#wrist sprain is no joke but literally what else do i do

[olszoj]

𐙚₊˚⊹♡ ★ദ്ദി(๑ ^ᗜ^๑ ) ₊˚ ★ ⊹♡

[queen-scribbles]

Failure’s Reward

SO. Have 3k of Ryn/Red that’s partially @haledamage‘s fault for A) screaming about Red meta with me and B) generally being an enabler/encourager. The rest of the fault lies with me playing in the @shepherds-of-haven kiss generator after I finished Ryn’s recruit form and liking more of the options it gave for her first kiss with Red. 😅

----

Xaeryn was not used to failing.

Between her intellect, magical talent, and various other skills, she succeeded at what she attempted far more often than not. ‘Even the best of us feel the sting of defeat from time to time,’ Archmage Tevanti had reassured her once, a fatherly hand on her shoulder, when one of her earliest attempts at divination had left her with little more than a headache. He was right, of course, but it had been a long time since Xaeryn felt that sting. And never quite so close to literally.

True, the attempted ambushers were all dead. But they’d put up enough of a fight it didn’t really feel like a victory. The room was a wreck, curtains still smoldering around the broken windows, the artifact she and Red were supposed to be transporting was smashed to bits, and the two of them had hardly escaped unscathed.

“So much for throwing off potential pursuit by staying here rather than in town,” Red muttered, giving a mirthless chuckle as he crouched to look more closely at the shattered artifact. He nudged a few of the pieces with one hand, his other--wrist already swelling and likely broken--curled in close.

“Yeah,” Xaeryn grunted through clenched teeth, surveying the mess made of their intended lodgings. At least the house was abandoned... “They knew what they were doing, I’ll give them that.”

Red stiffened at the taut edge to her voice. He turned from his examination of fragmented crystal and clay even as he pushed to his feet, then blanched when he saw her; barely standing with the wall’s support, one hand clutching her side in a futile effort to stem the blood soaking her shirt. “Shit, Xaeryn!”

“That bad?” she tried to joke as he crossed the room in just a few swift strides. She winced at the small cuts just above his eyebrow trailing blood down the side of his face, at the way he was holding his arm. But he clearly only had eyes or care for one thing right now, and it wasn’t any of his own injuries. “Doesn’t... nngh. Doesn’t feel like much...”

“Ryn...” Red tugged on her hand and she tipped it away from her side to let him see. “Yes, it’s that bad. Shit.” His hand fell away and he stepped back.

“It’s just a scratch,” Xaeryn mumbled, clamping her hand back over the stinging wound, for all the good it was doing. Sun above, hope it’s not poisoned...

“Ryn, I could see bone,” he informed her, running his good hand through his hair as he started pacing. It stayed in sweat-matted red spikes. “That’s more than a scratch. And neither of us knows a damn thing about healing, regular or magical-”

“Red.” She’d only seen him get this wound up a few times over the course of their friendship. While it made sense it would happen on an adrenaline crash, she needed him thinking, not babbling.

Unfortunately, he didn’t seem to hear her. “-we’re miles out from town, so there’s no help close by-”

“Red.” Xaeryn straightened slightly, sending a fresh trickle of blood oozing between her fingers and spots freckling the edges of her vision. She couldn’t help a faint, small smile watching him pace an uneven path between the smashed furniture and bodies strewn over the floor.

“Come to think of it, we only have cursory knowledge of the town in general, since we weren’t planning to actually stop there.” Red made another swipe through his hair, leaving it an even spikier mess. “We don’t know what kind of aid they could even provide, their attitude toward Diminished, any of that.”

“Red.”

He swung back toward her without a pause in his rambling. “I’m sorry, Xaer, this seemed like such a good idea-”

His pacing brought him closer to her again, and rather than continue her previous efforts, Xaeryn reached out, grabbed a fistful of his shirt collar, and dragged him into a kiss.

There was the barest split second flinch in shock as his good hand instinctively braced against the wall to keep from full tilt stumbling into her, then Red was kissing her back. Desperate and gentle and awkward and wonderful all at the same time. Until they broke for air.

...Wow. Xaeryn saw the half-formed question on Red’s lips and answered before he asked. “You needed to shut up and breathe for a minute so you don’t... don’t pass out,” she teased through a grimace, grip still white-knuckle in the collar of his shirt.

Red gave an unsteady, breathless laugh. “That seems a counter-productive way to go about i-”

She kissed him again, deeper, her hand moving from his collar to curve against his jaw. “That was just because I’ve been wanting to do it forever.”

He laughed again, sheepish mischief in his eyes, and whispered “Ditto,” as his thumb brushed gentle arcs against her cheek.

Xaeryn blinked and pulled back as his meaning hit her, stopping just before her head met the wall. “Wait, what?!” The sharpness of the motion sent a fresh spike of pain tearing through her injury and she sucked in a harsh breath.

Red pressed his hand over hers where it gripped her bloody side. “Let’s maybe have this conversation when you’re not bleeding to death, Xaer?”

“See this is why I needed you thinking instead of panicking,” she muttered wryly through clenched teeth. “You’ve always been the smart one.”

“Now I know you’re in bad shape, you’d never admit that out loud otherwise,” he joked, but he was still pale and his gaze worried as he looked at the stain spreading from under their hands.

“Wouldn’t want you to get an ego,” Xaeryn said with a shaky laugh at the sheer absurdity of the idea, unsure if her head was spinning from blood loss and pain or the warmth of his hand over hers and the fact she’d (finally) kissed him. Probably all of the above... “We need something to actually put pressure on this, stop the bleeding...”

“Right.” Red slipped his hand from over hers with obvious reluctance, absently wiping the blood off on his shirt as he scanned the room for something serviceable. “Here.” He snatched up a shirt from where his pack’s contents had been strewn across the floor during the fight, did his best to fold it one-handed.

Xaeryn caught the wince he tried to hide when his injured wrist brushed the bedpost. He succeeded in folding the shirt just as she opened her mouth to offer help, however, so instead she peeled her hand away from the deep gash to give him access. The movement pulled her shirt with it and a whimper escaped before she could bite it back.

Red flinched. “Sorry.”

“Not you,” she grit out, pressing her hand back over the clumsily-folded shirt.  “Just hurts...”

He nodded, something vaguely frantic creeping into his eyes again. “We need something to hold it on, something steadier...” Another rapid scan of the room and he yanked the sheet off the bed, holding it out toward her. “Grab the corner?”

Xaeryn complied almost automatically, Red got a decent grip a few inches in, and between them they tore off a long enough strip to bind her makeshift bandage to her side.

“Now we just need to get... somewhere for help,” she said, leaning her head back against the wall and closing her eyes.

“Ryn, stay with me.” Red poked her shoulder.

She dragged her eyes open. “’M trying. ...How’re we getting to help?” They both needed it, after all, and should probably tell someone about the mess this house was now, abandoned or no. 

“However we can,” he said, giving her arm a gentle squeeze. “Hael, I”ll carry you if I have to--”

“But-” Xaeryn started to protest with a strongly dubious look at his swollen wrist.

“Pretty sure that’s just a sprain,” Red brushed it off. “It’d be fine.” 

She snorted, which hurt but was the only appropriate response to such a blatant lie. “Liefred Antiqua, if that’s a sprain, this is a papercut.”

He had the decency to give a sheepish chuckle when she broke out his full name. “I’d manage, if that’s what it took. Fortunately, there’s something else we can try first.” He took her arm and gently tugged her closer so he was supporting her rather than the wall. “It’s much faster, too.”

“Do you... d’you have the energy for that?” she mumbled, even as her head lolled toward his shoulder.

Red’s grip around her waist tightened and she’d almost swear she felt his lips brush over her temple. “Only one way to find out.”

---

He was right--appearing out of thin air, battered and bloody, on the outskirts of a town was a very fast way to get help. It came with the watchful presence of a guard or two, but their Shepherd badges alleviated suspicion to the point that presence was more cursory than anything.

In a huge stroke of luck(or answer to prayer, but they could debate that later), the town did actually house an experienced Elae Mage. The no-nonsense Norm man tutted and tsked as he looked over their injuries but promised he could have them patched up in a jiffy. He paired the assurance with a wink and a smile that brought out his crow’s feet. “I’m good at what I do, enough to be cleared by the Autarchy to practice my craft, so long as I work for them and behave myself.”

That’s always the trick, isn’t it? Xaeryn thought but kept to herself.as he set to work carefully undoing her makeshift bandages.

To her relief, he was as good as his word. A scar still remained when he was done with her side, and Red’s wrist(which had been broken, and she almost smacked him for trying to downplay it) was a bit stiff, but they were in much better shape than they’d been an hour ago. The Healer still insisted on bedrest for Xaeryn, citing the copious blood loss as reason enough. “I can mend the flesh, but some things the body must do on its own, you know?”

She did know, and both of them were exhausted anyway--she really didn’t know how Red hadn’t passed out Traveling in his state--so Xaeryn didn’t even protest. She just settled into the relative comfort of the clinic bed he offered. She didn’t fight a smile when Red sat heavily on the edge of it and leaned against the wall next the her so they were shoulder to shoulder, slightly squished in the narrow space. Silence stretched between them for several long moments as they took the chance to catch their breath; comfortable but expectant. A decade and a half of friendship balanced on the cliff’s edge of quiet.

Red was, of course, the one to break it.”So...” he began, then trailed off, running a hand through his hair. 

Xaeryn gave a small--slightly nervous--chuckle. “So.”

He rolled his head against the wall to look over at her. “You’ve wanted to kiss me forever, huh, Ryn?”

She rolled her eyes and briefly thought about pushing him off the bed. “Forever in this case being since I was sixteen, yes. And ‘Ditto’? You, who dated practically everyone our age at the Veiled Circle, have wanted to kiss me since forever?”

Red gave a sheepish chuckle. “...Yes. It’s been...more since you came back through Capra and we joined the Shepherds,” he admitted, “but it’s always been there, pretty much. Since about sixteen, at least.”

“You mean we...” Xaeryn groaned, the sound turning to an almost hysterical exhausted giggle halfway through. “We’re idiots.”

Red snorted softly and nudged her shoulder. “No arguments here.”

“So, what was your reason for never saying anything?” she asked, idly tracing her finger back and forth against his knee.

“Same as yours, I suspect,” he said, biting back a smile. “Our friendship’s always meant a lot to me, and I didn’t want to risk-”

“-Risk messing it up,” Xaeryn finished through a yawn “You’re right; mine’s the same. I spent a sennight and a half before I left debating whether or not to say anything,” she admitted.

“So did I,” Red said ruefully. “Not that I was hoping to change your plans or anything, I just know you like making-”

“Informed decisions.” She chuckled, paused with her fingers just brushing his.  “You wanted to make sure I had all the relevant facts.”

He hooked his pinkie around hers and smiled. “Something like that. But i kept chickening out. Second guessing myself. And then you left, and Tevanti named me Archmage when he died, and I figured that was that.”

“And then I came back,” Xaeryn said softly, staring at their linked fingers, remembering the slightly thunderstruck look in his eyes that day in Solhadur.

“Ten years later and all grown up,”he said just as softly.”Looking very badass, by the way. And I was happy to see you, as... as an old friend. But I couldn’t help wondering, especially after... you know,” he gestured vaguely with his free hand.  “everything in the Phantom Shore.”

She gave a quiet chuckle. “Ditto.”

Red turned to look at her again and she almost lifted her free hand to trace the dark circles under his eyes. “Still didn’t want to risk messing up what we have...”

“Mmhm.” Xaeryn shifted to better face him, bending in her knees so her feet didn’t hang off the end of the bed. “Our friendship’s very important. Precious. We wouldn’t want to gamble it without being sure there’s a chance...”

“So we dance around it and drop hints,” he murmured, leaning closer. “Guess one of us is just going to have to be the brave one.”

She mirrored the shift as she pointed out, “I thought I already did th-”

Red kissed her.

Xaeryn smiled as she leaned into it, felt him do the same. They savored it, hands cupping each other’s faces, stealing quick breaths before going for more. It only broke because Red started to fall off the edge of the bed and jolted back, throwing out an arm to keep his balance. They both laughed at that; the soft giddy, knowing one they’d shared over a dozen or more inside jokes since sixteen.

“Probably just as well,” Xaeryn sighed, nodding toward the window and purpling sky outside. “We both need rest.”

“Mm-hm,” he agreed, rubbing his eyes. “Guess I’ll have to figure out where I’m sleeping...”

“Just stay. For now, at least,” she said. She squeezed his hand. “We’ll both fit.”

Red arched a skeptical brow, glancing at the way their feet were almost hanging off various edges, one of his actually braced against the floor after his near-tumble. “I don’t think we will, Ryn. It looks barely big enough to fit you.”

“That’s my point; if I’d have to sleep half-folded anyway, might as well do it half-siting up with you for company.” Besides, she’d miss the warmth of his side pressed to hers too much.

“The curse of being tall?” he said with a wry laugh and glib tone of one similarly familiar with said “curse”.

“Pretty much,” Xaeryn said with a matching laugh, sitting forward to share one of her pillows with him. “At least it means I grew into my ears.”

He smiled at her tone. “You know, I never even noticed.”

She grinned and tugged an earlobe. “And if you’d said anything to that effect when we were younger, we wouldn’t have had to wait so long for me to kiss you,” she teased.

“Better late than never?” Red offered through a yawn.

“True.” Just looking at how tired he was made her yawn, too, and Xaeryn settled even more, feeling the tug of sore muscles around her new scar as she leaned more heavily on his shoulder. “It’s not like this is the worst place either of us has fallen asleep, either.”

“Mm.” Red squeezed her hand and shot her a teasing grin. “At least this one you won’t have to spend an hour picking twigs out of your hair...”

She swung her free arm to lightly smack him center of the chest. “You’re never letting me live that down, are you?”

“You almost landed on top of me, Ryn. No, no, I’m not.”

She was laughing as she whacked him again. “Bastard. “There was no heat behind the insult, and she nestled her head against his shoulder. “I suppose we can talk more in the morning about... us  After we figure out how to tell both Blade and our would-be ally there’s no more artifact.”

Red groaned as he leaned his head against the wall. “Can’t we skip those? There’s a couple conversations I’m not looking forward to having.”

“Oh, me, neither,” Xaeryn agreed, her thumb rubbing over the heel of his hand as she fought down the rising bitterness of failing. “I’m not sure which will be less pleasant; Blade or the mysterious intended “ally”. Which is why we’re putting it off until tomorrow, but having that discussion before we can talk about us. It’s incentive.”

“Good idea.”

“I am the smart one,” she said lightly.

“That’s not what you said earlier,” Red chuckled in reply as he kissed the top of her head.

“I was trying to make you feel better,” she deflected with a smile. “You were looking all panic-stricken and all.”

“Hey, you were in pretty bad shape, I think I’m allowed, Xaer,” he said warmly, jaw cracking as he yawned again.

Xaeryn laughed and snuggled closer, letting her eyes drift closed. “G’night, Red.”

“Night, Ryn.” His breathing slowed almost immediately, body pressed warm against hers, and their hands still tangled together.

Out like a light, she thought with a fond smile. Not that she could blame him. Today had been... eventful. Half-asleep herself, she brought their hands up so she could brush a light kiss against his knuckles(purely because she could now), then let them settle back on the bed, still joined, as she followed Red’s example and drifted off to sleep.

No one liked failure, her even less than most. But if this was what she got out of today’s, Xaeryn was fairly sure she could live with it.

----

Yes, they wake up bc one of them(probably Red) starts to fall off the bed. Yes, they’re a bit sore. No, neither of them care.

[hypnoticwinter]

Down the Rabbit Hole part 5

“Peter, wake up. Peter, please, come on. I know you’re breathing, you have a pulse, fucking wake up, Pete. Please.”

Peter cracks an eye open and sees Makado, forehead pressed against his shoulder, her own shaking with exhaustion and frustration and fear. He wants to reach down and touch her and show her that he’s awake, that he’s okay, but his arm doesn’t seem to want to cooperate with what he wants it to do; he can lift it but it feels like he’s a million miles from his body and whispering in the ear of whoever is really lifting his arm, but they can’t understand him and they aren’t very good at working the arm to begin with. He blinks glassily and shifts his torso a little and Makado looks up and sees that he’s awake and throws her arms around him.

“Goddam it,” she mutters. She smells like peaches. Peter tells her this and she looks at him with a funny expression on her face, like she’s trying very hard not to smile and failing at it. “You really cracked your head, didn’t you?” she says. Peter tries to sit up but she puts a hand on his chest and pushes him back down gently. He raises his arm again and notices that a little bit more of his coordination has returned; he puts his hand on her shoulder and she reaches up and squeezes it.

“Are the kids okay?” he asks, and she nods.

“Yeah, they’re fine. A little banged up but we all are. They’re okay.”

Peter looks over her shoulder and sees the three of them, even Eileen, looking at him with wide, frightened eyes. Fitzroy has a cut on his forehead that looks bad, but it’s a head wound, so it probably looks worse than it actually is, and Eileen is still clutching her wrist. His eyes flick up to Makado. “Have you looked at Eileen’s wrist?” he asks. “She’s been holding it like that since the first wave of convulsions.”

“Yeah,” Makado nods. “It’s sprained, I took a look at it. Not broken, thankfully.”

“Are you sure?”

“No,” she admits. “I’m not a doctor. But she wouldn’t be able to move it as much as she can if it were broken.”

“Good,” Peter says, making to get up, but Makado pushes him down again.

“Not so fast,” she says, unclipping her flashlight from her belt. “Stare straight ahead,” she instructs him, and when he squints against the light she rolls her eyes at him. “Don’t squint.”

Peter tries not to but even on the lowest setting the flashlight is very bright. After what feels like eternity Makado turns it off and shrugs. “You’ve got a concussion,” she says, “but probably not a very bad one.”

“Are you sure?” Peter frowns. “I feel like shit.”

“Yeah, you look like it, too,” Makado grins. “You were only out for a minute or two, though.”

“The choke response was over that quickly?” he asks, sitting up. His head throbs for a moment and he puts his hand to it, but the feeling passes.

“No,” Makado shakes her head. “Put your hand on the floor.”

Peter does and then he feels it, a slow rattling rumble from somewhere deep, deep in the Pit, a vibration that passes up his bones and makes his teeth sing. He jerks his hand back like it was scorched. “What the hell?”

“I know.”

“What is going on?”

“No clue,” Makado shakes her head. “I haven’t been able to get anybody on the radio, and the lift stopped halfway down. I think a contraction crushed part of the elevator shaft inwards so it can’t make it all the way.”

“Shit,” Peter mutters. “So we’re trapped down here?”

He glances at the three kids on the other side of the elevator enclosure, but they aren’t paying attention; Fitzroy and Eileen are huddled together, looking exhausted, and Tyler is laid out flat on the floor, shuddering along with the pit.

“I don’t know,” Makado tells him. “The elevator is fucked so that’s not a viable way up but there are others. I know there’s a ladder somewhere that leads up to the bronchial area in the layer above this but I don’t know where it is. Do you?”

Peter shakes his head. “No,” he says after a moment. “I’m down here a lot but I don’t think I’ve ever used that ladder. We always would just take the lift, like we’re –“

“- like we’re supposed to,” Makado groans. “And you don’t have the map downloaded?”

“No,” Peter tells her. “I still have a map of the eastern face in here,” he says, tapping the computer box built into his suit’s chestplate. Makado curses.

“Mine just has a map of the LVC area, I’ve been doing tour groups for the last three days.”

“You? Doing tour groups?”

“Don’t even start,” she groans. “Ryan and Fatoumatta both have been out, Ryan’s dad died and I don’t even know what Fati’s problem was, we literally didn’t have anybody else to cover.”

There’s another grumbling moan from somewhere deep below them. Peter watches Tyler shudder.

“Pit doesn’t sound very happy,” Peter mutters.

“I’ve never heard carnal moans like those,” Makado agrees.

“I know a choke response can be bad but even if the pumps failed in the Sand Gullet it shouldn’t have been this bad.”

“No. I don’t know what the hell is going on.”

“Do you have a wireless link with the LVC? I don’t but I don’t know if your suit…”

“No,” she shakes her head. “I thought my suit was damaged but I didn’t worry about it until the elevator got fucked.”

Peter blows his breath out. “We’re screwed, then.”

“Not so loud. We aren’t screwed, there has to be a way up to the LVC, you know how this place is, there’s always a damn ladder or access chute or elevator somewhere, you just never know where they are.”

“But if we can’t get any new maps –“

“Okay, here’s something, though – if we get to a ranger station or a call box we can jack in and try and get a direct line to the LVC that way. I think the wireless issue is the same as the radio issue, I think it’s just that a repeater somewhere got crushed. I don’t know if you know but they aren’t exposed, they’re literally just buried in flesh in places because they really didn’t want anybody screwing with them. It’s just that convulsions this strong are so rare this deep that I guess they figured it was an acceptable risk.”

“So if they buried it in muscle –“

“- which is stupid, I know, even if convulsions are rare -”

“Okay. Well, we can’t get to the ranger station in that digestive bulb. There’s a call box in the Campground –“

“Not any more,” Makado shakes her head. “I saw it when we went in there, it’s fucked.”

“Then the closest one is going to be down in the lower organ trails. There’s a call box every half mile or so.”

“Christ,” Makado groans. “I really, really hoped you wouldn’t say that.”

“It’ll be fine,” he assures her.

“Those macrobacteria had to get in somehow. Where else would it have been but the –“

“You don’t know,” he says. “It could have been literally anywhere with the level of shit we’ve been dealing with for the last half hour or so. Ouch.”

“Are you okay?”

“Yeah, yeah, I’m fine,” he says, putting a hand to his forehead. “I think I’m just catching up now, I have a killer headache all of a sudden.”

“I have a hypo if you –“

“I have some too, it’s okay. We all need to be sharp.”

“Are we trapped down here?” Fitzroy calls, and Makado turns and looks at him.

“No,” she says finally. Peter can see her struggling to think of what to say that won’t make the three teenagers panic. Tyler’s eyes are very wide, or at least they seem so in the red emergency lighting. “We’re just trying to figure out our next plan of action.”

“Are we gonna die?” Eileen asks, so quietly Peter can barely hear her.

“Not today,” Makado says. “Me and Ranger Pete here are going to get you guys out of here.”

“Okay,” Eileen says. There is not a lot of confidence in her voice. At least, Peter reflects, she’s defeated instead of panicked. Then he does a mental double-take and considers what a ridiculous sentiment that is. If she –

“Did you hear me?” Makado asks, frowning. Peter blinks.

“No, I’m sorry.”

“Are you sure you’re okay?” she says, leaning closer. “You’re –“

“No, it’s nothing, I just zoned out for a second. I was thinking about how the hell we’re going to get these kids out of here.”

“Yeah, you and me both. At least it seems fairly safe in this enclosure.”

“Yeah. Have you looked outside lately?”

“No,” Makado says, “but it should be okay, I haven’t heard any more stents fail.”

“I was thinking more about wildlife.”

Before Makado can answer the floor bucks violently and Eileen and Fitzroy both yelp, but the tremor subsides slowly and gracefully, winding down with a jolting series of shudders that Peter can tell from Makado’s face she’s never felt anything like before; neither has he.

The elevator enclosure is fairly roomy, big enough for maybe ten or twelve people to wait in relative comfort. The walls are drab reinforced steel, with a few posters taped up about safety requirements and guidelines and a big recruiting poster encouraging people to apply for venterial engineer positions. This was never an elevator intended for guests to use – in fact, most of the time people wouldn’t have gotten to the Lower Gastro Zone through an elevator at all. Peter’s lead many, many tours down the mile-and-a-half walking path that meanders in a spiraling course down the Pit’s eastern side and finally lets out at a large, reinforced bulb that once was a gastrointestinal organ but, like the Campground, had been drained and prettied up and turned into a staging area both for returns to the Lower Visitor Center and for guests making excursions deeper into the Pit. Peter and the other rangers stationed there joked about it being the lower Lower Visitor Center, considering the amount of traffic they usually got, but all jokes aside, Peter had loved his assignment. Generally speaking the only guests they had passing through and downwards were the serious ones, the ones who’d been on a solo or small-group excursion before and knew what to expect and as such required only refills of water, or propane for their tents’ support packs. It had been him, Makado, Carl, and a few others who tended to rotate out as needed, but then Makado caught that promotion a week ago…

At the time Peter had tried very hard not to feel sad, knowing that she’d definitely deserved it, but he couldn’t help selfishly wishing that someone else had gotten promoted instead so that he could continue hanging out with her and Carl and all the others. The past week had been so strange without her flashing eyes and no-nonsense demeanor and quick wit when they’d teased her. He’d known Carl had felt it too, even if they’d never directly spoken about it.

“Why don’t I go down to the Lower Organ Trail,” Peter says, interrupting Makado’s perusal of the hopelessly limited general map stored in her suit computer, “jack in and download a map real quick, and then come right back up here so we can plan?”

“Peter, I really don’t want us to split up. And you’ve got that head injury –“

“Mak, listen, think about it,” he says, drawing in closer to her. She still smells like peaches, he notices. “You want to take the kids down there? This is probably the safest place for them. You’ve got a door you can bar with some of those chairs, and these walls are solid,” he says, touching them. “Got through all those convulsions without any buckling. Yeah, the elevator’s fucked, but…”

“But what if,” she says, voice a low growl, “what if you go down there and get killed by something? Carl bit it from a pack of macros, Pete. Just fucking macros. You know how many of them are down there, probably?”

“We don’t know that they got in from the organ trails,” he says. “There are a dozen other places that they could have came in after convulsions like that.”

“Don’t give me that bull,” Makado says. “You know it was the organ trails. Where else would it have been? That copepod we saw earlier? That came in from the trails. It didn’t come in from a digestive bulb, its carapace can’t handle the acid.”

“It could have come down from upwards, from bronchial.”

“If it was in bronchial it would have been literally the only copepod there. There’s nothing for them to eat in bronchial.”

“You’re making assumptions.”

“What is it going to eat in bronchial?” she asks. “Tell me.”

“Giant mites.”

“A copepod is a giant mite.”

“That isn’t entirely true and you know it,” Peter says. “Look, we’re wasting time.” He pauses there until Makado looks at him. “One of us has to go. You’ve got rank. Send me. Make the call.”

“We don’t have to. We can just go down tunnels until we find a way up.”

“You know that’s a bad idea as well as I do.”

“I’ll go, then.”

“Mak, no.”

“Look,” she says, eyes flashing, “you can put aside whatever notions of chivalry you might be having. I can take care of myself. It’ll –“

“It isn’t about chivalry. You are the ranking ranger of the two of us.” Makado looks like she wants to say something, but Peter gives her a look and she swallows it. “I’m more expendable than you are. You always knew it would come to this. I did too. It’ll be fine; I can just run down, plug in a line, download an automap of the area, and we’ll head out and be back to the LVC in time for a late dinner.”

Makado takes a deep breath and closes her eyes. When she opens them again she nods. “Be careful,” she tells Peter, and Peter grins at her.

“It’ll be fine,” he repeats. “Just down there and back. What’s the worst that could happen?”

 * * *

 “Fuck,” Peter mutters to himself, peering around the corner again. The timer he’d set on the suit computer ticked down off of five minutes a minute ago and the triocanth is still there in the middle of the hallway, its pair of long, stinger-lined tentacles still wrapped around the tubelike macrobacterium that it caught. It’s chewed open a hole in the bacterium’s thin skin and is busily slurping out the bacterium’s innards, leaving a crusty light-orange scum on the metal walkway beneath it. Peter shakes his head.

“This fucker is still here, Mak,” he says into the radio, as quietly as he can. He hears Makado sigh on the other end of the radio, her exhale blending with the static.

“Just be patient,” she tells him again. “It’ll wander off when it’s done.”

“Or it’ll dig a fucking hole into the Pit wall and hide there waiting for me to walk past and sting me and then eat me, how about that?”

“Go around it.”

“This is a one-way trail, there’s no around it. Unless you want me to double back for fifteen minutes and hope that the next call box is intact.”

“We have time. There’s no rush.”

“You have time,” he corrects her. “Meanwhile, the one who’s actually out here risking his ass doesn’t know if something is sneaking up on him right this very moment…”

He can hear Makado smiling. “Have you tried looking around?” she suggests, and Peter rolls his eyes.

“I can see why you made head ranger,” he cracks, and Makado lets out a mock gasp.

“How dare you, sir.”

“I dare,” he mutters, taking Makado’s advice and looking around, checking the ceiling as well as the fleshy, writhing floor of the trail. He peeks around the corner again and sees the triocanth, its long wriggling tail twitching with delight. It looks to be about halfway done with the macrobacterium now. It flicks one of its powerful tentacles and sends a fluttering spray of bacterium skin flying.

“You just looked around, didn’t you?” Makado asks.

“Maybe.”

“I knew it!” she crows. “Hey, kids! Come here and let me tell you how predictable Peter’s getting! Why don’t –“

“Quiet,” Peter says, and Makado turns off like a switch. He hears her telling one of the teens that she was just kidding and to go and sit back down but he doesn’t pay any attention.

The triocanth is gone. The husk of the macrobacterium is still rocking gently on the floor, its orangey innards oozing out of it like a spilled can of soda, bubbling lightly as it reacts with and oxidizes the metal flooring of the trail. He checks the walls and the ceiling but can’t find the tell-tale breathing hole that it would have made if it had burrowed into the Pit’s flesh; it made no noise, but triocanths usually don’t. “What’s going on?” Makado asks.

“The triocanth is gone.”

“Alright, so the way’s clear?”

“I don’t know.”

“What do you mean?”

“It took off in a hurry. Like it was scared. It didn’t even finish the bacterium it was eating.”

“Maybe it got full.”

“You know what triocanths are like as well as I do.”

“Yeah,” Makado agrees after a moment. “Greedy bastards.”

“And not cowardly,” Peter continues.

“Do you think it noticed you?”

“Not likely,” he says, scanning the ceiling again.

“What are triocanths scared of?” she muses to herself.

“A shamble?” Peter suggests. Makado clicks her teeth.

“Same size range but shambles are pussies. I’ve seen a triocanth take on a shamble twice its weight before.”

“Alright, so not a shamble. What about a greater bristleworm?”

“You’d have heard it. You know how they make that crunchy sound when they’re slithering around on land?”

“Good point,” he nods. “What about a –“ Peter starts, then stops.

“Peter? What is it?”

“Off mic,” he murmurs, and then Peter reaches up, extremely slowly, and takes the earpiece from his ear. He can hear nothing except for the various drips and drops and fleshy stretching noises the Pit makes as part of its ordinary daily life. He can feel the rumble of a convulsion still wracking the Pit somewhere deeper down in its anatomy through the soles of his ranger suit, but the floor he’s standing on hasn’t bucked or pitched enough to throw him off in at least ten minutes now. The damage has been done; if a triocanth can get into the organ trail there’s clearly a torn section of fence or two somewhere.

But a triocanth is relatively innocuous; while it may have a vicious, paralyzing sting and a bad habit of burrowing into the fleshy walls of the pit to spring out and ambush anything that passes by, if he shot it with his service pistol it would die. It would take only a single bullet.

Peter has peeked around the corner again, trying to spot the triocanth. Instead, he sees an arm, reaching out from a narrow fold in the flesh of the Pit, there on the wall, a large, vertical slit leaking a little blood and pus from its bottommost corner.

The arm is long and thin and fragile-looking; it has too many bends in it, the forearm receding back to an elbow and then folding in on itself to another machine-like reticulated elbow. Its flesh is pale and slightly translucent; he can see a long thin bead of bone struck through with veins that pulse with blue, unhealthy-looking blood. The arm is huge, far larger than a human’s ought to be, though it still terminates in a five-fingered hand, proportioned exactly as a human’s, but large enough to palm Peter’s entire head with room left over.

The hand reaches out with exceeding delicacy and picks up the discarded skin of the macrobacterium and then retracts back into the slit, slopping a little of the macro’s orange innards over the wall of the Pit. There’s a coarse sliding sound that gradually recedes, and then nothing.

Peter waits, scarcely daring to breathe, for about three minutes. Then he picks the earpiece up and digs it back into his ear.

“-ammit, Pete,” Makado is whispering, sounding as if she’s on the brink of tears, “this is all my fault, fuck, come on, just say something –“

“Mak,” he murmurs, feeling a stab of guilt pierce through him; she must not have heard when he said he was leaving the radio. “I’m here.”

“Christ, Pete, you scared me,” she tells him, sounding like a week’s worth of tension has just left her body. “I thought we got cut off cause I didn’t hear anything but then I started to get worried –“

“Mak, listen to me.”

“What? What is it?”

“There’s a copepod down here.”

Makado is silent for a moment. “You mean a lesser one, right?” she says hopefully.

“No. An abyssal copepod. A big one.”

“Are you sure?”

“I saw its arm, Mak.”

“You sure it wasn’t just a really pale person?”

“Yeah, it was a really pale ogre-sized person with two elbows on one arm. Come on. Time to face the music.”

“What music?” she growls. “That we’re all going to get fucking eaten by a copepod? Tell me something better, Pete. Have you downloaded that automap yet?”

“Not yet. I’m proceeding forward now that the coast is clear,” he tells her, moving out around the corner. The metal walkway angles downwards and deposits him on the fleshy floor of the trail, and he feels the telltale grab of his cleats digging in with each step he takes.

“Maybe you should come back,” Mak suggests. “We can fall out to a different ranger station, the general map is saying that there’s one about a mile and a half to the east –“

“I remember hearing at least three stents fail down that corridor,” he tells her, edging past the slit in the wall quickly. It’s almost unnoticeable now that there’s nothing inside it to bulge the opening outwards; if he hadn’t seen the arm, he wouldn’t have known it were there. “You really want to take that risk?”

“No,” Makado says after a moment. “But I don’t want you to die.”

“That makes two of us,” he says. “I can see the call box.”

“How far?”

“Quarter of a mile. I’m in the home stretch. Radio silence now so I can listen.”

“Understood,” Makado says. She’s silent for a moment, then Peter hears her breathe. “You come back to me, alright?”

“Promise.”

“Break it and I’ll kill you myself.”

“Okay, I get it. Now shut up.”

Makado shuts up, and then the broadcast clicks off entirely. Peter is alone.

It’s dark down there in the organ trail, and the jerky bob of Peter’s flashlight, slotted into the tab on the side of his helmet, is completely inadequate to illuminate the vast cavernous space. The organ trails, at least at this end, are some of the largest navigable spaces inside the Pit that aren’t sheer drops or extremely difficult terrain. The floor is smooth, struck through with veins and vesicles and callouses from decades of foot traffic.

While the organ trail’s surfaces appear open and occasionally wildlife does make its way through, all of the ways upwards, at least to this opening mouth of the trail, should have been blocked. The only way for something as large as an abyssal copepod to get there would have been for it to clamber out onto the trail and pull itself up through miles of open areas. But Peter knows that abyssal copepods practically never expose themselves like that; it’s only if they’re directly pursuing prey organisms that they will flop outwards of the tight-fitting vents and veins and arteries that are ordinarily their homes, for although a copepod is graceful and swift in the crushing grasp of a tube like that, its organically lubricated carapace shooting through at speeds of up to twenty miles an hour on a straightaway, out in the open it has to rely on the wriggling of its mammoth body and the brutal pulling strength of its forelimbs to get around.

So, essentially – the armor and fences and sonic discouragement devices and electrical traps, the spike plates and scent lures and redundant obfuscatory canals, the thin web of interlinked and interdependent methods to distract, redirect, and otherwise prevent wildlife from making it to the populated areas of the Pit, has failed, at least somewhere. Probably a plate cap got jostled loose by the series of rolling convulsions and constrictions wracking the Pit, perhaps a speaker got crushed or a scent lure sealed off. The web is redundant but not exceedingly so.

Peter feels his paranoia growing as he makes his way towards the slowly pulsing blue light of the call box. This box in particular looks alright; the first two he passed we bent out of shape and clearly inoperable, crushed by tight squeezes of tunnel, but this section of the trail is so large that even if the muscles bunched around it were to contract, it wouldn’t touch him.

Peter gets to the call box. There’s a small pack of macrobacteria rolling past in a divot of the trail floor, perhaps a hundred feet away, but they’d have to spike their way up a sheer incline to get to him, so he’s not concerned. He notices with surprise that the soft grinding noise they make is oddly comforting.

The call box is splattered with something but it’s dried by now. He smacks the side of it lightly and the dried crust of it breaks off in a shower of tiny flakes. “Mak,” he says. “I’m at the box.”

“Great,” she says. He can hear her stretching as she sits up. “There should be a jack on the side, unroll your aux cable and plug it in.”

“Do I have the right permissions for this?” he asks.

“Maybe. We’ll find out.”

Peter is halfway through reeling out the cable before he notices a blinking line on the box’s display. He leans in and squints at it. “Hey, Mak.”

“Yeah?”

“This box is saying it still has a telephone line to the LVC.”

“Really?”

“The status says ‘fine.’”

“Try calling them, then.”

Peter pulls the glove off his right hand and punches the button. The angled infinity-sign of the dialing symbol comes up and bobs back and forth. Peter stares at it as the seconds stretch onwards and onwards. He shakes his head finally. “It must be busted,” he says. “No response.”

“Hmm,” Makado grunts. “That or the LVC is fucked.”

“Come on, get real,” he tells her. “Let’s see if we still have data. I’m jacked in.”

“Okay. Slide your card.”

Peter reaches down into the acidproof pocket on his belly and takes out his ranger card and slides it. The box whirs to itself for a moment before the access menu comes up. “Do I want mainframe access?” he asks.

“No, hit 8 to scroll, it should be on the third page. Haven’t you done this before?”

“Nope,” he says, punching the 8 button a couple times. “I’ve always gotten my maps wirelessly. I think I was trained on this at some point when they put these new boxes in but all I remember is them saying that maps needed supervisor clearance. Why is that, anyway?”

“I’m pretty sure it’s because the automap system does a ping every time someone requests it. Wear and tear and all that.”

“Well, that’s a damn inconvenience right now. The option is locked.”

“Fuck,” Makado says. “Okay, hit enter on it anyway.”

“It’s asking for a password.”

“Try putting yours in.”

Peter punches it in but the box beeps at him. “Access denied,” he reads off.

“Try putting mine in. It’s…”

Peter cocks his head. “I think we got cut off, say again.”

“No,” Makado says after a moment. “It’s just, you know, don’t laugh at me, alright?”

“Will you tell me the damn password?”

“Capital B bigmakpaddywack2258 exclamation point dollar sign.”

“Are you serious?”

“Type the damn password,” she tells Peter.

Peter bites his lip to hold back his laughter and types it in. His smile gradually fades. “Are you sure that’s your password?”

“Yes I’m fucking sure. Did you type it right? ‘Mak’ without a c?”

“Yes, Makado, I’m aware of how to spell your name. I typed it right.”

Somewhere in the trail there’s a sliding sound. Peter freezes. “You know what it must be,” Makado says thoughtfully, “they must not have updated my supervisor status yet. I knew that –“

“Shut up for a second.”

Makado gasps in mock affront. “Could you be any more rude?”

“Mak!” he hisses. “Not now!”

She lapses into an embarrassed silence. Peter drops into a low crouch, forcing himself to move slowly, and then turns, scanning the trail behind him. He reaches up after a moment and turns his flashlight off.

Peter can see nothing on the trail; the macrobacteria are still rolling past below him – the colony must be at least a hundred individuals, if not more. Peter slowly lets a breath out.

“What’s happening?” Makado whispers.

“Thought I heard something.”

“Please do not get paranoid on me out there.”

Peter peers up at the ceiling but it’s shrouded in gloom; if anything is up there he can’t see it. On the other hand, unless there’s an opening, the giant copepod he saw won’t be there – it would be too heavy to cling to the ceiling. “It was nothing,” he says finally.

“Are you sure?”

“No. But we need this map.”

“How the hell are we going to get it, though? If my password isn’t working –“

“Let me think.”

Peter tabs out of the menu and back to the main screen. The infinity symbol of the call he made to the Lower Visitor Center earlier is still bobbing back and forth, caught in limbo. He shakes his head. “Goddam it,” he mutters. He hears Makado breathing but she stays silent.

Peter thinks for a moment, then hits the control, shift, and caret keys all at once. The screen clears and then a blinking cursor appears, waiting for input. “Did anybody ever tell you the reset codes they use in Command?”

“No. I don’t even know how to get to the screen to put them in.”

“I do,” Peter says. “Control-shift-caret. But I don’t know the codes.”

“I think ‘idkfa’ might be one of them.”

“Really?”

“I overheard a conversation Sol was having with somebody one time, and he mentioned that, but I didn’t really understand and I don’t know the context.”

Peter types it in and punches the enter key. “’idkfa’ is not a valid command.”

“Iddqd?”

“If these are really the codes to anything somebody in IT ought to get fired,” he grumbles, but he types it in anyway. “Nope,” he says.

“I don’t know any others.”

Peter can feel the prickly knot of worry that’s been clenching tighter and tighter somewhere deep in his gut double in size. “Fuck,” he whispers. “I can’t get the maps, Mak, it won’t let me get the maps.”

“Peter, just wait, maybe –“

“Goddam it!”

Peter reaches out, and as hard as he dares, slaps the side of the call box. It makes a dull noise but a soft one, and even as his cheeks color and he looks around nervously at the rest of the trail, wondering if anything heard him, the box makes a chittering sound to itself somewhere deep in its innards and then the loud, tacky, 90s-esque tone of a call connecting to the LVC plays.

“Holy shit,” Peter says.

“Yo, who the fuck – who is down on the organ trail right now?” comes the voice from the box.

“Solomon? Is that you?” Peter asks, looking around nervously. He turns down the volume on the box as much as he can but the voice is still boomingly loud, echoing off the ribbed sides of the trail. It must seem much louder than it really is, Peter reasons, but the volume of it is still worrying.

“Peter? What the fuck are you doing down there, man?”

“Listen, Sol, can you get me an automap of this area? I’m jacked in but I don’t have the permissions.”

“Well,” he says, his voice as heavy and slow as it always is. “I can try, but things are pretty fucked around here.”

“Yeah, what the hell is going on?”

“Well, the LVC slipped down the gullet,” Sol starts, and Peter blinks.

“I’m sorry,” he says, “can you repeat that?”

“Give me one sec, Pete. I’m pinging the automap in that area right now, if it’s working you’ll get a download on your suit in a minute or so.”

“Great, thanks Sol. What did you say about the LVC, though?”

“The LVC slipped down the gullet,” Solomon says. “It’s at about a 45 or 60 degree angle right now.”

“Holy fuck,” Peter breathes.

“Yep,” Solomon says. “Check your maps, you should have it now.”

“You’re taking this pretty well,” Peter says.

“Knew this shit would happen eventually.”

“Is it still slipping?”

“Nah, it’s settled now. There’s some buckling down at the other end but Control is okay for the moment. Do you have that map yet?”

“Let me check,” Peter says, tapping on his wrist screen.

The automap system used in the depths of the Pit is a miracle of mechanical and computer engineering and cost Anodyne nearly a billion dollars to develop. Due to the Pit’s mutable and shifting terrain, as well as being a uniquely three-dimensional space, conventional maps became out of date practically as soon as they were drafted, or if they didn’t, they were so hopelessly general that any sort of close-in work became impossible and instead would rely on work-arounds that rangers and mining crews had to develop on the fly, which usually were inexact, imprecise, and unreplicable in the future.

The automap system, on the other hand, uses a system similar to sonar to send an ultrasonic ping through the tunnels of the Pit and then creates a three-dimensional map that can be downloaded to a ranger’s suit and manipulated using a wrist pad and linked to the ranger’s position via a positioning marker in his suit, allowing him to have an instant and accurate map of the surrounding area. The only downside is that the file size for the map itself is so large that, given the limited amount of space for an on-board computer inside a ranger suit, only one map can be held in memory at a time.

Peter watches the progress bar fill up and then taps on the file for the newly downloaded map. A few areas are hazy, indicating one of the ultrasonic projectors might have been inactive or malfunctioning, but the majority of the map is clear. After a moment the suit triangulates his location and he appears as a small green blip, which stays in place even as he rotates the map up and down, back and forth. He blows his breath out. “Got it,” he tells Solomon. “Thanks.”

“No worries,” Solomon says. “Gotta go. Lots of bullshit up here.”

“Are you okay?” Peter asks, but the call has already disconnected, and he is alone again amid the cavernous trail. “Mak, you hear any of that?”

“Got all of it, Pete.”

“Even the part about the LVC?”

“Yes,” she says. Her voice is tight with worry. “Get back here asap, we need to plan.”

“Can you connect to my suit? I’ll send you the map file.”

“I can’t get a link, already tried. When we…”

Makado is saying something else, but Peter allows her voice to fade into the background.

There’s a red blip on the map, there in the cavern with him. He looks up, looks around cautiously, but he doesn’t see anything; red would mean a moving object of fairly significant mass, but the map updates so slowly that it’s nowhere near to being a motion detector or anything. Plus, when the sensors spin down in a couple of minutes the updates will stop.

Peter takes two fingers, zooms in on the blip, then zooms back out. If this is accurate, it should be…

There’s a shriek of grinding metal behind him, and he whips around. He sees, outlined starkly by his flashlight, a long, gargantuan arm, reaching up from the cliff below, its translucent, five-fingered hand digging into the metal of the call box leaving dents easily six or seven inches deep. With a faint hissing noise the arm retracts and hauls the bulk of the copepod over the cliff, its frilly sensory antennae flicking with wild abandon. He can see the pinprick of his flashlight reflected in its limpid black eyes and takes a halting step backwards. His cleats, trying to dig in at the wrong angle, trip him and he falls, putting an arm out to catch himself. The copepod cocks its head at him, and then it reaches out, its hand seemingly large enough to blot out the rest of existence, and Peter doesn’t have enough breath to scream.

 Continue with Part 6

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[kazdoesntknow]

sorry for the stickers and lines in the latter image of leo, it’s the original one from before i got my sketchbook.

i ended up changing leo’s face. his right eye is burned, as well as his shoulder, and he’s blind in his right eye.

he wears goggles now- lightly based off of steampunk goggles. they read thermals, as well as zoom in and out. he’s also the only turtle who still has their mystic weapon- april still has hers.

leo’s really been through things. at his current age of twenty-one, he’s the leader of the team. though at sixteen, when he and his brothers went to fight draxum and most of the foot clan, he realized they were being overrun and he surrendered as a distraction so his brothers would be able to escape. he ended up being tortured over the next two years, as well as experimented on, but he eventually escaped and returned home, where he’s now planning on how to take his world back from the yokai, establish equality, and throw big mama and draxum away for their crimes, seeing as those two released shredder and made sure everyone else was shoved underground as the yokai had been.

he’s quieter now, and less quick to joke, and matured a lot faster than he should have. but somewhere in that heart of his, he’s still the same leon. he’s just struggling with how to express it.

he has a lot of mental disorders due to everything that has happened.

again, sorry for the stickers and stuff. that’ll go for just about everyone else,,,,

so this is raph. probably not the best drawn, i’ll redraw him soon, i promise that much. but anyway, as you can see, he’s got a few scars, and where leo has teal eyes, raph has green. ( aka i wanted to give them eye colors, and here they are. ) he’s twenty two, and during leo’s two years away, he’d begun to think leo was dead. but he blames himself fully for leo’s disappearance, and regrets not being the one to think of surrendering first. he doesn’t have his mystic weapon, though he does use his sais. once leo returned, he passed leadership onto him, because leo was the one who showed leadership and protected them all.

raph’s still his cuddly self, though his fear of being alone has gotten stronger, and he usually sleeps in mikey’s room to avoid waking up with panic attacks. he also has a strong fear of abandonment, and is terrified his brothers will leave or get kidnapped again.

also heavily blames himself for splinter’s death, even though he wasn’t fighting shredder with miko and casey.

stickers, yada yada. you get the gist.

anyway! this is the baby, mikey. i liked the addition of a bandana, so i threw it on him. he’s the youngest at age 20. upon leo disappearing, he chose to neglect the new way of life and pretend that nothing’s changed. upon leo’s return, though, he wasn’t quite sure what to do. he couldn’t seem to comfort leo. but mikey tried his best anyway.

during leo’s time in captivity, mikey was constantly with raph, bonding more heavily with his elder brother, due to donnie being more in his lab to deal with his own problems. mikey still loves to paint, and he simply wishes he could see sunlight again. he often plays video games with raph and does quite a bit of art- the lair is covered in his art, whether it be on canvases or walls. he chats about everything he wants to do.

he probably took draxum’s betrayal the hardest, seeing as he was the one the most supportive of draxum’s redemption. he wanted his two dads, and now, sadly, he has none.

and this is donatello, the last, but definitely not the least, of the turtles.

he fully blames himself for the abduction of his twin. fighting draxum was also very difficult for him, because his battle shell was torn apart ( again ) and he was carried home due to the wounds on his face and on his shell. he ends up cutting off his right arm for what he claims to be self improvement, though there is an underlying truth no one’s managed to dig out yet. he woud have cut off his other upon leo’s return, but leo had stopped him from doing that.

still a tech guy, he tends to isolate himself in his lab, save for whenever miko decides she wants to waltz in there like she owns the place. he doesn’t find her much of a bother because she’s usually pretty quiet. he’s still sarcastic and sassy, but he is very angry and defensive, and forgets to eat and sleep. he, though he would never admit it, probably missed leo the most because of their twin bond.

he has pilot goggles now, which is pretty neat, i think. they’re modified by the mystic crystals, though, so they work the same as his old ones did.

this is casey jones, age 22. living,,, somewhat his best life.

he met the turtles when he was fifteen, while he was out being a bit,,, crazy on the streets and doing his vigilante thing. he’s played hockey since middle school, and absolutely loves it. he’s learned hand to hand combat, and at school, he’s close friends with april o’neil. though at first, he had no idea she knew about the turtles until she went to introduce him to them, and... well, it just hit him. he was like “hey, i know those guys!”

he went with miko and splinter to help in stopping the shredder, and feels pretty sad about splinter dying, so he does the usual thing: vigilante shit. he fights off yokai who are harming humans or mutants, with the help of april and mayehm. he has hockey sticks, golf clubs, and baseball bats.

overall, casey’s a fun guy to hang out with. currently, he’s working on building up a resistance group to fight back, with leo’s strict instruction. in previous years, he was doing it on his own accord.

APRIL O’NEIL! age 21.

she’s pretty neat. has a scar on her chin that actually isn’t from fighting- her and casey were fucking around on the skateboard ramp in the lair and she fell and,,, chin scar. her jacket is immortal. her glasses are broke, though, and she had to tape them together, but she’s not too mad about it. in fact, she’s not too mad about anything.

she fought big mama with lavi, and though they lost, they managed to escape, and april still has her mystic bat. she snatched that up real fast when she bolted. she ended up forced underground, and she hangs out with her mom sometimes, and tries to hang out with casey vigilanting, and occassionally bugs donnie in his lab, or tries to help lavi pull the family back together- not to much avail.

she’s smart, and funny, and sassy. she’s the same as she was when she was younger, but she’s also gotten to be more independent and strong. she’s very confident, and though she’s been through a lot, she has a firm belief that they’ll win soon enough.

this is hizashi mikoto, an oc.

she’s a small. age 21. she’s formerly a business CEO, despite her young age, and graduated from MIT at the age of 15. she was raised in japan until she was twelve years old, and upon the death of her father and sister, she ended up moving to america with her mom. when she turned fifteen, her mom ended up dying as well to a foot clan attack. her relationship with her mom wasn’t the best- her ninja mother was fascinated with science, especially mutations, and inserted tiny bits of chameleon dna into her daughter through spars with swords. miko’s now partially chameleon. she met the boys by literally falling in on them. chasing down a few criminals vigilanting, she ended up falling into their lair and spraining their wrist when she was fourteen years old.

she fought the shredder with casey and splinter, and heavily blames herself for splinter’s death. she’s in love with technology and science, having of built a company off a computer chip she developed when she was twelve years old. so her favorite spot in the lair is in donnie’s lab. but she also likes to spar, and write on occassion, and is sometimes found watching tv with mikey.

this is lavi, the last oc.

gunslinger. she was born in watertown, new york, where her mother had abandoned her before her father found her and her little brothers in their home, but spent most of her life in maine, until conflict caused her to move away from her family and live with her mémé ( great grandmother ) up in new york. wanting to be a police detective and invest her time in chasing down cases at the age of fourteen, she ran around in a deep search for something to do, something to solve, and one of those days, she found leo. and literally just peppered him with questions about where she could go to find some cases to solve. and then they started being friends because “finding cases” turned into “spa day in the hidden city.”

after leo’s disappearance, she ended up searching for the turtle with donnie. the two were relentless in their searching, but two years later, they ended up finding him because he had broken himself out. she tries her best to comfort him as she had the rest of the turtles and their friends.

often passes out in a pile of pillows. leo usually throws a fluffy blanket over her.

but yeah! those are the main characters,,,, lemme know what you think!

[dammitadolfnomorecake]

Once Bitten, Twice Stupid prt.6

When Keith and Shiro left, Lance breathed a sigh of relief. Hunk’s father had to order parts from Platt city, leaving the two brother to spend the night at one of towns inns. Dropping them off, with Hunk, at Hunk’s family garage had been the first relief, the second was dropping Pidge and all her crap off at her house, and third returning home to Blue and a nice bag of blood. Stressed from his lack of sleep and house guests, Lance had drained a whole bag without thinking, something he had done since the time his Mami had had a fall at the home. She scolded him for fussing over her far too much, Lance not wanting to leave her all alone, despite the fact she was only in hospital overnight with a sprained wrist. All his Mami’s friends at her home had been jealous when he’d returned the next day with the biggest bouquet of roses he could buy. Taught to share, each little old lady was given a rose and a kiss on the cheek, more than one aiming for a cheeky kiss on the mouth. His mother all smiles and laughter over the attention he’d received. His Mami had such a great support network there, and he’d really lucked out on her care.

With his hunger quenched, next came cleaning through the house. Shiro and Keith had left their room neat, beds remade and everything else in order too, like they’d never been there to begin with. Not that he was looking, but Lance didn’t find a single strand of stray hair on their pillows. Almost as if he’d housed two ghosts for a evening. Letting his room dry out, and actively avoiding the mess, Lance cleaned through the whole first floor before finally admitting to himself he was procrastinating far too much. Stupid blood. His fatigue had melted away, now he had far too much energy, having already walked into the wall, kitchen table, kitchen counter, accidentally lifted the whole sofa in on go instead of just the end to sweep, and tripped face first over his coffee table. All his movements and actions were amplified by the blood coursing through his system, kind of like how he imagined popping Ecstasy. It was like some cosmic joke really. The worst he could expect was severe flu like symptoms if he accidentally drank bad blood, maybe a day or two of cramping then right back to being stupidly healthy. Bruises, grazes, cuts and scrapes all healed within a day or two, depending on how much blood he’d consumed. His dumb arse had fallen down the stairs before, broken his leg, and taken three whole bags of blood to heal the damn thing. He couldn’t win with his glasses on, and he couldn’t win with them off.

Doing a quick tidy through of the top floor, Lance finally faced his trashed bedroom. What he really needed was a maid... except he didn’t want a stranger in his house, and he didn’t want a stranger in his how’d he touching his things. All his bedding needed to be washed, his mattress needed to be stripped of its waterproof cover then aired once the rain stopped. Blue had had a few “accidents” on his bed, his mattress protector was an idea he could proudly claim as his own. Waking up to entrails between his sheets and seeping into his mattress wasn’t his idea of a good morning, no matter how happy Blue was over her caught mouse. He simply couldn’t find it in his heart to be mad at her, she was only doing what came naturally, and he definitely preferred the mice dead to running around messing up his stuff. Shit, maybe he should just join a coven and make a nuisance of at some other vampires lair... only, he didn’t get along with other vampires for the most part, and shacking up with a werewolf was asking for trouble. He was 44, it was well past time to put his big pants on and deal with things like an adult.

*

Wednesday was supposed to be a good day. He’d finished one of the family cases he was working on, his new window was installed with a nice new latch, he’d spoiled himself with a rather expensive bottle of red, and he’d assured Hunk that’d contacted Shay to confirm dinner was still on. He’d forgotten until that morning, almost spamming her to explain and apologise. Thankfully Shay was the awesome soul she was, understanding after he’d explained about his broken window.

Then it all went to shit.

Stuck on an “urgent” call, Lance had made a mistake. He’d been talking with a mother trying to get sole custody of her three children, online, offering her his business number so she could call and get some free advice. Not even five minutes in, he could already see why she was finding it difficult. No judge was grant her custody when she was more concerned about the next needle in her arm than she was about her children. On his personal phone he’d already called the police to request a wellness check after he’d explained the situation, but as he waited for a response there, he was stuck with a raving lunatic yelling in his ear about how meth didn’t make her a bad mother. She hadn’t even noticed he’d put himself on silent as he’d made the call. It wasn’t something that left him warm and fuzzy inside, he genuinely wanted to help keep families happy, with an emphasis on what was best for the children involved. This wasn’t his first making this kind of call, but it never got any easier. The mother needed help, she needed someone to reach out their hand and help her, but the system could only do what it had the budget for. He’d had a similar case nearly a decade ago where the mother had attempted to murder her children rather than share custody with the remarried father. She wound up commuting suicide, something that weighed heavily on his mind each time this kind of situation came up. It was nearly an hour later that the police showed up, Lance listening to the whole thing until it finally got too much, and he had to hang up. Snuggling up for some serious cuddles with Blue, the TV played in the background just so he didn’t feel that prang of pain... until it finally became too much. Spurring an unplanned trip over to Platt for some serious hang time with his Mami.

As always, his Mami was happy to see him. She could tell immediately something was weighing heavily on his mind, unable to even fake a smile or politeness to the other residents. Feigning exhaustion, he’d “helped” his Mami back to her room, crawling into bed with her and settling himself with his head on her chest. Sometimes he wondered if he hadn’t developed properly after being turned so young. He didn’t fit the stereotype for his age bracket, nor did he fit the stereotype for a typical 26 year old. His Mami didn’t push for an explanation, instead she stroked his hair and held him tightly. After being turned, he’d suffered screaming nightmares for months. His Mami would climb into bed with him, holding him just like she was now.

Whether she’d forgotten, because as much as Lance was loathe to admit she’d been doing that much more often of late, or whether his brother also felt the need for a spur of a moment visit, but when Luis entered the room, his brother wasn’t pleased at all to see him there. Luis had been the first to cut him off. Maybe because he was the oldest, he headed our first to carve out a life for him and his wife Lisa. Luis knew he had above normal hearing, mumbling about how he was a money draining blood sucker. A bit rich coming from a man who chucked a sook over his inheritance from their papi. For the sake of their mother, Lance just wanted to get along, Luis ultra polite in front of Mami as he fussed over her, making Lance feel he didn’t have a place by her side.

The drive back was depressing, not even his usual playlist managed to make it bearable. Rax was working at Balmeria’s, meaning he had to go in and ask for the pump to be turned on, the little shit further pissing him off as he mocked him for his down mood.

The goddamn cherry on his shit-tastic day was arriving home to find his front door wide open, with none of the lights left on. This was how people ended up murdered. He was going to end up murdered... but after the day he’d had, maybe a little bit of murder would be the best thing for everyone. At least his house was in order if he was to meet his demise... his only regret would be leaving Blue... and Hunk and Pidge... and his Mami. For a dead man, he harboured a lot of regrets over his imminent death. Saying a prayer, he wasn’t sure if God had time for his type, but he hoped that maybe he did. He’d been a good vampire, never drank human blood, never attacked a human, went to church and loved his Mami... now he was off to be murdered and his body dumped in a rolled up carpet somewhere in the back lands of Garrison. What a depressing thought. Fuck it, if he was going to die, his glasses weren’t going down with him.

Leaving his glasses beside the front door mat, Lance stepped into his doom.

*

“Hello?! Can you please not murder me, I’ve had a shit day!”

Someone was in his house. He could tell from the smell alone there were two somebodies. His skin has prickled with goosebumps at the first sniffs of the scent.

“Look, I already know you’re here!”

Because talking to his murderers was just how he rolled. Following the scent to the living room, he found his room trashed. Great. Just. Fucking. Great. No power to the house meant no security alarm and no security alarm meant no alarmed Pidge, meaning no forthcoming rescue. No forthcoming rescue meant at least his friends would be safe, which was one small mercy.

“We’ve got you, bloodsucker”

Lance raised an eyebrow. A fucking hunter was on his doorstep, well, not literally but he’d been good, he should have had a few more years of safety with his alias. What really made his eyebrow raise was that despite being decked head to toe in black, that voice very clearly belonged to the “Emo Edgelord” himself, sir “I’m too much of a douche to drink your coffee without protest”, Keith. Behind him clad in an equally depressing outfit was Shiro. Talk about bad fucking karma.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about”

“You’re blood sucking scum, and we’ve come to bring your reign of terror to an end”

Holy fuck, Keith must have pop-cultured hard. The kid sounded like he was straight out the lowest budget slasher movie known to man kind. Ignorance was bliss?

“I’m not quite sure I know what you’re on about...”

“Shut up!”

“Look, dude. Take a chill pill. How about we talk? Look, the names Lance. I’m a lawyer, specialising in family law”

“You mean you rip innocent families apart! You gain access to their children and bleed them dry!”

“Um, no?”

“Don’t lie to me! I know you’re kind. What happened to your friends? What did you do to Hunk and Pidge?!”

What was he supposed to have done with them...?... right. Vampire. Dah... murderer, yep, right... pffft... He could laugh at how serious Keith was being if it wasn’t for the fact that they were indeed there to murder him

“They’re at home? I dropped Hunk off with, so maybe I should be asking what you did to him?”

“Don’t you turn this back on me, you abomination”

Lance crossed his arms in offence. He’d made them breakfast, they should be a little more appreciative

“I didn’t ask to be like this”

“So you admit it!”

Shiro obviously hadn’t trained Keith about how adults used their inside voices

“Stop yelling at me! Inside voice is just fine”

“Shiro, he knows us. He’s admitted what he is. It doesn’t deserve to walk this earth!”

“Keith...”

“Fuck this!”

Again with the yelling. Poor Blue was going to be scared with all the yelling

“So we can’t sit down and discuss this?”

“As Blades of Marmora, hunters of unwanted trash, our sworn duty is to destroy beasts like you! The holiest hunters of the Vatican, your blood will stain our blades!”

“My what now?”

“We saw your fridge of blood!”

Lance was starting to feel second hand embarrassment for Keith. He took stupid to a whole other level. He had the disadvantage when it came to the house layout, he had the disadvantage of being human, and he had the disadvantage of thinking with his anger and not his head

“Hurrah. I get blood packs from Platt”

Keith let out an angry snarl, lip raised... as if that could possibly be threatening?

“I’m going to kill you, before you take more victims!”

Keith threw himself towards Lance, twin blades sliding from his from his suit into his hands, silver glinting as Keith’s hands wrapped around the handles

“Whoa! Man, wait!”

Leaping back, Lance leapt too far, snacking his back hard against the hallway wall

“Scum sucker!”

“Time out!”

“Die!”

Lance had time to think “Oh, shit!”, as he ducked and rolled, wincing as the blades were embedded into the plasterboard wall

“Dude! My house!”

Leaping backwards into the living room, Shiro seemed pretty damn content watching Keith attempt to murder him

“Shut up!”

“Or we could talk?”

Keith snarled at him again, Lance really didn’t want to hurt the idiot. He was human... with a flick of Lance’s wrist he could snap Keith’s neck by accident. Holding his hands up, he backed up

“Would you just calm down before you destroy more of my house?”

The backs of his legs hit something, Lance tripping backwards like a moron

“Whaaaa...!”

Keith lunged forward, blades coming down at Lance’s face. With the most manliness of screams, Lance flinched at his impending death

“Keith!”

Called by the man formally known as his brother, Shiro, Keith paused. Lance laying there like a moron

“Let me do this!”

“Wait a second, he’s not fighting back”

“Because he knows it’s pointless!”

Well, if it was that pointless, Keith didn’t need his blades. Wrapping his hands around the blade, he pulled both from him Keith’s grip, throwing them blindly behind him

“Excuse me, I am right here! Why...”

“Oh, shut the fuck up!”

Dumb with anger, Keith swung at his face, hitting him fairly in his open mouth.

Lance didn’t know who was more horrified. Him for being punched in the mouth, or Keith who’d cut his damn hand on Lance’s fangs. As the blood on his teeth touched his tongue, Lance’s eyes widened in horror. He’d never... he’d never drank from a human before... he... it was... so fresh... and... god, what was that fucking awful after taste?

“What the fuck?! He bit me!”

“Me?! You punched me in the mouth!”

And chipped his goddamn tooth by the feel of it. Stumbling back, Keith fell back onto his arse, hand clamped around the wrist of his bleeding left hand. Shiro rushed to his brother

“Keith! Hold on, you’re going to be okay”

“He bit me! I can’t... I can’t turn... I can’t be one of those”

“You’re going to be okay...”

Panicked enough to vomit, Keith threw up next to himself

“I don’t feel too well”

“Keith!”

Keith’s eyes rolled back, Lance spitting out the blood in his mouth in disgust

“Yuck. What the hell is that?!”

God... it tasted... like metal? But not the taste of blood... it was like he’d sucked on a fishing weight, his nose firmly wrinkled in disgust

“What did you do to him?”

“Nothing! He punched me in the mouth”

Tapping Keith’s face, Shiro tried to rouse his brother... that wasn’t his brother...?

“Keith? Keith, come on, it’s Shiro...”

So this wasn’t an act? Keith wasn’t faking everything to lure him close?

“Is... is he okay?”

“Does he fucking look okay?”

Shiro was panicked. Ripping his mask off, the man’s face was ashen. For fuck’s sake

“Take his mask off properly, let him get some air”

Shiro did as Lance said, Lance cautiously climbing off the ruins of his coffee table and edging closer. With the mask off, he could smell sickness on Keith

“Somethings wrong with him”

“You fucking bit him!”

It was hardly Lance’s fault that the Vatican couldn’t design a suit that withstood his teeth

“No... wait, his blood tasted strange. What breed is he?”

“What do you mean, “what breed?”, he’s human!”

“If he’s human, his blood wouldn’t have tasted like shit”

Shiro let out a groan, Lance shying back as Shiro started rifling through Keith’s pockets before drawing out a spent syringe

“That idiot!”

“What? What is it?”

“Silver concentrate... with mercury. He must have injected himself”

What a fucking tool. Normal, smart, people didn’t go around injecting themselves with silver! Let alone fucking mercury! The idiot had gone and poisoned himself

“Well do something!”

“I can’t! It’s in his bloodstream!”

Holy fucking shit. Nope. No way. He wasn’t having a damn hunter die in his living room

“Get out the way”

“Wha-...”

“Jesus Christ, fucking move”

Taking just a smidge or revenge, Lance tore Keith’s suit open, looking for the damn injection point. Shiro’s fingers moved to his own blade, at which Lance cast him a very disappointed look. He was obviously about to do something very goddamn stupid for sake of this dumbarse dead beat. Letting his eyes roam Keith’s body, he found the pinprick on his neck, able to see the slight amount of residue built up around the marking

“Go get me a bucket!”

“What?”

“Or a bowl! Just hurry up!”

Shiro scampered off, Lance closing his eyes and saying a prayer. He’d never fed off a living human before, and thanks to Keith, he was going to for the first time in 36 years. 44 years if he was being technical. Shit. He was nervous as hell. The one taboo he’d never broken. For this... Lance’s stomach clenched, he’d been nervous about plenty of things, but this was whole other level nerves. Every cruel thing ever directed at him for being what he was... but Keith had gone and poisoned himself. Cringing, Lance sank his teeth into Keith’s neck, the taste in his mouth was rancid, he wanted to throw it back up and his damn mouth felt tingly. Pulling back, cheeks bludging, Lance tried not to spit out the disgusting sludge in his mouth. When Shiro finally came running back in, Lance ended up spitting blood all over him and not the bowl

“You drank his blood?!”

Ignoring Shiro, Lance forced himself to bite back into Keith’s neck, he couldn’t take another mouthful after this, his mouth would burn and blister, opening sores. Drinking quickly, he pulled back, spitting into the bowl this time

“What are you doing?!”

Letting himself drop back onto his arse, Lance wiped his lips with the back of his hand. His body didn’t know what to do. Blood was supposed to be good... it was good. It was fresh... soooo fucking fresh... but revolting... and the way Keith’s flesh slid up his teeth... Clenching his fists, Lance forced a breath down to calm himself down, before spitting again. Yuck

“What did you do to my brother?!”

Shiro sounded like the worlds most disappointed father. No wonder Keith was such an arsehole, that tone went right through Lance’s heart. Being punched in the face would be kinder

“I sucked out what I could... I think I did it right... I’ve never... I’ve never even drunk from a human before in my life... I couldn’t... he... he could have died... why couldn’t we talk?”

Shiro’s expression shifted to something Lance couldn’t read... No, more like he didn’t want to read the surprise and pain all over Shiro’s face at his shocked babbling

“You...”

Lance was getting teary now, disgusted with himself. He was covered in Keith’s blood. Human blood...

“Take him to the bedroom, use whatever you need... I... can’t do this”

[princessselene126]

Wincin OTP Headcanons

Yall I love Wincin so much? Childhood friends to lovers? One of my fave tropes ever. And Jacin and Winter’s relationship was done so well. Take your headcanons and run!

1) Who rocks the Ferris Wheel seat and who flips out and begs them to stop? Winter rocks it, but Jacin doesn’t ask her to stop. He just sits there smirking at her because she’s adorable.

2) Who is always horny and will have sex at any time, at any place and at any time? Winter is canonically more horny than Jacin, so I’m going to say Winter. They’re at a gala? She pushes him into a vacant closet nearby. They’re checking out a BSB (bioelectricity security block) factory? Winter finds an excuse for them to sneak away and go to the bathroom. Jacin frequently says, “Winter, seriously, I love you, but now isn’t the time.” fuck do i need to write wincin smut now?

3) Who is more into taking showers/baths together? Who tries to make it relaxing and who tries to make it sexy time? I think Jacin is, just because it gives him an excuse to be close to her. Jacin actually is the one to initiate sexy times because in his mind they’ll be able to skip the cleanup step and relax afterwards. Winter doesn’t object in the slightest.

4) Who likes to walk around the house naked and who tells the other to go put some clothes on? Winter. Jacin rolls his eyes at her and maintains eye contact because well, “don’t look down, don’t look down. You look down and you’re a goner and she wins.”

5) Who sleeps on the couch when they get into a fight? Jacin does, but they’ve only had two fights ever get that bad.

6) Who takes photos of the other while they sleep? Winter takes pictures of Jacin because it’s the one time he’s not constantly frowning.

7) Who said “I love you” first? and who ends their arguments in a fight with “Because I love you”? Again, can’t remember who said it first in canon, but I’m pretty sure it was Winter. Jacin is the one to say “because I love you?�� to end arguments.

8) Who likes to wear the others sweatshirts? Winter likes to steal the jacket of his old guard uniform and wear only that. Jacin is but a simple man... he knows what she’s trying to do and he goes for it every single time because damn if she’s not the most beautiful woman he’s ever met.

9) Who wakes the other up in the middle of the night to tell them a cool dream they had? Who has the most nightmares, and who sings them back to sleep after? Winter wakes up in the middle of the night to tell Jacin her dreams. He tells her to go back to bed, but listens to her talk anyway. Winter has the worst nightmares given literally everything that’s happened in her life, but Jacin has a lot too. His are mostly about Winter getting hurt. Jacin will hum Winter to sleep when she has them, and She’ll actually sing him to sleep when he has them.

10) Who is more likely to cheat? We’re going to pretend this isn’t about cheating on another person because neither of them would ever do that. They love each other too much. Instead we’re gonna say who cheats at games. It’s Winter. All the time. He doesn’t call her Trouble for nothing.

11) Who makes fun of the other for having a crush on them, and who has to remind them that they are in a relationship? Neither of them does that. They were both in love with each other for basically their entire lives so...

12) Who starts a food fight in the kitchen? Winter. She thinks it’s fun. Jacin says they shouldn’t be making such a mess but when she throws a piece of cake in his face it is on. 

13) Who initiates duets? and who is the better singer? Winter initiates duets and Jacin joins in surprisingly fast. When she does it in front of the rest of the rampion crew, Jacin hesitates, but one look from Winter has him singing along. The rampion crew is shook that he can sing. Cinder isn’t surprised as much as everyone else because closeted singers can tell if someone else is a closeted singer. That also means Jacin has a feeling Cinder can sing, but he’s never been able to confirm it. Winter is the better singer of them, but Jacin can hold his own.

14) Who starts the hand holding? Who grabs the others butt? Who slides their arm around their waist? Who likes to put their fingers in the belt loops? Jacin is the one to initiate hand holding because it’s one of the easiest ways to keep her by his side. Winter likes to grab his butt. They both like sliding their arm around the other’s waist, it’s just a matter of who beats the other to it. Winter likes putting her fingers in his belt loops when she’s hugging him from behind then kiss or rest her head on his shoulder. 

15) Who likes writes the others name on their wrist? I don’t think either of them does this. Winter thinks about him all the time, sure, but she isn’t one to write as much on her wrist. And Jacin definitely isn’t.

16) Who is more seductive when they are drunk? and who is louder in bed? Jacin is a horny drunk which is part of the reason he doesn’t get drunk very often. Winter thinks it’s awesome and can totally get on board with it. but she never does anything with him when he’s drunk because he can’t give consent. always make sure you have consent, kids I really want to say Jacin is louder in bed too even though he desperately tries not to be. Winter loves it. It’s one of the few times she can get him out of his shell.

17) Who is more protective? Jacin. I don’t even need to elaborate on this one, just read all of the lunar chronicles, specifically Cress and Winter.

18) Who talks to the other while they are sleeping? Jacin talks to Winter when she’s sleeping. Usually it’s about how much he loves her. If Winter tried to do it, Jacin would wake up because he was trained to be a light sleeper.

19) Who drives and who has the window seat? Jacin drives and Winter has the window seat. He loves glancing over at her once in a while to see how happy she is to watch everything go by.

20) Who falls asleep in the others lap and who carries them to bed? Winter falls asleep in Jacin’s lap all the time. He never hesitates to carry her to bed, tuck her in, press a kiss to her forehead, then crawl into bed himself.

21) Who cuts the others hair? Winter cuts Jacin’s hair because she likes running her hands through it.

22) Who is super bad at sexting? and who sends them encouraging messages throughout the day? Jacin is terrible at sexting. Honestly not even worth trying, he’s that bad. Winter sends him encouraging messages because she knows they’ll make him smile for a split second.

23) Who thinks they are not good enough for the others love? and who’s more afraid of loosing the other? Who thinks they keep messing up, only for the other to tell them they don’t need to worry? I think they’re both secure enough in who they are to know they’re good enough for each other. Jacin is more afraid of losing Winter. He doesn’t really have a reason to be afraid of that after the revolution, but old habits die hard. I don’t think either of them thinks they mess up a lot either? They can both let things go if they know it isn’t their fault.

24) Who starts random slow dancing with the other in the kitchen? Who holds the other just above the ground and kisses them? Jacin will start randomly slow dancing with Winter when they’re alone sometimes. He also lifts her off the ground and kisses her.

25) Who says shitty puns and sex jokes just to see the other giggle and blush? They both say shitty puns from time to time, but Winter definitely says more sex jokes. Jacin tries very hard not to let them affect him, but more often than not a light blush will tint his cheeks.

26) Who kissed first? Can’t remember because I’m blanking. We’re gonna say Winter kissed Jacin first.

27) Who orders take out at two in a morning? and who wakes the other up at three in the morning to go downstairs with them to get a glass of water because it’s too dark? Neither of them. Winter will ask Jacin to come down with her mostly because her visions still haunt her even though she doesn’t get them any more. Jacin never hesitates to come with her, holding her hand the whole time to reassure her.

28) Who writes poems/stories and love songs about the other? Do they sing the songs the write for them? Neither of them does this. But I do think Winter will constantly tell Jacin how much she loves them with a lot of flowery language.

29) Who does some crazy stunt to try and impress the other and who ends up driving them to the emergency room after it backfires? Winter. Jacin doesn’t know how she managed to sprain her wrist doing that, but he’s glad he’s a doctor and has a brace laying around.

30) Who is embarrassed when they have to wear their glasses and who thinks they look super cute? Neither once again. I don’t think either ever needs to get glasses either.

Send me numbers and a ship

[eupark]

HI HI HI!! if you’re reading this i’m probably at work right now and being the worst admin ever... but that’s okay... kinda. i’m admin le, but you’re more than free to also call me lizzy, my pronouns are she/her, i’m 18+, and i reside in the est. i work pretty much full time at this point, but all my free time will be spent with everyone here at eonia! don’t hesitate to IM me here, or hit me up on discord (swooping is bad#8932) if you’re having any issues at all. without further adieu, lets move on to the actual intro here. spare a like, and ill come pester you for plots.

jonas can quite literally be summed up by this, this, and this. he started as a joke of a character but now i’m too deep into his psyche to have any other original ideas.

BACKGROUND

in the year 1995, his mother was admitted into a nursing school in florence, italy. always wanting to study abroad and get away from her home city of jinju, south korea, she was ECSTATIC about it. it took some convincing her parents, but she ultimately ended up in florence for her schooling.

fast forward to spring 1997, nearing the end of her second year at school, she met apollo. he was pretty, she was pretty, you get the rest! it was a tiny fling, and she winded up pregnant with this mess of a demigod; jonas.

born a couple days before valentine’s day in 1998 to a single mother, jonas park came into the world. there were more than a few times wherein his mother considered dropping out of school and returning to korea, both during and after her pregnancy. but a born out of wed-lock child wasn’t exactly favored in the eyes of jonas’ grandparents, so she usually felt as if she wouldn’t be welcomed back with open arms, nor would her child. therefore, she stayed in italy, and in school.

apollo wasn’t around an awful lot, even in passing, but every so often he’d make sure to give her a nudge, just to make sure she was keeping on her feet. we love a bare minimum lover<3

when jonas was old enough to wonder why he didn’t have a father in his life, his mother never went into much detail about it. as far as she saw it, jonas was hers and hers alone. no god would change that. so, ultimately, jonas grew up extremely close to his mother; for awhile, they were both all the other had in their lives.

a lot of his childhood was rather uneventful, surprisingly. as absent as apollo was, and still is, he’s always managed to keep jonas relatively safe. at least, from himself.

things started getting strange when he was around eleven, after his mother got married to his stepfather. the beginnings of puberty mixing with family dynamics changing ALSO with demigod abilities manifesting and getting stronger... let’s just say it wasn’t the most healthy mix.

at first it wasn’t too bad, though; his musical aptitude could’ve easily been thought of as mere skill. he adored music deeply, and began to dream about a music career around this age. audiokinesis was a skill in him naturally, but even before he knew he was a demigod, practicing his musical skill was important to him. whether it was learning guitar or piano or anything else that piqued his interest, he was all for it.

and though he had always been able to subside his mother’s pains by mere touch for a great majority of his life, it wasn’t until he was about twelve that he really became aware of his abilities in vitakinesis. this was also when he found out about being a demigod.

imagine a boy of twelve, at home alone after school due to both his mother and step-father being at their respective jobs. now imagine said idiot boy cooking and accidentally burning his hand on the stove rather severely, and quickly trying to get into contact with his mother. before he could, both the pain and wound quickly reduced. it was mostly thanks to divine intervention of his father, but it did trigger the majority of his vitakinesis abilities. naturally, he freaked the hell out. he was pretty sure he had just burned his hand… why had the pain vanished, and why was he left with a mere dull ache? instead of telling his mother what happened, though, and asking her if he was just completely crazy (he was pretty sure, at twelve, he already was), he decided to test the ability instead.

SELF HARM TW. the incident led to him being extremely stupid and reckless, often testing his ability several times over. he burned himself on the stove, jumped from heights that shouldn’t be jumped from, even picked fights with kids at school who he knew didn’t like him just to see if he could heal himself the way he seemed to that one day after school. usually, he was able to quite well. however, since he had little control and little knowledge of how his ability worked, he wound up with a couple badly sprained wrists and twisted ankles. when he was finally satisfied (if not a little bit scared) with what he could do to alleviate his own pain, he decided to ask his mother about it. she told him about apollo readily; she knew she would have to sooner or later, but she mostly did it so she would stop catching him being such an idiot.

he started going to camp that following summer. apollo took forever to claim jonas despite it being OBVIOUS that he was his son. therefore, jonas spent a few summers vibing with the hermes kids and the other unclaimed kids in the same cabin.  jonas was only claimed at fourteen because apollo pretty much had to do so.

camp was usually pretty uneventful, too. i mean, all things considered. his dad didn’t really talk to him much, he wasn’t on the brink of any wars, it was just... camp. a couple heartbreaks here and there, a burn scar that’s never quite healed, and a few encounters with monsters outside of camp walls because he was bored... but really? nothing TOO SPECIAL ever happened.

nearing the end of high school, jonas was ready to be done with schooling forever, as he was never big on getting favorable grades, nor did he want a career that required it. as far as he knew, he would figure things out.

WELL that didn’t happen. to turn a long story short his never going back to school plan turned into a gap year from school after a near death experience trying to be a normal person outside of a protective barrier<3

to make an even longer story shorter because this intro is extremely long he’s now in his second year at eonia, majoring in video game development after a miserable semester and a half as a music major.

PERSONALITY

copy and pasted from his app but you know!

jonas is generally fun-loving, with a go with the flow type of attitude matched with a firm dislike of critical thinking that may lead one to believe he’s never had a worry go through his pretty little mind. an assumption far from the truth, but he’d never give the inclination of otherwise. his mind constantly rustles with worries about the vagueness of the “future,” and he lives in fear that he’s never quite doing enough to keep up, especially for someone of his age. in a way, jonas is stuck in a never-ending cycle of his own inertia. most of these existential fears, however, live beneath the surface, and are rarely spoken to another soul.

to the world outside of his head, he is extroverted, with a mouth that runs faster than his legs ever could. jonas is loyal and optimistic, both nearly to a fault and never for his own favor. since he runs on limited brain capacity and an annoying desire to be liked by every individual he meets, his buoyancy can become quite tiresome to many rather quickly. a passion for music hums through his veins, and many dreams reside in his heart, but life has always told him that no matter how hard he tried, he’d always come in second place. instead of overcompensating, it’s instead a complete rarity for jonas to put one hundred percent of his soul into anything; that is to say, it is rare for jonas to try his absolute hardest. to him, second place has its silver linings, and sometimes some shade. well, at least he’s an enthusiastic runner-up.

[windandwater]

When my grandfather on my dad’s side passed away, I wrote up a piece with just one family story after another about the experience. I can’t really do the same thing in the same way this time, but I am finding that, in every death, family draws tighter together and tells stories to each other almost on instinct, finding common ground around this one person who shaped us.

Here are some stories that have come out of the last few weeks.

*

I will warn you that the story of my mom’s family has a dark side—her biological mother was physically, emotionally, and psychologically abusive. My grandfather was the one who saved his children from her and thus I can’t speak of him without speaking of her as well. I ended up only telling one story that involves her and it has a content warning at the beginning as well as a note for when the story ends.

*

In his eulogy, my step-uncle said that my grandfather, his stepfather, taught him that “family isn’t about biology. It’s about love.”

Well, he was the one who taught me that too, only not because I had crappy parents. Until he remarried, mom had a crappy parent and a good parent, and the good parent held the family together and shaped us in ways that I’m still only beginning to find out.

*

CW CHILD ABUSE

(Note: I’m referring to her as my mom’s bio-mom or by her initials, NW.)

The custody battle was brutal, and it went all the way to the state supreme court. Fathers didn’t get custody back then—my mom says “abuse” wasn’t even in the lexicon in the initial court cases.

We found this out because my brother & his girlfriend googled my grandfather and this is what came up. They read the deposition and initially my brother was uncomfortable with her seeing it, but my mom said it grazed the surface—and as I told him, the only reason I don’t going around telling people that my mom’s bio mom did stuff like frequently sprain her wrist from beating them is that it’s not exactly the kind of thing you dump on people without warning, not because it’s a secret or because my mom doesn’t want me to talk about it.

I’ve known for a long time that when I was really little, my mom once found herself with her hands around my throat, freaked the fuck out, and from that moment had to second guess every inch of her parenting and her actions around us, because she had no instincts to fall back on. I didn’t need to read “choking her eldest daughter” as an example of abuse in a court case to know that that happened to my mom.

Anyway, the psychological abuse always scared me more. Because my mom won’t talk about it much.

END CW

*

Apparently, even though moms are perfect angels who should always get child custody and can do no wrong to children, word was getting around about her and someone offered to “take care of the problem” for $150.

My grandfather never would’ve said yes to that, and he decided to try the legal route first. But he was ready to take the kids and run, if he didn’t get custody. Leave his job, fake name, move to Phoenix, everything. I’m beyond thankful that didn’t have to happen but also beyond relieved that he was ready to.

*

He never spoke a single ill word about NW.

*

I was very disappointed about missing the funeral in person. I was hoping they’d have it after my ankle surgery so I could at least be propped up in a corner somewhere, high on Vicodin maybe, but there.

Honestly I’m disappointed about a lot of things this month.

The day before the funeral, my dad came in with a picture showing me the outside of the house. There was a rainbow. A little one, but a rainbow.

I of course dragged my ass out of my sickbed, hopped my way out there, and made him set up a chair so I could see it too.

*

There’s a reason I run a side blog of rainbows. There’s a personal & private story there, but what you need to know is that in dark moments, I often look for rainbows or have literal rainbows sent my way. They bring me hope every time. I sat outside, foot hurting and sweating all over from the heat, watching the rainbow fade, knowing it was going to be okay.

I haven’t always gotten along with my cousins on that side of the family. They grew up in Louisiana and are much closer to each other, so there’s a lot of gaps to bridge and we taller, dark-haired city people from Yankee land who clung close to each other and weren’t used to big families always kind of stuck out a bit among the short blondes who had always lived in the South in a big insane group of cousins and step-cousins.

We’ve gotten closer more recently. It’s trendy to hate on your family on facebook, but interacting on social media has given me some separation between the stuff that makes me roll my eyes about my cousins and the stuff that endears me to them.

And it was through facebook that we came together because of one simple fact: we all had the same, terrible morning.

We all woke up first thing to our moms, broken in half themselves, breaking our hearts too.

*

I get told that I laugh and smile a lot. Sometimes I’m even told that in non-creepy ways! And it’s true. I sometimes think I exist moment to moment trying to find something new to make me laugh. I learned that from my parents, who will watch or listen to just about anything if it’s funny. I learned to tell stories from them too, to take all my experiences and find the good the bad and the funny in everything.

My mom is my best audience. She laughs like a hyena at all my stories, my good lines and my bad lines. She’ll laugh at jokes that I *know* aren’t funny, at the ones that I think are hilarious but no one else laughed at, and she laughs the hardest of all at the jokes I’m extremely proud of and that land really well nearly every time.

Her whole family’s like that. Head thrown back, laughing hysterically, whole conversations just an excuse to try and make each other laugh.

Her dad, too. Just as loud and as hard as the rest of them. He had a giggle, and also a cackle. He used to give points when someone said something particularly funny, let out a really good zinger, or “won” a round of conversation. He’d just grin, solemnly lick his finger, and draw a “1” in the air.

*

He liked pranks. I’ve told story after story on my blog about how my family likes to mess with each other at Christmas. My mom’s saying is that “there’s no such thing as a lie at Christmas”, meaning that your gift is late or it wasn’t in stock or we can’t do it this year, I haven’t found a gift for you so you’re just getting candy? Not lies.

Except it’s not her saying. It’s his.

Anything that arrives at the house in December gets wrapped up and put under the tree; it’s automatically a gift. You think that trick of wrapping things in progressively smaller boxes is a prank? Amateur hour. I’ve wrapped up individual pieces of candy, individual matryoshka dolls, and yes, the smallest git in the largest box but also filled the box with packing peanuts to make it extra annoying.

I learned all of this from my mother.

But he taught it to her.

If I find hideous things to give my brother, it’s because my mom’s family rotated a Velvet Elvis, giving it to each other, for years. If my mom watched in stoic silence as my dad tore the house apart for looking something they got in Arizona that was wrapped up under the tree, it’s because someone wrapped up two huge boxes for my grandfather that he was excited to open, that turned out to be two light fixtures he’d ordered and forgotten about.

We never lost the magic of Christmas in my house. If anything it got more magical, more fun to surprise each other and find funny and creative ways to show each other how much we care. Gift giving is an art form in my family and I look forward to it every year.

It’s all because of my grandfather.

*

I learned so many things from my parents that they in turn learned from my grandfather. Even my dad learned a lot from him as his father-in-law, because it was impossible not to look up to him, and he was a teacher in his profession and by nature. Everyone talked so much at the funeral and afterwards about how he could fix anything, build anything, do, anything.

I was called “Tinker” at one of my old jobs for how I was always fixing everyone’s computer and the various office machinery. I didn’t necessarily know how until I sat down and looked at it. I just knew how to figure it out.

I always thought I learned that from my parents, which I guess is still true, but now I know who they passed it on to me from.

One thing I always associated with my mom was that any time she saw a pile of my necklaces in a knotted mess, she would sit down an untangle them for me. I never asked her to do that; she would just see them, and sit down and start working on them. She always got a specific look of concentration on her face as she did.

My dad and I were talking after the funeral and he mentioned my grandfather doing that exact thing in our house at ninety-something years old. He has a picture of it. I knew without seeing it exactly what the expression on his face would be.

It’s now one of my favorite pictures of him.

*

There was technical trouble with the Zoom funeral, which was pretty disastrous—I wasn’t the only one who wasn’t able to attend due to health & other problems. For someone so beloved, so central to the family, who we all owe so much to but don’t even think of it that way because he was so fun and easy to love…well, funerals are for the living, and not being able to be there in person hurt, bad, and I know I wasn’t the only one who felt that way. We were relying on being able to attend digitally.

But most of the world is still getting used to doing things over video, and certainly the older couple running the funeral home was a bit clueless. I, on the other hand, ran video calls (not over Zoom, but still) almost daily for 2 years while I was an admin and we had remote employees calling in to meetings. So as soon as I realized exactly what was causing the problem, I got on the phone with the funeral home and did my best to salvage what we could.

And then I pulled the recording for everyone (thank goodness it was recorded).

And then before I watched it I wrote up some instructions, with screenshots, for the funeral home for next time, because they genuinely didn’t know what to do and I wanted to make sure the next family had an easier time and if the problem is just understanding technology, I know how to help with that! I’m good at figuring out and explaining this stuff! It’s just what you do—you help people when you can! You know?

And then I watched the funeral, and listened to my uncle talk about my grandfather always fixing things, and always teaching people.

And I just broke down. Because I knew. I knew who I was.

If the legacy I carry is that of someone who can’t resist helping others by teaching and fixing problems, then may I never ever ever let go of that legacy.

My mother called me to tell me that when they realized what was going on and what I was doing, my uncles both said the same thing, that “that was Papa.”

*

The only good part about any of this is that I’m here with my mom right now. She talked to him all the time before he died but she didn’t get to see him, and she keeps saying things like how she wishes she could tell him the good joke she heard. She’ll casually talk about the depression she’s fighting off.

I didn’t want a broken ankle to strand me here but there are worse times to be stuck with my mom.

[ellewritesathing]

So Close - S.S. X

Summary: The universe has a funny way of putting the things you want right in front of you, but just out of reach. Stiles and Y/N have been best friends ever since Scott brought him home, but when Stiles realizes that he might want to be something other than best friends, she leaves to go to some fancy private school up North. Now that she’s back though … maybe he’s got a shot? A Teen Wolf AU in which the reader has always been so close to Stiles and yet so far.

Prologue - S2E1 Part 1 - S2E2 + S2E3 Part 2 - S2E4 + S2E5 + S2E6 Part 3 -  S2E7 +S2E8 Part 4 - S2E9 + S2E10 Part 5 - S2E11 + S2E12 Part 6 Part 7 - S3AE1 Part 8 - S3AE2 + S3AE3 Part 9 - S3AE4 Part 10 - S3AE5 + S3AE6

Word-count: 4.7k+

A/N: Motel California is one of my least favourite Teen Wolf episodes, but I hope you guys still enjoy what I did with it! Feedback and criticism is always welcome :) 

This year was supposed to be different. Scott was getting his life together. The Argents weren't hunting anymore. Derek wasn't turning anyone else. Erica and Boyd were coming home. Different. Better. But it had been less than a month and if anything had changed, it was for the worst. 

Scott wasn’t healing from his injury. The Argents were keeping secrets from each other. Derek was dead. Erica was dead. Different. Worse. And the fact that the bus was approaching a literal storm on the horizon felt more like another bad omen than just another bump in the road on the way to a crappy cross-country meet. 

“Stop thinking about it, man.” You turned in your seat when you heard Isaac’s voice so that you were leaning up against the window and had a clear view of him and Boyd. 

“Like you’re not thinking about it, too?” Boyd asked. 

“Yeah, well, we’ll both stop thinking about it.” You rolled your eyes as you listened to Isaac speak. 

“I can’t.” 

“Look, it’s not like any of us can do anything about it,” you said, looking past Boyd to where Ethan sat with Danny. “It’s a little bus.” 

“You sure about that?” Boyd asked. 

Your phone buzzed in your pocket so you motioned for them to talk it out while you checked the message. It was from Lydia.

‘Allison is two cars behind the bus and we’re running out of gas.’ 

‘Just stop for gas. It’s not like you don’t know where we’re going.’

You turned back to Boyd and Isaac but your phone buzzed again. 

‘You don’t think I tried that? She doesn’t want to lose you guys.’ 

You rolled your eyes and shared your location with her. 

‘There. Get gas and just track my location, weirdos.’ ‘I love you, by the way. It’s sweet that you’re worried.’ 

---

“The two of you, back in your seats!” Coach yelled. You ducked into the seat in front of Scott and Stiles, flashing the girl next to you an apologetic smile. “Jared, again? Carsick? Ever ti- Why do you even get on the bus? McCall, not you, too!”

“No, Coach, I’m good.” Scott’s voice was raspy as he answered and he looked like he was going to puke. 

“You’re still not healing?” You leaned over the seat to get a better look. 

“I don’t know. Does he still bleed if he’s healing?” Stiles asked sarcastically and you glared at him. He stammered out an apology and you looked back to Scott with a much softer expression. 

“He’s listening,” Scott said, looking over to Ethan. 

“Then can he hear me telling him to-” 

“Stiles, not now.” You looked over your shoulder at Ethan. “Is he gonna do something?”

“Not in front of this many people,” Scott said. He closed his eyes again, probably in an effort not to be sick. 

“Okay, well, what about the two ticking time bombs sitting right near him?” Stiles asked, pointing at Isaac and Boyd a few seats in front.

You shook your head. “They’re angry but they’re not that dumb … I hope.” Isaac’s head tilted as you spoke, obviously listening to your conversation. You mumbled an apology for him.

“And what if they are? What are we gonna do?” Stiles asked, talking more to Scott than you. “Are you gonna stop them?”

“If I have to,” Scott answered, nodding slightly. 

“I don’t think it’ll come to that,” you said. Scott winced as the bus went over a pothole. “Hey, are you okay? I can ask Coach to stop the bus.” 

Scott shook his head. “Alpha wounds take longer to heal.” 

“Yeah, I know that. But Isaac and Boyd are fine. You should be too.” You leaned over to feel his forehead. 

“Mom, I’m fine. Promise.” He had this annoying little smile on his face as he held onto your wrist. 

“Yeah, must be if you’re making jokes like that,” you said and pulled your hand back.

Eventually, the bus rolled to a stop behind about a million other cars on the highway. A traffic jam. Just great. You were too busy being moody to notice what was going on with Boyd in front, but you stood up when Scott struggled to his feet. 

“Boyd, he’s gonna do something,” he said. You nodded and helped him into the aisle. Stiles grabbed your hand before you could follow Scott to the front. 

“Stiles, not now,” you said for the second time in the past hour. You shook off his hand and took another step forward, but he grabbed your arm again and pulled you closer. 

“Will you just sit down?” Stiles asked. “He needs this.” 

“Let go of me.” 

Stiles let go and you took a breath. “He needs a win after- after Derek, okay?” 

You walked past him and slumped into what used to be Scott’s seat. Stiles slid in next to you with a stupid grin on his face. “Ah, atta-girl,” he teased and you glared at him. “You spend way too much time with the Hales, by the way.” 

---

After Stiles harassed Danny and found out that Ennis might live through the night, the mood somehow got more relaxed and double as tense. You hoped that meant Derek was alive as well, but you were too scared to admit it. As if saying it out loud would jinx it.

“Now the rest of you,” Coach said when he was done traumatizing Jared. “Don’t think we’re gonna miss this meet because of a slight traffic jam, or the minor tornado warning, or Jared. We’re gonna make this thing! Nothing's gonna stop us! Stilinski, put your hand down!” 

“You know, there’s a food exit like half a mile up. I don’t know if we stop and then maybe traffic-” Stiles’ plan didn’t sound half bad but Coach wasn’t having any of it. 

“We’re not gonna stop.”

“Okay, but if we stop-” 

“Stilinski!” Coach blew his whistle. The werewolves of the bus looked like they were going to cover their ears, but you figured that was just because of the sound ricocheting off every surface in the bus. “Shut it! Seriously! It’s a little bus! Stop asking me questions!” 

“I hate him,” Stiles said as he leaned back in his seat. “That man is like an impenetrable wall of-”

“Jared gets carsick,” you pointed out. Stiles looked over at you and you gave him a small shrug. “It would be a real shame if he got sick and we had to pull over to clean the bus. We'd be delayed at least an hour …”

“Yeah, a real shame,” Stiles said, beginning to get a sly smile on his face. 

“A crying shame, even.”

“Oh no.” Scott came back looking like he wished he’d stayed in the front with Boyd and Isaac. “I hate it when you two look at each other like that. The last time that happened, I sprained my ankle!” 

“Yeah, but did you die?” Stiles asked. “No? Then shut up. We’ve got a plan.”

“No way. You’re not harassing some poor kid!”

“You don’t even know who we're harassing!”

“Scott, you're not healing,” you said, looking at him with pleading eyes. “Please, just sit down and let us handle this.”

“But-”

“Please?”

Scott took a deep breath and sat down, though it looked more like he just collapsed into the seat. You leaned down to kiss his head when you and Stiles got up. 

“Thank you.” You gave him a smile before taking your phone out of your pocket and handing it to him. “Call Lydia and tell her we’re going to stop.” 

“They’re in Beacon Hills. What’s that gonna help?” Scott asked. 

“They’ve been two cars down since we left. Nice to see that nothing gets past those keen werewolf senses, huh?” You rolled your eyes and followed Stiles up to the front. He was already distracting Coach, so you slid into the seat next to Jared. 

---

Scott stumbled out of the bus and Lydia and Allison were both there to help drag him to the bathroom. He was bleeding through his shirt and it kind of made you want to throw up. 

“Woah, woah, woah. What are you doing?” Stiles asked just before you crossed the bathroom threshold. 

“Saving my brother. What are you doing?”

“You need to stay out here with Isaac and Boyd.” Stiles kept talking over your protests. “You’re the only one of us they like! They’ll listen to you, okay? Look, you know I won’t let anything happen to Scott. I promise. No matter what." 

You took a deep breath and looked him in the eyes. “No matter what.”

Stiles squeezed your shoulder before dashing in after the others. You turned to regroup with Boyd and Isaac but they weren’t that interested in what was happening to Scott. They just kept glaring at the twins. 

You turned away for a few minutes to leave Melissa an update, and when you got back the two of them were gone. Isaac was beating the crap out of Ethan and Boyd was just letting it happen. You rushed over but Isaac didn’t hear you screaming for him to stop, and he didn’t care when you tried to push him back. 

You managed to knock him down and then rushed to Ethan to make sure he was okay. Your hands were holding his face and you barely heard his ‘watch out’ before you saw Isaac stand again. He pulled his arm back to hit Ethan again, and you pulled him close to you, hoping that at the very least Isaac wouldn’t hit so hard if you were wrapped around the guy he was punching. 

When the punch didn’t land, you took slow breaths and looked up. Scott had snapped Isaac out of it, and you were made distinctly aware of how close you were to someone who helped kill one of your best friends. You pushed yourself away and crawled back until you felt arms catch under your shoulders and pull you up. You clung haphazardly Stiles when you were on your feet. 

“Thanks,” you said breathlessly. 

“Anytime.” He moved a piece of hair out of your face and tucked it behind your ear. You thought he was going to kiss you, but you both snapped out of it when Coach told Ethan to get cleaned up because you were leaving in five minutes. 

You both walked over to the group, and you tugged on Scott’s sleeve to get his attention. You took him to sit on the benches so you could talk. 

“You know it’s not your fault, right?” you asked cautiously. Scott didn’t answer. “It’s not your fault Derek’s dead.” 

“You don’t know what happened that night.” 

“No,” you exhaled. “But Isaac told me that he had to pull you off of the edge because it looked like you were gonna jump off after him. I- I’m not arguing with you; I probably would’ve backflipped off that ledge if I thought it would make a difference. But, Scotty ... no one blames you for what happened.” 

“I blame me for what happened,” he said. “Everything that’s happened. Allison’s mom, Erica, Derek, the sacri-” 

“None of that is your fault.” You held his face in your hands to make him look at you. “And you can’t keep yourself from healing because you don’t think you deserve to.” 

“That’s not what I’m doing.” 

“Could’ve fooled me.” Scott looked away from you again and you sighed. “Derek cared about you. So did Erica, believe it or not. They wouldn’t want you dead.” You got up and held your hand out to him. “I don’t want you dead.” 

Scott didn’t say anything, but he took your hand and followed you back on the bus. Allison asked if she could sit next to him, so you were left looking for a place to sit. Danny was out because he was with Ethan; Isaac and Boyd were paired up and, honestly, you were kind of avoiding them; and Lydia and Stiles were together. You ended up finding a random seat and hoping the drive wouldn’t drag on too long.

--- 

The bus came to a stop in front of possibly the seediest motel you’d ever seen. You stepped out and shared a worried look with Scott while Coach gave the group a talk. The more you looked at the motel, the more you knew you didn't want to be there. 

“Listen up,” Coach started. “The meet’s been pushed till tomorrow. This is the closest motel with the most vacancies and the least amount of good judgment when it comes to accepting a bunch of degenerates like yourselves. You’ll pairing up. Choose wisely.” 

Pretty much everyone who paired up on the bus started looking at each other, so you made your way over to Scott, slipping your hand in his. “Hey, big brother who I love and adore most ardently,” you said with the biggest smile you could muster up. “Don’t suppose you wanna share a room with me?” 

“Woah, Scott, no. If you’re with her, then where am I gonna sleep?” Stiles asked. 

“You can share my bed,” Scott offered with a small shrug. 

“I’ll just sleep on the floor. Thanks.” 

You rolled your eyes and pushed them forward to grab the keys. You caught Isaac’s eye and smiled at him, hoping he got the mental ‘it’s okay, we’ll talk later’ message you sent and wouldn’t confront you about what happened earlier. 

The room didn’t inspire much confidence but you pushed through. Scott asked who wanted to shower first and you shuddered. “I’m gonna check on Lydia. She didn’t seem too happy about being here,” you said. 

You found Lydia outside her and Allison’s room, heading off to get new towels from the front. Allison was already showering. She looked pretty tense and you bumped her arm lightly. 

“Lyd, what’s up? You’ve been kinda weird since we stopped,” you said gently. 

“It’s just …” You watched her look around, like she was trying to find inspiration to word what she needed to say. “You weren’t here when I had a psychotic break and wandered around the woods for three days, but you were here when I had my second psychotic break and brought Peter back from the dead. And it feels like that. Like something horrible is going to happen tonight.” 

“Yeah, I have that feeling too,” you admitted. “Though I don’t think tonight’s the best night for a naked stroll in the woods, do you?” 

That made her laugh and shove you lightly, but the few moments of lightness vanished as soon as you stepped into the reception area. You watched her interact with the owner, and then when Lydia froze, looking at the number on the wall, you asked what it meant. 

“It’s a kind of inside thing for the motel. My husband insists on keeping it up,” the lady explained. You held Lydia’s hand as she went on. “It’s a little morbid, to be honest.” 

She told you that the Glen Capri had the highest number of suicides in all the motels in California. Lydia’s grip on your hand brought you back to reality, so you hurried out a thank you and rushed yourself and Lydia out of there. 

“You forgot your towels!” 

The two of you told Allison what you found out as soon as you were back in the room and she was dressed. All she asked is if you were sure that it was 198.  

“Yes, and we’re talking over 40 years,” Lydia said. “On average, that’s … 4.95 a year, which is …” 

“In this place? Kind of expected,” you mumbled. 

“Yeah, but who commemorates that with a framed number?” Lydia almost yelled. You put your hands up in surrender and she rolled her eyes, motioning for you to move closer again.

“Wait, and they’re all suicides?” Allison asked. 

Lydia told her that, yeah, they were all suicides and went on to describe a few different ways in which these suicides could have happened. But then she stopped. She was listening to something. 

You looked over at Allison before leaning in closer and moving some of her hair out of the way. “Hey, Lyd, you okay? We don’t have to stay here if you-” 

She got up and moved closer to the air vent, still listening, before turning around to face you and Allison. “The two people in the other room- they just shot each other. You didn’t hear that?”

You shook your head and Lydia pushed past you and ran next door, you and Allison following behind. The door was unlocked but you didn’t see anything when Lydia switched the light on. It was being renovated. You felt your heart rate slow down. 

“It had to be right here,” Lydia said. She told you guys what she heard and Allison promised that she believed her. Lydia walked painstakingly slowly towards the wall, but you and Allison managed to take her back to the room. “There is something seriously wrong with this place,” she told you when the door was closed.

“But they were suicides, not murders,” Allison said. “And it’s not like this place is haunted, right?” 

“I think that depends on your definition of haunted,” you said. 

Lydia agreed with you. “I bet that couple made their suicide pact in that very room. Maybe that’s why they’re renovating; maybe they’ve been scraping brain matter off the wooden paneling.”

“Maybe we should find out,” Allison said. Lydia reluctantly agreed and they started walking out. “Y/N, you coming?” 

“Uh, yeah.” You nodded, drumming your hand on your leg. “I just want to grab Stiles first. He’s pretty good with this stuff.” 

“Okay, yeah. Meet you back here in like five minutes?” Allison asked. 

You nodded and watched the two of them round the corner before going to find Stiles. You barged into the room to find Scott staring out the window, and for a split second when he turned to look at you, you could have sworn his eyes were red. 

“Hey, Scott, you okay?” Stiles asked, walking out of the bathroom. 

“Yeah. Yeah, I’m fine,” Scott mumbled. He looked at you. “Uh, everything okay with Lydia?” 

“Yeah, I just need to borrow Stiles for a second,” you lied. Something was up with him. “The shower’s not draining right and he took that plumbing job like two years ago so maybe he could help.” 

“Stiles got fired from-” 

“Yeah, thanks!” You grabbed Stiles and pulled him out of the room, motioning for him to be quiet until you got back to Allison’s room. 

---

“The last time I saw Scott act like that was during the full moon,” Allison said. 

“Yeah, I know. He was definitely a little off with me too,” Stiles agreed. “But actually, it was Boyd who was really off. I watched him put his fist through the vending machine.”

“See? It is the motel,” Lydia argued. 

“But Isaac wouldn’t back down with Ethan earlier.” You shook your head, sounding unsure. “That’s not like him.”

“Still. Either we need to get out of here right now-” Lydia opened the nightstand drawer and pulled out the bible “-or someone needs to learn how to an exorcism ASAP before the werewolves go crazy and kill us.” 

“Okay, just hold on, alright?” Stiles said. “What if it’s not just the motel? The number in the office went up by three, right?”

“You mean like three sacrifices?” Allison asked. 

“What if this time it’s three werewolves?” Stiles asked. “Scott, Isaac, and Boyd. Maybe we were meant to come here.” 

“Exactly!” Lydia exclaimed. “So can we get the hell out of here now? Please?” 

Stiles looked at the bible in her hands and frowned. He moved to take it from her. “Hang on, let me see this,” he said. You looked over his shoulder and squinted at the newspaper clippings.

“Are those-” you started. 

“The articles on the people who killed themselves,” he interrupted, dumping all the clippings on the bed. 

“If all the rooms have bibles-” 

“There could be articles in all of the rooms.” Lydia was the one who interrupted you this time. She mentioned the couple she heard next door again, but stopped when you heard a noise coming from the room and Stiles ran out, all of you following behind. The door was locked.

“That was not locked before!” Lydia yelled. 

“It sounds like someone turned on the handsaw,” Allison said. You and her shared a look before pushing Lydia back and kicking in the door. Stiles rushed in and found Ethan holding the handsaw dangerously close to his stomach. The two of them wrestled it out; the handsaw eventually tossed to the side, Ethan shoved backwards into the heater, and Stiles tripping over the wire and almost decapitating himself of the machine. 

You rushed forward and pulled him away, holding him in your arms for a second before the two of you scrambled to your feet. Ethan was getting up again. He stormed out and the four of you chased after him. 

“Didn’t you hear what I just said?” he snapped when you reached the stairs. “I don’t know how I got there or what I was doing.” 

“Okay, you could be a little more helpful, you know?” Stiles told him. “We did just save your life.” 

“And you probably shouldn’t have,” Ethan said, retreating back to his room. 

“Guys, I’m gonna go find Isaac,” you said, not really paying attention to them. “We’ve seen all the wolves since we got here but no one’s seen him.” 

Allison nodded. “Yeah, and I’ll find Scott. You two get Boyd.” 

Isaac and Boyd’s room looked empty when you got inside, but you could hear something. The faint sound of crying and some scratching noise. It was under the bed. 

“Isaac?” you called gently. The noise stopped. You crouched down and looked under the bed. Isaac’s frightened eyes stared up at you. “Hey, buddy, we’re gonna get you out of there, okay?” You reached your hand in and he crawled further back. You heard water running and hit your head on the bed when you looked up to see who it was. Boyd. With a gigantic safe in his arms. “Boyd, what are you doing?” 

You followed him into the bathroom but it was like he didn’t even register that you were there … until you tried to wrestle the safe out of his arms. Then he looked you dead in the eyes before flinging you into the bathroom wall. 

You groaned and your vision blurred, but you could still make Boyd out as he got into the water and placed the safe over his chest. Stiles and Lydia rushed in and tried to help but to no avail. Lydia told Stiles to get the road flares from the bus - they work underwater and could snap Boyd out of it, if he got it in time.

You dashed back into the room and fumbled through the nightstand. Lydia asked what you were doing but you didn’t have time to answer. When you found the lighter, you dropped to the floor and reached under the bed. You switched it on and shoved the flame into Isaac’s face. He woke up and grabbed the lighter from you, looking confused. 

“Y/N, what the hell are you-” 

“I’ll explain later! Right now, you’ve gotta help me,” you said, dragging him out from under the bed. Stiles was back with the road flare and he managed to wake up Boyd before you got there. 

Isaac pulled you out of the way when Boyd launched the safe across the bathroom as he sat up. You mumbled a thank you and waited for your heart to slow down. But then you remembered something. Scott.

You raced out, almost crashing into Allison. “I can’t find Scott anywhere,” she told you, panic in her eyes. 

“It’s happening to him too, isn’t it?” Stiles asked. 

“What do you think? Three out of four werewolves seem to have it.” The words tumbled out of your mouth without thinking, but thankfully Lydia was talking so you didn’t have long to dwell on it. 

“Uh, guys?” Lydia pointed out to where the bus was stopped. Scott was standing in front of it, doused in gasoline and holding a flare in his hands. You moved to run over but Stiles caught your wrist. The situation needed a more delicate approach than tackling him. 

“There’s no hope,” he said when you all stopped in front of him. He sounded defeated. 

“What do you mean, Scott?” Allison asked. “There’s always hope.” 

“Not for me,” he said. “Not for Derek.” 

“Derek wasn’t your fault,” she said. 

“Every time I try to fight back, it just gets worse. People keep getting hurt.” It was like Scott couldn’t even hear Allison, so you decided to try to get closer to him. If you could get the flare out of his hand … “People keep getting killed.” 

“Scott, listen to me, okay?” Stiles begged. He was taking steps closer right with you. “This isn’t you, alright? There is someone inside your head telling you to do this. Okay? Now-” 

“What if it isn’t?” Scott asked. “What if it’s just me? What if doing this is actually the best thing I could do for everyone else?”

“It’s not,” you promised. Talking was enough of a distraction that he let you step into his gasoline puddle. 

“It all started that night. The night I got bitten. You remember the way it was before that?” Scott had turned to Stiles now. “You and me, we were- we were nothing. We weren’t popular. We weren’t good at lacrosse. We weren’t important. We were no one … Maybe I should just be no one again. No one at all.” 

“Scott, just listen to me, okay?” Stiles repeated. “You’re not no one, okay? You’re someone, you’re- Scott, you’re my best friend. Okay? And I need you. Scott, you’re my brother. Alright, so …” He stepped into the puddle of gasoline. “So if you’re gonna do this, then …” He put his hand around the flare. “I think you’re just gonna have to take me with you. Alright?” 

“What he said,” you smiled gently. “I love you, Scott. And I’m not letting you do this by yourself.” 

Scott was crying, and you grabbed the flare out of his hand as he collapsed onto Stiles. You threw the flare to Allison, but she was distracted and fumbled. You heard it clatter to the ground and then Lydia screaming. The next thing you knew, Lydia and Allison had knocked the three of you down and the gasoline went up in flames. 

And from those flames emerged one of the most horrifying things you’d ever seen: the Darach.

--- 

You knocked on Isaac and Boyd’s door and started talking as soon as they answered. “There is no way that I’m sleeping in this crappy motel,” you told them. “The rest of us are sleeping on the bus, you in?” 

The agreed and you walked them to the bus. Things were still tense because half of you were dealing with almost killing yourselves, and the other half was dealing with trying to stop it, but they were better. You’d changed shoes and Scott was washing the gasoline off in the shower. Isaac and Boyd slumped into adjacent bus benches and you saw Lydia and Allison were already snuggled up under a jacket and asleep. You sighed and sat down, waiting for Scott to come back. 

“You don’t look too comfortable,” Stiles said, hopping over the seat in front of you and to get to the window seat on your bench. 

“Mmm. Waiting up for Scott,” you mumbled. “How long does it take to get gasoline out of your hair?” 

“Uh, in my experience it’s easier to just shave it off. Not a real hit with the ladies but effective.” You laughed and leaned into him. He was warm. 

“That why you grew it out? Hoping to get more attention from the girls?” 

“Nah.” He gently moved some hair that had fallen over your face when you moved under his arm. “Just the attention from one.” 

“And how's that working out for you?” You were playing with the drawstrings of his hoodie. 

“Not as well as I hoped, but I’m hanging in there.” 

You must have fallen asleep in Stiles’ arms, because you woke up with the two of you covered by Scott’s jacket and Coach yelling. Scott had been asleep on the bench in front of you. 

“I don’t want to know,” Coach told you all. “I really don’t want to know. But in case you missed the announcement: The meet’s canceled, so we’re going home. Pack it in!”

[hvllanders]

wanderer (part 2)

pt. 1. 

summary: in which you care for a banged-up peter 

warnings: language, a crude joke, and light blood

a/n: thanks for all the feedback on pt 1! i’m super excited to start this series/see where it goes. also if you would like to join the tag list for this/other fics check for a link at the bottom of this post :)

He felt different in your arms.

Once upon a time, he had fit there almost perfectly; you had known every inch of him. The way his neck curved to the base of his collarbone, the flexing muscles of his back, shoulder fitting into arm. Forearms. Fingers. They had been yours. He had all been yours.

Now, as you both staggered your way through the apartment door like you were in some sort of bastardized three-legged race, you felt hard muscle where baby fat used to be. Foreign flesh; years of history between you. Years of history apart.

Still, you knew him well enough to match his steps, lead him carefully down onto your couch. The walk had taken its toll on him; he was paler than before, and he collapsed back onto your pillows with a shaky sigh. His hair was longer now. He had grown it out, so it curled in an unruly mop around his head. You were caught with the urge to study every part of him that had changed in the years, make up for the lost time.

His eyes, ever vigilant, were watching you as well, tracking your movements as you set your backpack down on the counter before returning to sit beside his prone form. Was he analyzing you in the same way you were him? A shaking, trembling feeling made its way up from your gut, and you tried to pretend you didn’t feel the urge to cry. Seeing him here, like this, beat up and bloody. In your space. Your sworn-off, Peter-free space. You had never had a Peter in here before.

He shivered, and you felt your senses clear, your sense of purpose return. You knew how to run this show. “Shirt off, Parker. You know the drill.”

This time he didn’t complain, didn’t make a witty comment or try and brush the situation off. That’s how you knew he was hurting. Instead, he began pulling his arms out of the sweatshirt, and you tried to focus on the task at hand, tried to ignore that irrational swell of pride, he’s wearing my clothes, my sweatshirt, tried not to wish he had kept it on, so you could admire him in it longer. He tried to pull the fabric up over his head, gasping, and your hands were there before he could ask, helping him pull his head through. Carefully. Tenderly.

You shifted so you were more comfortably beside him on the couch; him lying there, head on one of your pillows, you beside his hips. “Let’s see the carnage,” you said, turning on a lamp to survey the damage.

Dark bruising colored the top of his chest from collarbone down to rib cage. That was where the bloody abrasions started; he was ripped up from ribs to hip, bleeding and scratched. The wounds were dirty, covered in bits of gravel and rubble. You reached out with practiced hands, pressing gently on his chest.

“Careful,” he whispered, eyes closed tight.

“I’m always careful,” you told him, continuing down his side. “It’s you who-”

He hissed suddenly, reaching out blindly in pain. His hand locked onto your hip. Knuckles white. Eyes clenched tight. There was a breath. Slowly, he opened his eyes, and there was a long moment where you both sat in shocked silence.

Silence. Then, quietly, “I think you’ve broken a couple ribs.”

He swallowed audibly, nodding. His hand slid back off your hip.

“And your head.” You turned your gaze to his forehead, scraped up and bloody. You prodded gently a welt rapidly increasing in size above his right eye. “Nice goose egg. You got a concussion?”

“I don’t think so,” he whispered, wincing as you poked at a bruise.

“What did KAREN say?”

He squinted, perhaps determining how easy it would be to lie. “She didn’t know.”

You raised an eyebrow. “Okay. Sure. So how many of me are you seeing right now?”

“One?” He frowned, forehead creased in concentration, before adding, “Most of the time?”

“Is that a question?”

A sigh, and then his eyes drifted back shut. “Look, this is nothing I haven’t handled before. S’not so bad.”

“Mmmm.” You reached down for his wrist, feeling his pulse. “You can breathe fine, though? And nothing else hurts?” Your gaze travelled along his body, searching, not trusting him to answer truthfully. “What about your ankle?”

He shrugged. “It’s just a sprain. It’ll be okay.”

It looked swollen, but otherwise not bad. He was right, it would be fine in an hour with some ice. You got up from the couch, making your way to the fridge and filling a bag up with ice for his ankle before ducking into the bathroom to grab a first aid kit. Back in the living room, Peter’s eyes were still closed, and you felt your heart beat a little faster.

“Hey! Eyes open, Parker. I don’t care if you heal from concussions freakishly fast. We don’t play with those.”

He obliged but was still silent. It was unnerving. You weren’t used to this Peter, so quiet. It reminded you of the last time you’d seen him. Silent. Guarded.

“Okay,” you said, sitting back down, hands only shaking a little. “Ice for the ankle, ice pack for the head, and disinfectant for the chest, because it looks like you’ve gotten dragged across half of Manhattan, and I’m not letting those germs get trapped inside your freakishly fast-healing body.”

He took the ice pack and pressed it against his forehead, wincing. “Disinfectant?”

“The good news is I don’t think you need stitches. So, disinfectant is like a consolation prize.”

He rolled his eyes, but a smirk returned to his face, and you felt your heart warm in response. “Consolation prize my ass.” His cheeks paled as you began cleaning his wounds with a rag and some disinfectant, but he kept talking. “Bug, you act like fucking getting sprayed up with that godforsaken stuff is the best-case scenario.”

If you stiffened at the use of your old nickname, he didn’t seem to notice. How easily you fell back into those patterns. The ruts you had run, the lines you had practiced so many times. You tried for a normal tone as you responded. “With you, Parker, it usually is.”

“Mmm.” He was quiet then, a stoically good patient as you continued to clean, ice pack dutifully applied to forehead.

You could have left it there. Settled into a comfortable silence. Let everything be as it was- a bastardized version of normal. But then, there you were, playing the same games as always, as you jokingly started, “A rogue robot. He picked you up and tossed you off the Empire State Building.”

Again, if he had any thoughts about playing your old game, a decidedly juvenile old game, he made no mention of it. Instead he just chuckled, “Ha. I wish I looked like this after being tossed off a building. Plus, who said robots have genders?”

“Vicious genetically-enhanced leopard that escaped from its facility.”

“Nope.”

“Gigantic embodiment of an amoeba hellbent on squishing half of New York.”

“Nada.”

“A dick. Someone in a literal costume of a dick with no powers other than shooting a ton of fake cum out the tip.”

He cracked a smile. The rag was bloody in your hands. “I’d like to see that.”

“Dammit, Peter, why are you here?”

He was silent, gaze finding yours. There were tears in your eyes, suddenly, unexpectedly, and you wished they were gone, you wished he was gone except dammit no you didn’t, you were living for this moment, you hadlived for this moment in a thousand of your fantasies, you didn’t know how much you needed to see him until you did.

He answered slowly, eyes not daring to meet yours anymore. “There was…a complication. I was, I’ve been, tracking someone for a while now, and they lead me close to here, but they threw me off their tail. I was trying to ride on top of a train, following them, but I slipped. I fell off.”

You exhaled shakily, trying to ignore the sinking pit of disappointment in your gut. What had you wanted to hear. Not this. But you didn’t know what else there was to share.

“Right. Well. I’m glad you’re okay at least.”

“I’m glad I found you.” He said what you were too scared to say. He was always braver in that way. And you were always envious of him.

“Yeah.”

He smiled at you gently, generously, before his eyes drifted back shut, exhausted. You sat by his side for longer than you should have, watching him breathe, making sure he was really alright. His forehead crinkled adorably in his sleep, and you caught yourself before smiling.

No.

You stood up abruptly, and Peter stirred, nearly waking. Despite yourself, you pulled a blanket over him, tucking it around his shoulders before retiring to your room. Despite yourself, you couldn’t help waking up every few hours, wandering ghostlike into the living room, making sure he was alright. Despite yourself, planting the softest kiss on his forehead. Just so he knew he wasn’t alone.

When morning came, you woke up early, moving in parallel of the sun as you pulled covers off and tried to calm the thumping of your heart. What did you do now? With a boy on your couch whom you hadn’t seen in years. So much history between you. Where did you go from here? But you had never been one to stray away from danger, to look sideways because it might get scary. If Peter Parker sleeping in your living room was part of some greater cosmic plan, then so be it.

You tried not to savor how it had felt to hold him again, to touch him. To feel the hard slope of his shoulders down to the softness of his belly. His eyes, witty and sharp, the kind capable of discerning bullshit in an instant. They were harder now, but perhaps less guarded than your last encounter. Could you tell him what you really wanted? For him to stay? Just stay for a night where you could hash everything out and have a good, cleansing cry?

But the living room was empty.

Couch vacated. Stain remover and rag on the coffee table. There was an empty, familiar sort of feeling ringing through your stomach. On the table was a fifty-dollar bill and a note.

“Hope this covers the damage to the couch – Spider-Man.”

tag list

tags: @ceruleanparker @underoosstark @webfluidbih @yourtomwritings @spideykisses @gqtom @demigodscum @bethanyleerose @infamous-webhead @starkravingparker @transnerdparker @freeheat @infinityonfiction @sighspidey @lovelyh0lland @hollandahlia @hollandlovely @supernaturalpllfan1 @petertomparkerholland @nobledoritoman @freeheat @totallyreadyforthis @tomhollanduniverse @beterbarkerbooty @hxllandsbabygirl @mayhemmeg  @spo0derman @notimeforthemessenger @pensysto @jet122 @comfiecorner @dontpanc

[your-highnessmarvel]

California ~part three

Summary: She had always wanted a future of power and fulfillment. She’d always imagined she would be a woman of conviction, a woman to choose how her life would lay ahead of her. Yet sometimes, things are arranged for you, and there is nothing to be done but to go gentle into the night.

A/N: Sorry this is late. I like sprained my neck lmao??? GUYS LISTEN PLEASE: I lost my list of tags, so if you asked me to be tagged in this and you are not, PLEASE MESSAGE ME PERSONALLY AND I WILL MAKE SURE YOU ARE AND FOR THE UPCOMING CHAPTERS.

Parings: Loki x OC, mentions of Thor x Sif

Word count: 3954

Warnings: language, slight dub/noncon touching and kissing, mentions of smut.

Banner made by me. Pictures are not mine. 

TAG LIST IS OPEN

The days and weeks that followed were a whirlwind of duties and expectations. Cali was submerged into a tidal wave of new information, dresses, speeches, and dinners. Her first week spent as Loki’s betrothed consisted of her sitting in tight-fitted green dresses at dinners, smiling and waving at all the Lords and Ladies of Asgard. She hated it. Her hair was always done up, her cheeks pink, her lips glittering with sticky lipstick. She hated the corsets and the flowy dresses and the dances. But mostly, she hated him.

              He was always constantly touching her; her knee, her elbow, her hand. The God of Mischief always had his fingers on her. Whichever way he could, his hand would either close around her wrist or linger on her fingers. Yet everyone could clearly see the discontent written all over Cali’s stiffened features.

              Countless times, in that first week, she’d get scolded by her mother. “Tell your face to look happier,” she’d growl as she swung passed her daughter, the latter dancing quite stiffly with her fiancé.

              The ring was a grotesque thing; blue and huge, sparkling on her ring finger, heavier than any jewelry she’d ever worn. Loki had given it to her at a very public dinner, on the last day of that very first week. He’d been handed a speech, which had obviously been written by someone else, and had rehearsed it before her like a serenade. And no one had been a better actress than Cali herself. She’d gushed and whined lowly at his words, smiling grandly for the entire reception hall to see. She’d pretended to wipe away a tear, feigning love and extreme excitement. Then they stood on the banister, their hands intertwined, smiling proudly for the cheering crowd.

              As soon as that night ended, Cali tried to scrub every single inch of herself to get the smell of him off her.

              “You’re going to have to wear that ring every day now,” her mother said over a quiet family dinner. They sat in casual attire around a steamy pot of lamb stew. Ragnar sat across from his wife with their daughter in the middle.

              “It’s a burden,” Cali grumbled after she’d swallowed.

              “If you don’t wear it, Cali, the Allfather will not be happy,” Ragnar answered, poised at the right of his daughter.

              She looked upon the glittering blue gem on her ring finger and pouted. “I hate it.”

              Nevertheless, she found herself wearing it to every other event in the next weeks; dinners, dances, speeches, and paintings. Nothing was more painful than standing for hours on end with Loki, while a small old man tried to paint them.

               In the next weeks, they were expected to just appear places together. He had only seen her in tight gowns and up-do hair and makeup, so when she waltzed in wearing black trousers and a black, long-sleeved armor top, he was pleasantly surprised. He kept joking about her pants, or her shirts, which totally annoyed the young woman.

              They were obliged to appear as a couple to conventions, organizations, and meetings. They were expected to be holding hands and smiling at each other, which they did which much discontent. On the inside, Cali felt like she was burning into a whining and displeased heap.

              And then there were those strange times when they were locked in a room together for “privacy”. They were expected to have moments to their own, as society did not see anything wrong with physical contact before marriage. They called it healthy.

              Cali’s mother was more ecstatic than ever. She had an excuse to visit the castle everyday to prepare the wedding. A date had been set, not even considering Cali and Loki, of course. By the end of the summer, they would be wed. So that left Cali with a surprising one month to herself, before she was ultimately someone else.

              She didn’t feel like herself though. After the threatening words from Loki at the ball, she held a sour feeling in her stomach. At any time, if the Allfather or anyone noticed how false or unrequited their “love” was, her whole family could fall to ruins. The fate of her family rested in the palm of her hands, literally. One wrong move, one daring move to defy the order, and Odin would slam his spear, sending her entire family into a mess.

              Today was another day of that messy, fake touring. There was a counsel meeting, which Cali was always allowed to go to due to her father being one of the richest and most important man in Asgard. Of course, Ragnar had seen it fit to wait for Loki’s arrival, so the trio could enter. Ragnar, wearing a black glistening suit of armor, strode before the pair. His dark eyes were glittering, walking before the future royal couple, as he grinned from ear to ear.

              Cali was forcefully following with a sarcastic, yet sincere smile to those who don’t suspect anything. She was wearing a tight green t-shirt with gold embroidered armor, courtesy of her mother, who believed green would satisfy Loki. She had on a loose pair of black trousers, which was decorated with tight straps to harness blades of all sorts. A short blade was just above her ankle and a longer, sharper blade strapped around her thigh. She’d decided on black boots, not the traditional booted-heels her mother always wanted her to wear.

              “Always ravishing,” Loki gritted between his teeth as they entered the meeting, all heads turning their way. He was being sarcastic and mean, but to those who couldn’t hear him -which was everyone else- he seemed to be whispering endearing words into his fiancée’s ear.

              “As do you, my prince,” the girl grumbled back. He was wearing a dark blue, long-sleeved sweater, knitted details embroidered into the material. He had on a glistening black armor plate that shone under the bright sunlight that was seeping into the hall. Black trousers completed his look, while his raven hair was pushed back behind his ears.

              “Ah, Ragnar, Cali, and Prince Loki!” declared the head of the counsel, Arvid, as the trio walked in. Loki gave the crowd amassed a beautiful, sparkling white smile that would have dazzled Cali if she hadn’t felt the disgust settle in the pit of her stomach.

              Cali had attended these meetings with her father since she was twelve, hence she knew exactly what they would talk about. Meetings like these, non-urgent and solely for the benefit of no one, took place monthly. They’d talk budget, jobs, unemployment, and current societal problems.

              Almost two hours later, Arvid dismissed the counsel with absolutely nothing changing, and Cali was more than happy to return to her books and music. She got up a bit too fast, earning herself a couple sideways glances from the Lords and Ladies amassed, but nonetheless completely ignored her betrothed and walked out. She was annoyed beyond any point in her life, especially with Loki sitting beside her, man-spreading, index tapping on his knee restlessly.

              “Cali,” the said prince drawled as he came in stride beside her. He had a devious smile on his lips, his hands clasped behind his back.

              “What?” she muttered under her breath. They were now faraway from the crowd dispersing. No one would hear them unless she screamed.

              They exited the hall, climbing down the stairs leading to the outside corridor, the view of Asgard’s ocean glittering far ahead.

              “I would like to invite you to walk through the gardens with me,” he said, but the tone in his voice felt thick and mischievous. It felt like he was trying to fool her. It reminded her of the other night, at the ball, when he’d said filthy words to her that still haunted her dreams.

              “I don’t think so,” she muttered, feeling the hot sun on her skin.

              “It’s rude to refuse the prince,” he countered, stopping her with a hand on her elbow. She looked up at him from under her dark brows, orbs a swirl of anger and annoyance. “It’s even ruder to refuse your future husband.” The smirk that stretched on his lips made her wrench her elbow from his grasp with more force than necessary.

              “Is that how it’s going to be?” she gritted. The corridor was empty, but she was afraid to raise her voice in fear of alerting anyone downstairs or in the rooms nearby.

              He shrugged innocently. “I don’t see what you’re talking about, honey,” he cooed mockingly. She wanted to slap him, like every other time she’d been in his presence, but this time she felt her fingers twitch. He must have guessed her next move or glimpsed her digits moving for he took a subtle step back. “Please, accompany me?” His eyes took a softer turn, brows lifting as he extended his elbow for her to take.

              She considered him for an instant. He was too tall for her and too skinny. She didn’t even like men with long hair and especially not men who were divas like Loki. The God was conniving and ruthless, two characteristics that she hated above all when mixed together. Loki was selfish, sneaky, and envious. How in the world was she supposed to share her life with him? How was she even supposed to fall in love with a man as such?

              However, she took his elbow anyway, deciding that the fate of her entire family was more important than the questions she was still debating.

              “Good girl,” Loki grumbled, and she gave him a hard look.

              “Watch what you say,” she told him, mouth tight with each word. She hated the way he spoke to her sometimes, like she was his property.

              He stayed quiet as he carried her along. As they made their way outside, they met servants and castle inhabitants, just like Cali was going to be in a month. Servants smiled widely and scurried away, yet the nobles and important visitors stayed to chat with the future royal couple. Cali forced smiles and polite answers, assuring them that she was, yes, totally enamored by her prince.

              “You’re a rather impressive actress,” Loki said as they were far away from Niflheim nobles. The pair was now entering the gardens, which was an archway of white roses and a stone path that led into the maze.

              “If I don’t sell the show, your father will have my family cut off,” she grumbled.

              “If you think my father will cut you off just on the pretense that someone saw you unhappy, you have severely overestimated him,” Loki answered with a huff as they passed under the archway. “He was trying to intimidate you.”

              Cali frowned, clenching her teeth as she looked around. The gardens were an especially special collection of flowers and plants. Asgard had a soft spot for nature and preserving diversity. Among the beautiful cacophony of smells and colors, roamed the bugs. Their miniature little bodies sparkled in the sun as they zoomed by her face, buzzing by her ear as she gently swatted them away.

              “This marriage is the key to keeping Vanaheim under wraps,” Cali continued, ignoring the faint buzzing by her head. “If we don’t show solidarity and a desire to strengthen the peace between Asgard and Vanaheim, the Vanir risk catching on to this phony wedding. They might rebel again.”

              Loki sighed. “If you think the Vanir will be watching our every move instead of Odin’s and Thor’s, then you haven’t been listening in meetings,” he answered. She hated the way he spoke to her; like a stupid child. “This wedding is the final string in this whole ploy of peace. The peace treaty doesn’t stand on the shaking boulders of this union, Cali. My father and brother have agreed to many more propositions from the Vanir.”

              “So I can just end this wedding then?” She stopped in her tracks, her hand still wrapped around his elbow, eyes searching his face for any semblance of manipulation.

              He frowned, shaking his head slowly. “If you do that, then the peace treaty is called off,” he answered. “They might not really care about how we stay together, but they do care about us staying together. I explained it before. Our union represents the conjunction of the two worlds.”

              Sighing, she continued walking by his side, his body strangely closer to hers. She could feel the heat radiating from his body, the outline of his waist, the strong muscles coiling in his biceps. He might be sly, she thought, be he wasn’t weak. He was broad shouldered, with a wide chest, and impressively nice hands. She just wanted to see him as ugly, because she could never love a man who held such a hideous personality but had the physical elegance of a pure God.

              “Cali, we’re getting married in a month,” he said suddenly as they entered the shadows of the maze, the cool air brushing on her exposed neck.

              “I didn’t forget that,” she grumbled sarcastically. He tugged on her hand, bringing her eyes up to look into his.

              “If there is something you are hiding,” he started, “this is the time to tell me.”

              Her brows creased as she once again stopped in her tracks. They had halted near the exposure of the mid-length archways. When she was little, she would come here when her parents were at meetings and she’d sit on the arches, her feet swinging in the air.

              “What are you talking about?” she asked, slipping her hand from his elbow, standing away from him. His eyes were glittering in the sun, his skin looking like porcelain in the glow.

              “With all this hate you have towards me and this wedding, I could only deduce that you are in love with someone else,” he declared. The sun was outlining his sharp figure, making him look bigger in that long-sleeved shirt.

              Cali shook her head, unable to comprehend what he was trying to pry out of her. “You think I’m in love with someone else?” she asked.

              “That’s the only option I have,” he answered.

              “Has it ever occurred to you that maybe I just don’t want you?” Her words were dripping in venom, but they didn’t seem to hurt him like she had intended them to.

              With his head jerking to the side, he took a dangerous step forwards, sending her almost tumbling back to avoid knocking into him. The backs of her thighs grazed against the arch, her butt almost completely sitting on the granite.

              “You know,” he said lowly, his voice turning into something somber, “I don’t think you should speak to me that way.” He was dangerously close. She could feel his breath on her hair, the heat from his body, and almost the pressure of his chest on hers. Refusing to look up, her fight training came back, and she went to push him away, but his hands wrapped effortlessly around her wrists. He kept her hands between their bodies as she looked up, noticing the aggressive and bitter look in his green orbs.

              “Loki what-“

              He interrupted her by shushing her, orbs round and brows furrowed. His fingers were pressing painfully into her flesh, his knuckles white with strain, causing her to whimper ever the slightest. The pit of her stomach involuntarily pooled with heat, watching as his lips parted, eyes dropping to her mouth. “We should be doing these things,” he whispered. The gravel under their feet squeaked as she tried to struggle out of his grip.

              She had been almost forced to kiss him on the cheek before, or to hold his hand, or to let him show signs of tenderness. But those were just for the audience that was watching them, not in private like this. When they were encouraged to stay together privately, they wouldn’t even speak to each other. Loki would remain cold and distant, reading, while she took her pencils and drew in her own corner.

              But this was something utterly different, taking her by surprise. He leaned in until her breasts were crushed by his chest, until his nose touched hers. She could practically see where his pupil met the swirling emerald of his irises.

              “You smell wonderfully,” he muttered, shuddering as he inhaled, one hand letting go of hers to caress her cheek. She flinched, stuttering nonsense, completely taken off guard by his forwardness. Her heart was beating ferociously against her chest, her breathing accelerating the more he stayed close to her.

              “Loki…” she mumbled when his hand slid down to her neck, fingertips grazing her flesh.

              He was really doing this in broad daylight?

              “No one is coming,” he hushed, eyes hooded slightly. “No one will see.” She shook her head, but she was unable to make any sudden movements. The heat, that disgusting heat, in her stomach made her legs feel like two tons. The hand still wrapped around her wrist was holding her flush against his hot body.

              While she struggled as slightly as she’d ever before, his hand slid down her chest, over the curve of her breast until he reached her hip bone. There, he deviated towards her ass until his hand was fully cupping it. “Sit,” he growled. She winced when he pinched her butt, shaking her head, trying to push him off once again.

              Suddenly, he roughly gripped her by the hips and hauled her until she was fully seated on the arch, the skin at the back of her thighs burning from the harsh manhandling.

              “Loki, no- ‘’ She struggled, trying to step down, as he parted her knees and settled between, face as stoic as if he was trying to figure out a math problem. She was beginning to panic, her heart racing, blood roaring in her ears, chest heaving with every harsh breath she could take.

              There was something hot at the apex of her legs, some involuntary reaction her body was exhibiting, but when Loki’s thigh brushed against the heat, he took it genuinely. His eyes made the briefest of contact with hers, and then he was forcefully gripping her face and crushing their lips together.

              A loud whimper left her mouth, but Loki swallowed it, and the parting of her lips allowed him to slip his tongue into her mouth. Cali squeezed her eyes shut, hands gripping on the hard muscles of his clenched biceps. His tongue explored her mouth, dominating hers, his lips molding to hers as he wished. He patted her tongue with his, the wetness of his mouth arising an unwanted heat in the brunette’s stomach. She’d never actually kissed anyone before, but the warmth and moist texture of his mouth was not what she had expected. He wasn’t just kissing her; he was devouring her.

              She thought she could just sit there and kiss him back, but when his hands moved from her jaw to cup her shoulders, she knew he had something utterly different in mind.

              She broke away from the kiss slightly, panting, eyes down in both shame and anger. “Loki stop,” she breathed. Her lips hurt from the pressure of his mouth, her teeth aching, her tongue unable to form her words correctly.

              He didn’t listen, nudging her face with his until his mouth was back on hers. She felt like putty in his hands as they slid down to her breasts, cupping them gently, kneading them between his fingers. A guttural groan resonated in his chest as he pressed harder onto her mouth, his hips briefly shifting forwards. Panicking, utterly unaware of how to stop him, she tried moving away. Yet the movement of her hips sliding forward on the granite made her hot crotch meet the hardness forming in his pants. One of his hands quickly snapped up, gripping her chin painfully, breaking the kiss.

              His shoulders were heaving along with his hard breaths as his gaze found hers. “Don’t do that unless you don’t want me to stop,” he panted, his voice rough and unmeasured; truly wild and uncalculated unlike she was so used to seeing him. The hand still on her breast gripped her hip and pushed her away from his erection. Then both of his hands buried in her hair, pulling her head back until she was gazing up at him in both horror and shock. He leaned forward again, spraying kissing under her chin, on the sensitive flesh of her neck, swirling dangerously around her jugular. The gravel under his shoes whined the more he pressed into her, searching for any kind of friction. The muscles in his back coiled as she pressed her hands onto the back of his shoulders.

              She balled his shirt into fists, squeezing until her nails pierced the material and broke at her skin. His mouth was hot and wet, inviting yet repulsive on her skin. She was feeling overwhelmingly conflicted. Her body was reacting treacherously; heating, panting, wanting him to do to her whatever he had in mind. But this was Loki; a man of destructive nature. Everything he held close would suffocate under his terribly dark presence. That volatile preference towards chaos and pain would turn to dust those who dared to adventure too closely. She could not want him, and she most certainly could not love him.

              She used all her might to push him off, the sudden lack of heat making her skin bubble with goosebumps. He stared at her from a couple feet away, lips red and swollen, cheeks pink, panting like he’d just run a marathon. “What are you doing?” he growled, white canines peaking from under the soft pink flesh of his lips.

              Panting, the girl rose to her feet, wiping her mouth with the back of her hand. “I said stop,” she breathed.

              His eyes fell briefly to the ground, until his mouth turned into a smirk that made her insides coil with rage. He’d just done things to her, which she hadn’t wanted, and now he was smirking? He slowly reached out, fingers skimming her forearm, eyes endearingly scanning the outline of her body.

              “But I want to,” he cooed. Disgusted, she swatted his hand away, aggressively walking out of his reach.

              “Don’t you dare do that again,” she growled, turning to face him, crossing her arms over her chest. He came to stand before her, and roughly gripped her chin.

              “I will do what I want, when I want, with who I want,” he snapped back, face so close to hers she thought he’d kiss her again. Wrenching his hand away, she turned, leaving him in the dust of her footsteps as she jogged out of the maze.

              The wedding was in a month. In thirty days, she’d be his and vice versa. He’d have all the rights in the world to want to bed her, to touch her, to do all the things her body wanted, but that her mind refused. She’d have all the rights in the world to refuse him, but to what extent? They’d be paired by the sacred bonds of marriage. They would be expected to birth heirs, to love each other like proper man and wife.

              No matter how long or how ruthlessly she would refuse to let him have her, the world would still watch, knowing that the bond was false. If she remained untouched, her belly empty of an heir, the Vanir could take it as a reproach.

              Cali would do anything for her mother and father, despite them having conspired behind her back. She still loved them more than anything in life; more than herself. But was she really capable of sacrificing her sanity for the reputation of those who’d wronged her?

Tags:  @shieldgirl95 @loki-god-of-my-life @fluasch @spudsandbandit @lloeppky @shaunamart @mandyfric18 @teresaoliva20 

[friendlyneighborhoodspider-man]

I Can’t Stop Thinking About You (Dick Grayson x Reader)

Requested by @thequietcomic​

~~~~~~~

It was killing you inside. You couldn’t stop thinking about his smile. His bright blue eyes and midnight black hair. His laugh. His wit and sarcasm. Even the way that he stood his ground in the middle of battle.

You were in love with your best friend.

Living with him for years had been painful. Sleeping in the room next to him, pining for him to be beside you, closer. Working together was hard. In life and death situations, sometimes all you wanted to do was spill out your feelings. You’d been

Dick was oblivious to your situation. He had everything that you wanted– with Barbara. Which is why sometimes you hated him just a little bit.

So here you were, sitting on the couch at Christmas and sipping your eggnog while you took a break from decorating the tree with him. It was just the two of you for hours until everyone else got back from patrols; they traded patrolling tonight for decorating the tree (something that was tradition for you and Dick).

“Do you want to put the star on the top?” Dick turned around and asked you, decked in a Christmas sweater and sparkles from the tree.

“Absolutely.” You stood on tiptoe and couldn’t reach the top of the tree, so he placed his hands on your waist and gently lifted you up to place it.

“Dick…” You turned around and placed your hands on his chest. “I… I can’t.”

“Are you okay?”

“No. I haven’t been okay for years, Dick. I just…” You struggled to find the words and stepped away, running a hand through your hair.

“Y/N, it’ll be alright, whatever it is. You can tell me anything, remember?”

“I love you, Dick.” He looked astonished, and I kept going, because I might as well get it all out. “I can’t stop thinking about you. I’ve loved you since the year I came here, and I’ve loved you and watched you date a dozen girls and get your heart broken in middle school, and I’ve loved you when we were on the same team, the first time, and I couldn’t say it until now.

“I just… I was too scared, Dick, that you would hate me. Because we’re best friends, and that would change everything, but it’s you and it’s me, and no matter what I can tell you anything, so I had to. I can’t lie to you anymore.” I looked into his eyes, waiting for him to say something, even though I knew what his answer would be when I saw him.

“Y/N, I can’t… I’m with Barbara.” His eyes searched yours. “I love her. I love you too, but just… not like that. Not like with her. Can’t we just pretend this never happened?”

Your heart broke with those words. Still, you smiled and blinked back tears. “Yeah, sure.”

“Good.” He smiled with relief. “You’re a great friend.”

I know.

~~~~~~~

“Goodbye.” Dick hung up the phone angrily and entered the cave and took off his jacket, flinging it on the back of the chair.

“Everything okay?” You asked, not looking up from your computer as you hacked into the GPD database.

“Barbara and I are fighting again.” He groaned. A moment later he turned around and punched a wall. “Shit!”

“That wasn’t very smart. Let me take a look.” He hesitantly let you take his hand. You gingerly moved his wrist and he grunted. You turned it over in your hands and ran checked the cuts on his knuckles. “Let me grab the first aid kit.”

“I’m fine.” He said in a very not-so-fine tone.

“I don’t care.” You came back with the kit bandaged his knuckles before taking another look at his wrist. “You definitely sprained it. That’s what you get for going around punching walls.”

You helped him slip his hand into one of the many spare braces you all had accumulated over the years. “You don’t have to do this, you know.” He whispered.

“Do what?”

“Help me.”

“I want to help you, idiot. All that I want is for you to be happy and safe. And if I can’t keep you safe all the time, what with you throwing yourself in front of bullets and fighting the baddies, I just want you to be taken care of.”

“I don’t deserve you.” He covered his face with his good hand. “You are too good of a friend. Why do you do this? You could be running a company, living in a penthouse at this point. You could have your pick of anything in this world, but you choose to help me.”

“It’s because you are a major idiot.” You groaned. “I can’t have you ruining my hacking for the Big Bat with all your emotions and hatred for walls.”

“Gotcha.” He smiled, and you couldn’t help but smile back. You had kept a restraint on yourself since Christmas. You couldn’t do that to him, to Barbara. It was better to see them happy than to be selfish and watch them hate each other.

~~~~~~

This was it. After almost a year of tracking, you finally had him. Deathstroke had something big planned and the two of you– Dick and yourself, that is– had him. All that it took now was the fighting, the handcuffs, and getting him to the jail.

You were exhausted. You braced yourself against the wall momentarily before standing back up. Then you saw it– Deathstroke made his kill move.

The shearing sound went through the air and you gasped. Blood spattered against Dick and fell down your side after you intercepted the katana headed straight for his heart. Angrily, you attacked. Fending off blows and delivering them with (your weapon of choice), it was a while before you knocked him out cold.

“You okay?” You asked Dick, giving him a once over.

“I’m fine. Go rest, I’ve got it from here.” He said.

You were bleeding all over. Cuts on your face, your arms, your legs, and the most dangerous one deep in your rib cage– not puncturing anything vital, as far as you could tell. Dick tied him up and called for Bruce to send the Batmobile.

“What’re you staring at?” You asked Dick when you caught him looking in your general direction.

“You.” He said simply.

~~~~~~

“That was so stupid back there, Y/N.” The Bat lectured you. “Do you have any idea what you could have done to yourself?”

“I could have died. I know that. But I didn’t, so let’s be thankful that we’re both alive after things went south back there.” You sighed. After hearing it all before, this wasn’t anything new. You already knew what was coming next.

“Stop talking about your death so nonchalantly! This isn’t something to joke about.”

“Dick was going to die. That would have pierced his heart. I didn’t think; it was instinctual. I wouldn’t be able to live with myself if he died and I could have stopped it.”

“You were 2 inches away from piercing your right lung, and you bruised your spleen, not to mention that you lost almost a liter of blood.”

“I’m alive.” You crossed your arms and winced, regretting the action immediately. “I’ll live, that’s what matters.” Bruce left the room and you sighed, knowing that you’d have to deal with him again later.

“Hey there stranger.” Dick poked his head through the door. “Can I come in?”

“Yeah.”

“Y/N, I… I…”

“Spit it out, Dick.” You yawned.

“I don’t know what I’d do with myself if you died today.”

“You’d go on living? Being happy with Barbara, fighting crime, antagonizing Bruce?”

“No, I wouldn’t. I’m not, actually.” He shook his head.

“You’re not antagonizing Bruce? Because I am, and it’s pretty fu–”

“I’m not happy with Barbara. I’m not with her, actually. We split up a couple months ago.”

“Oh.” You shifted in bed and leaned closer. “I’m sorry. Are you okay?”

“No I’m not. Because… I’m not with you.”

“Excuse me?” I cocked my head. “Am I hearing right?”

“You would have died for me today.”

You started laughing. “Wait, so… you’re saying that because I would die for you, you want to be with me? Nuh uh. Not how it works. I’d die for you any day, you know that.”

“No, you’re not hearing me.” He grabbed  your hand and leaned closer. “I love you. I want to be with you. I’ve been blind for a long time. After Christmas, I couldn’t get you out of my mind. And now… you’re the only thing that I ever want to think about.”

“Are you sure?” You asked hesitantly. “Because–”

“I can’t stop thinking about you. I can’t stop thinking about your laugh. And your smile. The way you kept on giving to me even when I had done nothing to deserve it. Your hair, your eyes. Your body, and the way that you kick asses and take names. Your smell, and now… the way you looked when you almost died. I can’t lose you, Y/N. 

“I watched you date boys in high school and break hearts, and I saw you take care of a team when I was too weak to take care of them. I saw you get your heart broken when it never needed to, and I am sorry, and I am saying now that I love you and I have loved you for a long time.”

“Dick…” You whispered, and you suddenly found yourself kissing the boy you had been wanting to do this with for years. He was gentle, as not to hurt you, and leaned his forehead against yours. 

“I love you, Y/N. Please don’t ever try getting killed again.” He said, half laughing and one hundred percent serious. 

“You have no idea how long I have been waiting to hear that.” You grinned and kissed him again. “But… you know that I do whatever I damn well please. So try not to get yourself killed and we’ll have a deal.”

“I promise.”

[snortinglaughter]

Get to know the blogger.

Tagged by @restlessandordinary and @must-love-drarry thank you!!

Rules: Answer the questions in a new post and tag 10 blogs you would like to get to know better.

——

Age: 29

Birthplace: Baja California, México

Current time: 3:15 p.m.

Drink you last had: Cucumber lemonade.

Easiest person to talk to: Sherry! We have so much in common, sometimes I'm like omg is she reading my mind? Is she... watching me? Lol

Favorite song: I change my mind every week lol, right now it's probably IDGAF by Dua Lipa.

Grossest memory: That's a tough one, I'm not grossed out so easily... hm, maybe the one time a classmate showed me the 2 girls 1 cup video.

Hogwarts House: Slytherin *smirks*

In love: With my children... and Tom Felton.

Jealous of people: Well yeah, but not in a bad way tho. It makes me happy to see other people achieve what they want and I'm like: damn I'm so jealous!!

Killed someone: I mentally murdered a dude who stole my lunch once at work. Does it count?

Love at first sight or should I walk by you again: I'm sorry to bust y'alls bubble but on my opinion love at first sight doesn't exist. I believe in attraction at first sight, but love? Nope, don't think so.

Middle name: Gabriela

Number of siblings: 2 older than me.

One wish: Write loads of fics, travel, and go to college (which I intend to do next year)

Person you called last: My stepdad.

Question you are always asked: "Why are you so serious, are you angry?" Like, dude... I wasn't, but now I am thanks to your fucking questiON THIS IS MY FACE GET USED TO IT. (Sorry I just lose my cool every time)

Reasons to smile: My kids, drarry, bombing Sherry with my amazing hilarious jokes

Song you sang last: Te Vas from Perdidos de Sinaloa lol

Time you woke up: 7:20 a.m.

Underwear color: I bet you'd love to know *wink wonk*

Worst habit: Procrastination and giving snarky answers when I'm in a bad mood.

X-rays: When I was around 11 because I sprained a wrist. At 12 because one day I woke up and literally couldn't walk, turned out I have some issues with my spine and live in constant pain (but I got used to it, it helped me develop a high pain tolerance) and then when I was 16 because my forehead hurt all the time (chronicle rhinosinusitis)

Your favorite food: Just FOOD.

Zodiac sign: Aquarius

Tagging @foularcadebanana @scarheads-malfoy @jesreally @chapter11freak @unicornsandphoenix and enyone else who would like to join (sorry if you've already been tagged)

[sp4c3-0ddity]

Situation 10 (after a near-death situation) Sentence 28 (If I kissed you right now, what would you do?) I am freezing and could use a little fluffy Plance to warm the soul!

So i’m sorry this took so long but I started over while writing and it’s now sort of based on my bodyguard AU but I hope you like it!! (Also i hope you’re warmer now than when you sent it, Anon)

Situation (10) After a near-death experienceSentence (28) "If I kissed you right now, what would you do?"

tw for non-graphic description of injuries

Lance opened his eyes to the lovely view of a stained tile ceiling with flickering fluorescent lights that were just a little too harsh for him in his exhausted state. What felt like every muscle in his body ached, and when he tried to lift his left arm he noticed it was bound in a cast and elevated on a cushion.

He groaned and struggled to sit up, until someone nearby said, "Whoa there, buddy!"

"Hunk?" His voice croaked with disuse, but he managed to turn his head to see his best friend and cracked a smile. He gave up and sunk further into his pillow as Hunk stood and started to fuss over him. "I'm fine," he lied. "I'm alive, and I'm fine."

"Yeah, well," Hunk said with a rueful smile of his own, "you flew about ten yards so it's a wonder you haven't broken every single bone in your body."

His mind slow to catch up, Lance frowned. "Flew?"

And then he remembered.

Lance bolted upright, hissing at the pain in his left shoulder and ribs as he did. "Pidge," he said, glancing towards the door. "Where's Pidge?"

"Lance, calm down before you pull your stitches," Hunk said, placing a gentle hand on his other shoulder.

"What stitches?" But he shook his head, deciding it didn't matter. "Where the hell is Pidge? Is she okay? She was--"

"She's fine," Hunk calmed him with a reassuring smile. When Lance's shoulders sagged in relief, Hunk settled back in the chair at his bedside. "She's a lot better than you; didn't even black out."

Lance put his (mostly) uninjured right hand to his forehead. "Oh, good," he said. "I guess that means I did my job right."

"Yeah, best bodyguard ever," Hunk said with a laugh, seeming just as relieved as Lance felt. "Though Pidge seems to disagree..." His gazed turned sharp as he appraised Lance, making him squirm.

"How badly was she hurt?" Lance wondered, worried about the answer.

"A sprained wrist and some lacerations," Hunk said, waving his hand dismissively. "She's already been discharged, and you got the worst of it."

Lance exhaled and grinned, at least until he felt the bruising on his abdomen. He fought a grimace and rested a hand on his stomach. "Who's with Pidge now?"

"Keith," Hunk said. "But they're still here, waiting for you to wake up."

He couldn't help the smile that stretched his face. "Where'd she go then?"

"Eh, she looked dead on her feet," Hunk admitted, "so I suggested she get some coffee." He shrugged and added, "She feels pretty bad, buddy; I wouldn't be surprised if she thinks it was her fault."

Lance stared at him, wide-eyed. "Why? It's not her fault someone wants her dead badly enough to plant a bomb on her car."

"Maybe not, but--"

A knock interrupted Hunk, and before Lance could call out for the knocker to 'come in', the door swung open and admitted Pidge herself.

"Pidge," he said, flashing her a grin. Relief washed over him, his whole body filling with warmth at the sight of her looking mostly healthy. He tried to raise his hand to wave, but the pain in his shoulder forced him to give up. "You look..." Angry, beautiful, fine, worried, his mind suggested in turn, but Lance settled on, "...happy to see me."

And she did, in a way. Her left arm was bound in a plaster cast from elbow to the palm of her hand, and her bangs couldn't quite conceal a thin red line extending across her forehead, but other than that she appeared unhurt. And the worry in her eyes was at odds with a smile that fought to disrupt her scowl.

It made an unusual picture, but the smile eventually won out.

Pidge approached his bedside so she stood opposite Hunk. She crossed her arms and stared at him. "Don't do that again," she said, face stern.

"Well, considering that was literally my job"--not that he wouldn't have if it wasn't--"I can't promise anything."

Her eyes narrowed. If looks could kill, Lance thought wryly, and he smiled. "Seriously, Pidge," he reassured her, "I'm fine. Just a little"--he fought a wince at a pain in his side--"banged up, that's all."

Pidge bit her lip, thoughtful as she continued to appraise him, as if she expected him to disappear the minute she took her eyes off of him - which was awfully hypocritical of her considering how often she'd given him the slip in the last few months. "Hunk," she said without breaking her and Lance's staring contest, "do you mind giving us a minute?"

"Nope, not at all," Hunk said, immediately standing up and moving around Lance's bed to the door. There, he paused and looked over his shoulder to wink at Lance.

I'm fucked, Lance realized as the door swung shut behind Hunk.

"So...take a seat," he said, gesturing towards the newly vacated chair in an effort to dispel the tension that set in.

"I'm good," Pidge said. "Unlike you, I can stand just fine right now."

"Hmm, yeah." Lance wiggled all ten of his toes. "Also, what's this about stitches?"

Pidge sighed and pointed to his right thigh. When Lance lifted his blankets and the hospital gown to investigate, she remarked, "I guess it's a good thing you wear a bullet-proof vest."

"Yeah," Lance agreed cheerfully. He poked at the bandage on his thigh. "They're the best." He frowned and asked, "Shrapnel?"

"That's what the surgeon said. You don't remember?"

He dropped the blankets and wracked his brain, squinting. "I remember seeing someone messing with your car," he told her. "They must've panicked and activated the bomb too early." He grimaced at the unwelcome image supplied by his mind, of Pidge lying on the pavement, eyes staring vacantly as blood pooled beneath her head.

Pidge tapped her fingers against her cast. "You got between me and my car before I even knew we were in danger," she explained.

"What?" Lance teased with a wink. "No ‘thank you’?"

Pidge rolled her eyes, but to his pleasure she smiled. "Thank you, but..." She trailed off, her smile vanishing in favor of a frown. "Lance, this is--"

"Not your fault," he interrupted with a fierce glare. "Why the hell would you think that? Besides, I was doing my job. I'm just sorry I won't be able to do it anymore." Not in this state, anyway.

Pidge finally rounded the bed and sat in the one chair, propping her arms on his blankets. "I know, but maybe I should've foreseen something this...drastic."

"Yeah, your family's enemies are getting pretty desperate," Lance conceded. He slumped into his pillows, relaxing despite the aching in his body. "But who knows?" He grinned at her. "This might be the stunt we need to finally nail them."

"Maybe," Pidge said, though she sounded skeptical. She toyed with the edge of his blanket.

"Guess you'll have to make do with Keith and Hunk from now on," Lance said regretfully. "You'll miss me though, right?" He meant it as a joke, but his heart sank into his stomach at his own words, because he would miss her.

Pidge didn't reply immediately, which only caused Lance's imagination to run wild, wondering what could possibly be going through her head, at least until she asked, "If I kissed you right now, what would you do?"

Lance's mind ground to a stunned halt as he stared at her, and she met his gaze levelly, a hint of pink in her cheeks the only sign of embarrassment or self-consciousness. "Is it like a gratitude thing?" he said, hoping his voice didn't squeak.

Pidge frowned at him. "Are you serious?" she said. "You really think I'd want to kiss you because of that?"

"That depends," Lance quipped. "Are you talking about a kiss on the cheek or...somewhere else?"

"Somewhere else," Pidge said without hesitation.

He smiled, feeling his own face flush. "On the forehead then?" he teased.

"Oh for the love of--" Pidge cut herself off with a growl and leaned down to press her lips against his.

Lance kissed her back, reaching up with his less injured hand to cup her jaw. She pulled back all too soon, though her forehead still rested against his. He smiled and said, "Does that answer your question?"

Pidge grinned. "Yes," she said. "It even proves my hypothesis."

Lance laughed. "God, you're such a nerd," he said, hearing the fondness in his own voice as he spoke. He stroked her cheek, enjoying the feeling of her soft skin under his fingertips, and added, "And what hypothesis is that?"

"That you would do...that."

"Hmm." Lance pulled away enough that he could look her in the eye without going cross-eyed. "Wasn't it you that told me that you should repeat experiments to validate them?"

Pidge snorted, but she got the hint and kissed him again. This time when they parted she quipped, "Who's the nerd now?"

"Still you," he said, pulling her back in for another kiss.

[allthejoeks]

So Raven’s Semblance interests me. Like, she clearly has some sort of sense for how each “bonded” person is doing, because she can keep watch over Yang without leaving her tribe, but that’s not the interesting part. The interesting part is the specific wording: bonded. Not “whoever she wants” but whoever she has “bonded with”. Which makes me think that for her, it isn’t optional. It is literally for whoever she has bonded with. Anyone who has formed a close relationship to her, she gets a vague sense of their emotional state and the ability to portal to them. Because holy shit, can you imagine?

She discovered her Semblance during a raid gone wrong. The townsfolk were more willing to fight than anticipated, and she and her brother still didn’t have much fighting ability. All she knew is that one second she was 20 yards away, watching a warrior raise his axe over her brother’s head, then, in a flash of darkish-red, she was suddenly right next to her brother, her blade firmly in the stomach of the warrior. That night her eyes turned bright red. Her father told her that the Branwens’ eyes went red whenever they used their Semblance. Her eyes never turned back. She wondered why. Perhaps it had something to do with the inexplicable twinge of guilt she suddenly felt when something bad happened to someone nearby.

The next time it happened it was with her leader. It had been a mission gone south in their second-year. The Huntsman they had been shadowing was badly injured, and Raven was ready to bail. She and Qrow could leave effortlessly, and Tai and Sumer wouldn’t have too much trouble on their own. But Summer had fixed her with a look, one that made her seem much more fearsome than her diminutive stature suggested, and ordered her to stay. They absolutely would not abandon one of their own. And then, even more impressively, she made it work. The Grimm were easily bottle-necked by the building the crippled Huntsman was in, and his negativity made it an impossible lure to resist, allowing herself and Tai to go all-out and take some heads in an exceptionally explosive fashion. As the dust settled, she realized what an incredible person Summer Rose was. She didn’t run from fear. She embraced it. Accepted it, so that she could turn it into hope. As she thought this, she felt an undercurrent of determination flow through her that wasn’t there before, a steady beat different from her own, not just to survive, but to do justice.

The next time it happened was in the same year. She had sprained her wrist because a sword swing had caught on a Grimm in a bad way. It was just bad luck. Which meant it was Qrow’s fault. She always tried to not mention it to her brother, but her frustration at being useless for the mission got the better of her. His guilt, anger, and self-loathing only became amplified in her, and it drew nearby Grimm. With her and Qrow physically and mentally out of commission, Taiyang had to take care of the problem himself. As he fought, Raven couldn’t help but admire him. He was certainly an idiot, but perhaps that helped him. He was the most... stable of all of them and he certainly had enough strength to back up most of his boasts. He really did deserve some credit. She felt a rush of adrenaline and her eyes widened. As Tai walked back to the group, she immediately decked him, furious. How dare he bond with her? She didn’t want to be linked with this buffoon’s mind! As he got up with his usual puppy-dog pout and a “What did I do?”, however, she felt a wash of anxiety and fear come over her, two emotions that never occurred to her as being associated with Tai,. She looked at his undaunted smile as he made yet another joke about “ruffled feathers”. Clearly there was more to him than she had believed.

She felt her teammates’ sadness, their joy and their triumph, and (in Taiyang’s case at least) their love for her. She grew used to it. It was an annoyance at times (well, Tai’s fawning was a notable exception, she supposed), and she imagined that a weaker mind would have trouble dealing with it, but she was Raven Branwen. She would not let someone else’s feelings rule over hers. She was strong. Then, she wasn’t. 

Taiyang wanted a child, and she agreed. The Branwen bloodline would not die with her and Qrow. But she could have never imagined what it was like. She had not cried in decades. Tai informed her that she was hysterically sobbing during Yang’s birth. How could she not? She realized that older brains were capable categorizing and compartmentalizing. Yang’s wasn’t. Yang’s birth had been the first time in her life Raven had ever felt raw emotion. Not fear, not joy, just... emotion. She had never felt existence on that level before. She could only hope that it became less severe. In some ways, it didn’t. While Yang did begin to feel things like the others, her happiness, her fear, her love, were far more extreme than any other feeling. When a toy broke, Raven would become irrationally angry while on a mission. When Tai left her in the nursery, Raven had to force herself to not immediately teleport home as the fear and loneliness overwhelmed her. When she did return home, and Yang clapped her hands and made some noises, Raven felt an overwhelming amount of love, and she would just stay there with Yang, and there was nothing better in the world. But, in her sober moments, when Yang was asleep, it frightened her. Yang was overpowering her, and she was losing the will to fight back. Soon, she wouldn’t be Raven Branwen, proud warrior, determined heir to the Branwen tribe, she would be Raven Branwen, doting mother, content with reading picture books with a baby. She couldn’t let that happen. She had responsibilities to her tribe, to herself.  So she left. And she thrived. 

Tai’s emptiness served to counteract Yang’s emotions. She could be herself again, and she finally had the strength to lead their tribe. Qrow tried to take her back, of course. And Summer... well, she could tell. And it made her angry. She had had to leave because her bonds were too strong, but apparently, to everyone else, they were simply interchangeable. Whenever she felt a twinge of jealousy at feeling Yang or Tai’s affections to someone else, she used that anger to justify her actions. They were the ones who didn’t understand family and loyalty, not her. She understood it all too well, they only understood it at their convenience, replacing her when they saw fit. As Tai’s emptiness faded, Qrow’s emotions dulled, and Summer’s love grew, she felt enraged. How dare they all simply move on, like she was nothing more than a roadside stop? She had bonded with them. They had been the most important people in her life and they just... replaced her? So much for family.

As far as Raven Branwen concerned, she was the only family she had left.

[dsmroleplay]

#PaintTheWallsRed #DSM #SPN #RP #ChapterFive

Written by: @LegacyHunterDW & @JulianRyker Warning: Rate R Violence, Sex, Mature Themes. Fiction

Julian: -Julian wanted to smack the hell out of Dean but he couldn't for obvious reasons. He just shook his head, he couldn't say anything to many people around. Coming to a stop behind his "savior" and waits for the clerk to acknowledge their presence. It was like the world lit up for the portly woman who was probably in her seventies. Eyes glued to Dean, Julian just watched holding back his smile. He'd seen the magic effects the Winchester had on women more than a few times.- ::::::::::::::::: Dean: Dean smirks seeing the look on Julian's face turning his attention back to the Clerk's desk. When the lady calls them forward Dean leads Julian to the desk. Keeping his hand around his upper arm Dean smiles charmingly at the elderly lady behind the desk. Laying his forearm across the counter he leans forward just enough to see her smile brighten even more "You look like you are having a rough day. I do believe you should go home and soak in a hot bath with a nice glass of wine and leave all this stress here." He flashes that charming smile again and nods down to the file that has 'Julian Ryker' on it after seeing the grumpy detective tosses it in front of her and walks away "Detective Grumpy Pants must've signed off on my prisoners transfer. :::::::::::::: Julian: -He hoped Dean went easy on the lady, she'd probably have a heartache if he got any sweeter with her. He shifted from one foot to the other, his body ached. He wanted to soak in hot water and drink a fifth of whiskey right about now.- :::::::::: Dean: Dean can relate to what Julian is going thru. He spent months locked in a tiny room with no communication from the outside world, his brother, not even a TV. He had a cot, a sink, and a toilet with 3 meals put thru a slit in the locked door. No shower, no booze, no nothing until he made a deal with a reaper and literally had to die before he was able to escape the nightmare. He even said that it was worse than when he was in hell The clerk handed him the proper papers and a big brown envelope that contained Julian's property. Dean gave her that charming smile and a quick wink before standing back up fully. He pulls as gently as possible on Julian's while still making it look good "Don't forget, hot bath and glass of wine." Turning his attention back to Julian "Come on, let's go. ::::::::::::::: Julian: -Julian was pretty sure the woman had a small orgasm just picturing Dean and that glass of wine but he kept that to himself and followed him down the hallway and outside. He squinted his eyes it was bright out here and he'd been in a dark room a couple days now. Following Dean out to the car he smiled.- Still, got her huh? I have to respect your loyalty on keeping her and in top shape no less. :::::::::::::: Dean: As soon as they get out to his baby Dean open's the passenger door and puts his hand on top of Julian's head to lower him inside taking a quick look around. Not seeing anyone watching them or even giving two shits what they were doing he closes the door and walks around getting into the drivers seat. He looks over at Julian and grins patting her dash "Hey, she's my girl. We've been thru a lot together. Gotta say, she's the only one who's never let me down and loves me for me." He starts her up grinning hearing her engine purr. Dean has never been lucky when it comes to relationships. Even his own brother has skipped out on him once or twice but this car, she's always been here waiting on him "As soon as we get outta this lot i'll pull over and take those restraints off. I seen a Taco joint down the street. We can stop there and pick up some grub or i can drop you off at the motel and you can shower while i make a supply run. I just got into town, stopped changed and came straight to you but i have some beer in the cooler i can take in. ::::::::::::::::: Julian: -Julian was breathing fresh air and it felt damn good. His big hands rested in his lap the cuff's on him. He looked over at Dean and for the first time saw him in a different light. Who else would have showed up without being called? Put their neck on the line for a guy they barely knew. This guy was a really awesome guy, Julian would return the kindness one day he promised himself that.- Dean I'm okay man, I'm not a fan of being restrained by strangers anyway. -Tries to make a joke and lighten the mood.- I'd say let's go back to my place but I'm not sure if there will be reporters... although there wasn't anyone around just now in front of the precinct... I mean if you don't want to crash in a hotel. Least I can do is put you up? Besides you said I stink I doubt your clothes would fit me since I'm four inches taller than you and shopping for new clothes would probably bring out the press quicker than us going to my place? We could pick your stuff up then go to the penthouse? :::::::::::::::::: Dean: Dean clicks the radio on but keeps it on low looking in his review mirror. Once he sees they're not being followed Dean pulls off to the side of the road and shuts her engine off. Leaning over he pulls out the handcuff key and pulls Julian's arm up until he's able to reach the small hole. He unlocks both of his wrists and takes the cuffs. Holding them up he smirks with a nod "These might come in handy later." Opening Julian's left hand he sits the key in his palm and sits back upright turning the key in the ignition again. Putting her into drive he checks the mirror and pulls back out onto the road with a chuckle using an english accent "We could go to the penthouse..." He glances over at Julian with a grin licking his lips then quickly snorts "Wait, did you just call me short?" Rolling his eyes he shakes his head to that idea after giving it a quick thought "I don't think that's the best plan to hang low. Is there anyplace else you have access to that the cops won't think to look at? A friend you can stay with maybe? I'm used to staying in lousy motels, it's part of my everyday life. :::::::::::::: Julian: I wasn’t calling you short, just stating a fact I got a few inches on you. I wouldn’t want anyone involved... I’m good with the hotel and believe me the navy didn’t give us much to sleep on. My first year back I felt like the bed was melting because it was so soft. So your brothers hunting alone just like you? Dangerous isn’t it? :::::::::::: Dean: Dean stops at a light and quickly puts the shifter up into drive. Reaching into the backseat he opens the cooler and grabs out an ice cold can of beer. Closing the lid he turns back around and holds the cold beer out for Julian giving him a quick wink The light turns green and Dean pulls off again "I know Bobby used to have a bunch of cabins scattered throughout the west coast. How close are we to a place called Big Bear? It won't be much but it'll have running water, a stove, fridge and a generator if that sounds better than a motel? :::::::::::::::: Julian: It’s about two hours away. -Taking the beer he relaxed a little.- I’ve got a beach house in La Jolla, it isn’t my name it’s under my companies name I lend it out to my guys during the summer for their families... :::::::::::: Dean: Dean raises both his brows and glances over at Julian. He can't imagine what the man has been thru. It's one thing knowing the supernatural exists but a whole other thing when you have something happen to you and the men he lost weren't just employee's of his, they were his friends and if anyone knows what it's like to lose them, it's Dean "Then we go to your beach house. As far a me and Sam goes, him and Cass are out on a case together. I sprained my ankle pretty bad on the same hunt that got my faced bruised up and had to stay off it for a few days but even so, Sam has kinda been doing his own thing these days. As far as it being dangerous the answer to that is it's not actually safe but knowing Sam is doing less and less of it since meeting that chick it's worth the risk. I'm gonna clean up that bite when we stop to pick up my stuff. Those hellhounds aren't known for their gentleness so that arm of yours must be hurting like a mother fucker. I have all the supplies in the first aid kit in the trunk. ::::::::::::: Julian: -Julian downed his drink as he listened to Dean. He felt protective all of a sudden. He wouldn’t leave his guys for a piece of ass no matter how awesome. But he didn’t comment.- Dean, you got me out of there if you need to get out of here and go take it easy you don’t have to worry about me. I’ll figure shit out somehow I’m stubborn like that. :::::::::: Dean: Dean turns into the motel where he was staying and into a parking spot killing the engine. He turns to look at Julian shaking his head "That's not gonna happen so don't say it again. I drove a 24 hour trip in 17 hours to help you and that's what i'm going to do, caphice? Now, let's get you inside and get your arm taken care of. Sam usually keeps a duffel in the trunk for emergencies so you can jump in the shower and throw on something of his. He's like 6'4" so his jeans and a shirt should fit ya then we'll head to your beach house.