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arlana-likes-to-write · 7 months

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Lighting Bug - Chapter 22

Masterlist

Warning: guilt, form of self-harm, swearing, mention of death, Bucky needs a hug, mention of nightmares and past abuse

Relationships: Wandanat x daughter!reader, Maria x reader (platonic), Sam x reader (platonic), Bucky x reader (platonic), Rhodey x reader (platonic)

Word count: 3.5k

You were exhausted right down to your bones as you sat at the counter with a cup of tea in your hands and stared into the green liquid. There was no way you were falling asleep with those images moving in your head. “Hey kid,” Sam said suddenly. You jumped at the unexpected voice. “Are you okay? Your bagel has been done for a few minutes.” You forgot you put one in there. You stood up to grab it but Rhodey held out his hand to stop you. He grabbed a plate and placed the bagel on it then spread on it that you must have gotten out. Gods, you were beginning to lose it. You smiled as he sat in front of you.

“I didn’t sleep well last night.” You answered Sam.

“Nightmares?” Rhodey guessed.

“More like a memory,” you took a bite of your bagel, hoping they wouldn’t ask more questions.

“Rhodes and I haven’t gone to the batting cage in a while. Do you want to join us?” Sam asked. You stared at him, slowly chewing on the bagel. You had no idea what a batting cage was. “It’s a baseball thing. You go and hit baseballs and pretend to be a pro athlete.”

“Ohhh,” you said, standing up to throw the other half of your bagel away. “You could have just said that.” Sam sighed, shaking his head. “Sure I have nothing planned for today.” Plus it would be nice to get out of the tower. “FRIDAY, can you tell Natasha and Wanda where I’m going to be?” You made a mental note to ask Tony for a new phone.

“Of course, Miss. Y/n,” the AI said. “Have fun you three.” It was a 45-minute drive from the tower in a part of town you had never been to. ‘Caesar’s Bat and Pizzeria.

“Can we get pizza after?” You asked as Rhodey parked the car and you unblocked your seat belt.

“We can get whatever you want,” he said. The three of you got out of the car and walked over to the building. Sam held open the door for you. The sound of loud arcade machines and laughter made you jump.

“My favorite Avengers!” A man said from behind a counter. “Where the hell have you two been? Thought you forgot about ol'Casear.” Sam chuckled.

“Hard to forget you, big man,” Caesar glared at him.

“Are you calling me fat?” You tried to cover your laugh with a cough but Caesar glanced at you. “You guys adopt a kid or something.”

“Eh kind of,” Rhodey shrugged. “You got a spot open for us.” The man continued to stare at you but you smiled and gave him a small wave.

“Yeah, same spot as always,” he said. “Come find me if you need anything.” You followed the two Avengers to a stall in the corner, there was no one next to you, and you were grateful to look like an idiot in front of some strangers. The space reminded you of the shooting range at the tower but instead of targets at the end, there was a screen.

“Wait,” you said, sitting down. “How is any of this safe with it being inside and this close to one another?” Sam smiled.

“It’s all VR,” he pulled out his wallet and pulled out his wallet, took out a car with the shop’s logo, and scanned it at the table you were sitting at. The table changed to a TV screen and it showed a baseball stadium. “You can change the stadium where you are hitting. We’ll keep it at Yankee for now.” Rhodey appeared with a bat and goggles. “Watch this.” You watched Rhodey put on the goggles and stepped into the open space. The screen changed to a character stepping up to bat. “You can change the speed of the ball pitched, complete challenges, and set up tournaments.” He began and he hit the first ball pitched to him. It sounded like you were at a baseball game.

“This is cool,” you said. “Is this place new?”

“Sort of,” Sam looked around to make sure no one was near and leaned closer. “Caesar isn’t from here.” What the hell did that mean?

“Come again? Like he’s not American.” He glared at you before rolling his eyes.

“No, like not from Earth.”

“He’s an alien?!” You half shouted in surprise. Sam put his hand over your mouth, still glaring at you. You pulled his hand off. “You just told me a man isn’t from Earth, how did you expect me to react?”

“With a little more respect and dignity,” you punched him playfully. “Besides he’s not an alien, he’s a Skrull,” you stared at him, head tilted to the side. “Oh my god,” he pinched the bridge of his nose. “Skrulls are shapeshifters and their planet was destroyed so until Fury and Carol can find them a new home, they are living here,” you frowned.

“Why can’t they just live here?” You asked.

“Because humans aren’t known to accept those who are different,” Rhodey said, taking off the googles. Well, you knew that firsthand. “Do you want a turn?” He asked you.

“Uh maybe I’ll watch Sam then I’ll go.” While Sam was taking his turn, you went to get drinks from Caesar’s daughter. Her name was Jasmine and you liked her, her smile was infectious but you couldn’t help but watch the father-daughter duo. If anyone but Sam told you they weren’t human, you would think they were crazy. You guessed that was the problem with the world you lived in, some people had to hide their true selves just to survive.

“Alright, kid, batter up,” Sam said, handing you the VR set. You smiled, taking it from him. Oh, you wished you could make the world a better place.

While Sam and Rhodey were waiting to get their pizza from Jasmine, you were sitting at one of the empty high tops and eating away at one of the cheese slices. You tried to wait for the two Avengers but the smell was making your stomach growl. “I know you,” Caesar said, walking over to you as you sipped on your blue Gatorade. You stared at the man as he sat in the empty chair next to you. You hopped he knew you, you spent like 2 hours at his fine establishment. “Hey,” he stuck his finger at you. “Your that teenager that can cast spells and shit.” You blinked at him.

“You mean conduct electricity.” He snapped his fingers.

“That’s the one,” he tapped his fingers against the table and looked at you then to the Avengers. “People are talking about you.”

“Me?” You questioned. “Whose talking about me?”

“The type of people you ain’t want talking,” Oh. Well, that sort of answered your question. “Look, kid, something ain’t right. People are talking, then disappearing, and ol’Caesar is just trying to run a business, you hear?”

“Why are you telling me this and not the two Avengers behind you?” You hissed, leaning closer to him.

“Hey, watch the attitude, short stuff,” you leaned back in your chair, mouth slightly open. “Just because I listen don’t mean I know what’s going on,” you rolled your eyes. “My advice is keep your ears open and listen. Maybe you can figure out what’s going on before everything goes to shit.” He mumbled the last part and left before Sam and Rhodey joined you.

“Don’t listen to anything that nut job rambles about,” Rhodey said. “He’s got a few screws loose.” You smiled, giggling slightly. But what he said rattled you to your bones. What the hell was going on?

Caesar was saying goodbye to Sam and told him to not be a stranger. Your eyes wandered to the small arcade they had. There was a crane game filled with small rubber ducks. You walked over to it and looked at all the different duck variations - one was dressed like a police officer, and another had a book. But one that caught your eye was a duck wearing a green jersey with a soccer ball. It looked familiar. There was a memory deep within you but everything you tried to grab onto it slipped out of your fingers like water or smoke, the longer you stared at the dumb duck. “Hey, kid,” Rhodey said. “Are you ready?” You nodded, walking over to him.

“Bye Caesar,” you waved as Rhodey held open the door for you.

“See you around, short stuff,” you rolled your eyes and walked to the car.

“Short stuff, eh?” Rhodey teased. He got into the driver’s seat. You huffed, buckling into the back.

“Don’t even start,” he laughed as Sam finally got into the passenger seat.

“Sorry about that. Caesar likes to talk,” you giggled and Rhodey started the drive back home.

“That was a lot of fun,” you said to Sam as you exited the elevator to the common floor. “We should do that again.” Your smile faltered as Bucky turned around from his conversation with Maria. The color drained from his face as if he were looking at a ghost. He left without another word to you, Sam, or Maria.

“Okay,” Maria slowly said. “I wasn’t done talking to him.” You sighed.

“Not your fault, kid,” Sam smiled, resting his hand on your shoulder. “He just needs to get out of his head. I’ll go talk to him.” Before he turned to leave, he reached into this pocket and handed you a rubber duck. The same one you were looking at. Before you could say anything, he smiled and left.

“What was that about?” She questioned. You looked at the duck and put it in your pocket.

“It’s a long story,” you said. “Do you want the spark-notes version of the story?” She nodded. So, you gave her a short-handed version of the story you gave to the other Avengers. It was surprisingly easier.

“Shit,” you said. “I missed one hell of a party.” You rolled your eyes with a smile. “So,” she leaned back in her chair. “A little spider told me that I’m going to be training you. Are you thinking about joining this ragtag group? Fury said you did well in Overwatch .” You shrugged, tracing the random designs on the table.

“I don’t know,” you said. You weren’t against being an Avenger, maybe in a year or two but right now you weren’t ready. “I just want to get my powers under control so I don’t hurt myself or anyone else.” Maria smiled.

“I can help with that but I’m not gonna go easy on you just because you are Romanoff’s kid,” it wasn’t the first time someone at the tower referred to you as Natasha’s or Wanda’s kid but every time a warm feeling spread across your body. Your parents were never proud of you. They barely gave you enough to survive.

“I expect nothing less,” you said. “Can you teach me how to shoot a gun?”

“Stop asking people that,” Natasha said before Maria could answer. The Black Widow appeared behind you. You pouted which caused her to roll her eyes.

“Awe come on Nat,” Maria said. “Let the kid learn how to shoot. Are you afraid she’ll be better than you?” Natasha ruffled your hair.

“Yeah,” she deadpanned. “That’s exactly why I don’t want her shooting a gun,” you pushed her hand away and fixed your hair. “But we can teach her how to be safe around one.”

“How about we stop talking about me like I’m not here?” Maria hushed you.

“I’m wheeling and dealing for your benefit so hush,” she teased. You stuck out your tongue at her. Maria gasped. “Do you want to start training right now?”

“Children,” Natasha warned. “No fighting on the common floor. The last time a fight broke out we needed a new TV and a couch,” you giggled. “Come on, kid. Tony wants to have a meeting about your schooling.” You nodded. “We’ll figure out a training schedule that won’t conflict with her classes.” She said to Maria.

“Aye, aye captain,” she gave the Black Widow a salute. You smiled at the interaction.

“See you around, Maria,” you said and followed Natasha to Tony’s lab where Wanda was already there. You weren’t nervous. The test was the hard part of all of this and they were proud of how you did. But it was nice having the couple on either side of you as Tony rattled off a plan. The textbooks you needed were already ordered, minus a math textbook that he already had, and if you needed additional books for essays or projects he gave you a debit card to buy them. You didn’t bother putting up a fight with that. As for your ‘teachers’, Vision was going to help you with history, Bruce and Tony were for math and science, and your training with Maria counted as your physical education credit. The extracurricular would be business with Pepper and art with Steve, the two agreed to shadow you during those times. It seemed like a lot of work but you were ready to finally go to school and learn.

You had to get out of the tower. Every room you entered and Bucky so happened to be there, he left. It was a little maddening. So, you sat on the balcony with a textbook in your lap and the rubber duck in your hand. There was a part of you that was associating this duck with Bucky. But that couldn’t be correct. “Hi,” you spun around to see Steve walking over to you and hiding the duck underneath the book. You smiled at the blonde and looked at the book. You figured he was here to talk about Bucky. God, it felt like when you first moved to the tower. Instead of you running away, it was him. Steve sighed and sat down next to you. “Beautiful view,” he said, looking towards the city. “What are you doing up here?”

“Just reading,” you gestured to the book in your lap. It wasn’t the full truth but it got the point across.

“It’s about Buck, right?”

“I just don’t want him to be uncomfortable in his home,” you shrugged.

“It’s your home too,” he sat down next to you. That was true. You tapped your fingers on the page you were reading.

“He was here first,” Steve nodded and put his arms on the back of the chair. He didn’t continue the conversation so you went back to reading about ration language and how it was used to describe the association between two or more qualities. You were learning that you did not like math.

“Do you blame him for what he did to you?” Steve broke the silence. The question made you look up at the city. “It’s okay if do. The whole situation is so complicated. Complicated. That was one word that barely touched the surface to describe the relationship you had with Bucky Barnes.

“I don’t,” you softly said. You saw the super solider look away from the city but you kept your eyes trained on the skyline. “At first I did but we were both just trying to survive. It’s not our fault that some of the world is evil and we were subjected to it.” Steve chuckled and you looked at him.

“You’ve changed so much from that little girl that Wanda and Natasha brought to the tower,” he said while standing up.

“Wait, is that a good thing?” You asked.

“Yeah,” he kissed the top of your head. “A very good thing.”

As night fell on the tower, everyone seemed to be asleep except you and the former Winter Solider. His back was to you so he didn’t see you, which didn’t give him a chance to run away. “Do you want some hot chocolate?” The soldier jumped and spun around to look at you. “Don’t run from me, please,” you pleaded. You heard him sigh and stand up to join you in the kitchen. He sat on the island with his hands folded on the counter. You began the process of making the hot chocolate in silence. But you noticed he wasn’t looking at you, he stared at his hands as if he was afraid he was going to snap and hurt you. When the hot chocolate was done and topped with marshmallows and cinnamon, you pushed his mug over to him. He wouldn’t take it. You sipped on yours. “Are you okay, Bucky?” You asked. “I want to help but I can’t if you don’t tell me what I can do.”

“How can you be in the same room as me?” He softly asked. “After everything, I did to you.”

“That wasn’t you,” you simply said, sipping on your hot chocolate.

“I could have killed you,” he finally looked at you. Since last night, Bucky wouldn’t allow you to get this close to him. His eyes were bloodshot.

“No,” you firmly said. “The Winter Solider almost killed me. Bucky Barnes would never.” You held his stare, blue eyes locked onto yours until he looked away. “How much do you remember about our time together?” You asked. Bucky sighed.

“It comes and goes,” he said. “Like waves, crashing into me and I’m drowning.” You smiled, tracing the rim of your mug. The marshmallows were melted and stuck to your finger.

“Me too,” you admitted. “It wasn’t all bad.” You licked the marshmallow off your finger and put your hand in your pocket. “My brain clouded all the good with the bad. Do you want to hear one of the good ones?”

“Yes,” he whispered. “Please.” You smiled.

“I hadn’t seen you for a few days and I knew better than to ask about you because that resulted in a punishment,” he chuckled slightly. “One day I was brought into a room and you were there. I think they wanted you to train me and you did but I hurt my shoulder. I tried to hide my tears but you knelt at my level, whipped away my tears, and reached into your pocket,” you mimicked this part of your story and held out your hand. “And when you opened it, there was a little rubber duck.” You showed him the duck.

“What?” He questioned. “A rubber duck?” You smiled as the confusion was all over his face. “You’re making this up.”

“I’m not,” you laughed at the deadpanned look he was giving you. “I swear! Look I was equally confused when you handed it to me. It was a rubbed duck just like this one,” you placed it on the counter between you and him. When your laughter died down, your smile became sad. “When I destroyed the faculty, I tried to find it but it was destroyed in the fire.” Finally, he took a sip of his no longer hot chocolate and picked up the duck with his flesh hand.

“I need time to process the new memories,” you nodded.

“I got nothing but time,” you said. “I’ll be here when you’re ready.”

“Thank you,” he smiled. “For the talk and the hot chocolate.”

“Of course,” you cleaned your mug. “Try to get some sleep. Good night.”

“Night, doll,” he said. But you knew sleep wasn’t going to be an option for you. Every time you closed your eyes, your past played out in front of you. It was like Yelena said, there was a scab over a wound you had and although it was healing every time you rubbed against it it hurt more. Your feet led you to the training area, and the sound of your footsteps echoed against the quiet room. It was weird being here when no one else was here. You could do anything without the watchful eyes of the Avengers. You could train, lift some weights, or go for a run. Instead, you walked over to the machine Tony and Bruce built you.

It was in the corner of the room, a white sheet over it that you took off and stared at the machine. Fingertips tracing every part of it. With a sigh, you took a few steps from it and faced the machine. You closed your eyes and let out a few deep breaths. When you open your eyes, you let out of stream of electricity towards the target. You only cut it off when the batteries were full but it wasn’t enough. So you replaced the full batteries with empty ones and did it again. And again. And again. Until your chest was heaving and your legs felt like jello. A yawn escaped your lips and you took it as your sign to be done. You recovered the machine and took a long walk back to your room.

As soon as your head hit the pillow, you fell into a dreamless sleep.

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#lightning bug #wandanat x y/n #wandanat x reader #wandanat x daughter #wandanat x you #wandanat x daughter!reader #wandanat #natasha romanoff x wanda maximoff #wanda maximoff x natasha romanoff #natasha romanoff x daughter!reader #wanda maximoff x daughter!reader #maria hill x reader #sam wilson x reader #natasha romanoff x reader #wanda maximoff x reader #bucky barnes x reader #rhodey x reader

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rip-quizilla · 11 months

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Monsters & Miracles

Chapter 1: This Story's Still Going

Pairing: Kas!Eddie Munson / Wendy Robinson (Art Teacher!Original Character)

Summary: Twenty years ago, Eddie Munson was supposed to die. Instead, he became something else- something dark, with a purpose he did not know but feared nonetheless. Now, two decades after his rebirth as a monster, he can't believe his eyes. He had expected his own reflection when he'd looked in the grimy, vine-covered mirror, but instead there's an angel staring back at him. ~ Wendy Robinson has gotten very good at distracting herself. When she thinks about her father's passing, she drowns out the thoughts with music. When she can't describe her feelings with words, she paints them to life on a canvas. But lights flickering and exploding in her apartment? A voice she's never heard before screaming inside her head? Looking into her bathroom mirror and seeing a man bathed in dark blue light, with horns and claws and sharpened teeth?

She's not sure she can distract herself from that.

Word Count: 7.1k

Tags (from AO3): Eddie Munson as Kas the Betrayer (Dungeons & Dragons) ×Eddie Munson Lives ×Eddie Munson in the Upside Down ×Alternate Universe - Future ×Older Eddie Munson ×Reader-Insert ×Original Character(s) ×Older Steve Harrington ×Stranger Things 2006 ×Art teacher! reader ×Kas! Eddie Munson ×Married Steve Harrington/Nancy Wheeler ×Religious Imagery & Symbolism ×Catholic! Eddie Munson ×Coach! Steve Harrington ×Hawkins High School (Stranger Things) ×Hawkins (Stranger Things) ×Slow Burn ×Fluff and Angst ×Mild Smut ×Eventual Smut ×

Chapter 1: This Story's Still Going

~2006~ The Upside Down

Twenty years ago, Eddie Munson was supposed to die.

Twenty years ago, he had bravely battled in the Upside Down and sacrificed himself for the sake of a town that had never wanted him, never trusted him, never saw the good in him that had always been undeniably there.

Twenty years ago, Eddie Munson chose not to run away. It had cost him his life.

After that, things were different. For a while, he’d wondered if he had died that day. If the holes in his side and the blood that had stained the white of his shirt to rust brown were just a part of his own personal Hell. Perhaps they symbolized some transgression from the life he’d led, one demobat bite for each sin, each commandment broken.

Thou shalt have no other gods before Me.

Music was his God. When his mother had died, Jesus hadn’t offered any comfort. Music did.

Honor thy father and mother.

Eddie’s father had never honored him, so Eddie had paid that back in kind. His mother? No doubt she was rolling in her grave up in Hawkins. Eddie had ended up a drug dealer who never graduated high school… what mother took pride in that?

Thou shalt not kill.

Eddie wasn’t a killer. The entire town of Hawkins had believed he was, but Eddie was sure of one thing- he did not kill Chrissy Cunningham. The guy who did kill her was no longer human, but something else.

Just like Eddie.

He had been human before, but after twenty years in the Upside Down, Eddie had changed. Adapted. He’d done what he’d needed to in order to survive.

The lethal venom in the demobats’ fangs had slowed his heart rate substantially, giving the foreign substance time to travel through his veins. It wrapped itself around him, enveloping everything he had been and turning his present into his past. With every strand of DNA it found, the venom painted itself into Eddie’s very chemistry. While Eddie had lay unconscious on the vine-covered ground, he could not feel his bones snap, making way for new growth. Could not feel the way his skin knitted itself back together over his rib cage, growing back thicker and leathery to the touch. Did not notice the way his canine teeth had sharpened into points, nor his nails that turned to claws, nor the way that his shoulder blades had begun to jut out as if new growth wished to burst through his skin like the buds of a springtime bloom. A strange metaphor; nothing new grows here- only things reborn.

When he had awoken, he had been afraid. He was afraid for a long time, alone for a long time. And then, one day, he wasn’t afraid anymore. He wasn’t alone- nothing in this place was alone, for everything here was connected.

And that meant that it had only been a matter of time before something found him.

For a while, that connection between himself and…them… was all that drove him. He did not resist because he did not think there was a choice in the matter. This new body was sharp, rough, and powerful, and Eddie did not know what to do with it on his own. It was easier to just comply, to let himself become a drone.

He mostly followed the bats.

It was funny; poetic, even. He joined a flock of the very creatures that had destroyed the Eddie he once was. He was basically one of them, flying around on the leathery wings that had finally grown long enough to carry his weight, keeping watch over this dusty version of an empty Hawkins. At first, it had been painful to gaze down at the ghost of what had once been his home, taunted by this mimicry of the thing he wanted most but can never return to. Eventually, he grew numb to it. He forced down the memories like they were bile and continued to follow orders.

Until Vecna decided the time had come to exact his revenge.

He had been too weak the first time. The day Eddie had his brush with death, Vecna had come even closer. All of this time, he had been getting stronger, forming a new plan for how to overcome Eleven and reopen a gate from his domain into hers.

Eddie knew this- all of the Upside Down knew this. The phrase ‘hive-mind’ echoed in his memory, and it awakened a need to protect, a need to fight- but it wasn’t Vecna that he wanted to protect.

It seems his final act of heroism had instilled something in him. A sense of right and wrong that he would not violate, a sense of camaraderie with the people of Hawkins that he could not shake no matter how hard he tried. Alongside this sense of right and wrong, another core belief sat nestled into the very center of Eddie’s psyche- that nonconformist rebellion, fighting against Eddie’s new instinct to obey.

And so, Eddie began to wage war against his reborn self. Follow orders? Nah, not Eddie. No way. Take your forced conformity and shove it up your ass.

Bit by bit, he defied orders in the slightest ways. As long as Eddie’s defiance was insignificant enough, Vecna didn’t seem to notice. So he peeled himself away, connected but separate, always listening for Vecna’s plan so that he could protect the town he was willing to die twice for.

This is where our story begins- twenty years after Eddie became a monster, cursed to live inside an echo of his past life. Here, in the dusty, vine-covered copy of his trailer, Eddie sat in a room that looked like his, at the edge of a bed identical to his own, head hung low and eyes wide with disbelief.

Because for the first time in twenty years, he could hear music. And he’s sure he’s crazy, because even though it’s faint, he would recognize that guitar riff anywhere.

The Trooper. Iron Maiden. 1983.

You’re losing it again, he thought to himself, this is a hallucination. Your memory is teasing you.

Eddie’s mind didn’t even belong to him anymore. He should’ve known that any semblance of sanity would be fleeting.

He didn’t care, though. Even if this wasn’t real, he could not deny himself this small joy- sitting in a room that was the closest thing to his own, listening to this song that made him feel like a kid again. He did not want to question this little, unexpected blessing. Eddie closed his eyes, ears straining to hear every note. His head moved up and down ever so slightly to the beat, fingers twitching on his knees like they ached to move along the frets of his old guitar. He even started to hum. His vocal cords felt scratchy, clawing the sound as it creeped tentatively from his throat. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d actually spoken, much less sung.

When the song had finished, Eddie held his breath. He didn’t know if his tortured mind would bless him with another gift from the depths of his memory, but he hoped.

When he heard another song start to play, he smiled. It was tiny, just a sliver of a grin, but it counted. Eddie couldn’t remember the last time he had smiled.

This continued for over an hour before the music stopped. Some of the songs he’d known, some unfamiliar- but he loved each one all the same. When it became clear to him that his small little joy had ended, he fought the urge to yell, to scream at whatever strange god had decided to tease him, but he did not. He couldn’t explain why, but he had a gut feeling that if he made a sound, did anything to notify the ones who control that something different- something good- had managed to squeeze itself into this godforsaken place, they would snuff it out.

So instead of screaming, Eddie scooted further onto the bed that felt like his. He shifted his wings to take up as little room as possible, doing his best to curl into a ball underneath the sheets. He didn’t know why he had expected it to be warm in this bed; it wasn’t. He pretended it was anyway.

This is where Eddie Munson fell asleep, nestled into a bed that wasn’t really his in a home that wasn’t really home, letting his tears soak into a cold pillow. He prayed to a God he didn’t really believe in, begging to hear just one more note, one more chord, something, anything to help him feel like a boy again instead of a monster.

~2006~ Hawkins, Indiana Christmas Day

This was the first Christmas that Wendy Robinson had ever spent alone, and so far it was not feeling very holly or jolly.

She’d tried her best to forget about it the night before, pretending it was just a normal night. Turning on the radio wasn’t an option, or else she would be pelted with holiday songs on every channel, so instead she’d listened to her old CDs to pass the time. Joy Division, Iron Maiden, Nirvana, Nine Inch Nails- she’d torn her way through them while busying herself with her art- paints, brushes and color-stained paper towels strewn across the giant tarp that encompassed the living space in her apartment. A year ago, Wendy might have put up decorations- a tree in the corner, a wreath on the door, maybe even gingerbread cookies on cooling racks in the kitchen.

But she was alone this year, and Christmas just didn’t feel right alone.

So she was determined to treat today like any other day, and that meant holing herself up in her apartment like it was a cave and ignoring the rest of the world, because if she were to walk through that front door, Wendy knew that she would see snow outside, and it would all be downhill from there.

Instead, she stared at her face in the mirror as she brushed her teeth. She splashed some water on her face. She fixed herself a glass of water. She did everything that made days normal, including blaring her music loud enough to inflict hearing damage.

Today Wendy chose a CD she’d burned herself- a compilation of rock songs she’d grown attached to over the years. As the familiar opening beats of “1979” by The Smashing Pumpkins started to play, she began stripping out of her pajamas and donning a comfortably baggy pair of paint-streaked denim jeans along with an old white sleeveless tee- also covered in old cracked paint splatters and streaks. Then, sitting cross-legged on the floor, she began her work.

The canvas before her contained the bones of… something. Wendy wasn’t quite sure what this piece would become, but the feelings she had been pouring into it so far were, in a word, bleak. Her pieces were often darker in terms of mood and subtext, yes, but this… it was just straight up sad. A wash of grayish blue made up the murky background of the image, the colors growing deeper and more intense toward the bottom. The rest of the canvas was blank, save for a few marks that Wendy had lightly drawn with a pencil as the beginnings of a figure in the center. Now, however, Wendy grimaced as she stared at the picture before her.

It looked juvenile to her, placing the focus of the painting right smack dab in the center of the frame, too easy. Predictable. Nothing worked out that way in real life, right? Nothing that was real was ever predictable. If life were a predictable thing, hers wouldn’t have turned out the way that it had. She wouldn’t be in Hawkins. She wouldn’t be alone. She wouldn’t be fucking miserable on what used to be her favorite holiday. And her dad…

Nope.

Wendy closed her eyes, straightened her shoulders, took a deep breath. In…out…pressed the heels of her palms into her eyes as if she were trying to stop blood from flowing. She focused on the music; it didn’t heal the wound by any means, just staved off the overflow. It was a band aid- no, a tourniquet. One more breath, then she opened her reddening eyes. The gray-blue canvas stared back, and it offered no comfort- only an outlet.

That was fine.

Wendy squinted, as if letting the canvas blur between her closing eyelashes would help her diagnose the problem. Once she recognized what her roadblock was, she could remedy the issue easily. Wendy was good at fixing things once she understood them. She took the canvas gingerly in her hands, turning it this way and that, testing out different perspectives from which she could frame her piece, until she settled on turning the canvas from portrait to landscape, the darker blue now focused on the right growing to a lighter gray on the left.

This could work.

Wendy stared at the new orientation, letting the music wash over her as a vision began to manifest behind her eyes. The song had changed twice since she’d sat down, and an old favorite from her high school days was busy filling the silence.

“What became of the man that started

All are gone and their souls departed

Left me here in this place so all alone

Stranger in a strange land

Land of ice and snow”

The lyrics had always been evocative to her- painfully sad to the point of desperation, but Wendy had never felt them like this; today, for whatever reason, Wendy felt the weight of those words in her very core. She looked around at her little apartment- registered the gray-green walls, the drawings etched in charcoal and taped to spaces she’d deemed too empty, the plethora of empty mugs set on end tables and countertops that had been forgotten in the days since the holiday break had begun. Everything about it screamed “single-person household” Wendy had done what she could to make this place feel like home, but she wasn’t used to being the only person in a home… if this apartment was where she was always alone, could it ever really be a home?

Would she ever have a home again?

This time, she let the tears fall. Careful not to let any of them fall on the canvas, Wendy grabbed a wide brush and swirled it around in the water filled jar sitting to her side. For the rest of the song, she proceeded to cover the sketched lines of a figure that would never be with more gray and blue until the canvas was nothing but background. Once she was satisfied with this new foundation, Wendy placed her damp brushes on the towel and left them and the fresh paint to dry under her ceiling fan.

Her cheeks were damp, but she was grateful her crying hadn’t escalated into sobbing this time. That had become commonplace for her when she was alone, especially after she’d first moved to Hawkins in August, but lately the tears hadn’t been as frequent. A few would fall, then just as quickly as she’d begun to cry, they would cease. Like midsummer rain, the onslaught would only last a moment before the sunlight returned.

Wendy supposed that she had begun to master the art of grief.

She flicked the light switch of her bathroom on, but strangely she still stood in darkness. She tried again, eyebrows scrunching, confused when once again, nothing happened. Her eyes flicked to the mirror, and what she saw ripped a gasp from her throat.

Not her face; someone else’s. Wide, black eyes, framed by dark, prominent veins that tapered up and into hair, dark and wild. Horns, shining obsidian, curling to both sides like a ram’s. A mouth, dry and cracked, hanging open to reveal sharpened teeth. All of this was bathed in dark blue, as if night had fallen so hard, it buried the moon and the stars were struggling to provide sufficient light.

Wendy stumbled backward, hitting the open door behind her and stumbling to keep her balance without falling over. Her eyes left the mirror for a split second, and when she glanced back, she saw only her own face, horror evident in her expression as she blinked profusely. Had she imagined that? It- he- had looked so real… like she could reach up to touch the horns growing between mangled raven curls. And those eyes had been so surprised, it was almost as if he had been shocked to see her in the bathroom mirror.

Wendy stood still as stone, willing the mirror to prove she wasn’t crazy. After a few seconds, she shook her head violently, as if a hallucination were water stuck in her ear that she could shake out. She gave her cheeks a couple heavy pats, wiped the excess tears from her lower lash line, and made a beeline for her CD player. Maybe if she turned the volume even higher, she could chase what she’d just seen out of her mind.

~The Upside Down~ Eddie

Eddie’s claws bit into the brittle, corroded wood of the cabinet as he gripped the bathroom counter for dear life. His chest heaved, his mind raced, his eyes bugged out of their sockets when he thought about what he had just seen.

He’d looked into the murky bathroom mirror expecting to see a monster, and instead he’d seen a miracle.

He’d seen eyes that weren’t glazed over or pitch black. Skin that was smooth, unmarred by the cruelty that living in this place always inflicted on every breathing thing. He’d seen what looked like warmth, light that came from the sun instead of scarlet currents bolting across the electric sky. It had been so long since Eddie had felt warm… part of him had loved the feeling- it brought back a memory that he didn’t know was still there, a day spent on the beach with his toes wriggling in hot summer sand. The other part of him had recoiled; he hissed, he burned, he wanted to claw his way underground where it was cool and dark and the sun could never find him.

Eddie wanted that part of him gone. He turned back to the mirror, eyebrows drawn together with determination. He splayed his hands on either side of the glass, careful to avoid the vines that would alert the masses if he were to apply too much pressure, and braced himself against his reflection. He stared vehemently at the glass, willing it with all he had to show him another glimpse of whatever angelic thing he’d seen a moment ago.

Please, he thought, he prayed, he pleaded to whomever was listening on the other side.

Please show me again. Show me again, show me again, let me be somewhere that isn’t here again for one more goddamn second, please-

~Hawkins~ Wendy

Wendy’s paintbrush was alive. It danced across the canvas and had no need for guidelines drawn in lead because it knew the steps by heart. Bristles wet with pigment swept over paint barely dried with precision and purpose, and Wendy’s concentrated gaze was that of a woman on a mission.

She wasn’t sure where this desperate feeling had come from, but it was overwhelming. She felt like a magnet pulled to a destination that she couldn’t see, like it was pulling her with a force so great, it shook her to the core. This want, this yearning- she ached to be shown a glimpse of the thing she desired, and yet she had no idea what she craved. So, she’d turned to art- the only thing that knew her better than she knew herself, and showed her what she felt in a way that words simply could not express.

As her brushstrokes took shape, she could see now the potential in this piece- a figure was beginning to form, though not a full one this time, just a head, the barest part of a torso, a shoulder, an outstretched arm- all of it appeared to be reaching from the darkest blue toward the lightest side of the canvas. It symbolized what she felt perfectly, reaching, yearning for something, but whatever it was lay outside of the frame unseen.

Wendy’s focus was unwavering, her attention fixated on the story that came to life on her canvas. Her desperation grew, anxious yearning clawing its way through her like it wanted to leap from her chest and soak into the image that was becoming clearer and clearer with every stroke of her brush.

Please, please, please, please.

The plea tingled at the nape of her neck, a voice she thought was her own at first, until it grew. It called. It yelled.

Show me!

~The Upside Down~ Eddie

Eddie had forgotten he could bleed.

He’d been invincible for so long that it hadn’t occurred to him that punching the mirror would result in broken skin. He was strangely pleased to know that such a mortal thing like blood was still a part of his biology.

He had gotten angry at the mirror; it had teased him with a glimpse of something that was not of this hell, made him remember the world he’d been born into, then ripped it away in a second and refused to show him more. So he’d punched it. Now, he had a shattered mirror and a bleeding fist.

~Hawkins~ Wendy

“Ow!”

Wendy dropped her brush, the paint slapping a big splotch onto her jeans as she inspected the backs of her fingers. The sharp pain had surprised her, and she wasn’t sure how she’d hurt herself but she could not deny that the ache of broken skin was there, echoing in her hand for a split second before leaving completely. Her skin was fine, marred by nothing but dried smears of paint across her knuckles, but she was sure- she was sure -that she had felt a sharp pain slicing across her fingers.

Wendy stared at the back of her hand, her eyes wide with disbelief, searching for even the slightest red mark on her knuckles, when it happened again.

A flash of blue. A hand that wasn’t hers. Nails that sharpened into points like claws. Dark red blood that trickled over the torn leathery skin that stretched over knuckles much larger than her own. And then, a flash, and she was looking at her own hand again.

Frantically, Wendy’s eyes flitted around the apartment, searching for a sign that something else around her was amiss- that these hallucinations weren’t in her head and she wasn’t going crazy.

Finding nothing to assuage her anxiety, she decided to push it down and pretend that it didn’t exist- a reaction to feelings that was becoming quite common for her these days. She rose to her feet, quickly padding across the room to turn the volume knob on her CD player further to the right. Sure, it would probably bother the neighbors. Sure, she might ruin their home video of little Timmy opening his Christmas presents, but frankly she cared more about her sanity than little Timmy right now. Iron Maiden’s “Flash of the Blade” went from pleasantly loud to blaring, the electric 80’s metal rang out throughout her apartment, and she nodded her head to the beat with conviction, as if each lyric could talk her back into sanity if she tried hard enough.

~The Upside Down~ Eddie

Eddie was going insane.

It wasn’t the first time; he’d lost his mind several times at this point, in fact he was pretty sure that he’d lost that war long ago but here he was, once again raging against his own psyche.

First, he’d seen her face. Whose face, he couldn’t say, but then he’d seen a hand that definitely wasn’t his, so it must have been hers, right? And now, Iron Maiden again. He didn’t know what it all meant, but he had narrowed it down to two possible conclusions: either he had officially gone certifiably, undeniably crazy, or there was somebody on the other side that he was somehow- after all this time- able to see.

He didn’t have an explanation, and if he thought too hard about it he would probably start to believe the first option… but God did he want the second to be true.

He could hear the music even clearer this time than the first; he’d recognized it immediately the moment it had started playing. His fingers had even jumped upon hearing the opening guitar riff, itching at the memory of playing those very chords of his guitar. Eddie took a long, ragged breath as he slumped against the wall of the trailer and closed his eyes. His arms hung loosely at his sides, and he resigned into the melancholy comfort of a song he knew so well. Slowly but surely, he began to nod his head to the beat, finding comfort in the familiar voice warbling out among the sounds of electric guitar.

Then, mingling with the sounds he knew, he heard something else that nearly brought him to his knees.

~Hawkins~ Wendy

“-In a corner forgotten by no one

You lived for the touch

For the feel of the steel

One man and his honor”

Wendy belted out the lyrics loud enough to drown out the thoughts in her head. She closed her eyes, face contorting with conviction as she did everything she could to lose herself in the music.

She had gone from nodding to the beat to full on headbanging, stepping away from her emotional painting to fix herself something to eat. She was just hungry; that was the logical explanation. Once she ate a bowl of Honey Bunches of Oats, everything would be okay. She would eat, she would drink her water, she would take a nap if she needed to- and everything would be fine.

As Wendy stood leaning against the kitchen counter, a bowl of cereal and a spoon held in her hands, she stared at the flakes of grain floating in milk like they were capable of holding her back from the edge of insanity if she focused hard enough. The chorus of “Flash of the Blade” repeated over and over at the end of the song, a comfortable chant for her to pray into the aether. When the song ended, Wendy’s heart rate spiked in the following silence, fearful of losing her mind again without music to drown out the terror.

And then “Master of Puppets” started to play.

~The Upside Down~ Eddie

Eddie started to laugh.

He wasn’t losing his mind. There wasn’t an angel visiting him in this hell. He had been wrong on both accounts.

This was him.

He was teasing Eddie. Laughing at him from his hiding place, watching as Eddie started to believe that he had something to hope for before it all came crashing down as soon as it started.

This was the song that had landed him here, the soundtrack to his final bow out of his former life, the accompaniment to this whole fucking nightmare. That Vecna creep had great timing, Eddie had to give him that.

You got me, asshole. You got the last laugh, again. Well fuckin’ done.

His laughter was manic; hysterical. It grew louder and louder, and Eddie knew he looked insane, he probably looked downright feral, fangs bared and eyes wide as he laughed and laughed, as wet tears began to stream from his coal black eyes.

~Hawkins~ Wendy

Have you ever been alone in your apartment after hallucinating about a demonic looking creature, and then just when you think everything might be okay, you start to hear maniacal laughter in your head?

It’s fucking terrifying.

Wendy had been so shocked and horrified when the laughter rang through her skull that she’d dropped her bowl of cereal on the floor. It shattered, milk and golden flakes spilling everywhere among the shards of jagged ceramic pieces. Wendy, barefooted and scared out of her mind, had clumsily hopped over the mess while frantically searching the room, wide-eyed with fright.

“Who’s there?” she whispered, willing her voice to be louder.

No answer came, the laughter simply continued as Metallica wailed on.

Wendy stumbled through the apartment, grasping onto the kitchen table for dear life. “What is going on?!” She yelled. The laughter stopped.

The voice she heard in return had no face that she could see, but in her head it was clear as day. It was deep, gritty as if it hadn’t been used to speak in years.

“Stop this.”

Wendy’s heart was racing, shutting her eyes and latching onto the music to distract herself from whatever the hell was happening. Shaking her head vehemently, she muttered to herself. “Not happening. This isn’t happening. I’m going crazy.”

“I am not going crazy!”

The voice was like a growl this time, tearing its way through Wendy’s head, and she let out a little frustrated scream. Her breathing was getting heavier, she was practically panting. She worried her heart would leap from her chest, it was beating so fast. “I have voices in my head telling me I’m not crazy.” She felt insane. She let out a huff of humorless laughter, struggling to maintain a rational train of thought. “This is just great-”

“Get out of my head!”

The stereo stuttered, distorting the music as if the CD were scratched and skipping erratically. The few lights she’d turned on began to flicker, and one buzzed as it grew brighter and brighter. Wendy stared, wide-eyed at the bright white burn of the lightbulb, whispering a bemused “What-?”

“I said GET OUT!”

A high-pitched ringing sound pierced the air before the lightbulb burst into a shattering of glass across your floor. Wendy’s scream was shrill this time, and she scrambled back onto the top of the table, sending a leftover plate and mug over the edge and onto the floor. They shattered loudly, grabbing her frantic attention before her head whipped back to face the bulb in another lamp by her favorite reading chair. It burst like the first one had, glowing blindingly bright before shattering like a popped bubble. Wendy’s panting bordered on hyperventilation, and she brought her knees up to her chest, hugging her legs and shutting her eyes tightly as she did her best to curl into a ball atop her kitchen table.

“Shut up!” she sobbed. “Shut up! SHUT UP!”

“YOU shut up!” the voice spat back.

“The voices in my head have a sense of humor,” Wendy huffed between her sobs, exasperated. “Not funny!”

The voice didn’t respond immediately; all that filled the apartment for the next few moments was the hum of electricity flickering in and out of Wendy’s remaining light fixtures. When it did respond, it sounded slightly more… calm? Not that she would call any of this ‘calm’.

“...What’s going on here?”

Wendy could have been mistaken, but she was almost certain she had heard the voice take a breath… and she didn’t just hear it. She felt it. Upon hearing his exhale, she had felt the familiar sense of relief that one got from simply taking a deep breath, in and out. It was long and ragged, drawn out further than it needed to be.

“Are you real?”

Wendy swallowed, her eyes still shut . “...Are you?”

Her apartment was quiet now, even the buzzing electric white noise had disappeared.

“Jury’s still out on that one.”

Before Wendy could comment, the voice added, “Who are you?”

Wendy shook her head incredulously. Was she really about to have a conversation with a voice in her head? Is that how lonely and desperate she’d gotten? “I, ah…” she cleared her throat. “I’m Wendy Robinson.” She cringed internally at the fact that she’d just given the voice in her head her first and last name. Like she was filling out paperwork, or calling roll.

She heard the voice huff out a breath that sounded almost like a laugh but not quite. “Okay, Wendy Robinson,” She shivered at the way her name sounded through the filter of this deep, rust-covered voice. “Are you the girl I saw in the mirror?”

A chill rolled through Wendy at the memory- black, shining horns. Gleaming fangs. A thick mane of dark hair framing pitch black eyes. “Are you who I saw in the mirror?”

The silence was charged this time, because they both knew the answer had to be yes, but for some reason he didn’t want to say it. “Go check.” he replied after a few seconds had passed.

Wendy looked up and across the apartment to the bathroom door, still ajar from when she’d stumbled away from it earlier. “Go check, like… check the mirror?” Wendy looked down at the floor, which was littered with shards of broken glass and dishes. “I don’t have shoes on.”

This time, she heard the voice snort before replying wryly, “...What do shoes have to do with your mirror?”

She gestured to the ground, obviously frustrated. “My floor is covered in broken glass!”

“Why is there broken glass on your floor?”

“Because you made my lights explode!”

“I did n- oh shit, did I?”

“Yes!”

The voice was silent for a moment before Wendy heard a painfully soft “Sorry.”

Wendy took a deep breath, assessing the situation- both the one she could see, and the one she couldn’t. “Well if it was a mistake, then I forgive you.” It was not lost on her that she was forgiving the apology of a voice in her head that she was starting to wonder was a demonic possession or something. She would deal with that later. “Can you see what I see?”

“No. I, uh… I just hear you. In my head.”

Wendy used her foot to scoot one of the chairs surrounding the table as far past the broken glass as she could, continuing the conversation as she maneuvered herself from the table to the chair. “Okay, so we’re both in each other’s heads then? How does that work?”

“Your guess is as good as mine, kid.”

Wendy laughed, actually smiling this time as she hopped from the chair onto a patch of the floor where she was pretty sure no glass had landed. “Kid? It’s been a while since I was a kid, I’m thirty-five.”

“You are?”

“Yup.”

“Damn.”

Wendy scoffed, carefully tiptoeing her way around the floor as she made her way to the bathroom. “Wow, okay, how old are you, then?”

“I, uh…um, I’m not sure, actually. What year is it?”

Raising an eyebrow, Wendy stepped into the bathroom. “2006.” She left the light off; she’d be lying if she said she wasn’t scared to try looking in the mirror and see something that wasn’t her reflection. She was already testing the boundaries of her fragile sanity at this point.

“Two… two thousand… what?” The voice was soft and sad, like she had just told him that his dog had died. Wendy felt a pang of guilt for being the bearer of what was apparently bad news.

“How, uh… how old does that make you?” she asked softly, trying to lighten his mood back up.

He was quiet for a bit before answering, “Has April 15th passed?”

“Mhm.”

“I guess I’m forty, then.”

He sounded so dejected, defeated by something as basic as his age. Maybe he was a ghost? Perhaps this was the soul of someone who had died too young, and they still had no idea that they were dead. She knew the apartment complex had been built on some old abandoned trailer park, and that apparently some sort of dark shit had gone down there years ago. It had been the first thing her students at the high school had told her when she’d mentioned she lived there. Had this guy been involved in that?

“Are you in front of the mirror yet?”

His voice brought her out of her train of thought, back to reality- or whatever this was. “Yeah,” Wendy replied, looking into her reflection in the bathroom mirror. “How do I… see you, I guess?”

“I’m not sure, it’s not like I meant to make it happen the first time.” he said, “Maybe if we both focus really hard on seeing the other, it’ll work again?”

Wendy didn’t have a better plan. “Okay. I’m going to close my eyes, focus, and on the count of three we both look at the mirror.”

“Worth a try.”

Bracing herself against the vanity, Wendy closed her eyes and thought back to the image she’d seen in the mirror before. “Alright, are you ready?”

“Yeah. One-”

“Two-” Wendy counted along.

“Three.”

~The Upside Down~ Eddie

While Wendy had been making her way to the bathroom, Eddie had been tearing posters down to make enough mirror space on his bedroom vanity to see his full reflection. He hated it, but he cared more about this miracle he’d been given than he hated his reflection.

When they’d reached the end of the countdown, Eddie had looked up and miraculously saw something other than a monster.

He saw her.

Eddie stared into his mirror, memorizing every inch of this beautiful, heavenly thing before him. She was real. She was human. She had paint on her arms, her clothes, even a little streak of gray that was starting to crack as it dried on her cheek. Her eyes were wide, her chest moved with every deep breath, her lips opened partly and she looked almost as shocked as he was.

“Have you always had those?”

Eddie started, blinking a couple times as he tried to register what she was referring to. Her hand had raised, pointing up to the crown of his head. “Huh?” Eddie reached up in the direction she was pointing, his hand coming in contact with- oh. Yeah.

Eddie grasped one of his horns, letting his arm bend as it dangled, his eyes refocusing on the cluttered surface of his old vanity. “No.” he said. “No I haven’t.”

“Where are you?”

Eddie glanced up to see Wendy’s eyes searching his background, undoubtedly trying to make sense of the darkness, the vines, the dust particles that floated in the air. He looked around too, grimacing. “I’m a long way from Hawkins.”

Wendy’s eyes widened. “Wait, how did you know I’m in Hawkins?”

Eddie, raising an eyebrow, replied, “I didn’t… you’re in Hawkins? Where?”

“Mirkwood Apartments.”

He shook his head. “Can’t say I know it, but it’s been a while since I was there. Lot of time for new places to sprout up.”

Wendy cocked her head to the side, and good God was it adorable. “How long is ‘a long time’?”

Eddie twiddled a piece of hair between his fingers. “Twenty years.”

“You lived in Hawkins twenty years ago?”

Eddie looked up at her, pondering what she thought about when she looked at him. What did she think he was? A monster? A demon? Even he didn’t know what to make of his reflection anymore.

“I grew up there.” Eddie answered.

There was a long pause before Wendy asked her question, a hesitation that made Eddie anticipate whatever lay on the other side of that silence.

“There were some kids… three kids, I think… who died near here twenty years ago.”

Eddie knew where this was going. He knew what the town of Hawkins had probably thought after the gates had shut and trapped him here in Hell. He could picture it now- Remembering the Tragedy of 1986: Murderer Eddie Munson Still At Large. His photo slapped across wanted posters and front page news. Little devil horns drawn in sharpie on posters that decorated the lamp posts across town, hilariously scrawny compared to the very real horns that now curled back from his temples.

“Whatever you’ve heard,” Eddie began, unsure of why he was defending himself since he had learned a long time ago that explaining your side of the story to people was a lost cause; people believe what they want to believe. “It’s probably bullshit. What happened all those years ago… there’s a lot more to the story than what’s safe for everyone to know.”

“Are you one of the kids that died?” Her voice, like her expression, was gentle. She betrayed no emotion, just compassion, which is what made Eddie feel comfortable enough to tell her the truth.

He sighed heavily, looking her in the eyes and reveling in the way it made his heart pump a little faster. He’d forgotten the way that felt. “I should have been.” he stated bluntly. “Like I said, there’s a lot to the story.”

Wendy’s lips pursed as she stared at Eddie in the mirror. He watched as she took him in, her eyes flitting from the tattered clothes he wore to the claws on his hands. To his surprise, she pushed her weight up onto the bathroom counter, hopping up to sit on the green laminate surface. She sat with her bare feet in the seashell sink, legs bent so that her elbows could rest atop her knees. Wendy smiled softly, resting her head on her hands, fingers interwoven as if in prayer.

“So tell me your story.”

Eddie raised his eyebrows, cocking his head to the side. “You sure?” he asked, bracing his hands on his vanity as he leaned a little closer to the glass. He couldn’t help but mimic at least a ghost of her smile back at her, the corner of his mouth lifting the slightest bit as he inclined his head toward her. “It doesn’t have a happy ending.”

Wendy’s grin widened, a glint of mischief in her eyes. “You said you didn’t die though, right?” she shrugged softly. “You can’t know how your story ends if it’s still going.”

That took Eddie aback; this whole time, for twenty years, he had always seen that day in 1986 as the end. That was where his story had stopped. This thing he was now- he wasn’t Eddie anymore. But then this woman, this angel, had appeared out of nowhere blasting Iron Maiden so loud that it had crossed the barrier between worlds. He didn’t know how, he didn’t know why, but she had woken a part of Eddie that he’d seriously believed to be long dead.

So maybe she was right- maybe he didn’t know how his story ended.

For the first time in twenty years, Eddie looked at another human being and smiled so big that it wrinkled the outer corners of his obsidian eyes.

“Yeah…” Eddie chuckled. A spark of hope was igniting within him; he wasn’t sure if he was in danger of melting or if he was enough of a hazard that he might explode- either way, he enjoyed the rush of knowing that something was…beginning.

“... yeah, I guess my story isn’t over yet.”

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kalevalakryze · 5 months

Text

Feel Like A Monster

Fandom: Star Wars - All Media Types, Ahsoka (TV) Pairings: Shin Hati / Sabine Wren, Shin Hati & Baylan Skoll, Baylan Skoll & Sabine Wren, Sabine Wren & Ahsoka Tano & Shin Hati Characters: Sabine Wren, Shin Hati, Baylan Skoll, Ahsoka Tano Warnings: Blood and Injury, The Dark Side Of The Force, Almost Corruption, Notes: For Whumptober Day 17+ For @sabineweek Day 3 Prompt: “You’re the lump in my throat and the knot in my chest.”Touch Aversion + Follow You Into The Dark Word Count: 1,787 AO3 Link: Here!

Shin was lifeless against the dirt, blood pooling into the earth, ichor spilling from veins that needed it more. Under her fingertips, Sabine could feel the weak thump… thump… thump of their heart, fading quickly; she needed help, but Sabine could not offer it, not when she raised her eyes and to meet Baylan Skoll’s, not when he stood there in some righteous glory, yet dared to be upset. “You…” Sabine snarled as her vision tunneled, her focus solely on the man who’d killed her master, who’d torn open her wounds, and had betrayed not only her, but his own Padawan, in the worst ways possible.

Shin won’t make it. You need to avenge her. You know how to do it, you can feel it; Picture your fingers wrapping around his throat, reach out-

“Sabine!” Ahsoka’s voice pulled her back, to the sounds of a man choking on nothing but the force, to the feeling of power at her fingertips. They stood apart with a chasm between them, yet she could feel his throat under her fingers, the way he fought for air, the way he clawed at his own skin as if it would stop her.

Ahsoka’s hand clamped down on Sabine’s shoulder like fire, burning through beskar and clothes like a lightsaber. “Don’t fucking touch me!” She shouted at the Togruta. “I am sick and tired of people taking everything from me, just because they can! I’m sick of having to lay back and let it happen!” When she turned towards her Master, a sickly yellow had overtaken warm gold, red-rimmed eyes with dark veins marring her skin like inky poison. “I won’t let anyone take anything from me again… never again.”

There was power at her fingertips, just like she was being promised, just like she’d been warned about, she’d seen Ezra struggle with it; why did he struggle, when he could have saved them all with this feeling.

Shin was growing colder as Sabine rose to her feet, the southern winds catching the torn edges of her poncho, billowing fabric around her legs as she stepped over the soon-to-be corpse, retrieving the saber from her belt as she dropped Baylan to the ground. “You hear me, demagolka? Never!” The dark sider barely had enough time to ignite and raise his own saber to meet hers.

Ahsoka didn’t have the luxury of time, not as Shin’s fingers dug uselessly in the soil, chasing their livelihood as it fed the graveyard. She spared one glance as her apprentice stalked off towards Baylan Skoll, leaving it up to Sabine to save herself was a hard choice, but out of the two of them, Shin needed her help most.

Hovering hands stitched flesh, bone, tissue, and her very lifeform back together, just one more, one more layer of skin, one after another. She couldn’t spare any attention to the sounds behind her.

“Everything I’ve ever done has been for my people!” The ozone burned hot around her green saber, the kyber rattled in its cage, reacting violently to the hate. “For my family! For Mandalore! For the Rebellion!” She ducked under a strong swing, shoving the heel of her boot into his knee as she moved to avoid his second swing, letting it hit harmlessly off her pauldron. “And every time! Every! Single! Time!” Each hit of her blade against his own followed every word. “A Monster comes out to ruin it!”

“You’re hurting bad inside, Wren, but you can control it,” Baylan attempted to calm her, as if she was his apprentice; but no, Sabine saw first hand what happened to an apprentice of Baylan Skoll, knew from Huyang’s records what happened to th e first, and what he’d just done to the second. “If anyone-”

“Shut Up!” The Force pushed back against him, sending him several feet back, scrambling in the dirt stained with Shin’s blood; Like a predator, Sabine started to pace around him, fabric moving now in an unseen wind as she moved saber disappearing into her hilt as she flexed her white-knuckled grip around the weapon. Shin was still unmoving under the Togruta’s hands, but he could feel her dying, knew she was not long for this world, knew the volatile Mandalorian could feel it to.

“Nothing can change this path, Sabine, you know as well as anyone-”

He wasn’t expecting a boot to collide with the side of his head, or for the ground to careen quickly towards him as his body twisted. The recovery was quick, but he was left unsupported and aimless at the sight that met his swimming vision.

Each piece of the saber had come apart in steady hands, the green bled from her crystal like the poison in her veins. “Truly, a member of Skywalker’s lineage,” He remarked, dryly now as he forced himself up on old knees, allowing the Force to aid in alleviating the many aches that came with his life. “You are more like your Master than you know, Sabine.” His eyes flickered over to Ahsoka and Shin; their heart beat once more, stronger than before; if this failed, then his mission…

“Except, only your Master is there, and you are here.”

“And you did this to her. Shin trusted you, and you don’t even care!” When the blade ignited next, it was as red as her grand master’s. Red like the blood that had been spilled on the crooked metal of the ceremonial dagger he’d sliced through his Apprentice’s stomach, red like the rim around the Mandalorian’s unnatural eyes.

“And you will pay,” Scarlet light rotated around her wrist, blade arcing first behind her in a semi-circle, gaining momentum as she advanced upon the Wolf.

Sweat beaded at his brows as he countered her onslaught, but his attention was split, truly a fatal mistake when facing off against a royally pissed-off Mandalorian, and the return of life to his apprentice’s body under the tiring hands of Ahsoka Tano. If this failed, then he would have failed the Mother’s mission, would have failed in his destiny and the path he had devoted himself to, once the Order had forsaken him. “Your attachment is blinding you to what is at stake, Sabine,” He tried to rationalize as her foot caught the meat of his leg, numbing him from stepping out of the way of her next swing.

It was only with the force that he was able to stop the blade from ending his life, her face was contorted in exertion and rage as she pressed back against him, both hands wrapped around her hilt, metal almost warping in her hands, spittle flying from her lips as her teeth gritted together in her blind rage. “I see clearer now than I ever have, dis’ne.”

Sabine broke his hold on her, catching the swing of his saber heavily on her backplate as she crouched, moving into a roll to pass the return swing to wind up behind him.

Her blade was at his throat, his chin had raised in acceptance of his fate, however, a quick, rasping shout. “Stop.” Shin was on one knee, now, head bowed and arm clasped tightly around Ahsoka’s, allowing the Not-Jedi to help her up, both Shin and Ahsoka’s hands pressed firmly into the wound, using ripped cloth to halt the bleeding where Ahsoka was not able to maintain the force’s assistance.

Sabine stared at her Master and not-quite enemy, teeth bared, ready to go in for the kill, could see the pain that Ahsoka hid on her face, along with the force exhaustion weighing her down. “Don’t,” They called, using Ahsoka as support to rise on shaking legs. “He isn’t worth it,”

Shin stumbled when they rose, almost eating a face full of dirt. Both Sabine, Baylan, and Ahsoka watched as the half-dead wolf stalked forward, blood staining the neutral greys of their tunic, partially healed skin poking past the jagged edges of the fabric. There was anger in their eyes when they looked at Baylan, yes… But there was also an overwhelming sense of pity, and when they looked at Sabine, there was shame.

“Let him live with it,” Ahsoka had to catch them on their next step, their teeth grit sharply; Sabine could feel the phantom itch of the main in her own abdomen, felt it connect like lightning to the mark of Shin’s saber against her stomach. “Make him live with it, he doesn’t deserve your light,”

Sabine paused, then, staring at the blade of tortured crystal, and the pale skin of the man it sat so close to. She was angry… Baylan had hunted them, and then he’d nearly killed Shin, and he deserved…

Yellowed eyes looked away from the warped metal in her hands. Ahsoka’s face was one of recognition and pain, even if she was trying to mask it. “I’m not going anywhere, Sabine,” She called, even as she helped lower Shin down to the ground, the blonde too weak to rise again. “I’m right here,” The touch in their bond was tentative, like Ahsoka was scared to interact with the darkness that consumed Sabine in the moment.

There was darkness, so much darkness, yes… But there was light, too. The clouds overhead broke, allowing rays of warm sunlight to filter into the barren world below, and Sabine took a breath, deep and unobstructed. There was darkness, and there was light in the way Ahsoka and Shin stood by her, waiting, either in trepidation for what she may choose, or in patience, knowing she would make the right choice.

The blade deactivated slowly and Baylan’s shoulders sagged. “That… is a mistake,” He had the audacity to whisper, but not before Sabine was shoving him forward, away from her and into the dirt.

“We’ll see,” She rasped as she tossed the saber to the ground, not wanting to feel the anger and hate she’d fed into it resonating back into her, not wanting to face the kyber that had chosen Ezra and had placed its trust in her… “If there’s one thing I learned in the Rebellion, it’s that people like you always think you have the high ground, or some higher moral standing that makes you actions just… you think yourself blind to the consequences, but you won’t be… never again,” Her boots crunched in the dirt as she approached Shin, keeping the grey apprentice between her Master and herself as she knelt to take the blonde’s weight against her shoulders, allowing Ahsoka to opportunity to detain the man who had brought them all here.

“You’re going to live with it, and I hope you feel like a demagolka every day you have the misfortune of waking up and seeing what you’ve done,”

#whumptober2023 #no.17 #touch aversion #follow you into the dark #star wars #ahsoka #fanfiction #blood tw #injury tw #the dark side #sabine week 2023 #sabine wren #shin hati #wolfwren #baylan skoll #ahsoka tano #ahsoka series

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drowninghell · 2 years

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The turtles helping their SO with grieving a loved one.

Warnings : grief, alludes to death/loss

Things are tough at the minute folks, I just thought maybe a few of you could use a little angst prompt like this, I defiantly needed it :) a little bit of comfort in these scary times☺️

I’m sorry this isn’t even edited or in a decent format, it’s a bit of a mix match but I hope you enjoy it? A little bit of a vent ❤️

Leonardo

God his heart aches for you, you of all people , didn’t deserve this pain. He watched over the weeks and weeks of your grief , he took note of how little you smiled, or how that sparkle in your eye dulled.

Leonardo was always there, never straying too far unless on patrol or training. Loyal in every aspect of the word. Despite being the elder, more logical brother, he himself didn’t have any words to help your pain. Nothing of comfort, death was death, facing grief was nothing that could be glossed over with honeyed words and he knew that. He knew you knew that to. Instead he helped in his own way and was always around, taking care of you, making sure you where fed and warm.

He made sure to bring you to his meditation, which, in the state you where , gladly came. Listening to his instructions and sliding into a trance, losing the awareness of what was going on around. Searching your own mind, the pain and grief, what happened and what was going to happen.

When acceptance finally started to dawn and the gaping hole of grief began to set in, he was there, rocking you back and forth in his strong arms , a three digit hand wiping the tears from your flushed cheeks. Hushing you gently and whispering how brave you are and that he couldn’t be any prouder. The blue clad terrapin Stayed with you into the earlier hours until eventually you drifted off to sleep. He did that every night, any chance he could, strong and silent and always by your side.

Raphael

Contrary to popular belief, in this circumstance , the big bara himself takes all your pain, as he watched you fade away and struggle in your mourning, his heart yearned for you, he couldn’t imagine the pain, couldn’t even begin to think about.

After weeks of Iciness, compressed and bottled emotions. Of you pushing away anyone that cared enough to check up on you. Raphael noticed a hard edge began to come to your words, an irritancy that wasn’t a typical personality trait of yours. He seen the grief eating you alive from the inside and he could see the anger building behind your usually vibrant eyes. So so much anger.

“Get up.” He’d scold, to which you would throw him an exasperated look, he would be relentless in his effort to get you to the lair. Even going as far as throwing you over his shoulder, he knew what you needed and if he had to manhandle you , so be it.

Upon entering his gym, he slid on some specially made sparring pads, handing you the gloves. He made you train, ran you down to the bone, used every bit of jeering to expel the anger from you. until you where panting for breath and sweat beaded on your temple , until your shoulders ached and your arms trembled. Your

Resolve was crumbling after the explosion of anger in training, the punches into the mits growing weaker until suddenly the stopped.

A sob wracked your weakened body and in that minute, Raphael had you caged in his massive form, pulling you into his embrace and settling down on the chair. “Thats’ it , get it all outta ya’ “ he’d whisper.

Michelangelo

In all honestly, he struggles at first. He doesn’t understand how to approach the situation and is conflicted on how to help you. Mikey is so used to helping you through your bad days with a smile and a joke. He could cheer you up regardless but in this situation , he hated, absolutely hated how he couldn’t help you. That he couldn’t take the pain you where feeling and make you laugh through your tears as he always did. The concept of death is always strange for him to handle, in his life, only really experiencing such thing through his favourite tv character. Never this close to home.

He understood now, watching you go through this agony, how every character he’s ever admired had to go through grief to become the strong individual that they are.

Light bulb.

You where strewn haphazardly across mikey’s plastron, watching him sketch roughly on his little A3 pad , with a variation of colours, watching the flow of the pencil with tired puffy eyes. Absentmindedly snuggling further into his warmth , closing your eyes as you listened to him hum his favourite song of the month.

“ yn?”

“ hmm?” You hummed, not opening your eyes. Just listening to the melodic rumble of his voice.

“ you are like Batman you know.” The ray of light was dead serious, his voice strong and stern , brow bone knotted in frustration. Now, this piqued your interest. Lifting your head to look up into those baby blue eyes.

“ every badass has to go through character plot right?” He cracked a smile and in tat moment you where both baffled, shocked , concerned and endeared. Your eyes welling up again only now this time , you smiled, despite the tears pooling in your eyes. He was so individual in his own way and it was interesting to watch him figure out how to process death.

Donatello

Bless, this darling was reading everything, cross referencing words of psychologists and trauma experts. The purple clad terrapin, much like the other brothers, had never dealt with something so close to home as their so losing someone dear to them.

He researched treatments , ways to lessen your suffering. Made himself familiar with the five stages of grief and tried applying them to your current situation over the weeks. He thought he could deal with this logically but he was struggling.

Struggling watching you dwindle , slip further and further into yourself. The tech genius was worried, worried you might not recover from this. He couldn’t separate his logical brain from his emotional.

After another day of silence between you two don was getting stressed. You sat in his lap, rereading the same book you’ve read countless times as he busied on his computer. Your head tucked up under his chin, the blue light of his computer screen cast across your face. “ what can I do?” He whispered, la helpless Timbre to his tone, still clicking away on the laptop, eyes focused on the screen but halting the speed his fingers typed at.

Your lips quirked up a little. You caught on long ago what your darling boyfriend was doing, he couldn’t have gone more by the book if he tried bless him. “ just keep being you, please. That’s all I need.” She whispered back, pulling her head back to look up at him. Giving him a breathless little smile before giving his chin a little peck. “ that’s all I’ll ever need.”

@thelaundrybitch @leosgirl82 @turtle-babe83

#tmnt fanfiction #tmnt scenario #tmnt #teenage mutant ninja turtles #tmnt x reader #raphael tmnt #tmnt bayverse #bayverse tmnt #tmnt leo

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rascheln · 2 years

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(cw for grief/mourning, temporary character death) AU where steve leaves hawkins after s3 in search of his soulmate, feeling like something has been cut off from him, but he can’t put into words what it was. it’s like a hole has opened up i his chest ever since he saw billy die- someone he swears he didn’t even like, even if they slept around! but he can’t stay in that hellhole of a town anymore, so he packs up two bags, jumps in his car, bids good-bye to everyone and on his first stop out of town, he goes to a tattoo studio.

he doesn’t know what it is he wants, but he needs something on his skin as a reminder. that he made it out. that others didn’t. it’s not like he’s told everyone “i’m looking for the love of my life” when he drove off, but somehow the thought festers at the back of his mind. finally, he settles on a little black and white tiger head on the side of his rib cage near his heart, holding a red thread between its teeth. it makes him think of hawkins, but in a way that doesn’t hurt.

it makes him think of winning games with a team that still adored him even when he shed his popularity. of a boy who’d shove him around during practice spouting constant commentary on how to improve his play. of wandering gazes during showers. of a letterman jacket with a tiger, stretched over broad shoulders.

the tattoo, though? that shit hurts. he can feel the vibration of the needle on his bones, a sensation so novel it drags him out of whatever reverie he’s been in ever since starcourt. for a short moment of clarity he knows this will not bring billy back and the physical pain in its crescendo of white-hot, dizzying assault on his nerves matches the emotional ache. then he sinks under again, into a familiar haze of confusion and emptiness.

when he settles in his car, there’s a red string on his side that he’s asked the tattoo artist not to tie off. for a short while, it bleeds. there’s a paper with instructions on how to take care of it tucked into his sun visor. it sits next to a photo his eyes rigorously avoid. the one photo he owns of him and billy. proof, that this secretive, rough, beautiful thing between them happened.

every couple of months, sometimes sooner, he adds onto the thread running down his side. every time he falls out of bed after a one night stand and the first thought in his mind is “i’m still in love with billy hargrove. fuck.” every time he leaves a place, driven by the need to move, move, move.

the thread stays with him, just like the photo. it wanders down to his waist, then his hip, then down his thigh. sometimes he follows it with his finger right up to the point where it still sits unfinished.

and then one day, something happens. something so fundamentally terrible it splits the world open and turns it inside out. it rips and tears at the essence of reality and time and when steve opens his mouth to scream, there’s nothing.

there’s his bed in hawkins, sheets a distant, familiar sensation excavated from his memory. a warm body next to his. a brief moment of overwhelming, desperate affection.

when he wakes up, the world is whole and skewed at the same time. he’s in his shitty apartment and a call away from dustin yelling at him on the phone about El doing something “absolutely insane!!” and he barely hears it because the hole in his chest is gone.

it scares him more than anything in the world. because there’s hope.

#harringrove #harringrove txt #idk where i was going with this #but yeah something something El doing the equivalent of charging her batteries for years until she uses her powers #to literally change reality to remove the UD from accessing their universe #and in the process... well. i think you know lol

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scythe-daddyy · 2 months

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Recently I've been missing writing a lot but haven't been feeling very inspired by anything. My autistic burnout makes it hard to do literally anything at the end of the day and my weekends are usually devoted to recovering. It makes me kinda sad sometimes bc I feel as though I have no hobbies to enjoy anymore but hopefully there will be time in the future for that to turn around.

In the meantime I did find this little drabble deep in the trash fire of my Google docs and fiddled with it a bit. It's not much but I was pretty happy with it. It's a short character study of Stein during an episode of his madness.

TW self harm, paranoid delusions, violence

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It comes on slowly at first, like a tickle in the throat that steadily intensifies, grows into a cough, a sickness. Nagging. Persistent.

Stein feels it first in the back of his skull. An itch, buried deep in the occipital lobe. It’s...distracting, but nothing that can’t be pushed aside. Ignored.

But much like a wound: when ignored it festers. Grows. Rots the surrounding flesh. Eats away at the rest until it’s poisoned the body with infection. Septic.

So the itch grows, spreads like cancer. Slithers its way down the spinal cord and settles in the nerve endings. And Stein can no longer ignore it. Can feel the electricity thrumming under his skin -- deep under the epidermis, the connective tissue, the muscle -- feels the static that has replaced his bone marrow. His body hums, like the fluorescent lights that glare over his operating table, like the computer screen he can't look away from, and the madness hooks into him like a parasite.

Click. Click. Click.

Next, he gets restless.

The static becomes audible. Gets louder. The feeling of it isn’t gone – in fact, it might be worse. But the crescendo of white noise drowns out everything else, and for a while Stein forgets the deep-seated itch under his skin in favor of the roaring nothingness stuffed like cotton in his ears.

And then he breaks. Comes apart at the seams -- even quite literally, sometimes. Tears himself apart to keep himself from tearing others apart. Peels back his own skin in a final manic, desperate attempt to rip the shadows out of his body, to rip out his own soul from his rib cage. Someone laughs.

He turns on the radio but it plays nothing. Just adds to the static. He tries to drown out the voices, but they lurk in the frequencies. Conspiring whispers so quick he thinks he misses them, but he knows they're there. What they say he can't be sure, so he turns the volume up to a roaring squall and he listens. He knows they're there and he won't let them get him.

Stein used to have a TV– used to watch it as a distraction, until the people on the screen started talking to him. Their faces would warp with sharp smiles, telling him to do things he thinks he shouldn’t. The voices would echo and blend into one loud accumulation of all of them, something of its own kind of static. One day Stein finally set his fist through the glass, shattering the screen to shut them up. It sits in one of the many empty rooms, alone, a reminder in the shadows.

He must keep himself whole, fights to hold himself together, keep the cracks from fracturing further. He drags the needle through his skin, pulling the thick black thread taut. He is precise, surgical, just like a doctor should be. If he can't rip the madness out then at least he can keep it inside, bound under crusted stitches. Controlled. As he sews himself back in place, he tries to think of the words an old partner once said to him, but those belong to the shadows now, too.

It’s almost like kintsugi, but that is an art devoted to beautiful things. Stein is not a beautiful thing. And that is not a thought rooted in insecurities, for Stein has never understood something so superficial as vanity. Madness is an ugly thing. Gruesome and bloody, devoid of morals. And because of what sleeps inside Stein’s bones -- because of what tears him apart, leaves his body a broken, visceral mess, he is no porcelain deserving to be fixed with gold. He is flesh, torn up and stitched back together.

#franken stein #soul eater #soul eater fanfiction #my writing #character study

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addicted-to-his-knife · 9 months

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WHAT THE REPO! CHARACTERS WOULD LISTEN TO.

Do you find yourself bored, looking for new music? Do you happen to like Repo! The Genetic Opera and have you ever wondered what music the characters would listen to? Here are my headcanons! I'm submitting them directly to "addicted-to-his-knife" since my blog doesn't have much reach, I have like 30 followers and I also think this blog is great ♡ Songs are taken from my own gothic rock-metal/darkwave/goth playlist.

Shilo Wallace: I have a feeling Shilo would really like Siouxsie And The Banshees, I can see some of her favorite songs being Sick Child, Happy House, The Lonely One, Spellbound or Cities in Dust. I think she would also like The Birthday Massacre, particularly Looking Glass, In The Dark, Shallow Grave, The Sky Will Turn and All Of Nothing. Shilo would also find solace in the lyrics of So Alone by Anna Blue, Illusion by VNV Nation, Isolated by Chiasm, Coma Baby by Nicole Dollanganger and Walking On Air by Kerli. After all the isolation and grief she's gone through, Shilo needs music that makes her feel understood.

Nathan Wallace: Nathan, as we all know, is going through it. I can see him listening to some Joy Division songs with lyrics he would find comforting, such as Disorder, Shadowplay, Dead Souls, New Dawn Fades and I Remember Nothing. Nathan would also enjoy some Depeche Mode songs, for example Enjoy The Silence, Ghosts Again, It's Called A Heart and Strangelove. Cuts You Up by Peter Murphy is another song he really likes. He will listen to Bauhaus as well, classics like Dark Entries, She's In Parties or Bela Lugosi's Dead. Anesthesia by Type O Negative or Spectre by Christian Death are songs Nathan would like as well. Overall, he needs music that helps him deal with the pain within his soul, torn between being a protective father who wants to keep his daughter safe at all costs, even if that means lying to her, and a bloodthirsty, macabre and violent Repo Man.

Graverobber: Graverobber listens to Rob Zombie, and he actually tries to imitate his style. Songs like Dragula, Superbeast, Feel So Numb, The Life And Times Of A Teenage Rock God and Dead City Radio And The New Gods Of Supertown are some of the tunes he listens to while he's partying with the Zydrate addicts. Graves also enjoys Light Asylum, with songs like Shallow Tears, Dark Allies or Knights And Weekends. Sometimes he listens to Absence by Ludovico Technique, Dig Up Her Bones by Misfits or The Wanderer by The Cemetary Girlz. Graves finds that music helps him relax as well as petting any rats he comes across. Other songs he also vibes to are Rats by Ghost, Drunk On Shadows by HIM, Entombed by Deftones and Grave Robber At Large by Creature Feature.

Blind Mag: When she's not blessing others with her beautiful voice, Mag listens to Within Temptation, songs like Forgiven, Stand My Ground, Angels, Somewhere, Our Farewell and The Swan Song are her favorites. She sings along to Phobic Sea by Autumn's Grey Solace, Procession by SRSQ and Bless The Child by Nightwish. Mag also enjoys Lebanon Hanover, particularly Midnight Creature, Saddest Smile, Gallowdance, Hollow Sky and The Last Thing. Mag is a sad soul, a caged bird who can't escape so she just sings. Music helps her feel a little more free.

Amber Sweet: Amber is definitely into Diva Destruction, she loves their aesthetic and their sound, especially their songs Tempter, Snake, Valley Of Scars, Cruelty Games, Enslaved, Screaming Inside and The Broken Ones. Hole is another band she likes, with songs such as Reasons To Be Beautiful, Doll Parts, Violet or Nobody's Daughter. Amber also enjoys The Raveonettes, their songs Love In A Trashcan, Kill or I Wanna Be Adored (a cover) are just a few examples. She likes the song Gothic Girl by The 69 Eyes as well. Amber is very girly but also very gothic and that tends to reflect in her music taste.

Pavi Largo: Pavi listens to Male Tears, with some of his favorite songs being Hit Me, Model Citizen, Trauma Club, Good In The Dark and Embrace Death. He also likes Drab Majesty, with songs such as Kissing The Ground, Forget Tomorrow, Too Soon To Tell or 39 By Design. Pavi likes The Cramps too, especially The Way I Walk, Human Fly and Goo Goo Muck. I also feel like Pavi would vibe to Barbie Girl by Aqua, his bisexual ass loves both Kens and Barbies. He also likes Lullaby by The Cure, Beast Of Blood by Malice Mizer and Dressed For Death by Fear Cult. And if it's possible in the Repo! universe he would definitely listen to Skinny Puppy as well lol.

Luigi Largo: Luigi has severe anger issues and I think his music taste would reflect that. Luigi listens to Korn, songs like Falling Away From Me, Coming Undone, Freak On A Leash or Make Me Bad. Luigi likes She Wants Revenge as well, especially their songs Tear You Apart, Written In Blood, Take The World and Red Flags And Long Nights. And he probably likes some Shayfer James songs too, like Villainous Thing, For The Departed and Where We Belong. He would also enjoy In The Dark You Die by Dark, Watch You Bleed by Haunt Me, and Samael by Ankst.

Rotti Largo: Rotti has lived a very privileged life, but he's dying and he thinks none of his kids are worthy heirs so I can see him turning to music for comfort. A song I think he would like is (Don't Fear) The Reaper by Blue Oyster Cult, since it would help him feel less afraid of death. As CEO of GeneCo, he probably has contacts and associates in other countries, since GeneCo would probably exist on a global scale, so I can see Rotti enjoying music in other languages as well. She Past Away would be another band he'd listen to, with songs like Ruh, Monoton, Kasvetli Kutlama or Ritüel, as well as liking Molchat Doma, for example their songs Kletka or Sudno. He would also like Crow Baby by The March Violets and Dead, Cold, Autumn by This Cold Night.

Thank you all for reading, feel free to make similar posts if you'd like, add more songs in the comments, or make playlists, if you enjoyed it maybe I'll submit some more in the future! Have a great night/day wherever you are ♡ Stay kind and spooky! The best season of the year is around the corner.

#submission

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christiansorrell · 5 months

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Play-By-Blog #10: The Isle by Luke Gearing

Welcome to my ongoing play-by-blog of The Isle by Luke Gearing! We are playing this adventure with its original system, The Vanilla Game (adjusted somewhat to fit the format). You can check out the Play-By-Blog Repository to get all caught up if you wish.

How Play-By-Blog works:

I write up the situation, NPCs, and more, just like a DM.

You vote in the poll to help decide the character's course of action.

I roll the dice, resolve actions, and write them up next week.

So on and so forth for the rest of the adventure!

Notation:

[Text in brackets is out-of-character/GM text!] "Non-italicized quotes denote text from the original adventure!" "Italicized quotations denotes NPC dialogue."

Our character: Medon Girou - Magic Cutpurse

Our map: The Isle

[You can use the links above to find Medon's Character Sheet and map of the Isle. On the map, you are currently at 3.]

Now, back to the adventure!

[Our most one-sided poll yet! It turns out when you give most people the option of going down into a mysterious hole, even if it may not be the safest/smartest option, they just can't help themselves! I'm excited to see how this goes! Onward!]

You look back down the stone shaft. After that fight with the fisherman monk, the idea of the monastery weighs on you. There are many more men in there. Men are unpredictable. Even if they lived up to their supposedly godly nature and granted you access or even a place to rest between now and the return of the ship from the mainland, they'd undoubtedly have questions. They could find the body in the cove. They could find the disturbed graves. No, best to check for other ways first before you breach that place.

You securely anchor the grappling hook and silk rope, lowering it down into the shaft. The birds continue to caw and flap their wings at you from the nearby edges of the stone formation. You take one last look across the Isle and descend down into the shaft.

The tunnel itself is rough on the edges, angled and wide enough to climb without the rope but it would be a considerable, possibly dangerous effect. You are happy to have found that odd grave. Thankful to the woman who planned better than you before she came to this place.

The further you descend the more the darkness surrounds you and the less the sunlight from far above is able to reach you. All around you, the rock thrums with the constant crashing of the waves. You are deep within the isle now, and its heart beats all around you.

You're feet touch down on flat ground and you let go of the rope. You turn and have to crouch, looking out from under what appears to be a mantle, soot at your feet. You are in a fireplace, unused for years— maybe centuries. What little light is left here spills out across the room.

Leeches cling to 5 [2d6 roll: 5] skeletons, their bones a strange blackish blue are stained in swirling patterns and writhing with leeches that glisten in the little light. Beards still hang from their skulls. Several spears and swords rest among them. They writhe slowly in place.

At their center, you see another skeleton. A shock of white, nearly glowing hair hanging from its head. Leeches crawl inside its rib cage. A slew of golden rings hang from its bony fingers, rattling as its slowly moves. As its mouth opens, the squealing of the leeches—all of them—form a single voice.

"Well, now... I was not expecting you, but I am not one to turn away guests of any kind, be they invited or not. Come, rest here after your descent."

The few leeches in the center of the room crawl back in the skeletons direction, as if clearing space for you to sit.

"I am Fionn Ó Ceannaigh, and I am the rightful ruler of a land far from here. You need not fear me. You are free to leave, of course. Out there." He gestures towards the shadow of a doorway across the room. Beyond its frame is nothing but pitch black darkness. "But that is my fireplace and my chimney. If you wish to use it again, let us make a deal. I believe we may work together, if you would be so kind. But first, tell me of your troubles. Tell me why you are here."

You take a deep breathe and wonder if the monks really could have been any worse.

[EDIT: The second to last option in this poll should read "Cast Teleport (19/20 chance of success) and flee back to the surface." Sorry for the typo!]

[We are really in it now! From the relative calm of the Isle's surface to the hidden horrors deep below ground. I'm excited to see what y'all choose and how it all starts to play out next week.]

[As always, if you'd like to see Medon do something that is not listed as part of the poll, please reblog or leave a comment with your idea. If enough folks feel the same way, they will be considered similarly to the poll options. If there's a glaring oversight on my part too, I'll be sure to address that. - Christian]

EDIT: Play-By-Blog #11 is live now!

#meatcastle pbb #ttrpg #indie ttrpg #ttrpgs #rpg #luke gearing #play by blog #play by post #the isle #fantasy #polls #choose your own adventure

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tricksheart · 1 year

Text

Akira tries to guess who voted on the poll ( still on going ).

"Hmm. For the first one I'd say either Sumire ( @etherbonded )or Giorno ( @praeteritus-memories ) ".

"Second, I think that option might had been Sonia ( @more-than-a-princess )".

"Play video games probably is either Futaba or that gamer villain ( @godofvillains )".

"Fight demons may had been either Yu-senpai ( @cantillat ) or Kotone-senpai ( @kemikorosu )".

"Fight Bioweapons ( Resident Evil ) is definitely Borna ( @n-galmurrr ). That makes the most sense".

"Don't know who really picked hold hands but I am guessing Beel chose 'Have Akira cook for him' ( @xamassed )".

( anyone else feel free to tell him your choice if you wish or correct him on his assumption in the comments ).

#long post: tw #[ just a cage of bones; there's nothing inside. IN CHARACTER ]#large image: tw

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infinityactual · 1 year

Text

A snippet of my AI Lasky AU. CW for mild and brief description of a fatal head wound and major character death mention.

Also @poisonheadcrabsalesman if you're so inclined.

Replay.

He kept expecting a reaction. Something involuntary...a flinch, a cringe, a wave of nausea, the urge to look away, cover his ears...

Replay, for the eleventh time. Still nothing. He raised his arm, or rather his visualization of a limb that no longer existed, then paused and let it drop back to his side as he simply thought about sifting through the data, and the file complied. Frame by frame, he watched the coming and going of his death. What could only be described as a flake of orange light, bright like a spark, sliced across the frame. For a Spartan, being touched by a single Light Rifle round was an annoyance at best, but the soft, fatty meat and fragile living mineral of his own head offered minimal resistance.

The round pierced his skull between his right eyebrow and temple, and he found himself morbidly mesmerized and intrigued at how different yet similar it was to a physical bullet when it came to damage. Skin and bone deformed as the transmission of kinetic energy pushed the tissue out and back, creating a barely-visible bright red mist.

Human reaction time was slow compared to most other things in the universe at large. There were already bits of grey and white matter spattering John's breastplate and his head had jerked back by the time his eyes went wide with the realization that he'd been hurt.

He watched as his limbs went slack, but not quite. One arm made a lackluster attempt to reach up and press a hand to what he had not yet realized was a mortal wound. Ah, an arm had wrapped around his chest, keeping his mortal coil upright long enough for John to put himself between his wounded CO and the direction the shot had issued from, before picking him up, cradling him to his armored chest and almost scurrying back up the ramp and into the Pelican they'd walked off of just minutes earlier.

The viewpoint switched. John had him laid on his back inside the Pelican, and for several moments, he could only see himself squirm with ominously uncoordinated movements. John shifted, pulling him up so that his torso was laying against the Spartan's thighs. For a brief moment, only a handful of frames, he could see that he didn't look too bad from this angle. Then Sarah rushed into frame, very nearly dragging a medic bodily behind her.

The next one hundred and twenty-eight seconds showed Sarah pacing like a caged animal while the medic knelt in front of his consciousness's former residence. His limbs had stopped struggling shortly after the medic had started her work on him, and now Sarah stopped pacing. The camera shook, whether from turbulence or a near miss while the Pelican was en route to Infinity, he didn't know. Six seconds later, the medic's shoulders rose and fell in a hard sigh before she looked at Sarah and spoke. Sarah didn't respond immediately. Then she turned her back to the scene and pressed a hand to her mouth.

He'd always replayed at this point. The remainder of the footage showed the frankly eventless ride back to Infinity, and he'd written it off as unimportant; but this time, a datum caught on the tendrils of his now-synthetic mind. He refocused himself on the big man holding him, and the woman now braced against the Pelican's bulkhead.

John's head tipped back, and stayed there for several moments, before slowly lolling forward so that the chin of his helmet rested on the collar of his breastplate. Sarah had a hand pressed to her eyes, and he could see that rather than her usual angry mask, her face was twisted into a grimace he recognized as a soundless sob.

Something bloomed in his matrix, like a bright light made diffuse by smoke or fog. He furrowed the brow on his visualization as he tried to place this new sensation. A few milliseconds later, he realized it wasn't entirely new, just an old sensation experienced through a different lens. Seeing the two people he loved the most expressing their grief seemed to tug at what he could only call his soul, and he followed that sensation deeper. Over the course of a few minutes, but what felt like hours to his new perception of time, Thomas reacquainted himself with his emotions. They were both familiar and strange, like ancient greyscale photographs retouched and colorized.

Same old shit, but to the left.

So, just another day aboard the Infinity.

#halo fanfic #microfic #angst #ai au #ai lasky #snippet

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squigglywindy · 2 years

Text

Whumptober Day Two

Title: Nowhere to run

Prompts Used: Caged (and maybe Confrontation if you squint)

Warnings: Major character death. Blood. Emotions. Guilt-ish. Someone dissociates a lil

Whumpee(s): Basically everyone, but mostly Twilight, Warriors and Four

Whumpometer for those hesitant to read these bad boys, as some are Very Bad and some barely qualify as whump: 8/10 for Emotional Turmoil. 8/10 for Physical Distress

General Notes: So uh...yeah. MCD happens off-screen, but it definitely happens. Please feel free to skip if that's not your cup of tea, it's okay <3. Can also message me if you want a more spoiler-y warning. This is not particularly graphic or anything, just uh...yeah.

Wolfie smooshed his nose against the bars and growled. At the strange hooded man to let him out, and at the situation in general for having the audacity to happen in the first place.

He had never thought to be careful of wildlife traps. Had never bothered to look down very much as he ran. It had never crossed his mind, until the cold metal of the trap bit into his leg and scraped across his bone, that maybe people hunted wolves for sport. Or bears, or deer, or whatever the thing had been meant for.

When the stranger showed up, it definitely felt as if it had been meant for him. The stranger who had a tranquilizer dart, and rope, and an entire cage ready to go, as if he had set out to catch a wolf.

He considered shifting back, but only briefly. That would only make the cage more cramped, and the trap around his leg would probably hurt worse. He’d have thumbs to take it off with, but then the stranger would see. Discomfort was not reason enough to expose himself.

“You’re gonna make a pretty rug, pup,” the stranger smiled, crouching down so that he was eye-level with the wolf

Wolfie snarled, more than a little disappointed when the man barely flinched. He was sure he was scary; he’d had enough people react with fear. But things were different, inside a cage. He wasn’t very threatening behind bars.

He was out of options. Nobody knew where he was; he had gone to ‘get firewood’, and it was his own fault for going on a little joy-sprint through the woods. They would miss him, eventually, but that didn’t mean they’d find him in time. He needed a new plan.

The pain in his leg prompted the whine to escape before he’d truly settled on a plan; and by that point, it was too late to back out. The stranger already knew he was pathetic. Might as well roll with it.

The stranger turned to glare at him when he whined, and Wolfie swallowed his pride, hung his head, and looked up with the very best puppy-eyes he could manage. It wasn’t as hard as he wished it would be. Caged, hurt, and alone, it was all-too-easy to look like a pitiful little puppy.

“That ain’t gonna work on me, pup,” the stranger sighed, drawing the sword from his back. “Look, it’s nothing personal. Wolves are a plague, and I work on commission. I’ll make it quick.”

***

“He should be back,” Wild’s tone wasn’t worried, exactly, but it was definitely apprehensive. Twilight was famous for taking longer than strictly necessary when gathering firewood, but it had been too long; even by his standards.

“I’m sure he’s fine,” Legend waved him off dismissively and tossed their last stick onto the dying fire. “Probably just wanted a break from us. I should’ve gone with him.”

“How would it be a break if you were together?” Warriors rolled his eyes playfully and shook out his bedroll, claiming one of the coveted spots near the fire.

“I’ll go check on him,” Four huffed and jumped off of the stump he was using as a chair.

Warriors heaved a long-suffering sigh and grabbed his sword, slinging it over his shoulder. “Safety in numbers and all that; let’s go.”

They were barely a few strides away from the clearing they had set up camp in when the low howl of a wolf filled the air, and Four froze. “Wolfie?” Warriors mused curiously, turning a slow circle before giving a shrug. He started to head back off in the direction they’d last seen Twilight, but Four grabbed onto his sleeve and ran.

Warriors almost fell from the sudden jerk of it all, but he managed to right himself and follow along, as confused as he was. Wolfie came and went at will, and hearing him in proximity to camp really wasn’t that big of a deal. But Four seemed scared; and it was a strange look on him, so Warriors played along.

When the howl abruptly cut off, the smithy doubled his pace and Warriors easily matched it, speeding through the trees until they finally came into view of what was going down.

Warriors’ heart clenched, sending absolutely frigid blood through his body and freezing him on the spot. There was a man standing, wiping his sword off with a scrap of cloth, and beside him was a cage. A cage filled with a limp, unreactive Wolfie.

Warriors’ eyes flicked from the man’s sword to the blood on the ground, following the trail to Wolfie. The pieces clicked together too quickly, and he went rigid. “Wolfie?” He croaked.

The stranger had the decency to look abashed. He paled and his eyes widened as he slid his sword back into place. “...Was that your dog?” He asked, voice shamed and a little guilty and nothing like the monster Warriors already knew him to be.

He hadn’t worked out a reaction. Part of him wanted to light into the man and serve him his just desserts, and another wanted to run and check on Wolfie. Yet another remained frozen to the spot, unable to truly process what in the world he had just stumbled across.

Four did not appear to be having any such problem. He took exactly half a second to take in the scene before his mind was made up, and his sword was off his back and pointed directly at the stranger’s throat. “What did you do,” he growled lowly, voice so distinctly un-Four-like and scary that it jarred Warriors back into motion.

He surged forward and grabbed Four’s sword arm, effectively halting him before he could disembowel the stranger. The stranger had it coming, really, but as much as Warriors wanted to join in and take him out, he couldn’t. He was just a guy; hunting who he thought was just a wolf. “Get lost,” he growled at the stranger, and no level of desire for a wolf pelt could make the man stick around after that. It wasn’t worth getting stabbed over.

Once he was a safe distance away, Warriors released Four and the smithy promptly dropped his sword and ran to the cage. He fumbled with the lock for a second, but when it didn’t immediately come loose, he shoved his hands between the bars instead. They raked through Wolfie’s fur, grabbing at various body parts in search of a pulse, turning red from the blood slowly covering Wolfie’s chest.

It was a gruesome sight; and when Four choked on an uncharacteristic devastated sob, Warriors was finally spurred into action. He ripped his eyes away from the mangled mess of his old wolf friend, and turned them instead to the living mess of his brother. He was a little out of his depth; Four was never the first to fall apart, or even to fall apart at all. He was always composed, collected, and generally one to do damage control after events that left others rattled. Warriors had absolutely no idea how to return that favor.

“Hey, it’s okay,” Warriors knelt behind him, putting a hand on his shoulder and wincing when it didn’t seem to help. Four pulled his hands out of the cage, mindless of the blood as he pressed one to his mouth and used the other to grab onto Warriors’ arm as he stared, breaths coming in rapid little pants that couldn’t be doing anything other than making him lightheaded.

“Okay, it’s okay, c’mere, just...breathe for a second,” Warriors tugged him to his chest, wrapping his arms around the smaller Link as he directed his eyes anywhere but at the cage full of Wolfie. “It’s just a wolf.” His words weren’t directed at Four, exactly, and he wouldn’t have said them if he’d thought about anybody else actually hearing. He was mostly trying to convince himself to keep it together. To stay strong and put-together for Four’s sake, because as much as they all loved Wolfie, he was a wolf. And maybe if he convinced himself of that, the burning in his eyes would go away and the tightness in his chest would wither and disappear. It was a wolf; and he’d repeat it as many times as he had to until it stopped feeling like he’d, somehow, lost one of his brothers.

Four went absolutely rigid at his words, making Warriors regret saying them no matter how much they almost helped. “I didn’t mean it like that,” he hummed, not really sure what he did mean it like, but he knew now that it had sounded bad. It wasn’t ‘just a wolf’. He was Wolfie, their friend; the faithful companion that showed up in times of need no matter where or when they were.

Four sucked in a ragged breath, releasing it as a heartbroken sob and pulling away from Warriors so he could twist around and look at him. His large eyes were wider than ever, far past overflowed with tears, and his lip was tucked between his teeth, already gnawed all to pieces. “Wars,” he croaked, hands curling into the front of Wars’ tunic, seeking contact in a way he was infamous for not doing. “That’s Twi.”

Warriors’ entire world almost crashed and burned, but it halted before it could hit rock bottom; thrown completely off the rails by utter confusion. “...What?” He asked, backtracking from his initial gut reaction that of course Four was telling the truth, and settling instead into how could Four be telling the truth? Wolfie was Wolfie. And the fact that he’d never seen him and Twilight at the same time meant nothing.

“Twilight is Wolfie,” Four repeated, words unsteady but clear. “He can turn into a wolf.”

The feeling that slammed into Warriors hit him like a horse at full speed, dragging him under its feet and hitting him with a new gut-punch with every second that passed. Twilight was Wolfie. Wolfie was dead. Twilight hadn’t bothered to tell all of them because he didn’t trust them and now he was dead. “How do you know?” He demanded. It felt impossible to speak past the boulder-sized lump that had lodged itself in his throat, but he forcefully shoved the words out anyway. He had to know the answer; had to know if there was any way that Four was mistaken.

“Doesn’t matter,” Four sniffed, and the words felt so distinctly untrue, but Four didn’t give Warriors time to question him further. “We have to get him out,” he turned back to the cage, tugging on the lock with near manic determination. “He can’t...we can’t leave him...they put him in a cage. Why? He...he just...locked him up and stabbed him, it’s not...” his words weren’t really stringing together to make for a coherent question, but he turned to Warriors as if he expected an answer anyway.

The only thing Warriors had to offer was more questions, so he kept his mouth closed and drew his sword instead. It took a few slams from the hilt of his sword to the lock on the cage, but eventually, the metal broke away and Four was able to swing the door open.

Warriors didn’t know what to do but stare. Four crawled halfway into the cage to wrap his arms gently around Wolfie and drag him out, away from the cage and into a patch of grass where he sat down. He pried the trap off of Wolfie’s leg and tossed it aside, pulled Wolfie into his lap, hugged the limp wolf body, and cried. It was a normal reaction; healthy, even. Going through the motions of someone who had lost a brother and stumbled across the scene in the aftermath; and it made Warriors feel jealous in a way he didn’t want to.

His brain was speeding faster than it ever had in his life; and still, he couldn’t catch up. He was still reeling from Wolfie being dead; and then the ‘Wolfie is Twilight’ bomb was dropped and he hadn’t had time to process any of it.

He moved to sit beside Four anyway. He put one hand on the Smithy’s shoulder, a silent offer of support even though he had no idea what to do, and gently placed the other on Wolfie’s head. He drug a finger slowly across the marks on Wolfie’s forehead, taking in the familiar pattern and wondering why he had never really noticed it before. Why he’d let all of the pretty obvious signs fly right over his head. Why he’d never been close enough to his brother to learn of this secret until it was too late.

“I’m sorry,” he spoke softly, hand stroking down Wolfie’s head to the tip of his big pointy ear. He flicked his tongue out across his lips and tasted salt; the first indicating that he had, apparently, started crying at some point. He hadn’t realized; and even now that he did, he still didn’t feel much. He wished he would. Even heart-mangling grief could be followed by some form of catharsis. All he felt now was empty, and guilty. Guilty because he had presented himself in such a way that Twilight hadn’t told. Because Twilight had snuck off alone to be a wolf in peace, and in the absence of their treasured buddy system, he had been captured and caged and killed. Because if he’d spent one less second teasing Legend and one more searching for Twilight, they might have gotten there in time. “I’m so sorry,” he repeated, grasping Wolfie’s limp head between his hands and sliding the wolf’s eyes closed, trying to imagine a world where he was merely sleeping. Where he’d wake up, and yell ‘surprise!’, and admit to scaring them all just to have a little fun.

Four dropped his head against Warriors’ shoulder, and Warriors took the invitation and leaned into the support that he wasn’t sure if he was providing or receiving. Maybe it was both. Four sniffed, hiccuped, and wiped a sleeve across his eyes and nose; the very picture of someone who had officially stopped caring how pathetic they looked. “We’ve gotta tell the others,” he spoke, hoarse and broken and somehow still thinking of the important things. It hadn’t even crossed Warriors’ mind yet that they would eventually have to return to camp. Take Wolfie’s body, bury it properly, and explain to everyone that their beloved wolf had died. And Twilight wasn’t coming home.

He wondered how many of them knew. If Twilight had revealed himself to everyone except Warriors, and they would all look at the wolf the same way Four had. With the eyes of a heartbroken brother; and never, ever utter the words ‘it’s just a wolf’. “It can wait,” he decided. He couldn’t go back to camp right now. Look everyone in the eyes, and tell them. He would have to; he couldn’t pawn that burden off on Four. He would do it, but it could wait.

But they couldn’t wait forever. There was only so much time they could stay gone before the others began to worry, and with three of their party missing, it had apparently been decided that it would be best to stick together.

When the sound of their ‘locator whistle’ hit Warriors’ ears, he had no choice but to respond. Confirm his direction, and that he was alive. Four responded reflexively as well. It couldn’t have been lost on the others that Twilight did not.

When they finally showed up, it was chaos. Those who knew the truth was a smaller number than Warriors expected; but everyone was instantly devastated anyway. Because Wolfie had never been ‘just a Wolf’ to any of them.

And then those who knew were telling those who didn’t, and Wolfie was surrounded, and half of them were forming a mob to hunt down the man who had done this and the other half were holding them back. Those who weren’t crying were yelling, and it wasn’t long before everyone was doing both; all but Four, who hadn’t budged from his position on the ground with Wolfie clutched to his chest. His homicidal stint had come and gone long ago.

Warriors listened for a while. Sharp accusations from Legend about how they should have checked on him sooner. Desperate pleas from Hyrule as he tried to heal a broken wolf body that refused to mend. Broken sobs from Wild, curled up beside Four whispering desperate reassurances into ever-listening ears that could no longer hear him. Silent tears from Sky as he simultaneously physically restrained Legend from charging into the woods to find the stranger and tried to do damage control everywhere else all at once. A quiet ‘why didn’t he tell us?’ from Wind before he buried himself into Time’s side and refused to emerge and face the world, heartbroken sobs muffled against Time’s armor. And Time, staring at Wolfie with an expression Warriors couldn’t quite read.

It was a lot; too much, even, and Warriors bailed while the others were too preoccupied to notice. The guilt came back full-force at that; clawing at him and demanding to know why he couldn’t even be bothered to stick around. Why his own gnawing discomfort was more important than his brothers, left behind to mourn without him.

He returned to camp, enough of his senses remaining to know better than to wander off somewhere the others wouldn’t think to look when they noticed he was gone.

The fire had been killed before they left, so Warriors quickly built it back up before spreading out his bedroll and settling in to stare. First at the blood that coated his hands and tunic, mostly courtesy of Four who couldn’t seem to resist putting his little hands all over everything. Then at the fire, the trees, back to the fire. The world went on, somewhere outside the little bubble that had formed around him, but inside, it was mostly blank. He blocked out the images of Wolfie, the sounds of everyone else, the entire horrible fiasco. It was all just a distant humming as he sat, staring into the fire and stubbornly refusing to feel.

Time held no meaning; and while he knew some of it had passed, it could have been twelve seconds or twelve hours. The sun was setting by the time he felt a hand on his shoulder, so he knew it’d been awhile, but he couldn’t be bothered with caring. It wasn’t like he had anywhere to be.

“Hey,” Time’s voice was low and gentle, like he was speaking to a spooked horse. “How’re you doing?” It was a dumb question, no matter what way Warriors looked at it. On one hand, he was obviously doing terrible. On the other, everyone else was doing worse. Time should be worried about them. “You got rid of Wind,” he commented absently, noting the distinct lack of sailor attached to the old man.

“Sky has him,” Time shook his head, inclinding it back toward the woods. “Wild had a couple shovels; they’re digging a hole.”

‘Preparing a grave’ went unsaid, but it was all Warriors could hear. Fresh tears filled his eyes and he scrubbed them away, frustrated at his body insisting on acting as if he felt something without allowing him the courtesy of actually feeling it. “How’re you doing?” He asked, addressing Time without turning to look at him. That felt like it would take a lot of energy; more than he had. Anything beyond staring at the fire felt like far too much to tackle.

Time took a moment to answer, and silence said everything that he refused to. “Doesn’t matter.”

Warriors blinked, a tiny slice of motivation returning and giving him the willpower to turn toward Time and fix him with a disbelieving glare. “Of course it does you idiot. You and the rancher were close. Probably more than the rest of us.”

Time shrugged. “He loved all you boys, Captain. And he didn’t keep his secret because he didn’t trust you.”

Warriors stiffened at that, wondering what exactly he’d done to give himself away. “Then why did he do it?” He demanded, anger flaring in the empty void in his chest. Anger because he’d never know, now. He’d never know if Twilight would have told him eventually; or the rationale for choosing not to. “Why did he choose wandering off alone over telling us the truth!?” His voice was rising but cracked and ruined it, forcing him to trail off with a frustrated little growl.

Time shook his head. “I don’t know. But that was his choice, Captain. And you can’t blame yourself for the choices he chose to make.”

Warriors wanted to believe that. But. “What about making him feel like he couldn’t make a different one?”

Time sighed, picking up a stick from nearby and rolling it in his hands just to have something to keep them busy. “Do you honestly believe things would have gone differently if you had known?”

Warriors shrugged. He didn’t know for sure; but he was sure of one thing: “He wouldn’t fight us to let him go off alone all the time.”

“Maybe,” Time admitted. “But, some of us did know; and not all of us because he wanted us to. Knowing who Wolfie was would not have enabled you to stop what happened. He made a choice to go off alone, and we made the mistake of respecting that decision. We all did. You just happened to be the one who offered to go look for him. That’s a good thing, Captain. You did what you could.”

He was running out of arguments, even if Time’s words hadn’t done much for the gaping hole where his heart once beat. “I told Four he was ‘just a wolf’,” Warriors recounted, because that was his fault.

“And you thought he was,” Time tried to help, but it didn’t. Because even without knowing the truth, Wolfie had never been ‘just a wolf’. He was the one who showed up when someone stormed off into the woods, keeping them company and existing in silence until they were ready to face the others again. He was the one who laid with them when they couldn’t sleep, and laid on them when the world got to be a little too much. He was their collective emotional support wolf who was always there for them when they refused to let anybody else be. He knew all of their secrets; and Warriors couldn’t even find it in himself to be mad at him for keeping one of his own.

“Wolfie was as much our brother as Twilight was,” Warriors shook his head stubbornly, and he didn’t care that that didn’t really make sense to say after current revelations. Of course he was; they were the same person. But they had existed as separate for so long that it was impossible not to mourn them both. The brother he’d had for far too short a time; and the wolf he never appreciated until he was gone.

“Come on,” Time put a hand on his shoulder and squeezed before standing and offering him a hand. “The others need us. And you need to stop staring at that fire. It’s gonna be okay.”

Warriors nodded, even though he didn’t believe it; and Time’s voice betrayed that he didn’t either, really. But he was right. The others needed them, and their leader of damage control was gone. So Warriors shoved aside all the wretched things that were suddenly demanding to be felt, and stepped into the biggest shoes he knew he would never be able to fill. But he would try. For the brothers he still had, the brother he’d lost, and the Wolf who had always known him better than anyone else.

#Whumptober 2022 #No.2 #Linked Universe #LU Twilight #LU Wolfie #LU Warriors #LU Four #LU Time #The others are there but not really focused on much #Major character death #Death #Blood

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sexyinaratkindaway · 1 year

Text

On Fangs and Claws

Fandom: Batman

Pairing: Jonathan Crane/Edward Nygma

Tags: Jonathan Crane is Scarebeast, Murder, Blood and Gore, Cannibalism, Bait, Trans Edward Nygma, Vaginal Sex, Cunnilingus, Werewolves, knots, uhhhhhh, Dead Dove: Do Not Eat, Public Sex, no actual knotting happens

Summary: Written for the Anti Batman Alliance discord server 2022 Secret Santa gift exchange. Even a skilled hunter, turns out, sometimes needs the help of an appropriate bait.

For @constantron !! hiii babe

Ao3 Link: https://archiveofourown.org/works/43838865

Text under readmore!

Something crinkled behind him. Something cracked and snapped.

Edward was running.

He ran, and ran, and something was quick on his heels, growling, panting, the stench of fear wafting off of it. The empty streets did nothing to placate his hammering heart, caged in his chest.

It inched ever closer.

And then he was in a park.

The smell of wet greenery filled his nostrils, of damp earth and the last traces of seasons gone by, buried under soft leaves.

The streetlights—old affairs of wrought iron, straight from the 1890's—cast only a feeble light on the late autumn night, and Edward stumbled on his feet.

"Help," he choked out, voice quivering, “Help!”

Through unshed tears, Edward saw a person.

A man, alone, staring out at the empty pond.

Voice finally managed its way through Edward's throat.

The man jumped.

He was anonymous, unknown, a blue hoodie and a patchy beard and startled surprise in his eyes. Who knows what it was that he saw, chasing after Edward. He hitched on his feet, arms opening as if to let Edward in, some unheard blasphemy on his lips.

Edward grabbed his wrist and they ran together, figures gasping through the isles of light in the rainy night.

“What was that?” the man whispered, his voice so very small, like suddenly this big, burly man was nothing more than a scared child.

The snarling grew closer, warm air on Edward’s nape, his hand sweaty in the stranger’s.

They rounded a corner into a patch of trees, the air suddenly still around them.

No noises, no chittering, no growling. Just two people sharing breaths, pressed against the damp bark of a sleeping tree.

He grinned, and the stranger saw his tombstone between those lips, ivory white.

Edward looked up at him.

He was handsome, blue eyes, dark hair, some wrinkles added for character.

What a shame.

“Your funeral.”

Suddenly the air around them exploded, a whirlwind of sounds, of smells, fur and feathers, chittering of teeth and clicking of claws and the heavy stench of pheromones and toxins in the air, as Edward pounced off to the side, and the creature appeared from the shadows to assault the man, pawing him to the ground to tear into him.

This meal was a quick affair; in the span of maybe a minute and a half, the coppery, disgusting scents of blood and feces filled the night, mixing with leaves and rain and damp grass, and what before was a man, screeching and squirming, was now little more than a mess on the grass, chest ripped away, ribs cracked open like a jewel box to reveal shimmering, still pulsing insides, stringy. Most of the contents of the man’s chest were gone, down the fangs of the thing now staring straight at Edward.

His screech did nothing to the warm feeling in Edward’s belly, observing his partner work.

It was a thing, not a creature, not anymore and maybe never, fur brown-grey-black, shimmering under the moonlight with the oil-slick iridescence of raven’s wings, fangs brilliant white in the cloudy night, and then bloody maroon as they tore into flesh and bone, long snout—a long, jagged scar between nose and lip–and grey on its muzzle, notched ears twitching, eyes ember-blazing and a sickly, almost fluorescent yellow.

Along the perfect curve of its back, hunched over its meal as it was, sat a perfect row of bony protrusions, white tips breaching meat and muscle and fur to shine like terrible hooks built into too-large vertebrae, and at its sides, wings, inky, addictive black, two, four, six, some folded neatly on themselves, others wide open, easily fifteen feet primary to primary, or folded around the hunched figure as if to shield its meal from the world.

It looked hungry, still.

Its chest was pulsing faintly, more like bones covered by a thin film than a real body, shimmering orange and red from the inside, blood dripping down its furry chin and neck.

And yet, despite looking like the ghost of a coyote dragged out from the pet cemetery it was buried in, it looked livelier. Its fur was shinier, its eyes bright, ears perked up like a dog after a full meal.

Well…

It looked down at Edward, eyes like the orange moon, fangs bloody and bared under black lips. Made its way, slow, shambling almost, a far cry from the powerful thing chasing behind him before, to sit in front of him.

Even sat on its haunches, Edward had to tilt his head to look up at it.

It was terrifying. It was awesome. Edward wanted it all for himself.

He moved his hand, slow, not to spook the beast.

Then a paw, long and thin, came to rest on his shoulder. Claws dug into the fleece of his hoodie, dripping red down his arm. Before he knew it, a rough, wide tongue was licking his face, terrifying in its size.

Buried his fingers in the matted fur on its canine cheek. Then the other one, as well.

Uncaring of blood and stench, Edward got closer, he buried his face in the stiff fur on its powerful neck, the same way he did to the dogs at home after a long day.

The creature mollified under his fingertips, powerful muscles relaxing under blunt nails.

They stood still, for a moment, enjoying the warmth in the cold autumn air.

“Ugh,” was all he could say, raising his hands to keep the dog still, “Your breath smells like death.”

It chuffed something amused, brought another paw to Edward's shoulder.

The combined weight took him off balance, stumbling off his feet under the dizzying power of the beast. It licked his face again, and again, a rough sound from its throat, slobbering blood and spit all over Edward.

“What is it, puppy?” Edward murmured instead, a dreamy smile on his lips. His hands never left the warm fur, dragging long petting motions through it, as the beast nuzzled its way against the bare side of his neck. “Are you hungry, still?”

It should have been disgusting. It was disgusting. He was lying in a soft bed of mud and gore, a creature easily ten feet tall hunched over him, stenching of death and fear, terrible fangs and claws on him.

The only movement in the still autumn air was its tail, wagging slowly in big arcs.

“Alright, alright, you gluttonous thing.”

The beast’s tail wagged faster, it panted a damp line against his skin.

Edward laughed, tickled.

“Good boy,” he cooed, nuzzling into the damp fur, thumbing at the engorged cock, “good boy. Feels good, doesn’t it, Jon?”

A full body shudder shook the creature, fearsome and delighted, and, buried in its fur, warm like an animal and yet clammy and cool like a corpse, Edward could feel something long and hard and hot pressed against him, as big as his forearm.

He dropped his hand down to palm at it—fingers barely long enough to wrap around the thing—and enjoyed the shuddering warmth around him as the beast relaxed.

The beast—Jonathan—Scarecrow, whined, a beastly sound, hearing his name uttered with such reverent affection, burrowing deeper in the crook of Edward’s neck, flushed warm with sated hunger.

Edward’s hand didn’t relent, jerking up and down in long strokes.

“Did you enjoy yourself? Are you satisfied?” He murmured, lips pressed against a bloody, greying muzzle, “No. You want more. You always do.”

He loved these moments.

More than the gore, or perhaps in spite of it, more than regular sex in their regular bed, than being dizzy on each other.

Loved seeing this fearsome beast, power-bloody, hungry for fear and guts, bend willingly to him, his power, his authority, eat from the palm of his hands and not even think about biting.

Every word was a stroke, a low, whiny growl.

“But that’s okay, because I’m here to take care of you.”

Jonathan’s paws dug at Edward’s hoodie, just as his hand did something particularly clever around his cock, up and down in a twisting motion.

Bronze skin was suddenly uncovered to damp autumn air, and Jonathan nosed his way down, trying to reach the tantalising little strip of obliques-belly button-obliques.

Was it stupid? To expose his belly, so simply, so trusting, when another man lay there with the very contents of his own belly splattered on the ground, slowly growing frosty as hot blood cooled down in the cold air?

“Oh, you’re something else.”

But Edward was grinning at his partner’s exhuberance, and let go of his cock—savoured the offended whine that followed—to grab the soft hem of his hoodie and push it up.

He tucked it in the neckline, and immediately the beast was on him.

His tongue was so warm, breath hot and damp, leaving red trails down his skin, now crawling with goosebumps. Edward shuddered, holding on to his hair, fingers fisted in the spiky fur.

Jonathan did not rip his flesh to pieces. He did not bite down and rip away and drink in his blood.

Instead he nosed down his sternum, the soft line of his diaphragm, lapping at the Arabic etched in there, down down his belly to nip gently at his belly button.

Clawed fingers pulled at his waistband, pulling it down, down, uncovering soft skin and dark cotton. Edward reached down, frantic almost, to help his lover pull his underwear down, uncovering his cunt, warm and swollen.

It was almost immediate, the effect it had on Jonathan.

His cock jumped, darkened tip moistening, and he dove in nose first, licking red stripes around Edward’s thighs.

Powerful paws gripped at soft skin, pulling his legs apart to get access to the prize between them.

Jonathan sniffed it, damp nose a hair away from Edward’s cock, swollen and pink, before his tongue dove in lower, to lick broad stripes at his lips.

Under him, Edward quivered, suddenly keenly aware of how open a space they were in, and not caring enough to pull Jonathan away, fingers still knotted in dark fur.

Before long, Edward was reaching down, pawing at Jonathan’s muzzle. It took a moment, of carefully fingering between the gaps of his teeth, of pressing his black nose away and wrapping three fingers around a sharp fang, to pull him away and upwards and savour that tongue, still tasting of musky pleasure.

Jonathan ate from him, blissful and uncaring, tongue big and flat and rough burrowing deep inside Edward, delighting in the rising volume of his groans, his twitching legs unmoving in his powerful grasp.

His tongue went deep, moving in swift arcs, brushing coquettishly against Edward’s cock every now and again, a delightful whine punched out of his lungs each and every time.

“I should put a collar on you,” Edward mused, panting hard, in between trying to kiss a mouth that didn’t kiss the same way, “And a leash. So I don’t have to risk my fingers when I want to kiss you.”

He reached down again, to give some love to Jonathan’s poor, neglected cock. It was painfully hard under his fingertips, and he pumped it, once, twice, three times, the creature burying his long snout in the crook of his neck, and then, slowly, he started moving.

He spread his legs further, moved closer, fingering at the pointed tip, pushing it close to his dark bush until it buried itself inside.

Jonathan jerked into action, powerful haunches and thighs springing to bury his cock inside Edward to the hilt, a growl on his lips.

Edward choked out a noise that could have been a "Yes".

Not that Jonathan would have cared, lost in his rut.

He just kept pounding, uncaring of the writhing body in his claws, of its gasped, shivering pain.

He pounded through Edward’s whine, and his cunt clenching almost painfully around his cock, a pulsating upward motion that took him base to tip, and through his whimpery exhale as energy left his body, like a puppet loosely strung.

His grip on Jonathan’s fur wavered, but never let go, as Jonathan slowed down, thrusts getting deeper, breath getting shallower.

Edward blinked upwards quickly after, hands pulling at his underwear and pants to cover himself, dripping come and all.

Once, and twice, and he was gone, flooding inside Edward, and a little bit outside of him too.

If nothing else, he had had the good sense to pop his knot outside, before collapsing in a heap on his lover.

He gave one last pet on Jonathan’s nose, spent and lovely. One eye blinked open, blue and orange and remarkably human, quirked in Edward’s direction.

“Come on, Jonathan–you had your fun. Let’s go home.”

#knight's notebook #scriddler #scarecrow #riddler #jonathan crane #edward nygma

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