#what if I crawled out of my own grave and you pointed a gun at me and we were both girls (:

[fastcardotmp3]

thinking about various versions of Chrissy Comes Back Wrong again and Chrissy, whose mutilated body was buried 6 feet under, who was given a funeral in the local church, a whole mountain of flowers in her memory.

Chrissy, whose body is dead but whose mind is just trapped in Vecna's grasp, trapped where he has control of it, trapped in whatever memory or nightmare he wants to keep her in until she becomes useful.

Until there's reason to release her mind, send it crawling back to a body reanimated with the snapping of bones back into place, breath coming back in choking heaves and embalming fluid still cold in her veins.

And then she's alive again. Alive and 6 feet underground with her name on a placard awaiting a stone yet to be carved.

Alive but different.

Her chest is tight with heaving, sobbing, panicked breaths, but it's like she instinctually knows that it doesn't matter, that she won't run out of air in this pitch-dark box because she doesn't need it.

Chrissy doesn't need air anymore, doesn't need blood in her veins, doesn't need the beat of a heart in her chest despite the way she can still feel the motionless weight of it there.

Chrissy doesn't need any of it, as she scrabbles hands across the lid of her first and final resting place looking for a latch, but she needs something.

She needs to do something.

She needs.

Chrissy has been hungry before, is the thing. Chrissy has trained herself to ignore hunger, as much as a person can do such a thing, but this is unlike any of that.

It's not telling her friends she ate before she left and watching them sip on milkshakes at the diner with a lightness in her head; it's not eating only the meal portioned out for her by her mother and laying in bed with a growling stomach later that night.

It's uncontrollable, this hunger. It's vast and thick and all-consuming to the point where she hardly even realizes when she pushes hard enough against the lid to hear a crack!

She's hardly cognizant of her own frantic movements, doesn't have the wherewithal to acknowledge that she's stronger now, that something about the hunger makes her feel like once she's fed it she'll surpass even this desperation-fueled power.

Soil and insects rain down upon her as she pushes up and up and up; it gets under her nails as she claws towards the surface, in her mouth and up her nose and all over the pretty dress her mother had chosen for her to be buried in.

It was one which made her look particularly petite. It's been torn at the sleeves and the hem is hanging in rags by the time she realizes that in the impulse decision to dig she had locked herself into a singular fate.

Eventually she's going to resurface.

Eventually she's going to have to face the hunger.

---

Nancy Wheeler shouldn't be here.

They have so much work to do, so much to grapple with in the wake of their undeniable loss.

So many lives gone and so much destruction overtaking this town she has called home her entire life and Nancy should really be doing anything but being here.

The sun is setting and the others are having dinner at the Henderson house, one of the few with zero damage caused by the rifts opening in the earth, but Nancy just needs a moment.

She just needs a breath.

She just needs.

"We just keep failing you," she says to a girl's name carved in stone, forever sixteen and forever undeserving of the fate that had befallen her.

Nancy doesn't sit down, just stands on Barb's plot with her shoes sinking into deadened earth, greyed-out grass, and chokes on the feelings she can't have in front of the others.

Not when they're still in this fight, not when there's so much work left to do. She should be doing it. She shouldn't be here.

Fuck, Max still isn't awake and Eddie is on his way to very well losing one of his legs if they can't get his infection under control and Erica is the quietest she's ever been and the Byers boys are attached at the hip like they're scared to let each other out of their sight and Steve is carrying that damn bat around like it's the solution to all their problems and Mike is so much older than he was when he left for California and what is Nancy doing?

"I'm sorry. I'm so..."

She's crying at a dead girl like she's the one who's got it rough. Like she hadn't failed Barb and keeps failing all of them. Like she's not the one who said they should go to the Upside Down in the first place and now Max won't wake up and Eddie might lose a leg and--

The cemetery is empty, this time of day, because the people still sticking it out in Hawkins know that if the sun is setting you should get somewhere safe.

Nancy's stupider, more reckless than they are on paper, just by being here, but really she's just smart enough to know that there's no such thing as safe.

So when she hears a sound like-- like a person choking. Vomiting. Sobbing.

She has her hand on her revolver in the same whirl of motion as she looks behind her.

Nothing.

To the north, nothing.

To the west, nothing.

No one is out this time of day, as the short and hazy sunlight they do get fades into an even hazier orange and then black. But someone is here.

Nancy creeps towards the sound, because if a person is hurt then there's likely a creature nearby too-- a demo-something or other ready to rear back and wield its teeth and claws.

It takes a moment longer than she would like it to for her brain to catch up to her eyes when she sees what she sees. All the input is there, all the information needed to draw a conclusion, but even in Nancy's vast experience of the unexpected, she doesn't know how she could have expected this.

Pink dress gone muddy brown, shredded in places and slashed in others.

Bare feet and blonde hair changed almost entirely in color by the damp of the soil.

Heaving. Choking. Sobbing.

She hasn't been dead long enough for her to have a proper headstone, but the ground torn up all around the plot offers Nancy the final piece to a puzzle she hadn't known she was trying to solve.

Her jaw hinges open and she lowers her gun to clutch it one handed down by her side instead and she breathes--

"Chrissy."

Not a question, because there are a lot of questions here but that's not one of them.

Well.

It wouldn't be, except Nancy's quiet exclamation makes her presence known.

Except, even though Chrissy's chest is still heaving, she stills right there, collapsed on her knees.

Except, when she looks up. When she looks up, it's--

"Shit," Nancy whips her gun back up and trains it on the gleaming red eyes in front of her because maybe it's still a bit of a question.

She really shouldn't have come here.

[rboooks]

DC X DP fic: Legal Compensation

Bruce Wayne doesn't know what sick monster would think it is funny to ruin Jason's grave, but when an alert arrives at the cave, he's flying towards the cemetery intending to find out.

And teach them some respect.

Of course, he knows Jason's not in there- not after his son returned with more hate and rage than a person- but it was still his last resting place.

He barely acknowledges Tim and Damian pulling up beside the Batmobile, each on their own bike while Dick, Steph, and Cass fly above him. They all got the alert. None of them are happy.

When they arrive, it's to see a teenager happily whistling as he shovels away layers of dirt. The stranger is in a white and black hoodie, a neon green ghost crossing from the front to the back, and his white hair with glowing green eyes lets them know it's not a human.

Or if it is, then not an average human. Meta, based on how he picks up way more dirt than he should be able to lift with his glowing green shovel.

They also see Jason get there first, his eyes glowing in Pit Rage and .points a gun to the back of the teenager's head. Bruce opens his mouth to shout, Damian manages to throw a ninja star, but they are far too late.

Jason pulls the trigger. A large bang is heard across the cemetery. The teenager drops into the deep hole he is making.

The family can only watch as the Pit Rage disappears from Jason's mind, and horror creeps onto his face as he realizes what he has done. It's too late now, though. The child is dead.

Bruce feels sick to his stomach- and then The teenager stands up, his head reforming in terrible familiar green liquid. The family forms a protective circle around a frozen Jason as the teenager turns around to look at them with Lazarus' green eyes and smiles.

Smiles at Jason with far too bright eyes. "I found you! I didn't realize you already left your grave, but that makes things easier. Jason Peter Todd, yes?"

"Who are you?" Bruce demands, stepping before his second oldest.

The white hair boy's smile becomes wider- if that's possible. "I'm Phantom. I'm working on behalf of the Ghost King."

Damian hisses, "What does the most powerful being in the multiverse want with Todd?"

"Baby Bat?" Dick asks without really asking.

"The Ghost King is the ruler of the Infinite Realms. The place where grandfather harvests the Lazarus Pit."

That's not good.

The teenager laughs. "The very same. He wants me to offer Legal Compensation to Mr. Todd."

"Legal Compensation? For what?" Tim asks this time.

"The glitch. See, Mr.Todd wasn't supposed to die- he was supposed to break the door and crawl to safety while the bomb jammed. At the same time, the Master of Time was preoccupied with another dimension saving the lives of six very important people to the Ghost King from a junk food explosion. Because of that, he was not there to control time correctly, creating a glitch in this universe's time flow. It speeded up certain areas, in your case, the location of the bomb's jam, making it explode earlier than it should have. He corrected it by bringing you back, but you were in a grave by that point. The Master of Time realized the grave injustice this was, so he sent me as legal Compensation."

That.... was a lot.

"How are you legal compensation?" Jason growls.

"Well, those people were just as important to me as the Ghost King. Since you lost your life due to the incident, I will give you my natural life here as a human for you to use." The teenager's form shifts after an ample bright light, and suddenly they are looking at a perfectly black hair blue eye average looking human who smiles happily at them. "Ta-da! So what do you want me to do first, Master Todd?"

"No." Jason hisses, looking angrier than he's ever looked before. Bruce can't say he doesn't feel the same way. "No, the Master of Time does not get to kill me. Go oopsie-daisy and then send me a fucking slave as an apology!"

"Not a slave- more of a- ugh Bulter!" The teenager argues, trying to crawl out of the hole and falling down, into a heap as he oversteps. "Wow, being a full human is going to get some getting use to."

"No!" Jason yells, turns around, and walks away.

"Wait! Wait! Master Todd, wait for me!" The teenager calls desperately, but Jason disappears into the shadows of Gotham without a backward glance. The boy slides into the mudd, voice muffled as he screams.

Steph takes pity on him offering her hand to help him out of the hole. "What's your name, by the way?"

"Phantom." The teenager says with a grateful smile taking the hand and climbing out. He gives the rest of the family an awkward smile "Danny Phantom"

Bruce ends up with another son by the following day. Jason ends up with a restless wanna-be butler who follows him everywhere, trying to serve him. The fact he cure his Pit Madness didn't seem to even register with him.

Jason wants Danny to leave him alone and quit the "I must spend the rest of my human life providing for your every whim". It's getting creepy.

[theewritingroomm]

A Wasteland Reunion

Summary: It's been more than 200 years since you've last seen your cowboy. Pairing: Cooper Howard x Reader Word Count: 1,070 (a drabble? what's that?) Warnings: mentions of violence, swearing, A/N: Part of The Cowboy & The Movie Star series, a part 2 if you will. Let me know what y'all would like to see from this series. What snapshots would y'all like to see?

I do NOT consent to my work being translated or published onto third party sites - including AO3 and Wattpad.

A layer of dirt and grime covered every surface of the Red Rocket Gas Station. Outside the sun blazed down, covering the Wasteland in a blazing heat. The wind gave an occasional whistle as it blew more dirt into the gas station’s broken windows. Though you were paying attention to none of that, you were focused on the sound that should not be there. 

The thumping of heavy footsteps on broken concrete. 

So with your back against the checkout counter you reload your gun and cussed Ma June. If this ‘simple favor’ didn’t kill you, you were going to ring the older lady’s neck. 

As the heavy steps get closer your finger tightens around the trigger of your gun. The old bell chimes above the door and heavy footfalls turn into light steps as the newest customer to the Red Rocket navigates around the debris littering the floor. The footsteps grow quieter as the person heads towards the other end of the gas station. 

Taking the opportunity, you slowly crawl towards the open door a few feet to your right. The manager’s office was threadbare, a simple desk and chair sat in the middle of the room with a few filing cabinets sitting behind the desk. It did not offer many hiding places, however you had no interest in hiding. You were interested in getting the piece of tech Ma June was searching for and getting the hell out of the Red Rocket. 

After waiting a moment, with bated breath for the sound of footsteps to draw closer. You were surprised when they never did, coming to the conclusion that the person must have left. Likely abandoning their search when they came up empty handed. Not that you minded, The less people here, the less bullets you would have to use to make it back to Filly. 

Pushing the other person from your mind, you began going through the drawers of the desk. Where you found a handful of plastic forks, a loose cigarette and four caps. With another glance to the open door and a pause to listen for steps, you turned your attention to the filing cabinets behind you. 

The first cabinet was a bust, holding nothing but trash. You had moved onto the second cabinet, only starting to pull the first drawer out when the hairs on the back of your neck rose and a pit of dread opened in your stomach. Before you could turn to inspect, the hammer of a pistol was pulled back. The click echoed off the walls of the dusty gas station. 

“My, my,” A low voice drawled out behind you. “What’s a pretty little thing like you doin’ all alone out here?” 

The voice was low, gravely, distinctly a man’s voice. It trickled down your spine like ice water, setting off every nerve ending within you. But deep down, there was a familiarity in the voice. A familiarity that had your heart tightening in your chest. 

“Just surviving,” you replied., hand tightening around your own pistol. “Wasteland’s a rough place.” 

You tried to keep your voice level, not wanting to give away any of your intentions or give the stranger a reason to pull his trigger. At this point you were ready to call this mission a bust, sure that the tech Ma June was after was not worth your life. 

“Stand up, leave your gun on the ground” the man demanded, leaving no room for arguments. 

Complying with the man, you left your gun in the dirt and stood. Muscles aching and protesting from being squatted for so long. Once fully stood you began to turn around. Wanting to see the man who was likely going to shoot you down. 

The man, no, the ghoul in front of you was menacing from looks alone. A long, leather trench coat covered the rest of his outfit, an ammo belt stretched across his chest, and a weathered cowboy hat was pulled low on his head. A sneer stretched his lips across yellowing teeth and fire burned in deep brown eyes. 

As you locked eyes with the Ghoul a weight of emotions crashed into your chest. If silence hadn’t consumed the gas station you would have thought he shot you.

“Cooper?” The name fell from your lips before you could stop it. 

The sound bubbled in the space between the two of you. Growing with the tension in the room before popping with a deep growl from the man. 

Quicker than you could realize, he was on you. A heavy arm pushing against your throat as he slammed you against the hard metal cabinets behind you. A handle dug harshly into your hip, surly going to leave a bruise. However, you could not find it in you to care. Not when Cooper Howard was standing before you two hundred years after you had seen him last. Two hundred years after you were sure he had died.  

“How do you fuckin; know that name?” He growled, pushing his forearm harder against your throat.

“Coop, please,” You coughed out, struggling to breath past the pressure Cooper was putting on your neck. “It’s me.”

His eyes darkened, a predator staring down at you. “Bullshit.” 

The arm not holding you to the cabinets began to raise, The metal of his gun was cold as he placed it to your temple. 

“I’m only gonna ask one more time.” He pulled the hammer back with a sickening click. “How do you know that name and why are you wearing her fuckin’ face?” 

He was nearly shouting at the end of his question. Fury beginning to take over his composure. 

Knowing you only had one more chance to prove to Cooper that you were standing in front of him, you dug into your memories with Cooper. Going back to a place you had long wished to go back to.

“I told you I loved you for the first time the day the bombs dropped,” you choked around the words, “I had a meeting at the studio and you were getting ready for a birthday party. We were standing in the driveway and you were wearing that damn cowboy getup, but I couldn’t wait anymore so I blurted it out.” 

The fire in his eyes diminished as another emotion took over. With a small sigh, your name escaped his lips in a whisper. Like a prayer he had long since forgotten.

[thyme-in-a-bubble]

the annihilation

lilac, chapter eighteen

a/n: this chapter is very short, but on the bright side i am posting the next chapter next saturday.

summary: “I swear to god I’ll fucking do it! If I can’t have her, no one can.”

warnings: lumberjack!frank castle x reader, angst, lumberjack AU, past domestic violence, crazy ex trope, kidnapping, crying, violence, murder, blood and gore

word count: 516

∼ gentle reminder that feedback, but especially reblogs are the way you support writers on here ∽

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There were blood splatters across Frank’s skin and even though the clothes he wore were as dark as the night sky on the other side of the tall windows, you could still tell that they were soaked. However, if it was his own or someone else’s, that you could not decipher as Preston’s knife threatened to pierce your jugular vein. 

“Drop the knife!”  

Pressing the sharp blade just deep enough to draw a drop of your blood, Preston warned, “don’t get any closer!”

“Hey, hey, hey, hey!” Frank rumbled, “easy, easy!”

“You want me to put it down?” Preston’s laboured breaths fanned across your tear-stained cheek, “you first.”

Seeing Frank’s left eye twitch lightly, he grunted, “just let her go.” 

“I swear to god I’ll fucking do it!” Preston roared, causing you to let out a shuttering shriek in his hold, “if I can’t have her, no one can.”

The muscles in Frank’s jaw jumped and danced a moment before he finally said, “okay, alright,” keeping his voice clear and steady as he complied, lowering his pistol to the floor, “here,” and then held his hands up in the air, at the height of his head.  

What transpired next happened in a blur.

As soon as the knife slowly began to lower from your throat, in a split second, Frank had whipped out another gun, hidden and tugged away at the small of his back, and shot point blank.

Preston’s body flopped back onto the bed, staining the already crimson sheets with his gore. 

You couldn’t move. You couldn’t speak. You couldn’t even breathe. You just stood there, violently shaking, as your unfocused stare hazily noticed Frank tug his weapon away before stepping closer. 

When he got near enough, you didn’t so much embrace him, but actually fell into his arms. A brutal tidal wave of emotions tumbled over you as you let out a grave sob, your arms still uncontrollably trembled down along your sides as his strong ones enclosed around you like a warm woollen blanket. 

As your aching tears stained his shirt, brazenly mixing and mingling with whatever else tainted the dark fabric, you didn’t care one bit if it marked you as well. Eventually, as he cradled your quivering frame close, your right hand found your other in a desperate attempt at ridding yourself of the shiny band that burdened your ring finger.

But as your shaky efforts jaggedly went on without success, words frenziedly crawled their way out of your throat, “g–, g-get–… get it off me… get it off me, get it off me, get it off me!” and he swiftly moved to triumphantly slip it off and toss it to the floor, his own digits not in shock like yours were. 

You sucked in a large gulp of oxygen as soon as he pulled it off. Like you’d been drowning and this was your first breath of fresh air. 

As you let yourself crash back into his arms, the paralysing emotions pummelling you to shreds, Frank’s soft whisper found your ear, “I’ve got you, I’ve got you…”

© 2024 thyme-in-a-bubble 

[coveredinmetaldust]

The discourse around the OceanGate situation is making me really fucking mad. You are getting a lot of posts like this one where people are decrying how inhumane it is for people to meme on the situation instead of grieving for the kind of people would work you to death if it meant a 0.002% stock price increase.

Yup, these fucking losers are equating willfully creating a death trap and killing 5 other people instantly to a car accident.

I don’t even entirely disagree that yes, it is tragic. I’d rather they didn’t die from an implosion caused by their metal death-tube crumpling in on itself because the arrogant shithead CEO decided that all these safety standards other subs adhere to were getting in the way of innovation. Obviously it would have been preferable to find them drifting on the ocean surface a day later shaken but ultimately unharmed.

No, I’m mad about how blatantly lopsidedly this flavor of moral outrage is always applied. You never see these people on Reddit, Twitter, etc crawl out of the woodwork to denounce the people saying “well he was no angel” when a person of color is gunned down by the police. You never see these same multi-paragraph posts decrying how immoral it is to say “play stupid games win stupid prizes” when this shit happens to the poor, disenfranchised, etc.

You don’t see it, because the people currently on their high horse are the same people who would call you a fucking idiot if you were on this submarine.

If the entree fee was $250 and five working class people were killed I can guarantee you'd see these same people joking about Darwin awards instead of saying stuff like this.

But no no, suddenly now is the time to stop victim blaming and start grandstanding while clutching at pearls. Now is the time to get indignant and accuse people not of feeling empathy and being inhumane sociopaths. There are now were entire call-out topics on Reddit where they organized and briggaded anyone who dares to say anything bad about these poor billionaires. Where the FUCK was this outrage during, I dunno, pick any one of the numerous fucking examples of brutality and/or exploitation occurring within the last three years. Oh right, these dopey fucks were too busy wagging their fingers at the victims and telling them to take Personal Responsibility™. Too bad, if only they were born rich—then maybe these paragons of virtue on social media would go to bat for them.

But you know what the worst part of this discourse is? I can’t quite put it into words, but it’s so blatantly fucking obvious to me that all of this is insincere—this is actual virtue signaling. You can just tell by the tone, the regurgitated talking points, the slimy smug indignation. This is false empathy over people they couldn’t care less about and won’t even remember in a week, because the point isn’t to being a compassionate person.

No, this to grandstand and get that dopimine rush by calling people out. This is being done to score points for some political ideology and Own The Libs/Commies/Socialists/[insert any slightly left of center ideology]. This is so the Panglossian shitheels of social media can maintain the status quo and feel superior by stamping out any act of defiance or rebellion.

None of these of these people seemed to care about how disrespectful this kind of disaster tourism is for the victims of the Titanic. (Victims, who, were mostly lower class since the wealthy were the ones who were allowed to escape.) They don’t care that these rich assholes were profiteering off a tragedy and making a spectacle out of visiting a mass grave. No, they save that smug, condescending, and cynical response for the people who call out these rich assholes.

It makes me want to throw my computer into the ocean.

Now, if you are one of these people I’m screaming into the void about, and you genuinely do not understand why people are memeing the situation so hard, you need to take a step back and recognize that this is, objectively, an absurd and cartoonish situation. This could have easily been a plot for an episode of The Simpsons. This whole goddamn situation reads like something thrown together by a room of writers who were trying to out “yes and” one another until one stopped everyone and said: “Woah woah, hold on. The CEO’s wife is a descendant of the Titanic victims? Isn’t that just a little much?” And then everyone else ignored this person and just kept fucking going.

In short: it was the perfect storm of absurdity, coincidence, hubris, tragedy, and stupidity.

But that's just a surface level explanation which ignores the context of the last hundred or so years. Ask yourself: "why are so many people so unsympathetic towards these particular victims?" Well, there are a multitude of reasons that contributed to how we got to this point and this guy does a much better job of explaining it than I ever could:

[lizzie-is-here]

lonely is a man without love

part v- the boat

“we are all like the bright moon, we still have our darker side” - kahlil gibran

summary: the weirdest boat you’ve ever been on.

wordcount: 3.8k

warnings: language, death, violence, abuse, red room, more episode five to come

a/n: hiii, i’m slowly getting back into my groove lmao. got the results back on my finals and scraped by in math, saw taylor in the pouring rain, ya know, normal things. thank y’all sm for being patient w these uploads. as always, hope you enjoy, love you all 🫶🫶🫶

taglist: @thefictionalgemini @ravenz-hope @undiscl0sed-d3sir3s @iateall-yourcookies @disregardedplant @sunflowers-4 @yellowumbrelllaaaa @bagsy-not-it @local-mr-frog @thescarletredwitch @jupitersmoon167 @creamecafe @stevenknightmarc @theluciansystem @kingtwhiddleston @spider-biter @mxltifxnd0m @sgt-morgan @no-dont-be-suspicious @onzayhe @namorslit @i-cant-write-for-shit @vainillasmil157 @doublevirgogirl @boofy1998

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Now, you’ve grave robbed before. The Red Room had some dirty work, literally and figuratively.

However, you’ve never grave robbed an Egyptian pharaoh’s tomb. Especially not with a man who’s kind of two men who are the avatar of an Egyptian god.

You’ve done worse.

Like shoving your hand down a mummy’s throat because Steven didn’t want to.

“Be gentle!” Steven yelps as you dig around the dead man.

You scoff. “What is he going to do, bite my arm? The integrity of the enamel is pretty shot now, I think I’ll be fine.”

Finally, your hand touches stone. Yanking it free, you victoriously present the ushabti to Steven.

He cheers as you both jump in excitement, passing the ushabti between you both to examine it. Your heart is pounding, both out of excitement and how close you are to Steven.

It turns out to be even closer than you thought when you look up, and almost bump heads with him.

For a moment, you just take in his gaze. How gently his eyes meet yours, deep and dark and entrancing all the same.

“We may have to fight our way out of here,” you cough, refocusing.

Steven shakes his head. “No, no. We can just sneak out a back entrance and-“

“Steven.” You rest a hand on his. “They have a way to track us if we have the ushabti. There are guards crawling all over this place. It’s going to get messy.”

In his head, Marc agrees.

‘It’s gonna be a fight Steven, she’s right.’

“No, no, not everything is a fight.” He’s not sure if he’s talking to Marc or you. “There’s more solutions than- than killing people.” You can’t disguise the way that his words sting.

A loud rumbling of footsteps echoes down the hallway.

You raise an eyebrow. “Are you sure about that?”

‘Give me the body, Steven!’

In an instant, the mild-mannered Brit is gone, and Marc is readjusting to having control again.

“This is bad,” he whispers, as the footsteps grow louder.

You chuckle. “Yeah, no shit.”

Watching you ready your weapons and aim at the entrance, noticing the way your breath trembles, Marc makes a split-second decision.

“You should run.”

“What?” You balk, never taking your eyes off the tunnel before you. “I’m not leaving you.”

“This is my mess, you don’t need to get hurt for me.”

“Too bad.”

The room is flooded with Harrow’s devotees as you finish your sentence. Dozens of guns, all trained on the two of you. You don’t waver, staring down the barrel of your own gun with a finger resting on the trigger.

“I remember the first morning I woke up knowing Khonshu was gone,” Harrow says, stepping up towards Marc. He doesn’t even act phased by the weapon pointed at his head.

“The quiet was liberating.”

It sounds hauntingly like the chemical-induced control in the Red Room. Voices in your head that aren’t your own.

“You’re a free man.”

Logically, you know that Harrow is speaking to Marc. And yet…

“And, of course, with that freedom, comes choice. And right now, you have a very important decision to make.”

Marc sighs. “Okay.”

He’s not one to give up. That much has been made clear in the time you’ve known him. You don’t have to look at him to know he’s planning something.

The moment he strikes, so do you, shooting down as many men as you can. It’s a whirlwind, Marc with a stolen weapon from the sarcophagus and you with anything you can get your hands on.

Of course, cornering a wanted mercenary and a Black Widow in a small space is a recipe for violence.

Harrow knows this.

You’ve heard a lot of gunshots in your life, even felt a good dozen or so. The scars littered across your body tell that story without uttering a single word.

So you know when you’ve been hit.

And you know that this one is bad. Really bad.

A shot to your stomach, then two more to your chest. You can feel your clavicle shatter and ribs crack, but you can’t hear yourself scream. Maybe you don’t even make a sound.

The pain is blinding and absent all at once, and the only thing besides the ringing in your ears is Marc’s panicked movements as he catches you before you fall.

“Hey, hey, hold on. You’re okay, I’ve gotcha.” His words are muffled, but you swear you feel him press a kiss to your forehead. Not such a bad way to go.

He’s cussing, holding you close and shielding you from the onslaught of bullets when he takes two shots to the back.

That’s all it takes.

He topples into the pool of water with you still cradled in his arms, and the darkness only gives you relief.

You don’t let yourself think about Sam, Bucky, and Steve. Or Tony and Peter. Not even Nat and Yelena.

About how the Avengers will hunt this man down. About how they’ll find your body in the water.

Will the world mourn a killer?

Well, the only “world” to you right now is the dark water you’re sinking in and the man holding you tight, so you suppose it doesn’t matter all that much.

———————————————————————

You open your eyes to a hell you never thought you’d return to.

A large, open room, cold and dreary. A woman looms in the corner and about twenty or so little girls look up at you expectantly.

When you turn to the wall covered in one large mirror, you’re met with something else.

A ballerina. White platter tutu bejeweled with gems, worn pointe shoes, your hair tightly pulled back.

The woman snaps her fingers. You instantly jump into the motions you thought you had forgotten, executing a routine with a kind of poised grace that would only ever come with the Red Room’s brutal training.

Finishing with a bow, not even breaking a sweat, you are dismissed, and the world seems to shift.

Now, the room you’re in is bathed in red light. When you look down, you’re in a Black Widow uniform.

You’re not too alarmed by this. No, what scares you is what you know lies in front of you. The bodies on the floor.

The sirens in the halls.

The man in the room, examining your technique.

There’s a fog in your head that you know all too well.

“The chemical seems to be working,” a familiar woman says. Her hair is done up in more braids than you can count. “It wasn’t even this successful on my pigs.”

“I don’t give a shit about your pigs,” the man growls. “I just can’t have another Widow escaping.”

You blink, and they’re gone. The room is white and the haze in your mind is receding. You’re still in the uniform, but you don’t mind that as much.

Wandering the bright hallways, you find yourself in a hospital. The lights seem to sway, and your balance is faultier than usual. Must be a side effect of the flashbacks.

Voices are echoing down the hallway, and you can’t help but feel that they sound… familiar.

“But Marc, Marc-“

“The hospital! That’s the imagination.”

Why would their voices be separate? They continue arguing as you turn the corner, just as Marc turns around.

His breath catches in his throat, as if he’s seeing, well, a ghost.

“Oh, c’mon,” he sighs. “That’s just cruel.” Marc walks forward, still not really believing in this whole “afterlife” deal or that you’re here.

Because that would mean you’re dead.

“Where are we?” you ask, hurrying around the corner only to see… uh, a hippo, and maybe more concerning, Steven.

You mutter under your breath in Russian, only stopping when Steven puts a hand on your shoulder.

“Uh, I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but-“

“We’re dead,” Marc finishes, groaning audibly. There’s no way around it. “Harrow, he- he shot you, and then…”

He blinks away the image of you, bloodied in his arms.

“Wait, if this really is the afterlife-” Marc says, approaching a door. “Then what’s on the other side-“

He flings the double doors open, revealing that the swaying of the building wasn’t a hallucination.

You’re on a boat. In the middle of a fucking desert. And you’re also apparently dead.

“Oh, what the shit,” you gasp. “Where the hell are we?”

Steven follows behind you. “It’s the underworld.”

You still don’t understand how the two are separate, even as Marc laughs and pats his alter on the shoulder. “I’m not crazy,” he sighs in relief. “I’m dead.”

“Where are we going?” you ask, watching as the boat coasts over dunes.

“We’re sailing to A’aru. To the Field of Reeds, right, Taweret?”

The hippo, apparently Taweret, nods. “Ah, so he’s the smart one, eh? Well, if your heart’s balanced in life, then you will spend eternity in paradise. The Field of Reeds!”

She coughs before reaching out her hands toward Marc and Steven. “But before we get there, I’ve just got to do a little…”

Her hands pass through their bodies like air, and when she pulls them back, in her hands are two, identical, white hearts.

“Oh, goody! It worked! Look at that! Here was little old me worrying I’d blow your chests wide open.” You wince, before stepping forward.

“I guess you have to do that to me?” you ask, hating the answer.

She nods, and just as gently removes your heart, cradling the three.

“You’re more of a standard case, really, no offense to you boys. We’ll weigh yours first.”

“What’s happening?” you whisper to Steven.

“She’s going to weigh your heart on the Scales of Justice against the Feather of Truth. The ancient Egyptians believed that the heart was the sign of who you really were in life.”

The space in your chest feels cold now.

“If the Scales balance by the time you end the journey, then your soul is permitted to pass into the Field of Reeds.”

You feel a chill run down your spine. “And if it doesn’t balance?”

“You get thrown overboard,” Taweret politely informs. “Whoo! The dead will drag you down into the Duat, where you will remain forever, frozen in sand.”

Wonderful.

You watch as she sets your heart on the scales, waiting for it to almost fall over from your heart’s weight.

But it doesn’t.

It sits rather politely, perfectly equal to the feather.

“I think your scale is broken,” you mumble. “I’ve done a lot of, um, less-than-balanced things in my life.”

The hippo shakes her head kindly. “No, the Scales aren’t wrong. However, your heart does feel heavier than most. Perhaps there’s something in the boat to help lighten the load?”

Next, she sets down Marc and Steven’s hearts. They had been talking in hushed tones a few paces away, but Taweret’s voice brings them back.

The scales are rapidly shifting, never stilling on one side or the other.

“What’s it doing, why is it moving like that?” Steven asks.

The goddess shrugs. “I don’t know. I do not have a card for this.” She carefully removes the hearts.

“Oh. It’s the hearts. They aren’t… full.” She chuckles a bit. “And trust me, I’m a goblet-half-full kind of gal, but… It’s like they each feel incomplete.”

Marc crosses his arms. “What does that mean?”

“Without balanced scales, the Duat will eventually claim your soul.”

“So what do we do?” you ask.

“This boat contains all of a life’s memories,” Taweret says. “Now, I don’t know what you two have been hiding, but my advice, get in there and show each other the truth. Balance your scales before we arrive at the Field of Reeds, or your souls will be destroyed.”

You don’t hesitate, hurriedly opening the doors, and jogging down the hallways as Marc and Steven reluctantly follow.

Behind the doors, you see flashes from their lives, intertwined and blurry behind the glass.

Behind you, they argue, going back and forth at an increasing volume until they start peeking in doors.

A scream comes from further into the ship. It’s a little boy. You and Steven take off after it, but only you seem to notice how Marc hangs back.

The sound came from a cafeteria, apparently. And at each table, there are posed bodies. Some bloodied, some strangled.

“Just a creepy caff filled with dead bodies,” Steven jokes as his voice shakes. “That’s all it is. No prizes for guessing whose room this is.”

Marc studies the bodies, before he starts naming locations. You know exactly what he’s doing.

“You killed them,” you say. It’s not a question.

“Surely not all of them?” Steven asks.

Marc is still looking at the countless people. “They were criminals. Murderers. Predators. The worst of the worst. Khonshu wanted them punished. It’s what he meant by protecting the travelers of the night.”

A pang of guilt stabs through you. He was killing the guilty. You killed the innocent. In another life, you might have been one of the bodies in this room.

“Marc! Look, the Scales are slowing down. It’s working,” Steven says.

“Okay, all right. So now what? Do you go next?”

Movement catches your eye. The small boy who called out before. But unlike the others, he’s alive.

“Marc, who’s that?” You point to him. The man pales visibly.

“Wait, wait, don’t go near him!” Marc pleads as Steven rushes after the boy, who runs off as quickly as he appeared.

Chasing after them both, you only catch up after Steven has entered a memory, with Marc banging on the locked door.

You start looking for other entrances when you see it.

All of Marc and Steven’s doors are white. They match the hospital and are denoted with a small crescent moon on the door handle. This one is made of dark, heavy metal. And you’d recognize that red insignia anywhere.

This is your door.

You don’t even bother looking in it. You see your worst memories every night, so why would you want to watch them again?

Turning back to Marc, you ignore the door completely.

“Let’s look for another way in, yes?”

You both race down the halls, peering in each door for Steven. However, the further you go, the more of your doors appear.

Marc can only catch glimpses of what’s inside. Red lights, gunfire, sharp commands in Russian. And lots of screaming.

He’s trying to push the sounds from that cave out of his head, but all he can hear is water. So much water.

When he opens his eyes, you’re staring into one of his doors. With a tentative press on the handle, it swings open.

The scene is a funeral. There’s no mistaking that. Two parents sit together, and a picture of a young boy is surrounded by flowers.

It all pieces together.

“Your brother,” you whisper. “He died.”

Steven nods from the staircase, soaked in rain and the memories of what he just saw.

“I want my RoRo back,” the mother says, voice hoarse. “I want him back.”

Light steps on the stairs reveal a younger Marc, eyes wide and teary. And you know exactly how this is going to go. Not that it makes it easier to watch.

You close your eyes as she blames the child, screaming as the family tries to calm her down. The boy races back up the stairs, and Steven follows with Marc not far behind.

You’re stuck in place, breath heaving as the mother, Wendy, sobs uncontrollably. Then you blink.

And you’re back in hell.

———————————————————————

Steven and Marc chase each other through more scenes of Marc’s childhood, through birthdays, and arguments, and when he eventually left that hell of a home and never looked back.

But when he tackles Steven, they land in a memory that isn’t theirs.

They see a little girl holding a gun. It’s clearly too large for her hands, given the way that her middle finger rests on the trigger rather than her index finger, but she aims it steadily.

She’s aiming at a man tied to a chair, bag over his head. Steven and Marc barely have time to look away before she shoots.

She doesn’t miss. You never miss.

The girl hands off the gun to a trainer, who nods in approval. As people come to clean the room and dispose of the body, she exits, the two alters following.

They both know it’s you. Neither of them want to say it.

The next room they enter, the girl is a bit older, maybe preteen.

An angry man with glasses looms over her while a woman stands in the corner.

“You failed the Red Room. We’ve put all this effort into making you perfect, and you can’t even finish a mission!” His hand flies out, striking her as Marc’s vision blurs. The sight is all too familiar.

“You… will be punished for your little ‘slip up’. Then, you’ll go back and clean up your mess. No witnesses can be left alive.”

The girl speaks in a way that seems detached. Cold, analytical. “But the witnesses aren’t-“

Another blow lands.

“Don’t speak out of line.”

The woman finally pipes up, her voice cold. “I believe she should go through her graduation ceremony. It will provide… motivation for the next mission.”

Apparently, there’s more to the ceremony than Marc or Steven know, because the little girl’s eyes go wide, and she finally shows emotion.

“No! No, please don’t make me! I’ll never fail you again, Dreykov, just don’t make me-“

He waves a hand. “Take her to the medical wing.”

The scream that the child in front of them lets out is guttural, and she pleads as she’s dragged fighting all the way to the door.

For a moment, she breaks from their grasp and falls begging at the man’s feet. It’s all breathless words and choked breaths.

Dreykov doesn’t even bat an eye. Not when the girl starts sobbing, not when the guards grab her again.

“We shouldn’t be watching this,” Steven says. “These aren’t our memories.”

Marc shakes his head, opening the next door. “We have to find (Y/N), and she’s probably in one of these.”

It reveals another hallway, but not one from the ship. A closed door beside them is marked as having a surgery in process. A hysterectomy. And from the sounds inside, you were both awake and without any form of sedative.

“No…” Steven says. Trying to block out the screaming and crying he can hear, muffled by the heavy door. “They didn’t…”

Marc nods. “I did some research on the Red Room a while back. They would… sterilize the agents for max efficiency.”

“Marc, we need to leave!” the British man exclaims. “These are very personal, traumatic memories that we’re sifting through, we don’t have the right to do this. You didn’t even want me seeing yours, and now you’re okay with looking at (Y/N)’s?”

The other man sighs. “How do we know she’s not digging around ours right now?” The two head for the next door, flinging it open. “For all we know, she’s watching what I didn’t want you to see right now-“

They stop in their tracks for two reasons.

Firstly, there’s a past version of you in the middle of the room, panting heavily. On the ground are 19 dead bodies. All young girls. You’re covered in blood.

Secondly, you’re here. Not just past you, but actual you. You’re perfectly still, watching the scene with an unreadable look on your face.

“(Y/N)?, what is this?”

You whip around at the sound of Steven’s voice. Only then, in the dim red lighting, do they see the tear tracks running down your face. You wipe them away.

“I got lost,” you whisper, voice soft. Your eyes keep flitting back to the bodies littering the floor.

You swallow down the lump in your throat. “I was with you guys, then I blinked, and-“ A silent sob tears its way out of your chest. “-and I was here again.”

Marc and Steven can’t help the way their chests ache at your voice. Not confident or even sarcastic. Just scared.

The former surveys the memory frozen in time. The same man from the earlier memory, Dreykov, stands with another woman.

“What happened here?” he asks, attempting to get your eyes off of the floor.

You wipe your eyes again. “That man, Dreykov. He’s the head of the Red Room. And Melina-“ You point to the woman next to him. “That’s Natasha and Yelena’s mom.”

“After Natasha escaped, they started working on a chemical that would allow Dreykov to control every aspect of his Widows. My group was the first successful run.”

Steven keeps his eyes averted from the bodies. “So why are they all dead?”

“Girls are sorted into groups of twenty when they’re trained to be Widows. Only one survives.”

You stare down at the bodies of your friends, almost your sisters, battered and bloody at your hands.

“I killed them all. I didn’t even hesitate. It was me or them, and I-“ Before you can start spiraling again, you are suddenly wrapped up in two sets of arms.

Letting yourself relax into the group hug, you exhale a heavy breath. Being completely enveloped also has the added bonus of hiding the scenery around you.

“It wasn’t-“

You cut Steven off. “Don’t tell me that it wasn’t me. It doesn’t change the fact that I did it.”

His voice is muffled in your hair. “That’s not what I was gonna say.” It was definitely what he was gonna say, but he quickly changes his plan. “But this, you’ve already lived through all of this. You’ve grown, and now you’re an Avenger. Hell, you charged right in to help us and now you’re dead too.”

“Speaking of which-“ Marc pipes up. “You don’t seem very concerned about being dead.

As they guide you out of the room and back into the ship's hallway, you sigh in relief. Your shoulders visibly relax, and the darkness clouding your eyes relents the tiniest bit.

You offer a smile that’s still a little sad, but a smile nonetheless.

“Oh, please. One of my best friends is a multiversal being that can rewrite reality on a whim. I wasn’t that worried about being dead for a little while,” you joke.

The three of you walk down the hallway until a door that isn’t yours appears. It shows the desert at night, with a similar body count to yours sprawled in the sand.

But there’s another figure. Marc. Dragging himself toward a temple. A thick trail of blood coats the sand.

“Oh, great,” Steven quips. “More dead people.”

Marc’s eyes don’t leave where he’s crawling on the ground. The amount of blood loss is astonishing, really.

“Taweret said you have to tell each other the truth, right?” you ask. “This is part of that.”

Marc steels his nerves before sharply nodding. They just saw some of your worst memories; it only feels right to reveal some of his own.

With a shaky hand, he opens the door.

[jaelijn]

Thoughts on The Thing in the OFMD finale under the cut because I need to articulate this somewhere and I haven't seen anything similar expressed, though at this point I'm not going into the tags anymore. Spoilers obviously.

And because Tumblr no longer lets you effectively keep things out of the tags/search even though I would rather no one but my followers saw this: If you hated the finale, move on. This post is not for you.

I feel like people are forgetting that this isn't primarily an escapist realistically historically pirate show, it's a queer narrative.

And Izzy's queer storyline isn't and has never been "discover sexuality, achieve key to self and life happily ever after" (that's Ed's and Stede's), it's "it's never too late". It's never too late to experience queer joy. Even if you're 95 and one foot in the grave, you can still discover the queer community. Even if you spent your whole life hiding it so far, you can still have it now. Even if you die of AIDS tomorrow you can still go to pride today. Even if some bastard might gun you down tomorrow for no fucking reason other than hating queer folks, you can still have this: queer joy and queer community. It is never too late for queer joy.

And the response to one of our own dying isn't to crawl into a hole and be afraid. It's to be even more aggressivley and life-affirmingly queer. It's new starts and weddings and parties. It's a fuck you to every time one of our own dies brutally. When we lose people of our own, the best thing we can do is to celebrate life. Queer life and queer joy and the queer community. This is what queer pride IS.

Does it suck when someone dies? Yes! Yes! It sucks majorly. But it's a part and a reality of queer lifes. Sometimes one of us dies way before their time. Most of the time it's unfair. Sometimes one of us only finds us when it's already late. Sometimes we can't have a full and happy queer life. It sucks. It's tragic. But it's a part of the story that needs to be told, because the worst thing we can do is pretend tragedy doesn't exist in queerness, to erase the tragedy from memory and thought and with it the people we owe most to remember because they are no longer with us. And while we need queer joy, we also need tragedy: If only to remind us to be even louder, even prouder, even queerer! And a show where there is queer characters who continue that queer joy is a place to tell this story - this is not a show where one queer death erases all queerness from the narrative, this is a show where EVERYTHING is queer.

And narratively: I knew Izzy was dead from the moment of the Pinocchio joke. The villain wasn't going to let him get away; it was happening. (Incidentally, it is foreshadowed exactly like Lucius's 'death' was: a life-threatening loss of limb early in the series.). But while Lucius's 'death' was sharp and brutal and unwarranted and unmourned AND caused by one of our own, Izzy's death doesn't come before Izzy can complete his arc, it comes at its culmination and it comes by a villain. It's not supposed to be something to be celebrated, of course not - it's death! It's tragic! But Izzy dies after having let go of his own toxicity, after having experienced the most happiness of his life and while being confident that the people he loves are safe. He can let them go on without him. The fact that it is heartwrenching is the point, but it's in no shape or form a death that is Bad Writing (tm).

And it's cathartic. That's what death is supposed to be. That the crew are able to move on isn't that they don't care - it's that Izzy left them with the legacy of celebrating their community ESPECIALLY WHEN they might die the next day.

I see a lot of people saying that the other characters don't seem to care. I don't understand what show those people have watched. I can only assume they have their heads so far up their arses in the generalised "MCD is Evil" that they can't accept that sometimes a character death is narrative catharsis and that that rage completely blinds them to subtle emotion (and also not subtle emotions: This is Ed "hide in his cabin to have a cry" Teach openly sobbing on the deck of the ship for the love of everything!). They obviously haven't watched anyone's face in the scenes of Izzy dying - nor during the funeral either:

Anyway - yes, the death hurts. It's supposed to hurt. But it makes narrative sense, it concludes Izzy's arc logically and powerfully and his legacy is, to me, a very very important queer story.

I, too, hope to never have a queer friend die, but if it happens, I hope that I'll have the strength to honour their death and their life by LIVING more proudly, more queerly in their memory, not by denying that they have died. Or by denying that I, too, might die at any time.

[topguncortez]

Ghosts || Chapter 3

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♰ synopsis: it's the day of the ball and Bob takes a trip down memory lane. Some familiar faces show up and so do some uninvited ones.

♰ word count: 3.2k

♰ warnings: mentions of character death, mentions of suicide, mentions of murder, unhealthy coping mechanisms, federal tampering, mentions of gun sales, mentions of drug usage, cursing, mentions of unprotected sex

The venue was decorated beautifully, with gold, red, and white sprinkled throughout it. The old Gambino mansion was a safe haven. It sat in the middle of the rolling hills in San Diego, not many knew of its existence unless they were in the mafia world. Even though most of the preparations had been done prior to the ball, Javy was still walking around making sure everything was perfect. He had decided that a masquerade was the best way to do things, knowing that some of the mafia bosses wanted to keep their identities hidden. 

Just like Rooster and Bob, Javy was wearing perfectly tailored black tuxes with black matching masks. The suits were actually designs that belonged to Athena that Javy had found buried in her desk when he cleaned it out. Javy had made the decision to give Bob what was supposed to be Jake’s suit. There on his chest sat embroidered red and white roses, making him stand out amongst Javy and Rooster. Everyone was dressed in their best, giving off the Old Hollywood/Great Gatsby vibe that Javy wanted. Bob could care less as the very first thing he did when he walked in was order himself a drink. 

“Ah, my favorite brothers-in-law,” Gianni Santiago smirked as he walked in and saw the boys. He was dressed in a maroon, three-piece suit, with a black lace-covered mask on his face. Just like always, a beautiful brunette hung onto his arm as he walked down the marble stairs. 

“Gianni, you dirty bastard,” Rooster smiled and hugged him, “Been too long.” 

The boys and the Santiagos kept in touch after the funeral. Paulo had been the most distant out of the three boys, burying himself into his new position as head of the family. Narciso had found himself taking over all of his sister’s business from her multiple clubs in Italy to the fashion line she had been working on before coming to the States to marry Jake. Gianni, though still the wild card, had been over to visit Jake and his sister’s graves more than any of them. Rooster and Gianni had made a special friendship, both of them bonding over shared trauma. 

“How are things?” Gianni asked. 

“As to be expected, I’m sure Paulo has told you all about it,” Javy explained and Gianni rolled his eyes. 

“Yeah. That fucker has a bigger dick up his ass than my old man ever had. I think it's because of her death. . . He still blames himself.” Gianni looked down at his maroon-colored loafers, “Anyway, where are the drinks and the bitches?” Gianni smirked at Bob. A bright smile crawled its way onto Bob’s face. He walked over and threw his arm around Gianni, walking away and talking about possibly visiting the club if the ball sucks. 

The three of them found a spot in the corner of the large ballroom, near the bar, and decided to stay there as they drank expensive whiskey and caught up on the last year or so of their lives. Bob watched as Javy walked around the room, greeting the mafia Kings and their families as they entered. Bob knew that eventually, he would have to make his own rounds, so he decided to cut it easy with the alcohol consumption. He was only half listening to the conversation between Gianni and Rooster when he felt Gianni nudge him. 

“Who invited the Moss King?” Gianni said and pointed to the striking emerald green outfits, pale skin, and red hair of the members of the O’Phalen family. Each of their faces were covered in intricate green masks, all different from the other. 

Rooster clenched his jaw and brought his drink to his lips, “Coyote’s bright idea.” 

Gianni laughed, “Can’t believe they left their little fog-covered island. Bastards,” Giannia spat, downing the rest of his drink, “Each and every one of them.” 

“I’ll drink to that,” Rooster raised his glass to Gianni’s. 

But Bob paid them no attention, his blue eyes focused on the beautiful woman with coppery red hair. Her dress hugged her curves perfectly as she walked down the grand staircase, arm in arm with who could only be Cillian O’Phalen. Confidence radiated off the woman as she looked at Bob, her green eyes boring into him. It was as if he were in a trance, and memories he had tried to suppress started to surface. 

— — — 

Cambridge, six years ago. . .

By the time Bradley was finished grumbling to Bob about how he didn’t hate Britney Spears, per se, but his mood had been ruined, and the song had changed. Rooster might’ve stood by Bob’s side for an additional five seconds before a new girl walked up to get his attention. He glanced back at his friend, who he was supposed to be protecting, making sure that Bob was okay with it. Bob knew that Rooster had surveyed the area before they even left their dorm room to make sure it was safe. Bob hated it, but he knew it was part of the job.

“Go enjoy yourself,” Bob said, waving him off, “It was one song and that girl ran off.” Rooster clapped Bob on the back before following some fake blonde back into the crowd.  

Bob smiled, watching as the crowd swallowed up Rooster and the girl. After a few more minutes of leaning against the wall, he decided it was time to catch some fresh air and take a smoke break. It was a habit he wasn’t proud of, and if Emile saw him doing it she would be disappointed in him. But it was a habit he had picked up while being on lockdown with his dad and stepmother. He needed something to calm the nerves, and bumming a cigarette off his big brother, Jake seemed to do the trick. 

He kept his head down as he moved through the house, going towards the kitchen and out the backdoor. Sliding the back door open, he felt the cool rush of fresh air as he stepped out. Finally, his body started to cool down and his ears rang from the loud noise of the house. Bob reached into his back pocket, pulling out the beat-up carton of Marlboro reds and his zippo lighter. He placed the cancer stick in his mouth and shielded the flame of the lighter as he brought it up to his mouth. 

“Those things will kill ya’” 

“AH!” Bob jumped and dropped both the lighter and the cigarette. He snapped his head over to the sound of the mystery voice, finding that redhead from earlier. You smiled at him as he placed a hand on his racing heart, “You scared the hell outta me.” 

“Sorry,” You shrugged, walking up to him. He watched as you bent down and grabbed his zippo, holding it between your thumb and pointer finger, “But those things will kill you.” 

“So can falling books,” Bob said, taking the lighter out of your possession. You gave him a tight-lipped smile and took a step back from him. “Sorry,” He sighed, running a hand through his hair, “That was rude.” 

“It’s okay,” You said, lifting your hands in defense, “I ruined your smoke break. I should be apologizing. I’m just gonna go back-” 

“Wait,” Bob said, grabbing your wrist to stop you from turning back towards the loud noise, “I’m. . . Ro-Robby,” Bob cringed at using the awful nickname that Jake called him. 

“Robby?” You asked, tilting your head slightly. Bob had decided at that moment, you looked the cutest you ever had looked, “Okay,” You smiled, “I’m Y/N, but people call me ‘Clover’.” 

— — — 

“Clover,” Galen said, touching your elbow gently. You blinked out of your blank stare at the flute of champagne in your hand and looked up at your dad, “There are some people I want you to meet. Are you with me?” 

You nodded your head, “Yes, da.” 

You couldn’t be distracted. Even though the biggest distraction of your life stood on the opposite end of the room, sending daggers your way. You had hoped and prayed to any God that was listening for Bob to stay on the other side of the room. You weren’t sure if he had realized it was you, yet. You had never told him about your family, or even given him your last name. Everybody knew who the O’Phalens are. They were the largest producer of automatic rifles, selling to militaries and government agencies all over the world. . . at least, that’s what Google said. 

You, however, knew what Google tried its best to hide. You knew that your father sold more than just guns to militaries. He also had a hand in the largest drug trade in the world, being able to conceal pounds of cocaine and heroin inside the gun creates. But besides the drugs, O’Phalen Armors kept its nose clean, staying out of the darker trades that some of the mafia bosses were into. 

Galen smiled as he lead you to a table in the far corner of the room. You recognized some of the people that were gathered in the ballroom. Fritz Avalon, Hondo Coleman, Halo Basset, and Yale Lee, were just a few of the familiar faces you sent smiles and small waves to as you were ushered through the crowd. The one man you knew all too well, was tucked in the back corner, which was unusual for him. But since the death of his daughter, Rafael Santiago didn’t like to make many public appearances.

“Galen.” 

“Rafa,” The two men greeted each other. You hadn’t seen Rafael in nearly a decade, but he looked like the shell of the man he once was. He was skinny and frail and looked as if a gust of wind could blow him over. He wore a white mask that reminded you a lot of “The Phantom of the Opera”, which was somewhat fitting for the retired mafia leader. 

“This one. . . must be your, how do you say? Iníon?” 

You smiled at Rafael and nodded, “An-mhaith, very good, Mr. Santiago.” The man gave you a quick nod of his head, and sat back down in his chair. 

“That boy of yours, Rafa, he’s a real big talker,” Galen said, taking a seat across from Rafael. 

“That’s one thing Paulo lacks, his communication. Gianni, on the other hand, you can never get him to shut up,” Rafael let out a small laugh, “Perfect for your daughter, here.” 

You snapped your head towards your father, who had a tight-lipped smile on his face, “Yes. I think it would be an excellent arrangement between our two children. Tighten up the bond and tie up the loose ends the Seresin boy couldn’t do.” 

It was as if the air had been sucked right out of the room, as the words your father had spoken resonated in your ears. You made your father promise years ago that he would never swear you to anyone. You had no desire to be married. No desire to be a nameless housewife like so many of the mafia women were. They were spineless, defenseless, and spent most of their time wine-drunk and getting Botox fillers in their faces. 

You blocked out the conversation between your father and Rafael, instead, you looked around the ballroom, watching as couples danced on the floor to the string band that was playing. You had to give it to the Seresins, they knew how to throw one hell of a party. 

— — — 

The drink in Bob’s hand had become warm. The condensation of the melted ice was leaving a nice ring on the expensive white tablecloths Javy insisted on getting. Bob was starting to wonder as he looked around the grand ballroom at the Gambino Mansion, how much was all this going to cost him? The family wasn’t oozing with money, they never had and probably never will be, but this whole thing looked like it was going to cost thousands. 

“Refill,” Bradley said, sitting down next to Bob. 

Bob gave him a tight-lipped smile, “Thanks.”

Rooster nodded and looked out at the sea of people around them. It was impressive that the mafia bosses had decided to show up to the ball. Bob had done his part of walking around, shaking hands, and talking business, and now, he just wanted to go to his office and drink. He lost track of how many of the old bastards had started their conversation with: “You know my daughter. . .” There was not a single part of Bob that wanted some arranged marriage after what happened the last time that was attempted.

“Ask your question,” Rooster said, pulling Bob out of his thoughts. Bob turned his head, eyebrows furrowed, “You have a question, and you know that I somehow know the answer.” 

Bob scoffed, “I’m not really sure that you do.” 

“Try me.” 

With a sigh, Bob sat back in his chair, his legs spread, “Clover. . . she wasn’t just some girl at MIT, was she?” 

“No,” Bradley frowned, “But I can’t give you more than that.” 

“Then who will,” Bob muttered, standing up from the table. 

He weaved his way through the bodies as he walked towards the doors at the other end of the ballroom. Bob needed to clear his head, and the night air felt refreshing as he walked out onto the beautiful patio. But even out here, there were sharply dressed men and their dates, faces covered with masks. Bob gave them all a simple head nod and continued on walking, going down the cobblestone path to the garden. 

The garden was at the center of square hedge rows, perfectly hidden from the outside view. It seemed as though every star in the sky was out as Bob looked up at the moon, which made the white roses planted around shine. Bob kicked the loose stones with his leather boots, slipping the mask off his face. He finally felt like he could breathe out here. He rubbed at his eyes, which felt dry from the contacts that Javy made him wear. Finding a bench, Bob sat down on it, his thighs on either side of the stone, before laying his back down, so he could stare at the stars. 

— — — 

Cambridge MA, six years ago. . . 

“That’s the big dipper, or the Polaris majoris,” You said, as you pointed to the cluster of stars in the sky, “Right there, is the north star, or the freedom star. Hundreds of slaves escaped using the North Star as a guide.” 

“It’s beautiful,” Bob said. You turned your head, hoping to see him looking at the stars, but instead, he was looking right at you. You scrunched your nose and looked back towards the sky. He was in awe of your knowledge about the night sky, but he was always pretty much in awe of how smart you are. Bob had grown up being told that he was a gifted student. Had the top test scores in high school, and had colleges across the country giving him offers. Hell, even the dean of students last year said that Bob might be one of the smartest men to walk MIT’s campus. But he truly believed he met his match with you. 

“The stars, Robby, the stars!” You said, pointing to the clusters above you. 

“Yeah, yeah, the stars,” Bob said, and rolled on top of you, bringing his lips to yours. You squealed and ran your hands up and down his body. You pushed your tongue into his mouth, tasting the faint taste of strawberries and oranges from the picnic you had earlier. His hand gently ghosted down your body, to your thigh. The brush of his hand made goosebumps arise on your skin, as he grabbed under your thigh, to hook it over his hip. You let out a moan as you felt the hard outline of his cock against your core. 

“Robby,” You sighed. Bob placed kisses on the underside of your jaw, working his way down to his neck, “Robby. . . not in the middle of campus.” 

Bob groaned as he pulled away from you, and rolled back onto his back. You giggled and curled up next to him, placing your head on his chest. You laid a hand on his belly. He grabbed your hand and brought it up to his lips, placing a kiss on your knuckles. 

“I love you,” Bob said. You lifted your head and looked into those beautiful ocean eyes, “I never, ever want to leave. I want it to always be just us, against the world.” 

You smiled, and pressed a chaste kiss to his lips, “It’ll always be us against the world.” 

Bob shook his head, and you frowned slightly. He gripped your hand tightly, trying to come up with the right words to say. His mind was spinning, maybe it was from the fresh air. He had basically been tied to his desk this whole week, studying for midterms. 

“Do you ever dream of running away?” Bob asked you. You sat up a bit, “Like really running away. Change your identity and everything. . . do you dream of doing something like that?” 

You nodded your head, “I have. That’s partially why I’m here. I ran away.” 

“I did too,” Bob said. He sat up and grabbed your hips, moving you so you were straddling his waist. You placed your hands on his chest, as he wrapped his arms around your body, “Please. . . never run away without me. W-where ever you go, I want to go too. Please, don’t leave me.” 

Tears welled up in his eyes, and you cupped his face. Gently you brushed your thumb over the swell of his cheek, “I will never, ever leave you. The only thing that can take me away is the reaper, himself.” 

“And I would be right behind you.” 

— — — 

“Lovely night.” 

A voice called out to Bob. He opened his eyes, still laying on his back and looking up at the night sky. He stared at the stars for a bit, blinking several times before he sat up, coming face to face with the person he had been searching the entire earth for. Bob turned his body, so both feet were on the ground.

Your pale skin was illuminated by the moonlight as you stood several feet away from him. You fiddled with your green lace mask in your hand. Your hair, which was usually in its unruly curly state, had been straightened and was cascading down your back. The green dress that was on your body, hugged your curves so well that Bob had to push the impure thoughts out of his mind as he stood from the bench. 

He wanted to hate you, he had planned out what he was going to say to you the moment he would see you again. He had practiced the angry words he wanted to say to you for just disappearing without a trace. But all that left his mind the moment he was standing within arms reach of you. All he wanted to do was pull you in for a kiss, to hold you in his arms in case this wasn’t real. In case this was all a dream and his mind was just playing another cruel trick on him. 

“Y/N. . .”

She turned to face him completely, and smiled, “I knew you’d find me eventually, Robby.”

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[dominimoonbeam]

One of those scenes I didn't plan but just sort of high-pitched screamed in excitement about while writing it...

Rereading parts of Don't Run to get back into the headspace of Freya.

snippet below! tw: blood, violence, threat of murder, threat of assault, mention of suicide and the temptation to do it, motherfuckinFREYA, no one in this story is ready for her.

-

“Touch that gun and I will open you up,” she snarled in his ear, her back to the ocean and his front to the surprised goons. “I’m a dead girl anyway, right? I might as well take you with me.”

He didn’t touch his gun but he didn’t lower his hand yet either. Was he weighing her words? Searching for weakness? Oh, Freya was full of weakness, but none that would keep her from killing him.

“I have a bitter heart,” she explained, suddenly more honest with this man than she’d been with anyone in her whole life. It didn’t matter when one or both of them was going to die, did it? “It runs in my blood. I’d rather kill you than let you leave me here.”

He moved his hand away from the gun, holding both of them in front of himself. “You’re making this worse than it has to be.”

“I don’t think so. I think you showed up late to a game and thought you were going to take an easy win. I think you made a big fucking mistake, Owen.” She took steps back, pulling him with her, enjoying the pained hiss of his breath when her knife dug deeper.

She moved her other hand down his chest and across his abdomen. His little gasp suggested he was scandalized. She grabbed the gun from his hip and aimed at the thugs. They bolted for the stairs and she fired after them. Of course he hadn’t had the safety on. She shot one of them in the leg but the big guy crawled up those concrete steps and out of sight.

“What now, Buttercup?” he ground out and she was pretty sure he wasn’t fucking smiling now. “Even if you kill me, they’re just going to get you when you make a run for it. And our deal about me telling them to make it quick is definitely off. I think I’ll tell them to have their fun with you… make it last.”

She took another step back with him, her heels finding the edge of the dock. Freya smiled against the back of his collar, her knife-hand wet and warm where his blood was dripping down the blade. “I’m starting to think you don’t do your own work… Maybe I should call you Vizzini.”

He hissed. “I don’t know what the fuck you’re talking about, but the only smart thing for you to do now is to shoot yourself in the head.”

Freya shivered, hating how true that felt and not willing to acknowledge the little relief in her chest at the idea. No. NO. She had fought too hard her whole life to stay alive. She wasn’t going out until they dragged her to that grave in the woods!

The waves sloshed and sprayed the backs of her legs.

“Just do it,” he whispered, breathy and right there with her on the edge. “End it. If you don’t—”

“Someone told me that I need friends and my aunt always said… don’t waste someone that might be useful later.” She twisted the knife, the point nicking lines behind his ear. She leaned up onto her toes to get her mouth even closer. “You better be useful to me next time I see you, Vizzini, or I will finish you.”

She let him go, taking the knife away from his throat, and just as he tried to turn around—to shove her or get away from her—she stabbed him in the side. Quick. In and out, before the blade retracted with a snickt and she fell off the dock into the sea.

The ocean was a lot different than the river that cut through her family’s property. It pushed where the river had pulled. It tried to bury her where the river had tried to roll her. But the only thing to do, the only thing there had ever been to do, was to push on until she reached land again.

[dcptcnx]

Catastrophe

pairing: No real pairing, but Soap x Reader ?? Graves is there too LOL

warning(s): character death, point-blank shot to the face

word count: 764

a/n: i think this is bad, the idea was better in my head lmao but this song inspired it

Frantic, you woke from a recurring nightmare. It's not unusual to have them when deployed in the force, but to have the same one constantly, was a different breed. And Soap understood it all. 2am and you would be carefully trekking through the base towards the mess hall in hopes to find a quick snack to clear the mind. 

"'Notha one, yeah?" His groggy voice startled you, only for you to calm once you knew it to be Soap. His thick Scottish accent lighting the flame inside your heart. 

"I don't know what to do. It's happening frequently now." Your voice broke, tears welling up in your eyes. Taking a seat next to the Sergeant, you placed your head in your hands, light sniffles becoming apparent. "Johnny, I need to deal with it.."

"That's dangerous, Bonnie. An' you know that'" He dipped his head lower to lean closer towards you, a hand reaching to your back to gently rub circles on it to ease you. "We can't lose you.”

And you knew that. And it was a risk you were ready to take. You needed to end this nightmare. Needed to show Graves who was boss.

It all started when you were helping the Shadow Company on a mission. 

“Alright, Shadows. This is our help for the day, treat them with respect; Shepherd is watching.” Graves points at you, directing his team’s attention to you. You felt uneasiness from everyone’s gazes, even from Graves himself, but you rolled your eyes to yourself, before introducing yourself to the team. 

The job was easy enough. More of a confirmation job. Sneak in, gather information, and get out. On the outside, everyone seemed to have respect for you, following Graves’ orders to a T. Luckily for you, the job was done quick and easy, with no major hiccups.

That was, until the flight back to base.

Graves had no respect for you, and Shepherd gave orders to get you off the helo, no matter the plan. And that is exactly what he did. Took a pistol, shot your shoulder, and kicked you off the Helicopter, not caring if you survived or not. You did survive, and luckily enough, 141, specifically Soap, was quick to bring you to medical.

Fast forward to present time, when the unfortunate team up with the Shadow Company goes awry once again. But this time, you were prepared, and you were going to end his reign. He took over Alejandro’s base, and that was the final stop for destruction. 

“Whatever happens, I am getting the final Kill on Graves.” You radio in, advancing towards where he would be holed up, alongside Soap. Grenades, flashbangs, bullets all whizzed everywhere while you and Soap advanced further and further. 

“GRAVES, YOU BASTARD, YOU’RE GONNA DIE FOR WHAT YOU DID!”  you yelled out, catching his figure running along a balcony before disappearing into a garage, only to hear the start up of a large tank.

“Now now, you have it backwards, you’re gonna be my trophy to show Shepherd when we’re done here.” You could feel the smirk in his voice, as he rolled around in the tank, destroying anything and everything in his path, hoping to hit and kill you.

“The only trophy you deserve; Catastrophe.” you grit your teeth as you loaded the RPG before target locking onto his machinery, destroying the cannon atop the tank. After the dust settled, you saw the hatch pop open, Graves crawling out, gun in hand.

“You, son of a BITCH. You know I only wished you well with that farewell. Can’t take southern hospitality huh?” He looks around, aiming his suppressed weapon everywhere, hoping to locate you or Soap within the field. He saw a flash bang roll towards him, only to slowly react, and get caught in the flash. Quickly thinking, Soap runs and tackles him to the ground, kicking his gun and removing his strapped pistol, to limit his access.

“You wished me well?” You saunterned over, loading your own pistol, before placing your boot upon his neck, aiming the gun above the bridge of his nose.

“I wish you hell, Phillip.” Cocking the gun, you pulled the trigger, bullet sinking through his skull, into the ground below him. Tears start rushing down your face, realization hitting you as you tossed the gun away, falling to your knees. Soap quickly caught you before you face planted, letting you cry into his shoulder.

“You did it, bonnie. Nightmare’s over.” His embrace squeezed harder just a little bit more, before reaching towards his radio, alerting of the KIA.

[the-kutlass-kratch]

Briggsy sits on an unfamiliar bed, in an unfamiliar space, surrounded by the few familiar things he considers a comfort.

A dragonfly plush, smelling of the sea, held close to his chest so the scent consistently wafts past his nose.

Headphones on his head, over his ear holes really, blocking out any and all noises apart from the ones inside his own mind.

A container of slime, sitting unopened but nearby just in case, something for his claws to dig into if his mind wanders.

He wears one of Billy’s shirts, underneath the sweater that practically dwarfs him in its size, and comfortable sleeping shorts. He has two rocks in hand, one heart-shaped, one relatively plain.

He taps the heart; lets the voice of his Billy soothe the itch always tickling at the base of his neck, the one that tightens his skin and sends his claws where they shouldn’t. He closes his eyes, falls back into the memory of being kissed senseless against a wall in Cyril, his empty fingers unconsciously grabbing for a head of hair that is not there. He plays it one more time for good measure.

He focuses his attention on the second rock, the one containing the sweet soliloquy his first love gifted him, what seems like forever ago and only yesterday. His thumb finds the surface of the rock, and taps.

"Kratch, what the fuck is wrong with you!? … Don’t put words in my mouth, Kratch—"

Briggsy chucks the rock across the caravan, sending it hurtling into the sparse furniture across the way with a loud clatter.

The speech continues in his head.

“What the fuck have you been doing, Briggsy? Waiting for someone to feel sorry for you? Well I'm fucking sorry. I'm sorry your heart is so rotten and bitter that you can't possibly comprehend not being the only fucking person that brings me joy. I'm sorry you feel the need to drag everyone down with you whenever you feel shitty, because nobody is allowed to feel better than you. I'm sorry my best wasn't good enough for you while I run myself in circles trying to figure out what the fuck you want from me half the time. I'm sorry I have to bleed because you're hurting."

He’s crawled off of the bed at this point, trying to get away from the anger and hurt in his husband’s voice, but once it starts it must play all the way through. Such is the nature of the enchantment. Tears collect and begin rolling down his face.

“…it's starting to feel like you want me to hate you."

He curls into a ball on the floor, sobbing loudly into his sleeves. The headphones threaten to slip off of his head.

“Leave my lantern at my grave, Kratch.”

The recording goes silent, everywhere but in Briggsy’s head. It loops, and loops, and loops, and loops.

And the worst part? He can’t feel the remorse he’s supposed to.

Never satisfied, except in one instance.

Emerald to topaz. Gun to head.

Wretched satisfaction.

[designedparadigm]

   it's  a  flood  of  emotions  that  simon  isn't  ready  for.  he  reacts  slowly,  as  if  stunned  still.  lost  in  his  mind  again.  pushed  back  to  where  he'd  been  before.  he  has  to  admit  -  his  mind  reels.  he's  aware  his  captain  was  speaking  to  him,  was  holding  him  -  and  by  god  he  was  clinging  on  in  return  -  but  his  mind  goes  elsewhere. 

   guilt  floods  his  system,  and  his  brows  furrow  as  his  chest  tightens.  his  eyes  sting  as  he  registers  the  pain  associated  to  the  guilt.  you  love  me.  you  love  me  and  i  was  ready  to  die.  i  stared  down  a�� gun  and  accepted  it.  i  forgot.  i  forgot  i  had  a  reason  to  live.  i  was  ready  to  die.  to  see  them  again.  i  thought  about  myself.  about  them.  i  forgot  you  cared.

   it's  a  knife  of  his  own  making  driven  straight  through  his  heart.  it's  a  punch  to  the  lungs  that  steals  his  breath  and  threatens  to  choke  him  out.  he  deserves  that  -  doesn't  he?  he  forgot  he  was  loved.  he  forgot  someone  would  miss  him  if  he  was  gone.  he  was… 

   he  was  so  used  to  being  alone. 

   he  starts  to  tremble,  before  his  breath  hitches.  he  has  to  reprimand  himself  he's  a  god  damn  soldier  and  soldiers  don't  fucking  cry.  crying  was  for  the  times  off  duty.  when  he  didn't  have  to  play  his  part.  but  the  mask  of  ghost  lay  in  his  lap,  the  frail  vestige  of  what  he  wanted  to  be,  so  far  out  of  reach.  there's  nothing  to  hold  onto.  he's  stripped  bare.  every  time  he's  alone  with  soap  -  he's  stripped  fucking  bare.  raw. 

   “i  forgo'.”  he  whispers  it  out,  the  fear  in  his  wavering  voice.  “was  -  was  gonna  -”  let  it  happen.  the  words  don't  come  out,  but  the  implication  hangs  in  the  air.  “though'  -  though'  -”  he  squeezes  his  eyes  shut,  taking  in  another  breath  that  hitches,  wavers.  you  are  a  soldier.  soldiers  don't  weep.  “used  t'  bein'  alone.”  he  whispers  it  out,  unable  to  stop  the  tremble  in  his  body.  “didn'  think.  didn'  think  i  -”  mattered.  ever  since  he  crawled  out  that  fucking  grave,  watched  his  family  die  -  he'd  lived  on  vengeance  and  the  hope  someone  would  kill  him  eventually  and  he'd  see  them  again.  get  the  ending  he  has  fought  for  -  had  stolen  from  him.

   “i'm  no'  used  t'  bein'  -”  he  stops  short,  realizing  he  doesn't  know  the  word  to  use.  cared  about?  loved?  which  is  it?  oh  -  he  knows.  he  knows  but  it's  saying  it  that  is  a  whole  other  thing  entirely.  “i'm  sorry.”  he  whispers  it  out,  the  fear  back  in  his  tone.  he  closes  his  eyes,  attempts  desperately  to  find  his  center.  where  is  it? 

   ah.  his  work.  if  he  works.  if  he  distracts.  does  something  -  anything  -  maybe  it  will  balance  it  out.  drown  himself  in  anything  that  isn't  thinking  about  it.  no  more  living  in  that  moment.  just…  work.  be  a  drone.  think  only  about  getting  into  systems,  shutting  security  down  -  it'd  be  easy.  simple. 

   “mission's  no'  ye'  over.”  he  mumbles  it  out.  “can  still  do  some  of  my  job.”  distraction.  “no'  gonna  be  th'  burden.”  there's  a  sharpness  to  his  tone  that  reflects  self  hatred  and  disappointment.  i'm  not  going  to  leave  here  with  a  performance  that  leaves  room  for  bein'  reprimanded.  i  can  salvage  it.  i  can  salvage  myself.  it's  what  he  knows  best  after  all,  isn't  it?  being  in  pieces  and  picking  them  up,  fashioning  himself  into  a  blade,  and  piercing  whatever  weak  points  he  can  find.  he  still  has  worth  -  he  didn't  regally  fuck  it  up.  i  can  still  do  this.  “you  trusted  me  with  this.  can  still  do  i'.”  that's  right  -  his  captain  trusted  him.  and  he  does  this?  what  a  fucking  way  to  repay  it.  it  jolts  through  him  and  he  presses  his  lips  into  a  fine  line.  “…can  still  fix  this.  can  still  salvage  i',  sir.  migh'  no'  do  ya  proud  on  this  one;  bu'  i  can  ge'  i'  done.”

THE MISSION WAS KAPUT in mactavish's eyes, the moment that ghost stopped replying over comms. it was severely unlike him, &. the obviousness of the danger he was in had immediately made itself clear. he commanded roach &. the other men who had accompanied him on the ground to push on, while he backtracked to the security office to figure out what the hell was going on. nursing an immense surge of concern. urgency in getting there despite the flanking reinforcements. of course, soap's ability to handle himself under pressure was down to a science in the wake of his thrust into promotion. &. while there was certainly a similarity in the way he handles himself now, the ghost is an entirely different beast within him. protectiveness &. adoration living within set off tenfold at the mere idea of his being in trouble.

the anxiety working within his chest, while more intense than usual, was also common enough. the danger lurking around every corner constantly keeping you on your toes. the calm anger &. animalistic, brute skill allowing him to work his way with strategic cover back to the office he'd dropped the lieutenant off at, before setting out for the intel required. snarling &. yelling the whole way as blood spatter mixes with streaks of green paint. the man he loves being in danger igniting a clear ruthlessness he no doubt possesses. operating with no red tape holding him down, &. calculatedly mowing anyone who got in the way of he &. his ghost. his lieutenant. his simon.

&. upon seeing the threat, the quick assessment was made in moments before sidearm is pulled, &. hole is promptly created in the back of blown skull. cleanly eliminating the current threat, before closing the door to conceal them for the time being &. holstering his pistol. rushing forth to assess any potential damage to his lover.

"ghost!" he shouts, the worry clear from blue eyes. impossible, even if he were to try &. harden them further. lips slightly part, deepening such concern as brows narrow indefinitely. "are ye alrigh', lieutenant?" he asks, something so routine about it. entirely so. although routine only means that genuine care is extended to all under his command. eyes studying, while he crouches down low to get a better look. spoken word shifts cheeks beneath mask whilst john holds him, &. forces head back when he looks away.

"goddammit ghost, take that bloody thing off an' le' me see ye. there's no one else here." he demands, not bothering to tug it off himself. usually he wouldn't ask this of him on the field, but this was different. needed the full picture. he shifts closer between open legs the second anxiety is spelled upon his face, &. he shakes his head. "no, no, no, hey - s'alrigh'. yer alrigh', i gotcha." soap continues, actually taking the initiative to take the mask off himself. settling it within the other's lap to give control back, as bare palm smelling of gun powder &. smoke land upon his cheek.

thumbs brush over cheekbones with mild scarring adorning. he doesn't look injured, so he relaxes. the emotion simply hitting him all at once as he has a hitched breath of his own. all of a sudden his touch becomes rougher, &. heaves of his chest more ragged. the relief all encompassing. the emotional response he feels is that initial hit of fight or flight wearing. suddenly feeling everything all at once. "stop." he demands, bringing ghost's head close to his own. "i told roach an' the others t'take care of i'. ye don' need t'do anythin' unless they comm us for help." he explains, still roughly stroking cheek.

"fuck sake." he breathes, a rough kiss delivered in lingering devotion that pours from him in the way he'd been unable to express. blocked by walls that undoubtedly saved both their lives. "s'why ye go' me fer a captain, love. m'always gonna save ye." he presses their foreheads together. "i love ye so much. don' ye ever forget tha'." he nods. throwing arms around simon's neck suddenly. pulling him in a hug that's a tad too tight. "plenty o' time fer beatin' ourselves up back at base. fer now i jus' need t'get ye out."

[txemrn]

Book: The Royal Romance

Pairing: (mentioned) Drake Walker x MC (Riley Brooks)

Word Count: ~1140

Warning: Language, Alcoholism, mention of gambling

A/N: I am so excited to be bringing up the rear in @moodmusicmonday's special event "Luck of the Draw"! I was given the song "Ballroom Blitz" by Sweet, and it definitely threw me for a loop! But, it inspired this little fic, and I hope y'all enjoy! Big thanks to @kat-tia801 for taking a gander at this and helping me brainstorm the ending! Not truly beta'd so please forgive my mistakes! All characters belong to ours friends at Pixelberry.

~🖤~

An erratic ear-piercing hum overwhelms his fragile senses, startling him from his whiskey-induced slumber. He dares to open one of his swollen eyes, but the brilliance of day seals it shut. His limp body lays prostrate against a cold marble floor, the frigid chill of the ornate stone serving as a nice reprieve on his heated, ruddy skin.

“Mr. Walker?”

Drake jerks his body at the eerie sound of his name. He hesitantly lifts his head, squinting his eyes painfully as they adjust to the blurred lines of the sunlit room. He carefully sweeps his head to the left before taking in the scene to his right.

“Brooks? Li?”

No one is there.

He finds himself alone amongst the debris and disarray of a large ballroom. Broken glass, crumpled up napkins and cigarette butts litter the once pristine floor. With a deep grumble, he lays his aching head in his calloused hands. The familiar foul stench of barley and fermented sherry rests in his unkempt beard. The thunderous rhythm of his own pulse courses between his ears, stirring deep within him the one thing that can take away this discomfort.

A drink.

“Drake? C’mon. Get Up.”

The sudden strong hand of Drake’s best friend grips tightly to his elbow, pulling him to his knees. Still slumped over in a stupor, Drake finds his footing, finally standing up on his own two feet.

“Thanks, Li–” Drake feigns sobriety, “--’preciate that hand–”

“We need to talk, old friend. Now.”

“Now?” Drake chuckles. “The party is just getting started,” he jovially slaps his hand on the back of Liam’s shoulder, but the tall blond’s demeanor remains stoically grave. “Alright, alright,” Drake shoves his hands in his pockets, “let me grab some drinks–”

“No,” Liam growls. “No more drinks. No more excuses.” He hands over a thick, white envelope to Drake.

Drake’s face grows long. “What is this, Li?”

“Drake, you knew–”

“What the fuck is this, Liam?”

Liam sighs, grimly taking in the sight of what has become of his best friend. “Drake,” he clears his throat, “last night was the final straw. Actually, it’s been the final straw for a while.”

Drake leans in closely to Liam, “But–but, Liam, you can help me, right? Please–”

“Drake," Liam looks away, grief creeping into his voice. "I can't."

"Can't or won't?" Drake snarls.

Liam refuses to look at him. "I'm sorry." He whispers. "The council got involved. It's out of my hands."

Drake combs back his greasy chestnut locks before tearing open the letter. As he reads the news, red blotches of fury crawl up his neck, his wrathful eyes darting to Liam.

“Terminated.” Drake reads the word as if he were pointing a gun. “You hired me, Liam, so that I would take over Bastien’s spot someday. I was supposed to be your right hand man–”

“Yes,” Liam slows him down with a deep punch of his voice, “but that was two years ago Drake. A lot has changed. You have changed–”

“--Li, if it’s the drinking, then fine. I’ll quit drinking–”

Liam sighs, shaking his head. “You’ve been saying that–”

“--and this time I will. I-I promise. Please–”

“Drake, we offered treatment for this several times. I begged for you to go when–” Liam abruptly stops, staring remorsefully into his best friend’s bloodshot eyes. “--when Riley and the boys left.”

Drake looks down at his feet, slipping his fingers in the back pocket of his jeans. “Th-that’s not why she left. You,” he scoffs, “you and your fancy friends brought that girl here and made her think she was royalty–”

“I appointed you both as such, Drake! Have you forgotten?”

“--we didn’t need your fucking charity, Liam!”

“Charity?” Liam snickers under his breath. “You really want to talk charity with me?” Liam furiously shakes his head before peering vengefully at his friend. “Who gave you the money to repair your truck after you wrecked it after one of your benders–?”

“--oh, fuck off, Liam!”

“--and then this same person had to pay for several guards to keep silent and not turn you over to the police when they came snooping around with rumors of an accident. Oh, but, ‘we didn’t need your fucking charity, Liam’.” Liam starts to pace as he begins to raise his voice. “Or what about the time you gambled away your wedding band? The deed to your house? Your entire inheritance from your father? Christ, he must be so proud of you right now–”

“--Fuck you, Liam!”

“Who do you think is keeping you from being locked up right now for dissidence?”

With bated breath both men glare at one another with hatred, hands gripped into fists, sizing one another up.

“Mr. Walker?”

The haunting voice calls to him again, but Drake shakes it from his head as he remains focused on his best friend… his only friend.

Liam finally exhales the breath he was holding, a look of sadness crossing his face. “Drake, I–I don’t know what to do for you anymore.” The king begins to ring his fingers, his eyes welling with tears. “I–I don’t know what’s going to get your attention.”

“Li, I’m fine.”

Liam raises a sorrowful eyebrow, unable to respond.

“I’m serious, Li, I’m fine.”

Liam takes a deep breath. “Okay, old friend. We expect you out by the end of the day.” Liam turns to exit the trashed ballroom.

“Wait… wait, where am I supposed to go?” Drake calls out to Liam, but the king never turns back around.

“Liam? Liam?”

“Mr. Walker?”

Drake finally opens his eyes, an older, colorful woman pulling him from his memory. “Are you ready, Mr. Walker?” She flashes a kind, friendly smile before turning her attention to the crowd that has gathered. “Shall we get started, folks? We have a very special guest tonight…”

As she continues her introduction, Drake begins to ring his hands nervously. Feeling his heart race wildly in his chest, he starts to recollect how he used to cure his anxiety, searching for the answers at the bottom of bottles, spending most of his days actively dying rather than living.

But not anymore.

“... please welcome Drake, thirty days sober.”

With a roar of celebration from the audience, Drake stands, straightening the wrinkles from his slacks before approaching his sponsor. She hands him a special red chip, marked with a giant ‘30’ before giving Drake a tight hug.

Drake bites his lip, fidgeting with the trinket in his palm. As he finally looks out into the crowd, a sudden crooked smile grows across his face.

There in the back of the room was a familiar, tall blond beaming with pride. Liam. With a gentle nod of acknowledgement to his lifelong friend, Drake blows away his nervous jitters

“My name is Drake,” he takes a deep, trembling breath. “And… I’m an alcoholic.”

~🖤~

PERMA

@alexabeta @ao719 @charlotteg234 @differenttyphoonwerewolf @foreverethereal123 @issabees @jerzwriter @kat-tia801@khoicesbyk @lovelyladyk88 @lucy-268 @mainstreetreader @mom2000aggie @neotericthemis @nikirennie87 @peonierose @schnitzelbutterfingers @sfb123 @shannonwrote @shewillreadyou @socalwriterbee @tessa-liam

ALL TRR/TRH

@21-wishes @angelasscribbles @burnsoslow @gkittylove99 @iaminlovewithtrr @lovingchoices14 @motorcitymademadame @princessleac1 @rubiwalker

Luck of the Draw

@ao719 @appiomofchoice @arjaywrites-deactivated20220329 @aussiegurl1234 @dcbbw @erenphoria @jerzwriter @kat-tia801 @lilyoffandoms @lucy-268 @nestledonthaveone @peonierose @peonyblossom @queenrileyrose @rookiemartin @socalwriterbee @twinkleallnight @walkerdrakewalker

[loserchildhotpants]

Destiel prompt from Twitter; kissing each other to prove there’s nothing there, even though, it’s a lie, and the kiss proves it (from this prompt list)

“I’m just saying that I don’t think you’d get this defensive if there really wasn’t anything between you two -”

“There isn’t, and I’m not getting defensive!” Dean argues, decidedly defensively.

“Methinks the lady doth protest too much,” Sam offers with a shrug and a smirk.

Staring down into the open grave the boys are in, Castiel glances between the brothers and tilts his head, wondering if perhaps by a different angle, he may better understand what their expressions mean.

“We’re bonded or whatever - that’s it, man! There’s nothing else going on!”

“I’m not even saying there is anything ‘going on,’ I’m just saying there could be, and if that were something you wanted -”

“I’m not qu -”

“I know, I get it, I hear you, humor me for a second, okay? All I’m saying is just - if there were something between you two, and you wanted there to be something ‘going on,’ where there is currently nothing ‘going on,’ I just think you should, hypothetically go for something rather than settling for the nothing, because, personally, I think there is something there, and you could have a great thing going if that were what you wanted.”

“Even if - which I don’t - I’m not - listen, though, okay? I’m not, and I don’t want that - not that there’s anything wrong with it, or something, just - even if that were the case, Cas isn’t like that. He’s not a being that experiences shit like that -”

“I’m telling you you’re wrong, Dean! The way he stares at you -”

“He stares at everyone!”

“Do I?”

The Winchesters jump in unison, both with hands on their guns faster than should be possible. They both visibly relax again, though, when they realize it’s only Castiel interrupting.

“Oh, hey, Cas,” Dean greets, his voice markedly more gentle than it was with Sam only a moment before.

Castiel appreciates it.

“Hello, Dean.”

With a cheeky grin, Sam clears his throat, and says to Cas, “your timing couldn’t be better, actually, Cas - Dean and I have some questions -”

“No, no, we do not have questions,” Dean growls at Sam, eyes blazing dangerously.

“I am always available to you boys for whatever inquiries I can assist in. Is this pertaining to my staring? It’s academic in nature, I assure you - frankly, I am used to having a form that hosts many more eyes; being in this Earthly form can present obstacles, as my perceptions are more limited than I can remember them ever being. I promise I do not mean to insult anyone.”

“Oh, I don’t think anyone’s thinking of it as an insult,” Sam intones; Dean shoves his elbow into Sam’s kidney to shut him up.

“This is you being defensive, by the way,” Sam wheezes, doubled over, but still smirking at Dean, “What’s the big deal if there’s nothing going on?”

Flushed, Dean scowls at Sam, drops his shovel, and tells him, “I’m not being defensive! There’s nothing to be defensive about! And I’ll prove it!”

Clambering out of the grave, Dean brushes the soil from his hands onto his dirtier jeans, and stomps more than walks up to Castiel.

“You’ve a cut,” Cas murmurs worriedly, spotting a knick Dean got on his cheek earlier in the day.

“It’s nothing. Listen, Cas -”

Before Dean can get anymore out, Castiel reaches for his left-side cheek, cups that side of his face, and spreads a cooling sensation that knits the skin back together neatly and cleanly.

“Uh - thanks, Cas,” Dean mutters gruffly as Cas takes his hand back.

“My pleasure, Dean.”

Uncharacteristically nervous, Dean glances down at the ground, his hands shoved in his jean pockets, then his eyes skim the ground until they happen upon Sam’s again, and whatever silent exchange they have works Dean up again.

“Cas,” Dean begins, looking into his eyes with determination, “We’re friends, you ‘n me, right?”

“Yes, Dean. You are my most cherished friend,” Castiel answers.

That gives Dean a moment’s pause where he seems to be searching Castiel’s face for some sign of sarcasm or deceit; there is none to be detected, of course.

“I - thanks, man. Uhm. Now - this is gonna sound like a weird question, but bear with me, ‘cause I’m not about to assume consent or something.”

“Okay,” Castiel says in confusion, tilting his head again.

“I’m tryin’a prove a point here to Sam, and to get it across - just - would you be okay with me kissing you? Like, just this once - I promise I won’t make it weird or anything, but I gotta ask, you know? I know you’re not into physical stuff like -”

“You’d like my permission to kiss?” Castiel intercepts neutrally, “Like people do?”

Something about that is funny - or startling? - to both Sam and Dean, and Castiel can’t tell which or for what reasons.

“Yeah. Just this one time,” Dean repeats.

Though he takes a respectable count of four seconds to seem as though he needs to consider his options, Castiel nods, and replies, “of course, Dean. Of all the favors you’ve asked of me before, I assure this is certainly the most convenient and pleasant of them.”

Sam snorts a laugh, Dean tosses a glare at him, and then settles gentle, if a little nervous, eyes back on Castiel.

“Okay…”

Dean steps closer into Cas’ space, bringing them toe-to-toe and he finds himself staring down; he’d not realized Cas was shorter than him. It’s not by much, not really enough to be remarked upon, even, but it means that Cas winds up looking up at him from under the cover of long, dark lashes, and even in the dark of the night, his eyes shine like twinkling gems.

Swallowing with some difficulty, Dean holds loosely onto the lapels of Cas’ trench coat, and he means to go in chaste, he really does, it’s just that he’s actually struggling to breathe a little, so his lips are just barely parted, and Cas - as far as Dean can tell, Cas takes that as a cue.

Because Cas’ full lips press in, but so does his tongue; before Dean can even secure his footing, Cas makes his loose hold on the lapels go tight, licking up into Dean’s mouth without hesitation or mercy.

Praying his shocked gasp wasn’t audible to Sam, Dean just tries to hold on while Cas turns his head, bites Dean’s heavy bottom lip, and then pushes Dean’s mouth more open with his own, and then he drags his hot tongue against Dean’s, coming in broad, and soft.

Dean hears himself make some kind of noise - he can’t tell what it is, because there’s too much blood rushing in his skull - there’s stubble. Stubble. There is stubble in this equation other than his own, and that’s new, and terrifying, and should be wholly unwelcome, but every synapse in his brain dedicated to pleasure is telling him otherwise.

One wide hand insinuates itself under the hem of Dean’s weathered flannel, calloused fingers pressing into his left hip possessively while the other hand glides over his pec, and shoulder to the back of his neck, pinky finger teasing the sensitive skin just under the back of his cotton collar, and thumb brushing the fine hairs at the base of Dean’s skull.

Dean thinks he may be swaying - he’s dizzy.

Cas is dragging him closer, pressing their hips and abdomens together, and Dean’s hands have somehow found better purchase on the front of Cas’ button-down dress shirt than his lapels.

Dean thinks he hears one of the buttons pop off with the strain of his hold, but neither of them seem inclined to do anything about it, so he figures it doesn’t matter; he tries to establish himself as a bit more dominant, thrown off his usual groove by the absolutely sinful way Cas apparently kisses.

To Dean’s simultaneous horror and delight, Cas doesn’t relinquish any control; he won’t be moved, his hands get tighter and hotter where they touch Dean’s skin, he only presses them harder together, and he kisses Dean like he wants to eat him alive.

He kisses Dean like he wants to crawl inside him, like he’s hungry - starved - like kissing is an act of carnage just as much as an act of love, like those things aren’t mutually exclusive.

He’d rather die than admit it to anyone, but Dean’s knees get a little weak, and Cas basically holds up his entire weight by just the grip he’s got on Dean’s waist.

Before he knows it’s happened, Dean’s hard enough to carve stone, and Cas readjusts how they’re slotted against one another to better accommodate Dean’s failing balance, and Cas feels it - he must. Even if he doesn’t feel how hard Dean is against him right away, the guttural moan Dean will deny having made til his dying breath clues him in.

What sounds like hundreds of cherry bombs going off has them stumbling away from each other, and frantically looking about.

The streetlights have exploded. There’s glass everywhere, and based on the echoes of car alarms and distant voices, it’s becoming more and more possible that Cas destroyed the windows and lights of several cars and nearby homes.

Even he and Sam’s flashlights are busted.

In the blanket of darkness that’s settled over the graveyard, Dean can still see clearly, because Cas’ eyes are high beams cutting through the fog of the night.

They’re both panting, Dean’s pretty certain that a resting heart rate isn’t meant to feel like this, and Cas is looking positively feral.

“Jesus fuck!” Sam curses, his arms crossed over his head where he still plucks a shard of glass from his hair.

Reminded of Sam’s presence, Castiel’s head swivels to him, the glow of his eyes dims down, and then he looks back at Dean, visibly frightened.

Dean takes no pleasure in Cas ever being scared, so he reaches out, takes a step back into Cas’ space, but that spooks him more, and in less than a blink of an eye, he’s gone.

Not cool, Cas, Dean thinks loudly, hoping it counts as a prayer that Cas will hear.

Reaching into the front of his jeans, Dean uses the near blackness of the power outage to his advantage, and readjusts himself to the best of his abilities.

It really doesn’t do much.

“Well,” Sam starts pointedly.

Dean, weak at the knees, lips criminally swollen, face flushed, hair mussed and harder than he’s ever been in his life, turns slowly to scowl at Sam.

“That was not nothing.”

Dean doesn’t see a way of winning the argument, so he kicks dirt into Sam’s hair, and leaves him to finish burying.

[arty-shadow-morningstar]

Graveyard Siblings (5)

[Masterlink] (PART 1) (PART 4)

-----

Mari and Cass sometimes switch their suits as they have the same body type. Cass would sometimes go out in full Hellbat gear and give the appearance that Hellbat is out more often than she actually is.

So Orphan/Black Bat also sometimes uses guns.

This also helps with concealing secret identities. Maria was rescued by Hellbat from Joker’s Henchmen. (Vicki Vale was getting sus of the new Wayne and Hellbat.)

Unfortunately since Hellbat rarely comes out and she had already made all of her appearance for the month and it wasn’t a busy weekend, the public had come to the conclusion that Hellbat has a crush on the newest Wayne.

Basically everyone thought that Mari has a crush on herself. Which led to some teasing and escalated to Mari announcing that Jason had a crush on Red Hood on live TV.

It didn’t help that a video of Red Hood and Jason re-enacting Romeo and Juliet with Jason on his apartment balcony and Red Hood on the roof was posted on the internet a few days later. (Thank you, Trixx and Tim’s awesome video editing skills)

Sadly, it was taken down 24 hours later. (Tim and the others have multiple copies of it, on the cloud or hardware, hidden around in the manor and their respective safehouses in the US.)

Some people kidnapped Jason to hopefully gain leverage over the Red Hood and to their dismay and nightmares for years to come, Hellbat came instead.

One lucky and incredibly brave reporter asked why she was there instead of her brother.

Mari being a little shit, “Red Hood may be a tough and scary guy but when it comes to his feelings, my brother is a chicken.”

Pictures of Jason tackling Hellbat somehow never made it into any papers.

The criminal underworld hasn’t taken a hint and Jason has been kidnapped a few more times.

Other times Jason was kidnapped:

Robin: Red Hood made a fool of himself in front of Todd recently and he doesn’t dare to show his face.

Spoiler: He was taking too damn long checking his hair even though I told him that no one was going to see it under his helmet and he was so offended that he is currently sulking in the bathroom.

Red Robin: Red Hood can’t think straight when he is around Jason. I mean have you seen the dude.

Arsenal*during a rare visit to Gotham*: Red Hood owes me one now.

Dick finally ends it by going out as Red Hood and rescuing Jason. Gotham is happy that Redson (Red Hood x Jason) ship has finally sailed.

-------

Kate, Babs, Cass, Steph and Mari were out on Mari’s first girls’ night since her move to the manor.

This is set a little after she came back from Paris with Jason.

They watched rom-com movies, did hair and nails, gossip about the superhero community and bitch and vent to each other.

Marinette off-handedly mentioned the crazy shits she had done during her stint as Ladybug. It started with asking about the T-rex in the Batcave and she mentions jumping into the mouth of a live one before.

Everyone in the room was shocked and after a few more questions, it was obvious that she was very reckless and self-sacrificing. Yep, she was going to fit into this crazy family just fine.

And Holy Shit. There is so much trauma packed into this kid. She needs lots of therapy.

Babs finally decided that they all needed to get out and have some fun. All in their respective suits and they went out.

Joined by Harley, Ivy and Selina.

Plagg came along because I want Plagg to meet Selina.

It was a chaotic night and it was a miracle that Bruce didn’t find out about what the girls did.

-------

Batman and Red Hood were on patrol together when Selina jumped in front of them.

“Hello, Boys”

“What do you want, Catwoman?”

“I want to meet my new prodigy, Kitty Noire.”

Cue Marinette jumping down from her hiding spot, transformed with the Black Cat Miraculous. “Hiya.”

Red Hood carries her like a potato sack and points his gun at the other two.

“Nope, she’s my sister and I called dibs. I adopted her. She’s off limits.”

“Legally, she’s mine.” Batman coughed out.

“I did it first. Emotionally. She’s my emotional support sister. You have plenty kids already, B and Selina, get your own.”

“Hey, I am still here and can hear you.”- Maria

-------

Alya was worried for Lila. She had been acting weirdly for the past month.

She looked very out of sorts. Her clothes weren’t in order and her hair was in disarray. She had bags under her eyes and her eyes looked wild. Lila didn’t look like herself at all.

She jumped at any sound and flinched at really sudden movements.

Alya tried to find out what was wrong with Lila and received vague answers.

One time Lila said that Marinette is to blame.

Alya reaches the somewhat right conclusion that Marinette was haunting Lila and hurting her because Lila used to come to school with bruises and claims that Marinette did it.

Alya goes to Marinette’s grave to desecrate it. (Yeah, go anger the ghost that is haunting someone.)

Unfortunately, the moment she tries to do something, the sky turns dark, clouds appear and the wind begins whipping. A Lightning strike near her and there was a cloaked figure beside her with a scythe.

All Alya saw from the figure was the blood-red lips in a very sharp grin and glowing blue eyes, raising the scythe high before she ran away. The scythe swiped the air where her head once was.

Alya didn’t get far before she tripped and blacked out.

When she woke up, she found herself in the hospital with no idea how she got there.

She was told that somebody found her with a concussion in the park and took her to the hospital.

------

The next one on Mari’s hit list was Natalie.

She wasn’t as involved in the whole thing like Lila, Adrien or Gabriel but she still did it anyways.

Her punishment is a little mild compared to the others and was more of a warning to Gabriel.

Natalie woke up in the middle of the night to see a not-so-dead Ladybug sitting on her vanity chair with the moonlight from the windows illuminating her body and her neck. Her suit was torn exactly like the day of that battle with blood dripping down her arms and from her open wounds. The shadows kept her face hidden but glowing blue eyes stared at her.

Natalie was scared at first. But she regained her normal cool composure.

“I assume you are here to extract your revenge for aiding in your unfortunate demise. But before you kill me, I regret my part in my entire thing and I apologize for everything I have done against you even though I knew it was wrong.”

“At least you show remorse over what you have done. Visiting my grave when even my parents didn’t and leaving flowers. I love those purple hyacinths by the way. Did you know that they mean sorry in the language of the flowers?”

“Why are you stalling my death? Just kill me already.”

“Madam Sancouer. You just played a minor role in my downfall compared to what Adrien and Lila Rossi did to me. And you showed more guilt over your actions than they ever did and Adrien claimed to have loved me. And like I have told the Bats, Death is too swift of a punishment.”

“Who are the bats?”

“None of your concern. You should be more concerned about yourself.”

“Lila sees the ghosts of her past and they haunt her. Adrien is in a living nightmare and has no control over his actions and is despised by everyone. What are you going to do to me?”

“Well, since you show some guilt over your actions, let me tell you a little secret. I am not dead. Not really. I mean I did die. But there was a spell in the grimoire that revived me. It took a few days to work.”

Marinette changed to her normal form. It was a little jarring to see an older Marinette Dupain-Cheng sitting on her vanity chair like it was a throne. The Ladybug suit and the wounds were gone. She looked a little familiar.

“Why are you telling me this? What was the point?” Natalie faltered as she wondered why the girl looked familiar. Marinette moved closer and her face was fully illuminated by the moonlight.

“I intend to take everything by which I mean everything from Gabriel Agreste for what he did.”

“M. Agreste just wanted his wife back. You just gave him your Miraculous, you would still have everything.”

“What difference would it make? Sure I had friends and family before but they turned out to be disappointing. I might have become a famous designer like I dreamed of and can't achieve because I died. Besides, he never said about wanting his wife to come back in his tedious monologues. For all we knew back then, he wanted them for world domination. He showed that he would end the world for them. For kwamis’ sake, he nearly started World War III, just for a pair of earring and a ring. He was willing to kill me to have her back. No wait, he did that too. If he actually read the translated grimoire or asked the Guardian or at least someone with magic for help instead or maybe used his head and made some who can heal as his champion using the Butterfly, we wouldn’t even be in this mess. Face it, Mme Sancour, your boss is a power-hungry and very controlling maniac who is also thankfully an idiot.”

“But- he- he just-. You are just a child, what do you know? M. Agreste knew what he was doing.”

“A child who had a normal life up until he tried to ruin it with his idiotic schemes and hiring Lila to do it. A child who had to fight a war on her own.”

“I am sorry you had to go through that but I doubt you and your little revenge rampage is going to solve anything.”

Ghostly Chains wrapped around Natalie’s body, squeezing tight like it was squeezing the life out of her.

“I was all for sparing you, you know. If you had actually listened to my side of the story, you would have spared from my ‘little revenge rampage’. This is going to be a little painful. Sorry about that.” In a tone that was definitely not sorry.

Pain coursed through Natalie’s body. Her skin crawled and itched as pitch back feathers grew out of it. Her bones turned to dust and reformed.

Where Natalie Sancour once was, there was a raven.

An omen of death and destruction for one Gabriel Agreste.

Marinette leaned down towards the raven. Natalie tried to peck her eye out but Marinette held the beak in a firm grip.

“Ah. ah ah. Luckily for you this is temporary. Mostly. Every night, you will assume this shape and each night the longer you will stay in this form. Slowly counting down the days until Gabriel’s downfall. Since you love helping him so much, you are going to help him know how long he has to live. The night you are a raven from sunset to sunrise, that sunrise starts the day Gabriel Agreste will be utterly destroyed.”

She released the beak and headed towards the window.

"Send him my regards."

With that, she was gone.

(Part 6)

[awhitehead17]

Whumptober 2022: Day 8 - Everything hurts and I’m dying

Prompt: Head Trauma

Summary: After a rough patrol Jason ends up hiding on a roof top until his concussion passes, apparently he's not the only one out late that night because someone unexpected finds him and offers a helping hand.

Enjoy! :D

“Well aren’t you a sight for sore eyes.”

He’ll forever deny the way the sudden comment makes him jump, he hadn’t heard the person approach until they spoke. Without looking up from where he’s got his head resting on top of his knees, Jason cocks his gun pointing it blindly towards where the voice came from.

“If you know what's best for you, you’ll turn around and never speak of this again.”

A hearty laugh is the response to his threat. “Oh don’t be like that kitten! I mean you no harm.”

Surprised at who the voice belongs too, Jason snaps his head up so he could see them and immediately regrets the action. His vision swims and the world tilts, he feels that pressure on the front of his head increase making it impossible to ignore. With a groan he buries his face back into the top of his knees and closes his eyes tightly willing the pain to stop.

“Well that’s certainly not a greeting I’m used to receiving. I know I’m getting older but surely I’m not that unpleasant to see just yet.”

Keeping the gun held limply in one hand and wrapping his other arm around his head Jason lets out another groan, “what do you want Selina? I’m busy right now.”

He couldn’t see her disbelieving look but he could certainly hear it in her voice as she speaks. “Busy, sure… I would ask what’s a nice guy like you doing in a place like this, but I think I can work it out on my own.”

Despite being like twice his age, Selina never stops flirting with him. It’s a thing she does with most of Bruce’s brood, there’s nothing serious behind it, just a bit of banter and is probably done to ruffle Bruce’s feathers more than anything else.

Lifting his head up, slower this time, Jason looks up at Selina who’s kitted out in her Cat Woman gear, clearly working tonight for whatever reason. It’s difficult to focus on the woman because of the pounding going on inside his forehead, followed by the way his vision is still blurry and the shitty feeling he’s got overall. Thankfully it’s night-time meaning it’s dark but that apparently doesn’t exclude the moon that’s shining brightly up in the sky.

“What do you want?” He asks again, he really doesn’t have the energy to be dealing with the thief right now. “Don’t you have a museum to rob or something?”

“I’m finished tonight actually, just on my way back home when I spotted a little birdie far from his nest. Thought I’d come and see what's going on.”

Jason pulls a face and because he’s not wearing his helmet he lets her see his full expression in what he thinks about that. “I’m not a bird.”

“I know several people who would disagree with you,” she points out quickly, “what happened Jason? Why are you on a random roof top, curled up in a ball, next to a pile of sick looking like you’ve just crawled out of your grave again.”

Knowing it’s no use in arguing against Selina Jason plops his head back down on his knees and sums up his night for her. “I was fighting Killer Croc down in the sewers and because I was already having a bad night I got my ass handed to me. After grabbing my leg he smacked me into the wall and unfortunately my head took most of the impact, if I hadn’t had my helmet on I surely would be dead or something. Instead I end up with a concussion and Croc got away. I manged to climb up here until it got too bad for me to go any further and been here since.”

“Well that certainly is a rough night.” She says after a beat. Her tone of voice has changed but Jason didn’t have enough energy to work out the meaning behind it. “Now come on, you’re no good here.”

Jason scowls into the fabric covering his knees. “I know that Selina, why do you think I’m hidden away on a rooftop. I can’t go anywhere like this.”

An exasperated sigh meets his ears and he jumps when he feels hands grip his arms trying to pull him up.

“I know kitten, that’s why you’re coming back to mine where I can keep an eye on you until this passes. You’ve probably got a moderate concussion so it’s best you stay with someone until the symptoms reside.”

She pulls his arms and manages to get him to uncurl. Jason looks at her through narrow eyes, feeling suspicion creeping in. “Why are you helping me? Did Bruce set you up for this? Or Dick?”

The woman has the audacity to laugh. “Believe it not no. I’m helping because I want to.”

“What’s the catch?”

Despite Jason not putting a single ounce of effort in to make the task easy for her, Selina still manages to haul his six foot frame up off the ground and gets one of his arms around her shoulders so she could support him. Once he’s up right the headache he’s been feeling increases tenfold and he feels his insides stir unpleasantly.

“Again nothing. Not everything in this world is out to get you Jason.”

Feeling sour Jason grumbles in displeasure. He keeps quiet however as they slowly make their way to the roof’s edge where there’s a small jump down to the next one. Jason grimaces, already knowing how this is going to go, but Selina doesn’t seem bothered by it. She drags him over there, manoeuvring them both until she’s the first one down and is able to support him in getting down too.

Despite it going surprisingly smoothly, it doesn’t stop what Jason knew was going to happen in the first place. Once he’s back on his two feet that unpleasant feeling inside of him only grows and he feels it travel up through his chest and into his throat. The only thing he could do to spare Selina is push her away and collapse on the floor on all fours as his stomach empties itself.

By the time he’s done he’s left convulsing and heaving as he tries to get himself together. Thankfully Selina had given him his space and left him to it, although Jason still couldn’t help at feeling embarrassed for the fact she’s witnessing him in this state.

His head is pounding, his entire body hurts and he genuinely just wants to cry. He feels like shit.

This time when he feels hands grab him, he doesn’t jump, he lets them pull him up into an upright position. Once again he and Selina continue onwards with her supporting him without a comment on his condition. While Jason still feels like there’s something more to it than Selina simply wanting to help him, he appreciates it nonetheless.

They get to her home and Selina nurses him and his concussion for the rest of the night and into the morning of the next day. She gives him some pain medication and some food when he feels like he could stomach it. Neither of them say anything about it, they don’t make it a big deal out of it which is just fine with Jason and they continue on like normal like it never happened. At least now Jason knows that in the future if he’s ever in a sticky situation he knows he’s got someone to turn to if he needs it.