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sitepathos · 3 months ago

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From Gold to Mold

Chapter 4: The Deal (Warning: this chapter will feature violence. Read at your own risk)

A/N: had free time this week to produce this. Next week is chock full of tests and midterms, so this’ll probably be the last chapter for some time. Enjoy! Also, I’m sorry to those who asked to be added to the tag list and weren’t. I tried to add many of you, but Tumblr wasn’t able to find your blog for whatever reason.

When you open your eyes, darkness goes on forever in all directions, the only thing you can see is yourself. Where are you and how did you get here?

“Hello,” you call out, hoping someone is nearby to hear you, not caring who hears you just as long as someone comes to you. “Is there anyone here?”

Nothing, which you expected, but you had hoped against reality that someone was here… wherever here is. The cold air surges through your body and you shiver, your teeth chattering, echoing in the void.

“What happened,” you ask yourself. “How’d I get here?”

Just then, your memory kicks in and images and words assault your mind all at once: walking through the East End, the three thugs, the dirty shack in the middle of the woods you had been dragged to, and—

“Oh my god,” you say as the final memory flashes before your eyes. “They killed me.”

That’s right, the flash of the muzzle and the sound of the gunshot still rattling in your head. And if you think hard enough, you can vaguely remember falling to the floor after the bullet entered your head.

“Wait,” you say, realizing something very important. “If they shot me, then why am I here?”

Sure, you aren’t religious (all beliefs in a just and loving god died after you lost your Momma and was forced to live in an abusive and neglectful household for thirteen years), but this dark and neverending void is a far cry from the bright and golden imagery that’s always been associated with heaven. And this sure isn’t the fire and brimstone that comes to mind when you think of hell. So, is this purgatory? Or limbo? You never could keep the two straight.

Is this your fate? To spend the rest of your afterlife alone in this abyss? Why couldn’t you just cease altogether? Was it too much to ask that you just close your eyes and never wake from your eternal slumber?

You realize you’re crying and you’re amazed that after crying so much throughout your life, you still have plenty of tears to shed, even in the afterlife. But that’s been your lot in life since you lost Momma: to be the world’s punching bag.

“Such powerful emotions,” a familiar voice says.

You look up in shock and see your Momma, looking exactly the same as the day she was taken from you.

“Momma,” you exclaim, rushing to her and embracing her, squeezing her as hard as your arms will allow, afraid that if you let go, she’ll disappear.

“This form brings out such joy, sadness, and loss in you,” she says. “Feelings from someone alive are far more vibrant than from someone deceased.”

“What,” you asks, looking up at her in confusion, but when you do, it’s not your Momma you see looking down at you, but Bruce. You let go of the man as quick as you can and put a bit of distance between the two of you.

“What did you do to my Momma, you son of a bitch,” you shout in disgust.

“This form brings out such anger, pain, and hatred in you,” Bruce says, looking you up and down as if dissecting you like a damn lab experiment. “How interesting.”

“What the hell are you talking about? How’d you get here and what did you do to Momma?”

“And it’s not just this form.” You see movement all around you and in perfect unison, the other members of the Wayne Family appear from the void. “You hold these forms in equal amounts of hatred and contempt.”

“You deem this one a failure,” Bruce says.

“This one a hypocrite,” Dick says.

“This one a brute,” Jason says.

“This one a know-it-all,” Tim says.

“This one a stranger,” Barbara says.

“This one annoying,” Stephanie says, before turning to Cassandra. “And while you’ve never heard that one speak, you deem her a freak.”

“And you deem this one a monster,” Damian says. He gestures to Bruce. “You hate this form and that one in equal measure, far surpassing the others.”

You see another figure step out of the void and when you make out the face, it’s Alfred. You feel relief surge through your body, happy to see the butler; if there’s anyone who you can depend on, it’s him.

“While this one serves the others, you hold great respect for this form,” Alfred says. “Although, you hold a not insignificant amount of resentment towards him.”

Your heart skips a little at the accusation. No, you love the man, who took the place of a father when Bruce failed to fill the void left by your Momma’s death; sure, you’ve had the occasional thought that if the man was given a choice between you and them, he’d choose them over you since he’s always helping them, but he’s always been there for you since day one!

“No,” you say, pleading with the man. “Alfred, I don’t!”

“But you do,” the butler responds. “According to you, he is the true master of your prison, but instead of using his power to make them acknowledge your existence, he allows them to continue parading through Gotham, fighting criminals.”

“You also believe all these forms belong in Arkham,” Bruce adds. “And that you wish to be the one to subject them to electroshock therapy.”

You finally realize that something’s wrong here. All of them have never been in your presence long enough for you to say how you feel about them (not that they’d care, anyway) and you’ve never told Alfred how you often daydream of locking them away in Gotham, strapping them to metal chairs, and flipping the switch to send hundreds of volts through their skulls, hoping to shock them into being decent human beings. All this has been kept in your head for well over a decade.

So, how the hell did they know all this?

“You’re not them, are you?”

“No,” Not-Bruce answers. “We only took the forms of those you see before you.”

“Then who the fuck are you,” you growl. “And where the fuck am I?”

“We have no name,” Not-Alfred says.

“We are one, and yet we are many,” Not-Damian finishes.

“It is impossible to define a being such as us,” Not-Jason chimes in.

“Alright, that doesn’t answer my question,” you mutter to yourself, but say it loud enough for them to hear. “Then answer me this: where am I? The last thing I remember was being shot by three thugs.”

“Yes, we know of your attack,” Not-Stephanie says.

“As for your question, we are appearing to you in your mind,” Not-Bruce says.

“My mind,” you exclaim. “How?”

“When you appeared to us, we reached out and established a link with you,” Not-Tim explains. “It is from there that we were able to peer into your mind and see your memories.”

“My memories,” you ask, dumbfounded.

“Yes,” Not-Damian responds. “Through your memories, we saw these forms and assumed them. We thought it would be more preferable for you to speak to us if we took the appearance of the people who have the most influence on your life.”

“If you looked through my memories, then you should know I want nothing to do with any of them,” you snap at them.

“We know now that we were in error,” Not-Bruce responds, a ghost of a smile gracing his face. “We owe you many thanks. Never before have we been put into a situation where have known the sensation of being incorrect. We will ponder this experience for years to come.”

“So, what do you really look like.”

All of them look at one another, unsure how to answer your question.

“We are not sure if you wish to see our true form,” Not-Alfred responds.

“While you are the first sentient being we’ve interacted with in our entire existence, we know that our true form is something many of your kind would consider… terrifying,” Not-Stephanie adds.

“I don’t care,” you snap. “I’m not talking to any of you while you look like this and I sure as hell don’t want you taking Momma’s form! And if we’re going to talk, we’re gonna do it face to face!”

“Very well,” Not-Bruce acquiesces.

And with that, everything fades to black and for a moment, you’re scared you’ll be left here in the dark by yourself again. Maybe you should’ve let them stay like that.

Just then, above you, you see an odd red glow. You look up and you feel your blood freeze, your heart stop, and the air catches in your lungs. Above you is a giant mass of red, bioluminescent flesh hanging from a cave ceiling, thick black tendrils extruding from it and digging deep into the surrounding rock, allowing it to remain suspended in the cavern. And if that didn’t freak you out enough, you can see the flesh obviously resembles the shape of a fetus in the fetal position. This thing looks like something out of an H.P. Lovecraft novel.

“Holy shit,” is all you can say.

“We told you you would not approve of our true form,” it says, its voice beaming directly into your mind.

“What are you,” you ask, still awestruck at the sight before you.

“We are have no name,” it responds. “But, with the knowledge we have accumulated over the centuries, we suppose you can call us the Megamycete.”

“Megamycete?”

“Yes, we are a supercolony of sentient fungus that has existed for over four-hundred years.”

“Four-hundred years? That’s as long as Gotham’s been around.”

“We have existed as the city above. When its founders first arrived, we were nothing more than a collection of small, independent and unaware colonies of mold. Not long after the first buildings were built, an earthquake shook the area and revealed something we now know as a ‘Lazarus Pit,’ a pool of green, luminescent liquid that possesses remarkable restorative properties, and the colonies that would become us were plunged into it.”

“And this pit made you the way that you are?”

“The pit made us aware, but it did not give us our intelligence. With our enhanced capabilities, we were able to spread out our roots beyond the mountain. Not long after, we discovered the corpses of the first of Gotham’s citizens, buried after they drew their last breath; when our roots came into contact with their bodies, we found we had the ability to archive the knowledge, memories, and even DNA of the deceased. We became obsessed with growing our archive, so as Gotham grew over the years, so did our roots; overtime, we archived hundreds of its deceased, increasing our intelligence and knowledge of the outside world. Now, our roots touch every part of this city, becoming one with it, not only archiving the remains of its living, but seeing and hearing everything that goes on within its boundaries.”

“So,” you say, your mouth becoming dry at your newfound knowledge. “You’re like some fungal god?”

“While we know many of your kind may consider a being such as us god, we hold no illusion of being a divine entity. We think of ourselves as an immortal observer.”

As you attempt to process this information, your mind brings something to your attention and you feel your heart stop when you realize it. You really don’t want to know the answer, but there’s that damn stubborn part of you that has… no, it needs to know.

“So,” you begin, trying to summon the courage to ask your question. “Earlier, you said all of this is going on in my head, right?”

“Yes, our roots were able to establish a link with you and allow us to convene with you in your mind.”

“So, if we’re in my head right now, where’s me? I mean, my body?”

Although the Megamycete doesn’t have eyes, nor does it turn anything that resembles a head, you can feel it shift its awareness to the side, as if looking at something. You feel yourself break into a cold sweat as you slowly turn your head to the left, wondering what exactly you’re going to find.

And when you do, your greeted by a sight that makes you feel as if the world around you had crumbled away and you’ve been left behind to float in the void left behind: you, lying in a mess of tendrils composed of mold, broken, battered, and bloody; your limbs lying in directions they’re definitely not supposed to be in, your eyes glazed over, and a gaping bullet hole in your left temple.

“Oh my god,” you shout, utterly horrified at the sight before you. “Oh my god!”

“We saw the torture those three criminals subjected you to. Their leader was quite thorough in inflicting damage.”

“So that’s it, huh?” While this is all just some projection in your head, you feel like you’re hyperventilating. “This is how it ends: being eaten by some sentient mushroom and becoming a part of it? Doomed to spend the rest of eternity tethered to this damn city? I survive in a place where you’re likely to be killed by some trigger-happy murder clown and his psycho-ass whore while getting your mail and some two-bit thug is what does me in?”

“If you look closer, you will find that you are still alive.”

You practically snap your head to look back at your body and sure enough, you can see your chest moving up and down. It may not be much, but it’s there.

“I’m alive,” you ask, shocked at the sight of you breathing.

“You still live,” it answers back. “Your life force is low, but still there.”

“But how? He shot me in the head and then threw me down here! People don’t live after something like that!”

“While a gunshot to the head is normally fatal, our archive shows us two revelations: that the bullet did not go through your brain, but graze it and that the bullet used was of a lower caliber. While the wound was grievous, you still had a chance of surviving it. As for the fall into our chamber, your body was caught onto our roots as it fell, slowing it down and allowing it to land with diminished force.”

“But I’m still going to die, right?”

“Yes,” it answers, seemingly sympathetic. “If you were in a proper hospital, you could recover, but right now, your body is slowly shutting down. By the time anyone found you, you would long be deceased.”

So, you survive attempted murder, but you’ll still die in the end.

“Fuck,” you mutter. “Wasn’t the end I had in mind.”

“What did you have in mind for your death,” the Megamycete asks.

“Shouldn’t you know what i had in mind for my death?”

“We do, but our knowledge shows us talking to the dying brings a form of comfort to them. Plus, this is the first time we have had the chance to interact with a living mortal. We wish to prolong the experience as much as possible.”

You chuckle at that. “I thought I would spend my final days back home in Goodsprings, sitting in the big recliner Momma bought for me. I use to spend Saturday mornings in it, eating cereal and watching cartoons.” You smile at the memory of the chair. “It was a damn good chair.”

“We see it, a brown cushioned seat, perfect for watching television or reading books.”

“Yeah, that’s the one. Would’ve been perfect to spend my last days in.”

“Perhaps you still can.”

You look up at the Megamycete. “What?”

“We offer you a deal: we will repair your body and give you the strength to leave this chamber and rejoin the outside world.”

“And you’ll get what?”

“You become our host.”

“What,” you balk. “Host?”

“Yes, we will entangle ourselves with your very being, becoming as one.”

“And why the hell would I agree to that,” you exclaim. “You fix my body just to take it over? No deal!”

“You misunderstand. We will not override your control over your body. We will be nothing more than a spectator in your life, seeing but being powerless to intervene. In addition to being restored to your former glory, you will gain access not only to our vast archive of knowledge, but gain abilities many of your kind would consider supernatural.”

That certainly cools your temper. “So, you fix me up and give me superpowers, but all you get in return is front row seats to my life. Sounds like I’m the only one benefitting from this deal.”

“On the contrary, we stand to gain just as much as you do. For over four-hundred years, we could see the outside world, but not join it. With each new corpse we archived, we began to desire a way to interact with the world firsthand and not by mere memories. You are our solution to this dilemma. Through you, we will know what it means to feel the sun on our face, or to taste the finest meals, or to hear a symphony.”

The Megamycete’s words shock you to your core. You guess if you were stuck in this cavern for four centuries and only knew of a world beyond it through memories, you’d do anything to experience it, too.

“Please, Y/N, we beg you to accept our deal. We promise everything we are, from our archive to our longevity, will be at your disposal. You will be stronger, smarter, and better than those who thought less of you. In comparison to you, they will be nothing more than mere ants.”

You’ve thought about showing the Waynes up for years, to be able to pay Jason back for that black eye, to make Tim feel like a complete idiot, and especially to make Damian feel inferior in every way possible.

“We can do that for you. With us at your side, you’ll attain a level of perfection they could never dream of. All we want is to be able to witness this firsthand.”

“Alright,” you relent. “If all you want is to go outside in exchange for making me better than them, you have a deal.”

“We thank you, Y/N,” it says, sounding incredibly happy. Relieved, even.

And with that, your world fades to black once again and when you open your eyes, you find that you’re back in your body, feelings of pain overwhelming your senses, making it hard to concentrate on the Megamycete pressing its tendrils into you. You watch in total awe as the giant, fetus-like mass that is the Megamycete begin to shrink and when you look down where the tendrils are embedded in your skin, you can see a black substance being injected into under your skin. The more of the substance being pumped into your body, the smaller the Megamycete gets.

That’s when you feel weird all over, like every cell in your body is transforming into something else. While not painful, per se, it’s an incredibly odd sensation.

(Your body is becoming one with our mold,) you hear the Megamycete explain in your head. (Not only will it repair the damage that was done to you, you will find that you are far more durable than any mere mortal and have the ability to change your form into any that is stored in our archive, both man or beast.)

“Wait, you’re saying I can shapeshift?”

(If that is what you wish to call our mimetic abilities, then yes, you may “shapeshift.”)

When the last of the mold was transferred to you, you find your body stitching itself up and the incredible pain you were in fading fast, like it was never there. You see a puddle of water lying nearby and when you look in it, you see that all your injuries are gone, even the scar on your left check that Damian gave you three years ago. If you didn’t know any better, you’d say it never happened at all.

And not only do you look better, you feel better! You wouldn’t say you were the healthiest person ever, but you tried to stay somewhere in between active and sedentary; sure you weren’t going to be running any marathons, but you were able to climb the many stairwells at school when the elevator took too long. Now, however, you felt like you could run and win a marathon, or climb up a mountain without climbing gear, or swim the English Channel during a hurricane! And you didn’t feel better physically, but intellectually as well! Gotham, for all it many flaws, has attracted the best artists, architects, doctors, engineers, musicians, scientists, and more; you feel your mind being rushed with the knowledge and memories of countless people throughout the ages, ranging from the city’s early days to now. Hell, you even have access to the memories and knowledge of some of Bruce’s greatest employees, giving you knowledge on much on Wayne Enterprises’ tech and projects that he’s spared no expense in keeping under wraps. Maybe you can get a pretty penny from Lex Corp in exchange for this information since everyone knows Bruce and Lex are bitter rivals and are constantly trying to one-up each other, with Bruce, unfortunately, often being the winner in their battles to develop the next technological development.

“I feel like I could run circles around Einstein,” you laugh, completely blown away with your newfound intellect. Right now, you feel like you could write a symphony that would make Beethoven feel inadequate while at the same time painting a masterpiece that would eclipse the Mona Lisa and designing a fusion reactor capable of powering the entire country. You look around the cavern, looking and not seeing a way out. “Now how do I get out of here?”

(There is a passage directly above you.) You look up to see a big hole in the chamber’s ceiling. (That is how you ended up here when those three threw you in here. Our archives have absorbed many of Gotham’s birds. Any one of them should give you the power to fly out of the chamber.)

The mention of the three thugs remind you of your stolen pen and Game Boy, which then fills you with rage. You’ve never liked thieves and the thought of your Momma’s treasured pen and your gift from your thoughtful boss in the hands of such lowlifes gives you even more of a reason to hate them. By now, they could be anywhere, maybe even outside of the city for fear of your disappearance being reported (mostly by Alfred, the only person left in Gotham who would give a damn).

(Remember our roots span all of Gotham,) the Megamycete says. (Through them, we have seen and heard all that occurs in this city. As our host, you now have access to them. All you have to do is reach out and think of who you wish to find.)

Following its advice, you reach out and feel the roots that entangle Gotham like a spider web. As soon as you do, you’re overwhelmed with sights and sounds from every corner of the city.

(Focus on the three,) it advises you. (If you concentrate on who exactly you want, the roots will do the rest.)

It takes some doing, but you manage to push aside the multitude of people that are in your mind’s eye and focus on the three kidnappers. You’re taken across the city, rushing past the many buildings and stopping at some seedy building in Coventry. Your newfound knowledge of Gotham tells you this is the My Alibi bar, a place for Gotham’s criminals to get together to eat, trade gossip, and find work.

With your destination known, you search through the Megamycete’s archives and something to get you out of here and find something that should do the job: crows. Your body manifests into a murder of crows and takes off in perfect unison, keeping in formation. It’s extremely weird to be a bunch of birds; you know that what was once your body is now numerous birds, but while you’re multiple birds, you’re still one person. You can see through all their eyes all at once and change their flight path and they actually do it like it’s nothing. In a matter of seconds, you’re on the surface, flying above the forest and looking down at the twinkling lights of Gotham’s buildings.

“You know, from above, that cesspit actually looks kinda pretty.”

(We thank you, Y/N. We never thought we would be able to experience such a sight firsthand, but here we are. Now, shall we retrieve your stolen property?)

The crows fly through the city, zipping past the buildings and as you do, you realize that you’ve just fulfilled a dream you’ve had since you were ten-years-old: to fly like a bird. When you realized that the Waynes were awful and all you wanted was to go back to Goodsprings— to take flight like a bird and leave this city and the Waynes behind. Now, you can turn into a flock of birds, or even grow a pair of wings, and fly all the way to Nevada!

Eventually, you reach the My Alibi club, which looks even worse in person than through the Megamycete’s roots. You land on a nearby building’s rooftop and see the only security for the entire building is a single bouncer. You command the birds to land near the bouncer and when they do, they come together and reform your body, but instead of revealing you, you command hardened black mold to cover your body, not wanting your face to be seen by anyone.

What’s going to happen here needs to not get back to you.

“What,” the bouncer stutters. “What the hell?”

“Leave,” is all you say.

The bouncer says nothing before he runs away.

(Are you ready,) the Megamycete asks as you near the door. (We highly doubt your three would-be murderers will take your return likely. Nor will they likely be in a hurry to return your property. You may have to resort to violence.)

“Good,” is all you say as you enter.

The noise coming from patrons’ conversations, drinking, and arguing comes to an end when you walk inside. A quick look around and you can tell this place lives up to its reputation of being for Gotham’s criminal element; everyone here looks like they’ve done time and will probably spend their last days in prison.

And in the back corner sit your targets, looking at you with their table filled with glasses and plates of food. The sight fills you with rage; they shot you in the head and threw you in a ditch and here they are, eating and drinking like they just got off work and wanted something to take the edge off. And what really pisses you off is seeing the one called Butch holding your Game Boy like it was his right!

“I’m here for them,” you say, pointing to your quarry. “The rest of you are free to go.”

“Up yours, freak,” some shithead shouts back, pulling out a revolver and fires it three times. The bullets hit the hardened mold and fall to the floor, looking like crushed tin cans rather than deadly projectiles. “What the hell?”

He goes to fire it again, but you raise your hand and a tendril emerges from it, piercing the man’s heart; he drops his gun and lets out a disgusting gurgle, blood dripping from it and pooling on the floor, before falling silent, dead.

While most of your mind is disturbed at the sight; you’ve just killed a man, his blood literally on your hands, but you can’t deny there’s a part of you that’s not saddened by your actions. After all, he did try to kill you and if he was in a place like this, chances are he was a piece of shit and Gotham’s a slightly better place for his passing.

For a moment, everyone is paralyzed at what just happened. The place is so quiet, a pin could drop and it would deafen everyone. Then, everyone breaks out of their stupor, practically all of them pulling out their guns and begin shooting at you, but just like their friend here found out, their bullets are useless against you. Numerous tendrils emerge from all over your body and rush at them; some of them empaling them, others wrap around their throats and crush them, while the rest just whip them with enough force to break them in two. One by one, they fall until it’s just you and your prey.

“Look, man,” you killer whimpers as you draw closer to him. “I don’t know what you want, but you can take what we have. Tom, hand him the bag.”

The other one throws a bag, which lands at your feet; you look down to see it’s your book bag. You pick it up and open it to find everything still inside, from your binder and notebooks to your phone and the gift box Mr. Chen gave you. You’re relieved to know that you’re not missing any of your school stuff and don’t have to go looking for anything or replace it. You are, however, missing all the money from your wallet, but a look on the table shows where it went to. But, you’re still missing the most important thing: your Momma’s pen.

“Here, take this, too.” The leader takes the Game boy from Butch and holds it out to you, which you snatch from him, reveling in the fear in his eyes as you did, and carefully place it inside.

That just leaves one last order of business. You extend two tendrils and wrap them around the leaders throat and hold him up from the floor, his legs kicking around, trying and failing to get him back on the ground; his arms pathetically wrap around the tendrils, trying to crate some room for him to breath, and his mouth is gaping like a fish out of water, trying to get any sort of air. His cohorts go to say something, but a quick glare from you shuts them up. You bring the man close to you until you can see your reflection in his eyes, which are wide and full of terror, and open your mold mask, revealing your identity to them and based off their expressions, all three men could probably crush coal into diamonds with their sphincters.

“Holy shit,” Butch whispers, his face showing his complete disbelief.

“It’s that kid,” Tom adds, his face mirroring his partner. “But, we killed him, right?”

“My pen,” you say, looking at this piece of human filth with complete contempt. “Where is it?”

You loosen your grip to allow him to speak.

“My pocket,” he says. “It’s in my pocket. All the pawn shops were closed, so I wasn’t able to sell it.”

While you’re happy that your beloved pen is not is some sleazy pawn shop’s display window, you’re utterly disgusted at the thought of this man’s audacity to think he had the right to sell your most treasured possession like its some worthless trinket. A small tendril emerges form your shoulder and searches the man’s pocket and pulls out that beautiful gold ink pen. You have it deliver it to your left hand, which is empty as your right hand is being used to hold the man in front of you, and hold onto it with a vice-like grip.

(Not even death could separate you from your Mother’s memento,) the Megamycete states. (We are impressed at your dedication to it.)

“Look, we’re sorry for what we did to you,” the man pathetically whimpers. “Really, we are.”

“Did you know this was my Momma’s pen,” you ask as if the man had not just said something. “I lost her on my sixth birthday and was forced to leave my home in Goodsprings to live here. This pen is the only thing of hers I was able to bring with me. And you had felt like you had the right to take something I treasure more than anything else in the world and pawn it off for some petty cash.”

“We didn’t know, man,” Butch responds, now realizing the depth of his mistakes. “We’re sorry.”

“We promise we won’t tell anyone about this,” Tom adds. “Just let us go and you’ll never see or hear from us ever again.”

“You’re right, we won’t see each other again, but wouldn’t you like to know who I was forced to live with?” The three of them pathetically nod in unison and you have to fight the urge to laugh. A few hours ago, these men were looking down at you, sure they could do anything they wanted, but now, here you are, far above them in the food chain. “I was forced to live with my father, Bruce Wayne.”

“But he said—“ the leader starts to say, but you cut him off.

“That bastard has ignored me since I moved in with him,” you shout, shutting him up. “I was his first biological son, but he’s completely forgotten about me!” You take a deep breath. Just the mention of him brings out the worst in you. “But it doesn’t matter. I don’t need him. Just like you don’t need your lives.”

And with that, you rip the man’s head clean off his shoulders, not even giving him the chance to realize his fate before killing him. You release the body and both it and his head crumple to the floor in a heap of lifeless meat and to further invoke fear in them, you stomp on the head while looking at them, the thing making a wet splat sound. The other two shout, but you cut them down with ease, tendrils emerging from your back and wrapping around their heads and crush them with ease, showering the floor in their blood and grey matter. Their bodies fall to the floor and flail around for a while before finally stopping.

(Well done,) the Megamycete praises. (You cut down these criminals and made Gotham safer faster than any police officer we have known. Perhaps the local police should seek out your services?)

“Not gonna happen,” you laugh as you walk out of the bar with your backpack in hand. “I have no intention of staying in this place. Once I graduate, I’m going back home.”

(Yes, Goodsprings. A small town located in Nevada. We look forward to experiencing your return to your point of origin.)

And with that, you manifest a pair of black wings on your back and take flight, flying far above the city’s skyscrapers, so hopefully you’re safe from detection. In just a few minutes, you’ve flown from Burnley Island to Bristol, something that should’ve taken almost an hour by car. Thanks to the Megamycete’s roots, you can see the Bats still out and about throughout Gotham, so you don’t have to worry about running into any of them while hurrying into your room.

You land down the street to avoid being picked up by the security cameras (Bruce’s picture is the definition of paranoid based on the amount of cameras in both the estate and in the house itself) and walk the rest of the way there. Normally, walking down the marathon-length driveway to the manor when coming home from work, but his time, you cross the distance like it’s nothing; in fact, you feel like you can do this another dozen times and still feel energized.

But, while you’re physically invigorated, you’re mentally drained and all you want to do is curl up and bed and pass out; you enter Wayne Manor and hurry to your room, never more thankful for being far from the rest of the household than you are now. While you’ve been flying under the radar of Gotham��s vigilantes for years now, you’ll afraid that even they won’t be able to ignore you when they found out about your newly gained powers. During your stay here, you’ve listened to their conversations when they thought you weren’t around and you know that while they distrust everyone (even each other based on the fact that no one seems to be allowed to have secrets), they distrust those with superpowers the most. Two years you listened in on a conversation between Bruce and Superman, who offered to help him during a time when many of Arkham’s most dangerous patients escaped all at once, and Bruce said in a tone that felt like sandpaper being dragged across your face: “Gotham’s off limits to metas. You step one foot in my city and you’ll regret it.”

Honestly, you’re confident that Bruce is only on this planet to be the biggest asshole who ever lived. He treats his first biological son like shit, he raises his “true children” to be as paranoid and pessimistic as him, and he threatens anyone who offers his sorry ass any kind of help. It seems to you that the only one who should’ve died that night in Crime Alley is Bruce.

You shove the man’s image in your head aside. Before tonight, he wasn’t important to you, but now, he’s irrelevant. You never needed him before, but now, you really don’t. With the Megamycete, you have everything you need.

Just then, your phone rings, bringing you out of your thoughts. You fish out your phone and look on the screen to see Alfred’s caller ID staring back at you.

“Hello,” you answer.

“Master Y/N, are you alright?”

“Yeah, of course. Why wouldn’t I be?”

“Because it’s over an hour since you should’ve called me since getting off work.” You wince when you peek at your phone and see you’re overdue your nightly call with the butler. “So, I ask again: are you alright?” Based off his tone, he’s not going to accept “I’m fine” as an answer.

“Yeah, I am.” You quickly think of anything that could explain your tardiness and realize something: the best lie is an obvious truth. You just need to modify it a bit. “I just stayed behind to tell Mr. Chen goodbye. Today was the last day for the store because his daughter said Gotham was too dangerous for him to stay by himself, so she brought him to her home today.”

“Oh, Master Y/N, I’m sorry.” His tone says he’s bought it and you actually feel bad lying to the man you’ve come to see as a father figure. “I know how much you loved working there. Are you alright?”

“Yeah, I will be. I’m gonna miss him.”

“Of course you will, he was a good man and you were the best employee he could ask for. Can I do anything for you? I’m halfway through with my vacation, perhaps I should—“

“No,” you cut the man off. “You don’t have to come back early, Alfred.” With everything that’s happened today, you need some time to prepare yourself before facing Alfred in person again. It would be a disaster for you to expose yourself as some form of metahuman in front of him. Plus, he deserves to have all his allotted vacation time. “I’ll be fine, really.”

“If you’re sure,” he says, obviously wanting to say more, but doesn’t press the issue. “I’ll let you go, I’m sure you’re tired and you need your rest. Please make sure you catch up on your sleep I’m sure you’ve missed this week during your spring break.”

“I will, Alfred, don’t worry. I’ll talk to you tomorrow.”

“Very good, Master Y/N. Good night, my boy.”

“Good night.”

You hang up and let out a sigh of relief, glad he bought it.

(You say you trust the butler with your life, but keep the events of tonight a secret from him. Why?)

“Because Alfred’s highly protective and would most likely steal a boat and sail back to Gotham within an hour if I told him I was kidnapped. And if he knew about you, he’d probably drag me to a hospital and have every last trace of mold surgically removed.”

(We do not wish for that to happen.)

“Me neither, bud. You know, after tonight, I think we’re gonna do great things together.”

(We agree. Now, heed the words of your butler and rest. Tonight was very eventful for you. It would not do well for our host to shirk in his bodily needs.)

You chuckle and strip down to your boxers before climbing into bed. Not long after you get comfy, you feel yourself drift off to sleep. For the first time ever, you’re actually looking forward to waking up in Gotham.

Bruce hears Jason whistle at the sight, but says nothing in favor of studying the carnage inside the My Alibi bar. Bodies are scattered everywhere around the establishment, some are relatively intact while others look like they were ripped in half.

“Looks like someone had fun here,” Jim says as he approaches him, Jason, and Damian. “What do you think?”

“Looks like someone had a score to settle,” he responds to the police commissioner. He motions to the remains of three men crowded together in a corner of the bar with their heads missing; two of the heads are near the rest of their bodies while the third has been reduced to a fine red paste. “Especially these three. Based on how they were killed, I’d guess whoever did this was after them.”

“Doesn’t look like Joker’s handiwork,” Jim adds. “No one here’s smiling and the place is devoid of murderous gag toys.”

No, this is definitely not the clown’s MO. Neither does it match the MO of anyone currently missing from Arkham. The only one he could think of that could rip apart and crush some of the victims is Bane, but that doesn’t explain why the remaining victims are impaled; plus, the giant is still locked up in Arkham’s high-security ward. So, this can only mean one thing.

“This is definitely the work of someone new,” he says, bending down to study the squashed head. “And with this being the only scene we know of, this was their first time killing.”

Whoever did this is highly dangerous and needs to be stopped and fast before even more people get hurt. Looks like he and his family are going to have their hands full for the foreseeable future.

Tag List: @space1crow @bat1212 @minkyungseokie @nosyrobin @bunbunboysworld @kitty-from-daaaa-voidddd @feral-childs-word @phoenixgurl030 @soriansick @hellcatsworld @prettyboys247 @marsmabe @paolexsstuff @c0l1fl0r @starryperson @lunaluz432 @orbitingtraveler @roseytheteacup @bundlofcigars @kore-of-the-underworld @kiarst @vanessa-boo @moxiemy @greatwhisperspaper

#male reader #yandere batfamily #batfamily #batfamily x male reader #batman #yandere barbara gordon #yandere cassandra cain #yandere bruce wayne #yandere damian wayne #yandere dick grayson #yandere batfam #yandere dc #yandere jason todd #yandere tim drake #dc x male reader #yandere stephanie brown #batfam #from gold to mold

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toriaanin · 5 days ago

Text

Slingshot Loosed

This is a true (from my perspective) account of my recent interaction with Tif. I encourage you to read to the bottom of this post because I make a demand of Tifaine, supported with a statement of action should the demand not be taken seriously. It's a long blog post.

Some of you may remember that back in my December 23rd post "Peace before..." I promised to share a story that could quite possibly ruffle someone's feathers. A story that pits a Goliath in our Lukola/Jakola world with little ol' David-esk me. Until now, I haven't used my slingshot to strike at the giant. I certainly planned on doing so right away (Dec 23rd, in fact), but decided to sit with everything through the holidays because who wants to go into battle when Joy's North Star is shinning in the night sky?

The easiest place to begin is at the almost beginning

Two weeks ago tonight (Friday, December 20th), I was gifted with some "fun" cyber bullying and intimidation at the hands of Tif. Oh... and there was also some lovely bashing by her and her Minions that night on her Discord.

That's the almost beginning. The actual beginning was me. Yes I started this fine mess by sticking my tongue into my own cheek and calling a hypocrite a hypocrite in an IG story. Not cool on my part, and not my usual style. I'm a "working in the background to mobilize the forces" type; not a "shout across the playground and shake my fist" kinda Chickie.

So what exactly did you do, Tori and why?

Why. Like you all, I'm sick and tired of the Jakeholes... the Minions who live and speculate in Tif's discord chat, with Tif fully engaged in, feeding and encouraging the delulu-ness. Many of you know that I've moved my Lukola live streams off of TikTok because over there, the Minions would descend and cause mayhem. Those participating in chat didn't deserve the crap the Jakolas' would drop! It is my opinion (shocker) that the Jakolas should stay on their Arctic Ocean and let us Lukolas enjoy our Caribbean Sea. In my lives I'd encourage everyone to bask in our sunshine while ignoring side-characters and Jakolas. In my chat groups we collectively did the same. Yet the Jakolas continued to troll, tag Nicola in "N loves her boyfriend J!" type posts (tags she removes - tags she no longer allows, btw!), and make stupid comments on her friends' posts. Poor Louisa spent hours cleaning up the comments after sharing her 2024 photos!

Why continued. A couple weeks ago a screenshot from Tif's discord chat came to my attention. In that chat, Tif laughed at herself for playing both sides of the fandom. She said something like "Here I am saying cute things to you Jakolas, only for me to go over and say cute things to the Lukolas". I was furious that she could be so cavalier in her hypocrisy and that no one called her out for it! Everyone I know grumbles about how two-faced she is in the fandom; about how she has this unwitting group of followers who need to learn (if they didn't suspect already) who she is and how she is playing them. Like a fiddle.

What. Obviously I wasn't able to take my own advise to ignore her. I used that screenshot, added my own thoughts on the image encouraging people to not follow hypocrites, and posted it to my IG stories. Not my greatest moment.

Do I regret posting that image to my story? As a method of trying to influence and change a mindset in the fandom about her role in the divisions in our fandom; yes. And for that I extend an apology to Tif. Like I said, I prefer to work within the collective openly and honestly, sharing thoughts and opinions - making clear that they are MY thoughts, shared as information for others to make an informed opinion of their own. Throwing stones isn't useful, really. The proof is here, in this post.

Do I regret my why? Absolutely not! Tif is a hypocrite and everyone should be talking about it and unfollowing all of her platforms. This is definitely a counterproductive statement after my simple apology above. Oh well.

Needless to say, I wasn't all that surprised when Tif responded. I expected her to. What I was surprised about, however, was the gaslighting and lies she told. And that's why I'm here now, NOT working in the background within the collective... why I've decided to shout in the playground and shake my fist... why I've decided to tuck a stone into my slingshot, stand ready like David, swing that piece of leather, release the stone, and see if I can bruise Goliath enough that she'll provide me with the apology I deserve.

Below you'll find the set of IG stories that Tif posted on that Friday night, two weeks ago, along with commentary where appropriate.

On the right is my IG story post. Please note that the white block sentence at the top starting "Me..." is what Tif added. She starts her "story" by gaslighting her IG followers saying that the comment I circled (pink) is really her "being happy for Nicola and her relationship" while also saying cute things on the Lukola channel. Sure. Whatevs. But do the Lukola channel members know you're over in the Jakola chat making fun of being cute in both places, like a hypocrite? Probably not.

The next three images go together, starting with Tif circling my "don't follow fakes & hypocrites":

In order to paint me as a hypocrite, Tif finds that waaaaayyyyy back when I first started my TikToc account, in the middle of August, I followed her account. She's dredging up a follow from 4 months ago as proof that I'm a hypocrite because I follow her, one of the most popular creators (at the time) in the fandom... the person who's edits likely motivated me to even create a dreaded TT account just so that I could see them. You too? I bet so!! I've heard from many people who tell me they joined TT for edits from creators like her. And the image to the right? That's her emphasizing the "follow back" that TT automatically includes with every follow... as though I specifically ASKED her to follow me. How stupid does she think her followers are if THIS bit of gaslighting works on them?! Don't answer that in case you fell for it.

"So embarassing" Tif says.

For her perhaps. She's the gaslighting fool, and she's been caught.

Now the most important part of her stories... THE LIE

Above she states, and I quote:

...this is coming from a lady who admitted to be at the origin of a very mocky troll account about Jake.

"Admitted to"; "origin of"; "troll account about Jake".

NO. I AM NOT the creator of, or at the origin of, ANY mocky troll account about Jake. About anyone for that matter!

Just writing about this bold ass lie brings tears of anger to my eyes. Who the fuck does this woman think she is that she can blast this kind of shit all over her hugely followed IG account and not be held accountable?! A fucking hypocrite, troll, fake, cyber bully... that's who!

Who's exposing the "nonsense" now?!

Tif finishes off her harassment of me in her IG stories with the following:

This liar, this bully, says she doesn't encourage hate. Right. I have Discord screenshots that say differently. Check out this one posted in response to Tif (poster's name is blocked... for now):

Tif says not to come to her defense... but that's what her followers do, and she seems to love and crave the attention. She comes into her IG stories and laments about how everyone beats up on her, and her Minions all respond: "We love you Tif!" "They're all horrible, Tif!" And she eats up that underserved devotion like a fucking emotional vampire.

In her last story post she says all the reasons you should unfollow her. Like a typical manipulator well versed in gaslighting, she sounds very reasonable. I could almost believe her if I didn't already know that she lied about me in her IG stories, that she didn't herself say - in her own writing and words - that she plays both sides all cutsie-like, that she didn't gaslight everyone by suggesting that I requested a follow from her when TT does that automatically with every follow one receives. She recommends that those of us who feel the way I do should unfollow her. That is the most reasonable thing I've seen or heard her say, ever!

Where does that leave us? Here:

Tifaine. You owe me an apology for the lie you told about me. A loud one in your Discord. A loud one in your IG stories. Immediately. You must make haste!

If you don't offer that apology I will do everything in my power to connect with agents of Nicola and Luke to advise them that you've used their images - as evidenced above - to bully and intimidate on social media. It won't necessarily be easy for me to do, but believe me I'll make it happen! You don't deserve to share their images if you're going to do it in such a disrespectful manner! I recommend that you take this statement very, very seriously. If you don't, the result could be a cease and desist order from the pair you claim to "love".

There's a good chance that Tif won't see this post. If you know her, make sure she does. She doesn't want me to act. She really doesn't.

Tori

#tif #Tifaine

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athynathens · 24 days ago

Text

this burning sensation

“This type of love has inflicted you pain so many times yet why you still looking for love?”

PAIRING. Bakugo Katsuki x You/Reader

ALTERNATIVE UNIVERSE. This takes place in the Boku No Hero Academia universe. No quirks have been stated here. This is purely a oneshot about Bakugo being a firefighter.

SYNOPSIS. Bakugo Katsuki is a firefighter who captured the hearts of many with his burning gaze. He does not sugarcoat his playboy demeanor, choosing to play around girls like a boy playing with matchsticks. He is quite skilled in maintaining the fire he needs. However, meeting you triggered his own fire to grow hotter and stronger. For the first time in his life, he does not know how to handle this very burning sensation.

WARNINGS. Minors dni, kinda angsty such as bakugo being a redflag and a dick (but a happy ending)

AUTHOR’S NOTES. Hiiii im back from university frl. Srry for not updatingggg!! Balancing my med life with this was rlly not possible so i had to wait for break. I’ll try my best to update as much as a i can before my second sem starts!! Thank you for your patience!!

TAGS. @professionalreblogger @ch3rryjampi3 @yaygerist @dragonscribble. Comment down if you wish to be tagged!

FIREFIGHTERS aid to those who have been in a fire accident. That was their primary purpose. However, you do not recall that their other objective was placing a burning sensation on your cheeks. Those rugged and buffy men be flexing them muscles while saving shit.

Before saving lives, they should learn how to save hearts, for real.

These desireable feelings began with Bakugo Katsuki. This man became the reason of the burning sensation on your cheeks.

You met this man in a rather unexpected way.

Uraraka, a friend from one of your part time jobs, had a get together with her highschool friends on an Ocean Park. It’s quite funny since one of your part time jobs is in this park. However, she’s clueless whether or not you’re working today.

— But it turns out you are.

“A mermaid show?” Kaminari reads. “Wait! There are mermaids here?!?”

Uraraka giggles and nods, “Yep!! One of my friends works as a mermaid who swims inside the tanks with the fishes!! Although, I am not sure if she’s on duty right now…that woman has other jobs after all!!”

“Does she swim with sharks?” Kaminari had to ask, but ended up getting hit in the head by Jiro.

“I heard she does!! She was trained after all!!” Uraraka replied.

“Damn, mama. Ya for real?” Sero asked, placing both hands on his pockets as he watched fishes swam from the glass.

The brunette nods her head again. “Yep!! I watched her once!! You know, she even had to dye her hair white-ish silver for this role since the color reflects better when she’s in water!!”

“Aye? Ya heard that Bakugo? A mermaid! Here in this Ocean Park! Can you believe that?” Kirishima called out his friend from a far.

Bakugo Katsuki walked towards them with his hands on his pockets. His compression shirt hugged his pecs and small waist perfectly, emphasizing his veiny arms as he flexed them. The scars and bruises on his arms added to his intimidatingly hot demeanor.

Bakugo scoffed, “I ‘ont get the damn hype. It’s a damn human with tails — a fake fucking tail.”

Kirishima chuckled, placing his buffed arm around his shoulder. He joked how uptight his friend can be. Kaminari and Sero joined in this joke. It ended up a loud explosion of anger from the blond.

“Ochako-chan,” Asui spoke with her index finger near her mouth. “Where should we go next before Bakugo attracts more people with his shouting?”

Uraraka looked behind Asui to only see the boys crowding one another, laughing and joking about boy stuff. Then, the girls looked to their side to see a bunch of girls giggling and smiling at the boys.

Momo sighed, “Tsuyu-chan, I don’t think it’s Bakugo’s shouting is what’s attracting them…”

“Yep. It’s their damn good looks that’s attracting those girls. Is this what it means to be a firefighter?” Jiro jokes, taking a bite of a fry from Momo’s hand.

“Boi. Can’t blame them! Have you seen my man?” Mina creates love simp eyes on her boyfriend, Kirishima. She stared at his huge biceps and thick thighs.

“Ew! Stop undressing your boyfriend in front of us!” Uraraka retorts, creating fake gagging noises.

“Shut yo ass up! I know you are drooling over your broccoli over there!” Mina teases, gesturing at a certain green-haired who is calming down an intense-looking Bakugo at the moment.

She flinched, a sudden redness arose from her cheeks and stuttered, “Shut u—”

She stopped talking when Uraraka heard the glass behind her tapping. The brunette looked behind to see you smiling at her. You had your mermaid outfit on, it was complete with sea shells and pearls.

Uraraka’s eyes brightened in excitement and screamed your name, gaining the attention of her highschool friends. The brunette jumped and waved upon seeing your figure in the water.

“Guys! This is the friend I told you about!!” Uraraka introduced happily.

You looked over to see side to see a lot of people. You heard of Uraraka’s high school friends, she loved talking about them during breaks. You never anticipated that you’ll meet them right here and right now while you’re in water. Most of them were smiling and waving at you. Therefore, you returned their kind gesture with gratitude.

Bakugo Katsuki thought you look ethereal. He thought he saw a goddess in the waters of chlorine. The way your hair is spread out in the water, the way your tail compliments the silver hair you have, the way the light reflects beautifully on your hair, the way your skin looks so exquisite like ambrosia.

His eyes travelled up to your face, analyzing it like a math problem. The smile plastered on your face made his stomach feel things, which was a weird feeling for him.

He had a history of flings here and there, but never did he had this tingling feeling on his stomach.

“Gettin’ attracted to this beautiful woman, I see?” Sero teases, siding his eyes to see his composure.

“Mind your own damn business,” He retorted, clicking his tongue.

Sero only grinned, loving this new side of his friend. It’s legit not like everyday someone as proud and cocky like Bakugo to get infatuated by a girl in fake tails.

Uraraka did charades with her body, trying to ask your time out. You placed 10 fingers out, illustrating that you’ll be done at 10am then you’re free. Today’s not hectic for her actually. This mermaid show is the only job she has for the day.

The brunette clapped her hands while jumping, and she pointed at the area where the jelly fishes are, indicating that they’ll be exploring that place first. You gave her a thumbs up then breathe out, causing bubbles to form and created a heart.

She giggled, waving you a goodbye as you swam to the opposite side to greet other guests through the glass.

“Damn, Uraraka! You’ve got a hot friend! If I wasn’t dating Eijiro, sure as hell will I date her!” Mina giggled, causing Kirishima to pout at her comment. The pink-haired noticed and console her beloved with kisses and hugs, causing Bakugo to roll his eyes at this lovestruck moment.

The group walked across the jellyfish section, admiring each sea creature. The couples in the group were laughing and holding each other while pointing at the jellyfishes. The only single ones are Iida, Sero and Bakugo. This trio stuck together, being third wheels with the couples.

At first, Bakugo wanted to leave, but after seeing such an ethereal creature before his eyes; that gave him a reason to stay.

“So,” Sero began talking. “You and Miss Mermaid, aye?”

The blond rolled his eyes, “What about her?”

Iida karate-chop his arm towards Bakugo, pointing at him completely. “We saw how you looked at her!! There’s nothing wrong with being attracted to someone of the opposite sex! You should ask her out!”

“I don’t do relationships, and yall know that shit,” Bakugo scoffed, pushing Iida’s hand away.

Sero leaned forward a bit to punch his chest and said, “That’s what that red hunk said too,” He gestured at Kirishima, who has his buffy arms around Mina’s shoulders. “Yet, he’s such a simp for Mina right now.”

The blond was about to mention something till he heard such an alluring voice coming from behind. He snapped his head back to see you running towards them with a smile. His stomach dropped, seeing you in such a big jacket that emphasized your small frame. Your legs were bare in front of him, and he doesn’t even notice you have shorts thanks to the length of this jacket.

“Goodness! Your hair is still wet!!” Uraraka ran towards you with concern.

“Nah! That’s fine!!” You replied, reassuring her that this is fine.

The brunette grabbed your wrists, bringing you closer to the group. She introduced her boyfriend first, Midoriya Izuku. Then, she introduced her girl friends, who excitedly commented about how pretty you looked in the water. Lastly are the boys. She introduced these tall and intimidating-looking men to you.

You were a bit scared since their height can make your neck hurt — or maybe you were just really tiny…

Uraraka then brought you to the last person in the group. You looked up to see sharp eyes staring down at you. Your body flinched a bit with his gaze. As the brunette was introducing you to this blond, you had to fondle your fingers together while looking at the ground.

“Name’s Bakugo Katsuki,” He suddenly spoke, beating Uraraka to his introduction.

You bowed slightly, acknowledging his presence while keeping your head down. He isn’t exactly a new person to you. Him and his friends are pretty famous in the neighborhood.

Uraraka stared at you then at him then at you again. The latter got the picture so she giggled teasingly, catching your attention.

“What?” You asked, curious to why she’s suddenly laughing.

“Nothing,” She shook her head while giggling.

You were about to speak when she wrapped her arms around your arm, tugging you closer to her. You had a feeling she’s trying to change the subject, but she just keeps giggling and pulling you around.

You managed to look behind to only see the boys swarming around Bakugo, giving him a high-five and such. Your heart fluttered when his mouth turned into a sexy grin, such cockiness would usually turn you off, but with him? It makes your cheeks have that burning sensation.

His eyes suddenly snapped towards you. Holy shit. He caught you staring. You immediately snapped your head forward, trying to walk faster and away from him.

As the day goes by, the group toured around the Ocean Park. Some even got to tryout the scuba diving section in this park while others got to pet penguins and such. They did all the fun things presented by the park.

It was all fun and games to those people, but to you? It was a tiring experience.

The reason? Well, it’s simple really…it’s Bakugo frickin’ Katsuki.

Everywhere you go, his eyes follows. You can see his red orbs just staring at you through the glass while you watch fishes swim around. You would also side glance to see him gazing at you again.

As the sun begins to disappear from the sky, the group had to separate their ways. However, the funny thing is that Uraraka was supposed to bring you home, but she excused herself quite quickly and asked Bakugo to bring you home. This seemed way planned since she giggled loudly, almost as if she’s teasing me with something that not yet happened.

D-Did she just leave me with this hottie? You sweat, seeing her figure getting smaller and smaller from the distance.

“U-Um…you don’t have to bring me home…I can just take the train…” You stuttered, still not looking at him due to shyness.

He finally spoke. “You have a habit of not looking at people or sumthing, Shrimpy?”

You gulped, “U-Um…sorry…i-it’s just..umm…” How the fuck do you say that the reason why you can’t look at him is cause he’s too fucking hot for you. His presence alone is already making you shy.

Bakugo chuckled, “Got it, Shrimpy. C’mon my ride’s just here.”

He began walking while twirling his keys with his index finger and his other hand on his pocket. You followed him till he reached his car. As soon as he unlocked his car, he opened the door for you. This small action made your heart flutter once more.

His large frame suddenly leaned forward to put your seatbelt on. Your heart dropped, seeing how close he is to your own body.

As he retracted from your body, his fingers traced your thighs. You flinched, not knowing if he’s doing this on purpose or by accident. Your throat released a big gulp, subconsciously crossing your legs and holding the strap of belt.

When he entered the car, he began driving to the destination. Holy fucking fuck. He’s driving with one hand while the other’s in the hand gear shift. You fondled with the strap again as you gazed upon his hand on the wheel. Each time he turns, you watched the veins on his hands just popped out.

“Nice digs…” You complimented his car, trying to strike a conversation to get rid of this awkward fucking silence. And well to be honest, you just want to hear his sexy voice.

He grinned, switching the position of his hands on the wheels. “You sure know how to fucking compliment a man.” His reply made you blush once more, reddening your cheeks more.

“So where ‘m taking ya, Shrimpy?”

“U-Umm…to XXX-XXX…please.”

His eyebrow arched, remembering that area recently got into a fire accident. He was a part of that mission, and he vaguely recalled that experience. It was pretty hectic and dangerous, the most dangerous he has ever experienced. He even thought he was gonna die while saving the citizens inside.

“You ought to be careful there. I recently rescued people from a fire accident around your area, ya hear me?”

Your head snapped towards him, he finally caught your attention. “Rescue..? You’re a firefighter, right?”

He scoffed playfully, “What gave that shit away?”

“I actually saw you once in action! The building was literally collapsing yet you managed to carried out 5 people on your back!!” You replied with such amazement, recalling how brave and heroic he looked when he exited the building.

Now this piqued his interest. “Ho? You saw me once, huh?”

You can only nod excitingly. You rambled — well more on praised his heroic performance since you only saw that type of shit in TV. Experiencing an event like that in real life just makes the experience a whole lot better. Your respect for firefighters just deepened since it must be very hard walking onto those flames to save people.

“How do you do it?” You had to ask, curious with his lifestyle as a firefighter. He only stayed silent, not sure what you were implying.

“Like…how do you just walk into fire to save them? It takes a lot of mental strength to do that, you know? And is your job just running inside the burning house? Are there other jobs? Are you required to learn stuff from the medical field? What happens if—” You stopped talking when he laughed loudly.

You tilted your head in confusion, trying to recall if you said anything funny. “What’s so funny?”

He shook his head, trying to catch his breath. “Nothing! The conversation I usually have with girls are about getting my phone number and sex. But you?” He looked at you for a brief moment then back at the road. “You asked about my job?”

“Not everything’s about sex!” You retorted. “Besides, I was just really curious about it, you know? It still really amazes me how you managed to save people in a collapsing building…”

Batump…

Bakugo stared at the road blankly, not expecting this type of conversation with a girl. It was no lie when he mentioned that girls are only after his number and sex. This was the first time someone asked him about…well…him.

The blond knew he’s self-worth. He knows that he can attract ladies with his charms and looks. All he had to do is glance to their direction as he flex his muscles, and the girls come to him.

You tilted your head when he chuckled, perplexed with what he’s laughing on. You were about to ask till he began explaining the basics and strategies. He elucidated everything so well, that it felt like a lecture at this point. This alone indicates how he loves his job.

You smiled at his rambling, and you continued asking questions. He answered them quickly, trying to contain his excitement which ended up as a fail to be honest.

This went on till he finally drove you home.

Bakugo parked his car, veering the gear shift to its parking mode. You removed your seatbelt and fixed the strap of your bag on your shoulders. You were about to open the door when he did it for you.

As soon as the door opened, your heart skipped a beat from this gesture.

“Ya comin’ or what?” He rasped, placing his palm in front of you.

You nodded, colliding your fingers with his fingers first. Then, you slowly guided your fingers to his palm. The blond reacted by slowly closing his hand while you reacted the same way.

You giggled a bit, “Didn’t depict you to be a gentleman.”

He scoffed, closing the door and lock his car. “Was that supposed to be an insult, dumbass?”

“Take it how you want it…”

He arched his brow, holding your hand a bit tighter. The goosebumps traveled up your body, not expecting the sudden aggression from him.

Holy ravioli cheesecake macaroni….The burning sensation is back on your cheeks. It’s only know you realized how rough and calloused his hands are. Moreover, they were warm which made you feel cozy. And goodness, his hands were fucking big. You can’t even almost see your hands anymore, just the tip of your fingers.

“U-Um…thanks for bringing me home, Bakugo-kun…” You broke the silence.

“No problem.”

You slowly loosen the grip on his hand, indicating that you need to leave. He got the idea and slowly loosened his grip as well. You were a bit — no, you were really sad that the warmth on your hand is gone.

“Uhh. Hey,” He suddenly spoke, placing one hand on his hips while the other is scratching the back of his neck.

“I ‘ont usually ask this type of shit, but wanna grab coffee with me or something?” He asked, looking away from your eyes with a mild blush.

You giggled. “What time and when?”

“Uhhh…tomorrow? After our shift?”

Your eyes went wide, not expecting to be that quick. You intentionally let out a huge smile, “That eager to see me?”

Bakugo flinched, getting irritated since he isn’t used to be teased on. “If you ain’t free then we can fucking just—” He stoped exploding when he heard you laughing.

Batump…

There it goes again.

Batump…

It’s the same beat and sound he heard while in the car.

Batump…

And suddenly, the world around him moved slowly. Background was blurry, but you were emphasized on his eyes. He clicked his tongue in annoyance, not understanding this new feeling. However, it’s a feeling he would want to feel again with only you.

“I would love to have coffee with you!!” You stopped laughing, wiping a happy tear from your eye.

Fucking shit. His heart skipped a damn beat again.

Many months has passed since your first meeting with Bakugo. Your cheeks still burn as ever when you see him while his heart beats faster and faster when he sees you.

The blond knew what the damn feeling was — love.

It took him months of declining, denying and refusing his feelings for you. He wanted to slap and choke his past self for waiting that damn long to be truthful with his feelings. As he mentioned, he doesn’t commit to a relationship because it’s tiring and time consuming. Hence why it was hard for him to conclude his end game with you.

Months ago, the blond had to consult with about Kirishima Eijiro, a former playboy, about his feelings. The redhead happily guided and counseled him about his concerns and worries. Though it was a painful moment for Kirishima since Bakugo kept denying it even further.

Mina was so close into smacking her blond friend for being so stupid, but Kirishima held his girlfriend back. He kinda wish he did not though….

Soon, it became too much to bear so Kirishima asked help from the rest of his friends to hopefully smack talk Bakugo through this.

“You’re complicated, you know that right?” Kirishima groaned loudly, putting on his firefighter suit.

Bakugo clicked his tongue in irritation, placing some equipment needed ok his suit. Iida shook his head in disapproval, “When will you finally come true with your feelings, Bakugo-kun?”

“I AM TRUE WITH MY FEELINGS!” He retorted, slamming his locker loudly.

“Really now? Denying your feelings for [Name] is your true feelings?” Kaminari sighed, removing his jacket and placing it inside his locker.

“I ain’t denying shit!”

Sero shook his head in disapproval. “C’mon, dude! I’ve seen the way you look at her. You have those twinkle twinkle stars on your eyes!”

“I fucking do not!”

“Hm. Leading [Name] on, Taking advantage of [Name], Cursing at [Name] out of no where, Does not apologize at first, Tries to win her back by apologizing, Plays around with girls, and cycle repeats,” Todoroki spoke, holding his chin with his slender fingers.

“….I believe that’s called a—” He continued speaking.

“—Red flag.” He snapped his fingers while looking at Bakugo.

Bakugo’s vein popped out on his forehead. “I AIN’T NO RED FLAG, ICYHOT!”

Todoroki tilted his head in confusion. “But according to this generation slang, you fit into the red flag category more rather than the green flag category.”

“You wanna fucking die, Half ‘n Half?”

Midoriya sweats, going in between an enraged Bakugo and a genuinely confused Todoroki. “Now! Now! Now! No need to get violent, Kacchan. I think what Todoroki-kun means is that you not being true with your feelings also breaks [Name]’s heart.”

The green-haired continued, “It’s obvious that [Name] likes you too yet you keep pushing her away with your mood swings. First, you were kind and gentle with her and next, you were cussing at her while making out with another girl. It’s a surprise that [Name] even stuck with you for so long. Kacchan, if you continue acting like this, you won’t even realize that she’s gone…”

“He’s right, bro…” Kirishima agreed. “Listen. Before Mina and I started dating, I didn’t realize that I love her so much till she stopped chasing after me. I’ve spent months having breakdowns and regrets when I didn’t choose to follow my heart to be with her. Don’t you remember what you told me during those months?”

Kirishima placed his finger tip on his chest. “Stop delaying shit. Just ask her out so I won’t have to worry for your dumbass.” The latter repeated the words Bakugo told him before.

Bakugo’s eyes only quivered, gulping down his throat as his fist clenched while thinking of you out of his reach.

A sweat dripped from Sero’s forehead so he sighed, “Alright then. Since you don’t like [Name], can I have her?”

The blond’s eyes went wild, grabbing Sero’s collar and pining him against the locker. “You wanna fucking die, Tape Face?”

Sero chuckled since he expected this reaction from him. “Seems like you found your answer, ain’t that right dumbass?”

He slowly loosen his grip on his collar, realizing his actual feelings with you. He fucking likes you. He began thinking why he keeps denying it — was it really his ego and pride to not date? If that’s the damn answer, he wanted to blast himself for being so stupid.

However, it was frustrating that it took a jealousy moment for him to realize. What’s even more annoying is that it was the one of his friends that riled him up.

“Yer fuckin’ annoying, damn it…” Bakugo cussed, glaring at Sero who’s grinning.

“To clear shit out, I ain’t after your girl. She’s yours. And it’s thanks to me your dumbass knows what you’re actually feeling.”

The blond rolled his eyes, “Shut up…”

Kirishima smiled, almost tearing up like a proud parent since his dumbass of a friend finally accept his feelings. He lunged at Bakugo, wrapping an arm on his shoulders with a smile. He laughed and ruffled through his hair, praising him which eventually made Bakugo annoyed.

Suddenly, the emergency alarm made a loud sound.

This signals that there has been a fire accident near by. It was their cue to roll out and get the job done. All of them got what they need from their lockers before slamming them shut. As they ran to their truck, Midoriya called for his friends.

“Guys…this fire emergency is actually happening in [Name]’s workplace….” He showed his messages of Uraraka spamming him to get his ass there and distinguish the fire.

Bakugo’s world stopped.

His pupils shrunk in fear, he can feel his body paling up as cold sweat dripped from his body. His body shivered slowly, feeling his gaze getting blurry. He clenched his fists as he practically sprinted to the truck.

His friends followed behind, jumping into their truck. Kaminari, their driver, stepped into the gas as the gate of their department opened. The rest began readying their equipment needed.

While doing so, Bakugo’s paranoia kept increasing. The negative thoughts of you in the fire is making him lose his mind. He even began thinking that he might not make it. An unfamiliar wetness began to form on his eyes, he was unsure what it is, but it was not a pleasant feeling.

As soon as they arrive, number of people were in the sidelines. The policemen were blocking their way, guarding the citizens while aiding the people who managed to get away from the fire.

Bakugo’s stomach dropped when he sees you not outside. He immediately saw Uraraka, crying and shivering with burns on her skin. The blond ran towards her and screamed, “ROUNDFACE! WHERE’S [NAME]!?!”

Uraraka faced him with lifeless eyes and pointed at burning flower shop.

He did not hesitate. He ran inside even with his crew mates yelling and trying to stop him. The blond ran through the blazing fire, rummaging through the debris. He sank deeper into the fire, the ashes covering his sight a bit. However, he soon saw a body lying down on the floor with wood crushing its body.

His eyes lit up in hope so he ran to that body. He began removing the heavy wood crushing the body. Soon, he cried in relief when he saw it was you.

Bakugo bent down, carrying your upper body against this thigh. His fingers removed the hair on your face, analyzing for injuries and others. When he confirmed you’re still breathing, he wanted to cry out of happiness. He lifted you up bridal style, carrying you out with caution.

Uraraka collapsed on the floor in relief when she saw you in Bakugo’s arms. The blond immediately brought you to their medic. He immediately removed his helmet to look at you properly. The latter held your cheeks with caution, shaking you a bit to wake up.

“HEY! Wake up! Oi! Wake up!” He yelled, still holding your cheeks.

“Bakugo! Move back!” Iida screamed, slamming the first aid down, and he moved closer to examine your condition.

The blond moved back, his eyes getting blurry again as that water sensation is back on his eyes. His hands found its way on his hair, gripping them like there’s no tomorrow. He watched as more people surround you, trying to stabilize your breathing and checking your pulse.

Kacchan, if you continue acting like this, you won’t even realize that she’s gone…

Bakugo can’t lose you. He just finally came true with his feelings. The blond began to shiver while a cold sweat surrounded his body. Everything was already a blur even sounds, it was only your body that was emphasized on his eyes.

Stop delaying shit. Just ask her out so I won’t have to worry for your dumbass.

Once again, he wanted to fucking blast himself for being so damn stupid. It took him months to realize that shit. Bakugo began regretting every pain he inflicted on you — the times when he got mad at you randomly, the times when he would degrade her in front of his flings, and the times when his mood swings got the best of him.

Tears dropped from his eyes, praying to God that he won’t take you. His tears didn’t stop when he saw no movement from you. With his blur gaze, he watched his friends run towards him in concern. They shook him, trying to snap him back to reality.

Soon, everything literally turned into a blur.

The rush to the hospital, the doctors inserting a needle inside you, the nurses checking your regulation was all a blur. Bakugo just went with the flow — wherever you went, he was there.

It’s been a whole day since the fire incident. You were sleeping on the hospital bed with IV fluid flowing inside your veins. The blond stayed by your side till the end, his knees popping up and down aggressively while his face is buried on his hands.

He prayed every second that you would wake up. He begged whatever God was up there to hear his prayers right now. He pleaded for a miracle to happen.

“B-Bakugo…?”

His head snapped forward to see your eyes open. His own eyes shone in joy, practically jumping from his seat. The blond tripped a bit, colliding his knee on the floor but didn’t seemed to care. He immediately tended to you first, holding your hand then your cheek.

“H-How are you..?” He asked, caressing your cheeks.

“I-I should be asking that…did you even sleep?” You chuckled, trying a bit harder to open your eyes more.

“I’m fine, don’t worry. Are you okay? Do you need anything?”

“Just thirsty…is there any water? Being in that fire got me so damn parched…” You joked, trying to lift his sad and mood. However in all honesty, it’s freaking you out a bit to see how sad and miserable he looks.

It’s not a bad thing or anything, but you were so used to see Bakugo so prideful and cocky. Seeing him in this state was a legit new thing for you.

With a lot of care and caution, he lifted your head a bit while bringing a glass of water near your mouth. A satisfied gulp engulfed you when you feel the wet sensation relieving your parched throat. You expressed your gratitude with the blond as he slowly placed your head down in the pillow.

“How bad was it?” You had to ask.

“Burnt to the ground. The Department even discussed that people living in that area should stay with someone else first. They decided that they should scout the area to investigate the cause. That fire accident was the 4th time this week.”

“I-Is that so?” You stuttered and uttered again. “Can you pass my phone? I’ll ask Uraraka if I can stay with her…”

Bakugo crossed his arms. “Um. About that…you’ll be staying with me…”

“I-Is that alright? I don’t want to intrude, especially if you’re bringing girls over…”

His eye twitched, cursing at you for being too kind. Not to mention, he finally became true with his feelings so the thought of other girls touching him became an unpleasant idea.

“It’s fine, you’re no—never a hinderance…I’ll consult with the nurse with your discharge…” He sighed, walking to the door to exit the room.

“W-Wait! At least tell me the price of the—” You didn’t finish your sentence since he closed the door already.

When he closed the door, Bakugo noticed Todoroki leaning on the opposite side of the door. His arms were crossed to his chest while his one foot is up in the wall, propping his knee out.

“You lied about the Department declaring that the people living in the area should stay with someone else…” He pointed out, grinning a bit to tease him.

The blond clicked his tongue, jaw clenched in annoyance as he looked away with a deep blush. “Shut the fuck up, Icy Hot…”

Afterwards, Bakugo finalized your bills and papers. The blond paid for everything already which annoyed you a bit. You were grateful that he took care of everything, but a heads up would be fucking nice. Throughout the day, he helped you with legit everything — from getting up from the bed to walking to his apartment.

As soon he settled you down on the sofa. He grabbed the remote to his smart TV, allowing you to pick any movie you want to watch. You shyly got the remote from his hand, but while getting it, his fingers traced your hand. With a gulp, you immediately retracted your hand from his.

He notified that he will be making dinner so he made his way to the kitchen. You can hear the sounds of knives across the kitchen. You can even smell the food he was making. It smelled really good which was no surprise since Bakugo was a good cook.

Later, he prepared the food on a plate and gave it to you on the sofa. You expressed your gratitude and began eating.

Bakugo took care of you for 3 days, attending to your needs. You didn’t ask for much though, you mostly sat on the sofa while watching movies. The blond did not let you do a single thing, he used your discharge from the hospital as an excuse.

“Bakugo, I’m feeling a lot better now…I think I should at least do something…” You said, feeling guilty that you are basically not doing anything.

“Not happening. You’re still—Stop using that as an excuse. I’m pretty sure I know when my own body is feeling fine. I missed work for 3 days since then! When will the Departement allow me to go back to my home?” You just had to ask.

“I lied about the Department…” He bluntly exclaimed, wanting to clarify that a long time ago.

Your eyes went wide. “W-What?”

“I-I lied about it because I became d-desperate…”

You took a deep breath, holding onto your sanity. “Desperate about what?” You questioned, trying to understand why he kinda kidnapped you for his own benefit.

“To be with you…”

You arched your brow. “To be with me?” You raised your voice a bit, crossing your arms to your chest.

“Y-Yes..fuck, I ain’t good with this, but I-I like you so I lied and some shit…” He confessed, looking down to the floor with a definite blush.

I like you. Those are the words you desired to hear. It’s no shock that you became the victims of love of Bakugo. The man has this charisma that you can’t avoid so you fell for him too. However, loving him was also your downfall.

The amount of times he has hurt you is never ending. All the sorries, the hope, the love became too much for you at some point. But, you were so lovesick for him so you forgave his sorry ass no matter what. You don’t care, you’ll do it over and over, even if he’s not a prince in your list.

This type of love has inflicted you pain so many times yet why you still looking for love?

“Bakugo, I get that you did this because you like me. I like you too, but…” You paused when you saw the light on his eyes.

“…I-I’m not sure if I want to be with you…”

His eyes widen as his shoulders tensed up in fear. He was about to speak, but you spoke first, “I like you, I really do, but I can never forget all the times you’ve hurt me. But, what really hurts me is when you kissed that girl in the party, what’s worse is when she degraded me, you did not do anything. How can I stay with a guy who wouldn’t put down his pride? How can you ensure that you’ll make me happy..”

Bakugo snapped, grabbing your forearms tightly and yelled, “I can make you happy!”

You chuckled, and a tear dropped from your eye. “Really? Because you’ve given me a lot of sad memories rather than happy ones.”

His face paled up, realizing the amount of times he has hurt you due to his ego. All those memories are finally getting back to him, it all flashed through him like the wind.

“I-I…” He stuttered, loosening his grip on your forearms. His hand slowly traveled down to your hands. He slightly touches your fingers, his head looking down in remorse.

“I’m sorry…” Those two words were short, but it held a greater context behind it. You can feel the sincerity with his words, it felt like every pain he has given you vanished. You shut your eyes for a moment, trying to decide an answer to his apology.

Should you listen to your brain and say that it’s over? It’s clearly a huge sign that he is a red flag in many aspects.

Or should you listen to your heart and give him another chance? It’s already a huge risk that you’re even speaking with him. Will he be worth it? Can attitudes and personality change?

You opened your eyes, already done deciding. So you spoke, “Bakugo.”

His breath hitched, holding your fingers tighter.

“It’s stupid, but I’ll give you another chance. However, you must work for it. I do like you, but I want to see effort first. I’m quite traditional so forgive me for asking such, but I need to see if you truly like me or this is just a fling of yours,” You confessed which gave him a spark of hope.

He smiled, his fingers holding your entire hands and bringing it up to your chest. “I’ll take it!!” He yelled enthusiastically.

You arched your brow, a chuckle left your mouth. “Just to let you know, I won’t make it easy for you. I’ll show you my flaws, my bratty attitude, and my own red flags. Let’s see how you’ll handle that, just like how I handled yours. Now, don’t look so relief just because you know I like you.”

He looked surprised for a moment, but his expression turned into an excited look. “That’s fucking fine. Ya can be as mean as you want to be, but ‘m fucking winning ya back.”

You scoffed playfully, “Please. I’m sure you won’t even last a damn day with my attitude.”

Bakugo grinned, his eyes burned with sensation, “Game fuckin’ on.”

ˏˋ°•*⁀➷ possible continuation? or leave it as an open-ending for all?

#katsuki bakugo mha #bhna bakugou #boku no hero fanfic #boku no hero academia #my hero academia #bakugou katsuki x reader #bakugo x you #bakugo katsuki x reader #bakugou katsuki #bakugo x reader #bakugou x reader #katsuki bakugo x reader #bakugou x you #bakugo angst #bakugo fluff #katsuki bakugou x reader #bakugou x y/n #firefighter

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imnameimswrld · 1 year ago

Text

╰┈➤ ❝ [𝐂𝐚𝐤𝐞 𝐁𝐲 𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐎𝐜𝐞𝐚𝐧 || 𝗢𝗣𝟴𝟭 ꒱꒱

━━ ❪ . . . oscar x verstappen!surfer!reader ❫

━━ ❪ . . . description : freshly surfing world champ, yn goes to take some much needed time off, and starts her vacay off by attending the miami grand prix. her intention was to support her big bro, but it appears a certain papaya driver had other plans; ❫

━━❪ . . . smau ! ❫

━━❪ . . . warnings : none ❫

━━❪ . . . fc : caroline marks ❫

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

ynverstappen

liked by maxverstappen1, oscarpiastri, and 767 224 others

ynverstappen world champion, blessed, thank you to the beautiful cali waves 🌊🏆

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user so well deserved, congrats yn !

bestfriend you were WICKED on the waves girl !!

maxverstappen1 let's gooo, congrats sissy ♡

⤿ ynusername couldn't have you being the only world champ in the fam, now could I ? 😋

⤿ maxverstappen1 no, no you just couldn't 😤

user the verstappen siblings are just legendary

user so with the break coming up, will we see yn at the next grand prix 👀 ?

⤿ user plus the next ones in miami, super close to cali, so 🤞 !!

oscarpiastri congratulations yn, coolest world champion ever 👏🥇

[ liked by ynverstappen ]

user and if I said yn and oscar would be SO cute together ?

Boeta 🏎

hey sissy

where r u ?

Sissy 🌊

chillin'

what's up ?

Boeta 🏎

no, I mean where r u

you said you were gonna be the paddocks when I got back from my meeting ?

Sissy 🌊

oohhhh

well, I am in the paddock

just not yours

Boeta 🏎

what ?

yn, are u hiding in dani's closet again to scare him ?

Sissy 🌊

ahhh, good times

but nope, I'm in the mclaren paddocks

Boeta 🏎

is lando talking your ear off again ?

Sissy 🌊

nah, lol

I'm uh, actually with chilling with oscar

Boeta 🏎

piastri ?

since when are you guys on chilling level

Sissy 🌊

since he asked me out to dinner later

[read]

Boeta ?

uhhhh, boet ?

[read]

ynverstappen

liked by redbullracing, schecoperez, and 977 335 others

ynverstappen soooo good being back in the paddocks, thanks so much for having me redbullracing – and ofc, congrats boeta on p1 ! 💙

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user soooo, did anyone else see the video of oscar and yn walking around together ??? dude had the dopiest smile on his face too 😭

redbullracing you're practically family yn ! 💙

[ liked by ynverstappen ]

user 2 champs 🏆

danielricciardo thanks for not scaring the crap out of me this time yn :)

⤿ ynverstappen ah, there's always next time dan 😄

⤿ danielricciardo no no, pls don't.

mclaren hope you had a wonderful time at the race yn ! 🧡

⤿ redbullracing are you going to apologize for stealing her from out paddocks ?

⤿ mclaren are we supposed to ?

⤿ oscarpiastri of course not.

⤿ maxverstappen1 thin ice piastri, watch it.

user uhhh, not redbull and mclaren battling it out over yn 😭

user my yncar ship is HERE BDJEHZIS

oscarpiastri just added to their story !

[ caption 1: stolen forever maxverstappen1 🤚 ; caption 2: 🧡 ]

Boeta 🏎

oscar is really bold

Sissy 🌊

oh, I know 😁

it's one of the many reasons why I like him

Boeta 🏎

so you like him then ?

like, really like him ?

Sissy 🌊

yeah, I do boeta

Boeta 🏎

okay then...

invite him to the lunch tomorrow

Kelly has been dying to see the two of you together

Sissy 🌊

she's so prescious I love her

and thanks boeta, for being cool with all this

Boeta 🏎

hey, i may be protective, but who am I to tell you who you can and can't date sissy

Sissy 🌊

🥺🥺 , houd van je 💙

Boeta 🏎

mhm, hou ook van jou 💙

ynverstappen

liked by oscarpiastri, kellypiquet, and 878 301 others

[ tagged: oscarpiastri ]

ynverstappen had some cake by the ocean with my papaya boy... p.s yes, the cake he bought me brought me to tears 🍰 🧡 🌊

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user BYE I'M GONNA GO CRY IN A DITCH SOMEWHERE

user stop that cake is so cute 😭😭

oscarpiastri I'm just happy to call you mine, liefie :)

⤿ ynverstappen and I'm just as happy to be your liefie ❤

⤿ maxverstappen1 not the dutch- ya'll gonna make me puke.

⤿ kellypiquet max, stop bullying your sister and oscar and go clean the litter boxes dammit

⤿ ynverstappen oohhh, mother is mad now boet, better get to it then 😄

⤿ maxverstappen1 you're staying in my house.

⤿ ynverstappen says who ? I'm staying at oscar's – plus, you know how I love the aussie waves

[ liked by oscarpiastri ]

⤿ maxverstappen1 yn verstappen istg... girl gets a bf and thinks she's the shit.

⤿ kellypiquet MAX.

⤿ maxverstappen1 I'M GOING.

user can I make this comment section my roman empire ?

user I'm laughing and crying rn, this is too funny

#f1 imagine #f1 #f1 fanfic #f1 x reader #oscar piastri #max verstappen #red bull racing #mclaren #oscar piastri x reader #oscar piastri x you #oscar piastri fanfic #oscar piastri f1 #oscar piastri fluff

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eliashirsch · 8 months ago

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God Tier Top Gun Fanfictions. A Masterlist. (1/3)

As of 15th May 2024, these are some of the BEST stories I have read in the fandom. Of course, this is completely subjective and there are many personal factors as to why I crowned them God Tier.

Mainly:

Reading it for the first time: ‘Oh, this is really good, I’m going to be thinking about this for the rest of my life’

When compiling the list: ‘Oh my god, this fic, man, this fic!!’

There are many other fics that match the first criteria, but for it to be on this list, I needed to have these two reactions.

REMINDER! READ THE AUTHORS' TAGS AND WARNINGS!!! They’re there for a reason. PLEASE make sure you understand where the story is going to be before reading!!

Without further ado, I present to you, my roman empires:)

Winner Categories:

1. Best of the Best Authors (1/3)

2. Best of the Best Series (2/3)

3. Best of the Best Fics (3/3)

4. Honorary Mentions (4/3)

Best of the Best Authors

Authors that I trust with my life, whose work are ALL incredibly well written.

COMPACFLT @compacflt

They’re the first person to pop in my head when I was thinking about making this list. No amount of time and words will be enough for me to describe how good their work is. Seriously. It’s on a level I’ve never seen before for fanfiction. The world building, the characterization, the prose, everything. COMPACFLT has a way of understanding these characters, it makes so much sense and fits so well with canon. I’m just at a loss for words. Genuinely the reason I converted to Icemav supremacy.

When We Get Around to Talking About It

Goose has been dead for a week and a half when Iceman loses his first wingman in a dogfight with six Soviet MiGs over the Sea of Okhotsk. Goose has been dead for thirty years when Iceman loses his second wingman to a surface-to-air missile on the tail-end of a mission he's responsible for: he's sent his family on a suicide mission to destroy a uranium enrichment facility in Russia's Far East. This is the story of those thirty years in the middle. (Or: Tom Kazansky rises through the ranks while trying to stay a good man. If he ever was one to begin with.)

This was the first story I’ve read from them. And it’s so… I don’t have words. It’s told from Ice’s perspective, filling the gaps between TG and TG:M with added Icemav and Hangster. In my mind this is canon:D

Debriefing (& Other Stories)

"We can start here, I guess. If we're talking about us," Pete says. "Nineteen-eighty-six. The first thing I thought, when I saw you in that O-club, was: Iceman is off-limits. Capital O, capital L." Despite himself, despite the fear, Tom laughs a little. "Oh, yeah? Why's that?" "Well, first off, we were competition. And yeah, you were attractive, but then you opened your mouth and I swear. You were just an asshole. Goose is trying to introduce you to me and here I am thinking about how much of an asshole you are. Shut up about Cougar, asshole." "It was supposed to be a friendly competition!" "Yeah, right. So that's what I was thinking: he's attractive, clearly doesn't know how to talk to other men, might be into the proposition if I framed it the right way. But he's an asshole, so this competition is just gonna be friendly." Pete pauses. Then he says, "Ice, you wanna get married?" And that's how they start talking about it. (Or: they finally get around to talking about it. Plus a couple extra stories for good luck.)

Sigh and send COMPACFLT a loving look. This Maverick's POV adds so much to the story without being repetitive. COMPACFLT deliberately tells their story like puzzle pieces, and they complete each other—just like Icemav, if you will.

The Slider oneshot is truly something else. I was so eager for the upload and kept an eye on their account for updates religiously. To flesh out a character that barely has any source material is an incredible skill to have. And the Bradley oneshot… Omg… My favorite characterization of Bradley, period.

Tremors & Aftershocks

They both come back to their senses and stop openly crying again eventually. The stitches fall out of the thirty-year-old wounds and the scars fade back to skin-color. Life stops being so painfully raw after a couple weeks back home. You get used to miracles the way you get used to anything else. One day at a time. [Or: 40 years of extras, from 1982-2022. Some true love, some heartbreak, some miracles.]

To me, this one has a different feeling from the other two. More focused on Ice and Mav’s relationship as opposed to the whole plotline. It’s tender and bittersweet and feels like being hugged for the first time and then told that you wouldn’t get another hug in thirty years time.

What impresses me most is that, if you go to COMPACFLT’s Tumblr account, you’ll see the thought they’ve put for these stories are INSANE. They’re so educated on the military and its history and it adds so much to these characters. I’m not American and all my writing for Top Gun will always stem from google searches and other fics. If you’re a nerd like me and like to read about other’s analysis about topics they know nothing about, I suggest you go to their account and have fun.

COMPACFLT, you have captured my soul with your writing. Thank you for your service and I wish you well in life.

AortaArgent @aortaargent

If you’re looking for an author who can write smut like nothing else, go to their profile. Better yet, click here, and scroll down to the threads they made about girl!Mav and get horny real quick. It’s a shortcut to heaven really. (And yes, I’m still upset that they seem to have left the fandom, but I still hold the stories they’ve left behind close to my heart:)) My favorites:

like a shotgun (needs an outcome)

“Ice gave me a handjob when we did this,” he argues. “Oh, that’s what gets you moving? Seeing who comes first?” With that, Slider takes hold of him, wrapping his hand around and keeping his fist steady. “Go on, baby girl. Fuck it like a good little -” He squeezes Slider’s balls a little harder than he’d imagine is necessarily pleasant. For Slider. It's definitely nice for him. “Fuck,” Kerner chokes out, weakly. Ice sounds like he’s trying not to laugh. “I told you he bites.” In which there are multiple realisations, improbable numbers of pilots hanging out in a shared shower, volleyball games and verbal tennis. Yes, it's compulsory to wear your dogtags in the shower - never know when you could need identification. (Only kidding, it's for added fuckability.)

It’s so hot... but believable at the same time. BDSM is just one of those things where you read about it and can tell if the author has experience or is just extremely well-informed.

Eye to Eye

“Maybe it’s not just us looking to get a piece of you,” Wolf says. He’s right by Maverick’s head, and a shiver rolls down his shoulders in a sweeping tide at the soft click of each word against his ear. “Maybe we offered. You’re so pretty, Mav. It’s not a hard sell.” His hands twitch with the effort of not reaching up to tear off the blindfold and find out if they’re telling the truth or just winding him up. It’s possible. Occupied, blindfolded, he might not have noticed the door opening. More guys could have been in the showers. Two hands circle his ankles, firm over his boots, and hold him steady. Someone else has his left hand, kneading the tendons down the back of it. Anyone and anything is plausible. A continuation. Finally.

HOT DAMN. That’s all.

AortaArgent portrayed Ice and Mav’s relationship as absolute and secure while having fun with Mav’s dynamic with the other guys. All of their works are mind-boggling and simply amazing!

thecarlysutra @icemankazansky

Need I say more? Carly’s one of the most prominent members of the Top Gun fandom. Actually, I trust any member of the Top Gun Old Guard. With Carly, there’s something about their writing that makes me think of discovering an old box of CDs you used to watch relentlessly, dusty and worn, but the nostalgia rushes back and it’s achingly familiar. You can tell they’ve been writing for Top Gun for so long the characters kind of became their own. And when you click on any fic they wrote, you can fall and trust they’ll catch you. My favorites:

and i promise, you're the locksmith

“Is something going on in your neighborhood?” Maverick asked. “Like … a pest problem or something?” “You could say that,” Ice said. “Like … a coyote or something?” “Suitors,” Ice said. Maverick's attempts to woo Iceman are somewhat complicated by the promise Ice has made: Anyone who wants to marry him must catch his cat, which wears the key to his house around its neck on a silver chain. Inspired by the Tumblr legend.

This one’s so cute!!! Ugh, I’m never going to get tired of reading Icemav fall in love over and over again.

Dreams of Impact

Maverick's trip in Darkstar takes him further than he ever imagined possible.

Sigh for the second time and send hearts Carly’s way. Basically, Mav gets transported to another universe and weird things happen. I love fics that dabble with the universe, the what-ifs, the what could’ve been. Do you ever have that moment when you make a decision, look back and wonder how life would be if you chose differently? Click on the link and read 🫵

aelibia @topgunreacts

God. aelibia’s just too good. It’s like banger after banger after banger. If you’re looking for an author whose work is a guaranteed good read, click the link and it’ll show you magic. They have Icemav ranging from tender and soft to angsty, portraying all different sorts of love and a way of writing explicit sex that I’ve never found anywhere else.

I can’t even pick which one’s my favorite because they’re all my favorite. Especially the series they wrote, oh my god. I love them all. However, one that I reread religiously and being giddy over is this:

Wine Dark Sea

Raised by a selkie mother bound to a human man, Ice returns to the human world as a teenager with a singular purpose: to find the source of human strength, and claim it for himself. But after a careless mistake binds him to another human man, Ice is forced to reconsider his most fundamental beliefs: What is the meaning of strength? And what is the cost of freedom?

It’s so silly at times and heartbreaking most of the time. I especially love the later chapters where the evil is defeated and Ice is just being a silly seal while Mav’s being the supportive partner that he is. This fic is the SOLE REASON that my favorite animal is a seal. Thank you for opening my eyes to something that has been so obvious from the start, your majesty aelibia.

I also humbly present these seal drawings because the image of Ice galumphing around a Navy base, complete with wet smacks and people shrieking in horror makes me laugh everyday. That, and the scene where Mav is surrounded by four fat harbor seal pups and reading a story to them. Eleven out of ten.

This one’s my favorite:}

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justwhisperingfantasies · 1 month ago

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Always

Characters: -Reader - Dean Winchester - Sam Winchester- Bobby Singer- Emily- Town folk of Burkittsville. Mention of John Winchester.

Warnings: Fluff, Language,Talking on the phone while driving, Cannon Violence, Supernatural Spoilers,

Summary: What starts off as Dean ranting to his best friend turns into something more.

A/N: So, I just rewatched Scarecrow recently. This got stuck in my head and I had to get it out

Hope y'all enjoy it.

Please don't copy my work

Like, comments and reblogs are highly appreciated

If you would like to be added to my tag list click here

You could feel your eyelids getting heavy as the rain made a pelting noise on the windshield. Damn, it felt like Bobby’s kept getting further away. You rolled the window down and the radio up hoping the cold air with the sound of Zeppelin would help. Just as you started to sing along with the lyrics, worry crossed her face when her phone started to ring.

A smile spread across her face as she read the name. Flipping open the phone she bringing the phone to your ear you said “Well. Well, you calling to apologize for Tulsa Winchester?”

“There were lives at sake sweetheart. I had to.”

“Yeah, yeah.” You chuckled. “Not many girls would pick up the phone after being left blue balled and naked in a motel room.”

“Trust me, you’re not the only one that had blue balls.”

“Good.” you sneered making him chuckle.

“So, what’s my favorite girl up to?” he asked.

“Driving.”

“To?”

“Sioux falls”

“What’s in Sioux falls?”

‘A bed with my name on it?”

“You gonna share?”

“Maybe.” She teased.

“Come on you can’t stay mad at me forever.”

“I don’t intend to.”

“So, the how long do you intend to?”

“Until you're begging at my feet," you said with a playful tone, making him chuckle “Where are you?”

“Headed to Burkittsville, Indiana”

“For?”

“A case.”

“Obviously.”

He smiled. “Dad called this morning an.”

“Excuse me? Is he ok? Where is he? Why hasn’t he.”

“I was gonna get there darlin’” Dean said with a smile. “He’s in California. He said he’s ok, but it’s not safe for us to be with him right now. He’s going after the thing that killed mom.” He sighed. “He said it’s a demon.” You could hear his radio playing in the silence. “Of course they got into it. they always get into it.”

“Sam and John?”

“Yes, Because Sam can’t just trust Dad when he says something. He must know every little detail.”

“Not really a bad thing.”

He exhaled sharply. “If dad says it’s not safe it’s not safe,”

“I hear you, Go on.”

“I snatched the phone; I couldn’t take hearing them bitch anymore. Dad told me to write these names down. 3 couples all went missing, all from different states, none of them arrived at their destination, none of them ever heard from again.”

“And John thinks there’s something there?”

“Well, each one’s route took them through the same town.”

“Let me guess, Burkittsville?”

“How did you know?” he said sarcastically making you laugh. “And they all disappeared on the second week of April one year after another.”

“Dean! This is the second week of April!!”

“No shit smartass.” He laughed with you.

“So, John sent you guys to Indiana…”

“Yep.”

“So is Sam sleeping and you just needed someone to talk to?”

“Well,” He hesitated “Sam’s not with me now.”

“What happened?”

“We were on our way here. Sam was driving, we were going over the case, and he just started being Sam. Question everything little thing Dad said. He noticed Dad called from a Sacramento number. He tried to talk me into leaving the hunt and going after dad.”

“He did just lose Jess.”

“Yeah, he threw that in my face.”

“Dean.”

“Don’t Dean me. And you’re my best friend. You’re supposed to be on my side.”

“Dean, I am always on your side. I’m just suggesting to give the kid a break.”

“Yeah, I’ll give him a break alright.” you rolled her eyes. “Anyway. So, Sam and I get into it. He says he doesn’t understand why I always have to listen to Dad. Why I have so much blind faith in him.”

“Does he know about...”

“No.” he cut you off. “And the less people that know about me being a screw up the better.”

“Babe you were a kid.”

“Doesn’t matter.”

She sighed. “Alright. Continue.”

“He stopped the car and got out. Said he was going to California to find dad. I told him I wasn’t going. One. Another couple is probably going to die this week. We need to kill it before that happens. Two. if dad wanted our help, he would have told us to come to California. So, he gets all his stuff and storms off.”

“That’s it?”

“I might have said he wasn’t a good son,” he clicked his tongue, “and a selfish bastard.”

You sighed again. “Dean.”

“Would ya stop Deaning me. He isn’t acting like a good son, and he is a selfish bastard... sometimes. People are gonna die.” He huffed. “I told him I would leave. He didn’t care, he kept walking. He said that’s wHaT I wAnT yOu tO Do.” You couldn’t help but smile at his mocking tone. “So, I said goodbye got in my car and drove off.”

“Do you want my advice?”

“I’d rather you tell me I was right.”

“Do you think you were right?”

“Yes, I have to save these people.”

“Maybe Sam knows you can handle this, so he went to go get the answers he needs.”

“Yeah, I guess I don’t know what it’s like to lose someone like that. I couldn’t imagine watching the girl I love burn on the ceiling. The mere idea of his best friend on the ceiling caused a sensation of unease in his stomach.

“You’d have to actually love someone first Dean,”

“Maybe I do.”

You rolled her eyes again, “Doubtful.” He stayed silent.

“Deanie.”

“I told you not to call me that.”

“Deanie,” he rolled his eyes with a smile. “I think you should call him.”

He scoffed. “Right. That’s not happening.” She signed. “How close are you to that bed?”

“Pulling in now.”“About 10 mi .”

“Good. I don’t need you falling asleep at the wheel.”

“Awe look at you all worried about me.”

“Always sweetheart.” She smiled. “Enjoy your bed.”

“Sweet dreams babe.”

“Alright Bobby, it’s probably nothing, but I’ll check it out.” you yelled into the library as you watched the hamburger patties on the stove. “After lunch.”

“Here.” Bobby walked in holding your phone out. “Damn thing has rung like 7 times.”

“Thanks B.”

You flipped open the phone as it started to ring again. “Dean,”

“Don’t you ever do that to me again!” he scolded you. “I have called you like 10 times. I thought you were dead.”

“I’m sorry I was making food.”

“Well keep your damn phone in your pocket.”

“Alright Dad.”

“Don’t even you’d have my balls if you called 10 times, and I didn’t answer.”

You looked to see if Bobby was close. “Tell me more about me having your balls.”

“Don’t be cute right now. I’m pissed off.”

“I said I was sorry.” He sighed. “What do.”

“What the hell?” he exclaimed. “Hold on. My emf is going off.”

You could hear something ruffling “You, ok?”

“Yea. Just digging it out of my bag. I was driving though this orchard and this damn thing just started going off.”

“Maybe there’s something in the orchard.”

“Thanks Sherlock.” You smiled. “I’m gonna go check this out. Can you answer the phone when I call back?”

“Yes sir!” he laughed. “Dean, be careful. K?”

“Always am.”

“Hey pretty lady.” He said answering his phone.

She smiled. “Just making sure.”

“Awe look at you all worried about me.”

“Always Dean.”

He chuckled. “I was just about to call you. I got a pretty big lead.”

“Oh yeah?”

“Yeah, so I went and checked the orchard. Found this nasty looking scarecrow. Who happened to have the same tattoo in the same spot as the guy that went missing last year. I went back into town. Talked to the niece of the couple that owns the gas station. There was a car getting serviced there. A couple road tripping. They were at the bakery, so I went in had some coffee. Turns out they stopped for gas and the mechanic found something wrong with their break line. Said it would be fixed at sundown.”

“Hmm shady.”

“I know. It’s almost sundown now. I’m on my way there. Can I call you later?”

“Yes. I planned on staying up any how.”

“What are you doing.”

“Tracking a shifter I think.”

“Babe.” He warned.

“Don’t worry I already called for reinforcements.”

“Just please be careful.”

“Always.”

“Dean?” She answered her phone with a groggy voice

“Heya sweetheart. Did someone doze off?”

“No, just resting my eyes,”

He chuckled. “So, the fucking scarecrow came to life.”

“Well, I saw that one comin’.” She retorted “Everyone ok?

“Yes, you’re such a grump when you wake up.”

“I am when someone wakes me up.”

He chuckled “Well I’m sorry princess you said you’d be awake.”

“So, a couple, every year, Scary ass scarecrow.”

“And they were just stuffing this couple full of food while they were fixing their car.”

“So, you thinkin some kind of God?”

“Yup. Sounds like a Pagan God to me.” He yawned. “I’m gonna call the university first thing in the morning. See if I can get an appointment with this professor.”

“Have you heard from Sam?”

“Nope.”

“Maybe you should call and see how he’s doing.”

“Maybe. In the morning. I am beat.”

“You called me.”

“Didn’t wanna hear about it if I didn’t.”

“Whatever Winchester, Get some sleep.”

“Night sweetheart”

“Hey.”

“I talked to Sam.”

“You talked to Sam?”

Yea. And that professor got me in. I’m on my way there right now.”

“Awesome. How did it go with Sam?”

“Darlin’, Why are you whispering?”

“Found the shifter.”

“Are you kidding me?! why did, never mind just call me back and be careful"

"Always."

“Hey there...”

“Sam, have you talked to Dean?” You asked frantic

“Earlier. Is everything ok?”

“Well, he told me to call him back, now he’s not answering.”

“Maybe he’s still at the college.”

“I don’t know Sam I got a bad feeling.”

“Let me try I’ll call you back.”

“Sam. Its been 3 hours. I’m on my way there.”

“Me too. I should have listened you to earlier.”

“Its fine. Can you get there before sundown?”

“Yea I think so.

“There’s an orchard.”

“I know we’ll meet there.”

It was just after sundown; you had just pulled up to the orchard when your phone started to ring. “Sam, where are you?”

“Right here I see your car.” Sam walked up, you tossed your phone and grabbed your shotgun. You got another out of your trunk and handed it to Sam. “Let’s go.”

“Do you have a plan?” a quivering Emily asked Dean.

“I’m working on it.” Dean said, He looked around not be able to see much with his hands tied above his head. “Can you see? Is the scare crow moving yet?”

“I can’t see.” Emily said. “Wait what’s that?”

“Dean?” Sam yelled.

“Sam.” You walked around the tree to untie Dean while Sam stood guard. “Heya sweetheart.”

“Thought you didn’t like being tied up?”

"I don’t.” he stayed serious “Come on that scarecrow can come to life any minute.”

“Uh What scarecrow?” Sam asked Dean.

You passed your gun to Dean and headed over to free Emily. Taking her hand, you joined the guys. Just as you were about to leave the orchard, five more guns pointed at your group. Dean lowered your weapon. “We’re outnumbered, Sam. Just put it down.” Sam complied with hesitation.

“Please let us go.” Emily begs.

“It will be over soon.” Her uncle tells her. A scythe suddenly slices through his chest. Emily lets out a scream and clutches your shoulders, burying her face into your back. The scarecrow drags her aunt and uncle away while the screams echo all around.

Dean pulls you along, urging, “Let’s move!” He takes off running, and the four of you dash to the road.

“Never a dull moment with the Winchesters.” you say, catching your breath. Dean pressed a kiss to your cheek and pulled you into a warm embrace.

You flopped down on your bed after finally making it back to the motel. Just when you closed your eyes, there was a knock on the door. “It’s open!”

“Seriously? You’re just gonna leave the door unlocked and not even check who it is before inviting them in?” Dean said with a grin.

“Eh, I’ve got a shotgun nearby. I’m all set.”

You kept your eyes shut feeling his weight on you as he nuzzled his head on your chest.

“You were worried about me today. So much that you drove 10 hours.”

“Don’t flatter yourself Winchester. I was in Burlington. More like 3 and a half”

“You love me.” He chuckled as you let out a hefty sigh. He raised his head and rested his chin on your chest. You cracked your eyes open a bit, catching a glimpse of his bright green eyes. “You know I love you too, right?"

Tag List

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@barnes70stark

@wonderland2022

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@hobby27

@madebyhappymeals

@hunter-or-the-hunted

@nancymcl

#supernatural #dean winchester #spn reader insert #dean x reader #dean x you #spn #spnfandom #dean fanfiction #supernatural fic #supernatural fanfiction #supernatural dean #dean w #dean #sam and dean #sam winchester

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crazedear · 1 month ago

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Arcane Timebomb fanfic recommendations

Omg! Look who's back after months of inactiveness on tumblr? Honestly I feel like I'm only coming back here after I find smth new to obsess over and need to satiate my cravings for content. It happened with staticradio, and now... TIMEBOMB??

I know I am not the only one who's mind have been taken over by this particular ship after the finale of Arcane season 2. It's one of those ships where its basically canon, but just the confirmation isn't enough to satisfy our hearts without the content along with it.

There is SO many fanarts out already (I am not complaining one bit) and although the Jinx x ekko tag has been growing exponentially on ao3, I haven't seen a lot of recent fanfic recommendation posts yet and I want to change that.

As always, please feel free to recommend me any other fanfic that you think can be added to the list! I want this list to be fully open to those who want to contribute.

To all the times I've dreamt of you

Written by: timebomblover (sibzzz)

Rated T

Words: 1,713 (Oneshot)

In the aftermath of tragedy, Ekko is left haunted by the memory of Jinx—his lost love, his greatest regret, and his deepest mystery. As grief consumes him, the signs begin to appear—whispers in the shadows, echoes in forgotten places, and fragments of a past he refuses to let go of. Could she still be alive? Or is his mind unraveling beneath the weight of what he’s lost? In a journey through pain, obsession, and hope, Ekko searches for the truth, ready to do anything to find out if his lover is truly out there somewhere.

Sunbeams

Written by: Multimousefanatic

Rated T

Words: 5,969 (Complete - Chapters 2/2)

If there had been any doubt in her mind before he said those words, it disappeared faster than Sevika’s arm. “Is that what all this is about? You want to forgive me?”

Like It's the Last Time

Written by: Zeezeepearl

Rated T

Words: 3,727 (Oneshot)

Jinx returns to Zaun, seeking Ekko's help. She has unfinished business, and he has very little time.

Got All Of Your Insides?

Written by: Lunar_Angel

Rated T

Words: 5,597 (Ongoing - Chapters 2/3)

Powder, Vi and Ekko have their last proper conversation. Powder and Ekko finally come clean about some long pent up feelings.

Hold me right here

Written by: kimekosu

Rated T

Words: 6,271 (Oneshot)

Ekko coped with her death by forcing himself to dream of his memories of her. Some were painful, while some reminded him of why he fell for her in the first place.

Then unexpectedly, the Anomaly popped into one of his dreams, offering him a chance to teleport himself right into a memory, where he could possibly alter her fate.

The Heart of Zaun

Written by: 1ts_Br1tney_B1tch

Not rated

Words: 25,286 (Ongoing - Chapters 6/?)

Silco felt wrath, pride, and respect battle within him as he witnessed the small band of Firelights—only 5 members strong, and not much older than children judging by their size—decimate his men and destroy yet another shipment of shimmer. Thousands of gold cogs wasted, money that would have been used to build his empire until it could stand against Piltover's council, and yet as he watched the green streaks through the sky, he couldn't help but think these Firelights were Zaunite to their core. These young rebels embodied the spirit of Zaun almost as much as his own daughter, Jinx.

He glanced down at her now, only to pause at the still expression on her face. Her gaze tracked one of the masked figures unerringly—the leader, if Silco was reading their dynamics right—eyes just a bit too wide, and her fingers twitched by her side. He'd seen her get like this before, when she was confronted with her past.

She knows him.

An idea begins to take shape in Silco's mind.

Or: Silco wants to recruit the Firelights. Too bad they hate his guts.

Genius and Madness

Written by: Malbec

Rated T

Words: 6,266 (Ongoing - Chapters 5/?)

Once Ekko comes back from the alternate universe, he meets Jinx again, only to find her in the verge of suicide. How can he convince her to keep living and stay to create a new life? What did Jinx and Ekko do next?

Taking a leap forward (means leaving a few things behind)

Written by: thefifthchris

Rated T

Words: 12,491 (Ongoing - Chapters 5/9)

Time slows. Four seconds. Ekko shouts. Something is wrong. There’s no time to think. Heimerdinger jumps out of the singularity, and, in his place–

Powder takes the leap.

In another timeline, Piltover tries to rebuild. No Hexgate, no fancy Hextech, nothing. Vi is familiar with this: raw labor, strength as its own language, sweat dripping between her shoulder blades. No, she thinks. There is no time to mourn.

A tale of two sisters. Even worlds apart, they'll still always find each other.

Powder & Ekko (& Timebomb) Collections

Written by: Rhyagelle

Not rated

Words: 158,197 (Ongoing - Chapters 48/?)

This is a collection of various Powder and Ekko themed flashbacks/stories, ranging from one-shots to multi-parts or full part chapters. There will be chapters dealing with just one of them or the other, as well as any kind of Timebomb content (meaning, chapters with both of them, together). It's to dig into the very adorable and dorky friendship the two very clearly possessed, as well as what might have been like for them during their childhood, before everything turned to shit. And yes, if it's not clear, there will be Ekko x Powder! It's just not the ONLY focus (but it is in my heart <3).

(I didn't find this fanfic myself and I actually got it from @lady-griffin's Timebomb recommendation post from 2 years ago. This was just one of my favs from their list I just had to include it in a more recent post so more people can see it. Please go check out her own list)

The Risk of Fall

Written by: Sapphic_Jezus

Rated T

Words: 9,891 (Ongoing - Chapters 2/?)

“Vi.” Mylo or Claggor—it doesn’t matter who—speaks up, and Vi turns to them, her panic spilling into the room.

“We can’t just leave her,” Claggor says evenly, his voice steady as a rock. He meets her eyes, unflinching. “She’s not safe here either. If they come for her…”

Or; What if they didn't just leave Ekko and Powder behind?

I know, I know, It's very short, dont come for me. I'm tryna focus on quality more than quantity yall, gimme time to load up my arsenal!

Anyways yeh! feel free to recommend me stuff to add, it can be anywhere, from ao3, wattpad, fanfic.net, etc. go crazy.

#timebomb #jinx arcane #jinx #ekko #ekko arcane #ekkojinx #arcane #ao3 fanfic #fanfic rec #fanfiction #ao3fic #ao3

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adinfernumadinfinitum · 2 months ago

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Welcome to my silly little fan theory @emmg:

How Raphael is the ‘Mastermind’ behind the plot of Baldur’s Gate 3…

…or how I give him more importance than I should.

DISCLAIMER:

In this ‘dissertation,’ I present my take on things based on Dungeons and Dragons 5e lore from the Forgotten Realms universe, along with fandom theories and headcanons where they suit me. This is NOT an in-depth analysis of anything, so I won’t be reciting specific quotes, etc.

I repeat, this is just MY take on things. If a similar theory already exists, feel free to reach out, and I’ll gladly tag the material!

Oh, and there are a lot of spoilers about, well, everything, so read at your own risk ⚠️

I thank the lovely @bitethedevil for allowing me to tag their posts, making it easier on me so I don’t have to write everything out! I also want to take this moment to appreciate their work and contributions to this fandom! ☺️

Introduction

Baldur’s Gate 3 is a brilliant, complex, multi-layered game filled with multiple villains, heroic figures, and a plot that weaves players in seamlessly. That’s why we love this game—at least, that’s why I do—the gripping storyline and its faceted characters.

The game is set in the Forgotten Realms with DnD lore and rules, while still adding and maintaining its own unique features and twists.

But what if we entirely take a look at it from DnD lore perspective?

Section 1: Raphael as the core character in Baldur’s Gate 3

Fans of the Emperor might argue with me here, but oh man, have you seen how many pies Raphael has his fingers in?

This narcissistic little shit of a cambion plotted his grand design to take the Crown of Karsus for over 2,000 years, planning everything with terrifying precision and putting in a staggering amount of effort—all to manipulate Tav or Durge into giving him the crown.

To understand just how far back his scheming goes, we have to start with the fall of Netheril. As Raphael himself tells us, this is where it all began, and when his father seized the crown, it became impossible for Raphael to obtain it himself.

Baator—the Nine Layers of Hell—has its own system and rules. The plane is aligned as lawful evil, and by its laws, anyone who breaks them is punished; in other words, theft is a crime (don’t try this at home edition).

Am I going to explain the system and rules of the Nine Hells? Hell no, or I’ll be sitting here until next Halloween. Sorry, maybe in a separate post sometime (or not) 😭

So Raphael had to get creative if he wanted to get his greedy claws on the crown.

You can read about how much Raphael’s involvement is actually found in the game Baldur’s Gate 3 here.

What’s relevant for this ‘dissertation’ are the following points, which all show how he orchestrates the plot:

1. Raphael, Vlaakith, and the Astral Prism —

Raphael even plots to capture Orpheus. Not personally, of course, but with the knowledge that it could benefit him and would even serve its purpose in the future. This is a crucial detail.

However, I don’t believe Raphael would craft or have someone craft an item like the Astral Prism, as well as the bindings of Orpheus (the mask, chains, and binding crystals) and the Orphic Hammer. It’s more likely these objects already existed in the Hells, with Raphael profiting by dealing with them.

Sadly there is no official information on that, I really find that interesting.

As for why the Orphic Hammer is called Orphic Hammer - why is Orpheus called Orpheus? He’s a liberator for his people, having inherited the power of Mother Gith, who freed the Gith from mind flayer enslavement. The character of Orpheus draws heavily from Orpheus in Greek mythology, a symbol of liberation, love, and the attempt to rescue a soul from the bonds of death. The term “Orphic” reflects this sense of breaking free from constraints or seeking transformation (of course, it has other meanings, too, but this one feels like what the developers were aiming for).

So the hammer’s name has both symbolic depth and a bit of pun, as it’s intended to free the character Orpheus from his chains.

ANYWAY

2. Raphael, Moonrise Towers, and the Gauntlet of Shar —

The amount of interwoven contracts Raphael has made in the Shadow Cursed Lands is suspicious, and each and every one of them is too , an important point.

Isn’t it just a bit too convenient that Ketheric’s misery plays right into Raphael’s hands? The Shadow-Cursed Lands—Reithwin, once ruled by Ketheric, formerly full of Selunite worshippers but ruined by schemes of the Dark Lady who turned a grieving worshipper of her sister into a Shar follower and leader of an army of Dark Justiciars—is a whole breeding ground for contracts and a stage for Raphael’s play.

Hold on, I’m not implying that I believe Raphael had a hand in Shar’s mischief here, but I do think Raphael handpicked Ketheric, a grieving and obsessed madman (a truly tragic character, honestly), to be an unwitting pawn in his schemes, without directly involving himself. To do this, he contracted with desperate beings like the Architect, Yurgir, and the last Dark Justiciar.

To understand why Raphael would even need Ketheric, we have to look a step further.

3. Raphael and my beloved raccoon boy, Gortash —

Raphael buying Gortash from his parents was a calculated move and the final piece in the Netherbrain plot scheme.

I believe Raphael specifically chose Enver Gortash, a boy with potential, for his plans to get the Crown of Karsus.

Look, Gortash is anything but dumb; in fact, he’s the exact opposite. He learned the ropes in Hell, literally imprisoned in Raphael’s House of Hope. All jokes aside about pot-scrubbing duty and overhearing Raphael and Haarlep getting it on, Gortash is a quick learner.

Raphael just had to watch as Gortash escaped the House of Hope with vital information about the crown. With this, Raphael set up an ambitious, cunning man with the drive to steal the crown.

And this is where Ketheric returns to the picture. Ketheric, the chosen of Myrkul; Gortash, the chosen of Bane; and Durge, the chosen of Bhaal.

As for how Raphael might have gotten his hands on Durge? I’ll leave that as the theory’s plot hole.

I could fill it with headcanons—like Gortash and Durge knowing each other even before Gortash was sold—but that feels a bit far-fetched.

Actually, all of this is a bit far-fetched, but hey, it’s my silly little theory.

But hey again, we’re slowly coming to a conclusion how Raphael is the mastermind behind BG3, do you see my vision?

All Raphael needed was patience. The chosen ones, Gortash and Durge, set the stage by planning the Netherbrain coup and, in stealing the crown, executed Raphael’s plan. All they needed was the third chosen, Ketheric, to carry out the rest of the plot: building the Absolute’s army, etc., the rest we know...

So, what was left? Just someone desperate enough to make a deal with Raphael and actually hand over the Crown of Karsus. And how would he pull that off?

✨The Tadpole Gang✨

Every single one of them fits the bill. Especially if the player chooses Durge.

The next question is: how could he manipulate the group if they were under the Absolute’s influence? Well, that’s where the Emperor comes onto the stage.

Because, hear me out one more time: isn’t it convenient that the Emperor, of all people, finds the Astral Prism? A figure obsessed with freedom and manipulation, ambitious and clever, who would serve perfectly as a kind of protection shield from the Elder Brain’s influence for the gang? And to that even a disposable figure as it is a mind flayer who would not be trusted in the end.

(Naturally, in the game the player is the ultimate executional force, making any kind of higher plan or scheme either perfect or useless)

Nevertheless, this is as far as I will dive into this specific pond.

I just think it adds up nicely.

But Björni, if you have a Section 1, what about a Section 2? you might ask. Well, here it comes…

… how this ‘dissertation’ is actually about Mephistopheles being the ‘Mastermind’ behind the plot of Baldur’s Gate 3.

Section 2: Raphael as the Scapegoat

DnD’s lore about fiends—and, specifically, cambions—teaches us that they’re doomed to fail from birth. While they may think they’re in control of their schemes, they’re actually playing into the hands of their fiendish parent.

Ever wondered why Mephistopheles would even bother devouring Raphael if we defeat him? Sure, cambion sons are nourishing (yum yum), but given Mephistopheles’ personality, I’d guess he does it to humiliate his son, even in death, for being a failure—a failure to retrieve the crown for his father.

But wait, Mephistopheles already had the crown—why would he bother plotting all of this just to get it back? Isn’t that a bit over-the-top, Björni?

Bear with me: it’s not officially written anywhere, but it’s more or less canon based on what we know of the Archdevils Asmodeus and Mephistopheles.

Asmodeus rules the Hells, while Mephistopheles, as the Archduke of the 8th layer, Cania, is arguably the second most powerful being in Baator. Mephistopheles has never stopped dreaming of overthrowing Asmodeus, even after repeatedly failing miserably. But if he openly tried to use the crown against Asmodeus, it would be a direct affront, and Asmodeus would have shut it down from the start.

Mephistopheles has other children besides Raphael, and Raphael isn’t exactly useless, he’s actually the complete opposite. Strategically, it wouldn’t make sense to discard such a puppet (call him son)—unless Raphael had done something atrocious. And for someone as mighty as Mephistopheles, controlling his little cambion son would be child’s play. So, then why does Raphael hate his father so much, and why is Raphael ‘residing’ in Avernus?

As we know, Avernus is the armpit of Baator, a plane for exiles and outcasts.

I think Mephistopheles intentionally filled his relationship with Raphael with hatred, so Raphael’s ambition to overthrow his father would ignite and one day serve him. When Mephistopheles got the Crown of Karsus, unable to wield it himself, he set the stage for his son’s scheme—by casting Raphael aside, Mephistopheles set him on the path to steal the crown, with Mephistopheles only indirectly involved in overthrowing Asmodeus. Raphael would do the dirty work—taking over the other layers—before ultimately facing his father, who could then just snatch the crown from him. And yes, I do believe Mephistopheles is arrogant enough to think he’d still be more powerful than his son, even with a god-like artifact. He has that bloated of an ego.

BUT (Nr. 36,252), what about Asmodeus? Wouldn’t he step in and crush the plan?

Here’s the thing: Asmodeus generally doesn’t mind if his archdukes fight for control of their layers, as long as it doesn’t threaten his supreme authority or destabilize Hell’s hierarchy. In fact, he encourages a bit of rivalry and ambition among his archdevils, as infighting serves his purposes.

And can you imagine THE Asmodeus being worried about an over-ambitious cambion?

However, this leads to the TRUE instigator and the true subject of this ‘dissertation’…

… how Asmodeus is actually the ‘Mastermind’ behind the plot of Baldur’s Gate 3.

Section 3: Asmodeus doing things, just because

Joke’s on you—it’s been about Asmodeus all along, because even if he’d lose (not that he ever would—he’s just that powerful), he’d claim at the last minute that it was his plan all along. Losing trusted allies? What a bunch of traitors—perfect excuse to clean house. Losing Baator? Finally, he was sick of the job.

All jokes aside, Asmodeus being the cunning bastard he is, would likely pull off everything mentioned above.

To understand why he’d even bother, let’s take a quick (really quick, this is already getting too long) dive into his background and shenanigans in DnD.

Throughout DnD’s development from 1e to 5e, Asmodeus has gone through quite the evolution, eventually becoming a Greater Deity, the Embodiment of Evil, and one of the mightiest beings in existence, rivaled only by Ao.

While 5e keeps things vague to allow player interpretation, Asmodeus has consistently been the most powerful entity in the Hells—a schemer, strategist, and supreme manipulator.

(Here’s the only quote I’ll reference:) “[…] His sinister machinations could take centuries, if not millennia, to come to fruition, and his master plans extended across the entire multiverse. His labyrinthine, insidious intrigues could seem inexplicable to most outside observers, for Asmodeus let even his own servants stew in fear of his next move. With all the planes as his board, the Lord of Lies maneuvered the forces of evil like chess pieces in his grand designs, slowly and subtly manipulating everyone from deities to, when needed, lowly mortals.”

He’s described as being a thousand steps ahead of everyone. And while most of his plans serve greater purposes beyond even godly comprehension, some things he does just because—just for fun.

CONCLUSION

Of course Asmodeus knew Mephistopheles had the crown. Of course he knew Mephistopheles would never use it openly against him. And of course he knew Mephistopheles would keep scheming to use it indirectly, bringing his cambion son Raphael into the game.

Why would Asmodeus let all this happen, and why am I saying he’s the real mastermind?

Like already mentioned, Asmodeus often (indirectly) encourages and manipulates his archdukes to scheme and fight among themselves as a means to reinforce his dominance, foster survival of the fittest, and test loyalty within the infernal hierarchy. However, he maintains strict boundaries, and any conflict that risks his supreme authority, disrupts Hell’s role in the multiverse, or leads to excessive chaos would be swiftly and ruthlessly quashed. In Asmodeus’s mind, such rivalries are a useful tool—as long as they remain safely under his control.

In my view, the Crown of Karsus was never a real threat to him; this whole plot served his entertainment, tested loyalties, or helped him gauge his chess pieces.

And that’s how Asmodeus is the real mastermind behind the plot of Baldur’s Gate 3.

Thanks for reading this mass of nonsense ❤️

Why I even bothered with all this shit? It’s one of the key plot points in my longfic, Ah, You Devil!

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choccy-milky · 1 month ago

Note

(SPOILER WARNING to people who haven't read your story) I SWEAR to GOD!!!! This is borderline anon-hate with my current state of mind after finishing The Raven and The Snake over this weekend. I finished it in two days. I'm a mess. I've even started making a playlist because I feel like I can't properly enter reality again. I'm supposed to be writing my bachelors thesis right now,,,, what have you done to me!!!!

I loved it so so so much, and I am very mad I cannot have a collectors edition hardback version of it on my shelf. There are many many moments that keep replaying in my head, and scenes that I saw so vividly when reading through it. The first imperio moment and Sebs shadow and imperio-green eyes as Clora was held captive, and the entire scene in the repository and how I was physically shaking as I slowly realised that Seb had made a fucking horcrux, and when it was CONFIRMED the GASP i GUSPED. It was so perfect, and so very Sebastian; because OF COURSE he made a horcrux (lowkey hot, sue me).

And the scene where Clive realised Seb straight up just died for his daughter without knowing he would be back, oh my dear lord.

And the idea of Seb being seen as a 'Ruffian' and that little mamas boi bitch of a Henry thinking his hand-me-down-riches, muggle ass would be preferable to a powerful wizard. I secretly wished they didn't have to keep magic a secret so Henry could have known just how inferior he was. AND SEB APPARATING SO FAR UMPH the skilllll.

I could go on and on and on, and maybe I will some other time in your inbox when I have another mental breakdown.

And now I'm also almost done with the small sequel. Just taking a break to bombard you with this unhinged message of mine. And how you draw Sebastian is so fucking good. It's actually what got me reading in the first place. I see your version as being in a completely separate universe from the game, cause the way you draw him just has that something, and it's not the same anywhere else. It certainly doesn't help my obsession that my own boyfriend has the same features and colour palette as him, now I think I might even use your art as inspo for next time we need wardrobe additions.

I love you and I hate you.

Ps. Of course I added Sarah Smiles to the playlist and also Far too young to Die, and Just One Yesterday. If you've any other songs you think match please let me knowww~~

BRUHHHHH I ALMOST FEEL NARCISSISTIC FOR POSTING/RESPONDING TO THIS ASK BC ITS JUST PRAISE BUT DAMN THANK YOU SO MUCH😭😭😭😭IM HAPPY YOU LIKED IT SO MUCH!! FORGET WRITING YOUR BACHELORS THESIS, TY FOR WRITING A THESIS ON WHY U LOVED MY FIC SO MUCH AND ALL THE LIL THINGS U ENJOYED BAHAHAHA (love the henry slander) im also glad u like how i draw seb too, and i love how thats what made u start reading it in the first place BAHAH but fr, sometimes i try drawing seb more accurately to his ACTUAL appearance and then im like... Who The Hell is this... and it may sound arrogant since im the artist but my seb is MY seb, yknow...its why i dont like drawing him with other mc's romantically. bc even tho its like, oh look, that's Sebastian Sallow™ from the hit game Hogwarts Legacy™! in my style if i draw him with another MC, its like, NO!!! THATS NOT SEBASTIAN SALLOW™, THATS CLORA'S HUSBAND🤺🤺THE FUCK ARE YOU DOING BOI??🤺🤺🤺 LMAOO but rly TY AGAIN💖💖💖 not only for reading but also taking the time to write all this and let me know how much you enjoyed it🥹🥹i (and all writers, really) always love getting stuff like this!! it also brings me back to when i was writing it, especially now that ive been finished with my fic for a few months, listening to u react to all the diff scenes is making me miss it and giving me nostalgia for my own damn fic FRRR😩 also i love that youre making a playlist LMAOO thats how u know the brainrot truly has a hold on you IM SO SORRY🙏🙏 i actually made a seb and clora playlist like last year and its somewhere in my ask tag if you look through that?? but one song that i can recommend off the top of my head (which i almost made their anthem in that OTP chart) is arms tonite by mother mother...whenever i listen to it i cant help but laugh to myself bc its SO perfect for the chap where seb sacrifices himself....YOULL SEE WHEN U LISTEN😇💖

#TY AGAIN!!😭💖🙏#BUT ALSO I PROBS WONT PUBLISH ANYMORE OF THESE TYPES OF ASKS FOR A WHILE JSUT CUZ IT FEELS NARCISSISTIC BAHA #so if u do end up sending more ILL APPRECIATE THEM OFC AND I LOVE GETTING THEM but i probs just wont publish them/reply #unless u do it on ao3 or wattpad in whcih case OFC I WILL REPLY...or in my tumblr dms👀#i still want to wrtie more seb and clora oneshots in the future and someone as freshly brainrotted as u probs has good ideas BAHHAA #GIVE THEM TO MEEEEE #(if you have them ofc)#LMAO OK IM DONE THANK YOU AGAIN ILY💖💖💖#ask

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kaybreezy3000 · 2 months ago

Text

The Pet (A Five Hargreeves / Male Reader Insert)

16714 words, 10 chapters of awesome, rated Explicit for dark themes and sexual content

Realizing that his family were going to be zero help, Five went back to the Commission with one goal in mind. He needed to find out who caused the apocalypse, but as he should have known already, when traveling through time, what you are looking for isn't always what you get. This time, he's taking you down with him.

(Important Note: This is set during Season One. I don't like giving away the whole story in my tags, but don't worry, I am NOT doing a Five as a minor with an adult thing. And the dubious consent thing will also be very interesting, so, you'll just have to read to find out how this one works out, but if you do, I promise it's worth it.)

~~~Originally created for two separate explicit Tumblr requests for a story with Five and a male reader insert, one specifically involving hypnotism in the plot, and Five getting the chance to feel what it means to let go of control for once.~~~

Warnings and Tags: meant to be an intense read, The Handler, Hurt-Angst, Comfort, Five, Sub Five, Dubious Consent, Hypnotism, rough sex, many tags being left off to keep you on your toes until the end, so be warned...it's a dark one, but a very good one. Stay away if not your thing. TY.

The Pet

Chapter one: Prologue

The Handler glanced over her shoulder, looking back at Five. “You would think with all the blood on your hands, doing something as simple as this would’ve been nothing for you, but here you are, stomping along in those cute little schoolboy shorts, looking like a ferocious little puppy that’s about to nip at my heels over something as trivial as details…”

Five continued watching as the orderlies dragged away their latest victim, but as soon as the other boy was out of sight, his glare turned to the real target of his hatred. “Why didn’t you tell me he was one of us?” he snapped as he stopped next to her. “And even better, what are you going to do with him?”

The Handler’s smile grew bigger as she looked down at Five like he was the most pathetic thing she’d ever laid eyes on.

Hands trembling, Five’s fingers curled, his fingernails cutting half-moons into his small palms.

A heat wave of outrage and confusion hit him all over again.

He could still sense him.

As soon his eyes met that stranger’s, even before they had touched and he had his hands around the other male’s throat, he’d felt a power that was not his own. It was warm, like a blanket wrapping around his entire body, trying to muffle all his senses.

Just before nailing Five in the face, the young man cried out, begging him to let go, and unable to stop himself, Five did let go, but the deed was already done.

Licking the corner of his lip, Five felt a fresh sting of pain, accompanied by the coppery taste of his own blood, and that only made him more furious.

Adding insult to injury, rather than reply to his questions, The Handler had dismissively reached into her purse, pulling out a pocket mirror. As she gazed at her reflection, fixing her already perfectly crimson lips, he shook his head in disbelief.

Eyes darting at nothing and everything as he rapidly went over his options, and tried to figure out what was going on, Five concluded that if that kid was like them, based on the year they had taken him, he was only nineteen. Cursing under his breath, his hand raking back through his neatly clipped hair, he also concluded that he never should have agreed to come back with The Handler in the first place.

None of this should have happened. He had to get back to his family in 2019. They’d find another way to figure out who caused the apocalypse, and as for him…

“Fuck,” Five quietly cursed again.

Slowly, he started backpedaling, turning away, his hands coming together, the energy needed to open a portal just starting to illuminate his hands.

His power fizzled out.

“What the ffff-?” Five angrily gasped as he frantically dug at the numbing sensation that was suddenly radiating through the left side of his body.

Unsteadily spinning back around, Five saw it wasn’t just a tube of lipstick The Handler had in her hand. She’d been hiding a syringe too, just like the one he’d used to sedate the young man they'd just abducted.

The long hallway began to sway and tilt under his feet. In less than a second, Five’s legs began to give out.

Chapter 2: Screw You and Screw Me Too

The smell of bleachy sterilization filled Five’s nostrils as his eyes began to flutter open.

He knew that smell.

Blinded by the unforgiving lights shining down on him, he started to panic.

He was in the Commission’s lower-level medical wing; the same place they took him when he’d first been recruited and required their so-called ‘improvements.’ Here they had stripped him naked and hosed him down as he cowered in an open shower stall, uselessly trying to cover his privates.

It didn’t matter what he wanted. It didn’t matter how he felt. They treated him worse than an animal. They had said he needed to be decontaminated, but they did so much more than that.

Desperately trying to wake up and think straight, a whimper crawled up from deep in his throat, but the higher pitched sound of the voice that came out of him didn’t match the one of the horrendously traumatized old man that they had been dehumanizing. Lost in his nightmare of memories, that only terrified Five even more.

As soon as he could make his limbs move, he began to wildly thrash, but just as fast, hands of people dressed in white scrubs came at him, holding him down. Much smaller than them and way outnumbered, Five wasn’t strong enough to break free, and soon, the restraints they’d been securing to his wrists were tightened.

When his power to blink himself out of there evaporated just as fast as he’d summoned it, Five dug the heel of his shoe into the stainless-steel table under him, sending his knee up, nailing one of the orderlies in the nuts. As the man let go of him, one of the women forced Five’s leg back down as she breathlessly asked, “Should we administer another dose to calm him, Sir?”

Readying a tray of shiny instruments, the lead physician tonelessly said, “No. The subject needs to be fully awake for the process to work. What is already in him will keep him from getting away while we are administering the serum. Once we determine it’s working, and he’s gone through the first stages, then we will give him another very small dose that will keep him manageable until she has time to take care of him more permanently.”

Sure that The Handler was close by, Five looked to the interior windows that opened to the hall. She wasn’t there, but he did see someone else.

In the next operating room, the young man that he'd helped capture was laying there on a gurney, blankly staring back at him. His jaw was slack, and he wasn’t even strapped down, which meant he was totally screwed and there was no way he was getting away either.

“I’m going to kill all of you!” Five yelled as the hefty nurse yanked his head back by his hair, so another demon in scrubs could jam a gag in his mouth.

By the time they had it secured to the back of his head, all he could do was growl at them, but from the corner of his eye, Five saw movement happening over in the operating room, so he looked that way again.

The young man was still looking at him. Like before, gone was that eerie glow of vibrantly changing colors that had been radiating from his otherwise kind looking eyes that had caught Five’s attention even before The Handler pointed him out. Five could no longer feel that strange pull inside his mind telling him not to look away, but still, he couldn’t take his eyes away from what he’d done.

The assistants rolled their other victim on his side, then the physician raised a scalpel to the back of his neck, slicing him open, but for what, Five didn’t know. He didn’t even flinch. A line of drool slipped from his mouth, but there was a glistening of tears in his otherwise empty eyes, meaning he was aware of what was happening, even if he couldn’t feel it.

Just then, The Handler appeared, her body blocking Five’s view of the horrors happening in the other room. Her red lips curled with amusement as the Commission’s medical staff began cutting open his argyle vest, slicing right through it to his dress shirt. Like they were filleting a fish, they peeled back his clothing in layers, exposing his rapidly heaving chest, and the length of his small, stretched out arms.

“I have to give it to you again, Five. You really are adorable like this,” she said, admiring his skin as it turned an offended pink from even the slightest nick from the blade.

Five squirmed uselessly as the nurses moved along, roughly cleaning him with alcohol, not just all along the trunk of his body, and arms, but other places too.

They took his uniform shorts, then they removed his underwear.

Drinking him in with sick fascination, The Handler ran a finger along Five’s cheek. “Many here think that it would have been easier to keep you in line by making you stay like this, but unlike you, I am a creature of my word,” she explained, then her focus switched to the other room, taking in her other prize before looking back down, her eyes narrowing. “You got me him…so I am going to give you what you want.” Her predatory gaze moved between Five’s legs. “Don't worry. You’ll be a big boy again in no time.”

Repulsed, Five could do nothing but lay there.

This made no sense.

She had told him, ‘They are perfecting your body as we speak.’

He’d thought that meant they were building a totally different body for him.

This was not that!

The Handler grinned. “Lucky you that I figured out a way to leash you, because if I hadn’t, you would be lying dead on the road next to your brother’s stolen ice cream truck right now.”

As she turned away, the Commission’s head doctor ordered his staff to start inserting dozens of needles into his body.

Frothing on his gag, unintelligible noises screeched out of Five’s mouth as he bucked his hips, frantically fighting against the straps holding him down. Within less than a minute, they had him strung up, with IV’s coming out of him all over the place. Hyperventilating, his eyes wide in terror, he watched them attach bags of fluid to the lines leading into his body.

The substance crawling through the plastic tubes looked like pure evil, like luminescent clouds of churning black ink.

As the pain started, all Five saw were the fractured images of the room around him, blurred by his tears. His teeth bearing down, all he could hear was the sound of what was left of his soul breaking as his muffled screams got louder, and louder.

Chapter 3: Cat and Mouse

Before all this happened, body rigid with tension, Five stared at the marble partition, listening to The Handler shuffling around in the bathroom stall next to him.

“You know, we value integrity above all else,” she said, her voice velvety sweet. “Trust is essential, and that trust is…built over time. But in the event of a breach, the Commission will act swiftly and without mercy.” She purposefully paused, letting that sink in. “I’m sure you, of all people, can appreciate that.”

Saying nothing back to that thinly veiled threat, The Handler’s toilet flushed. Five reached up, needlessly readjusting his already perfectly knotted, standard black academy necktie.

Mentally cursing himself over getting trapped while sitting on the toilet seat like he was taking a shit, Five crossed his arms over his chest, watching her red heels heading towards the sink.

“I’m feeling peckish. Have you eaten lunch?” she casually questioned.

Jaw muscles working overtime, Five shook his head. “Not yet,” he replied through gritted teeth.

The sink squeaked on, the water splashing as The Handler washed her hands. “Great. How would you like to eat with me in my office?”

The water turned off.

Knees bouncing, Five anxiously bit the inside of his cheek as her heels clicked closer.

“You can eat solid foods, and I can live vicariously…” The tips of her sharp fingernails hooked over the door in front of him, followed by the plume of her platinum white hair “-through you,” she finished, as she peeked at him.

Reactively folding in on himself, the stiffness from the file hidden under Five’s vest crinkled. It was just the smallest amount, but it was enough to make her eyes narrow with vicious glee over how fucked he was.

Giving the best smile he could summon, Five cocked his chin at her as confidently as he could, nodding. “Sounds great,” he answered, sounding every bit the liar he was.

Despite her claim of a burnt rugae, and not being able to eat more than liquids, Five knew The Handler was toying with him. This was all part of her sadistic game; one he’d been playing with her ever since she plucked him out of his apocalyptic nightmare.

He knew that his plan of getting in and out of the Commission headquarters and finding out who he needed to take out to stop the apocalypse was quickly going down the crapper if he didn’t find a way to get her off his back.

With no other choice, forty minutes later, cautiously eyeing her, his well-practiced mask of civility in place, Five pushed his cafeteria tray in from the edge of The Handler’s massive desk and folded his hands in his lap.

“Care for a dessert?” she questioned.

“No, thank you.” His lips quirked. “I had a bad twinkie in the apocalypse. Kind of put me off desserts.”

The Handler leaned in, pushing her crystal candy dish in Five’s direction. “Please indulge me,” she insisted. Waiting, she lit her cigarette, taking a long drag as she rocked back in her chair.

Forced to oblige her again, Five moved forward, picking up a tiny foil covered candy from the dish. While he was contemplatively savoring the sugary, Commission engineered flavor that had miraculously captured all the nostalgia of 1955 drug store with their soda fountains and malted milkshakes, the viper in front of him hit her intercom, calling in Carla. Not a minute later, she joined them, setting down a long, flat box on the desk in front of him.

Five quickly stood up as The Handler sauntered around her desk to join him. Blowing a plume of smoke towards the ceiling, she gave a wave of her hand, encouraging him to look inside the package.

He lifted the lid, revealing a black 3-piece suit, one that clearly wasn’t meant for him to wear while in his currently, less than desirable thirteen-year-old body.

“Don’t look so pouty, Five,” The Handler scolded, like he was a real child, not just someone that looked like one. Further patronizing him, she ran the tip of her finger under his chin, making him look at her. “This situation is temporary,” she assured, grinning even more as Five shifted on his feet, but remained under her pitying gaze, with nowhere to go but right where she wanted him. “Just like those delicious candies you just got a taste of. Here at the Commission, we have all sorts of tricks up our sleeves. We can make things the way they were, and better.”

Fighting the urge to blink away, the Handler thankfully dropped her hand before stroking it over his boyishly soft brown hair, petting him, but Five could tell she was about to do it and that was bad enough.

Skin crawling, he scowled.

“Clothes make the man, Five,” she clucked. “Won’t it be nice when you can actually wear it.” Five looked back down at the suit. “Very soon… They’re perfecting your body as we speak.”

Just the sight of the finely tailored men's clothing made Five want to believe what she was saying was true. But hating himself for even considering trusting her again, his stomach sank even further than it already was because it didn’t matter if she was telling the truth.

He wasn’t going to stay with them long enough to find out if they could fix him. What he wanted didn’t matter. All that mattered was saving his family. That was all that ever mattered.

Still, looking at his feet, there was no hiding the twinge of pain he felt twisting around inside of him. “Thank you. It’s a very kind gift,” he softly replied.

Shutting the box, wanting to block all of that out, with his hands burrowing in his pockets, Five turned around, strolling over to admire the Chinese flamethrower he’d noticed on the way in.

With only a small sign of interest in it, soon, he had The Handler proudly showing off her other trinkets she’d gathered while doing the work of the Commission. After that, Five had thought they’d moved past the bathroom incident, so it was the perfect time to carry on with his real agenda.

“Since I am part of the team upstairs now,” he started, “may I make a suggestion?”

“Of course, please do,” The Handler replied as she picked up her Walther pistol, the one Hitler supposedly used to kill himself.

Five smiled cordially as possible, his eyes naturally wandering towards the gun. “Wouldn’t it be simpler for case managers if we removed Gloria from tube operation and did that part ourselves? Isn’t she an unnecessary cog in the wheel?” he questioned, deliberately using his employer’s own words to further his point and hopefully make her think he was buying into all her lines of bullshit.

Moving right past Five’s attempt to shift things in a way he could manipulate them, The Handler laughed. “Gloria has been with us for ages. There is no way we could function without her.” Gun still in hand, holding it up to let Five get a closer look, she leaned in and conspiratorially whispered, “We aren’t supposed to take these things, but…he wasn’t going to use it anymore.”

She straightened after that, the heat of her larger body and the feel of her flared skirt moving away from Five’s backside, but unfortunately the minimal distance from her only made it slightly easier for him to breathe.

“Speaking of the perks of this job,” she said, winking at him. “I know about a place that serves a pie that rivals those candies you were just sucking on.” Metal clicked as she cocked the gun. “Like this death dealing piece of metal here,” she pointed the barrel at him, closing one eye as she aimed. “It's one of a kind.”

It took everything inside Five not to move.

Sniggering over how perplexed he looked, she finally lowered the weapon. “Let's go get you a treat worthy of celebrating your first day back with us,” she said. “Then…” She stepped over, putting her pistol back in its case next to her pile of M26 Vietnam era grenades. “After we get you a proper sugar fix to refuel that brilliant mind of yours, I’ll let you get back to work so you can prove to the rest of upper management why I wasn’t wrong about bringing you back.”

Walking to the door, The Handler picked up one of the Commission’s huge briefcases, extending her hand towards Five.

Slowly coming closer, all he wanted to do was run, but adding to his other mistakes of that day, he didn’t.

Chapter 4: Too Sweet

A few seconds later, Five was inundated by the sounds and smells of a small diner, one that looked like something you’d see back in the 50’s, only a flat screen TV behind the counter was playing a music video, so it was immediately clear that they weren't in that era.

As they stepped up to the podium, a middle-aged woman looked up, greeting them with a tired smile. “Out of school already?” she asked, looking down at Five.

The Handler proudly grinned at Five as she replied, “For him it is, and he’s been such a good boy today, I decided to bring him for a piece of your famous pie.”

“We rarely get to see young faces in here these days, but once you’ve tried our dessert, you’ll be hooked,” the woman said as she led them in, gesturing to a young man that was sitting alone, with his back facing them as he ate at one of the middle tables.

Already irritated, Five snagged a newspaper from one of the uncleared booths as he passed, shaking the crumbs to the floor before he slid into the vinyl covered seat across from The Handler.

“It’s 2008,” he murmured as his eyes moved over the page.

He glanced around again.

Based on what he could see outside, he knew that they weren’t far from the Umbrella Academy.

The Handler had brought him to his family's home turf, only at a time when he wouldn’t have been with them anymore, and most of them weren't living there anymore either, but the question was why?

She never did anything without reason, and this obviously wasn’t about the food.

About to question her, Five was interrupted when a younger server came by, setting down his dessert.

Fighting the urge to roll his eyes, Five set the paper down, addressing the blonde waitress. “And a cup of coffee. Black,” he said, smiling a little too sweetly.

Apparently not at all charmed, the girl in her later twenties looked to The Handler for approval, and Five could no longer hold in his ire. Pinching the bridge of his nose, he looked down at the table.

Sounding tickled as ever over all of this, The Handler approved of his caffeinated beverage, followed by a joke about caffeine stunting his growth, which made Five hate her no less.

Eyes roaming around the diner again, Five noticed it wasn’t very busy. Besides the young man with his headset on who was totally absorbed with something on his laptop, and a few other old couples that were dispersed throughout the restaurant, that was it.

“Here you go, enjoy,” the waitress said, coming around, setting down his steaming mug of coffee.

Picking up his fork, though not at all hungry for the cherries covered in fluff, with his other hand, Five reached for his coffee, bringing it to his lips.

“She was pretty,” The Handler conversationally noted while he quickly drained his cup.

“Who?” Five asked, his fork filled with berries waiting in front of his mouth.

“The waitress,” The Handler replied, sounding even more amused by his oblivious reply.

Five hadn’t even noticed, which again was probably why the evil woman across from him was smirking. It’s not that he didn’t admire a good-looking woman. Dolores was a woman. It was just that-

“It’s unimaginable how lonely it must be…” The Handler dangled, interrupting his depressing thoughts about why it was so hard for him to do much more than look when it came to anyone that he found attractive.

Not taking the bait, Five said nothing, his fork slowly setting down on his napkin with the bite of food still on it.

“You're restless… Discontent. I see that as plain as that cute little nose on your fresh new face,” she furthered.

The tip of her shoe brushed against his knee sock.

Pushing himself back in the booth, as far away from her as he could get, Five looked away, noticing the young man who had been studying at the table next to them was now looking at him, his eyes focused on the crest stitched to the breast of his dark blue Umbrella Academy blazer.

Five loudly cleared his throat and the young man’s startled eyes met his, the look of confusion in them only getting worse. By now, as far as history was concerned, Five would have been missing for six years, not to mention he wasn’t supposed to be a little kid anymore.

“How I feel doesn’t matter,” Five finally said, rebuffing The Handler’s comment, while looking back down at his napkin.

“Sure it does,” she countered just as fast. “A man like you…one whose needs are hardly being met, is a man, tick tick ticking…like a bomb, just waiting to go off.”

Under the edge of the table, Five’s fingers curled into claws that wanted to dig her eyes out. He leveled her up with his glare. “Just spit it out! What you want? We are drawing unwanted attention, and I personally don’t have time for this.”

“Oh, Five, “she tittered. “Why always so dour?”

“Oh, I don’t know… Call it a habit born out of expecting the worst and always getting it.”

She leaned back, crossing her arms over her mounded bodice. “You ask what this is about? Well... It’s like that suit I knew you’d love. I just want to keep my agents happy.”

“Sure you do,” he sarcastically mimicked.

“With that case you had today…” She paused, raising one of her perfectly manicured brows. “Taking care of the Hindenburg with something as simple as seeing to it that a tainted roast was delivered to the right person… Now that was genius, and I expected no less from you. You didn’t pull the trigger, but the success of the job well done was no less satisfying, am I right?”

She was right, but lips pursed tight, Five refused to admit it.

“Be careful, Five. Pride is your Achille's heel, that and that tragic longing you have for acceptance and approval. You try to hide it, but I see right through you.”

About to jump the table and strangle her, Five picked up his fork instead, taking a bite of the flaky crust and berries, angrily swallowing it down as he pretended to be interested in the sticky looking ketchup bottle sitting next to the other condiments.

She’d hit a nerve. And worse, she was still on to him. The file on Dot’s desk covering his apocalypse was empty, and he should have known it would be, but he’d thought The Handler had let that go.

He had to be better than this.

He couldn’t let her get the upper hand this time.

This time, Five had called her, and come to them of his own free will.

This time, he was going to show them what happened when they tried to play God with him and the people he cared about. He just needed to get back to the main office again, so he could do some digging, and then no more Mr. Nice Guy in the cute little schoolboy shorts.

A small smile pulled at his sugar covered lips as he thought about the grenades he saw in her office.

Looking next to him, the kid who had been eyeing him up had started packing up his things.

“You need something to come home to, to fill that void, and scratch that itch,” The Handler pushed, clearly not done with whatever point she was trying to make. “You need something, or maybe better put, someone to exercise your demons.”

With an even worse sensation of unease hitting him, not at all comfortable with where any of this was going, Five looked back at her.

“Someone who knows just how to take care of you…” she said, “someone to turn that frown upside down.”

Five’s eyes narrowed. “I don’t follow.”

“You need a pet, and this place is exactly the kind of place to find the special kind of pet you need, because…” she plucked her sleeve, pulling it up a little so she could look at her watch, “because in just about four minutes, thanks to the gas line leaking under our feet, this place, and everyone in it will be no more. They are all free game.”

The Handler’s malevolent gaze moved to the table next to them, her crimson painted smile more devious looking than Five had ever seen it.

All at once, it dawned on him that she wasn’t talking about a furry sort of pet.

Hands sweating as he drew them up the navy-blue fabric covering his tensed thighs, he shook his head. “No,” he croaked, his voice catching in his suddenly dry throat.

“Don’t be so unimaginative,” she fired back.

“You must be confused, because I have no idea what you are talking about,” he lied.

“Really?” she mocked. “Our assassins come from some very dark places. You included. It’s perfectly understandable that a man like you has particular needs that are not exactly easy to fill, considering your past, and current condition… Relationships of any kind are not exactly where you excel, Five.”

Shifting his legs under the table, Five tried not to let her see how that had sung, but just like the young man next to him, who was waiting for his bill, his fingers anxiously tapping the tabletop, it was obvious that he couldn’t wait to get out of there.

“It’s no secret that others in our employment have taken advantage of their unique positions,” The Handler furthered.

She pointed to the boy as Five watched him nervously swallowing, the dips and curves of his throat slowly moving, the look of it so sinfully alluring that he felt even warmer.

“What do you think of him?” she asked, as if they were discussing an item on the menu, not another person who could probably hear them.

“I don’t think anything,” Five shot back, the shrillness of his voice making the other young male look over at them again, his eyes filled with what Five could for sure see this time was much more than frustration with how long it was taking to get his check.

The implications she was making were already making Five’s stomach roll, the acid of his lunch painfully adding to the forced bites of his pie.

He may have been extremely reclusive during his years working for the Commission, but Five had heard the rumors. Having a life in your hands of someone who was already written off, opened the door for the possibility of all sorts of bad things to go down, other than violent bloodshed.

“I never did that,” Five breathed, thinking about two agents in the locker rooms during training who were telling stories of having their way with their victims before they put a bullet in their heads.

“Oh- Oh, I know. You are much too sweet to do something like that,” The Handler assured, followed by a mocking laugh. “It is quite surprising though that you haven’t given in. You of any of our agents had every reason to,” she said, her tone dripping with saccharin sympathy.

She came forward, her hand reaching out to touch Five’s where it was hotly pressed to the table.

Fingers prying his hand up, flipping it over, she opened his palm, then purred, “You are missing something, Five. You know it. We all know it, and you're dying inside because of it.”

Five looked down at the syringe she’d just placed in his hand. Heat crawled up his neck; his blazer felt like it was a fur lined parka rather than a ridiculously tailored piece of summer wool.

He knew they were watching him all those years he suffered in the apocalypse, alone and on the edge of madness as he clung to the hope that he could get back and end this.

He knew they never stopped watching him, even after he’d signed away what was left of his soul to them.

All he’d ever had was himself, and the emptiness of that sometimes felt so crushing that he could hardly breathe.

Just the feel of The Handler’s fingernails seductively dipping under his cuff, gliding along his Umbrella Academy tattoo, had Five so overwhelmed he was nearly paralyzed, stuck on the verge of either blinking himself away, or falling further into the flood of emotions he was drowning in.

Instead of doing either of those things, he schooled his expression to one of indifference. Unblinking, his reply came out unwavering. “In exchange for the life of all my siblings, I agreed to work for you again, but I do not need or want this, so drop it.”

Looking unconcerned by Five’s refusal, The Handler stood up, her hands coming to her hips, straightening the tufts of sheer fabric that covered her couture A-line skirt. “We are the lucky few that exist out of time, Five. I never settle for subpar out of life, and neither should you. I take what I want, for example, like this Dior dress from the premier 1947 collection.”

“This is over,” he deadpanned, menacingly rising out of the booth as he looked her dead on, ready to kill her.

She burst out laughing. “Five, you are too easy. I was just joking with all that.”

“You were joking?”

“Yes, but tick-tock, we are on the clock. Time to collect what I really came here for, which was that handsome young man over there, only for me, not you. Hop to it. Go get him.”

As soon as the young man she’d been talking about was done signing his bill, the diner’s pen skittered across his table, hitting the floor as he bolted for the door.

“If he gets away, our deal is off. I’ll just get one of my other agents to retrieve him,” The Handler warned, her expression confidently calm as she held the briefcase up, a sign that she meant it. Like always, she held all the power.

Trapped like always, right before he blinked, Five’s hand tightened around the needle in his hand.

Chapter Five: Do Unto Others

Number Five Hargreeves, or the boy as they had called him, was a legend, but he wasn't supposed to be there sitting with that creepy bitch, his smug little face looking at you as he ate his pie.

Laying there as they implanted their device inside your neck, you heard and saw enough to understand that you were somewhere you shouldn’t be, and he should be there either, but he obviously was, and he wasn’t there because he wanted to be. The restraints made that clear enough, but Five’s verbal threats of killing all of them confirmed it.

Somehow, they knew what you could do, or at least the people in charge there did. When Five had attacked you, you could tell that he was genuinely shocked by it. Seeing him there in that diner, you knew something was wrong. You should have taken off the second you saw him and that woman, but you didn’t, and now you were totally fucked, getting marched along like a mindless solider, there to do their bidding.

As they shoved you inside, looking around your new cage, otherwise known as Five’s shitty apartment, the Commission agents dropped a file on the kitchen table, ordering you to read it. Then they reminded you, that if you didn’t do as you had been told, or if you stepped over the threshold of the exterior door, you would be first electrocuted again, then if that didn’t stop you, and you kept trying to get away, the device in your neck would be manually triggered, and then you’d be dead.

In their hospital, after starting to regain the use of your limbs, the first thing you had done was try to escape, and that was how you knew they weren’t kidding about the electrocution thing.

As that little Umbrella Academy asshole in the next room howled in agony, your feet hit the floor, your knees coming down on the cold tiles a second later thanks to your body’s refusal to cooperate. Looking down at you as you knelt at her feet, the one they were calling The Handler grinned at you, then she hit a button on a small switch she had concealed in her hand.

It felt like a bolt of lightning struck you in the head, reverberating through your entire body.

“Ssst- Stop-op-pllleeeaa-ssss-tttt-” you stammered as the aftershocks caused your body to spasm and your eyeballs to roll back in your head, getting stuck there, jittering.

Your teeth clattered together so hard you tasted your own blood, and it hurt so much, you even pissed yourself, but she didn’t care. “Don’t do that again,” she chirped while smiling at you.

No way, you had thought. You weren’t going down like that.

You almost never did this. You knew it wasn’t right. All you wanted was a normal life before this, but staring at her, your pupils instinctively dilated, the swirl of colors hidden in your irises flamed in outrage. “Let me-!”

You got zapped again before you could even get the words out to compel her to let you go, not that it would have mattered if you had said it, because the shorter, darker skinned, woman that had just came in was looking back at you with the same hypnotic glow of insistence you'd just had in your eyes.

“Relax,” she soothed. “You are going to listen to me now. Do you understand?”

Your eyes drooped tiredly, and your mind slipped into a fuzzy state of forced contentment. “I understand,” you replied.

The Handler looked at the younger, much more casually dressed woman. “Lila, please tell him exactly what I said to you about how this is going to go from here on out.”

The deep pools of chocolatey brown gazing at you filled with even brighter light, and even through the control she was wielding over you, you still sensed a flicker of something in them, hitting you the way your power normally did when you were the one doing this invasively cruel act.

She wasn’t the only one invading brains in that room, but she didn’t seem to be aware of that. They didn’t understand exactly how your power worked, or maybe it was just that since it wasn’t hers, she wasn’t able to fully command it the way you could. Either way, this Lila person didn't want to do this and that meant you still had a chance.

Where you were filled with fear, and rage, that thanks to her was now muted to a dull sense of lingering nothing, she was filled with a deep need for love. Thinking so much like Five had been as he came at you at the diner, appearing in front of you in a crackling burst of blue energy and violent momentum, Lila saw no other way. To get what she wanted, she needed to follow the orders she had been given, but with Five, you had seen that it was all a ruse.

Five had thought he could outwit them. You were just collateral damage getting in the way of a much bigger purpose that was driving him.

In those sad, pale green eyes, you had seen the end of the world, and him in it, alone. He’d already lived a lifetime of wanting things he’d never have. Being loved didn’t matter.

The glimpse you’d seen of the things Five endured were…

There were no words.

“Get him up,” The Handler demanded, and just like that, you were being lifted off the floor by the nurses that had dragged you in there.

Hardly able to hold yourself up, they supported you between them, your head sluggishly turning towards the room where Five was. He was laying there, totally naked, thrashing, and screaming for help that no one there was going to give him.

“Look at me,” Lila said, and pulled by the invisible thread she’d already weaved into you, you did, your eyes nothing more than blank slates of light, burning blindly, seeking direction. “Do you know who that is in there?”

“Yes,” you whispered.

“Good. From here on out, you are allowed to do whatever is necessary to take care of him, to keep him…sated. He is yours, and you are his.”

Making a mistake, she looked at the real woman in charge, for just a fraction of a second, allowing you to come back to yourself enough to process what she’d said in a way that you were sure The Handler did not intend.

“When he arrives back at his apartment in a few hours,” Lila continued, locking eyes with you again, “bind him to you with your power. You will never leave his home, and he is never to leave this timeline unless we say so. Your entire purpose is to see to it that he thinks he wants to be here.”

The words, ‘unless we say so,’ lingered in your head, giving a window of opportunity that you couldn’t quite put together yet, but with that, it was still done. You had no choice. You had to do as she said, and even more awful, you wanted to.

Chapter 6: Hurt

Having cleaned up and changed into some of Five’s old man flannel pajama pants and one of his short-sleeved undershirts, you were sitting at one of his only two wobbly kitchen chairs when the door to his one room efficiency apartment burst open.

In nothing but a hospital gown that they hadn’t even tied closed, they lugged him inside, carelessly throwing him down on his bed with his back facing you. As soon as the two brutes shut his door, Five began to sob, his entire, noticeably larger body, shuddering uncontrollably.

Gasping for breath like even breathing was hard for him, his left hand moved between his legs, the muscles in his bicep and forearm tensing from the repeated jerking movements of his wrist.

Staring at his bare ass as he writhed, you slowly lowered your spoon back to the bowl of canned soup you were eating.

“Shit,” you breathed, hardly able to believe what you were seeing.

Five was older, not looking really much different in age then you, when only an hour before, he was just a scrawny little neck stabbing douchebag. You knew he wasn’t really a kid. You had seen the picture of him, pre-maturely snowy white hair paired with a mustache of pepper and salt. You’d read about him as they'd directed, getting more acquainted with him to do your job, but this…

This wasn’t right. Five had not wanted them to do this. You had watched him desperately trying to get away.

They had hurt him with what they’d done, and he was still hurting, though you couldn’t tell if it was physical pain, mental, or both. Either way, you knew that he was jerking off, and the people at the Commission were monsters.

But then again, so were you, and so was Five.

Like a switch had been flicked on inside your brain, Lila’s voice circled around inside your head.

Bind him with your power.

He is yours.

And you are his.

Keep him sated.

Closing the manila file that was filled with documented evidence that Five was not at all what he seemed, you shifted in your seat from the unexpected feeling of your own cock stiffening. The second the metal of your spoon hit the side of the porcelain bowl, he went completely still.

In a flash, he was on you, blinking across the room, his now much heavier body weight slamming into you, knocking you backwards while still not even up out of your chair.

Your head cracked against the ugly linoleum floor, your brain bouncing inside your skull as he pinned you under him, his strong arms and legs easily countering yours as you tried to throw him off.

“Get off of me, you fucker!” you shouted, rapidly blinking your eyes to clear the stars from your vision, but it didn’t work fast enough.

One of his hands came around your neck, ruthlessly choking you. “NO!” Five snarled, as you grabbed at his face, trying to make him look at you.

Apparently, he was on to you and what you could do if given the chance because he forced your cheek to the floor, but just as fast, you jabbed him in the ribcage. Sucking in a pained hiss, he let go of your face, and you reached up, yanking him by his freshly grown mop of tangly dark hair, bringing your faces back together again.

Eyes ablaze, you gurgled, “S-top figh-ting-ME!”

Caught off-guard, Five couldn’t look away, but he fought back anyway, bucking his hips against yours as he tried to shake his head from your hold. The long, hot, hard length of his dick became even more wedged against yours, with nothing between you, other than his flimsy hospital gown and your borrowed pajama pants.

Feeling what you were feeling, because there was no way he wasn’t, looking even more ballistic, Five tried to throw his head back then forward to headbutt you, but that only made his cock rut into yours harder, and you didn’t let go of his head.

His face came forward anyway, his nose brushing against the tip of yours. His mouth gaped open as he gasped, his moist breath coating your lips.

Trying to speak again, he tightened his hand. Your words weren’t coming out, so you tried speaking to his mind instead.

Focus on my eyes, Five, nothing else. I am not the one you should be fighting. Let me go!

The smallest flame started to reflect back at you as he watched the swirls of color building in your eyes. He was falling under your spell, but he still didn’t let go of your neck.

You almost had him, but you were growing dizzy from lack of oxygen. Your own eyes were fighting to stay open. You were sure that he was going to succeed in snuffing you out, and all the crap The Handler and Lila had done to get you there would have gone to waste, but then Five’s already ghostly pale face started to look more ashen.

His sweaty brow furrowed, his face suddenly looking a sickly shade of green.

He started to gag.

NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO! your mind screamed at him, right before he emptied the contents of his stomach, some of it splashing up on you even though you’d pushed his face to the side at the last second.

With nothing left in him, Five finally let go, then he collapsed, his face burrowing against the start of bruises already forming along the length of your neck.

As your chest rose and fell, your body taking in the air it had been denied, the now much longer hair on the top of his head fluttered with your labored breaths. He had listened to you because he had no choice, but you also had a voice inside that wasn’t yours, and you couldn’t silence it.

‘… you are allowed to do whatever is necessary to take care of him.’

The heat between your bodies was about as impossible to ignore as the feel of his erection next to yours.

You laid your hand against the small of his back. Five flinched from even that lightest touch, but you kept your hand there.

“Everything hurts. It won’t stop,” he cried, the wetness of his words as his mouth opened against the side of your throat was heartbreaking as his tears washing over your skin.

Chapter Seven: Trust

“You need to get up,” you told Five, letting the warmth of your hand slip away from the curve of his lower back, but only after he’d quieted. As you pushed your elbows into the floor, trying to sit up, you felt the slickness of his vomit coating your arm. “That is so gross,” you huffed in exhausted irritation.

Coming out of his delirium, Five started untangling himself. Now that he wasn’t ordered to look at you, he refused to meet your gaze. He looked down at his diamond patterned hospital gown instead, and the impressive tent he was making out of it with his dick.

He looked horrified.

Staggering to his bathroom, you watched him disappear, slamming the bathroom door so hard it rattled everything inside his small apartment.

Hearing the sound of Five taking what had to be a very sloppy, and very difficult to execute piss, you looked down at the floor.

“What a fucking mess,” you muttered, right before a loud, man-sized thud hit the wall.

Coming inside the bathroom to see what he’d done now, you were greeted with the sight of Five slumped on the floor, wedged between the toilet and the bathtub, a space that didn’t look at all comfortable, or like he’d put himself there intentionally.

He was trembling. Now that you weren’t holding him together, he was falling apart all over again, and there you were, doing not much better, covered in his puke, trying to figure out which you wanted to do more, kill him or…

“Shit,” you said, sighing as you threw a frustrated hand back through your hair.

Pulling his knees towards him, burying his head in his hands, Five mumbled through his fingers. “I didn’t want to do this to you. I had no choice.”

“I know, but I still hate you,” you said.

He looked up, his eyes glistening. “Why are you here…with me?”

“Because they want me here. I also have no choice in this. If I walk out your front door, my brain stem is going to end up deep fried like a churro. Speaking of which, you have no food here. Why have dishes when your refrigerator is empty.”

You reached back, your fingers gingerly grazing the stitches that they had only just closed a few hours before. You winched, triggered by the memory of debilitating pain The Handler had graced you with.

The line between Five brows deepened. “What are you doing to me?” he questioned.

“Nothing at the moment.”

It was true, you weren’t, but he didn’t look like he was buying it.

You glared at him. “I’m not the one responsible for your Alice in Wonderland, magical sizing up issue, or that hefty boner you’re dealing with." You swore you saw the tiniest twitch in the corner of his mouth.

“No. You are not,” he coolly replied. “I am being hit with six years' worth of developmental hormones all at once, so clearly that was not what I meant, and I think you knew that. What’s your excuse?”

Looking slightly less venomous, he glanced at the flannel covered outline of your semi hard cock, the shape of your mushroom like tip still protruding enough that the thin fabric was doing nothing to help you hide it.

“Maybe I like getting pounced on by boney old men with big dicks." Only partly joking about that, you extended your hand. To your surprise, Five took it without you making him, but he swayed on his feet the second you’d pulled him upright.

“Well, you know what they say about skinny guys with big shoes,” he said, looking loopy as hell.

“What? That they are huge assholes?”

“Something like that,” Five said as he put a hand to his stomach and grimaced, stumbling back into his sink, looking way too pale again.

“Let me help you,” you whispered as he looked up at you, his new height still not quite matching yours and only made worse by the way he was struggling to stand up straight.

Shaking like a leaf, you could tell Five was going to take off again, or barf, so you planned your next words very carefully, saying them in a calming cadence that only added to the trance-like state you were putting him in with your eyes.

“You are safe with me, Five. I need you to do as I say. Don’t try to get away from me, or them. You want to be here with me. We are both staying here, me never leaving this apartment and you work for them, doing everything they say. Confirm that you understand that.”

He nodded and very subtly, you motioned around you, warning him in case he hadn’t already known.

Sending a message to his mind only, you said, they are listening to us, maybe even watching.

He nodded again that he had heard you.

“Take in a breath,” you said, taking a long slow breath yourself, trying to calm your nerves.

He did too, holding it because you hadn't told him he could let it out.

“As you let it out, you will feel the pain inside you melting away. All of it gone.”

The words filled his head, a warmth of something he didn’t understand dulled his sickness and fear as he obediently exhaled.

“Say, ‘I trust you,” you demanded.

“I trust you,” Five repeated, a fire from deep in his eyes burning back, letting you know that you had him.

Saying nothing more, you helped Five to the edge of the shower, urging him inside, keeping him upright with your slightly larger frame as you stepped inside with him.

Chapter Eight: Coming Together, Coming Apart

Positioning him with his back facing you, the warming spray of the shower head began covering you both, filthy clothes and all.

Now that he wasn’t attacking you, or on the verge of collapse, you really looked at Five, taking him in, your eyes trained on the muscular swell of his narrow, but strong looking hips.

He was so…

Fuck.

As if he was the one that held you in a trance of sexual subjugation, you gripped the length of your shaft, your fingers moving to the tip, stretching the material around your thick glans. The evidence of how turned on you were seeped out of you as you squeezed your girth, adding to the already rapidly darkening fabric. The words came out of you as if someone else had said them. “You are going to stand here and say and do nothing unless I tell you that you can. If I ask you something, you will not lie to me. Do you understand?”

“Yes,” Five softly answered, still hypnotized by your power, even though he could no longer see into your burning eyes.

You had never done this to anyone before, and the thrill of taking control of him like this, in this way, only made it that much harder to stop.

Your breath cascaded down the back of Five’s neck and he shivered. You pushed the sleeves of his hospital gown down his arms, letting it drop at your feet. Hands coming to his hips, you pulled him back against you, the curve of his firm ass cheeks pressing against your now fully hard cock.

Five stiffened at first, but as your hands slowly moved around, your fingers relishing in the quiver of his toned stomach muscles, you heard him let out the quietest moan, and you felt him push back against you of his own free will.

“Do you want to be touched you like this?” you breathed, already knowing he did.

“Yes,” he gasped, sounding so pained, and so broken, that it made your balls quiver and your cock twitch.

"Do you like men, Five?"

He didn't answer, his mind fighting you back, so you said it again, this time with your lips against the back of his neck. "Have you ever fantasized about having sex with men, Five?"

"Yes," he quietly croaked with a nervous sort of shame in his tone over that forced admission that didn't fit the fierce man who only minutes before was trying to choke the life out of you.

He was so fucking beautiful. Innocent only far from it. Everything in you wanted to destroy him, but you took no more than that, just relishing in the feel of your dick being enveloped by his hard ass cheeks. His body was nothing but lean muscle, and you knew just what he could do with it too, only now, Five wasn’t walking around as a violently little thirteen-year-old.

If given the order, now, like this, at the prime of life, he’d be so much more terrifyingly lethal than he was before.

He is yours, your mind whispered, and fuck yes you wanted to believe that, even without Lila’s voice telling you that was already true.

Reaching for his shampoo, you glopped a squirt of it in your hand, then brought it to your head and face, washing away any remaining traces of the stomach splatter he had gotten on you. Then getting more soap, you brought your hands to Five’s head, massaging your fingers into his scalp.

Already going weak in the knees with pleasure over the feel of it, Five’s head rolled back on his shoulders. Biting in a moan, he had to reach out, his palm pressing against the glass shower door to support himself. As you worked your hands down his neck, kneading his shoulders, then the long curve of his spine, he let out a series of puppy-like whimpers that only made you want to hear more intoxicating noises like that coming out of him.

“Have you ever done this or anything like it with anyone before?” you questioned.

“No. I only had Dolores,” he whispered.

You knew who Dolores was. The mannequin's picture was in his file. You let out a shaking breath, and kept going, your own sighs mixing with his, turning into a throbbing ball of pain and a full-bodied ache of frustration the more you touched him. This was wrong, but you couldn’t stop. You could practically feel Five’s tight rim clamped around the base of your cock as you took the only thing left of his purity, ramming him balls deep as he screamed your name.

Playing with his wet stomach, you explored the shiny grooves of his abs as they twitched, making his cock stutter and bob between his legs.

“You want me to help you take care of this?” you questioned, knowing he wanted to touch himself so badly, only he couldn’t unless you told him he could.

“Please, yes! I- I need- It won’t-”

He couldn’t even say it. Five was so distraught, for all you knew, he’d been sporting a hard-on for hours, unable to do anything about it as he lay, strapped to that operating table in front of all of them.

Releasing him, you quickly peeled your shirt over your head, then took hold of him again, arms coming around, holding him to you as your hands worshiped his chest, fingers splaying over his small tight nipples before tracing patterns across his abs again.

“Nnn-ahhh,” Five keened, wriggling against you because he was so overwhelmed by being handled this way.

“Do you want me to fuck you, Five?” you questioned, your mouth greedily coming to his neck, sucking at the salty taste of his delicious skin.

Something inside hadn’t abandoned him, because even though you’d asked Five a question, again he didn’t answer it.

The darkness in your mind felt like it was suddenly eating at you. You needed him to comply. Your eyes flared with anger as you reactively bit into him, your teeth drawing a cry of pain that made Five sound like the terror filled little boy he had looked like only hours before, and that only pissed you off even more.

You hated this, but you hated even more than you didn’t.

Fighting the voices and the desire to do worse to him, your mouth moved along the crest of Five’s shoulder, breathing him in as he trembled. “Shhhh,” you hotly warned, kissing him so softly that he deliriously whimpered again.

His hand slipped along the glass as he began to move, but just as fast, you took hold of him, taking his uncut cock up against his abdomen, pumping your hand along the veiny length of it.

“Fah-ah-aaahhckkkk,” he groaned, automatically reacting to the new sensation with his hips reactively springing to life like a bouncing rabbit.

You loved the sound of that, and the feeling of him frantically rocking against you. He needed this so badly you could feel him throbbing in your hand. “I'm yours, Five. My only purpose is to make you happy. Tell me what you want,” you said while slowly fucking him with your hand, the pressure of your confined erection screaming at you to be released.

“I want this! Please, fuck! I need to cum!” he cried, as you looked over his shoulder, longingly taking in the sight of the pearly string of fluid that was steadily leaking from his swollen red slit onto his taut torso. You smeared his bloated glans around his navel, letting his pre-cum slick your fingers, making it even easier to move them up and down his big cock.

Sliding the hand you had at his hip, back over his perky ass, you brought your fingers to the tight ring of puckered flesh hidden between his cheeks. Five flinched and lurched forward from the invasive sensation, but circling his rim while rolling his foreskin up and down, teasing his cockhead, you were determined to tangle the programing in his head that was used for interpreting whether this were right or wrong. The main lust driven goal to make him associate you playing with his ass with the feeling of pleasure and total submission.

“I only want to make you feel good, Five,” you promised, then slowly inserted your finger inside him, up to the second knuckle, then pulled it out again, repeating the pattern of in and out, dragging his hole open slowly each time.

Overstimulated to the point of tears, soon you had him panting and his thighs quivering. Not blinking away or even attempting to stop you, but again proving that your power over him may have been slipping, Five cried out, “Please, Ffff-!”

You weren’t sure if he wanted more or less, but pulling out of him, you ran your fingers over the bar of soap sitting on the small shelf next to you, bringing the sudsy fingers back to his hole. With no foreplay this time, you plunged your finger into his virgin hole that felt so tight, you knew it would deny your cock entry but that only made you want to fuck him even more.

Five growled as he closed his eyes, helplessly rocking against your hands, and you loved it way too much that he wasn’t even capable of being ashamed or forming words anymore.

Obliging his desire for more master playing with his angry little puppet, you pumped him faster and harder, penetrating him with a second finger, crooking both digits as you twisted them and tapped them against his prostate. Five moaned so loud and raggedly, the needy tremor of it was almost enough to make you blow your load. Instead of doing that, or bending down to lick his ass hole and really send him to another planet, you shut your eyes too, focusing on nothing but him and the hypnotizing sounds of his hitched breaths.

“You like me fucking your cock and your hole, Five?”

“Yes. Fuck, yes. Fucking, ffff-” he breathed, licking his lips as he threw his head back against yours.

Straining, Five clenched his groin muscles, his entire body shaking with the first waves of his orgasm. His release hit him so hard, if you hadn’t been holding on to him, he would have slipped and fell on the slippery shower floor.

His come was so hot as it repeatedly spurt out of him to the rhythm of you fucking your fingers against his prostate, the milky strands of it covering your hand, flicking up, going everywhere. Working him a little longer as his body rested back against yours, you nuzzled the scruffy wet feel of his hair against your face, then you gently pulled your fingers from the suction of his trembling hole.

You wanted nothing more than to feel Five in this way, surrendering all of himself to you because he'd done it completely willingly, but as soon as it was done, the painful disappointment of your reality and what you'd done cut through the words Lila had tried and failed to imprint on your brain.

Forcingly spinning Five around, your eyes filled with a mirage of blissfully dancing colors. His own pupils, still blown dark with his lust, instantly went glassy, reflecting back eerily, the entire sclera glowing bright.

"Pick up that towel, get out and go find something to eat, and then get in your bed, and go to sleep. You have work in the morning,” you told him.

Waving a testing hand in front of his face, as if drugged, Five grinned back so stupidly that all you wanted to do was to kiss him silly, and that made the ache in your chest even worse.

You slid the shower door open and repeated the order. “Go. Do what I said.”

Getting out, like the good little hypnotized time traveling assassin now made case worker for a bunch of demented dickheads, Five reached for a towel, tying it around his waist before he stepped out into the cold air of his apartment, hair still dripping beads of water down his back as he headed towards his kitchen.

Realizing you perhaps should have told him to dry off, and put some clothes on, rather than think on that mistake for even a second longer, you slammed the shower door closed, pulled down your pants, dropped your forehead against the tiles, quickly jerking yourself off with his name on your lips as you came.

Chapter Nine: I know Not What I Do, Only I do

As you laid in Five’s bed, a few feet away from where he slept so peacefully under your spell, you knew this couldn’t go on, and seeing him walking in the door now only made you feel that way all over again. It was crushing. Conflicting orders at war inside your head.

Looking around Five’s small apartment, you smiled again at how he’d cleaned it that morning. While quietly getting ready for his day, he’d made sure you didn’t have to deal with the dried puke mess on the floor, or with how he’d accidently pissed all over the toilet the night before.

Coming home, Five looked so handsome and full of life, his new black suit clinging to him in all the right places. When he shut the door, your eyes met his for a second before he looked away. He was clearly uncomfortable, despite being forced to trust you being there in his private space.

“I brought food,” he simply said, moving to the table to set down the brown bag he had carried in with him. “It’s just something I picked up, but I promise after work tomorrow I will go shopping for things to fill that empty refrigerator and make my dishes less worthless.”

He slipped off his suit jacket, placing it over the back of his chair, then sat down, taking out two containers filled with something that smelled so good it instantly made your mouth water.

He smiled hopefully as he opened his dinner, gesturing for you to do the same.

You felt that pain in you chest again. Five was taking care of you. That was not something you had compelled him to do, but there he was, doing it anyway.

As he started eating, you saw him looking over at the Commission’s file that was still laying on the table between you, every time you saw him do it, he would look away, nervously tapping his foot under the table.

You didn’t care what it said. Five Hargreeves, the monster they’d made, the man that had killed so many people, and had taken you away from your life, all because an evil woman told him too, was not what that file said he was.

After several bites of food, the thickness in your throat was too much. “Five, look at me.”

He did, as if you’d made him, only you hadn’t.

“Is it true what The Handler said about that diner…about me dying there if this hadn’t happened?”

You watched him slowly swallow. “Yes,” he replied, again uncomfortable with this, but trying so hard not to show it.

Raising your fork again, you took a deep breath and nodded.

Silence resumed as you both ate.

When you were done, you could tell that Five didn’t know what to do with himself. When he had looked like the older man in the picture underneath the cover of that file, you could only assume that even then, he didn’t have much to cling to in this place, other than scheming to get back to his family. He’d done it too, only the poor bastard got himself stuck right back where he was before, only two days later.

Leaning back as you pushed out your chair, you crossed your arms over your chest. You grinned. You couldn’t help it with him sitting over there, frowning as he ran his finger over the scratches etched into his tabletop.

When he pulled his lips to the side, looking even more sulky, you let out a little chuckle.

“Something funny?” he coolly questioned, with such irritation souring his expression that your smile grew even bigger. Finally looking up, he glared at you through the messy pieces of hair dangling in front of his face

“No. I just like looking at you,” you honestly replied.

Flipping his head back, Five raised his eyebrows in disbelief, but you saw the smile pulling at his lips as his hair fell right back, making him all the more handsome but also annoying him all over again.

Drawing invisible pictures, he went back to jiggling his foot against the leg of the table.

“Are you bored, need help figuring out what to do with your night, other than studying your tabletop?” you teased.

To your surprise, Five suddenly disappeared, a rush of air hitting you when he reappeared less than a second later, standing right between your outstretched legs, one hand planted hard on the table next to yours. He lowered himself even closer, his eyes boring into you so hotly it felt like he was trying to light you on fire with them.

“What if I am bored? Are you going to play with me again?” he challenged.

You smirked as he rubbed your knee, the crotch of his pants already tented so big it was making it so hard for you to think of anything else other than playing with him again. Hormones still raging or not as the reason for it, Five’s dick was silently begging for attention and when he was ready to go, he was ready to go.

You spread your legs a little more. “I could play with you, and tire you out like I did last night, or since I am pretty comfortable right here after my long day of doing nothing, I could fill that spray bottle over there under your kitchen sink with water and squirt you in the face with it until you leave me alone.”

“If you spray me, I will hump your leg and bite at you,” Five countered, his voice seductively sweet.

“It looks like we have a problem then,” you said as your eyes burned for him. “What are you going to do about it?”

Five dropped to his knees between your legs. As he reached between your thighs, groping you, he got confirmation that he wasn't the only one getting hard. You bit back a moan and leaned forward, resting your forehead against his. “I can’t say no if this is what you want, but I shouldn't do thhss-”

“Quiet,” he whispered, pressing a finger to your lips, cutting you off as his breath purposefully ghosted against your ear. “I have wanted to do this all day.”

As Five stroked your cock through the frumpy gray dress pants you hand taken from the limited selection in his closet, he moved his lips along your cheek, coming to your mouth, where he kissed again, his slightly parted lips happily taking in the breathy heat of your gasps.

It was his first real kiss like this with someone real, and he was perfect, so soft, so delicately insistent.

Lust hitting your entire being, your eyes instinctually flamed brighter with need. Five kept going, assertively unzipping your pants, pulling your cock out, only breaking away from your mouth to look down, appraising. Your length was thick enough, but at the head, where you were slightly thinner, you flared out with just the right girth to stimulate some major damage.

"Five," you breathed and closed your eyes as he began to kiss you again, this time thrusting his tongue in, twirling it around with yours.

There was no question if this was wrong or right. No thoughts wasted on why you felt the way you did about him.

When you reached down, cupping him through his dress pants, Five groaned and held the side of your face with his other hand, aggressively wrestling with your tongue, ramming his as far into your mouth as it would go.

Forcing your lips away from his, even as he tried to nibble like a puppy on your lower lip to keep his hold on you, you gave a sharp laugh, rolling your eyes at him. “Are you trying to fuck me, Five?” Pushing your ass into your chair, stomach flexing, your hips fucked into his hand, to fuck with him even more.

When Five didn’t answer, you knew why. His brain couldn’t form the right response, and that was because he didn’t know what to say or do all of a sudden, like you just asking that had shaken him out of his own self-induced super horny dying to have his dick played with trance.

“I think it’s time for you to suck me off, sweetheart,” you mocked, and just like that, eyes glowing back, at the perfect height to bend over the length of dick in his face, Five did.

Tentatively tasting you, his tongue slid around your glans, causing you to anxiously twitch under his extra gentle touch. Growing bolder again over your reaction, Five slid forward, grabbing your hips, aggressively pulling you to him, proving how strong he could be as he sucked the head of your cock between his silky lips like a kid sucking a lollie pop.

“Oh fuck,” you whispered, shakily clutching the back of his head as he took as much of your erection into his mouth as he could.

Even though he’d never done this before, Five was proving he wasn’t just very good at killing people and turning his own life into compete fucking chaos. Right now, the most important thing in his mind was your dick, and he was owning that hot, pre-ejaculate dripping mess too.

Slowly letting him work into it, the building ache between your legs felt as good as your cock gently rocking into his throat. Like before, you were trying so hard to be careful with Five. You had told him he was safe with you, that all he wanted was to be with you and you'd take care of him, but fuck he was taking really good care of you.

The heady smell of your crotch and salty taste of your cock as he licked you up and down, and your fingers needily gripping his hair had him so excited, he was trembling with excitement. The tension building to a point of no turning back, along with the ingrained need to take back control, you took his hair, firmly pulling his head back. His mouth came off your cock with a pop as he looked up at you like he might snarl at you he was so mad that you'd forced him to stop. “You are being such a good boy, and I love how you look with my dick in your mouth, but right now... Now I need you to jerk off while I cum down your throat,” you said as you laughed at him already trying to get your cock back in his mouth.

Letting him have it, as his mouth came back around you, he tore into his own pants. Ripping his zipper down, he pulled himself free, gripping his girth tight at the tip. When he started going at it, hard, the sight sent your eyes rolling back in your head, but you forced them to stay open, dizzily admiring how fucking amazing he looked jacking off his big dripping cock while he went doing down on you.

All you could do was enjoy every wet suckle and slicked squelching sound you were making together. Your cock was swelling and leaking even more with his valiant efforts and that only spurred him on even more.

Inside his mouth and inside his mind, you could feel how much Five wanted to taste your release, to swallow your gushing lust for him, letting it consume him, but before he could get you there, you pulled his head back again, frantically panting, and that only made Five look even more proud over what he’d been able to do to you.

He gave you a sloppy smile and you felt like your heart might burst.

He wanted to drown in you, and you felt exactly the same about him.

You took his hand in yours. "What do you want, Five?” you asked, needing him say it.

“I want to give you everything,” he replied, his eyes still glowing as he meekly peered up at you.

You didn't know what to say to that and with it, the hand you were holding went slack as Five robotically waited for direction. You untangled your fingers from him and his hand fell next to his body.

You felt sick over this but you reached out anyway, brushing your fingers across his smoothly shaven cheek. “Five, you have to promise me that if I do something you don’t want, you will tell me. You have to tell me the truth, always.”

He said nothing.

“Do you understand!” you worriedly pushed.

“I understand. I will tell you if I don’t want something. Only the truth. I promise."

“Do you want your clothes off?”

“Yes.”

You started unbuttoning his waistcoat, your hands shaking as you pulled back the tailored black fabric from his thin waistline.

“Tell me what you’re thinking,” you whispered as he pushed his pants down the rest of the way, clumsily kicking out of them, then his shoes.

“I can’t stop thinking about how good it feels with you,” he said, struggling out of his dress shirt even before you had it all the way unbuttoned.

Taking him by his tie, you pulled his face to yours while giving his cock a little squeeze.

Falling into you, his cock leashing him to you, Five submissively whimpered.

Your teeth flashed at him, just like your eyes. “Tell me, Five…do you want me to fuck you again? Or do you have something else in mind? You wanna play the daddy this time?”

“I-" His mouth opened a few times, then closed as if what you just said short circuited his brain."

I looked at him sternly. "I am waiting..."

"I want you to fuck me again," he quickly shot back, so fast and high pitched that you had to laugh at how rushed and eager he sounded. "You make it so easy for me," he furthered, sounding like he still thought that you required more convincing. "I don’t even need to think with you. That's what I want. I want to be yours again."

Hearing Five admit that only fueled the dark arousal burning in your gut. You had not instilled in him the message that he was yours.

Fuck, Five was just... Fuck.

You smirked and shook your head, cupping his balls.

Five furrowed his brow, looking genuinely confused until you shuffled him back and pushed him down and on his bed. He was so hard, his long cock slapped against his torso on impact, and that was so fucking hot seeing that, that you could hardly take it.

If he did fuck you, you’d really be fucked.

Dropping your pants to the floor, throwing off another one of his borrowed undershirts, you wedged your body down over his. Instinctively, Five spread his legs making room for you. You hooked his legs around your hips, pulling him closer until he could feel the heat of your cock pressing against his.

Leaning forward, kissing him softly, your dicks slid together. Gripping them in your hand to make it feel even better, Five moaned into your mouth with appreciation.

Rubbing off against each other’s cocks, you started nipping at his neck, leading a hot trail of your tongue up to the shallow cave just under his jawline.

“I need you inside of me…it feels so good. Please,” Five begged, trying to rut into you even faster.

Hearing him say that, you rubbed the rigid tip of your cocks against each other, a groan rumbling in your chest over what he'd said and the sensation of it. Bringing your other hand between his legs, the pads of your fingers started circling his hole.

“I don’t want to hurt you,” you breathed against Five's long sexy neck as his legs gave out, flopping down onto the bed as if you’d just rendered him useless by tickling his asshole, but then, just as fast, he kicked into overdrive, moaning your name, the heels of his feet digging into the bed so he could frot against you faster.

"I can take it. I need you, please...fuck, please-" he growled, evidently not at all incapacitated.

Five gasped when you pushed down on him, forcefully tilting his hips, while pulling your fingers away from his ass. The hot tip of your cock slid between his legs, replacing your hand and he looked so cutely frozen with nervous anticipation, it was like he was stuck between terror and just not giving a damn about anything anymore, which was exactly what he'd said he wanted. He didn't want to think.

“Not yet,” you said, laughing, just before flipping him around like he weighed nothing more than blow-up fuck doll.

Like a man possessed, coming in behind him, your eyes trained on his ass crack, you gave him a good slap, making him hiss and bite at his pillow in retaliation. If that wasn’t indication enough that Five liked that, the way he curled in, his hand coming to his dick, fondling it just as angrily confirmed it.

“Hold still and be a good boy, and I’ll fuck you so hard you’ll never be able to forget me,” you promised, laying another handprint on him as you smiled.

After pinching his ass, making him growl a little more, you trailed your hand down his spine, leaving it in place on the small of his back. You spread his hole open, revealing his tender pink skin you were dying to kiss. “You’re amazing, so perfect, Five,” you breathed, meaning every word of it, so scared of breaking him but also wanting to do nothing but break him.

Reaching for his bedside table where you'd seen that he had a bottle of lube hidden under his dirty magazines, you dug around, then finding what you needed, popped the cap, squirting some of the watery fluid in your hand. Swirling it around his rim had him flailing, so being even more generous, you massaged his taint too.

“Oh fuck, this feels so good,” Five cried, grinding back on your hand.

“I told you to stay still,” you said as you yanked him to the side of the bed, reaching between his legs, pulling his cock back, stretching it down against the bedspread so you could keep an eye on it. Once you had him where you wanted, you pinned Five’s crotch flat against the mattress, admiring the full bitch like view of him laid out for you like that.

You let your fingers linger along his ass crack again before drifting lower, groping his tightly hung balls. You gave a firm stroke along his shaft, finishing the torment by gently pinching and squeezing the flared strawberry shaped thickness of his tip, making him drizzle a hot trail of of pre-cum against the bed.

Probing your slicked finger at his ass, when you finally entered him, Five, whimpered and tried to grip his cock again, but you slapped his hand away.

“You bastard!” he screamed, rabidly humping the side of the bed as you worked his glistening pink asshole.

Twisting and turning your wrist, you smoothed your finger back and forth across his prostate, altering between that and jabbing it in and out of his asshole. Panting curses, Five spurted even more onto his bedspread with his rim pulsing against the base of your fingers.

He squirmed and tried to lift his ass when you pulled out, but then you sunk a second finger, scissoring into him, holding him in place with your other hand, not letting him up even after you’d brought in a third digit into the fun and he was crying out like you were killing him.

You looked down at the swell of your cockhead hanging over his ass. You knew this was going to be hard for him no matter what, but just the thought of your dick jamming in Five’s virgin asshole made your breath hitch and your heart beat even faster.

“Please,” he yelped as you pulled out of him, taking your time, lovingly tugging his long, heavy erection, covering it with the lube left on your hand.

After you spread a line of fresh lube on your cock, coating it until it shined and throbbed, rock hard. Ready, you tossed the bottle on the bed and grabbed Five’s hips, whipping him around.

Yanking him close, his ass about off the bed, Five looked you right in the eye as you pressed your thick, swollen glans against his puckered flesh, giving it a few pushes to test the resistance. It was still too tight to accept you unless you forced it.

“Five, you don’t have to do this,” you said. “Tell me right now if there is anything inside you telling you this isn’t what you want. I’ll stop, I swear.”

Five was silent, totally still for a moment, then he whispered, “I want this, with you. Only you. Please. I want this more than anything.”

That wasn’t true. He wanted to save the world and his family more than anything, but something in you dying a little more for him anyway, you leaned over, lining your throbbing tip against his hole as you tenderly kissed his quivering lips, your tongue caressing his as you slid your meat against his opening.

“I only want you too,” you whispered back as you felt the pressure on your cock head increasing. Sinking into his ass, you pulled out almost right away and you felt the sweet feeling of his asshole trailing the thick head of your cock, sucking at it like it was begging for it to come back, but Five was trembling so hard it had scared you straight. Your brain doing the thinking for a fraction of a second, you equally shakily asked, “You, okay?”

Frantic, he nodded. “Burns,” he breathed, swallowing hard. "Feels, so- So good.”

Slow and careful, you pushed into him again, your head swimming from the sensation of his body clamping around you.

An inch in and Five gasped and fisted at his bedspread.

“That's it, you’re doing so good. Just relax,” you whispered, increasing the force of your thrusts the more your cock entered him. “You’re so tight, so perfect, Five. Ffff-” you hissed between clenched teeth as you pulled back, watching his straining red rim follow your cock back as you pulled out, gripping and caressing every inch of you.

“Thank you,” he moaned, saying it again and again, each time your cock reached a new part of him, the pain in his eyes there with the shine.

You couldn't take the sight of him hurting. “God, Five, fuck,” you gasped against his ear, your stomach sliding along his sweat covered body as you came down next to him again, hiding from the truth of it. "I am sorry," you cried back. "At your mercy, you jarred his body into the bed with your strong thrusts, starting to fully rock the fuck out of him. “No-matter wh-what, your mine, and I am yours,” you rhythmically grunted, as you rolled your hips into his ass, your cock sliding freer by the second as Five took the abuse, relaxing into it even faster because your power was making his body obey.

Your hands gripping his ass as you thrust your cock into his asshole, bucking your hips against his body, Five slurred back, “I’mm- Ya ya-yoursss.-”

At this point, he was mumbling all sorts of sounds you couldn’t understand. He threw his head to the side, burying his face in the blankets as if it could ease the overwhelming sensations he was feeling. Saliva slipped from the corner of his mouth, and you wiped it away for him, wanting to love him but destroying him all the same.

He was breaking but seeing him that way was breaking you too.

"Look what they did to you, Five!" You gripped his jaw, making him look at you. "I'm the only one who gets to ruin you like this,” you said, lowering your voice. “Not them. Say it.”

“You’re the only one. Not them,” Five quietly cried, his head swaying as you violently pounded into him and his hips humped mindlessly, his asshole clenching down on your dick.

“Don’t let them away with this,” you said, your mouth whispering at his throat, your voice so low with rage and your mind so gone that it only pulled Five deeper into your head and into this madness.

A sharp shock of pain shot through him as you cock bottomed out, but you held his wrists down to stop him from writhing or getting away. You kissed his brow, whispering your regrets again. “M sor-sorry, Five. So fucking sorry.”

His entire body shuddering, on the verge of climax, Five didn't know why you were saying that. Trapped between your bodies, Five’s cock was leaking all over him, but the friction he was getting wasn’t enough. He wanted more so much he was about to scream.

When you put your hand to his throat, the fire in your eyes as your fingers enclosed his windpipe would have been terrifying if not for how much he wanted to see it, and hear you ordering him to touch himself.

Obediently taking his cock in hand, Five quickly started beating off.

Plunging into him hard and fast, the back of his thighs smacked your pelvis. Over and over, you took him, harder and faster, until you were both delirious with pleasure.

His oxygen cut off, his body under your command, Five started to come.

"Five," you gasped, tears clouding your eyes as he let go of himself completely, pawing at his sheets with numb hands.

One second you wanted to escape what you'd done to him, then the next you knew you couldn't fathom it, and all you wanted was to keep him here like this as your prisoner for the rest of his life, and the abject horror of that was too much.

You locked your arms around his shoulders, bearing down as you hurtled in and out of his increasingly slack ass, relishing the wet squelches and reverberating smacks that accompanied every rapid thrust.

“Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck…” Five’s voice was strangled and frenzied, his repeated gasps, wet and dripping with desperation.

You slammed into him, to the hilt, and didn’t pull out, deeply grinding your cock into his body so hard you could see the bulge of it pushing up in his stomach.

You felt the spasm beneath you that rolled down Five’s spine and pulsed in his ass, making him wriggle and writhe against your crotch as spurts of cum burst from the tip of his abused cock. Then, having brought him to the brink everything got hotter and tighter when your cock erupted inside him.

Your eyes rolled back in your head as you gripped Five even harder, even more relentlessly cruel. He thrashed as you spilled, ruthlessly filling him with your seed.

He howled as your hips slammed into him one last time, a wall of pleasure coming undone that made him spill more cum too, his spent cock twitching as his balls emptied everything he had left.

For a couple of minutes, you were both still. Five’s apartment was silent except for the sounds of erratic breathing. You didn’t want to move, but if you didn’t, you might collapse.

Pulling out, his body spasmed from the loss. Where he’d felt so unbelievably full, the shock of your retreat brought tears to Five’s entranced eyes.

You crawled up next to him, the warmth of your body pressing next to his as you pulled his chin towards yours, leaving your thumb resting against his kiss swollen lips.

He shut his eyes, looking so beautiful.

You told him he was. You told him to look at you.

As he did, you could feel it that Five was aware he was hypnotized during all this. His mind was fuzzy, as if his head was filled with cotton, but you holding him felt cozy and warm and safe. It was like for the first time in his life, nothing bad could touch him.

He wasn’t lying. This was what he wanted. He was happy and it felt so new to him that he didn't really understand the emotion other than he didn't want it to stop.

While listening to you speak as he watched the motion of your lips, Five felt like the world was operating in slow motion. He could see the glow if his eyes reflected back in the sadness of yours, but he still didn’t understand why you looked that way. All he wanted was to make you happy like he was, and he hated that you seemed like you weren’t.

What more could he give you? he wondered.

Your eyes misted over.

This wasn’t about that. This was about what you could give him.

“Listen very carefully, Five,” you whispered, so quietly there was no way the Commission’s spying mics could pick up what you were saying. “Tomorrow, get what you need to get out of here. When you have it. Go. You need to jump back to the exact point you left. Even if you can get your hands on a briefcase, you still need to jump like you did the last time. Go back to the exact same body you had before, change the math to make it happen. Do you understand?”

“But you can’t leave,” he said, looking so confused. His hand came back around your neck, his fingertips careful not to touch your fresh incision, but the point he was making was clear as the pain you felt over this.

“I found a way out. I will be with you. This is the way it has to be. Tell me you understand, and that you will do this for me.”

He said nothing.

“You are doing this,” you insisted, the pools of your eyes lighting up with swirls of power he couldn’t escape. “Tell me that you understand what you are supposed to do. You need to take your Umbrella Academy uniform with you. Change into it if you can still get it on. No one else needs to know this happened to you. Say you’ll do this for me.”

“I’ll do this. I understand”

With you, like he’d said, everything was easy. There were no doubts, no thinking, so his answer came out of him as free as he finally felt.

You’d said you would be with him. That was exactly what Five wanted, in his mind and his heart.

He smiled, and you smiled back.

Unable to look at him looking back at you with that look of softness in his glowing eyes, you pulled him flush with your body, the curve of his warm backside pressed to you in a false promise of safety. You brushed your face against the nape of his neck, tenderly applying kisses to his cooling skin as you whispered a continuous chant of how much he meant to you, of how perfect he was.

Lulled to sleep by your words of love, you listened to Five’s soft breaths. As he became lost, deep in his dreams, you keeping his nightmares at bay, you shut your eyes, but like the fiery presence of your power that remained ignited for him, as if clinging to him as much as you were with your arms, your tears couldn't put the fire out as it filled your heart.

Chapter 10: What Defines Us

The next day, just like the one before, Five dressed and got ready for work, but before he left, he bent over, placing a feather light kiss on your forehead, then he tucked you in, ensuring you wouldn't get cold without him there cuddling you.

You felt him doing it, but you kept your eyes closed, pretending to be asleep. Biting in your smile, you thought of how sweet he was, how as soon as you were asleep, and you could no longer dominate him with your power, he’d reflexively reversed your positions, making you into his little spoon.

What you wouldn’t give to know what it was like to be with Five, in a real way, for even one more day, with him getting to just be him, and you just be you.

What could have been was the tragedy adding to all the rest of the things plaguing your heart with regret.

Hours later, your mind still linked with his through your hypnotic direction, you felt it when Five snuck past the tube operations room, following Dot.

He was so focused, so dead set on doing what you said.

Taking a deep breath, doing the only thing left you could do to help him, buying him some time, you stepped out the door of his apartment, your knees hitting the pavement as the sensor in your neck activated, alerting the Commission's agents you were trying to get away.

“The Handler knows that Five is up to something,” Dot nervously said, handing the order he had seen her typing to Gloria. “Send this to Hazel and Cha-Cha immediately.”

As soon as Dot was gone, in a flash, Five was behind Goria, thumping her in the back of the head with his pistol.

The Handler hatefully looked down at you, flailing and foaming at the mouth. Her agents dragged you back over the threshold of Five’s apartment at the same time he blinked himself into an empty office he'd staked out earlier. He down, opening the tube. “Reassignment: Protect Harold Jenkins,” he muttered, his eyes wide in recognition of what this meant.

This was what he’d come for.

Heart racing, looking at the door, listening for any sign they were out there, he quickly got to typing new orders for The Commission’s moronic mask wearing assassins.

The old typewriter clicked, and the paper whirled as he pulled the new orders out.

Quickly stripped and wriggled back into his way too small academy uniform, with the words, Terminate Hazel for Immediate Extraction, and Terminate Cha-Cha for Immediate Extraction on the office memorandums in his hand, Five blinked back to the tube room.

“Didn’t you like the suit I bought you?” The Handler said, wandering in, narrowing her eyes at him after he’d sent the second tube. “And…you know that’s not how we do things here. Where’s Gloria?”

Five turned, hands in his shorts pockets as he shrugged. His fly wouldn't even go up because the wool covering his ass was so stretched so tight, but he didn't give a shit that he looked like Luther about to burst out of his clothes. “Oh, I couldn't find her anywhere,” he replied, just as the woman in question groaned on the floor behind her desk.

The Handler shook her head at him. “You’re a great disappointment to me. You and that other promising face I so generously gave you to keep you company. You can’t change what’s to come, Five. I truly find it so odd that you can’t shed this fantasy. You’re a first-rate pragmatist. You belong here with us.”

“I don’t belong anywhere thanks to you. You made me a killer!” he snapped.

“You were always a killer. I just pointed you in a direction.”

Blinking, Five disappeared just before the bullet she fired at him flew through his chest.

Reappearing behind the shelves, The Handler kept stalking him, her free hand reaching in her pocket. “With the click of this switch I have right here in my hand...”

She paused.

Laying on the floor as you looked up at the sun shining in from the window next to Five's bed, the pain hit you again. Before everything went black, all you saw was the happiness in Five's sweet eyes as he looked back at you, his soft lips smiling with nothing but hope.

The Handler let up on the switch, her hand coming back out of her pocket, joining the other on her gun trained at Five. “He’s gone,” she continued, and that is on you, not me. Just another death on your hands.”

A few final twitches from the final jolts of her attack, rocked you limp body. The light in your eyes swirled to a stop. The connection to you severing like a knife being stabbed through his heart, enraged, Five blinked, right in front of The Handler, his face covered in a sheen of sweat, his teeth bared.

“We both know that you have a limit,” she sang, at him, her gun pointed at his face. “I saved you from a lifetime of being alone. You owe me.”

She pulled the trigger.

Click, click, click.

Five grinned as she tried over and over to kill him but had nothing left in her chamber to do it.

“You didn’t save me from a lifetime alone,” he said, “He did! And I do owe a debt.”

He blinked, landing behind her, pulling the pin on his grenade.

“But it’s not to you,” he finished, wiggling the piece of metal in her face before he bowled it along the floor under her feet.

Blinking again, his fingers shaking so badly he almost couldn't dial in the date he needed on the briefcase, the numbers Five had to use to get back home flew through his head, but all he wanted to do was go back to stop this from happening to you, but your voice in his head lingered, and he couldn't refuse it. He had to listen to you, gone or not.

You had told him this was how it had to be. You told him you’d be there with him.

You’d lied. But you’d done it for him, to save him.

He realized that now and many other things and boy was clarity a bitch he wanted to beat the piss out of.

His teeth on metal as he pulled the pin, Five took off running, turning as the explosion rocked the briefcase closet, blowing out the glass windows.

In a fiery blaze, Five was gone. Landing on top of the bar in the living room, back at the Umbrella Academy, pain racked his small body. He’d been hit somewhere but he couldn't tell where. It didn’t matter. You weren’t there, and more and more with each minute, the feeling of you inside him was abandoning him, and that hurt more than anything could ever hurt.

He was so fucking mad!

And fuck did he need that coffee Allsion was holding.

He had the briefcase. He had time in his hands, he quickly rationalized, doing what he always had to do, which was survive, and cling to hope with every fiber of his being.

Someday, he’d get back to you. This wasn't over. Like he hissed at his siblings as they looked at him like he was somehow more nuts then than he was when he’d appeared out of pulsing blue vortex, falling on the ground in the courtyard during Ben’s funeral, Who cares if dad messed us up? Are we gonna let that define us? No.

Now Five was more hell bent than ever on seeing this thing through.

He was going to fix this, and not just for them. Even if you weren’t in his head anymore, he wanted to do it for you.

Someday he’d go back and save you the way you’d just saved him. He knew what it felt like to look into your eyes, floating in a bliss that was a gift only you could give.

The warmth of his blood seeping into his rumbled dress shirt, chucking the empty coffee cup behind him, Five looked at his family who were standing there looking dumbfounded as ever.

He grinned crazily.

One day, he didn’t know when, but he would know what it was like to be loved by you again.

You were his.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

That's it, my lovies. Please don't hate me for what I just did. You never know, maybe our new boy isn't really gone. And Five of anyone can get him back either way. He just needs figure out how and do a few more things first.

I hope you liked this. I know I did. I really liked this hypnotic young man with Five, and I am so happy I got the original request from my friend with the idea for the pairing. Developing him a little was so fun and I really struggled with not making this into so much more. I could see so much happening here but I fast tracked the shit out of it so it didn't end up like one of my other novel length Five stories. 😂

Link to all my other Tumblr Story and art posts

Link to my Five Centric Master List

Link to visit me direct on A03m

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kurvinitty · 1 year ago

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wriothesley 👁️ 👁️ as your soulmate

( * ₊ 🦋◞ ˚ ) ⠀ ⪼ ⠀soulmate au drabbles. ( open )

tags. ⠀ ⪼ ⠀ 1.5k wc, reader works as an engineer, swearing lol, not proofread bc i'm eepy and going to bed now

notes. ⠀ ⪼ ⠀ listen to colors by halsey while reading this bc i think it fits rlly well !! anyway this may be ooc but do i care? no. i only care about he.

You can only see colour when your soulmate is with you and you’re touching. This gives a whole new meaning to them bringing colour to your world.

Who knew that out of all places, a prison would be where your world of grey would suddenly burst into bouts of colour?

As an engineer, you were stuck fixing & maintaining things more often than actually creating them. Your colleagues sometimes pitied you, as your already monotonous world made your job even harder. Those lucky enough to have found their soulmate are not only favoured by cupid’s bow, but also by whoever delegated your working tasks.

You wouldn’t lie — it pissed you off. Yet at the same time, you were aware that it was much safer dispatching someone who could identify a cable’s colour before installing them. However, that still did little to soothe your frustrations.

It’s also what had lead to you being stuck with more tedious tasks — maintenance and routine inspections. Despite all this, you still loved your job — and you’d be damned if your peers’ mocking pity would bring you down.

Ironically, it was due to them that you’d get what you were looking for all this time.

To beckon the call of help from the Fortress of Meropide was definitely not your field of expertise, yet you were still the one who answered. Due to the aforementioned reasons, it was also your first time setting foot on the premise. The prison’s damp walls added a chill to the already eerie atmosphere, and you now regret not taking your coat with you. The gardes were kind enough to escort you to the administrator’s office, saving you the pain of navigating this labyrinth on your own.

You flinch at the sound as the garde opens the door, holding it open for you to enter. Only now do you realise how tense you’ve been so far — the temperature undoubtedly having played its hand in it. Archons, you couldn’t wait to get out of this place.

With a thankful nod towards your escort, you step inside the room, Wriothesley already expecting you. Before you could fully enter, the man was already on his feet to receive you. Well prepared — as expected of him.

You have heard many things about the Duke, rumours both good & bad — but you’ve never had the chance to confirm them yourself. But now that you stand before him, you think you understand why everyone respected him greatly — no matter their personal opinion of him. At a glance, you could tell that an air of authority accompanied his every step, and you feel yourself subconsciously shrinking before the man.

Should he notice, he doesn’t say a word though. Quite the opposite, in fact, as he seems quite relieved when you finally arrive.

“You’re the engineer we requested, I assume?”

He speaks matter-of-factly, yet he also sounds… quite friendly? You didn’t know what to expect of the man, but you were sure it was closer to ice cold apathy, rather than the soft-spoken silk you experience now.

The first words this man had ever spoken to you, and you were already at a loss for words. Both because you didn’t know how to explain the situation, and also due to Wriothesley himself. While the first impression he made was better than expected, you were sure you’d somehow manage to piss him off in the next second. But then again, was it really your fault?

You clear your throat, fumbling over the words, before you settle on something to say. “Well, uh- yes I am.”

It’s evident how the Duke senses your hesitation and raises and eyebrow in question. Where he once looked at you in relief, his expression now falters and his eyes scrutinize you with suspicion.

Oh, you’re fucked.

Heat floods your body in embarrassment, your mind now drawing an even bigger blank as you desperately try to backtrack. “With that I mean— I am an engineer, but I doubt the work here will be within my expertise,” you sheepishly explain as the words escape your mouth in a single breath. What an absolute wonderful way to start off this interaction. “I am terribly sorry.”

You have half the mind to bow in apology, for an inconvenience that wasn’t even your fault. Doing your colleague’s dirty work was one thing, but your company being under staffed was a whole other issue.

But Wriothesley only shakes his head. Though you could swear you saw his face drop in annoyance for a split second, you felt like there was no need to worry when he next spoke. “It’s alright. I’m just glad there’ll be someone to look at it. This stuff has been giving me trouble all week already.” his hand moves up as he sweeps it over his forehead in exasperation, fingers combing through his thick dark hair. And for the Archon’s sake, you wanted to do nothing more to curse out loud when he did that. Even more so when you catch yourself examining his features more closely now, with your eyes lingering on his for a moment longer than they should. You wonder what colour his hair may be — dark, for sure — but there was only so much you could determine with a world full of grey.

You’re here to work, not to admire pretty men.

Pretty.

It took you more self-restraint than you’d like to admit to not slap yourself.

“Anyway, I don’t think we’ve been properly introduced yet,” the man continues, thus effectively pulling you out of your self-loathing session. His hand reaches out toward you, an invitation for you to reciprocate in kind. “Wriothesley.”

Surely, you wouldn’t be able to mess up a simple handshake, right?

You waste no time to clasp your hand in his & tell him your name, your dainty digits being engulfed by the rough and calloused skin of his own. And in that moment, you felt as if time had completely stopped.

It wasn’t due to the feeling of his skin coming in contact with yours. As much as one could sing songs about how the touch of your soulmate could invigorate & keep you warm for a thousand winters to come — it wasn’t the case for you. The catalyst for sure, but the event that followed was worth your song.

The moment your hand touched Wriothesley’s, you didn’t even feel it. The only thing you felt was the feeling when your world suddenly filled with colour. All it took was the blink of an eye, and you were in a whole different world. You stare at the man before you, your mouth hanging wide open while you were freeze in shock. There was so much new information to process, but your eyes & mind could only focus on him. You can’t exactly pinpoint all the new colours you see, but the first thing you notice is his eyes.

You weren’t the only one at a loss for words, and even if you tried — you could not pry your gaze away from holding his. His eyes don’t look much different than they did before, actually. They’re naturally blessed with a light colour, but now you notice all the different shades and hues within them. Does he know what colour his own eyes are? Do you know yours? For all you know, anyone you asked could have been lying to you so far.

You also notice how his pale face now gains the slightest bit of colour, and you wonder if he sees the same with you.

Honestly? If time would allow it, you’d stay like this forever. But of course, it’s the man you’re supposed to spend eternity with that would deny your wish.

“Let’s get started then, shall we?”

And he acts as if nothing happened.

You, on the other hand, are still in the process of digesting this experience. Before you knew it, his grip on your hand loosened, until it completely fades away and your vision is plunged back into an array of black & white.

“Wait, I—” The words slip out of your mouth before you could stop yourself, your body almost acting on it’s own accord to wrap your hand around his wrist again. Now that you’ve gotten a taste of this — of him — you desperately want your world to burn up once again, like a new hunger that begs to be satiated. Did he not feel the same? Did you just imagine it?

It seems like Wriothesley took notice of your crestfallen expression. He doesn’t back away, yet he doesn’t come closer either. Instead, he speaks — in a tone so beautiful & soft, you can scarcely believe it’s real.

“I think we’ve got more than enough time to talk later.”

#wriothesley x reader #wriothesley headcanons #wriothesley drabbles #wriothesley imagines #wriothesley fluff #genshin impact x reader #genshin x reader #genshin impact headcanons #genshin impact drabble #genshin drabbles #genshin headcanons #( * ₊ 🦋◞ ˚ ) ⠀ ⪼ ⠀ esther's works.

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myownwholewildworld · 22 days ago

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well, i decided to bite the bullet on this one! thank you to the lovelies @almostfoxglove and @gothcsz for the tags, and a special thanks to @jolapeno for this beautiful 2024 tootathon event! i think it's a pretty common theme between us lot, but seems like tooting ourselves is not our forte - at least not mine! i had been lurking in the shadows for a long while, but july came around and i said, why the hell not? so basically i'm a baby in the fandom, learning from the very best. i've been writing for almost two decades now, but mostly in spanish and on different platforms. i found myself looking for a creative outlet this summer and transitioning out of my online rpg era (foroactivo/jcink, i won't miss you). i am so glad i did, cause i found a home here 🥹 anyway enough yapping!

i have written over 170k words this year (probs a lot more if i take into account my rpg shenanigans) and at one point i've been very attached to everything i've written, so it's really hard to pick some favourites, but here we go!

per aspera ad astra (marcus acacius series) - this is one series i wasn't expecting to write as a fic this year as it was planned for something else, but here we are! i am just enjoying all the angst, it's like therapy lmao

the right kind of wrong (dbf!joel miller one shot) - look... the brain rot won and i gave in to the dbf trope. i loved writing it and seeing that other people enjoyed it too!

the way to a great wide somewhere (beast!din djarin one shot) - i just... idk 🫠 the moment i thought of this i knew i had to put it into words or i would quite literally die.

when the moon howls (javier peña one shot) - as i was rewatching narcos i had this itch i needed to scratch and the jolabrew + withcheese fall challenge gave me the perfect excuse to try my hand at writing Peña.

i regrettably have not been giffing as much as i would have liked to this year, but i promised myself i would pick this up in 2025 again! but here are my two favourite gifsets i've made.

tlou 1x03 - if you know me, you'll know that my favourite episode from tlou is 1x03 because i love bill and frank to fucking bits 😭 it broke me and it healed me in so many different ways.

pp press tour interview - when i watched this the first time i was like "yeah 1000% agree" because marcus acacius in that white armour is my fucking everything.

nothing of this would have happened if it wasn't for the people who stop by and read our stories, and for the writers who feed us amazing fics - writers and readers alike, god i love y'all. we all keep this amazing fandom alive. and i know there's been some rough lows this year, but here we still are!

i could go on and on tagging people who make me smile every fucking day but i'd be bound to miss someone and i could not forgive myself if i did that. so please, take this as my heartfelt thank you to every single one of you. i see you, i appreciate you, i love you. like for real.

some np tags for moots who might want to participate (and apologies if you already have!):

@joelmillerisapunk @joelslegalwhre @inept-the-magnificent @punkseyes @styleispunk @aurorawritestoescape @syd-djarin @katiexpunk @baronessvonglitter @orcasoul

#tootathon 2024 #pedro pascal fandom #pedro pascal cinematic universe #ppcu #pedro pascal fanfiction #joel miller x reader #marcus acacius x reader #din djarin x reader #javier pena x reader

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inklore · 1 year ago

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🩸 — 𝐇𝐀𝐔𝐍𝐓𝐄𝐃 𝐇𝐎𝐄𝐃𝐎𝐖𝐍!

since the spooky season is fast approaching, and as a little kinktober appetizer, @psychedelic-ink and i have decided to do a little writing challenge to get us all excited and in the mood to be gripping the sheets from the spooky thrills of course.

and to keep this fun we have given you many many options! we have compiled a twelve day prompts list you can go by, or if that's not your thing we have listed twenty three different pick and choose options to create whatever kind of fic you want, even if you want to do half the days daily prompts but switch out this prompt dialogue for that au or trope or kink, you can literally do whatever your heart desires!

THE RULES.

the challenge will go on from the 19th - 30th of this month. you can do as many or as little amount of days as you choose.

any fandoms are welcome, literally any characters, ships, but please no rpf.

no minors should be interacting with let alone posting for this challenge.

dark content, light content, dubcon/noncon, is all welcomed but please tag everything accordingly. grooming, underage, and incest however are not allowed.

there are no word limits but please use that readmore.

tag #hauntedhoedown so we can read and reblog your work!

DAY ONE: taboo au + "i'll be your dirty little secret, if that's what you're into."

DAY TWO: murder plot au (lets kill this person together) + "crawl to me"

DAY THREE: inspired by your favorite lana del rey song (if not a lana fan then any fav song of yours) + stalker / yandere au or love triangle gone wrong

DAY FOUR: artificial intelligence au + "here, you are. you tiny thing."

DAY FIVE: gothic au + “worship me. until i tell you to stop.” + a masquerade au or a good ol' priest au

DAY SIX: animal shapeshifter au + "he's a monster" + "he's perfect"

DAY SEVEN: stranded au or slasher / summer camp au + sex in the woods or somewhere public (added bonus if it includes knife, blood, hunter x prey kink)

DAY EIGHT: cosmic horror au + "you're a fucking nightmare. kiss me."

DAY NINE: “do you like it when i bleed for you?” + the toxic exes trope or cult au

DAY TEN: zombie apocalypse au + "every moment might be our last, let's make the most of it."

DAY ELEVEN: black swan au or inspired by your fav psychological thriller + “they die for love, you kill for it.”

DAY TWELVE: vampire court au + "forever isn't long enough for me to forgive you."

if following the above isn't your thing and you want to pick and choose yourself that's great! we also highly rec this random generator if you wanna live life by the edge, each category has 23 options to pick and choose from so customize the generator accordingly!

AUs:

steampunk / cyber punk

fairytale retelling

revenge

mythology / monster

virtual reality

gothic

taboo (see great options here)

slasher

game gone wrong

witchcraft

addams family

bonnie and clyde

spy / secret agent

assassins

x-files

circus / carnival

hitch hiking

basement wife

time travel

urban legend(s)

american horror story inspired

vampire / supernatural

pirate / mermaid

DIALOGUE PROMPTS:

"do you like when i touch you like this? i can keep going if you want me to."

"i can see how badly you want this, so i'm going to make sure you get it."

“this fear you feel? it won't last.”

“you are mine, whether you agree or not.”

“why do you keep following me?”

"i can't stop thinking about how perfect we would be together."

"you're not actually scared are you? of me?"

"i'm so close, can you feel it?"

"tell me what you want me to do and i'll do it, no matter the cost."

"you're like a sickness, a disease, and the only way for me to be cured of you is to let you completely consume me until my body has no fight left."

"i want to see you bleed."

"they're dead...because of you."

“i will keep hurting. i will keep killing. anything to protect you.”

“everything i've done.. every horrible atrocity, it's been for you.”

"it's just a little blood."

“don't you know how sick with love i am for you?”

“i would burn the world for you.”

"this is so fucked up." "you like it."

"finders keepers."

"what's your favorite scary movie?"

"tell me you want me back. tell me i'm forgiven."

"you're a monster." "that's never stopped you before."

"i've killed for you, who else can say that?"

TROPES:

mob / mafia

soft!dark

dubcon / noncon

soulmate / fated mates

mind control / telepathy

cheating

final girl

once is not enough

haunted manor

dark academia

enemies to lovers

haunted object

vengeful ghost

coven

ritual / sacrifice / blood magic

unrequited love

creation / creator vs monster

'i'll find you in every universe / century'

reverse harem

cursed / fuck or die

curiosity killed the cat

theatre phantom

fate worse than death

KINKS:

biting

corruption / authoritarian

somnophilia

begging

dacryphilia

breath play

knife play / blood play

jealousy / sharing / possessive

aphrodisiacs

hunter / prey

humiliation / degradation

mirror sex

deprivation / immobilized / bondage

costume

size

orgasm denial / overstimulation / edging

body worship

shotgunning / swallowing / facial

gagging

torture / surrender

hate sex / make up sex / phone sex

magical healing [redacted]

soft!dom / pleasure!dom

ETC PROMPTS:

a summer fling gone horrible wrong, or right

1970s porno filming (turned into a blood bath)

touch her and die except who the hell are you and why are you obsessed with me?

a trip to the circus (or carnival) ends with you stuck there...forever

you just inherited this creepy mansion where people where murdered what could go wrong?

a ritual gone wrong and now i'm bound to a demon

if 'this person' ever found out about this they would kill both of us (literally)

oh no i'm dating the town serial killer

passionate professor tells me to prove my devotion to the craft / class by doing something insane

we're the last people on the planet and you will be mine

daydreaming about being with you is better than actually being with you because i missed all the red flags and now it's too late

i got casted out of my world and ended up wounded and bloodied in your backyard, convince me why i shouldn't destroy your world out of anger

vampire has a taste for specific blood and looks like you have it

the creepy neighbor is too hot to be insane, right?

i keep seeing them in my dreams and i wake up with bruises and marks on my skin, it's definitely just wild dreams, right?

loving you is easier than hating you

got stranded in some little town that seems so cute, until night hits

'this person' ordered me to kill you but i actually think i'm in love with you

my lover is wearing the same costume as you and i can't tell the difference but i'm pretty sure it's them i'm fucking in this closet...pretty sure

confessing to a murder via a silly little ghost story around a campfire (but someone reads through the lies)

how far would you go for love? for the one you love?

in a past life you were the cause of my death so i'm here to exact revenge now that i've found you

we're at a fun little horror movie reenactment except people are really dying

we tried to make this writing challenge as fun and very 'choose your own adventure-like' as much as possible because we know how hard it is to stay motivated when doing these things.

so please feel free to use any and all of the prompts, tropes, kinks, etc as you wish. we're just super excited to see what ya'll come up with!!

so good luck and stay slutty spooky <3

#if yall don't participate in this i will actually cry lmao #haunted hoedown #writing challenge #kinktober #! challenges

548 notes · View notes

bloodlinemadness · 1 month ago

Text

Gif is mine.

Credit to @tsunami-of-tears for the divider!

A/N: This is the ending & final chapter to Stress. Thank you to those who have supported & read the series! Appreciate it 🩵 It is very long & it's a pretty sad chapter so be aware & have tissues if you need it 😭 For the Tama girlies, there's a poll link for you at the end.

Honestly have no damn clue why Tumblr hid Part 3 from the search 😩 So I'm sure a lot of people haven't read it. So if you haven't Here it is. Tumblr made it flop *sigh*

Pairings: Roman Reigns (bf) x Fem! Reader

Tama Tonga (ex) x Fem! Reader

Summary: Relationship tensions rise between Y/N & Roman. Tama is paid a little visit & reconnects with Y/N. However, something catches his eye.

Warnings ⚠️: 18+ Swearing, angst, fluff, implied smut, mentions of sex, emotional wreckage, emotional breakdown, mentions of mental illness, rehabilitation, violence, prison, Yandere Tama, force being used, jealousy, mentions of eating disorder, couple arguments. Sad. NOT PROOFREAD!

‼️ If situations like this make you uncomfortable, keep scrolling this isn't for you. Unnecessary comments or reblogs will be blocked. ‼️

Tags: @isabella-2025 @wishyouloveme @yana3sworld @reignsboy19 @jstarr86 @rose-bliss

(Depending on the poll results if y'all like Tama, I know someone does lol & still want to be tagged or if anyone else wants to be added lmk).

WC: 5k (Yeah grab popcorn 🍿😭)

Of course this is written for fictional purposes only & is based on their characters, it does not depict who they are in real life. Respect to them & their families.

Keep forgetting to say this but Toko means bro/sibling in Tongan

Enjoy ☝🏽

Roman was out on the balcony looking into the city lights ahead of him. His mind wandered, processing the day him & you just went through. He wished he would've known about your absence earlier, he wished he didn't get so occupied with the fans & that he'd politely cut it short with them letting them know he had to leave with you, he wished he would've kicked Tama's ass out of Waffle House right away so you didn't get hurt, same with Jimmy.

He had so many regrets, he almost lost you to Tama. He couldn't imagine what Tama would've done if he didn't get there quickly, but at the same time if he followed the options he thought about earlier this situation could've been prevented. Roman's eyes watered up thinking about it all, he buried his face in his hands, taking deep breaths. After he calmed down, he went inside to your shared bedroom to check on you. He felt his stomach twist looking at what he saw in front of him, he saw you folding up your clothes & packing them in your luggage.

"Are we going somewhere?" he asked. "We're not, I am" you said. He let out a little chuckle, "without me babygirl? Well damn, have fun & come back soon. I'm going to miss you being away," he admitted. You took a deep breath, knowing what you were going to say, you just didn't know how you were going to say it, but you needed to, and it was going to hurt the both of you, you had butterflies in your stomach, but here it goes. "Roman, I'm leaving. I can't do this anymore, I'm so sorry" you revealed.

Roman felt his heart shatter into a million pieces, his world fell apart. His eyes widened in shock, he couldn't believe what you just said. A 2 year friendship full of supporting each other's careers, traveling together, making inside jokes, being each other's shoulder to cry on. 3 years of dating, going out, giving each other the world, picking each other up when one of you are feeling down, moving in, meeting each other's families, and the times you both spent loving each other. A total of 5 years of being together all gone down the drain & ending right there.

Roman felt cotton grow in his throat, he was numb to what you just said, he couldn't believe it. You felt your eyes water up, but still continuing to pack. You knew he was going to be speechless after you said those heartbreaking words. You loved him a lot, but you didn't have a choice but to do this. There was nothing, but silence between you two as you packed. You finished packing up your belongings, you put your cosmetics bag on top of your luggage, and wheeled your luggage towards the door.

As you made your way past Roman, his hand reached out, gripping the top of the luggage handle stopping you in your tracks. "You're not going anywhere" he said firmly. You looked up at him & he looked you in the eyes, his eyes watering up. "Roman please" you pleaded. "Why? Why do you want to end this Y/N? What did I do wrong? Please, tell me. We can fix this. I'll change my ways for you" he pleaded.

You started tearing up, lip quivering "Roman, it's for the best. Please let me go" your voice started to crack. "I'm not letting you go, I need an honest reason Y/N" his voice shaking. He gripped your shoulders "please tell me, what can I do to be a better man, a better boyfriend?" he asked. "Stop!" you said putting your hand up. "It's not you, you're the best boyfriend I ever had. Please don't make my actions think that you're not enough for me, ever!" you cried.

"Then what is it! Why are you leaving me?" he questioned loudly. "IT'S ME OKAY?!" you shouted. He looked at you in shock, you continued. "It's me & my past catching up" you confessed. You didn't want Roman to beat himself up for letting you go, the honest truth needed to be revealed. "It's because of me. Tama put us through so much shit today, he came after me & harmed you & your family along the way. You all got into this mess because of me. He hurt you Ro, he hurt Jimmy, he threatened to hurt Jey, Solo & Jacob. Hell, he turned against his own brother because of me. I'm the problem, I need to leave your life so he doesn't trouble you & your family anymore, it's best we both part ways Roman" you cried.

Roman shook his head "you don't mean that" he says tearing up. "Babe, it's for the best, please. If I leave he won't hurt any of you anymore." you reasoned. "I don't care about him hurting us! We're in this battle together, babygirl. You're the best thing that has ever walked into my life. My life has changed ever since I met you. You radiate so much light & beauty. I can't see a future with anyone else, but you. I will do anything to protect you even if it's from Tama. I want to spend every second with you. Even if it means fending off Tama, I'll still stand by your side, because I love you, he doesn't intimidate me at all, I'll kick his ass" he said spilling his heart out.

You covered your mouth, tearing up. "I'll always fight for you" said Roman "even if it's against an ex of yours. I want to be on this journey with you" said Roman. "I don't know what to say" you cried. "I don't want to lose you, Roman." "Then stay sweetheart, we'll fight these battles together. You are never alone. You don't have to fight these battles alone. I'm here to love & support you through your ups & downs" he said, "if you want, we'll move from this place. Move far away where Tama won't find us" he said.

Everything that Roman said made your attachment to him grow. You didn't want to leave him, but you didn't want him to get hurt either. But, he was willing to do anything for you. Your life got better, because of him. He didn't want to let go of you & neither did you. What was Tama going to do anyway? He's with the authorities now & under their supervision. One thing's for sure, breaking up you & Roman was what Tama wanted so he can have you. You couldn't let him win. You couldn't prove yourself weak & prove him right. Tama broke your heart, he broke you & he sure had some nerve to come back into your life, especially to seek an opportunity to even get back with you for his own greed.

The thing was you weren't alone in this fight, you had your amazing boyfriend & his family by your side. He was willing to do anything for you & you were willing to do anything for him. The love between you & Roman was strong & it still managed to keep Tama out no matter how much he tried to get back in. You didn't want that bond to end, you wanted to continue loving Roman & he wanted to continue loving you. You saw a future with him too.

You nodded "okay" you smiled. He smiled big, playfully tackling you onto the bed with a hug. He pressed his lips onto yours as you wrapped your arms around his neck. You both shared an emotional & heart full kiss. All is well again. You couldn't believe you almost ended your 5 year bond with Roman, what were you thinking? He pulled away from you & looked deep into your eyes, his pupils turning a darker shade. "You're in so much trouble for scaring me like that earlier" he said nipping at your neck, making you giggle. "I'm gonna punish you" he winked. "Please do" you teased.

"But wait" you said as he took off his shirt, you nearly drooled looking at his body. "What is it?" he asked, you pulled him back down to you, kissing him with full on passion, he immediately returned it. You pulled away pressing your forehead against his "thank you, thank you for everything. You're the true definition of a Real-life Superhero" you said. He smiled showing his pearly whites. "I'm always going to protect you, you mean the world to me babygirl" he said kissing your forehead. "You & your family definitely came in like the Avengers that day" you giggled, making him laugh.

"The Avengers are great, but The Bloodline is the real-deal" he smirked. He placed kisses all over your neck as you ran your nails over his back. He stopped his kisses examining the hickey on your neck Tama gave you, he traced his finger over it. You figured that's what he was looking at when he stopped. "I'm so sorry Roman" you said softly growing emotional, you knew he was going to lash out any minute, and he has every right to. "I swear, when that man's out, I will smack the lips off his face if he ever comes near you or us again. I don't even want to see his shadow or else he's gonna have to sleep with one eye open every night" He gritted through his teeth.

"RoRo" you said getting his attention, "let's forget about him & focus on us. He's in the past now." you said. " He nodded, he removed your shirt & you wrapped your legs around his waist. That night you both loved each other to the fullest, with kisses & touches. You both never let each other go. You were his & he was yours, always.

One Month Later

"Uce, are you sure you want to do this?" asked Jimmy. "It's just for the sake of sanity & a peace of mind" said Roman. "Did Y/N agree to it though?" asked Jey. "She did, she wants to do it" nodded Roman. "I know there's so much going on, but she's willing to make changes, she's going to switch to remote learning until her transfer progress is complete with the new school" said Roman. They both nodded in understanding.

"How's your ankle Jim?" asked Roman. "It's healing up, I'm just glad the cut wasn't too deep" he said pulling up the cuff of his pant leg to check his ankle. Jey shook his head "Grateful that nothing worse happened to you, Uce" he said giving him a side hug. "The worst that would've happened is him biting my ankle" said Jimmy shaking his head. "Jim!" exclaimed Roman, "what? It's true!" said Jimmy. "He's going through shit, stop man" said Jey playfully shoving his shoulder. "Well sorry, but it still doesn't give an excuse for him to cut me like a pork chop, damn!" said Jimmy.

You & Roman both got out of the SUV, you looked around the parking lot, barbed wires everywhere over the fences, you had your arm wrapped around his as you both went inside. Security at the front desk spoke & escorted the both of you into the elevator, it took the 3 of you to the top floor. Once you both got out, the both of you got screened by security, the officer punched in on the pin pad & swiped his card leading you both into the wing. You both went down the hall entering another door. You & Roman came face to face with Tonga Loa, he nodded at you both.

"Hey Loa" you said going over to hug him, he returned the hug. You pulled away & cupped his cheeks looking into his eyes "are you okay?" you asked softly. He nodded "trying to take it one day at a time" he breathed. You nodded "I'm so sorry" you apologized. "It's not your fault, I wish I would've seen the signs earlier & act upon it" he said. "It's going to be okay" you whispered letting him go, he nodded.

Roman came over & gave him a hug. "All good?" he asked "yeah, I'm just glad this whole thing is being solved & addressed, better late than never I guess" said Loa. Roman nodded "I appreciate you for stepping in to help weeks ago, I know it must've been tough to step up to your older brother. So thank you & I apologize for yelling at you in front of everyone at Waffle House the other day" said Roman. "It's all good & of course, I didn't want him to hurt anyone & himself" said Loa. Roman patted his shoulder.

A guard called the 3 of you over to a window. Loa sat down in front of it. "How's he doing?" asked Loa looking up at the guard. "He's progressing, and getting better. However, he hasn't been talking & making direct eye contact, also skipping meals. But, we'll continue to work with him." said the guard. Loa nodded "I'm just glad he's getting the help he needs & is progressing. Maybe he'll talk to me" he said.

The guard made the radio call to his coworker. You & Roman stayed leaned against the wall behind Loa watching everything. Another guard from the other side of the window opened the door coming in, & held it open. There he was, he took slow steps into the room. You took in his appearance, it's been a month since you've last seen him & it seems like rehabilitation has done a lot to him. Although, the guard mentioned that he's getting better, it seemed like it has mentally took a toll on him to fight for the betterment of himself. His curly hair was disleveled & messy, his jumpsuit had wrinkles all over, beard was overgrown, his face was pale & there were dark circles under his eyes.

He sat down on the chair, looking down & not at the bullet proof glass barrier separating him & his brother. "Feel free to speak into that mic, he'll be listening from the speaker in front of him" instructed the guard, Loa nodded. "Hey Toko, it's been a while. I hope you're doing okay. I miss you so much, not just me, but everyone at home misses you" said Loa. No reaction from Tama he just kept looking down at the speaker in front of him listening, but refusing to look at his brother.

You felt your heart sink, seeing Tama in this condition really hurt you. Yes, he hurt you in the past, and he clearly needed help because he wouldn't leave you alone & he hurt your boyfriend & his cousin, but you really wished you could've done something, maybe be a bit more kinder & compassionate to him rather than hesitant & rude when he wanted to talk to you. You felt somewhat guilty on the inside blaming yourself for this.

You looked over at Roman while Tonga was talking to his brother, he smiled at you. "This is all my fault" you said. Roman raised his brow "what do you mean?" he asked. "If I was more kinder & compassionate towards him when he wanted to talk to me at Waffle House, this wouldn't have happened. He wouldn't be in there, today" you frowned. "Will you stop blaming yourself, babygirl?" whispered Roman. "If Tama wanted to talk to you & you were in a rush to leave, he could've been more understanding & waited another time to talk to you rather than dragging you to the smoking patio."

"Maybe it was killing him inside & he just really wanted to say it" you said. "Yeah but still, grabbing your wrist & taking you by force was aggressive of him, he's lucky I wasn't there to catch that & he could've been understanding knowing you moved on. Just my 2 cents. Do what you want with that information, but quit blaming yourself. I know you're an empath but you got to be empathetic towards you, he could've hurt you, babygirl" said Roman. You nodded "you're right, I just hope he gets better soon" you sympathized looking over at the two brothers.

"Anyway, I will be back & we're praying everyday for you. Can't wait to see you come home & for us to go to work together & Tongan twist all those tag teams. Ain't nobody realer than us, those belts are waiting for us & everyone is waiting for you at home & work, Fale says he can't wait to have a game of Call of Duty with you. Get better soon brother. I love you" said Loa as his voice cracked, the guard patted his back. Still Tama remained in the same position & pose listening to his brother's words, he didn't move nor react, he didn't make eye contact. Loa got up & came over to you & Roman.

"Are you sure you want to do this Y/N?" he asked confirming, you nodded. "You're okay with this?" he asked Roman, he nodded. "I know we've had our differences, and went back & forth. I'm very upset with his past actions & especially with what he did to Y/N & my family. Clearly he's not okay, but he's human & deserves to get better. Y/N & I will be moving, but hearing about Tama, I hope her visit gives him some light before we head up North" said Roman. Loa half smiled "appreciate you Uce." Roman motioned for you to go & talk to Tama, you nodded, he kissed your head for comfort & to wish you luck.

You walked towards the seat in front of the window & sat down. "Whenever you're ready" said the guard. You nodded & took a deep breath looking up at the man sitting there motionless. "Hey Tama" you cooed, he scratched his beard, you froze at the movement, but he was still looking down. You took a deep breath & you spoke again. "I know it's been a while since we've last seen each other. I hope you're doing okay" you spoke softly. You stopped after your sentence & observed him.

He slowly started to lift his head up, his brown & tired eyes making eye contact with you. You felt a knot in your stomach & gulped as he looked at you. "That's the most I've seen him react Bob ever since he got here! He's making eye contact!" exclaimed the guard behind you to the other guard behind Tama on the radio. "Oh my God, he's looking up" said a stunned Roman. Loa started to get emotional seeing his brother moving around. Tama started looking around taking in the environment he's in. The guard rubbed his shoulder, "you're safe & in good hands buddy, don't worry" he assured, calming him down.

Tama looked back at you. You smiled at him, eyes starting to water up. "I heard a lot has happened, I've heard you've been doing good & making progress which is great, but you haven't been feeling yourself lately, you haven't been eating nor sleeping" he continued to look at you. "I understand it's tough to take all of this in & you've never been in this situation before. But please, take care of yourself. You have so much to live for Tama, so many memories to create, so much to achieve & you've achieved so much, you're creating a legacy, people are waiting to see you, people look up to you including your own brother, you are one of a kind Tama, you make people laugh on, you make people believe in themselves, you are a star" you said.

You didn't know what else to say, Tama did hurt you, but he was a part of your life, someone you loved, worked & grew up with. It really broke your heart to see him like this, but you wanted to give him some hope so he can get better, live his life in a healthy & better way & move forward from you, hopefully. "Tama, I just want you to get better & I'm sending you all the support. Please don't hurt yourself. There's so many people who care about you, I still care about you. The more you take care of yourself, the quick you can get out of here" you encouraged.

"Sending you all the light & healing. Everything is going to be okay, you'll find the girl of your dreams, you'll get those titles with your brother & rule the tag team division, you'll live a happy life. I wish you nothing but the best" you said tearing up as you placed your hand on the glass window. Tama leaned forward looking at you, his head slowly turned to the side & looked at your hand planted on the barrier in between you two. He lifted his hand up which was shaking, and placed it over yours. You smiled through the tears.

Tama's lips started to quiver looking at both of your hands on top of each other, separated by the plain window. He looked at you, moving his head closer towards the window eyes getting watery. Tears ran down both of your faces as you looked at each other, even the guards on both sides were touched. Roman was touched, even though he gets protective over you sometimes, and he can't stand Tama, he let this one slide for the better. Loa smiled through his tears looking at his brother's emotions.

Roman pulled him into a hug as he cried onto his shoulder "there, there you big baby" he joked. "Fucking rude, your cousins were right" scoffed Loa, "I'm kidding, cry your heart out, I'm glad he's responding & I need a word with those cousins" said Roman. Tama pressed his forehead against the window crying, you got closer to his face, looking at him. "It's okay, I'm here now. You're going to be okay. Deep breaths, love" you assured. He stuttered out your name, you nodded at him smiling in tears.

You pressed your forehead against his on the window as you both had a moment to yourselves, tears flowing down from both of your faces. His tear stained face turned & looked at your hand, something caught his attention. He wiped his tears away & moved his head over to your hand, inspecting it. You looked up only to see that Tama wasn't in front of you. You looked at your hand & saw him looking at it. Tama saw the sparkle of the sapphire diamond mounted with a silver platinum ring sitting on your finger.

Yup, Roman proposed.

You two were engaged to be married. He did it 2 weeks after the incident. He proposed to you at a restaurant in downtown on your date night. He has never been so sure of anything else than to spend the rest of his life with you. You both loved each other, brought the best out of each other, and would fight the world for each other, your love was invincible. The ring solidified that & Tama was staring at it knowing he lost you.

"Shit!" cursed Roman. "What happened?" asked Loa. "I told her to take the ring off before she got here!" said Roman facepalming himself. Loa turned & saw his brother eyeing your hand. Your heart stopped, you didn't know what to do. Tama looked at you, you felt chills all over you. His expression slowly changed from sentimental to envious, his eyes darkened. You shook your head, trying to show him that he shouldn't let his anger & emotions get the best of him, clearly that didn't stop him. His nostrils flared, and his face twitched. He started to scream, bawling & banging his fists against the window startling you & the guards. Roman immediately ran over, pulling you up from your seat, directing you away from the window, and taking you towards the wall where you both were leaned against earlier. All you can hear are his faint screams muffled by the window.

"Backup! Visitor window #4, back of house immediately!" yelled the guard on the radio. The guard behind Tama tried to calm him down, but Tama kept on resisting. "Take it easy buddy!" the guard next to you said through the mic. More guards arrived holding onto Tama & carefully escorting him out of the visiting room.

Loa shook his head tearing up, you teared up thinking everything was okay, but it seems like he needed more time to get better & you showing up wasn't probably the best idea since he was after you in the first place. Roman hugged the both of you. You buried your face into his chest crying as he caressed your hair. You both were lead out by the guard.

The 3 of you walked into the parking lot. "Listen, I love y'all & don't take this the wrong way but I don't think y'all should ever come back here" admitted Loa. "No, you're right" said Roman. "Tama was still progressing being rehabilitated & getting better. We showed up during the process when he should've fully recovered. It won't happen again. Y/N & I will be going away." said Roman. Loa nodded "I wish you both the best together & congratulations on the engagement" he said.

"Thank you Loa" you said giving him a hug, he hugged you back. He gave Roman a hug, "take care, praying for Tama, he'll get better" said Roman, he nodded.

Loa, you & Roman parted ways. You & Roman got into the vehicle & drove off.

On the highway

"I told you to take that ring off before we went to the facility. What were you trying to prove?" asked Roman agitated. "I wasn't trying to prove anything I forgot, I'm sorry. I didn't know where to put it" you apologized. Roman shook his head. "You could've put it in your jewelry box, locked it up then give it to Naomi, she would've kept it somewhere safe. She doesn't know what you have in there. Tama went ballistic seeing that. We're trying to heal him" said Roman. "I'm so sorry, I just thought things were progressing, it was dumb of me to stick my hand out like that. God, I feel so horrible now. Tama had to go through that because of me" you said tearing up.

Roman stopped at the red light & leaned over to kiss your head. "There's a lot we didn't know, everyone is different & works in their own way. All I know is that we shouldn't have went there when Tama was healing. But, Tonga called me & told me he wasn't doing well, he calmed down & is improving but like the officer mentioned, he wasn't making eye contact, sleeping nor eating" he said.

"And that's kinda why we went to visit him. I wanted to give him some hope, and shed a light so he can move around around. I know what he did in the past was wrong in so many ways. But, I don't want him to ever hurt himself. I won't bug him again. I just pray that he gets better & fully recovers. I hope he moves on. It seems like he still hasn't at the moment & is disturbed" you said.

"He'll get better, we need to let him be on his own it's only been a month, babygirl" said Roman "give him some time." you nodded & looked out the window. Roman kept driving, he got a phone call from Jimmy mentioning what him & Naomi will bring over to the house party. "No Jim I'm not going to stop by Waffle House for takeout...you already ordered online?" he paused over the phone listening to what his cousin had to say, he sighed "okay, I'll pick it up on the way back. You're welcome." Today marked the last day you & Roman would be staying at your home before moving. So the family decided to throw a going away party even though they'll be joining soon, cause family always stays together.

Roman hung up & glanced over at you then back at the road. "You still care about him don't you?" he said not taking his eyes off the road. You turned your head & looked over at him. "Kind of, but that doesn't mean I want to date him again. I just want him better for him. As long as he's still thinking about me it's going to hurt him more. I don't want him to go through that pain & suffering anymore. He was a part of my life. The first man I trusted, kissed, made love with & everything. Sadly, he did hurt me, and that lead to our break-up, but usually after break-ups people dwell on it for a bit, and then move forward with their lives. Sad truth is, he hasn't. He didn't take it too well." you said.

You looked at Roman he was silent hearing what you had to say. "I'll always love you, thank you for coming into my life, making it better & for everything you've done for me. You mean more than words to me. I'm glad I found you. I can't wait for us to start our married life together" you say holding his hand. He glanced at you briefly smiling before pulling into a parking lot.

"I know you've been feeling down ever since we've returned from there. Thought you could cheer up with some comfort food." said Roman. You looked out the front window & saw the big Dairy Queen sign, you smiled. "I love you Tribal Chief" you said hugging him. "I love you too, babygirl" he smiled.

Roman pulled into the drive thru & you both ordered & received your desserts. You both started finishing off your ice creams in the parking lot. "So good" you sighed in content, "I needed this, thank you RoRo" "of course, I know how much you love your dairy products" he said. You finished yours off, but Roman had something planned, he took some ice cream & put it on the tip of your nose.

You gasped "YOU DID NOT" narrowing your eyes at him. "I sure did" he chuckled. He leaned in & licked it off your nose. "Ugh! You know how I feel about that!" you said crossing your arms. "You know, ever since we got engaged. We didn't really have a proper celebration" he smirked. "Oh my gosh, in a Dairy Queen parking lot really Ro? What if they catch us?" you asked worried. We'll go to the very back" assured Roman. "But the twins, Naomi & the rest of your family are waiting at home!" you said.

"They're adults, they can keep themselves entertained & wait" said Roman. He got out of the driver's side & opened the door to the backseat. You started biting at your nails, "babygirl" he called out, you turned your head around to look at him. "I'm waiting" he said in a deep voice, licking his lips. You swore you could've combusted right there. How did you get so lucky? You smirked at him, got out of the shotgun side & made your way towards the backseat. You went over to his side & climbed into the back side before him. You felt a smack on your ass as you went in. You turned around & cocked a brow at him. "I couldn't help myself" he smirked. He got in after you & shut the door.

The End 💫

A/N: Thanks to those who stuck with the series, followed it & read it till the end. Especially those who provided feedback, reblogged & liked, I appreciate you angels so much! 🩵 Now Tama girlies, I did promise you something at the start of this series. There is a poll out based on if you want an alternate version to this fic where she ends up with Tama.

Here's the link

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