless.  It has a cute little kitchen, a big, comfy couch directly across from an old TV, and huge, open windows.  It’s normal.  Almost overwhelmingly normal.

Bill almost wants to call his friends and tell them as much. “He’s not a psychopath,” he would say. “What kind of psychopath lives in a normal apartment?”

Psychopaths live in old, run down, abandoned houses in the middle of nowhere.  Friendly people who are absolutely nothing like Beverly’s father live in normal apartments.

“You have a nuh-nice apartment,” Bill says, politely.

Robert chuckles lowly. “Thank you.”

Then a hand is being placed on the small of Bill’s back and he’s being pushed farther and farther into the apartment until he collapses into the big, comfy couch.  Robert sits next to him, a single casual hand on his shoulder.

“Do you want to talk about it?”

Bill shrugs. “It’s not a bb-big deal.  They just...They don’t understand.  Ss-Suh-Sometimes it’s hard to be around them.”

It’s not completely true.  They’ve lost people before.  Eddie lost his father.  Mike lost his parents.  Stan lost his grandmother just a month or two ago.

But it’s not the same.  Because none of them were responsible for that loss.

Robert nods and pulls Bill closer to him, tucking him against his side.

“People who haven’t been through what you have, they’ll never understand,” Robert says. “They don’t know what it’s like to lose someone like that.  The bond between siblings is something special, and tearing it apart is one of the most painful things one could do.”

Bill sniffles quietly and shuffles closer to Robert’s side, burying his face in his shoulder. “I muh-muh-miss hh-him.”

“I know,” Robert coos.  A gentle hand cards through Bill’s hair. “I know you do.”

“Duh-Does it even get easier?” Bill asks, voice muffled through the fabric of Robert’s T-Shirt.

Robert sighs heavily. “I’m gonna be honest with you kid, not really.” He chuckles softly at the whine Bill lets out. “I know, I know.  But you learn to live with it.  I miss my brother every day, it’s just a part of my life now.”

Bill twists around to stare up at Robert with wide, starry eyes. “Wh-What was your brother like?”

“Maturin was the sweetest soul I’ve ever known.  He always put others before himself, always made sure everyone else was happy.  He would give up everything if it just meant I would crack a smile.” He offers Bill perhaps the saddest smile he’s ever seen. “The best of us are truly the ones we lose too soon.”

Bill nods mutely.  Georgie was truly the best of the Denbrough family.  He was always willing to help out however he could, even as young as he was, and was always happiest whenever everyone else was happy.  It almost pains Bill to hear someone else described as the “sweetest soul.”

“I’m - I might guh-go to bed,” Bill mutters. “I’m - I’m pp-pruh-pretty tired.”

“Great idea,” Robert says.  As if on cue, he lets out a loud yawn.

“Do you huh-have some blankets I could borrow?”

“Yeah, sure,” Robert says.  He makes a show of walking towards the linen cabinet before stopping and turning back towards Bill. “Ya know, why don’t you just sleep in my bed tonight.”

Bev’s words ring out through Bill’s head.  He forces himself to keep eye contact. “Why?”

Robert shrugs. “I’m tired, you’re tired, and it’ll take awhile to make up the couch.  The bed’s big enough” When Bill still hesitates, he sighs heavily. “Billy, have I ever hurt you before?” Bill shakes his head. “Then what’s the big deal?”

Bill pauses for only a split-second.

“No big deal.”

He follows Robert into the bedroom.

-

The next time Bill sees Stan, it’s just the two of them.

They’re lounging on Bill’s bed, Bill furiously scribbling into a notebook as Stan watches over the top of his book.  It’s peaceful, just being with Stan like this.  Something as simple as his presence has always done wonders for Bill’s nerves.

“What are you writing?” Stan asks.

“Re-writing th-the ending,” Bill says.  His voice is slow and distracted, but Stan doesn’t seem to mind.  He puts down his current book and shuffles closer, peering curiously over Bill’s shoulder.

“The one you let me read at the clubhouse?”

“Mhm.”

Stan lets out a little huff. “How are you torturing poor Sean now?”

Bill finally tears his gaze away from the notebook, instead fixing Stan with an affronted stare.

“I’m nuh-not torturing him!” he insists. “I’m trying to write a hh-happier ending.”

Bill doesn’t know why, but it’s embarrassing to admit.  He feels like he’s just revealed some deep, dark secret.  But Stan’s smiling, grinning almost infectiously wide, so Bill can’t be too hard on himself.  He’s always liked making Stan smile.

“Really?”

He sounds so excited.  Bill thinks it’s kind of dumb.  He’s half tempted to remind him that, hey, Sean isn’t actually real.  He’s just a clump of words on a piece of paper.  But Stan looks so unbelievably happy, Bill can’t possibly take that away from him.

“Jj-Juh-Just for you,” Bill says.

It makes Stan smile softly, like he can’t really believe it. “For me?” Bill nods. “I wrote it ff-for you, I can’t give it an eh-ending you don’t like.”

Stan scrunches up his nose, a key sign that he’s deep in thought.  It’s cute, and it kind of makes Bill want to kiss him.

“I want Sean to kiss Suzie,” he says finally.

Bill groans loudly. “That’s so mm-muh-much extra work!  Now I have to ah-add in a whole romance-”

“What about Jacob?” Stan says the words so quickly that Bill’s almost positive he’d imagined them.  But Stan is red-faced and rigid, and that’s all it takes for Bill to know that the words he heard were very much real. “Would that - Would that be okay?”

Bill blinks slowly.  Would that be okay?  He thinks so.  But how would he explain that to his mother if, God forbid, she ever stumbled upon this story?

“Bill?” Stan sounds so small, and when Bill snaps out of his thoughts he can see a sense of terror in Stan’s eyes that he’s never seen before.

“Yeah,” Bill murmurs. “Yeah, that’d be okay.”

Stan doesn’t say anything as Bill continues to write, but he watches him like a hawk.  It’s like he’s afraid Bill will change his mind the moment he turns his back.  Like he’s scared Bill will retaliate, and that it won’t be unlike the insults Bowers and his goons usually throw at him.  The fact that Stan even thinks that makes Bill hot with shame.

“Sean’s buh-better with Jacob, anyway,” he says, just to quell Stan’s worries.

Stan still doesn’t answer, but he does shuffle a bit closer.

By the time Bill finishes the story, Stan looks like he’s ready to implode.  It’s about five pages longer than it was originally supposed to be, he still needed to add basically a whole other storyline to make the romance work, but Stan still reads it diligently.

“It’s cute,” he says softly, once he’s finished.

“You like it?”

Stan nods. “Better than the old ending.”

That makes Bill beam, because all he ever really wants is Stan’s approval.

“Look,” Stan murmurs, setting the notebook down gently beside him.  He handles it with care, like it’s something worth worrying about. “I’m really sorry I made you do that.  I didn’t - I didn’t mean to make you feel uncomfortable.”

“I ww-wuh-wasn’t uncomfortable!” Bill insists. “It was a guh-good idea, it was cute!  I jj-just didn’t know-”

“I’m gay.” And Bill has so many things to say, so many questions, but Stan barrels on before he can get even one of them out. “You probably figured that out, though.  Fuck - I shouldn’t have - I’m sorry.  I didn’t mean - I didn't mean to make things weird.  Really.  Can we just pretend like this never happened?  I’m - I’m sorry.  You can write the Suzie ending.  You can just - just burn that one I guess.  Fuck.  I’m sorry-”

Bill grabs him by the front of his perfectly ironed polo and pulls him closer, closer, closer until their mouths are clashing together.  It’s everything Bill’s been dreaming of.  His lips are soft, softer than Bill could have even imagined, and it fills every dark, broken, crevice that haunts Bill’s heart with a warm, sunshiny feeling.

Bill pulls away to find Stan wide-eyed and pink-faced.  He desperately wants to know what Stan’s thinking, but he’s shocked into a silence that speaks one too many volumes.

“Ss-Suh-Sorry,” Bill mutters.  He forces his hands to unclench from around Stan’s shirt.  The material is still wrinkled, but Bill figures that’s the least of their worries at the moment.  Because, fuck, Stan didn’t mean him. “I sh-shouldn’t have assumed.”

“I mean,” Stan’s fingers lift up to ghost over his lips, “A little warning would’ve been nice.”

Bill’s heart stutters in his chest. “Wh-What’s that muh-mean?”

Stan shakes his head, like he isn’t really sure himself. “You could’ve asked.”

Bill swallows the lump in his throat. “Can I kiss you?”

Rather than answering, Stan lurches forward and presses their lips together in a bruising kiss.  And, fuck, this is even better.  Stan’s got one hand in his hair, the other gripping his shoulder like he’s steadying himself.  The way his lips move against Bill’s leave him lightheaded, and he has to grip Stan’s hips to remind himself that he isn’t, in fact, dreaming.

“Huh-Holy shit,” he says, the words muffled by Stan’s lips.

“Shut up, shut up,” Stan chants.  Bill can feel Stan’s lips fumble against his own as he speaks.  It makes him just a little bit crazy.

Bill does, in fact, shut up.  He drags his hands up to cup Stan’s face, holding his cheeks like he’s precious cargo.  The kiss slows but doesn’t stop, turning into something so sweet it makes Bill’s teeth rot.

He pulls away slowly, because it’s just about the last thing he wants to do, but his lungs are starting to ache.  Seeing Stan with puffy lips and glassy eyes is enough to convince Bill to duck back in for one last peck before pulling away for good.

“You’re beautiful,” Bill blurts out.

“Oh.”

“And I think I’m in love with you.”

“Oh!”

“I think I’ve always been in love with you.  Ever since we were kids.  Ever ss-since you waddled into my life as a cute little preschooler and demanded I use the hand sanitizer before shaking your hand.”

“You were covered in dirt,” Stan says weakly.

Bill laughs.  A real laugh, from deep in his stomach.  He hasn’t laughed like that in a long time.

He tries to go in for another kiss but Stan stops him, a hand clamped tightly over his mouth.

“Wait, wait,” he says. “I need to tell you something.” Bill hums softly against his palm.  Stan’s eyes wander slowly over Bill, taking him all in.  He looks flustered, but Bill doesn’t think he’s stalling.  Taking a mental picture, more like.  Bill understands.  If there’s one moment he never wants to forget, it’s this one.  Then, “I love you too.”

Bill’s spent his entire life trying to perfect the english language.  He’s spent years hunched over a notebook, writing and re-writing and writing and re-writing until he’s gotten it as close to perfect as he possibly could.  But nothing he’ll ever write will even get close to the perfect poetry that just flowed from Stan’s lips.

Bill grabs Stan’s hand between his own, leaving millions of tiny kisses along the palm.

“Please luh-let me kiss you again,” Bill practically begs. “Please, pp-please, please.”

Stan grants his wish, leaping forward to press their lips together again.

Distantly, Bill thinks this is better than breathing.  If there’s one way he wants to die, it’s suffocating with Stanley Uris’ lips against his.

-

Two days later, no one has seen Stanley in a full 24 hours.  A familiar panic has settled in Bill’s stomach.  He’s gone through every other possible scenario in his head, gone through every excuse.  But on some level he knows, Stan met the same fate as Georgie.

The Losers have spent the whole day wandering around town, hoping against hope they’ll find him somewhere.  That it’s all just one, big misunderstanding.  Bill keeps half expecting to see him around every corner, waiting for them with an eye roll and a dry joke that lets them know just know silly they were for thinking he had gone missing.  He’s never there.

They’re all uncharacteristically quiet that day.  Even Richie doesn’t say a word.  He just clings to Eddie’s hand and searches with an uncharacteristic amount of diligence.

Bill wants to fucking scream.

He wants to tell Richie it’s okay to talk, it’s okay to joke, it’s okay to be fucking normal.  Because nothing’s wrong.  Stan’s fine and he’s going to be back any minute.

But, at the end of the day, Bill still finds himself in front of Robert’s door with enough tears to fill the Derry city pool streaming down his face.

“Huh-He’s guh-guh-gone,” Bill sobs.

Robert ushers him inside without another word.  He lets Bill bundle up in his bed, pulling the covers up his chin and burying his face in the pillows.  Somewhere in the back of his mind he recognizes some form of guilt for letting Robert’s pillows get so wet, but that’s the least of his worries at the moment.

“Billy.” Robert kneels by the edge of the bed.  Through blurry eyes, Bill can see his eyebrows furrow in concern. “What happened?” Bill shakes his head.  He can’t.  He can’t say it.  Saying it makes it too real. “C’mon, you can do it.  I know you can.  Tell me what’s wrong.”

“St-Stanley.  He - He’s-” Bill doesn’t get to finish before a fresh wave of tears wash over him.  Fuck.  Fuckfuckfuckfuck.

Robert scoops him up in his arms, cuddling him close to his chest.

“It’s okay,” he murmurs. “You’re going to be okay.  I’m going to make sure you’re okay.”

And Bill can do nothing but believe him.

-

Bill wakes up about an hour later to Robert gently mouthing at his neck, his hand gripping Bill’s hip hard enough to leave bruises.  Bill grumbles softly and tries to roll away, but Robert tugs him back.  He moves the hand on his hip to wrap tightly around Bill’s waist, effectively pinning him against him.

“‘M tt-tired,” Bill whines, voice still sore from crying.

“Had a dream,” Robert mumbles.  His breath against his neck makes Bill’s skin prickle, but not in the same way Stan’s lips had. “A good dream.  Need your help.”

“Ruh-Robert,” Bill huffs.

Not now, he wants to say.  Not after he just got his heart stolen from his body.

“I’ll help you look for Stanley tomorrow,” Robert says.  He’s moved on to mouthing at Bill’s jaw. “I always help you.”

Bill’s resolve crumbles.  How is he supposed to argue with that? “Ff-Fine.”

He reaches down for Robert’s belt, but Robert catches his wrist in one, big hand and pins it above his head.  It has Bill’s heart pounding in his ears and ice filling his veins.

“I have a better idea.”

Bill squirms, hoping it’ll convince Robert to let him go, but all it does is egg him on.  He squeezes his wrists tighter, until Bill has to grit his teeth to stop himself from flinching.

“I’ve nuh-never - Wuh-We’ve never-”

“We can look all day tomorrow.”

“I - I don’t know.”

Robert sighs heavily. “A man will only be so satisfied with blow jobs, Billy.”

And, God, Bill just wants to go home.  He hasn’t wanted to go there in so long but right now it’s the only place he can think of.  He wants to fucking go home.  He wants his mom to hold him and tell him he’s going to be alright.  He wants his dad to hug him tight and promise to keep him safe.

He just wants to be okay.

“All day?” he asks weakly.

Robert nods. “All day.”

“Oh-Okay.”

-

The first thing Stan notices when he wakes up is that he’s cold.

The second thing is that it’s dark.  Too dark to see anything.

The third is that he can’t fucking move.

His hands are behind his back, rope biting into his wrists.  His legs are curled underneath him.  He doesn’t think he could stand if he wanted to (which he does, he really, really does) but his ankles are tied together anyway.  And his back aches from being hunched over for God knows how long.  He tries to sit up straight, but something yanks him back down.

And then he stays there like that for what feels like at least a thousand years.

When a door is finally opened, it’s almost too much to bare.  The light is dim, barely there, but Stan still has to squint to get used to it.

And in the doorway is a man.  A very familiar man, in fact.  A man who knows his exact address after picking up his dumbass friend at 1 in the morning.

“Good morning,” says Robert.

He’s grinning wildly and Stan wants to fucking cry.  He wants to sob until his lungs give out, and then he wants to cry some more.

He can feel the beginning of pinprick tears forming behind his eyes, and he bites the inside of his cheek harshly to stop them from spilling out.  He may be a coward but he’ll be damned if he lets Robert know that.

“Aren’t you going to say hello?” Robert says cheerily.

Stan doesn’t answer.  He’s too focused on other things, like not crying in front of a psycho kidnapper.

“Awe, Stanny, that’s not very polite.”

He crosses the last few steps to ruffle Stan’s hair and Stan fucking breaks.  A sob wrenches its way out of his throat, making his shoulders shake and eyes burn.  Tears dribble pathetically down his cheeks, landing in tiny puddles on the floor.

“I’m suh-sorry,” Stan manages to choke out. “Wh-Wh-Whatever - Whatever I dd-duh-did.  I’m sorry.” He flinches as Robert cards his fingers through his hair, wrenching his head back when his fingers catch on the curls. “Please.”

Stan doesn’t know what he’s begging for, all he knows is that it doesn’t work.  Because Robert fucking laughs, all loud and boisterous, as if Stan’s told him one of Richie’s shitty jokes.

“Oh, Stanny,” he murmurs.  He moves to grasp Stan’s chin with one hand, squeezing his cheeks and pressing dirty nails into his skin. “This wouldn’t have happened if you had just kept your hands off of what’s mine.”

[trainwreckgenerator]

why do you hate perfect blue if you don’t mind me asking? i’ve never seen it but always had it on my list to watch cause it looked interesting and well animated but i don’t know about it

spoilers for perfect blue ahead, tw for rape mention

the general premise of the film is really cool and i enjoy a good critique of the idol industry! but! it manages to fuck it up in so many ways

edit: originally this post had screenshots throughout but they fucked with the formatting so badly i had to get rid of them

the twists they throw out don't make sense for the plot and feel like they're meant to shock you and keep you on your toes without actually delivering any kind of. logical conclusion to anything. it's an annoying series of gotchas and it-was-a-dream-the-whole-times - and i like a good surreal film, i don't usually mind a movie where reality and the main characters experience are uncertain, but perfect blue doesn't really have anything carrying it underneath all the psycheouts. that's more of a pet peeve though, it's the other stuff that makes me hate it

for a movie that's supposed to be about the way women in the idol industry are commodified, there's an awful lot of shock-value scenes that seem to be included only to commodify the main character's suffering. there's a graphic rape scene that didn't need to be included because the movie spent the previous five minutes telling us there was going to be a rape. there's a scene where the main character has a sexy photoshoot and we get an extensive zoomed-in slideshow of all her nudes. the film could have been about how idols' sexualities are monetised and sold without actually in turn selling the viewer this idol characters sexuality, all the grotesque imagery is so clearly for wanking to.

probably the thing i hate most, though, is the whole thing with rumi. were given a female character who supports the main character all throughout the film, a character shown to have the main characters best interests in mind. she seems to be the only character who genuinely cares about mima. this could easily have been about how women are the only ones supporting other women in a corrupt industry, that's how it comes across for most of the film. instead, rumi is revealed at the very end to have been the murderer the whole time, completely out of left field, with no motive whatsoever. it's implied that she's jealous of mima as she used to be an idol herself - but she explicitly states throughout the film that she doesn't want to return to that life, that being an idol was a mistake. there's no reason for her to become a jealous villain beyond the fact that she's another woman and fat, which in itself undermines everything the film has been trying to say about women and their appearances up until this point.

in a similar vein, there's mister me-mania, a fan of mimas introduced at the beginning of the film who mima treats with suspicion because his face is deformed. it feels like a setup for him turning out to have been protecting or helping her in some way, because that would've meshed with the films themes. but instead hes just a murderer and rapist, cause as everyone knows, if you're not traditionally beautiful, you must be evil.

on the whole the film is just frustrating and poorly executed. it was good at being a thriller, but everything beyond that was kind of just fucked up. there wasn't even any blue in it the palette is predominantly red and yellow smh