#I'm just so tired of going in his tag and being fucking triggered!

[hitoshisbf]

How would all you fucking self-shippers feel if I started tagging my shit in the Hitoshi tag.

Yeah, not good I bet.

So stop fucking tagging your OCxCanon is his tag. I'm sick of fucking seeing your shit OCs, thanks.

#I'm just so tired of going in his tag and being fucking triggered! #Learn to keep your shit out of canon tags! #Yeah I do block these blogs but the fact I have to see it for even a second sets me the fuck off and I WILL bitch. #Like this shit is so debilitating to my mental health and it's a lack of respect for other people with self inserts #Some of us don't just self-ship for fun and do it to save our fucking lives #Some people NEED their self-ship to help with trauma of all varying levels #It's so distressing I can't even go in his tag to see cute art without ya'll slamming your fucking shit OCs in there IDC if that's mean #cause now I'm sitting here having an anxiety attack over the fact I saw your selfship in his fucking tag #absolute bullshit that there's no respect for people in the self-shipping community even by other self-shippers

[alexawynters]

Scarlet Whispers - pt 2

Gif not mine

A/N: Not sure about the formatting, copy and paste didn't quite work out as planned. Title subject to change, not sure how I feel about it. This is my first published fic here so pls be gentle. Also I'm terrible at summaries.

Pairing: Wanda Maximoff x Female!Reader

Trigger warnings (let me know if I forgot to tag anything): Mentions of past child abuse, ongoing adult child abuse, stalking, horror, dubcon, kidnapping, stockholm syndrome, gaslighting, angst, smut. There will be bits of fluff tho.

Rating: M. Minors DNI

Master list here

You miss your stop.

Not only do you miss your stop, but you end up all the way at the bus depot before the driver notices you passed out in one of the seats. The driver, a kindly older gentleman, offers to give you a lift home since it is the end of his shift anyway. He takes pity on you, perhaps due to your tired and sad appearance. Interestingly, no one seems to notice the red wisps behind his eyes.

You appreciate his kindness, but you are anxious about returning home. A quick look at your phone reveals that it is well past 6 PM and you have missed multiple calls and texts from both of your parents. This is not going to end well. In simple terms, you are fucked. Fortunately, the man doesn't seem to notice your restlessness as your leg bounces nervously as he gets closer to your home.

As you exit the vehicle, you politely thank him and offer to pay for the gas, but the man refuses. His accent changes slightly as he says, "anything to help." You shrug it off, as it is not your concern where people are from. Your focus is on more pressing matters. After closing the door, you square your shoulders and mentally prepare for the absolute shit show awaiting you as soon as you step through the front door.

It shouldn’t surprise you that your father’s booming voice is the first to be heard. “Where were you?”

You start with the truth. “Dad I’m sorry, I was on the bus after my exam, I fell asleep with my headphones-”

”I don’t want your excuses! While you live here under our roof, you will show us some respect, you will follow our rules! You had chores to do today, why didn’t you do them?”

A bead of sweat trails down the back of your neck. You hate being interrupted, and you hate being asked questions when they clearly don’t want the answers. Besides, you are in your twenties, not a child. “As I was saying, I-”

This time your mother interrupts. “Don’t speak to your father like that. He asked you a question, we expect you to answer it!.”

You grit your teeth. “I fell asleep on the bus, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to-”

“Always with the excuses this one.” Your father laments. “Do you think your future employer is going to care about any of that? No. He’s just going to want to know why you weren’t there.”

It takes every ounce of your sanity to not snap that your answer is the reason WHY you weren’t there, and not simply an excuse. Instead you hold your tongue. They aren’t here to listen, they don’t care. They just want to yell at you, and for you to be sorry.

“I tell you, with behavior like that it’s any wonder at all you’d even be able to keep a job. They would probably fire you on the spot, and then you would be right back on our doorstep, our problem once again to pick up the pieces.”

It’s all hypothetical of course - you’ve never been late to any of your classes, but you have not yet had a job, you weren’t allowed to. You are sure you wouldn’t be late to it though if you were to treat it like your classes. You know you can’t tell your parents this however. Might as well bite the bullet and get it over with.

“Yes Dad, I’m sorry.”

“Sorry? Saying sorry simply doesn't cut it! Sorry doesn’t fix the problem that you caused, so tell me, how are you going to make the problem right?” he demands. A vein throbs in his forehead. Absently you think about how he knows he should watch his blood pressure, but that would require him to watch his temper. Y/D/N could never.

You know what he is looking for, he wants you to do your chores now, but it’s after 8PM and your exam is at 8AM. If you do your chores now, that leaves you little time for last minute studying, eating, bathing, sleeping, and then catching the bus back to the university. Helplessly, you look to your mother for help.

“Don’t look at me, this is your mess you’ve created. If you had just done what you were supposed to, we wouldn’t be having this conversation. If you had just been good, you could be doing whatever it is you do with your free time right now.”

It had always annoyed you greatly that your parents were unaware of your academic achievements. While it's true that you didn't have the best grades as a child, once you entered university and chose a major, you became a straight-A student, even going so far as to make the President’s list the last three years in a row. However, in their eyes, you would always be the little underachiever they had to take care of.

Tears well up in your eyes. This situation wasn't fair. It was an accident. You had fully intended to come home and do your chores, but you couldn’t have known you would sleep through your alarm on the bus. You had been so incredibly exhausted that you experienced a vivid nightmare whilst awake. You were aware that you needed more sleep, but your degree was your only way out of this miserable place. You couldn't risk losing it all just because you missed a few hours of sleep now and then.

“Please?” You beg. You didn’t have anything else to argue in your defense. “I’ll leave my headphones in my bag this time, I’ll set multiple alarms, I won’t sleep, just please let me go study!”

Your parents look at each other, having silent communication. Seeming to come to an agreement, your mother speaks first. “Y/N we’re sorry it has to be this way, but you have already proven on multiple occasions that we can’t trust you to do the right thing. Tonight, you are going to do your chores even if it takes you all night to do it. Besides, we all know you’re not studying up there. For all we know you’re just up there masturbating in the window or something.”

Being stabbed in the chest would have been less painful. You don't understand why you're caught off guard; it's not like your mother hasn't said off the wall shit like this in the past. It's almost as if she thrives on finding the most hurtful and outrageous statements to throw in your face, as if you deserved them. As if you had ever done any of the things she accused you of. Like you were some sort of deviant, when all you wanted was simply the right to exist.

“What the actual fuck, Mom?!” you scream, having finally had enough. Both of your parents look taken aback. Rare is it for you to raise your voice at them, even more so to curse at them. “I know you’ve been pretty checked out of my life for a while now, but I’ve had a 4.0 GPA for the last three years. I don’t know where you got that… comment… from, but I can assure you that all I want to do is go to my room and study.”

“Now listen here young lady,” begins your father.

"No, YOU listen, Father," your voice dripping with sarcasm. “You were right about one thing, and that is I am a gods damned adult. I take my studies seriously, and while it may come as a surprise to you since neither of you have paid any actual attention to my life since I turned 18, though it could be argued you really stopped paying attention earlier except for when I was being an inconvenience, but I am actually a great student. This is my last semester before graduating with honors and again, a 4.0 GPA, and I will have my choice of job opportunities. I will leave this place, and you miserable old bats will have no one to be your punching bag anymore. Then maybe just maybe you can finally take a look at the flaws and fix what's wrong with your own marriage, instead of trying to break ME!”

Your chest heaved. It felt good to speak your truth, but as the silence grew, you began to realize that you might have made a mistake.

Your father has finally gotten out of his chair, looming over you. A resounding slap echoes across the room as your father backhanded you, knocking you to the floor. “You ungrateful, miserable little bitch! I don’t know what lies those ‘professors’ at the university have been filling your head with, but you have no future, and you are lucky your mother and I care enough to let you live under our roof! And so long as you do, you will obey our rules, and show us the respect we deserve!”

Fearful, you scramble back to the wall and attempt to push yourself to your feet. “If that’s the price of living here, then I will happily live in the University’s library. One week, that’s all I need!” You step forward to make your escape from this house, but this time your mother shoves you, and once again you find yourself on your knees.

You raise your hands in self-defense, but your mother sneers, "Do it, Y/N, hit me, and you'll be out on your ass faster than you can blink!" Crying, you lower your hands and prepare to allow her to strike you.

The lights went out all at once, and everyone froze. Has the power gone out? It couldn’t have, you could still hear the hum of the AC unit. So what was wrong with the lights?

The lights turn back on as suddenly as they had gone out, and all three of you look around in confusion. However, despite the lights returning, the room appears darker, creating an almost eerie atmosphere. The shadows cast a looming presence over all of you, sending a shiver up your spine. Your home, which you have lived in for around twenty ish years, suddenly feels foreboding, and you wonder if it's too late to flee. It almost resembles one of the nightmares you have been experiencing recently.

Red mist fills the room, a dreadfully sinister voice speaks. “I wouldn’t do that if I were you.”

All three of you turn to the source of the sound - the corner of the room, as a red and black leather-clad boot, attached to black leather pants, steps through a portal and into the room. The Scarlet Witch follows, radiating her full glory. She warns, "If you wish to keep your body parts intact, you will never lay a finger on Y/N ever again."

You’re pretty sure your eyebrows have never been closer to meeting your hairline before and yet here we are. You don’t know who this unfamiliar lady is, nor how she seems to know you but God damned if that outfit doesn’t look as if it has been painted onto her. You blush at your sinful thoughts. Now is not the time, and you’re pretty sure you’re having a stroke of some sort. If nothing else, however, you are grateful for the reprieve from your beating.

Meanwhile, your parents had never taken well to being told what to do, by anyone, they certainly weren’t going to now by this costumed stranger. Your mother bristles. “Who is this Y/N? Another one of your little whores?” Completely disregarding the fact that you have never in fact had a partner in your entire life, and you don’t know whether to be pleased that she seems to think you’re capable of having a sex life or affronted that she thinks you’re some type of floozy. Your mother’s words, not yours.

“What? No, I-” You look helplessly from the floor between your parents and this woman you now recognize as the one from your visions, and the same one from your hallucination this morning. Is she here to help, or to hurt you? She has been your savior and aggressor in both; there’s no telling which she has chosen for now. Glancing between them, you are unsure how to de-escalate this situation. There is no way to convince your parents, for their own safety, that this woman is powerful and not to be trifled with. Nothing you could say, they would believe, and you were pretty sure this woman would kill your parents without a second thought if they didn’t tread carefully.

Seeming to sense your struggle, the woman speaks up in your stead. “As I’ve said, you would do well to keep your hands to yourself. I am here to take Y/N with me, and you will not stand in my way. This is your only warning, which I am giving to you out of consideration for Y/N.”

She reaches down for your hand to help you back up. Hesitantly, you take it, ignoring the shock that runs throughout your body, and begin questioning your entire reality. Take you with her? Who even is she? Where exactly is she going to be taking you? You had questions, and you would like some answers, but if you didn’t get your parents to stand down, you were pretty sure she would follow through on her threat. Sure, your parents were trash, but they were all you had. You loved them, and you were certain that, in their own warped way, they loved you, too.

She helps you up and proceeds to give you a thorough once-over, carefully inspecting your injuries. Her intense scrutiny makes you blush. Meanwhile, your parents remain silent, their thinly veiled anger evident as they observe your interaction. How dare this woman speak to them in such a manner? Thankfully, they wisely choose to keep quiet. Perhaps they also sense the dangerous aura emanating from this woman, perceiving her as a true threat. Then again, it could be due to the fact that she just stepped through a literal portal conjured out of thin air moments ago. Maybe they had been paying attention, but even you are unsure of what is real anymore.

Still holding your hand, the Scarlet Witch leads you back towards the portal she arrived through. "Come, Y/N, we have much to discuss." At this point, all you could do was helplessly trail after, hoping you weren't going from bad to worse. At least by leaving, your parents would be out of danger. As for yourself, well... It was clear that the Scarlet Witch wanted something from you. Hopefully, whatever that was would be sufficient to ensure your survival. Perhaps even enough to negotiate with.

At the last possible moment, your mother chooses, whether out of genuine love and concern for your well-being, or fear at the loss of her control over you, to reach out to take you from this bizarre woman. “Mother, no!”

Y/M/N finds herself promptly flung onto the wall behind her, and stuck there, unable to move. You aren’t sure who exactly screamed but you’re pretty sure it was every member of your family. The Scarlet Witch hadn’t even turned to look, the only indication she had even been involved is the raised hand, opposite the one holding yours, with dark, ink-stained fingertips, bent at slightly odd angles.

“Stop, please! Let her go, she won’t do it again, please! I'm sorry, please!”

Unsure of why you are begging for this woman’s life when she has spent the entirety of yours making sure you were miserable. Still, your heart lurched at the thought of anything happening to your mother. You didn’t like her, and if you never saw her again, that was probably for the best, but you certainly didn’t want anything bad to happen to her.

The Witch took a deep breath, seemingly to calm herself, before turning to face you.

In the softest voice you had ever heard she whispers “Detka, I-.” She opens and closes her mouth a few times, deciding what to say. To your absolute mortification and delight, she leans down to place a gentle kiss on your forehead, and promises “I will let them live, but I must say my piece.”

You nod, completely dumbstruck at everything happening in this moment. What. The. Fuck.

Y/M/N, still pinned to the wall, whimpers and struggles to move but is clearly unable to. The Scarlet Witch turns from you to face your parents. Another wave of her hand, and your mother slumps to the floor, alarmed, but otherwise unharmed. It is clear whatever the witch did, both she and your father are now restrained.

Footsteps approach the pair, and the lights in the house flickered ominously. Despite your mother being nearly 40 years older than her (or so you assumed, as you had no idea of this woman's age), the power emanating from her exuded confident malevolence. She showed no fear towards them, and for once, although ashamed to admit it, you were glad to see that they were afraid of someone else.

Though she was only about 5'6", the woman knelt before your parents, her voice filled with menacing intent. "I know everything you have ever done, everything you ever could do, and everything you ever will do. I know what you are guilty of. I know what you deserve, and I can assure you that it is not mercy. I will spare your lives and leave you unharmed due to the kindness of your daughter, the daughter you’ve abused for decades." As her head tilts, you can't help but feel that she becomes even more dangerous. "But if you ever try to take her from me again, I will seek retribution on her behalf, and I promise you it will be the most excruciating agony you have ever experienced. Do we understand each other?"

You squirm uncomfortably. This should not be doing things to you, but then again, no one had ever stood up for you. Ever. Gods you needed therapy. It’s fine. Little boxes, and this was for a little box for later.

The witch stood up and once again took your hand, leading you through the portal and leaving your parents behind. Perhaps for good, you weren’t entirely sure, and you suddenly realized you didn’t care. Anywhere was better than here; even if this woman was dangerous, at least for the moment, she seemed to care about you, and that was enough for you to follow her to the ends of the earth.

Again, therapy…

The pair arrive at a massive stone temple, which you would later learn is called Mount Wundagore, the Scarlet Witch's temple. It is built into a massive, rugged mountain with steep cliffs, situated above dense forests and enveloped in mist. The mountain exudes an air of mystique and possesses an eerie atmosphere. Scattered across its walls are depictions of the woman in front of you, accompanied by various runes whose significance you suppose hint at a potentially supernatural importance.

The Scarlet Witch does not make much of an effort for introductions, nor explanations, simply heads towards the entrance to her temple.

“What is this place?” you ask, hints of awe and fear in your voice

“Our home.” 

Your brain stutters. “I’m sorry, what now?” 

“Detka, do not pretend you did not hear me, I don’t enjoy repeating myself. This is our home.” Her accent sounds vaguely Eastern European, and becomes more pronounced the more irritated she is. You wonder when she started trying to hide it.

Your mind balks at the idea of this being your new home, it couldn’t be less foreboding. “Uhhh… this.. is a giant stone temple in BFE nowhere, with ice, snow, and-”

Movement startles you out of your reverie. Beings made entirely out of stone shift from foot to foot, as if adjusting their stance. Their eyes have the same red glow as the woman who leads you now.  

 “Are those rock trolls??” The stone guardians loom threatening, but make no move to engage, they await their Queen’s orders. “Right. Rock trolls. Why is this our home? WHERE is our home? And,” you spin, taking the aesthetic of the temple in, trying not to have an anxiety attack. “What do you mean -our- home? Who are you, and what do you want with me?”

You can’t tell if the faint twitch of the other woman’s lips is in amusement or annoyance at your ramblings, but in your defense, she had let you speak uninterrupted. You were known for getting entire paragraphs out if left unsupervised - it was a talent and a curse. Personally you felt she should be grateful you weren’t jumping down her throat, you didn’t know anyone else who would be taking this half as calmly as you were. Then again, you were still waiting on your Hogwarts acceptance letter at 25. 

“My name is..” she hesitated. “Wanda. I am.. I was an Avenger.”

You looked on blankly, hoping she would elaborate. The fuck was an “Avenger”?

"In my universe," (you filed away the fact that she implied the existence of a multiverse for later, as it was a problem for another time) "the Avengers are superheroes. Well, that's what we called ourselves - Earth's Mightiest Heroes. A bit arrogant, if you ask me. We dealt with threats that the military and ordinary people couldn't handle. We were the last line of defense. We saved the world countless times, but at a great cost of lives. We were vain, thinking we were above it all because we believed we were acting for the greater good. But try explaining that to those who were lost as collateral damage.

I digress. We.. were considered to be heroes. There were several of us, we were a team. A family. We lived together, fought together. Died together. Until we didn’t.”

Wanda explains the dynamics of the Avengers team, including how she and her brother Pietro joined. She mentions Pietro's death in the battle against Ultron, as well as the events leading up to and the battle against Thanos. She also covers the events of the “Blip”, and what happened afterward. However, she conveniently chooses to omit the events of Westview, as she didn't want you to know about that just yet.

“That’s.. wow. Wanda, that's a lot. Honestly, if I hadn’t seen your powers myself, I wouldn’t believe you. But all of that still doesn’t explain why you’re here. You mentioned your universe as being so fantastical, why would you come here? And what do you want with me? If you’re a hero, why are you here in what totally looks like a villain’s lair and not with your other superhero buddies?” You neglect to mention the unease creeping up your spine.

This is fine. Everything is fine. Right? Right. 

A look of utter despair crosses the witches face as she locks eyes with you before glancing away.

“I mentioned my team before, but I didn’t mention you.”

“…” You slow blink. This was not how you thought your day was going to go, and honestly, you were already getting a bit of a headache. Could she be less cryptic because that would be great. More details, fewer questions. Maybe another nap.

"Y/N, where I am from, you were also an Avenger. You had joined the team before Pietro and I, and were one of the few who made us feel welcome. Despite the fact that we had previously been enemies, you didn't treat us as ticking time bombs. Instead, you welcomed us with open arms. Your go-to tactics were kindness and understanding, which made it hard not to want to get to know you. When Pietro died, you were the only one who checked on me and cared. You taught me that grief is just love persevering. You became my closest friend, and over time, I couldn't help when those feelings began growing into something more.”

You swallow uncomfortably. It sounds like Wanda is telling you that in this other universe you both were an item. It’s not that you wouldn’t be honored to be with such an attractive woman, but it feels weird knowing that that was a different version of you. Someone with superpowers, someone likely more confident by the sounds of it. This feels almost as if you are intruding on something you shouldn’t, yet Wanda is the one telling you this; if it weren’t okay for you to know, she surely wouldn’t be sharing. You don’t really know what to make of this; if she has feelings for this other you, why is she here with this version of you?

“In the battle against Thanos, we learned that the source of your powers was an infinity stone embedded in your skull courtesy of H.Y.D.R.A. experiments, which altered your genetic DNA. Thanos had also learned you possessed this Mind Stone and sought to take it from you by force.”

Anguish on her features, the witch turns to you. “You were going to die, Y/N. We tried, I tried, so hard to protect you, to keep you away from him but at every turn he found you. If he had gotten the Mind Stone, he would have been able to enact his plan to rid the universe of half of all life. You told me.” She hiccups.

“Y-you told me it was okay, that you forgive me. That I needed to.. that I needed to destroy the stone to save the universe. I didn’t want to. I would have given anything else but that. But you held my hand and told me you forgave me, that you only felt me. Then Thanos came, and we were out of time. I was the only one with the power to do it because its magic was so similar to my own. I placed my hand to your head and I-.” She is unable to continue, breaking off into sobs.

Oh. So she had to sacrifice you to save the universe. Well. You agree with the alternate you, you didn’t blame her, and you would definitely forgive her. Awkwardly you try to find some way to comfort her. While obviously you were not the same person she had loved and lost, and you knew from your own experiences with loss that sometimes words just couldn’t cut it. Instead, you shuffle forward, making sure you were heard in case she wanted to refuse you, and pullher  in for a hug.

Wanda tenses in your embrace, as if she can’t decide if she wants to sink into it or send you flying. “The worst part,” she continues, “was that it meant nothing.”

If you were a dog your head tilt might have been cute.

“In the end, Thanos was still able to get the Mind Stone, and you were still dead, by MY hand, and it all meant NOTHING!” Wanda wrenches herself from your grasp, looking positively unhinged. You probably should have been scared. You weren’t. Her wrath did… things… to you. Therapy…

“All because Strange saw supposedly every possible future and CHOSE to let you die to save everyone else. As if there was no other possible outcome!”

Oh, that... that makes more sense. The other you was still dead, and Wanda was definitely suffering from PTSD from her involvement in it. Her little stunt with your parents was probably her way of trying to save you or bring you back to life. But in your universe, there weren't any superheroes, magic, or Thanos to protect you from (that you were aware of at any rate). So what was Wanda doing? This wouldn't bring her version of you back to life. You may have looked and sounded alike, and you might have made similar decisions, but you simply weren't the same person. The lack of the same life experiences meant that you had different personalities, despite having a similar genetic build.

“So we saved the world, and I left to live in exile. After the funeral, Clint handed me your belongings, and in them was a letter. A deed to a plot of land you had purchased in our names where we were going to build a house. I think it was supposed to be a surprise after we defeated Thanos. We had never lost before, not since Pietro - I don’t think it occurred to us that we could. So I drove out to see and.. Y/N I was still so new to my powers. They were still mostly subconscious. I was grieving and... it would be easier if I show you. May I?”

“May you.. what?”

A subtle smile appears on the witches' face at your ignorance. You are tempted to mention how beautiful she looks with that smile. Shaking off the thought, you ponder if she can read your mind, as her smile becomes knowing and a slight blush colors her cheeks. Ink-stained fingers reach towards your temple, but she hesitates, waiting for your consent, and your heart fills with warmth. You nod once, despite not really understanding.

Her charcoal-colored fingers, cold to the touch, make contact with your temple. Just as you're about to complain about the lack of warning, you're abruptly transported into a completely different world, surpassing the immersive experience of any 3D movie you've ever seen. You not only hear and see everything in every direction, but you can also feel and smell it all. It feels as if you are truly present in that moment. It takes a few minutes for you to realize that you are witnessing someone else's memories, to be precise, Wanda's memories.

She starts her memory with the unexploded bomb created by Tony Stark, which sat in the middle of the rubble of the Maximoff residence. In that chaotic scene, there were two children, the twins, hiding in fear under a bed. However, before you could offer any comfort, the scene shifted. The twins had been taken to HYDRA, where they were subjected to brutal experiments. Witnessing their suffering broke your heart, and despite your best efforts, you were unable to interact with your surroundings, although you desperately tried. Repeatedly you threw yourself against the walls of the cells in which the twins were held, hoping to free them from their hellish situation. You observed the twins' powers first emergence: Pietro's as he attempted to reach his sister's side, and Wanda's as she tried to defend Pietro from the scientists.

Scene after scene, each one as traumatic, if not more so, than the last, depicting all the events from Ultron and beyond. And then there's you. Except, it's not really you. You've certainly never possessed the power of teleportation, nor have you ever been so self-assured. This must be Wanda's universe's version of you. With bright eyes and a warm demeanor, you appear as a beacon of light in Wanda's otherwise bleak life. You observe as the version of you in this universe warmly welcomes the twins to the team, a stark contrast as to how the rest of the team treats the newcomers ranging from suspicious to openly hostile.

It’s surreal, watching yourself from outside your own body, knowing this version isn’t really you, but still no less real of a person. Wanda’s memories begin focusing less on missions and more on interpersonal relationships. Specifically, the one developing between yourself and Wanda. It’s intimate and you feel like an intruder watching this unfold. Sadly, as you grow closer, Wanda loses the only other connection she has - Pietro is hit by stray bullets while saving children. A true hero, and there was nothing anyone on the team could do to prevent it. You watch in horror both for the loss of Pietro as a friend, as well as knowing the absolute devastation this will cause your beloved Witch.

You can tell at this point that that’s what she was to you. It hasn't been long, but that bond has clearly already been sealed; you can see the signs in both your alternate self and Wanda. You would have to be blind not to. The loss of her brother does terrible things to Wanda and it’s all your other self can do to try to keep her afloat. “What is grief but love persevering?”

The scene shifts again. Time has clearly passed, and Wanda appears to have healed to some extent. She and the team have become much more cohesive, which delights both versions of you. Your relationship has definitely progressed, if the blush currently gracing your face, extending to your ears, is any indication. You feel the remnants of the emotions from your alternate self. They are not yours, but neither are they entirely unfamiliar. It makes for a disconcerting sensation to say the least. You don’t know Wanda like that, even though this version of you does. You wish you could view these memories dispassionately, free from your alternate self’s emotions that are bleeding through, but you suspect that’s not possible. Once again you try to reassure yourself that you are not the same person, no matter the genetic makeup.

Jarring you from your reverie, next you find yourself in another battle, and this one is massive. There are more superheroes here than you have ever seen before, either in Wanda's memories or in films. This must be the fight against Thanos she had told you about. Dread settles in your stomach like a stone, and for a moment, you contemplate what it will be like to witness your own death.

Traumatizing, for sure, though not for the reasons you had expected. While you are unable to interact with your environment, you are able to freely move about. Instead of looking at the memory entirely from Wanda’s perspective, you move to stand beside yourself. Wanda stands before you, ethereal, magnificent, yet utterly devastated. She knows what she has to do and pleads with you not to make her. It is unjust for a woman so powerful to suffer such loss, and still you implore her to sacrifice your life, her happiness, for the sake of the rest of the universe. It is unfair. It is cruel. You know it, but you ask anyway.

She never could tell you “no.”

You know the moment this universe's version of you had died when you witness the sheer devastation on Wanda's face. Most people would probably look away, but you couldn't. For some unknown reason, you feel compelled to witness this moment in all its horrifying detail, if only to gain a true understanding of the witch and the immense pain she has endured. There were surely few things more intimate than allowing someone to share their own memories, and here Wanda was, granting you unrestricted access to hers. The least you could do was accept this gift she was offering, no matter how painful it might be.

The images that follow blur together, evoking your personal experiences with grief and a sense of detachment from the world. The funeral is somber, one and all everyone dressed in black and grey. Wanda is present only in body, and you can’t blame her. Clint, the archer, hands her your belongings, including the letter she had mentioned. It unnerves you how detached Wanda appears to be at this moment, despite being surrounded by friends and colleagues. You worry about what lies ahead for her. So much loss in such a short time, it didn’t take a psychiatrist to know this would surely take a toll on her. You prayed that her friends came to check on her, but you had a feeling either they didn’t, or in her grief, she refused them entry.

Colors blend into one another and fade out. You find yourself standing on a plot of land in a town called Eastview, crouching next to Wanda as she collapses to her knees. Her body is wracked with anguished sobs as she finally allows herself to grieve. You wish you could interact with this memory, to hold her and alleviate some of her pain, even if only for a moment. Instead, you sit with her, sharing in her pain as she releases it all into the world. Wanda allows herself to experience her grief in its entirety, no longer burying her feelings beneath a veneer of numbness. Colors leech from the world around her, turning it greyscale. You're pretty certain that even at their strongest, the average person's manifestation of grief isn't supposed to do that, but then again, the average person isn't the Scarlet Witch. Briefly, you wonder what consequences this will have on her world. Your head feels fuzzy, and as your vision fades to black, you suppose you are about to find out.

You regain consciousness and find yourself in a world entirely devoid of color. Disoriented, you blink as the details of your surroundings slowly come into focus. In front of you stands... well... yourself. Or rather, an alternate version of you who appears to be from the 1950s, slightly older but still alive. Seated beside 1950’s you is Wanda, also monochrome and dressed in 1950s attire. Blearily, you rub your eyes. It has been a long day, and you are extremely tired, unsure if this is just an incredibly vivid hallucination or if you have actually passed out somewhere.

Alternate you asks Wanda a question, to which you aren’t listening, and she replies with a quip - you still aren’t listening, wondering where you are and why everything is in greyscale. What catches you off-guard though, is the surround sound laugh track that‘s garnered in response. It’s galling to admit but you jump, startled, and look around. There’s no one else in the house besides yourself, the alternate version of you, and Wanda. Where did that come from?

Alternate you replies to Wanda, and again with the laugh track. This time you are not as startled, but no less unsettled. What fresh hell is this? Could this be Wanda’s doing? It doesn’t seem like you can ask her though, as you’re just a passive observer in this strange situation. The last thing you remember, Wanda was grieving in Eastview at the plot of land which alternate you had purchased to start your life together after retiring from being superheroes. Strange grey wiggly woos (as you were starting to refer to her magic) were emanating from the witch, quite different from the familiar scarlet color you had grown accustomed to.

Perhaps this was her doing, if only subconsciously. You tried to recall, didn’t Wanda mention something about her powers being new to her and mostly unintentional? This could be what she had been referring to. Apprehension made a home in your chest as you found yourself dreading whatever was about to unfold before you. Oh no, Wanda, what did you do?

It doesn’t take long after observing the hijinks and mishaps, for you to realize that Wanda's grief had manifested through her powers. She had transformed the town of Eastview into Westview, resembling a 1950s-style sitcom town. Wanda, along with an alternate version of yourself (if you were truly still alive - that part you hadn't figured out yet), and the entire town were trapped. While it may have started unintentionally, Wanda became aware of it and began actively using her powers to maintain her idyllic town, keeping it isolated from the outside world and preventing the townspeople from leaving. In her grief, Wanda was essentially playing house, holding everyone hostage. However, despite her powers growing stronger, it was clear that the people living there were suffering. If you could even consider their existence as living.

There were even two boys - twins, just like Wanda was a twin. Your heart broke, knowing this could not possibly end well. While technically not "real" and not even "yours" at that, watching these boys be born, live, and grow caused you to cultivate a love for them almost as if they were your own. Your heart thumps uncomfortably in your chest; you didn't want to see how this plays out, but you didn't have a choice.

Despite the dysfunction in your parents, you had always wanted a family of your own. An attempt to break the cycle and bring new life - happy and healthy - into this world. You wanted to raise your kids with the love and care you had never experienced yourself.

You understood the motivations of the witch, but that didn't justify her morally questionable choices. Once again, you are condemned to remain on the sidelines, unable to take any action to resolve the situation. You are forced to witness this charade unfold, hoping and praying that it would end well for everyone involved, yet knowing that it would not. How could it possibly?

Despite your bias, after witnessing everything Wanda had endured, you found yourself wishing for the best outcome for her, in particular. Among all the people you could think of, she deserved a break from the misery that had plagued her life until now.

Eventually, it all came to a head when another witch named Agatha Harkness had infiltrated the town with a book called the Darkhold, attempting to convince Wanda to join her and increase their powers. If Wanda refused, the witch planned to take Wanda's powers for herself. Something about a prophecy regarding a Scarlet Witch.

Meanwhile, the alternate version of you had become self-aware of the true nature of Westview. This version of you pleaded with Wanda to prioritize the wellbeing of others over her own happiness, once again. They urged Wanda to defeat Agatha and free the townspeople, even if it meant losing her spouse and children. It was an impossible choice, and you questioned whether you could have mustered the courage to make the same decision in Wanda’s position.

Wanda defeated Agatha, not that you ever doubted her for a moment. She said goodbye to you, again, and then to her boys, and released her spell. The town was free, but her family.. was gone. Wanda was once again on her own.

A startled gasp leaves your lips as you awaken from the memories. It feels like it’s been ages, but from what you can tell, it must only have been minutes since Wanda first began sharing her memories with you. “Oh.”

Cringe. You wish you could have said something, anything more eloquent. Unfortunately, you feel as though you've just been hit by a Mack truck and could nap for a week. It doesn’t help that you were still feeling the effects of lack of sleep for the last couple of weeks. 

“I-I’m sorry, I don’t feel so good, is it okay if I lay down somewhere…?” A quick glance around the temple makes you second guess the question you were about to ask. Stone floors did not make a good bed.

With a tone much softer than she had been using, she replied. "Of course, Detka, you only need to ask." 

An elegant wave of her slender fingers and gone is the stone temple, replaced by a cozy bedroom. At a cursory glance, you can tell it is a sanctuary of comfort and tranquility, featuring a plush, inviting bed. The room is adorned with personal touches, such as framed photographs of you and Wanda, and artwork that is somehow absolutely your aesthetic. Shelves display a carefully chosen selection of your favorite books, each waiting to be explored. These items add character and give the space a feeling that is unique to you, even though you have never set foot in this place before.

“Come,” A glimpse of Wanda and you are surprised to discover instead of her red and black uniform, she is now garbed in an oversized sweater and some cotton sweatpants.

“You have been holding space for others for so long, it is time you took some well-deserved rest. You work much too hard.”

“Uh s-sure.” About to make a comment that perhaps you should also change, but looking down to find that you are wearing your favorite worn Legolas shirt and some pajama shorts.

“Right. Rest.” Part of you wants to ask when you can return to your home so you can finish studying for your exams, but based on previous conversation, context clues tell you that’s the least of your concerns right now, and Wanda probably wouldn’t be too pleased with that topic of discussion right now.

Wanda takes your hand, leading you to the bed and it takes your overworked brain far longer than you care to admit to realize that she means for you both to share it. Your brain short-circuits at all the factors at play here: Knowing that you yourself are touch-starved; this absolute enchantress of a woman dated an alternate universe’s version of you, even going so far as basically playing housewife and mother of your children, and here she was asking you to share a bed. Sure, she wasn’t asking you to sleep with her, but she was still asking you to share a bed next to her and what if you accidentally spooned her in your sleep, and what if-

”You’re thinking too loudly, malysh.”

“What? You can- you’re a mind reader?!” you panic, backpedaling mentally, praying to every deity that existed that you hadn’t had any unsavory thoughts in her presence, and nearly fainting as you recalled that you in fact, had some rather explicit thoughts from the moment you first saw her.. The mortification alone was enough to put you into an early grave. You weren’t sure how you had missed that during everything she had shown you, but you reasoned you were probably more focused on the physical manifestations of her powers. 

"Relax, Y/N. I don't intentionally read minds, at least not anymore. Sometimes, surface thoughts are so loud that I can't help but hear them. Like right now, you're practically yelling them at me," she said, trying to offer a reassuring smile.

Unfortunately, while you were no longer freaking out about having accidentally offended the witch, you were now spiraling down a different path. You were agonizing over the pain you had, and likely were still causing her by thinking so loudly. If you remembered any media involving mind reading, the person with the ability usually suffered greatly at the hands of others unintentionally. Naturally, the average person didn't know how to shield their thoughts, and you were afraid that you might be giving her a migraine. To the woman who had only tried to bring you to a safe place and offer you shelter. 

You began to hyperventilate.

Wanda could see that you were spiraling, even without being a mind reader. It was written clearly on your face. However, being able to hear your thoughts helped her identify the source of your anxiety, and she berated herself for not considering that earlier. This version of you lacked confidence, and it was now Wanda's responsibility to help rebuild it. At least, according to her.

"Your parents really did a number on you, didn't they, detka?"

Cool hands gently held your cheeks, pulling you out of your thoughts. Suddenly, Wanda invades your personal space, and the scent of vanilla fills your nostrils, momentarily distracting you from what was happening.

"We're just going to take a nap, okay Y/N? You don't have to worry about anything. I'm not bothered by any of those thoughts you have." A leering grin unfurls across her face.

“If anything I’m quite flattered by them.” She winks.

Heat flashes across your body, and you can’t tell if you were embarrassed, aroused, or both. Unfortunately, you knew your thoughts were likely betraying you. Gods, if only the floor could just open up right now and swallow you into the abyss. Yes, that would be fantastic.

"However, there is time enough for such things later. It's been years, Y/N, and I've just got you back. Nap with me, please?" The witch's eyes gaze longingly into yours, and well, when she looks at you like that, how could you say "no"?

She leads you to the bed and, with the practiced ease of her time in Westview, pulls you into her embrace as the little spoon. Earlier, you had been worried about accidentally touching her inappropriately or having a dirty dream. Now though, with her arms wrapped so protectively around you, sleep claims you almost instantaneously.

#Wanda maximoff x reader #dark!wanda x reader #wanda maximoff x fem!reader #wanda maximoff x f!reader #wanda maximoff x female reader #dark!wanda maximoff #dark!wanda maximoff x reader #wanda x reader #dark wanda x reader

[writingforstraykids]

Hii, can you write something Minchan x reader where Minho gets out of an abusive relationship and ends up at Chan's/your place? 🥺

A/N: Hey there, this started as a short drabble before I edited it and turned this into a fic. I hope this is what you wanted and you like it. Thank you for the request💕🥰

Second Chance

Word Count: 4725

Summary: Chan and you help Minho the night he gets out of his abusive relationship. Due to your shared past Minho seems anxious to intrude. A year later things seem to be going well until a situation escalates and triggers a panic attack.

Warnings/Tags: angst, fluff, tw!physical abuse, tw!emotional abuse, tw!panic attack, bruises, emotional hurt/comfort, hurt/comfort, poly!skz

You hum softly against your boyfriend's lips, indulging the warmth of his body against yours. You feel calm and loved here with him in the safety of your home. Smiling, you brush back his curls and nudge his nose with yours. "Come on now, you promised Min that dinner ages ago." 

"Didn't I tell you? He texted me half an hour ago that he can't make it tonight," Chan says and kisses you lovingly. "That means I have time for you tonight, baby." 

You frown softly as Chan starts kissing down your neck. "You think he's okay?" 

"He didn't say anything else," Chan mumbles against your skin. 

"Yeah, but-," you start and stop as he pulls back with a groan. 

"Please, I don't want to think about our ex when I'm kissing you," he tells you. 

"You mean our best friend, dummy," you giggle and Chan laughs, giving in. "I'm just worried. It isn't like him to cancel plans last minute without a reason." 

"I don't know, maybe his boyfriend had plans?" he asks and you huff softly. "I know you don't like that guy, but-." 

"You've seen the bruises, Channie, something's off," you say firmly, thinking of the last time Minho visited. He looked tired, sad even, and there had been a heavy bruise on his wrist that looked like someone grabbed him too hard. Chan asked him about it of course, but dropped it at how defensive Minho became. 

"Listen, doll, he'll let us know if something's off," Chan says. 

"Not when it's what I think it is," you shake your head. "What if he's being manipulated into thinking it's his fault? Or if he's too embarrassed to tell you? You know how hard it is for him to open up and-." 

"Fucks sake," he climbs off the bed and searches for his phone. "I'm sure he's…," he starts and his face falls looking at his screen. 

"Please don't tell me I was right," you whisper. 

"I'm…Minho called. Ten times in the last twenty minutes," he says worriedly. 

"Shit, you think they got into a fight?" you ask shocked. 

"I don't know," he says and quickly puts on his sneakers, searching for his keys. His phone goes off, loudly this time as Chan had unmuted it. "Minho, what's wrong?" he asks worriedly and puts him on speaker. 

"Chan, hyung, can I stay at yours? Just for tonight," Minho says shakily, glancing across his shoulder as he walks down the street to your apartment. "I'm so sorry about this but it's kind of an emergency," he rambles on. 

"Yeah, sure, do you need me to pick you up?" he asks worriedly. 

"Uh, I don't think that's a good idea," Minho shakes his head and quickens his steps as someone walks down the street behind him, getting closer. "I'll be there in a minute anyways." 

"You're driving here?" Chan asks. 

"No," Minho swallows. "Don't know where my drivers license is. Or my keys. You know me, I tend to misplace my stuff," he laughs it off, almost choking on it. 

Chan exchanges a meaningful glance with you. Minho did not misplace his stuff often. "Okay, just ring the bell when you're here, Y/N will buzz you in," he says. 

"Chan," Minho bursts out panicked, closing his eyes for a second to remind himself to stay calm. "Please don't hang up yet," he pleads and looks back once more realizing the guy behind him is his boyfriend. "Fuck, no," he whispers. 

"What's wrong?" Chan asks, eyes widening as Minho doesn't answer before yelping in pain. Chan drops his phone and races off, leaving your front door open. 

You grab Chan's phone and rush to the door, waiting there anxiously. "Min?" you ask worriedly and only hear something crash to the ground, suspecting it was his phone. 

Minho winces in pain as his boyfriend grabs his hair forcefully and tries to get away from him. "Please, stop," he begs, hot tears already filling his eyes again and spilling down his cheeks. 

"Who the fuck allowed you to leave, huh? You have nowhere to go, you need me to function because you're too dumb to do it on your own," he shouts at him and punches him into the stomach. "Why the fuck would you run off?" 

He groans surprised, fresh tears shooting into his eyes. "Please, I'm so sorry," he begs. Minho bends over in pain but doesn't get far due to the harsh tug at his hair. He chokes on his sobs and braces himself for the next hit. 

"Let go of him!" Chan snaps as soon as he reaches them. 

"Channie," Minho whimpers in fear, wincing as his boyfriend grabs his chin forcefully. 

"Seriously? You're still not over him?" he asks darkly and Minho's eyes flicker anxiously. "Out of everyone you call him. I knew you'd cheat on me." 

"I didn't-," Minho starts weakly and flinches heavily when Chan's suddenly next to him, one hand on his lower back. 

"I won't say it again, let go of him," Chan says firmly. 

"I won't do shit," he tells him sharply. "This is my boyfriend, Chan, back off." 

"Alright then," Chan says and with a swift move he punches him right into the face, delivering another forceful hit into his stomach. 

Minho backs away as soon as his hold on him lessens and hides behind Chan, anxiously grabbing the hem of Chan's shirt. "Chan," he whispers. "Chan, we should leave." 

"Get inside, I'll be there in a minute," Chan tells him. 

"Channie he has a knife," Minho begs him through tears. 

Chan reaches back for him and takes his hand, eyeing the man in front of him. "Minho, run," he says and pulls him with him. Chan pulls the front door closed behind them and follows Minho, who's already stumbling up the stairs to your apartment. 

Your eyes widen as you see him rushing up the stairs, tears streaming down his face. "Minho," you say shocked as he gets closer and you notice how hard he's shaking. 

Chan reaches the door only seconds later and gently shoves Minho inside. "Come on, let's get inside and close that door." 

Minho doesn't get far, sliding down against a wall in your hallway as soon as the door's closed. He pulls his legs to his chest, whimpering as he rocks himself, trying to calm down. Heavy sobs shake his body as he tries to hold them back and his breathing quickens. 

You subconsciously grab Chan's hand, too shocked to move for a moment as you watch him breaking down. That's a very rare side of Minho. You squint your eyes as Minho messily wipes his cheeks and you can see the bruised skin beneath the makeup he put on to hide them. Your heart sinks to your stomach as you take a few steps forward and crouch down in front of him, keeping your distance. "Minnie?" you ask softly and after the third time he snaps out of his state and stares at you with wide eyes. "Minnie, what happened?" you ask gently, barely noticing Chan sitting on the floor next to you. 

"Please don't tell anyone," he presses out, glancing from you to Chan. "You can't," he whimpers. 

"Don't tell anyone what?" Chan asks calmly. He knows what he saw out there but did Minho? 

"That we had a fight. No one can know," he says desperately. 

"Why?" Chan asks patiently and fear flickers in Minho's eyes. "What happens if someone knows?" 

Minho shakes his head rapidly, backing further away against the wall. "Please don't."

"What?" Chan asks and reaches out for him, placing his hand on his knee. 

Minho whimpers in fear, flinching heavily, and pushes himself up. "This was a mistake," he says and stumbles toward your door. "Sorry for bothering you two." 

"No, Min, you're not bothering us," you try to get up but Chan holds you back, reading the situation better than you. 

"Kitten?" he asks and Minho stops in his tracks at that old term of endearment. "Please stay? You're safe here, we don't have to talk about it today, I promise." 

Minho hugs himself and glances at the door, torn between his options. "I-uhm-I don't know if…," he trails off meeting your worried eyes. 

"It's okay, you can stay," you assure him gently. "We have all the time you need."

"It's fine, I'll just go back home," he chokes on the last word, his eyes betraying him. 

"I don't think that's a good idea," Chan tells him gently. 

"Listen, Chan, just because things with you were different doesn't mean it's all bad," Minho grows defensive. 

"Different? You mean because I didn't hit you in the middle of the street?" he asks and you contort your face, unsure of how Minho would take that. "Come on, you know better than that. You don't deserve to be treated this way." 

"Yes, I do," Minho whispers. "I deserve every little bit of it because it's my own fault I gave up on something good. I gave up on you."

"Sometimes things don't work the way we want them to…but you didn't give up on us. And we won't give up on you now," Chan says firmly. 

Minho's face falls in a sob as he gives in. "Channie," he whimpers and Chan gets up slowly. 

"Can I give you a hug?" he asks caringly and Minho nods anxiously. "Okay, deep breaths," he says as he steps closer and Minho subconsciously takes a step back. "I'm here, it's okay," he promises softly, holding his hand out for him. "It's Channie, remember?" he asks soothingly and Minho nods, seeming as if he has to process that information first. Chan very gently places his hands on Minho's shoulders first before fondling down his arms. "Easy there," he whispers and takes another step forward, carefully wrapping his arms around him. "That's okay, kitten?" 

Minho nods weakly and buries his face in his shoulder, hugging him back hesitantly. "I can't breathe," he whispers, clutching his shirt as he feels the panic still boiling deep inside of him. 

"Y/N, come here," Chan tells you, still keeping his volume down. "Is it okay if Y/N hugs you too?" he asks, soothingly rubbing his back. "You need to feel some kind of weight or pressure to calm down right?" 

Minho bites back a sob, hearing that Chan still remembers that. "Yeah," he answers shakily and sucks in a sharp breath. 

You follow Chan's instructions, stepping behind Minho and hugging him as well. You and Chan trap him between your bodies and hug him tightly. "Okay, Minnie, now breathe in deep through your nose…and out through the mouth. Deep breaths," you tell him, guiding him through it. You have witnessed him panicking once before after their video shoot high up on that helicopter landing platform. It feels like ages ago. 

Minho grows calmer in your hold after a while, his breathing calms and his body stops shaking. Instead he's shivering with exhaustion and the adrenaline leaving his body. "I promise I'll be gone tomorrow," he tells you quietly. 

"We'll talk about that tomorrow. One step at a time, okay?" Chan says soothingly and exchanges a worried look with you. "Let's go and sit down?" 

"That sounds like a good idea," you nod, gently nudging Minho forward into your apartment. You don't have to tell him the directions, this has been his home before after all. You go to grab some warm blankets and Chan takes his laptop and headphones from the sofa to make some room. Minho stands still in the middle of your living room, anxiously fidgeting with the sleeve of his sweater. "Chan, why don't you go and help Min put on some comfy clothes?" 

Chan turns to look at you and glancing at Minho makes him realize your intention. "Sure, come on," he says and carefully takes his hand pulling him with him. Minho follows him until they reach your bedroom and he comes to a sudden stop. "Min?" he asks. 

"I-uh-I'm sorry," he shakes his head, following him inside. The amount of memories crashing down on him steals his breath for a moment. It's still the same bed, curtains and even the pictures of his cats are still on your desk in the corner. He remembers the many intimate moments he spent here with both you and Chan, the many nights and lazy mornings. "It's too much," he whispers. 

Chan closes the closet and tilts his head at him. "What is?" 

"This here," he says, vaguely waving through the room. "I can't go back to his place, because that's not home. This isn't either because it was before I fucked it all up. I have nowhere to go and-," tears brim his eyes all over again and he huffs at himself in utter frustration. "God, I'm so stupid." 

Chan sits down at the edge of the bed and pats the space next to him. "Come here," he says and after a moment of hesitation he does. "I know you're going through shit right now, your feelings are all over the place and you're scared and confused. But you're not alone, you don't have to be." 

Minho chews on his lower lip and stares down as Chan carefully takes his hand again. "He was right."

"About what?" he asks calmly. 

"I am still in love with the two of you. I do think about what I lost here a lot…but I never told him that," he confesses quietly. "I was so scared that things wouldn't work out or our fans wouldn't accept us the way we were that I freaked out, destroying the thing I was so scared of losing." 

Chan swallows softly and fondles his knuckles as he listens. "How long has this been going on?" 

"What? The screaming? The hitting? The hairpulling?" Minho asks sarcastically before exhaling loudly. "A month into the relationship." 

"A-Minho that's been five months," Chan exclaims in shock. 

"I know," he nods and stares into the distance. "I felt like I deserved it. He encouraged that and I got stuck in this shitty cycle of wanting to be useful for that person you fear but strangely still love." 

"What did he do?" Chan asks and a shadow travels over Minho's face. 

"Not tonight," he shakes his head and gives him a sad smile. "If that's okay." 

"Okay, yeah, of course," Chan nods quickly. "You don't have to say anything but…we love you too. And we miss you, we miss your dumb jokes and sassy comments. We miss your adorable laugh and Y/N misses you every time she has to glam up all on her own. So, we think about you a lot as well. What I'm trying to say is that if you'd ever feel ready, we're there. If not, we'll always be your friends and this means you can stay with us for as long as you want to, no matter what you choose. It's your choice, okay?"

"Okay," he whispers and drops his head, burying his face in his shoulder. 

"But that's also not something to discuss tonight," Chan says, planting a tiny kiss on his hair. "Just wanted you to know you're always welcome here." 

Minho squeezes his hand tightly. "Thank you." 

Chan stays there with him for another while, mindlessly rubbing his knuckles and whispering soothing nonsense to him from time to time. He doesn't know how long they stay there like this but it seems to help Minho's body calm down. You come to look for them after a while, your expression softening seeing them. 

You sit down at Minho's other side and gently pat his thigh. "Hey there, doing a little better?" 

He hums gently and blindly reaches out for your hand, squeezing it as he finds it. "I love you, you know that right?" he asks and you're too stunned to answer for a second. 

"I-uh-yeah, I guess I do," you stammer and Chan flashes you a compassionate smile. 

Minho pulls away from Chan's shoulder and turns to look at. "I know I fucked up, Y/N, even if you say I didn't. I didn't hurt you on purpose." 

"I know," you say quietly. 

"I just…I was scared," Minho says and lets go of Chan's and your hands. "And now I'm back here and I've never been more scared in my life before," he admits shakily and rubs his thighs, trying to steady himself. 

"He can't hurt you here, I promise," you try to soothe him. 

"I'm scared of what that shit did to me," he shakes his head. "I'm scared of him. I'm scared to lose you because I'll be a burden now…and it fucking terrifies me that I'm so open and honest about my feelings right now," he adds at the end making you all laugh. 

"That means you're making progress," you say and a weak smile tugs at the corners of his lips. 

"We can work this all out together…and if there are things we can't deal with we'll find someone who can," Chan adds and Minho nods thankfully. 

"I want you to keep that up and be very clear about your boundaries with us, okay?" you ask. "We don't want to trigger anything or make you feel uncomfortable." 

"I can try," Minho promises bravely. 

"And don't hesitate asking us if you need anything," Chan continues. 

"I will," he nods. 

You pull him into a hug and bury your face in his hair, tears brimming your eyes as he hugs you back tightly. "We got you, Minnie." 

One year later 

Chan paces your shared apartment, phone clutched in his hand, as he tries to stay calm. You can tell he has trouble doing so, noticing the way his hands shake, his chest heaves with irregular breaths, and the worry clouding his usually soft brown eyes. Your boyfriend checks the time once again, a low groan slipping from his lips as he realizes only five minutes have passed since he last checked. 

“Channie,” you say very gently, and he stops, staring at you with wide eyes. “Come here, sit down for a minute.”

“Can’t,” he shakes his head and continues the reckless pace from before.

“I’m sure he’s alright,” you say, trying to convince yourself at the same time. 

“You don’t know that,” he shakes his head firmly. “What if that asshole met him somewhere and-” his voice breaks, and he quickly shuts his mouth again. 

“Chan,” you say firmly. “We can’t keep on expecting the worst. Nothing has happened in a year. Min’s an adult, he can do what he wants. If he decides to stay away for a whole day, then that’s his choice.”

“He’s not thinking straight at the moment, you know that. Now that he's been with us for a whole year everything comes up again. He’s emotional; he keeps on seeking our help, trying not to bother us, and I need to keep him safe, I-” he breaks off again as he meets your eyes.

“Stop making what happened to him your fault,” you tell him. “I know he means a lot to you, I know you want to keep him safe, but stop blaming yourself for what his ex did.”

“He called me Y/N. Repeatedly. I was busy making out with you as this asshole hurt him,” he says, getting more emotional with every passing minute. “And still, he came here as soon as he could.”

You have enough and slip off your chair, making your way over to him. “That’s because he trusts you…and sometimes you have to trust him too,” you say and offer him a hug. 

Chan pulls you into his arms and buries his face in your hair. He can feel your heart racing against his chest and snorts. “So much to staying calm.”

“It’s not that I’m not worried myself, Channie,” you remind him calmly. 

You still remember the night one year ago as if it was yesterday. Not a night has passed since then without him joining the two of you in your bed at night, first as your friend, then in search for the love he thought he lost. Time healed the bruises, the split lip but not the scars left on his heart, and the fear that was still deep in his bones. By now you were finding your routine as a throuple but there was still a lot to figure out. So, of course, Chan gets worried when Minho doesn’t show up for a whole day and doesn’t answer his phone.

The front door to your apartment opens, and you look up surprised as Minho strolls in calmly, two bags in his hand, keys in the other. He frowns softly as he spots the two of you and tilts his head at you, meeting your eyes. "You're okay?" 

Chan lets go of you, and you can tell his worries get replaced by anger, which is also a very familiar part of him worrying to you. “Where the fuck have you been?” he asks firmly.

“What?” Minho asks confused, flinching at the harsh tone.

“I tried calling you for like a hundred times, Min. I’ve been worried sick all day about you!” Chan goes on, letting his anger flow freely now. 

"Chan," you try gently. 

Minho’s stomach turns painfully as the common fear of what is about to unfold takes hold of him. He puts down the bags shakily, bracing himself for all the hurtful words that would leave his hyung's mouth at any second. He deserves every one of them. "I-I turned off my phone," he says quietly. 

"You can't be serious," Chan snaps, and you glance at him worriedly. "I told you always to keep that damn thing close so I can find you when something happens." 

"I-I'm sorry, hyung," Minho says shakily, staring at the floor in front of him. "I know that was stupid. I'm stupid."

"You're not stupid, Min," you chime in gently, but the younger male shakes his head firmly. 

"I am," he presses out, body shaking in fear as he feels put back into a situation he thought he escaped. 

"I told you so often," Chan insists tiredly, voice growing more gentle. "How could you forget that?" 

"I'm sorry," he whimpers, tears shooting to his eyes and spilling right down his cheeks. "I-I should've told you. I'm sorry, I wasn't thinking," he starts, sounding a little panicked. "I'm so stupid, I'm sorry I worried you. Please don't punish me." 

Chan's whole demeanor changes at that sudden breakdown, face falling. "Fuck," he breathes out, realizing how triggering this must've been. "Minho, no one is going to punish you," he says gently, making his way over, not knowing that being soft was exactly what Minho got before the snap. 

Minho subconsciously takes a step back, shivering. "Please, I'll do better, I promise," he tries to save himself. Stumbling back blindly, he trips over Chan's backpack and falls backward, hitting his head at the front door as he crashes onto the ground. 

"Shit," you breathe out shocked. 

By the time Chan reaches him to help him up, he's sobbing, curling up on the floor and protecting his head. "Min, hey, hey, it's okay," Chan tries, crouching down. The moment he touches him, Minho screams in fear, making him flinch back. 

"Please," he sobs, making himself even smaller. 

Chan looks back at you, eyes filling with tears and practically screaming for help. He backs away quietly from Minho as you make your way over. 

You crouch down next to him and hesitantly place your hand on his lower back. "Minnie," you say soothingly, knowing no one else but Chan and you called him that. "Minnie, angel, you're safe. I'm here, no one can hurt you, okay?" Your voice breaks through the fog of panic, and Minho scrambles onto his knees, lunging forward and holding onto you tightly. You hold onto him just as tight, soothingly running your hand through his hair. "Shh, it's okay," you whisper and rock him in your arms. "It's okay, you're safe." 

Minho sobs into your sweater, holding onto you for dear life. He tries focusing on your scent, how your hair feels beneath his fingertips, and how your body is warm against his. He tries pushing all the dark memories aside, reminding himself that he is, in fact, safe. Safe in your warm embrace. 

You glance over at Chan, who watches you, still standing in the same spot. The guilt in his eyes is overwhelming, and he doesn't bother wiping away the tears running down his cheeks. You hold out your hand for him, but he shakes his head weakly. "Channie babe, come here," you say soothingly. "Chan was just worried, he didn't mean to upset you, dear," you say toward Minho, and the younger one nods bravely. "Come on," you encourage your boyfriend.

Chan slowly makes his way over, shaking as he sits beside you. "Minnie, I'm so sorry," he presses out, hesitantly rubbing his back.

Minho pulls back and looks at him through teary eyes. "Something's wrong with me," he whispers, and Chan searches his eyes confused. "You'd never hurt me." 

Chan firmly shakes his head. "Never," he promises. "I'm sorry I got mad." 

Minho straddles his lap, burying his face in Chan's shoulder. He wraps his arms around his neck and sniffles softly. "No, I'm sorry for disappearing," he says shakily. 

Chan hugs him tight, burying his face in his hair and closing his eyes. He gently runs his hand over his back before fondling his head. "Does it still hurt?" he asks, and Minho shakes his head. 

You watch them with a gentle smile, knowing how much they mean to each other. Minho pulls back after a while, pressing their foreheads together with a weak laugh. "I'm sorry, Channie love, I know I worried you." 

"Stop that now," he says gently, rubbing his sides soothingly. "I know you didn't mean to." 

"Thank you for always trying to keep me safe," he tells him, cupping his face. 

"Of course," your boyfriend whispers. 

Minho wraps him back into his arms and closes his eyes for a moment before speaking up. "I just wanted to take a walk this morning, but then he bombarded me with messages, having another fake account. I got upset, turned my phone off, and kept on walking around aimlessly for hours. I completely forgot the time." 

"That's okay, Min, it happens," you assure him, sitting down next to them. 

Minho flashes you a weak smile and squeezes your hand gently. "I should've told you guys. I wasn't thinking." 

"Happens," Chan nods and soothingly rubs his thighs. 

Minho meets his eyes again and remains silent for a while, sinking deeper into that warm feeling of comfort and safety. "I actually bought dinner on the way back." 

You giggle softly and pat his shoulder. "That's sweet." 

"And uhm…I saw something that seemed fitting for the two of you," he says, ears burning up a little as he climbs off Chan's lap. Minho grabs the smaller bag and takes out two small boxes, handing the longer one to you. 

Chan opens his and takes out a beautiful silver bracelet with a small pendant in the middle. There's a heart-shaped hole in the pendant, and opening your box, you know why: the heart's attached to a necklace. "Oh my God, that's so cute," you beam at him. Chan helps you put it on, and Minho watches you with a soft smile. "Where's yours?" you ask and Minho frowns softly. 

"I-uhm…I shouldn't-," he shakes his head, swallowing softly at your confused expressions. 

"Kitten, you're a part of us," Chan says softly and Minho's eyes brim with tears again. 

"But-," he starts out weakly. 

"We love you. This is your home, angel," you tell him and smile as Chan caresses his cheek and Minho instinctively leans into it. 

"We'll go back there tomorrow and find something fitting for you," Chan suggests. 

A hot tear falls down Minho's cheek as he watches the two of you amazed. "Okay," he whispers and closes his eyes as Chan plants a soft kiss on his hair. He giggles softly as you kiss the tip of his nose and smiles at the two of you through his tears. "I love you two so much." 

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#stray kids #skz #skz fic #chan fic #stray kids fic #chan #minho fic #minho #minchan #minchan fic #tw abuse #tw physical abuse #tw physical violence #tw emotional abuse #tw panic attack #tw bruises #minho angst #chan angst #minchan angst #minho fluff #chan fluff #minchan fluff #poly!skz #poly!stray kids #minho x reader fic #chan x reader fic #minchan x reader fic #anon request #requests open

[vampyrsm]

⚸ 'Save Your Tears.'

⚸ Synopsis - The End is never truly the End.

⚸ Pairing - Bakugou Katsuki x Reader

⚸ Warnings - MDNI. Reader referred to as a woman. Domestic violence (not between Bakugou & Reader), no quirks, non-canon au, heavy angst, angst with comfort, murder, descriptions of wounds, blood, tending to wounds, alcohol consumption, discussions of grief & death, questioning of morals.

⚸ Word Count - 8.5k

⚸ Author's Note - Not 100% beta read, I apologise for some spelling mistakes. I wrote most of this at 1am & extremely tired. I'm also not going to tag the things that are huge plot spoilers, but everything that may be triggering/needs the proper content warnings has been included above.

I know I'm not giving much away but I really want you to read this for yourself and have your own thoughts on this. Please enjoy and don't forget to tell me what you think! Also posted on AO3.

It was loud here. It was always loud in this house. You never knew peace and quiet, never had the chance to relax. It was foolish to believe this man—this monster could ever know what love is. He was terrifying once the door closed and the curtains were drawn, he was no longer the cheerful smile and caring boyfriend but rather he turned into the volatile, malicious man who was currently digging the heel of his boot into the white wooden door separating the both of you. 

It wasn’t meant to go like this. A gentle disagreement that spiralled out of control the second you got home. You were just out for dinner with friends, or rather, his friends. You never saw your friends anymore, he said they weren’t trustworthy and you believed him. You had said you didn’t want to go for more drinks after dinner, that you felt sick from the food — not a total lie, but also not entirely false. You did feel sick and you didn’t want to go for drinks, not because of the food but because when your boyfriend had a few drinks in him … consent didn’t matter to him after that. 

Of course, he had to keep up appearances. Gently kissing your knuckles, feeling the temperature of your forehead and cheek, all to live up to the image of being such a good boyfriend. But you knew it was a ruse, a warning for what was to come. You weren’t meant to disagree with him, you were meant to always say yes and follow him everywhere.

You were right, as usual, as soon as the door to the house was closed it was like being bathed in the icy waters of the Antarctic. Your blood was frozen solid, and the air felt charged. You could feel his glare through the back of your head, this wasn’t going to end well for you. At first, he was slow in his approach, methodical with his steps so as to not spook you too quickly and you’re ashamed to say it worked. 

His hand was always quick, grabbing at the nape of your neck to slam your head first into the old oak door frame. There was a sickening crunch, your nose felt like it had been stuffed with tissue paper and smashed to pieces with a sledgehammer. His words were violent and angry, they always were. Filled with enough curse words to make a sailor blush, he never held back. 

He screamed at you, “How dare you fucking embarrass me in front of our friends?!” but you didn’t understand how it was embarrassing. You simply didn’t want to go drinking, you didn’t want to end up hurt and yet here you were. Nursing your broken nose and staring at the way the blood dripped in thick droplets onto the pristine white carpet. You picked this carpet out, it was the one thing you were allowed to do when he forced you into the new home for the both of you—your new prison.

It was a flash after that, a flurry of punches and kicks until you had managed to slip under his arm when he was winding up for something that would definitely have you unconscious and vulnerable to him. You should’ve made a dash for the door but something in your mind told you that he probably locked the door already, he always knew to cut off your escape routes before he did any real damage. 

So the next best bet was his study, it was right next to the open plan kitchen and living room — a place where he could keep an eye on you whilst working. The door had a lock on the inside to keep you out but tonight, it’d be used against him. He wasn’t happy about that, of course, and you could see the anger on his face even through the frosted glass window on the door. 

The window behind you was your best next chance of escape, and the sound of his boot kicking into the door was enough to spring you into action. You scamper across the wooden floor, fumbling in the dark for the latch. The windows of the house were old, they were the ones that slid upwards and the latches always got caught. It resisted on the first two tugs but it seemed at least lady luck was on your side tonight as the window creaked before sliding up and up—

“No you fucking don’t.”

A hand in the hair on the back of your head has you yelping, the pain in your head only gets stronger when he starts to drag you backwards on the floor by your hair. Your palms graze through the broken shards of glass, and you get a glimpse of the door that had protected you for a mere moment to see he had shattered the glass window to get to the lock. 

He shoves you hard onto the floor, your head rattling from the sudden pressure before he’s straddling your stomach. Both his legs hold you in place for him to do whatever he deems good enough to be your punishment for not only embarrassing him but daring to run away from him. His fists are lethal, punches that could make even a grown man cry from the force behind them. 

They’re laid on thick and fast against your face, your cheeks when your head turns, his fingers wrap around your throat when punching simply isn’t enough. You have nowhere to look but his face, he looks calm despite what he’s doing. His eyes are lowered to meet yours, his lips set in a fine line whilst his fingers squeeze and squeeze.

Your fingers grasp uselessly at the floor next to you, trying to grab anything — something to leverage yourself on to throw his weight off, but instead, something slices your fingertips. Glass. You feel along it frantically as your vision starts to blur and darken, it feels like your head is full of water and your lips ache from the pressure he’s putting against your windpipe. 

It’s quick. The way his face morphs into one of shock and then agony, the spray of blood is quicker though. It shoots out of his neck like a fountain, your hand still holding the glass in its place deep inside his neck. He jerks back, just as you withdraw the shard of glass and it causes the gash to widen. The glass slices effortlessly down and around the front of his throat, dousing you in the sticky red that turns your once pristine dress into a deep crimson. 

His blood is warm, and it’s all you can focus on when he falls to the side still clutching his throat in his final moments.

You had to get out of here. You had to leave. It would only look like you did it when someone inevitably calls the police for all the yelling and screaming. Your feet were wobbly beneath you when you finally got them under you — just what had you done? You killed someone, you killed your boyfriend. It was self-defence but you still did it, you could’ve stabbed him anywhere non-fatal but you didn’t. You wanted him dead, you wanted him to leave you alone forever. 

The cold night air sticks to the blood sprayed across your face and body, making it grow tacky where it was the thickest. The street is empty save for the cars that had been parked there all night, you could take his car but they’d only trace it, trace you. No, you couldn’t take his car. 

So you run.

You run until your calves ache, until your lungs burn with each heavy air intake. You run until the blood on your skin is dried and cracked, finding a home in your pores. Everything hurts to the point where you feel nothing at all. Your mind spins and it’s nauseating. With each aching breath you take, it becomes harder and harder to breathe. The ache in your throat makes the bruises that had already started to form make their presence known, you can feel the ghost of his fingers squeezing and squeezing until you can’t breathe—... you can’t breathe.

A pair of hands grasp the tops of your upper arms, holding you in place when you scream and squirm to get away–to get away from him.

“Hey!” A voice calls through the fog of your mind, sharp and deep. Those same hands are warm on your skin, they hold you so differently from how you were used to. They were soft, uncertain and yet they weren’t letting go. Reassuring.  “Are you okay? Are you hurt?”

That same fog slowly clears from your eyes with each slow blink, until finally, you can see the person before you. It’s hard to see them in the dim light of the overhead streetlight but you can see the worry in the ruby red of his eyes. An odd colour for eyes, you thought absentmindedly, but they were so captivating to stare into. The yellow hue of the light gives the blonde hair on his head an ethereal glow, like a halo. 

Another shake to your shoulders as you once again meet his eyes, and you can see him processing all the bruises and broken skin on your face. The bruises around your throat are barely visible beneath the blood caked into your skin, and still, he doesn’t shy away when he asks again if you’re okay. “Is this your blood?”

“..No.” An answer that would have any sane person running away or perhaps even calling the police, but instead the man just nods as if he understands. 

“Alright, let’s get you back to–”

“No!” The man’s eyes widen at your sudden raise in volume, but he doesn’t back down nor does he show if he’s uneasy. “Please. I can’t–...I can’t go back.” 

The stranger stares back at you, the silence stretching between you both until a shrill siren makes you jump in your skin. He glances over his own shoulder to see a multitude of police cars and an ambulance speeding down a nearby street until they disappear from view. 

“Please.” You whisper this time, and the man nods at you. He rolls his shoulders, shucking the thick green parka off of his shoulders until he drops it over yours. It’s warm and has the faintest smell of coffee and caramel. It’s comforting, it smells like home – your real home, back with your mother who tried her hardest to protect you from the harshness of the world. You wonder how she’d feel today knowing how things turned out for you. Maybe you can tell her one day.

“My place isn’t too far from here, I guess you wanna get cleaned up?” His hands linger on the collar of the coat, holding it in place so that the fuzz of the fur brushes against your battered and bruised cheeks. He waits until you nod before dropping his hands, taking a few steps backwards and you follow without thinking. Always the follower. 

The walk isn’t long, but the ache in your thighs makes it seem longer. Every step after the last is tiring, and you know you’re lagging behind but the man says nothing. If anything he slows his natural gait to walk by your side, even offering the crook of his arm when you stumble over your own feet. Whilst your body slows with fatigue, your mind runs at a mile a minute. You know it won’t take long for them to figure out what happened, you were the only person who lived in that house with him, and you were missing from the scene of the crime. 

The apartment complex the stranger lives in is small, probably only housing two or three different households. Wordlessly you follow him along the gravel path, the small garden lights bathe you in a white light that feels like you’re under inspection. Every speck of blood practically shimmers in the light, exposing you to the world for your transgressions. Yet there is no one to judge you for your sins, no one who screams in fear at the sight of your battered and bloodied face – no one to ask what had happened other than the blonde stranger who leads you into his apartment.

It’s nice inside, cosy yet also empty at the same time. How was this place something but also nothing at the same time? It had no hints of being lived in other than the small white lily in the now darkened window-sill in a pretty white pot. Its petals even from where you stood in the doorway looked like pure snow, soft as the skin of a babe’s cheek. The ambient light of the warm amber lamps gives it a soft glow, and you yearn to stroke the tips of your fingers against its petals. 

“C’mon, let’s get you clean.” The man offers, drawing your eyes away from the white lily and he has a saddened look in his eye when he meets yours. Did you genuinely look that awful? Perhaps you did, the dull ache in your nose stings when you think about it too hard and your lips feel numb. You just nod, following quietly along behind the man who had yet to offer you his name.

You watch him from behind as you traverse closer to the bathroom, his shoulders are broad and well-defined even under the black hoodie he’s wearing. His hands are buried inside the pocket of his hoodie, a relaxed and calm air around him despite leading a total stranger covered head to toe in blood that didn’t even belong to them into his bathroom. He lets you stand in the doorway quietly as he goes about setting up the bathroom ready for you to be cleaned. 

He offers you a look that invites you into the white bathroom, it’s almost blinding when he flicks on the overhead light that floods the room. You turn to look in the mirror, to assess just how much damage was truly done to you but the man’s hand wraps around your forearm. It’s enough to make you jump in your skin, your hackles rising with the ghost of your boyfriend's hands wrapping around your throat. 

“It’s best if you don’t.” His lips are set in a fine line, eyebrows furrowed – he’s serious. Was it that bad? “Don’t look, I mean, it’ll only upset you more.”

That made sense, you supposed, perhaps your mind hadn’t quite caught up with the events of the evening just yet. So you just nod your head, letting his hands move to help you up onto the counter with your back to the mirror. The blonde set the first aid kit down next to you, unboxing a few items that you know will be unpleasant when the time comes to use them. 

“‘M gonna wipe the blood away first, will make it easier for me to get to the open wounds.” 

“Why?” You ask quietly, watching how his eyebrows come together in confusion whilst wetting a washcloth in the warm water from the sink just off to your side.

“Why do I need to clean fir–”

“Why are you doing this?” It felt rude to cut him off, but the man shows no anger at how you cut him off, instead his features relax a little in understanding. 

“Why not?” He offers you a question to your own. He shrugs his shoulders alongside it. “It’d be pretty fucked up of me to ignore someone who needed help.”

You smile a little at his words before hissing at the ache in your jaw, and his eyebrows knit together again in worry. He forgoes speaking to you any further, opting instead to focus on cleaning you up. The way he strokes the washcloth along your skin is featherlight, careful of the bruising and cuts along your cheekbones and the obvious one on your nose. He strokes it along your cheeks, gently along your lips. The sink next to you is slowly turning a reddish hue each time he rinses the cloth to go back in. He finishes the cleaning with a gentle side-to-side motion along your forehead before bringing the cloth gently down to the bridge of your nose.

“I won’t sugarcoat it, this is gonna hurt a lot.” He finally speaks again, the deepness of his voice is jarring in the tense silence of the bathroom and yet it lulls you into a sense of safety. A certain element to it tells you that this man won’t harm you, and you can trust him to get you through this next part. 

“Don’t blame me if I accidentally hit you or pinch you then,” you smile a little easier than before and the man mirrors a slight grin back to you. 

“I’d like to see you try, those little hands and feet aren’t gonna do shit to me.” You snort at his words but you can’t stop the pang of guilt in your stomach. Your hands had done something; you held that piece of glass and took someone's life. You did that, just you. 

“Hey.” The man nudges your knee, ducking his head down to meet your eyes. “Sorry, shitty joke. I’m not the best with that shit–”

“It’s not you, don’t worry.” And now it’s his turn to snort, his eyes drifting back down to his hands as he opens up the antiseptic wipes. 

“Like I haven’t heard that one before.” There’s a twinkle of humour in his eye when you meet his gaze again, and it’s easy to ease back into the comfort of just the two of you being alone in this room. A sanctuary away from the harsh reality of the world that’s awaiting you just beyond the door. “Alright, hold still. G’nna hurt like a bitch.”

The second the wipe comes in contact with your skin, you jolt. It hurts a lot more than you were anticipating and you have to steel yourself for the next time he wipes away at your skin to fully clear out the wounds. He manoeuvres you with gentle fingers, gently set at your jaw to turn you to the left and right to make sure he’s gotten everything before he hooks them beneath your chin to tilt you to look up at him.

He’s absolutely gorgeous, for the lack of a better word to describe this benevolent stranger. His skin is flawless, and the red of his eyes has little flecks of brown in them. The slope of his nose is mesmerising, he was truly made in the image of beauty. It begged the question as to why his house seemed so unlived in, did he have no one to come home to? That just seemed impossible for someone as breathtaking as he was – was there something you were missing?

You hiss again when he presses a butterfly stitch down across the bridge of your nose, his own nose wrinkling at the visible discomfort he’s causing you. 

“All done, I’m gonna guess you want to get out of those.” He points at your clothes, and you look down again to see the material stuck to your skin. It’s cold, and wet, the sensation makes your skin crawl in remembrance of just what had transpired. “I’ll go get some of my stuff, you can finish cleaning yourself up right?”

“Yeah, thanks.” You offer a smile when he nods his head, he makes short work of throwing away the dirtied cloth and empty boxes before he’s gone. 

You’re left in the eerie silence of his bathroom, you can’t even hear the outside world from here. It leaves you susceptible to your mind. The dreaded thoughts that condemn you for what you had done – telling you over and over that you were going to be found. Punished. Locked away and the key thrown away. 

You didn’t want that, you didn’t want to be punished for something he had done. No one would believe you if you said it was in self-defence, if anything it looked like he was the one who was defending himself. No one was there to tell the judge and jury what really happened. You’d be found guilty with no one to save you.

It feels like you’re drowning, choking on the guilt that bubbles up in your throat. Something grabs at your throat, squeezing and squeezing until you feel a similar ache in your lips and a fuzzy feeling behind your eyes. Your hand scrambles to get whatever is off of your throat, nails catching against the raw bruised skin but it’s fruitless. You can’t breathe. You can’t breathe. You can’t–

“Hey.” 

It’s a deep intake of breath, one that has your lungs inflating until they hurt and your head tilting back to greedily take as much as possible. There’s no pressure around your throat anymore, just the feeling of your own cool fingertips pressing against the bruises that had started to blossom against abused skin. 

There’s a knock on the door, some shuffling of socks on wooden floorboards. “You okay in there? Do you need help?”

“N–No.” You clear your throat, coughing to clear the uneasiness in your throat. “Sorry, was getting undressed.”

He’s silent on the other side of the door for a moment, and you wonder if he’s figuring out if you’re lying or not. “Okay, sure. I’m gonna open the door so you can take these clothes, alright?” 

He waits for your consent to open the door, and when he does he’s true to his word. He sticks just his arm through with the pile of clothes he has to offer, you take them gratefully and just like before he’s closing the door to leave you alone. 

This time you don’t hang around to hear what your mind might have to say about your little freakout, so you start to peel off the sullied clothes from your body. You take extra care to not drag your dress against your face when you change out of it before letting it drop onto the white tiled floor with a wet plop. It looks so wrong on such pristine flooring, an imperfection; a sin.

Though you don’t allow your thoughts to drag you beneath the icy depths once again, you set a simple goal in your mind – to clean yourself and then change into new clothes. It’s easier to remove your ruined underwear when you disassociate yourself from what really happened. Your clothes were simply just wet, not dripping with blood. Your skin was just caked in mud, not cracking with blood. It was just easier to let go. 

The sponge is smooth against your skin once you run it beneath some warm water, letting the rivulets of watered-down blood slide along the smooth expanse of your chest until you’re clean. You glance at the clothes that were given to you by the man who took you in, it seems to be a basic combo of grey sweatpants and a nondescript black t-shirt that looks soft. Your fingers brush along it, feeling the fabric beneath dried fingertips before you take it to slip on over your head. 

Getting dressed was much quicker now you were clean, but you were presented with another problem; these clothes were far too big for you. They dwarfed you which had both good and bad sides to it. Good being it hid the fact you had no clean underwear beneath. Bad meaning you had to roll the waistband of the sweatpants up three times and cuff the legs to make sure they didn’t slip down.

Now all you had to do was face the man who most definitely would have a million questions for you. He had every right to know just what had happened given he was harbouring a criminal. The thought however doesn’t bring you as much dread as it should. This stranger had taken you in without any second-guessing, he had cleaned your wounds and provided you with new clothes. Perhaps he would see your side of things, maybe he’d even understand and now hand you into the police when you tell him the truth.

The bathroom door creaks when you open it, much to your dismay, your face crumpling a little at the obvious attempt to sneak out without being noticed immediately. Yet there is no voice asking you to come forward, or questioning if you need anything. In fact, it’s quiet, a silence that settles against your chest and melts into your skin. It’s comforting, and slowly it coaxes you out of the bathroom and further into the house. 

Each step you take back the way you came confirms that the man isn’t waiting for you to emerge from the bathroom. Instead, you find the living room of his apartment to be completely empty, even the kitchen from what you can see seems to be barren. It’s odd and it should worry you but it doesn’t. You focus your mind on looking around at your surroundings. It definitely confirms what you had thought when you first arrived – it looked unlived in, or just extremely clean. The sofa looks like it had never been sat on and just plucked straight from a showroom. 

Even the rug beneath your feet felt new, like it hadn’t gone through the hardships of someone dropping coffee or food on it.

It was strange, to say the least. You venture towards the bookshelves lining one wall, and there doesn’t seem to be a speck of dust on the old oak bookcase and yet the books look old. Older than you, you’d wager. Was this guy a clean freak who liked to collect old literature? You lean in to take a closer look at the titles, some of them rubbed off from years of use you presume but even the ones you read are in a different language. Latin perhaps? You can’t tell. So he was a man who could read—speak?—Latin.

Maybe you should be more scared of the man who was nowhere to be seen.

Something catches your eye on the wall next to the grand bookcase. You have to take a step back to see it in its entirety – it’s a grand oil painting and it may just be the most beautiful thing you have ever seen. You’ve seen plenty of knockoff paintings being spoken about on TV shows where they go to auction off old things they find in their attics but this screams authentic to you. Which only begs the question; just how did he manage to get such a thing like this in his house?

“Fall of the Damned.” A voice is behind you, deep and yet quiet so as to not scare you. Yet it fails as you jump out of your skin, clutching at your chest as if to stop your heart from leaping out. The man makes no move to laugh at the fact he scared you. When you look at him, he’s staring up at the grand painting with a strange look on his face. He looks almost wistful, perhaps even reminiscent.

“The original from 1620.” 

“But I thought the original was damaged. An acid attack–”

“No, that was a fake. But this is the real one.” He’s certain in the words he speaks, leaving no room to argue with the fact you were very certain that the original had been damaged in the 1950s. 

You look back at the painting, and there are certainly no markings of any damage to it. You can see the individual strokes of the paintbrushes the closer you look; it most definitely was authentic. But this thing was priceless, so many people had tried to replicate it or reproduce it in their own image but they could never match the beauty of this. The jumble of bodies tumbling from Heaven merge together the longer you look until it looks like a stream of white meeting the fiery pits of the abyss.

“How do you even have this?” You ask quietly after a spell of silence, turning back to finally meet the burning gaze of the man who towers over you.

“A friend gave it to me.” He offers, and he must see the disappointment in your eyes when he doesn’t provide the full answer. “He told me that it would suit me well.”

Perhaps it’s best to not push for a further answer, whoever he was speaking of didn’t sound like much of a friend with the way he had spat out his words. Maybe an old friend, someone who wanted to gift this as a jab at the blonde.

“Anyway. How you feelin’?” He asks you, his shoulders relaxing a little when he takes you in fully cleaned to the best of your ability. 

“Fine. Better now that I have clean clothes, thank you by the way.”

“Don’t mention it, I wouldn’t want to be stuck in bloody clothes, so.” He shrugs before sinking into the untouched sofa, his massive frame takes up a good portion of it and you can’t help but stare a little. He makes no move to speak again, instead, he leans forward to swipe the bottle of wine he must’ve placed there before he caught you staring at his artwork. 

He still does not speak when you watch him pour two glasses of red wine, the red liquid swirling and settling in the pristine glass before finally, he meets your gaze, offering up a glass for you to take. A small part of you tells you to not drink in the presence of an unknown man but you can’t find it within you to reject him, something alluring in the way his face is completely relaxed – he poses no threat to you. 

When you take the wine glass from him, he leans back into his spot on the sofa with his own glass and swirls it between fingers that seemed to have done such an action over and over. 

“So–”

“I don’t know your name.” You blurt, nerves finally bubbling up your throat in a form of a barked question that has his eyebrows raising for a second in wonder if he really hadn’t told your name thus far. You busy yourself with a sip of the dark red liquid.

“Bakugou Katsuki.” He sips his own wine as you do before continuing. “What about you? Only fair I know the name of the woman I saved.”

You supposed he had a point, and you offered him your name. He seems to roll it around in his mind for a moment, a small nod of his head seems to be all you’ll get in return. 

“So, Y/N.” Your name slips free from his tongue so easily, the rich timbre of his voice imbues your name with a sense of regality. “I won’t outright ask what you’re running from, but do I have to be worried about the police turning up to my door because I’m harbouring some axe murderer?” 

Your lips twitch downwards into a frown, and you move to settle into a spot not too far but also not too close to Bakugou. He wasn’t too far from the truth. 

“Not an axe murderer.”

Bakugou hums deep in his chest at your answer, the noise reverberating in the glass of wine as he takes another deep sip. 

“Ex?” Your face crumples involuntarily at his easy guess, the ache in your throat returns tenfold when you try to stop yourself from crying. You hadn’t really cried once, had you? It makes your face ache, your eyes sting with confessions of just what you had done and this poor man next to you had no idea.

“Dickhead probably had it comin’, I’m sure he’s out there licking his wounds like the sad fuck–”

“He’s dead.” It feels like ash on your tongue to admit it, but at the same time, it feels like a deep breath on a spring morning. It feels both refreshing and restraining at the same time; to admit to something as ghastly as the murder of someone who had treated you as less than dirt is a perplexing feeling. 

“Oh fuck,” Bakugou adjusts himself next to you a little, sitting forward so he can see your face a little clearer. “Did you do it?”

You simply nod your head, expecting Bakugou to leap up from his seat and immediately call the police. But instead, he stays still, contemplating what to say next. 

“He hurt me,” you breathe, sucking in a harsh breath like you’d been submerged under water. “He hurt me so much, I couldn’t–... I couldn’t stand it anymore. I wanted to get away, I needed to. I was scared that if I didn’t get away he’d really do it this time. He was going to kill me this time, I’m sure of it. I didn’t want to die by his hands and he got away with it–” 

There’s a warmth draped around you, a heaviness that forces you to crumple inwards on yourself when the crying really starts. A hand on your shoulder coaxes you into a clean warm shirt, your face pressed into the fabric doesn’t do much to mute your crying. That same hand rubs up and down against your arm, comforting you in a way no one had in a very long time. 

“I’m so sorry,” he whispers, his chin tucked against the top of your head when you find refuge in the safety of his neck. “You deserved so much better, I’m so fuckin’ sorry.”

That’s what you wanted to hear, even if you didn’t realise it. You needed someone to acknowledge your pain, your hurt. It was hard to believe now that you deserved better with how it had all ended up, but you didn’t have it in you to argue with the man who was still gently cradling you into his body. You’re not sure how long you cry into Bakugou’s neck but eventually, the tears stop. It leaves you feeling empty, and your face tacky from the tear marks that stain your face. 

“Better?” Bakugou asks finally, clearing his throat of the emotions that were soaking into his words to the point where his voice cracked. His voice rumbled against your body, a deep resonating sound that helps ease you back from the precipice of despair and back into reality. 

You have to awkwardly peel yourself away from Bakugou, cringing at the wet patches on his shirt and the slight tinges of blood from where you had buried your face against him. “Yeah, thanks.” You have to look elsewhere, hoping he doesn’t mention how you ruined his shirt. 

Thankfully he doesn’t, a simple “Fuck it,” leaving his mouth and instead he leans forward to grab the bottle of wine taking a long swig directly from the bottle before offering it to you.

“Let’s have a toast,” you take the bottle for him slowly, confused at where he could possibly be leading with this. “A toast to a better future. One without assholes, one where you can do whatever the fuck you want and no one will give a shit.” 

A part of his small toast felt like he was directing it to himself also – like he wanted to be free of whatever shackles were chaining him to the past. But still, his toast sounded good. Something you could get behind and hope for, maybe the future does hold something better for you. So you raise the wine bottle when he raises his own glass, tapping the two together.

“A toast to a better future.” 

Bakugou watches as you drink from the wine bottle, his own lips hovering just by the edge of his own glass before he finishes it all in one go. A deep sigh, of relaxation or vexation you’re unsure, expands his chest before he relaxes back into the sofa to stare at the grand painting that looms over the both of you like a bad omen.

“Bakugou?” He only grunts in response. “Do you believe I’ll really have a better future?”

His head turns on the back of the sofa, staring over the slight fat of his cheeks to catch your own gaze. He’s quiet for a moment, a long moment that has you fidgeting in his gaze. Why was he so silent all of a sudden? Did he simply say that to make you feel better? It would make sense – perhaps that’s the only way he thought he could ease your mind when in reality you’d be spending the rest of your miserable life behind bars. 

“Yeah,” Bakugou finally replies, “I do.”

And once again, the conversation comes to a silent end. Your mind wanders for a moment, your gaze set on the small lily on the window ledge. Even from here, you could tell how well-nurtured this flower was, the petals practically glowed in the moonlight that streamed through the window and spilled out across the floor in pale beams. The man next to you didn’t seem quite like the type of person who cared for a plant so well, it was the only thing in this whole place that seemed out of place.

You venture over towards the flower, and all Bakugou does is move his legs to allow you to pass. You can feel his gaze on your back the closer you get to the flower, and now within reach, you can truly see its beauty clearly. The white pot it lays in is pristine, hand-painted from what you can tell when you lean in to take a closer look. The lily itself has the type of smell you’d expect of a flower; green and earthy, yet there’s the oddest subtle spice that lays beneath all of that. It’s baffling. 

The purity of its white petals has you envious of a plant, it is without blemishes and yet here you are; stained for all of eternity by the hands of someone who had grown greedy and cruel with your life. It aches the longer you stare at the flower, wishing you could somehow steal its light and store it away in the void that had opened up in your chest. Yet despite its purity, there is a single curled-up petal nestled into the dirt beneath. It’s browned with decay and it’s curious as to why its owner would go to such lengths to care for it but not remove the dead petal.

“Let’s go for a walk,” Bakugou says from his place now over by the door. You hadn’t even heard him get up and move but you’re thankful for the distraction from your petty envy. 

“Is that a good idea?” 

The question makes him stop midway putting his black leather jacket on. Did he not consider the fact you were most likely a wanted criminal by now? 

“You’ll be fine as long as you’re with me, now c’mon. It’s too stuffy in here and I wanna go to the park when there's no extras roaming around.”

He waits patiently by the door when you slip into your previous shoes, they weren’t nearly as bloody as the rest of your old clothing which you were thankful for. Bakugou locks the door behind you both before he extends a hand out for you to take, you look up at him to question why he’s asking to hold your hand when you stop. He has a soft red hue to his cheeks, a blush perhaps or maybe the alcohol is just settling itself beneath his skin. 

His palm is soft against your own, much larger, yes, but all the more comforting. He must be thankful for you not saying anything as he gives your hand a gentle squeeze before he’s guiding you back out the way you come. Each step is as nerve-racking as the last, this feeling that someone is waiting for you around the corner to snatch you up and lock you away. 

You’re thankful for the fact Bakugou had offered to hold your hand as he encourages you to keep pace with him, to not fall behind as he guides you out into the cold night and down the dim street towards an unknown location. There is no one you encounter on the way to the park, the streets are desolate and quiet as everyone slumbers in their beds unknowing of who is walking by.

The park itself is pitch black save for some street lamps that light the occasional park bench along the winding path that traverses from one side to the other, Bakugou must sense your hesitance to enter as he gives you another gentle squeeze. “It’s fine, no one’s here.” 

You somehow doubt that he knows that, there’s no way for him to know that the park is completely barren. There are probably some teenagers messing around late into the night against their parent's wishes, or perhaps a homeless man that seeks a quiet night's sleep on one of the many benches. 

Alas, you still follow him through the large iron gate that squeaks when you pass through before it rattles behind you with a jarringly loud noise. Despite that, no one comes out from hiding in the dark shadows and no one shouts at the two of you for being out so late. 

Now in the park, Bakugou slows his walk enough to enjoy the cool night air, to tilt his head back as he peers up at the overhanging moon and the clouds that shroud it in a gentle white blanket. He seems at peace here, like his mind can finally unwind and the alcohol in his system helps with sorting through whatever may be troubling him.

“Do you regret it?” He speaks once the two of you come to a standstill in the middle of the path, only the overhead street light illuminating the both of you. “Do you regret what you did?”

It’s a sucker punch of a question, it hurts to think about if you truly regret it or not. Your eyebrows come together in a deep frown, and you turn to face Bakugou who also does the same to you and you’re surprised to see he’s also frowning down at you. 

Although, when you think about if you did or did not regret what you did. You’re torn between two minds; part of you regrets the fact you had taken another human's life but at the same time… you ponder the question if he was really a human anymore? Did he deserve to be treated as one if he did not treat you the same? He beat you whenever you defied him or shoved you into the boiler closet when you had accidentally cut the vegetables the wrong way.

He didn’t see you as human, he lost his right to be a human the moment he laid a hand against you. 

“No.” You finally reply with the word breathed out with a small white cloud that fills the space between the both of you. Bakugou is silent as he fully takes in your choice, his nose wrinkles a little when he frowns again before he turns his head to look away from you.

“I want to show you something.”

And he’s moving before you can question just why he had frowned at your answer and changed the subject so sharply. Your steps are hurried behind his as he tugs you along, further and further down the path before he’s suddenly diverting into the thicket of trees to your left. It has a shot of fear racing through your veins, your hand squeezes tighter around his own as he continues to traverse through the unknown darkness. 

All at once the darkness fades away for a blinding bright light, and you’re forced to shield your eyes away with your spare hand and curl yourself into the arm of the man who had been pulling you through thorns and sharp branches for the best part of two minutes. 

You come to realise that Bakugou has also stopped. You peek around his jacket arm, squinting at the bright white light that slowly fades away to reveal …  a security light. Confused, you start to take in your surroundings. By the looks of things you’re in a garden, the grass is overgrown and filled with a mixture of weeds and wildflowers, some wilting and others blooming. The birdbath that you assume must’ve been the centrepiece is filled with brown water; neglected for years and unused by any birds since the owners had turned their backs on their garden.

“Where are we?” You finally ask, turning your head back up to look at Bakugou who is staring straight ahead still.

You follow his gaze, and immediately you try to jerk your hand out of his own. You try to tug and pull will all your might to escape the ever-tightening grip he has on you. How dare he! He betrayed you, he pulled you into a false sense of security so he could what?! Take you back to your home?! How did he even know where you lived anyway, how did he know and why did he do it? 

“Let go!” You all but scream, tears once again blurring your sight. “Please, let me go! I don’t want to go back!” 

“Please,” Bakugou pleads, his word sounds wet – like he’s crying as well, and the sharp intake of breath he takes is enough to confirm that perhaps he really is. “Don’t fight me, just follow me and it’ll all make sense.” 

“No!” But he’s moving again, and you’re forced to come with him. It feels like your lungs are filled with water, and your throat feels like it starts to shut the closer you get to the backdoor of your house. “Bakugou, please!” 

He isn’t listening.

“Bakugou, listen to me!” 

The door is open and the sense of dread increases tenfold.

“Katsuki!” 

Finally. He stops. But it’s far too late, you’re both past the threshold and you’re forced to stare at the red patch on the pristine white carpet that looks more cream now. His fingers slip away from yours but it’s like you’re in a trance the longer you stare at the stain that grows duller and duller the longer you stare at it, there are no shards of glass littering the floor. 

In fact, as you look around the house is completely empty. Barren. There are dust sheets over the expensive marble kitchen counters, the doors have been removed and there are no light fixtures. What? This didn’t make any sense, it was your house you’re sure of it but it felt like an empty husk.

“I don’t… I don’t understand, is this some sort of sick joke?” You whirl on your heel to stare at Bakugou whose face is crumpled in what can only be described as agony, the white of his eyes are red with unshed tears. 

“I’m so sorry, Y/N.”

“Why–”

“I shouldn’t have taken you in when I found you. I was told to never do that, I was meant to lead you back here at the start! To help you find peace but I couldn’t do it. It hurt too much to see you crying and pleading with me to take you somewhere safe, I thought I could keep you safe from all of this!” His words seem so out of place on the brute of a man, his large shoulders bunch up with each heavy breath he takes to stop the tears from overflowing. 

“But you looked so happy when I said I think you would have a better future. You’d never have a better future with me, not really, you would always have that longing you feel in your chest right now. That emptiness that isn’t ever really gone until you move on.” 

“Katsuki–... What are you trying to tell me?” His words in truth scare you, nothing he’s saying makes sense and yet it does. That feeling in your chest is true, and you’ve felt it from the moment you stepped foot out of this house just hours ago. 

“You died!” He yells, a sharp intake of breath has him nearly hunching over as if he was punched. “He killed you, right there. And no one ever found you.”

“I don’t… I don’t believe you, that makes no sense. I’m right here! I can feel that I’m right here.” Your hand presses to your chest but even then, it feels cold. You can’t feel the pitter-patter of your heart beneath your fingertips. 

“I wouldn’t lie to you, I could never lie to you.” His hands are warm when they press on either side of your face, cupping your cheeks until you look into his eyes. He looks heartbroken. As if his world has collapsed in on itself and he may never see the sunrise again. Perhaps he may never get to see it again, much like you, you’re unsure just who Bakugou Katsuki really is but the way he’s holding you is undeniably intimate. 

“Do you remember when I said I truly believe that you could have a better future?” You nod in his hands, and he nods along with you. “You still can have a better future, I can give it to you.” 

His fingers dig a little into the plushness of your cheeks, clinging to you as if you may slip from between his fingers like sand and he’s unready to let go of you just yet. 

His face is so close to yours that you’re greedily breathing in the warmth of his breath, your noses brush with a slight raise of his chin. He’s asking for something; for permission, you realise, and you wonder if this is truly how it all ends. 

His lips are just as soft as you imagined, they’re undeniably warm compared to the coldness of your own. Bakugou is greedy when he kisses you, his hands clutch that much tighter until you’re forced to feel the ache in your jaw. He breathes in when he can, only to dive straight back to your lips – to bite on your bottom lip until you allow him in. But you pull away before you let him in, and he’s forced to press his forehead to your own.

You meet his longing gaze once again to ask one final question.

“Did he survive?” Your question clearly catches him off guard, his eyebrows furrow and his hands loosen for just a nanosecond. “Did he get away with killing me?”

“...Yes.” 

You expected that answer and yet it still hurts to hear, that he had gotten away with it and would most likely get away with it again and again until the hands of Death cradled him the same way Bakugou cradles you now. Something deep inside of you tells you that you can’t settle for that, you can’t let him have the last laugh nor can you let him believe that he got away with discarding you so easily.

“I can’t truly have a future as long as he’s still out there.”

Bakugou grows silent once again, the natural red hues of his eye dull as the tears dry up and his lips drop into a slight frown.  “Is that what you’re asking for?” 

“Yes. It’s my final wish.” 

And Bakugou just nods solemnly, he knows what this means for both him and yourself. It hurts him that you feel like you’d be unable to move on without this one final thing, and still, he must obey your final wish. After all, he wouldn’t be the Angel of Death if he ignored the plea of an innocent. 

… Somewhere in the city, in an empty apartment that sits lonely. A white lily wilts, one of its beautiful petals curling as the decay spreads until it falls into the dirt below. A lily that once had three petals has been reduced to two as the Angel sacrifices his own salvation in order to save yours.

#tw domestic violence #cw domestic violence #cw death #bakugou katsuki x reader #bakugo katuski x reader #bakugou x reader

[concussed-to-pieces]

Wolves At The Door; Part Five

Fandom: Resident Evil [Village]

Pairing: Eventual Karl Heisenberg/AFAB!Reader

Rating: Holy shit M.

Summary: You were in too good a mood to argue, simply nodding in agreement. "Very true, I'm lucky to have you." Karl huffily looked away, cramming the rest of the bread into his mouth.

A/N: Welcome all, welcome to our fifth installment! Enjoy!

Tag List: @cookiethewriter @amneris21 @topgirl17 @vodkafolie @a-smol-witch @clockworkmidnight @calwitch @silver-quinn01 @velvet-paradox @hijackser @mrs-wolfwood @nonstop-haikyuu @mic-sunderland @somethingthatsaysbubbles @fullofmoonsandstars @stargazerofgoldenwords @imthegreenfairy86 @karlskitten @nitrogennightmare @chunnies @thirstworldproblemsss @highly-unknown @tartimaar-bloggeth @thesmartbiscuit @spoopyredacted @crowtrobotx @kotall-ohh

Prelude

Part One

Part Two

Part Three

Part Four

[!TRIGGER WARNING!: This installment contains canon-typical violence, a sustained period of a small animal in peril and vague mentions of preparing an animal to be eaten. Stay safe!]

"Quit struggling." Karl muttered, knowing even as he did that it was pointless. It wasn't as if the trapped rabbit understood him. The small animal instead continued to thrash desperately in the snare, emitting the occasional panicky squeak while the man approached. 

It finally went still when Heisenberg's shadow fell over it, its side rising and falling rapidly as it laid there exhausted. Karl's eyes half-lidded, the former Lord observing the tiny body and weighing it mentally. One rabbit wasn't ever enough for him to begin with, but even taking that into consideration, this was a small rabbit. Barely more than a kit, he reasoned grudgingly. 

He was being an idiot. Meat didn't grow on trees. You would be grateful. He should-

Karl knelt where he was, focusing his attention on the metal ring holding the snare loop tight. The ring parted easily, slacking the line. "Go on, beat it." He grunted.

The rabbit remained still, one large eye fixed on him in terror. Its nose twitched wildly. Heisenberg curled a finger and the loop slid fully off the rabbit's rear paw, skittering along the ground by the metal hardware. The rattle of the cable seemed to break the trance the rabbit had been in, because it bolted upright (nearly three feet up!) and bounded off into the underbrush. 

Karl shook his head at himself, rising and going to reset the snare. "Come back next year!" He called after the long-gone animal, "once you've gotten nice and fat and you're worth the goddamn hassle!"

That settled, he sighed and shoved his hat backwards on his head, absently scratching his scalp as he stood there. This was the third snare he'd checked and the only one that even had anything in it. Obviously the increased lycan presence in the area had spooked the local wildlife. Hopefully the thorough routing of the monsters would be enough to bring things back to normal, but winter was coming and the two of you would have to deal with less resources regardless. 

Two of you. Karl shook his head again, irritated. "You're being a fucking idiot." He said aloud. "A real fucking idiot. You're biting the hand as hard as you can. Stop being so damn greedy." Feeling quite dejected despite the crisp autumn air and cheery sunlight, the man huffed, "All that fucking ambition really did you some good, huh? All that drive and ego. Now you can't even bag some dinner without a moral dilemma. Unbelievable."

He shook himself all over, trying to dismiss the thoughts that were plaguing him with the motion. He would check the last snare and be done with it. At some point along the way he would really need to straighten this out. It was getting to the point where it was effecting you, which he absolutely didn't want. 

Karl leaned against a tree trunk, scrubbing his hands over his face. Gods he was just tired. Tired of thinking. Exhausted in general. His head hurt, his body ached. For a foolish second he wondered if he had come down with a cold. 

Stupid, you don't get sick. Annoyed with everything, Heisenberg spotted the last snare marker and stomped forward through the fallen leaves and detritus on the forest floor. Lo and behold, it too was empty. 

Karl was so incredibly fed up he didn't even bother adjusting the snare, he just turned and left. Muttering under his breath, snarling when a root caught the toe of his boot and nearly sent him sprawling, the former Lord was almost too busy feeling sorry for himself to notice the faintly-sweet scent in the air. 

Almost. 

Karl paused, inhaling deeply. Whatever it was, it smelled delicious. Somewhere deep in his past there was the faint memory of a fresh pie on a windowsill, and a young child that may have been him burning his fingers and mouth with greedy handfuls of crispy pastry and molten filling. It had been rich, almost syrupy, hued a crimson-purple that stained every fingertip dark and left no doubt as to who may have pilfered the dessert ahead of dinner. 

He'd always been greedy, especially when it came to things he shouldn't have.

The man approached the cabin a bit quicker now, his dour mood waning. He should apologize for his earlier behavior, he decided, entirely spur of the moment. He was good at apologizing, and even better at pretending that he meant it. It would be easy.

Maybe he might actually mean it, too.

Heisenberg opened the gate, closing it behind him and then shifting into an undignified, loping trot. Hopefully you weren't near the windows. To know that he was so simply bought off with a delicious baked good didn't bode well for his intimidating reputation.

Up the stairs to the small porch, his hat swept off in some odd echo of manners he vaguely remembered employing once, Karl cautiously turned the knob on the door and let himself in. 

You were sweeping the floor by the stove, some ash still scattered around. You looked up at the sound of the door, giving the man a little wave. Karl was perturbed to discover that his voice had vanished. He finally managed a strained, "nothin' in the traps," grunting when you reminded him to take his boots off at the door.

"Don't worry about the snares. I figured with all the commotion, meat would be scarce." You continued, your shoulders drooping a little. "Still, that means I'll have less bartering power when I do my supply run. Though I have gotten more done with your help. I guess it evens out."

Heisenberg paused, his left boot still half-on. "'Supply run'?" He echoed, confused.

"Yeah, every year after the first snow." You rested the broom against your shoulder, ticking off a list on your fingers. "I get evaporated milk, flour, sugar, the usual stuff."

Oh. Oh. Karl realized he was an idiot. Where the hell did he think your flour came from? Or the salt and pepper, or any of the other spices you used for that matter? The man barely resisted the urge to slap his own forehead, instead mumbling something non-committal.

"I'm a little leaner in the stores this year due to your company, so I really have to pay attention if I want to make my supplies last until the snow comes." You shook your head. "I ought to be grateful that a few people still humor me when it comes to not having-" you moved your fingers strangely, holding up two digits on each hand and then bending them up and down. "-legal tender."

"What the hell are you doing with your hands?" Karl asked, thoroughly confused.

You blinked at him, then glanced at your right hand as your mouth formed into an 'o'. "It's a common gesture, it, uh, implies quotes around what the person is saying? It's called air-quotes."

Heisenberg narrowed his eyes but ultimately left it alone, the man simply continuing to wrestle off his left boot. "So, sugar," he attempted to change the subject. "I don't suppose you have any idea what that delicious smell is?"

"Cake!" You replied, your excitement palpable. "Plum cake. It's still cooling though. I figure we can have dinner and then enjoy some."

Dinner was, as always, straightforward and tasty. You had a real knack for turning chanterelles and the last of the tomatoes into something Karl would dare to call edible, especially when you beefed them up with some chicken of the woods or other forage. He had certainly consumed more mushrooms in the time he spent with you than previously in his life, but aside from the occasionally-rubbery texture he didn't find much to complain about. Besides, there was always hearty bread with a precious bit of fat and salt to add a touch of decadence to his meals.

Gods, he really was a simple individual. To think, before he had had the power to take whatever he wanted. He could just…take it. Hell, he had! Lives, food, positions of authority, it had all been his.

And none of it had given him the frankly asinine level of satisfaction that he felt right now sitting at your table, wolfing down his helping of mushroom stew and using a piece of bread to soak up the dregs at the bottom of the bowl. None of it had warmed him like you scolding him good-naturedly to 'slow down, no one's going to take it from you!', your laughter burrowing between his ribs to prod his heart.

He was in some real, deep trouble here.

You cut Karl a slice of cake and watched like a hawk as he took the first bite, obviously waiting for his reaction. He barely tasted the treat on his tongue, too focused on how precious you looked, your eyes only for him. If nothing else, he appreciated the ego boost. "S'good." He mumbled around a second mouthful, the relieved smile he got in return one he wanted to see more of. He even managed to choke out a crumb-laden "thank you," much to your evident delight.

Indebted. Not quite. Not like that anymore. But absolutely, undeniably greedy.

…

Over the colder days that came, you spent most of your time preserving the remaining harvests from your fruit trees. Karl kept the stove well-supplied with firewood and drawing properly, and you were actually able to get far more done than usual. Between your preserves and the multitude of small animal pelts you had tanned and smoked over the course of a year, you hoped to have a decent go of it when it came to refreshing your supplies. 

You certainly needed it. Karl couldn't help the amount that he ate and you didn't begrudge him, but the weeks were getting leaner and every day you woke up without snow on the ground was another day the two of you dealt with a bit less for dinner. It had always been difficult around this time of year for you even while you were alone, as you battled to justify eating the preserves you were attempting to save for bartering. 

Most meals at this point were some variance on mushroom stew with the last of your rice, and your flour stores were growing worryingly low. The two of you seemed to go through a loaf within three days, so at least you didn't have to worry about the bread molding! You could tell Karl was growing weary of the repetitive diet but he appeared to be trying to hide that fact, and you appreciated the effort if nothing else.

In a real stroke of luck, Heisenberg ended up braining a young boar that wandered too close to the fenceline in search of fallen apples, and after a long day's work you and the former Lord feasted like kings. Karl finally got his boar and, while you had no pumpernickel on hand, your regular thick slices of bread were graced with delicious rendered fat and a hearty helping of salt. 

"I'm relieved!" You sighed that evening, watching Karl dig through some bones that you had set aside to boil for stock. "I was kind of worried we wouldn't make it to the snowfall, but we should be able to coast safely now."

The man selected a larger bone, easily cracking it open and then scooping out the marrow with your lone butter knife. He then proceeded to spread the marrow on a piece of bread, tucking into his treat with a groan of contentment. Karl waved the remainder of the slice at you, the offer plain, but you declined. You were already absolutely stuffed, sleepy and warm. 

You closed your eyes, basking in the peaceful glow of the stove. You heard Karl swallow, then clear his throat.

"How long does the trip usually take?"

You didn't bother opening your eyes, offering up your usual shrug. "Four days, round trip? Sometimes five. Depends on what I'm lugging and how the snow is."

"What, so you camp in snow?" He sounded incredulous.

"Yeah. There's a lean-to built at…around the halfway point I'd say. It's mostly stone too, so not a lot of upkeep. Sometimes I have to patch up the roof, but that's a small price to pay for someplace out of the elements."

"Unbelievable."

You cracked an eye open to give him a look. "The guy that can move metal with his mind is really going to sass me about camping in a lean-to?"

"Look, it's not with my mind, sugar, it's with some kinda' organ, like-"

"Yeah yeah, an electric eel. I remember." You teased, grinning while he sulkily took another bite of his bread. "Fancy stuff."

"You oughta' be more grateful for my 'fancy stuff', without it we'd be sitting here eating nothing but the last of that watery mushroom stew and some bread!" Heisenberg shot back, obviously annoyed with your ribbing. 

You were in too good a mood to argue, simply nodding in agreement. "Very true, I'm lucky to have you." Karl huffily looked away, cramming the rest of the bread into his mouth. "I know pickings have been slim recently, and if I was feeling the pinch you definitely were too. You handled it like a champ, though!" You praised, entertained by how flushed he had gotten.

"Ain't exactly the first time I've been hungry, sugar." Karl grumbled, rubbing the back of his neck. His attitude seemed to have shifted to pleased, even though he was still trying to act irritated. His next question, then, was a little surprising. "Will you…want someone to come with you on the trip for supplies?"

You hadn't actually thought about it, but the idea of having an extra body to help move supplies was extremely appealing. "If you'd like?" You said slowly, trying to act nonchalant. "It's not a hard run, it's pretty flat for most of the way. I'll have to see if there's another pair of skis or snowshoes around here though, otherwise it'll be pretty slow going for you."

The man waved a hand dismissively. "I can whip something up if I need to, I'm not too concerned about that." He paused, and then reasoned, "besides, it's only fair that I come along. I'm responsible for practically eating you out of house and home."

"Yes but you have also been incredibly helpful." You pointed out. "Thanks to your tinkering, that old stove hasn't given me any more trouble, which means I've gotten so much more preserving done than I would normally! I usually end up with some spoiled produce to send to the compost pile, but I actually stayed on top of it this season."

"You don't have to butter me up, sugar, I already asked to go." Karl mumbled, seeming downright bashful.

"I'm not buttering you up! I'm being genuine. You're capable and I appreciate the extra hands." You insisted with a laugh. "Why would I lie?"

"I…I guess you wouldn't, would you."

…

It was several days later that Karl sat out on the porch steps, looking up at the sky. You had woken up that day proclaiming it smelled like snow and he had to admit, it seemed you may be correct. There was that odd quality to the air, and the clouds had grown thick right before sundown. 

You were fairly buzzing with excitement the entire day. Digging out an ancient set of skis from a long box beneath your couch, locating a large frame backpack from your spartan closet, assembling small crates to safely hold your preserve jars during the journey. The star of the show, however, was an old sled that had absolutely been military surplus. It was covered in olive drab canvas and had an odd scent to it that made Karl's nose twitch. 

"Isn't it a beaut?" You had asked proudly, and who was he to deny what you clearly believed to be truth?

The last of the preserved boar was tucked safely into your enormous backpack along with the rest of the supplies the two of you may need for the short journey, such as a mess kit, plenty of matches in their special jar to keep them dry and two well-worn down sleeping bags. 

"It's like waiting for Christmas."

Karl jumped a little, startled by your voice. He had been so deep in thought he hadn't heard you approaching. "Not quite, I don't think." He replied, giving you a quick grin. 

You rested your hands on his shoulders, drumming on them absently as you peered upwards. The man barely refrained from groaning, the constant tension in his neck and shoulders easing a little from your motions. You then began actually making an effort to rub his shoulders, Karl grunting and exhaling hard. "Okay? Not too rough?" You queried.

"Be rougher, fuck." He said before he could think about it, chuckling awkwardly immediately afterwards. His laughter died in his throat when your thumbs pressed down, working at a specific knot until it finally released. "You're an angel." Karl sighed, trying to keep from making some hellishly embarrassing noise of relief.

"I need you in good shape for tomorrow! You're pulling the sled, after all." He could hear the smile in your voice. Heisenberg tipped his head back, resting it against your stomach. Your fingers raked through his hair and gently scratched his scalp as they went, sending a pleasurable little shiver down his back. You continued to stroke his hair absently, one hand over the other in a ceaseless loop while you kept your eyes on the sky in anticipation. 

Karl was fighting to stay awake. He had actually woken up the same time as you today, which was a rarity. He was making the effort to adjust to your schedule, outwardly for no real reason, but selfishly so that he could see you before you got started for the day. 

You were always so soft in the morning, your clothes rumpled, a steaming mug of tea cupped in your hands while you sat at the kitchen table. The man would often just sit silently, cradling his chin with his crossed arms on the tabletop and watching the steam from your cup curl in the early morning sunlight. Inevitably you would start mumbling to yourself about daily tasks and Karl always felt a little dejected when you rose from the table, but he would mask his disappointment with a small smile and an ever-declined offer to help with breakfast.

"We starting at dawn tomorrow?" He asked drowsily. 

"Depends on how much snow is on-" you paused, leaning over his head. "Oh! Look, look!" You exclaimed, pointing. "It's starting!"

Karl nodded, not really registering the snowflakes beginning to drift down so much as the pleasant warmth of your body pressed to his back. "Guess Christmas is here." He teased, letting your laughter wash over him.

…

You were almost too excited to sleep, but before you knew it you were waking up to the light of a cold gray dawn. You had laid out your clothes the night before, so you quickly heated some water on the stove and washed up, then donned your under-layers for the trek. 

Karl woke shortly after you, the man yawning and rubbing his eyes before accepting the offered cup of precious coffee. "Mornin'," he mumbled around the lip of the mug, his voice low and still gruff with sleep.

"Good morning." You replied, trying to keep your tone calm. You were sure that bouncing off the walls wouldn't be overly amusing to your perennial houseguest.

Karl raised an eyebrow at you. "Figured you'd be more wound up," he grunted.

"I am." You huffed, "I'm doing my best to not be irritating here."

"I appreciate it, sugar." Heisenberg took another sip, closing his eyes as if to dismiss you. You took that as your cue to head for the door. No sense in prolonging the inevitable, right?

The snow was perfect, a downy white blanket that coated the surrounding woods. You couldn't help your noise of elation, momentarily embarrassed when Karl snickered into his mug behind you. You refused to let him dampen your mood however, staying outside long enough to sweep the snow off the steps and then rushing around inside to prepare some breakfast. 

"Easy, you'll break your neck running around in your socks like that." Heisenberg chastised you after the third time you slid on the floor heading back to the sink. "Let me finish the oatmeal, okay? You sit the hell down and get some tea or whatever the hell into you."

In moments your hands were graced with a steaming bowl of oatmeal which you did your best to eat expeditiously, causing Karl to chide you anew on the dangers of choking. 

It seemed like an eternity and also no time at all before the two of you were all prepared for the journey, Karl standing out in the front yard with the loaded sled while you securely padlocked the cabin door. He had wanted to also carry your backpack, but you put up enough of a fight that he relented. Bad enough that you needed help at all! You weren't sure your pride would take the blow if all you had to lug were the clothes on your back, no matter how strong your companion was.

Nodding to yourself in satisfaction, you gave the padlock a final pat and then held the porch railing so you could strap your boots into your skis. They were really more like two slabs of once-waxed wood, but beggars couldn't be choosers. "Alright!" You announced brightly, seizing your ski poles so you could test the grip of your bindings. "Let's get the hell out of here."

Part Six

#karl heisenberg #lord karl heisenberg #eventual romance #fix it fic #au #resident evil #re 8 #re 8 village #resident evil village #resident evil karl heisenberg #karl heisenberg x reader #karl heisenberg imagine #re 8 karl heisenberg #slow burn #canon typical violence

[hangmanbrainrot]

Heyo! I’d like to make a request if that’s alright. I want to know how hangman would react to his pregnant wife enjoy sleeping on her pregnancy pillow more than in his arms. Because we can all tell his major love language would be physical touch ❤️ Thank you❤️

hopefully i did your request justice, anon! <3 i'll be labeling pregnancy as a warning in the tags, as well as in the warnings below, since i know that can be triggering for some.

warnings: mentions of pregnancy, reader has children, established relationship, marriage, swearing, sierra has decided jake's middle name is michael.

notes: none!

word count: 680

pairing: jake seresin x afab!reader

the pillow thief

The first time Jake saw the godforsaken pillow was when it arrived on your doorstep from Amazon. See, such a large box naturally drew his attention, and he’d just about dragged it in the house when you came waddling down the stairs — you and the children you’d been growing for 24 weeks.

“Oh my god, it's here!” You'd said, and he'd been cursing the damn thing ever since. The problem wasn't with the pillow itself, but rather the fact that you'd rather cuddle it than your husband some nights. 

Now, six weeks later, Jake was more than a little grouchy and okay, yeah, he was pouting, but he was tired of not being able to hold you close at night. Every night, you'd beat him up to your bedroom so you were already curled up with the thing and half snoring before he even had a chance to make a move. But tonight, when you'd gotten up to go to the bathroom — and declined his many offers to help — he saw his window of opportunity. In the time you were gone, he'd managed to stuff the grey polyester under your king sized bed before you'd even turned on the faucet to wash your hands.

The man could barely hide his self-satisfied grin when you re-emerged, but he definitely hadn’t prepared for the absolute panic on your face.

“Oh no,” you’d said softly. Were your eyes welling up? “Not again.” 

“Baby?” Jake tested, brows knitted together in confusion. “Baby, what’s going on?” 

“Lulu stole my pillow, again!” you practically wailed in response, tears already dribbling down your cheeks. “Jakey, you didn’t see her? The pillow thief. I’m gonna start closing our bedroom door at night, I can’t believe this. She’s probably already chewing on it and I’m gonna have to order another one.”

By the time you’d finished speaking, you were verging into the territory of hysterical, so Jake quickly decided the jig was up. 

“Wait, wait, wait, before you exile our poor sweet girl…” He released a heavy sigh, then bent to slide his hand under the bed. He couldn’t let your dog take the fall for his theft; his conscience would never let him live it down. As soon as you realized what was going on, you gasped aloud. 

“Jacob Michael Seresin!”

He’d just settled the pillow back on the bed when he glanced up to catch sight of the downright fury in your gaze. He knew you loved him, otherwise he couldn’t have convinced you to marry him and have not one, but three children with him. (The twins were a surprise, nobody on either side of either of your families had produced any. Until now.) But Jake was also fairly certain you would love to exact some sweet revenge on him right about now. He had to clean this up, and fast.

“Okay, let me explain. I just wanted…”

“This had better be a good fuckin’ explanation, Jake.”

To say he was on thin ice was putting it lightly. No, right now, he was out in the middle of a frozen lake and cracks were appearing more rapidly by the minute.

“I wasn’t going to hide it from you forever. I just… Um, maybe, sort of wanted you to, y'know, hold me instead. Pretend I'm the pillow.”

For the first time in the history of your entire relationship, Jake had absolutely no idea what your expression meant. It was fucking terrifying. As you crept closer to him, Jake found himself sliding back further on your mattress to be closer to the headboard. You were downright vicious with a pillow when you needed to be, and he was worried he’d provoked you just enough this evening.

But, instead, you threw your arms around him as tightly as you could with your still-growing children between you. The sigh you released was downright dreamy when you spoke, but the contrast between your words and the sound had Jake’s head spinning. “Oh, honey. If you try something like this again, you’ll be sleeping on the couch until the twins are toddlers.”

#sierra answers 💌 #anonymous #jake seresin x reader #pregnancy tw #tw pregnancy

[traumadumpwriter]

Heavy trigger warning! This story includes heavy themes of ab*se, r*pe, self h*rm, mental illness and violence.

You can check out the other chapters by going on the Freedom tag on my page!

All likes and comments are massively appreciated

Freedom: A John Shelby mini fic

Chapter Seven: 5217 words

Alice had stayed leant into John's side for the whole walk home, his arm on her waist making her feel safe in the dark Birmingham streets. They were both still covered in blood, illuminated in the occasional fire or streetlamp - but of course no passerby dared to question them.

John felt extremely protective of Alice, wanting to get her home as soon as possible and away from the preying eyes of men. He was hardly surprised that David was stupid enough to have attempted the vile act - having an intense dislike for the man instantly upon first glance - but with him, Tommy and Arthur in the building; that was incredibly stupid.

"He's lucky he's still fucking alive. Should've bloody killed him. Shouldn't have let Alice get her hands dirty. Should've taken her into the back room and then shot the cunt myself." His thoughts began to fester and he started to feel irritation and self doubt until Alice's voice broke the still air.

"You know, one of the first nights I came back, I had a dream about you." She sounded amused; like she was telling a joke rather than admitting a deep subconscious desire. "I only ever really had nightmares, so I took it as a sign."

He wanted to tease her, to ask if it were dirty. But he found himself unable to talk as her rapid mood swings once again left him temporarily dumbfounded. He didn't know wether to comfort her or be scared of her.

Alice on the other hand, was just happy to be in John's arms; the nightmare of that day quickly fading from her mind as she focused on the handsome man, unaware of his stress.

"I was in the caravan, dark and alone. Then I was falling, like the floor just disappeared or something, and suddenly I was on the high street, surrounded by all these people... I was trying to get through the crowd, away from my husband. He was chasing me and I was shouting out for someone to help me, but no one did." John's eyes flicked from her lips to the pavement ahead as she spoke, intently listening to each word but also paranoid of any man who drew too near.

"Then you were there.. And you took my hand. And everything was okay." She playfully scoffed before looking up at John. "Do you ever dream?"

He sighed. On any other day the realisation that he'd seeped into her subconscious as a knight in shining armour would surely give him quite the kick, but today was a bad day. He was tired and stressed out; his mind going from one bad place to another. And her question didn't help, it seemed tedious compared to the real troubles on his mind.

"Yeah. I dream." He replied bluntly. "Bad ones usually."

His annoyance was clear in his tone and Alice immediately stopped walking, crossing her arms.

"Why are you angry? Is it me? Did you lie?"

He turned to her with an equally annoyed look. "Lie about what?"

"About being okay with what I just did."

Another sigh escaped his mouth although this one was more of a groan as he looked down at her subtly insecure face.

"No, I'm not exactly feeling fine and dandy about you doing Blinder work, nor you slitting your wrist in front of us like it were nothing.. But I didn't lie, the cunt had it coming." He answered.

"So why the mood then?" It was almost like she hadn't heard anything that had come out his mouth other than 'I didn't lie' - it was all she'd asked for after all.

"Because of what I just said. You shouldn't be doing blinder work, it ain't right." His voice got louder before going quiet again as he started to rant more to the sky than to Alice. "I should've gutted him that first night he was in there giving you hassle. Then he would've never had the chance to bother you tonight. And I should've taken that bloody knife out of your hand before you did anything stupid."

"You shouldn't blame yourself." She cut off his ramble and stepped towards him, gesturing to continue their walk home. "I liked it."

He hesitated before putting his arm back around her; feeling almost uncontrollably submissive to her gaze. But he did it nonetheless and started to walk again. The house was only a minute away.

"Yeah I could see that." He let out an awkward tut. "And that's not the point."

"So, what is the point?"

There were a million and one points. All of which he knew would fall onto deaf ears. Alice clearly wasn't feeling particularly receptive that night and she could be hard to get a point across to on her good days. The only thing that really, truly mattered in that moment was that he had her in his arms and she was safe.

"It doesn't matter." He grumbled before sliding the key into the front door. "Just don't fucking cut yourself again, you could've hit a vein or artery or something."

He didn't look at her, instead choosing to focus on the door when he spoke those words. It made him feel awkward, giving an instruction like that to her as if she were a child.

"It's not like she'll listen anyway." He thought sourly but then she suddenly stood up on her toes and planted a short kiss on his lips, changing his tone instantly.

"If it makes you feel better I won't cut my arms." Looking up through her thick lashes with genuine, palpable care, John let the knot in his stomach loosen slightly and a smile tug at the corners of his lips.

"Or just don't cut anywhere." He said with another sigh before softly planting a kiss on her forehead.

This kiss was longer as he held her for a moment, taking in all that had happened that day from start to finish; it had been a blood soaked one and he needn't think of anymore.

"I suppose you'll be boiling the water for a bath." He said once he pulled away. "Given the state of you and all."

Alice would've usually scoffed or rolled her eyes at such a comment but she could tell that John was feeling sensitive so she refrained from it, instead smiling up at him with star filled eyes. There were a few spots of blood on his face - light splash back from David or herself - but mostly it was his hands and shirt that were stained red.

"Yeah I was gonna. You too I'm guessing?"

"Yeah. I'd invite you to join me if you weren't such a danger to knobs."

This did earn an eye roll, playful though as they finally stepped in the front door.

"Yeah yeah. Count yourself lucky."

—————

A few weeks later and that incident had put some more pep in Alice's step. It had made her feel stronger and prouder - more back to her old self.

She'd even bragged about it to Ada, about how she could've killed the man in a swift move if she'd wanted but had shown the restraint to not do so. Her friend had mixed feelings about the whole situation, as did Polly who'd heard of it through Arthur.

The matron of course said nothing about it to Alice; mostly stewing silently on her worries for the girl and the guilt it brought. There had been one time she'd discussed it with Tommy in his dimly lit office.

"You three just let her cut her wrist, then you didn't even kill the bastard who tried force himself on her. What if she'd gone too deep and bloody died?" She hissed, watching Thomas take a deep drag of his cigarette as he thought over her words, his face devoid of emotion as per.

Finally he replied "But she didn't" earning an irritated tut from his aunt.

"Do you even care? You know that your brother is completely in love with her and is no doubt going to ask to marry her. Does that mean nothing to you?"

Another sharp inhale of smoke before he spoke, meeting Polly's intense gaze.

"You're not the only one who made a promise, Pol."

"But I'm the only one who seems to bloody care about keeping it!"

Ada on the other hand had expressed direct concern to Alice but it fell upon deaf ears as she insisted she was fine and that her self inflicted injury was "no big deal."

When Alice wouldn't listen, she vented to her husband instead. He'd been around more as the summer ended and autumn drew near, buying Karl and Ada new warm hats and gloves and it almost made Ada forget how much she hated him when he was away. It wasn't until she told him about light details of the David incident that she remembered why she hated him so.

"At least she can defend herself." She had protested to Freddie, after ranting and shortly regretting it as he called Alice a litany of insults.

"The girl is a fucking psycho. You need to stay away from her. And keep her away from Karl!" He'd demanded, causing a huge fight between the two.

Meanwhile, John had been trying not to worry about her but struggling not to. The image of the woman slicing her wrist with no apprehension, no fear, no reaction, had embedded itself in his brain and with it a litany of new fears.

He always knew that she was unpredictable and he always knew that she'd done things like that as a kid, he'd seen it for gods sake.

But seeing it now was different. It wasn't a distant shock anymore; something that could be ignored and left for someone else to deal with. Instead it was at the forefront of his mind as everyday he realised more and more that he really loved this woman, she wasn't just some fantasy anymore - and as much as he wanted to hurt any man who dare even approach her - she was her own biggest threat.

"I just don't bloody get it." He sighed to Arthur after a long day at the shop. Alice was still serving pints from the bar and chatting merrily to customers whilst the two spoke in their booth.

"Why the fuck would you want to do that shit to yourself? It's like she don't care if she dies or not!"

Arthur also sighed, wanting to comfort his brother but having no good answers.

"I don't bloody understand it either." He muttered before taking a big gulp of his drink. "Maybe one day it'll make sense."

"Nah." John quickly protested with a scoff, his eyes remaining fixed on the wooden hatch in the wall, like she would reappear through it at any moment with a fresh drink. "She hides things. I don't even wanna know what she does to the rest of her body-"

Arthur let out a rude chuckle to interrupt him, banging his drink down on the table before proclaiming "What, you mean you're this soft for a bird and you ain't even fucked her?" with a typical manly leer.

John shot him a sharp glare, tutting and nodding sarcastically as he started to feel a defensive anger rush to his head like air to a balloon.

"Look, don't fucking talk about her like that, alright?" He aggressively raised his voice, much to the somewhat surprise of his brother.

Then all of the air was gone. He was at a loss for words again, as too often seemed to be the case with Alice.

"She ain't like that.. she- she-" John started to stammer and then paused for a moment, trying to condense all his thoughts into one sentence. It was through scouring his mind that he suddenly remembered the rage he'd had for Jones and how he was the one who made her like this. He was the one to be blamed.

"The fucking scum bag who took her.. he did some real rotten stuff that I don't think she's ever gonna forget." John finally finished with a bitter sneer before downing his drink.

"Well why haven't we bloody blinded the cunt?" Arthur retorted.

Another frustrated sigh fell from his brothers lips.

"I fucking sent Johnny Dogs on the trail. Can't bloody find him." He answered shortly. "And if Johnny can't find him, how are we gonna?"

"Bloody ask her mate."

"She don't talk about none of that.. but I wanna make things serious. I think she's my one." His demeanour became more solemn as he confessed to his brother.

Whilst their conversation got more intense, Alice was on the other side of the wall blissfully unaware. It had been fifteen days since the incident with David and John had spent most nights with her since. When the clock hit eleven and Alice was closing the pub, he'd turn up at The Garrison to make sure she was walked home safe. Or if the path was clear, they'd end up talking for hours between free liquor and passionate kisses.

She hoped that tonight would be one of those nights, daydreaming amongst pouring drinks. But alas, John kept ordering and ordering yet never inviting her in which struck her as peculiar, especially as the night drew to a close.

"Are him and Arthur really just getting wankered by themselves on a Tuesday?" She thought, slightly amused despite her disappointment.

John answered her internal question by suddenly slamming open the cubby door, drawing all attention to the brothers for a second before everyone meekly returned to their conversations. His eyes instantly went to Alice's and a smug smirk crossed his lips once he saw that she too was intensely watching him.

It was like she could read his mind, a blush forming on her face as she realised he'd caught her staring. Not that it really mattered, but his smirk made her feel like it might.

He stepped over to her with a drunken swagger, going straight behind the bar and grabbing her hand.

"John! What are you-" She started to ask but he leant in close and moved his other hand to the small of her back.

"Arthur will close up. Come with me." He whispered in her ear, sending a quick wave of shivers down her spine. The smell of liquor on his breath almost sent her into a panic as a reel of bad memories flashed before her eyes, but that panic was quickly subsided by John's comforting, tobacco and cinnamon laced scent swinging her back into reality.

"Okay." She nodded and squeezed his hand to which he immediately grinned and pulled her away, swiftly leading her through the front door and out into the street.

There was an apparent gleam of excitement across John's face - something that made Alice giggle and her stomach flip.

"Where are we going?" She called to him from behind as he pulled her forward.

He carried on pacing through the road without a word until they reached his automobile and he smirked "We're going to go dance."

"I've not got a dancing dress, shoes nor any makeup! You've given me no time to prepare." She tutted, although a smile did remain on her face.

"You don't need none of that looking lovely as you are."

After slight persuasion, John swung the car around to Ada's so that Alice could borrow something more appropriate to wear, impatiently beeping outside as he waited.

Inside, Ada was rummaging through her wardrobe and chatting excitedly to Alice as she held Karl - much to the silent displeasure of Freddie who was just laid on the bed listening to their gossip, knowing an argument would later ensue.

When Alice finally stepped out of the house clad in a black, sequinned dress that rested a few inches above her knees, John's jaw almost dropped and the beeping immediately halted.

"I've not got anything on my face, done nothing to my hair." She complained, placing her work plimsoles in the backseat before sliding into the passenger side. "I look a bloody mess."

The man didn't immediately respond, mentally noting her statement as ridiculous and becoming distracted by the vision before him. His eyes ran down her legs slowly and sweetly like sticky toffee, a smirk twinging at the corners of his lips when he finally reached her borrowed shoes and saw the three inch heels attached to them. It was then that his eyes went back to hers and he finally replied with a smug expression.

"You look fucking gorgeous.. and I'm the one who gets to show you off tonight, how lucky am I?" He grinned, making Alice blush and giggle.

"You're such a gentleman John. It's a wonder no one else got to you before me." She doted and he almost drunkenly said the same back to her before quickly closing his mouth, remembering 'someone did get to her before me.'

He tried to laugh it off and think of something else to say but Alice noticed his awkward change up and it only took her a few seconds to suss out what words he'd stopped himself from saying.

"You're gonna have to show me the ropes of this dancing business-"

"You were going to say the same to me until you remembered my husband, weren't you?" She cut him off plainly, once again earning an awkward silence from John as he scraped his brain for what to say back.

"It's okay. I know I'm damaged goods." She continued with a scoff before a playful smile sprung from her lips and she lightly tapped John "I was just kidding. What's the sour face for?"

He was annoyed now. Why did she have to say stuff like that? And then have the nerve to expect anyone to be okay about it?

"But you weren't kidding and even if you were, it ain't funny Alice. And why do you still call him your husband? Ain't like he earned that." John hissed but Alice still remained amused.

"Does it make you jealous?" She teased.

John tutted and pulled a disgusted face. "Of that cunt? Are you fucking serious?" His volume raised slightly and his eyes sent daggers, sending a sudden pang of anxiety through the previously cocky woman.

Still though, she had to keep up a facade so she stayed cool, staring back at John with an equally intense gaze.

"What's it matter if I was?" She raised an eyebrow.

That visibly annoyed him more.

"Stop fucking doing this, Alice! You can't just say shit like that and expect me to say nout about it! And then all of these fucking bullshit answers and riddles when I ask you anything! I'm trying to help you, I wanna help-"

"Well I didn't ask for help!" She interrupted him sharply. "And it's not like you tell me anything about how you're feeling or what you've gone through!"

John was visibly taken aback by that.

"See. You think I don't know, but I do. I see it. The war in your eyes. The war you've carried on fighting even after coming home. Why don't we talk about that? Why don't you tell me how you truly feel right now?"

Thick silence filled the car, Alice brewing with irritation whilst John sat motionless in thought, trying to compile the right sentence from the many words jumping around his head.

"Not so easy when it's about you, is it?" The woman broke the silence snidely, crossing her arms.

John instantly replied this time, an answer finally coming to him and leaving no space for quiet as he plainly said "So you wanna know how I feel right now then?"

All of the hope that had been sucked from Alice in the moments prior was now making a slow return. His eyes locked onto hers were showing a vulnerability he'd never shown, so she almost smiled as she quietly responded "Yes. Tell me."

"I feel like, I want to take things further.. but you've still got secrets and a husband... and I feel like he still owns you." The words struggled to come out, feeling as bad to say as they were to hear.

Alice's heart had been lifted and then crushed all within a few seconds.

"John.. I... He's dead to me." She stammered, feeling stupid and rejected, trying to hold back a wave of emotions.

"Say his name then. Or the name he gave to you."

Another thick silence.

"Exactly. He ain't dead to me. You can't even say his name it scares you that bloody much. I-I've got to kill him Alice." John's tone was intimidatingly serious but went soft towards the end as he saw her demeanour crumble.

For some reason, tears started to fall from her eyes upon hearing that. Maybe it was the fact that John cared that much about her; the intense realness of his emotion, or maybe it was the overwhelming fear of the man they were speaking of. Either way, she was more embarrassed than ever and quickly turned to open the car door but John stopped her, lightly grabbing her arm and pulling her towards him.

"Stop it John, I'm a bloody stupid disgrace and I need to go. Find another girl to dance with." She quietly cried, looking down to avoid meeting his gaze as she gave his pull no resistance.

It pained him so much to see her like this; full of self hatred and suffering because of something done to her by an evil person. The conversation had sobered him up and he'd lost most of the confidence that he'd been building up with each bottle in the hours prior.

However, he knew he still needed to say it - he still needed to tell her the truth. Arthur's earlier words rang through his head; "Tell her before it's too late, before she leaves again or does something unfixable to herself!"

He took a deep breath, placing his hand on her shoulder and squeezing it.

"Look at me, darling." He said quietly and she slowly lifted her head, her glistening eyes meeting his steely ones.

"You're none of those nasty things you say about yourself... I fucking love you, Alice. I've been dreaming of you ever since you left and I don't wanna dance with no one else... I recon I want you to be my wife someday-"

Her heart jumped into her throat and the world felt frozen. Did he really just say that? She was too shocked to even smile, instead interrupting him with a wide eyed "Really?"

"Yeah. Of course. Why wouldn't I?" He grinned before nervously adding "Is that not what you want?"

Finally, she was able to relax and grin, her tears quickly drying up "Of course that's what I want" moving her hand to cradle John's face.

In the dim light, they shared a slow and passionate kiss, fingers intertwining and heartbeats racing. The romantic atmosphere was cut short though by John pulling away and sighing "But as I said before; it's all someday. There's some things I need to do first and killing that bastard is one of those."

Alice scoffed.

"Why? Because he's still my husband in the eyes of some questionable God? Or because he took a part of my body? 'Cus if that's why, you've got a long list." She was regaining her confidence and talking nonchalantly, unintentionally sending a dagger into John's gut.

"It's because I fucking love you Alice, didn't you hear me? And I'm gonna kill every fucking bastard who ever laid a finger on you. You understand?" His irritation was bubbling again despite his straight face and it suddenly began to make sense to Alice; John's desire to kill Jones.

Was this love? The real love that she'd only ever dreamed of or read about? Was she really lucky enough to have a man care for her this much?

And It's not like she didn't also have a deep desire to see Jones dead. But she never expected anyone else to care, let alone this much.

There were so many worries racing through her mind though, the fear of seeing Jones again, the worry that they wouldn't find him and therefore John might refuse to be with her. The pressure was immense.

But with a sharp inhale and quick dab of her eyes, the brunette nodded and declared "I'll help you find them, but I want to be the one to kill him."

—————

Despite the earlier intense conversation, by the time they reached the club, the mood was cheery and playful again. Both felt completely enamoured by each other, hands constantly intertwined or roaming further onto their bodies - especially as they danced. The club was quite busy; small and cosy with warm lighting and yet having an air of snobbery, like it were a secret club that the pair shouldn't have stumbled into. They didn't mind though, ignoring the whispers and looks as they laughed the night away.

John's words kept repeating in her head, giving her butterflies as she looked into his eyes and pictured being his wife. His protective arm and gentle patience had finally made her feel unconditionally safe with the man- along with a couple drinks - and she found herself uncontrollably lustful for him; even more so than she'd been before.

Now she felt ready. He'd said he loved her for goodness sake. There's no way he'd hurt her.

With a grin, she removed her arms which were draped loosely around his shoulders and grabbed his hand - this time being the one to lead him out of the building.

"Why we leaving beautiful? I's about to get us another drink." John mumbled in her ear, planting kisses to her neck between each word.

"Because I love you. And I want you." She replied, looking straight ahead as they headed towards the automobile.

John's steps almost halted. It had slightly upset him earlier that she didn't say it back, but he'd managed to keep it hidden as her emotions felt more important than his. Even as they'd danced and kissed, he'd secretly been worrying that he'd confessed too soon and she didn't really feel the same way.

A satisfied smirk set across his face once her statement had fully settled in; the spark in his belly now a full fire. He beamed and span Alice to face him, planting a big kiss on her lips before they climbed into the car.

"Where are we going?" He swallowed, Alice's hand teasingly trailing along his thigh.

"Yours, I guess." She smirked confidently, taking her hand away from him to grab a cigarette from the small compartment in the car.

He instantly missed her touch and craved to feel it again, almost feeling like he was being deprived of oxygen. It only took a second for him to put the keys in and start speeding down the road.

Upon reaching John's house, the two were attached to each other even before opening the front door; one of John's hands running down Alice's back whilst the other fiddled with his key.

Once the large door was open, Alice practically shoved him inside; giggling before lacing her fingers through his as he lead her to his bedroom.

The house was small and quiet, only the sounds of their footsteps being heard until they reached the bedroom. She'd passed out on his sofa after talking into the late hours on a few occasions now, but she'd never gone upstairs.

Alice looked around the room slowly, it wasn't much less bare than the room he had at the family house - beige walls and a wooden floor with aged furniture, decorated by the occasional photograph or doily.

"You like it?" John spoke from his sat position on the edge of the bed, snapping her attention back to him.

When their eyes connected she felt her stomach flip and the butterflies she had return tenfold.

"It's okay." She laughed slightly "Could do with some more things on the wall."

"What kind of things?" He replied, his eyes hungrily running up and down her body but his tone suddenly becoming awkward.

Alice realised that she was going to have to initiate whatever happened next - John was obviously either too intimidated or trying to be a gentleman. In truth, it was a mix of both.

"You don't care about that. Let's fuck." She shortly answered with a smirk, shocking John for a second before a heavy wave of relief rushed through him and a grin crossed his face.

She quickly moved to straddle him and his hands instantly started to roam her body, small moans escaping his mouth as their crotches started to grind against each others.

"Take off the dress." He mumbled after a minute, releasing his hands from her arse and his lips from her neck.

"You have to get undressed too. I don't want to be the only one exposing myself." She insecurely returned, earning a smirk from John.

He undid his shirt and pulled off his trousers with no issue, whilst Alice stood awkwardly beside the bed - still fully clothed.

Once he noticed her seeming uncomfortableness, his smirk dropped into a concerned frown and he asked "What's up with you?.. If you want to stop we can stop."

"No. It's not that." Alice quickly replied, swallowing at the sight of his chiseled chest leading all the way down to the bulge in his underwear. "I- I, I just don't know if I'm going to look good."

It made him sad to see the beautiful woman so full of self doubt.

"I wish you could see what I see" He tutted "cus' you're the most gorgeous woman I ever known."

The sincerity in his eyes and voice made her blush and she looked away before starting to unzip her dress, mentally building herself up again. Every second she took to pull it down felt like a minute for John and when the fabric finally dropped he couldn't tear his eyes away.

Her body was as heavenly as he'd imagined, especially as she slowly removed her bra. But his fears were true; she was covered in brutal, angry scars and not all of them looked self inflicted. There were also relatively fresh red lines marking her thighs.

Those weren't things that needed addressing in that moment though, in fact he'd expected it, so he quickly pushed the thoughts away and focused back on her beauty. His hands and lips quickly found themselves back on her body as she moved to straddle him again.

"Fucking hell Alice, you are fucking beautiful." He looked up from her breasts to her face, planting a long kiss on her neck and moving a hand to kneed one of her breasts whilst the other held her waist.

A quiet moan escaped her mouth and she giggled slightly as she started to grind against him. Her mind was focused on nothing but John and his on her. She too felt enamoured by his body, impressed by his skills in the bedroom and the way he made her feel at ease - even as he finally penetrated her.

The night lasted a while until they eventually fell asleep in each others arms, completely exhausted, comfortable and happy.

#ab*se tw #abuse tw #arthur shelby #freedom #john shelby #john shelby imagine #peaky blinder fanfic #peaky blinder headcanon #peaky blinder imagine #peaky blinders #bpd #fanfic #imagine #dark imagine #self harm #self h@rm #dark fic #tommy shelby #thomas shelby #ptsd #peakyedit #peaky fucking blinders

[xxavengingangelxx]

Long Way From Home 6/?

The chaos and Stockholm syndrome continues. Graves owns Val just a little more reach day.

Ya'll know the drill. I assume this isn't ya'll's first rodeo when it comes to reading this but alas, because it's a dark fic, I will post triggers again. MDNI, 18+ TRIGGERS: Implied/attempted suicide, self-harm, torture, brainwashing, physical abuse, mind fuckery, Stockholm syndrome-related mental gymnastics, trauma bonding, mentions of foster care, threatened/implied/referenced rape, EXTREMELY dubious consent, flashbacks of torture, female being drugged. If I miss, any let me know, please! DARK FIC!

This fic is almost coming to an end...kind of. This will be the first part of the series. After MW3 comes out, I can start posting part 2. Now I've decided on an ending and just know I'm not a believer in happy, fluffy endings because that's just not real life. Read my other Graves/Reader fic As the; Rush Comes to see ;) @josieguts because they asked to be tagged :)

“When did I break?”

Graves frowned when you asked him that later that day. “When’d say that, darlin’?”

“I heard you,”

Graves’s eyes flashed and suddenly he was looking at you like he did when he first too you. He had that sadistic glint in his eyes and you instantly regretted saying anything. You felt like you couldn’t have picked a worse time to bring this up. It was the end of the day and he was likely exhausted and fed up and done. You knew he was much quicker to anger when he was tired. You were getting to know him inside and out.

He simply walked over to you and towered over you. There was a significant size difference between you two and you were almost sure Graves got off on it.

“I did, huh?” he paused before asking, “When?”

It was times like these where you could not meet his gaze. It was too intimidating.

But Graves was not a man that liked being ignored.

So you felt him grab you around your upper arms with a grasp so hard you knew you were going to find bruises in the shape of his fingers later. All he had to do was shake you…once. And you felt it in your bones. You finally met his gaze.

“I want you to tell me where you think you heard that,” he demanded lowly. “Or I’m going to lock that door and things are going to take a dark turn, sweetheart,”

“The radio,” you said immediately. You didn’t even offer any resistance to his questioning because you knew that he wouldn’t hesitate to put you back in that tiny room (cell), drug you senseless, have you tortured and he’d probably get the information anyway.

“You were probably dreaming,” he released you suddenly and you had to rebalance yourself. You hadn’t realized you’d been holding your breath. Despite everything you had both shared in the last days you saw he was still capable of being a scary son of a bitch. “You fall asleep in a lot of weird places,” he said dismissively.

You had nothing to say. What the hell was this about you falling asleep in weird places? If what you thought you’d heard Graves say was true, the only thing that came to your mind was that whatever fucked up drugs he’d given you had messed you up.

“I wasn’t dreaming,”

Graves’s eyes snapped up at you from across the room.

His eyes were so intense you gasped.

Two strides on long, tall legs and he was across the room. One blink and you were on the floor. You tried getting away from him by trying to slide across the floor, trying to find purchase using your boots. Graves didn’t let you and gripped your sweatshirt. He knelt to your level before speaking. He’d apparently hit you across the face or so you felt.

“Let me tell you something,” Graves’s eyes had taken on the cold, icy, almost sadistic glacier-blue gaze. “If I ever do find you sneaking around and spying,” You swear there were times when he would get in a mood that he liked seeing you scared.

“I’m not. I-I’m not.” You stuttered.

“I’ll kill you myself, dump your body, and burn it,”

You flinched when he got up. He didn’t hit you again but you still flinched when he made sudden movements around you.

“You don’t want me to go back to seeing you as a 141 bitch, trust me,” he rumbled.

He didn’t even look at you before leaving the room and slamming the door behind him. You full on heard him growl a sigh outside the door. You heard him tell one of his men something and something inside of you got scared that you were going to be back to square 1 with Graves and dumped back into that tiny, cold room.

You got up and sat with your back leaning against a wall. You were facing the door, ready to engage anyone that came in the room. A small part of you was sick of this. But Graves was not unpredictable. You misbehaved and he got rough. It wasn’t that difficult to understand. You’d never had a normal relationship in your life and your relationship with Graves was far from healthy, far from normal. So why did you agitate him on purpose?

But how did that song go?

I found peace in your violence.

Because you were sure you couldn’t function in a normal relationship anyway. As insane as it was, you craved him. It was indeed insane because he’d just inflicted bruises on your arms and smacked you across the face and yet here you were, wanting him back already. You were getting addicted to your captor.

-

You lost a few privileges after that. Your watch had been confiscated so you were back to not knowing days or time. No windows didn’t help with that. You were bound to a room, but at least it was a bedroom with water and snacks although no real food. You hated the feeling of not knowing how time passed and Graves knew it. It was so fucking disorienting. Your arms did bruise by the way. He’d gripped you so hard on both your upper arms he’d left bruises. He’d hit you across the face, making you collapse on the floor earlier but there wasn’t much of a mark on your face from that. Recently he’d started not leaving marks when he hit you, which was actually rare.

You’re pretty sure days passed. You saw no one and no one talked to you. Solitary confinement, really Graves?

-

“Ya’ know 141 will kill you slow if they find out what you did,” Graves cooed. His voice brought you out of a light snooze.

“What?” you whispered. “What’re you talking about?” you snapped, irritated.

“Don’t. Do not give me an attitude, miss.” Graves snapped back, his voiced laced with venom and warning.

“What’d you mean?” you asked, your tone softened considerably. You were sitting on the bed, arms out behind you.

He didn’t speak, only smirked.

Your arms gave way and you collapsed back onto the bed on your back. You knew exactly what he was talking about.

You

Broke.

Against your better judgement you asked. “I broke didn’t I?” you felt lava hot tears running down the sides of your face towards your hair as you laid on your back. One of the tears caught the laceration on the left side of your face where Graves had struck you with a sidearm when you refused to break all those nights ago in Las Almas. It stung a little, not much though. The wound had mostly closed.

“What did I tell you about them?”

“That you’re not ready for,” Graves stated. “Promise.”

He got up and sat next to you. You felt the bed dip under his weight.

You flinched when he got close.

“How?” You asked.

“I’m surprised you lasted as long as you did, sweetheart,” Graves responded. “Day 6. I mean my boys and I have cracked men twice your size in hours it took us days to crack you. 147 hours to be exact.”

Fuck you hadn’t even lasted a week. So you had been right to be suspicious about Graves’s sudden different treatment when he came into your tiny room and told you that you’d been captive for 10 days. But if you had broken on day 6, what the hell had happened for the four days in between day 6 and day 10?

“Anyway,” Graves shrugged. “Told ya you’d be useful. Now I know it takes a lot to break you.”

“What’d it take?”

“You really don’t remember,” Graves laughed. That motherfucker laughed.

You ignored him, staring up at the ceiling and trying to count the dots in the ceiling tiles, spacing out. You’d noticed you spaced out a lot more often lately.

“You’d picked a fight with one of my boys,” Graves started to explain. “He took care of ya real quick. In the span of 30 seconds, you were on the floor, barely conscious. I warned you about picking fights with them, didn’t I?” And immediately you found yourself thinking that these men, these Shadows, were exactly like Graves. If Graves told them to hurt you, they’d hurt you even if they normally didn’t hit women. They didn’t care that you were half their size and a third of their weight.

Was he getting off on retelling this? Sick FUCK.

Graves’s voice got lower in tone. “You were dehydrated, no water for a day, no food for a few days.” He added, “You hadn’t refused food or water. We did.”

You weren’t sure if you wanted to hear the rest but you felt like you had to. Besides, who said you had a choice?

“So we hooked you up to an IV on day 6,”

Time slowed and you didn’t know if Graves was slowing his words or whether your brain was just spazzing out.

His next words snapped you back to reality. In real time.

“Two suicide attempts in as many days. We’d just gotten you stable from you slashing your wrist.” He chuckled. “You woke up after passing out, said you wanted to die or for me to kill you and fuckin’ ripped the IV outta your left arm so bad you needed more stitches.”

And that sentence. That fucking sentence, Two suicide attempts in as many days, brought it all back.

*

You remember waking up in a bed for the second time. You’d gotten your wrist stitched a day before? Two days before? Who knew? It still ached and you hadn’t been given anything for the pain. The slash on the left side of your face from days and nights ago in Las Almas stung. The cuts on your chest stung. But you still had blood on your face. From where, you had no idea. You’d been in a fight recently, that was for sure.

Graves was a blur of blue and black in front of you. Wearing his classic light blue shirt rolled up to just under his elbows, his hands resting comfortably on his vest.

“You there?” Graves’s tone was mocking.

And with strength you didn’t know you had, you screamed at him, “Why don’t you just fucking kill me?! Why won’t you just let me die?!”

Graves was unfazed.

Until you reached the IV line with your right hand and ripped it out of your left arm without hesitation. Blood sprayed, the rust-red liquid splashing on your clothes. And across Graves’s vest.

Graves just barely flinched and you saw him grit his teeth and wince, glancing down at the blood sprayed on his vest before cold blue eyes met yours again.

You took your eyes off his and you were sure you’d done it this time. You’d bleed out. You had a gash in your left arm from where you’d ripped the IV out. Blood was spreading fast across your clothes and the bed.

“Put ‘er out,” Graves turned away. “I’m not dealing with this shit again.”

You screamed at his men to not fucking touch you. They still held you down, restarted the IV and then drugged you.

You came to an unknown amount of time later.

“Two suicide attempts in as many days,” Graves said softly when you woke up. “I told ya we can’t have ya doin’ that.” Why did that Southern drawl get stronger when he was being a sadistic fuck?

You were restrained.

You were past it all. You were fucking done. You couldn’t believe you were still here. You weren’t sure if you were still alive or in hell.

You came to…somewhat…when you felt Graves gently brushing the hair out of your face. It was stiff and bloody. You were in so much fucking pain that you were crying.

“Val, seriously, just give it up,” he cooed.

“I thought you said we had something,” you slurred tearfully, feeling drugs still pumping through your system. Your vision was hazy and everything looked smeared. Whatever drugs they were, they seemed to only be messing with your mental state and did not relieve your pain at all.

“We did and we can,” Graves replied calmly. “I want that. But you clearly don’t because you’re not talking. It doesn’t have to be pain all the time. Let me take care of you.”

You stayed quiet and he was about to turn and leave before you used your last resort ‘weapon.’ Calling Graves by his first name. You rarely did. Using his first name usually got you whatever the hell you wanted…in the past.

“Phillip,” you gasped. “Phil,”

Graves turned around and met your gaze, although briefly.

“Talk, Val,” Graves stated simply. “It’s how you get out of this.”

*

And that’s the last you remember. For now anyway. You were sure you’d eventually dream about it.

Graves’s voice caught your attention. “You were so beaten to hell, so drugged, you started babbling. And you just happened to babble some info. Good info.”

You found yourself sitting up, legs crossed in Indian Style in front of you on that same bed. Your hands were in your lap and your face was wet with tears.

“You’re such a sadistic fuck,” it slipped your lips before you could stop it.

“Compliment if I ever heard one,” Graves smirked. “So after you cooperated we loaded you up with pain meds and kept you almost unconscious for the next 4 days.”

There was a pause in the air. It was heavy, laden with emotions from you and sadism from Graves. You glanced down, gaze focusing on you wringing your own hands in your lap.

“You said they’d kill me slow?” your voice was cracking.

“Can you blame them?”

“No,” you wanted to scream at him that, you’re a fucking hypocrite because you betrayed them, too!

But you didn’t. Because in your mind you were starting to see Graves’s actions as less of a betrayal and more as he was just following orders. He wanted the best for everyone, right?

“There’s no coming back from this, Valdez,” Graves’s tone was almost one of sympathy. Sadistic sympathy. You could see where this was going. He was trying to give you yet another reason to stay. With Shadow Company. With him. “They hate you. Hell they probably hated you for getting caught and would loathe you if they knew what you’d done.”

“But they came for me, right?” You neck felt cold because the tears coming down your face were enough to make it to your neck and soak the collar of your hooded sweatshirt.

“Yeah, to kill you slow or dump you in a military prison,” Graves answered. “I mean, take your pick. You would’ve either died or been sent to a military prison back home. Probably the Naval Consolidated Brig in Miramar. Hell, might’ve even stuck you in a military prison in the UK if Ghost had any say in it.”

No one said anything for a while.

“And you’d go down in history as a traitor,” Graves continued. “With what I did, you’ll be labelled KIA and given hero status.”

Graves was good at mind games. Really fucking good. But at the same time Graves was correct.

Right?

Even if 141 didn’t ‘kill you slow’ you would indeed end up in a military prison. Right? But before going there you’d go through a ‘deprogramming’ sequence. AKA torture to break your loyalty to Shadow Company. Can’t have you heading to that military prison and recruiting for Shadows, now can they?

“You’ll go back to the US or the UK in chains over my dead body.” Graves started talking again.

And you wondered if he didn’t want you to go back in chains because he…cared about you?

“Because they will interrogate you and deprogram you and I can’t risk you breaking a second time. If you thought what we did was bad, just you wait.”

Oh. So he didn’t necessarily care about you. Keeping you just saved his ass. Plus he could use you for sex right? But at the same time you could use him for sex, too. You’d used sex as a coping mechanism and coping skill since you were a teenager.

“Why didn’t you tell me I broke when I first asked you?” your tears had restarted.

“Because,” Graves paused. “You’re like a puppy. You’re so much fun to play with.”

You nodded, the action causing more tears to slide down your face. You face felt hot and you just knew you were about to start sobbing.

“You owe me, soldier,”

You woke up again a few hours later. Or so you thought. For all you know it might’ve been 12 hours later. It might have been days later. You’d cried yourself to sleep repeatedly. It felt like overnight (or day?) you’d shed your 141 identity permanently. And now you were morphing into Phantom-80 or P-80 whether you liked it or not.

The reflection in the mirror was one you hardly recognized. You only had minor scars before your run-in with Shadow Company and Graves. You now had numerous large ones and you knew exactly where to find them now. The healing gash on the left side of your face that ran from the hairline just above your temple down to just under your cheekbone. That was sure to scar. Your nose, slightly crooked, probably from being broken multiple times from clashing with Shadows.

Clashing with Shadows. Some deep part of your brain laughed insanely.

You had an ugly, jagged slash that ran from one side of the underside of your left wrist horizontally to the other side. Where you’d cut yourself with glass trying to die. That first attempt on your life was because you were terrified of breaking and betraying your ex-team. And the cut on your right palm that had felt so good when you gripped that glass, only because it was you inflicting the pain. Of course you couldn’t forget about the 3 inch healing laceration on the inside of your left elbow from ripping out that life-sustaining IV. Also trying to die. That second attempt was just an effort to escape the pain.  And then the stitched wounds on your chest from all that time ago in Las Almas.

You felt like Frankenstein. Ripped apart by Graves and Shadow Company only to be rebuilt with your pieces…and some of theirs. You didn’t even have your dog tags anymore. There was no one back home to ask questions about you. Just (mostly) shitty foster parents. There were a few good fosters but they’d probably forgotten about you. 141 thought you were dead and so did the military. KIA. And if by some chance they found you alive, the only way they’d reward you is by killing you or throwing you in a military prison for traitors. You’d be labeled a national security risk, an enemy of the state.

“I agree you’re gorgeous, darlin’ but are you gonna spend the rest of your life looking at yourself in the mirror?” Graves asked from behind you.

Your dark gaze met his oceanic blue one in the mirror.

“No, sir,”

You turned to face him.

“Treat me right, do as you’re told and I will spoil you,” Graves smiled sweetly. “And so will my boys. As the only girl here you’re sure to get whatever the hell you want.”

“Yes, sir,”

“What’s your call sign, soldier?”

“Phantom-80. P-80.”

#phillip graves #cod mw2 #cod mwii #phillip graves x reader #john soap mactavish #ghost cod #graves x reader #mw2 141 #konig mw2

[the-fandom-crossroads]

My Thoughts on the Alastor Ace Erasure rampant in the Hazbin Hotel Fandom

Disclaimer i am one Ace and don't speak for all Ace's when I say the fandoms treatment of Alastor makes me uncomfortable. I was and still am open to shipping alastor with other characters. But the constant Acephobia and Ace Erasure I see in this shipping content is to a point where I have to point it out.

First off I'm so tired of the "loopholes" folks list off for why they want to write smut with one of the only cannon ace characters we've gotten in years. I had to blacklist "nonsex repulsed asexual alastor" on ao3 because they aren't even bothering to list him as greysexual. Sure an ace can have sex with a partner once or twice. But they act like nonsex repulsed means the ace person can be written having sex every other chapter. AT THAT POINT IT'S NOT AN ASEXUAL PERSON ANYMORE.

At this point I'd honestly prefer it if they just said their fic au is that he's a homosexual. Because half the time them trying to work in "he's still ace guys! he's just also okay with doing a different sex position for each day of the week!" just comes off as Acephobic. And the few times they write him uncomfortable with the start of the sex it just sounds like Acerape or corrective rape. "He just doesn't know he likes it cause he's a virgin." or "he's uncomfortable until this partner starts making him feel good". The WORST ones are the "heat" fics where they have alastor think about if he had proper control of his body he wouldn't want to be having sex right now. because at that point it's just a date rape drug and they are using a fanfic trope to FORCE him to have sex against his will. And it's just so fucked up man.

Yes he is only confirmed as Ace and not Aro. Viv is intentionally not saying he's Aro because she knows it's a lost cause to tell the fandom he's not romantically into people. Because fandom will ship him regardless. So she prioritized making it clear he's at the very least Ace in cannon and there's no plans to give him a partner in cannon. I feel like the HuskDust bits in the final series is because she saw how much the fans shipped alastor and angeldust after the pilot. Alastor was locked in as Ace by the time the pilot was released and she said it on multiple streams afterwards that he would be Ace. Giving AngelDust a different love interest target just seems like the easiest way to shoot down the biggest Alastor ship at the time without saying she's doing it to sink the biggest alastor ship. Of course fans just latched onto Vox and Lucifier but made it worse by feeling the need to say Alastor's ace before putting him in a sexual situations anyway.

Sexuals have thousands of cannon sexual characters to choose from, from countless other series but they feel the need to fight to make the one Ace guy have sex. We get an Ace character and fans immediately try to work around it to still write smut with him. Aces can't even have one character. I'm looking up fics about a psychopath cannibalistic serial killer because he's the only Ace rep I've seen in years that isn't just fan headcannons and I'm getting punched in the face with so much Acephobia and corrective rape, it's horrifying. Aces can't go through the tag of a cannon ace comfort character without facing triggering amounts of acephobia. And that's just wrong. How can the fandom see this as okay??

If he was a gay character constantly being written into a straight ship with people excusing it as "well sometimes gay guys will have sex with women" people would be up in arms about gay erasure. But because it's an Ace character that they personally want to still ship with characters it's not Ace erasure. He's just an Ace that likes to have lots and lots of sex.

ALASTOR IS ASEXUAL. If you are in anyway trying to write Alastor in character or close to cannon. Then he does not desire sex that is the basic definition of Asexual. But yall can't except this tumblr sexy man doesn't want to have sex (because everyone wants to have sex\s). So you bend over backwards trying to explain to an actual Ace person why we are sometimes pushed or pressured into sex and how that's okay. How it's okay for you a not Ace person to write this Ace character being forced into sexual situations. Because "sometimes" Aces have sex. You're right we do sometimes have sex. I'm not saying everyone has to write Alastor as a virgin. But he's had sex once or twice in the last 80 years at most. It's more likely he's gone the last 80 years without any desire to have sex at all. So to go from that to suddenly having sex even once a week is too much sex for him to suddenly put up with. God my Ace brain can't even wrap my head around having sex every week (do you sexuals really do that?). And I haven't gone 80 years free from sexual expectations. To expect Alastor to magically be open to a bunch of sex is ignorant at best. Regardless of what character or ocfemalereadersona you try to push him to have sex with.

I don't know what else to say other than that i'm just tired. Tired and sad. The Ace community should be celebrating the fact that we finally have another Ace character in media. A character the show and creator have openly and constantly confirmed is Ace. But instead we are having to defend ourselves from our own terminology being weaponized against us to erase that characters Ace identity for smut fics.

#hazbin hotel #alastor #hazbin alastor #ace #asexual #ace erasure #corrective rape #if i need to tag it as something else let me know #lgbtqia #aroace #this is not at every fanfic writer #i've read some great fics that put alastor in queerplatonic ships #i've seen fics of rosie or angeldust putting together #and explaining to alastor what ace is #it's the smut writers that try to claim their alastor is still ace i'm tired of #long post #it's late i'll spell check in the morning

[titlemewickedwonderland]

Ghoul Game Night Intro

Summary: Everyone played the same as at least once in their life no matter their species - Ghoul or Human alike. It's a popular game played by the Siblings of Sin. But what happens when Papa's newly summoned Ghulah gets stuck playing it as a way to get to know her new pack? Well, they find they enjoy the doe eyes and flush.

Fandom: Ghost Band (Sweden Band)

Pairing: Poly-Version with multiple versions.

Triggers: Spiciness, sexual tension, maybe some fonding, dirty talk, shit-talking, shy ghoulish, and more.

Auth. Note: Let me know if you want to be tagged for a specific ghoul's turn or join the tag list for the entire series!

Workshop Hub!

She didn't trust that smile. It was too straight. Too white. Too perfect...and all Swiss. Had she known that she'd be stuck with Papa's ghouls she may have thought to reconsider her contract. It was not as if Papa was in desperate need to add to his collection - he had only summoned her at Sister Imperator's prompting. Not that it should have made her feel any less unwelcome than she had...it was them that she was concerned about. It had been so long since she'd had the company of other Ghouls and Ghulahs that she felt so out of place within the pack dynamic. She was essentially the baby of the group; newly summoned not more than a few weeks during the most critical and hectic time of the Ghost Projet too that she didn't have the unholy graces to be able to bond with her new pack members until just now.

And what would you have thought if you were cornered during your decompressing stages at the end of the crazy day by you're so-called 'family'. If she were anything like the Ghoulettes of Papa's pack like Cumulus, Cirrus, and Sunshine Y/n would have had the backbone to stand up against the charming menace. But she wasn't. She was simply Y/n. And she was shy as fuck with no backbone to speak of.

Swiss' body was lithe with muscles beneath the black dress shirt and his skin a ashen grey that did little to hide the strength of veins and muscle of his arms from being on display as he casually raised them to grab the top edge of her door frame as his unmasked face peered down at her.

"I-I'm sorry?" she finally squeaked out while gripping the edge of her tail staring up at him like a mouse under the gaze of a hungry feline.

"I said~" Swiss drawled flashing a cocky fanged grin as if he knew what he did to his new pretty little packmate "It's been such a hectic couple of weeks, yeah? You haven't had the chance to properly get to know us right? So, why don't you join us for game night? It'd be so purrfect." his voice vibrated in a pure on that last word causing Y/n to swallow and cast her gaze down to her feet and flush.

"I-I don't think I'm up for it tonight. I'm sorry, It's just been a long day. I'm going to tuck myself into bed...m-maybe another night?" she stuttered softly

"Aye, you've been saying that for the last few times that we've asked. No more excuses; let's go pipsqueak." Dewdrop's head popped into the visible space from behind Swiss' towering frame with a disdainful expression on his face as he scratched idly at his horn.

"I'm not making an excuse!" the Ghulah replied wide-eyed as she snapped her read up to stare at the Fire Ghoul. "I am really tired! Papa had me practicing the recent songs and-"

"Nah, none of that. No excuses kit. Come on. It'll be fun! Don't psych yourself out too much." Aether's calmer voice spoke from somewhere behind the multi-ghoul and spitfire.

Y/n's fang pierced her bottom lip nervously as she shifted on her feet and the grey skin beneath her mask flushed when Swiss groaned from in front of her. "Shit, sweetcheeks. If you don't come out here and play with us...I'll give you something to play with lookin' like that."

"I'll play!" the younger demon yelped and ducked between the two at her bedroom door and found Aether standing with his back against the wall across from her room and his broad arms crossed over his chest.

Y/n felt far less threatened in the presence of the quintessence ghoul; perhaps it was because he could feel her emotions. Perhaps it was the fact that he could calm her if she panicked. Or maybe it was because outside of the rest of the pack upon summoning it was he who had been there every step of the way to be able to help her acclimate to her new home and body.

"Damn. I was seriously hoping she'd refuse." Swiss grumbled only to yelp when Aether whacked him on the ass as he passed by with Y/n by his side nearly gluing herself to his side.

"Come on, kit. Mountain and Rain are getting the common room ready for us." Aether told her with an arm slung around her shoulders protectively making her sag a bit in relief to be under his metaphorical wing.

They entered the common room to find bean bags, pillows, cushions, and blankets laid out on the floor. The couch had been shoved to the side askew and the coffee table had been shoved to the outer edge of the makeshift gaming floor. Amongst the piles of comfort were bottles, cans, bags, and boxes filled with different assortments of junk food, candy, and drinks for their pleasure throughout the night.

Shyly, Y/n took a slow descent into a pile of blankets realizing slowly by the mixture of different scents that they came from each of the ghouls that were making themselves comfortable on the floor around her. But unfortunately, the Ghoulettes were not here for the game night; something about Aether mumbling a girls' date night or something.

A throat cleared softly off to her side and she whipped it around to find herself looking into the curious but kind eyes of Rain - the Water Ghoul was looking at her. He raised a hand to his face silently and Y/n blinked at him confused until his soft voice spoke up.

"Are you going to take that off?"

Y/n blinked again before she looked around realizing a few things. One, all the ghouls surrounding her wore their sleep clothes and were comfy. And two, they didn't wear their masks. She was the only one wearing hers and she swallowed feeling her hands tremble; grabbing a fistful of the soft blanket in her lap when she'd realized with a start that she hadn't...well she hadn't taken her mask off in front of them before. She usually hid away after duties were done and it was only through the door did they ever really speak. This would be the first time she'd be revealing herself if she had the courage to do it.

"I mean...if you aren't comfortable yet that's okay I know-" Rain began but Y/n shook her head quickly and gave a small smile.

"I...I honestly didn't really um...think about it before." she swallowed thickly thinking of what they might think of her if she did take off her mask.

"If you can't...may I? If it's easier." Rain offered to raise his hands to hover on either side of her head in silent permission or invitation she wasn't quite sure.

But she nodded her permission anyway before she could back out and Rain was gentle as he grabbed the edge of her mask and began to pull it from her head. Her hair came down first like a soft sheen of shiny color and her eyes shone like liquid gold up at him causing a tinge of blush to cross his features as he stared flabbergasted at her. She felt herself panic thinking perhaps she looked funny but as she reached for the mask again she was brought back to reality as Swiss whistled.

"Beautiful...."

She flushed and ducked her head only for her to look back up when a larger figure came to sit on her free side. A large warm hand plopped down onto her head between her horns and rubbed affectionately. She stared up at the towering Mountain - realizing just how small she was compared to him but everyone was small compared to Mountain, still - she appreciated the affectionate touch as he shot her a small smile. He did not say a word to her but she gave him a nod as if she understood his unspoken language and instead tucked her knees to her chest; resting her cheek against the soft blanket that smelled like a bonfire, and crisp autumn leaves with a hint of cinnamon. Dewdrop. This must have been his blanket - the scent was warm and it relaxed her nerves a bit as she rubbed her cheek against it before looking around the others.

"So...what are we playing then?"

Aether cleared his throat and picked up two cardboard boxes. "Truth or Dare...Ghoul's version." his lips curled into a teasing grin.

"What's the difference?" Y/n spoke up looking around with a squinted stare as snickers escaped from a few members.

"It's sort of like...spin the bottle and truth or dare combined." Aether began holding up the two boxes.

"You spin this bottle here..." Dew piped up grabbing an empty beer bottle.

"And whoever it lands on gets to choose truth or dare to ask you...the twist to it is you don't get to decide on the truth or dare....you pick it out of the box at random."

Y/n frowned over at Swiss before pointing at the boxes. "And what happens if I don't want to do whichever one my partner picks?" she questioned suspiciously.

"You take a shot." Dewdrop grinned waving a full unopened bottle of fireball. Typical.

"You game sister?" Swiss added leaning over with a wicked gleam in his eye.

It took a moment for Y/n to reply. Weighing her options. But at last, she gave a firm nod. "Well, if I'm to be part of your pack...I-I suppose seeing the worst up front is a good way to start."

"Excellent, let the chaos begin!" Dewdrop grinned throwing back a premade shot for himself.

Dewdrop Ver. Swiss Ver. Aether Ver. Rain Ver. Mountain Ver.

#Ghost Band #Ghost Swedish band #Ghost Band fandom #Ghouls #ghost ghouls #nameless ghouls #aether ghoul #dewdrop ghoul #swiss ghoul #rain ghoul #mountain ghoul #truth or dare #spin the bottle #Ghost one shots

[tirsynni]

it is not “ageism” because people find older qualities like gray hair and wrinkles attractive and this certainly has nothing to do with “purity culture” oh my g-d go back into your proshipping circle and leave us alone stop misusing terms and stay out of main tags

I would like to thank this anon for being an amazing example of why I am so frustrated with modern fandom:

"It's not ageism. I want to have them look older for my personal kinks/fetishes/whatever. Get out of our spaces, proshipper."

Hell, if you want to do that, go for it! Write whatever you want. I'm pro-self-indulgence with fics. Just don't do that bullshit where you argue that of course it should somehow magically be canon that they look that way, that of course someone in that age range will have gray hair and wrinkles, whatever. And for fuck's sake, get off anon if you're so confident in your beliefs. Yeesh. I feel like I need a broom and to yell at you to get off my lawn.

Referencing purity culture when you have no idea what it actually means? People like anon don't realize that they fell into a popular trap: they're taught specific trigger phrases so they have a strong, violent response to them, equating the people connected to those trigger phrases with IRL evil acts. They support right-wing, Conservative ideals because they're packaged to target people like anon. Years ago, it was "Do this or the terrorists win." Right now, it's accusing all opponents of being a pedophile. Kneejerk response: they're evil and are obviously pro-pedophilia. Yes. If you use the word "proshipper," you're a card-carrying member of purity culture, complete with the defensive response to all possible trigger phrases.

This is how Trump and his minions won over so many people. This is how the Russian bots won over so many people on tumblr and Facebook and Twitter. They learn the language or sometimes create the language -- in this case, proship -- and as such are able to manipulate people from diverse backgrounds to agree to attack the same exact people and enforce the same exact right-wing, fascist bullshit. "If these people do this, they obviously promote pedophilia and probably are parties to evil acts. Feel open to attack them. You are fighting evil." This people do not research or use the time to use critical thinking: after all, if they question it or even consider defending these evil people, are they evil, too?

These are the same people who end up convinced that some other minority group is evil -- like trans people - and are confident that their group is safe because their group is Good. We went from "don't like, don't read" to anons bitching about "proshipping." Don't worry: soon, your group will be evil, too.

We've entered the latest age of cults. Experts warned us about it a decade or so ago, that the economic and cultural instability was very similar to what led to the rise of cults several decades ago. Think the Age of Charles Manson. Same thing, except now we aren't seeing cults in the form of communes in the woods. We're seeing them in online communities, in the form of Trumpers, QAnons, antivaxxers, TERFs, crunchy moms, etc. We're seeing a rise in the group mindthink which suppresses critical thought and individual opinions. "We are Good. They are Bad. If you question it, you're Bad, too."

"Leave us alone," says anon. "My actions are good. Go away, proshipper."

I'm posting this anon as an example. The rest I'm just blocking and deleting. Seriously, this shit is tiring. It's bad enough that I have to deal with this bullshit every time I turn on the news about the latest book ban or anti-abortion laws or -- hey! -- pushes to legally murder women who obtain abortions. I don't need that shit in my inbox, too.

#purity culture #anonymous #whoever said #may you live in interesting times #knew what a good threat was

[justanotherstarlightmonger]

The goodie bag series - Min Yoongi

Pairing: Yoongi x fem reader

Word count: 2.4 k words

Warnings: Trigger warning, attempted kidnapping, attempted assault, a fight.

A/n: I fought with myself a long time about if I wanted to post this after I wrote it, but then decided, fuck it, I'll take my chances.

Tagging: @parkdatjimin @themochiverse and my yoonmin anon.

Read the other members here.

୧⁠|⁠ ͡⁠ᵔ⁠ ⁠﹏⁠ ͡⁠ᵔ⁠ ⁠|⁠୨~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

"Yoonie, come home for dinner today?" You peeked out of your bedroom where you were still getting changed as Yoongi grabbed a mouthful of oats and grabbed his laptop bag and hurried to the door, but stopped as soon as you called out. He took two long strides and was in front of you, pressing a chaste kiss to your temples, " I won't make any promises honey, you know I'm busy."

You nodded against his lips, "Try?" You mumbled. 

"Mhm, I'll try. Have a good day!" He was already moving again and you regarded him with a tight smile as the door closed behind him. 

You stood there for a minute before turning back to the task at hand, getting ready to go to work yourself.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

'I won't make it to dinner, love. Don't wait up for me.' 

His text pulled you out of the stream of paperwork you were going through. You blinked disappointedly at the screen for a moment before going back to the floor plan you were designing, a strange bitterness in your stomach.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The bed dipped behind you and the familiar scent of Yoongi's perfume and his deep grunt as he flung himself on the pillows alerted you that he was back. Your lashes fluttered and you hummed, turning over and cuddling into his side. 

"Sorry, didn't mean to wake you. How was your day?" His tone sounded oh so tired. 

"Good. Did you eat?" You were still half asleep. 

"No, I had a late lunch. Im not very hungry, let's just sleep?" And you knew, with the way his words drawled out, that he needed sleep more than anything. 

And God knows, you needed it too, so you hummed in agreement and soon enough, both your breaths evened out, holding onto each other.

Until he started coming home so late and leaving so early that the only indication of his presence in your shared space was the occasional damp towel left in the bathroom, the rumpled sheets on his half of the bed and the single dirty dish in the sink in the morning. 

He still texted you though. 

'Good morning my love. You looked too peaceful to wake up. I had early practice and lots of writing to do. I'll see you in the evening. '

And then as evening approached, 'Babe, I'm caught up. Please don't wait up for me. I'm so sorry. '

And he was sincerely sorry. You knew. You knew your husband, and you also knew that when he slipped into the Producer Min headspace, there wasn't much you could do except wait it out till the days he'd pick you up from work and both of you'd drive home humming to songs together, returned. 

And you had your own work right? Yeah, you had loads of paperwork to go through, so many plans to approve and so many meetings to attend. 

Then why was it that when you leaned back in your chair, looking at the clock that showed that two hours had passed since you were supposed to clock out, and one of the more high profile client's plans pulled up on your computer, your heart felt like someone was squeezing it so tight? 

You missed Yoongi. You always missed Yoongi, and whenever something like this happened, you'd voice it to him, and flawed as he was human, Yoongi had a way of turning on you for being too immature and needy sometimes. 

And you had promised yourself that you'd not let an argument like that happen this time. 

Thus, true to yourself, you picked some chicken from one of his favorite fried food places and headed to his company. 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

This was stupid, why was your heart hammering so hard? This was your husband for god's sake. You entered the password to his studio in the keypad and as the door beeped open, you pulled the door, bracing yourself. 

But his wide eyes and slight pout told you everything was okay. 

For now. 

His smile was just as bright as it had always been. His kisses were just as sweet as you wanted. His whispered "I missed you so much" echoed what your own heart was screaming, and you were happy. 

And so was he. 

Which is why when you stretched out on the couch after the staff had collected all the trash, leaving you both to your devices, Yoongi had only fondly rolled his eyes and tucked you under his own jacket, as he went back to work and you dozed off. 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

That first night in the studio turned into an almost daily ritual.

For four days. 

Which seemed fair, because you had gone without the man for a whole week. And you were confident that this time around, you might make it out of this spell without an argument.

But things always had a way of going downhill didn't they? 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Yoongi didn't mind you hanging out in the studio. It was his habitat, and you were his wife. If anything, you were the one he loved having there more than anyone. But he had noticed the way you grimaced and grabbed your shoulders when you woke up, the way your neck bent at all the wrong angles on his couch, and how the dark circles under your eyes turned darker. 

He felt guilty. 

And he hated feeling that way. 

"Babe, go home." He urged you, adamant in front of him. 

"No. I'm fine here, trust me." Ah, you had that look on your face. The look that was more of a challenge, as usual. A look that told him you'd be stubborn on this. 

"You're uncomfortable here, don't lie to me. Go home, it's alright, you don't have to stay with me." God, he hated feeling guilty. 

"I want to though." 

"You want to go to the chiropractor for your neck coz you're too damn stubborn for your own good?" Yoongi raised an eyebrow. 

"I want to stay with you coz I hate sleeping without you." You lowered your voice slightly, "You know that."

"Don't be such a child y/n, it's not like I don't come home" 

There he went, your heartbeat increased. This wasn't happening. Hadn't you promised yourself? 

" It's n-"

"Please go home, I'm wasting time as it is." He grunted and turned back, clearly done with the conversation as his hands reached for his headphones. 

"I hate sleeping alone Yoongi, why would you make me sleep alone when I'm fine here?" You demanded. 

You got no response, a faint sound of instruments came from his headphones.��

Tears pricked your eyes. Yoongi could be an ass when he wanted to. 

You sat there for a few minutes, before convincing yourself it wasn't worth getting into another fight if he turned around and still found you there. You heaved a shaky breath and gathered your stuff, leaving the building and heading to the bus stop. 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

God, fall nights in Seoul got so chilly so soon. You hugged your sweater closer to you and walked towards your home purposefully, the anger at a certain producer dissipating in the cool air. 

Not long after, you realized there was more than one echo of footsteps coming to you. You focused on the sound, trying not to be paranoid. Maybe it was just the way the street was. There wasn't someone following you, was there? 

Was there? You tilted your head slightly to the side. 

There most definitely was. 

Your heart hammered. Shit shit shittt. You transferred your house keys to your dominant hand and stuck the sharp edge out of your fist and quickened your steps. 

You were almost home, it was okay. 

And then the second pair of footsteps vanished. 

Phew, it was probably just someone else going home from work. Paranoia really did take the best of your mind some days. 

You heaved a sigh of relief and smiled softly. 

Too soon. 

You collided into a man in a long black coat who had just come out of the alley in front of you. His firm hands grabbed onto your waist, and one immediately made it's way lower over your hips. 

You blanched and tried to pull away. 

"Hello, pretty. What are you doing out at this hour?" 

His voice was raspy and his breath reeked of alcohol. You struggled harder.

"Let go!" You snapped. 

"Feisty little thing aren't you? Good, I like em feisty." He grinned, clearly drunk out of his mind and made to grab you off your feet, fitting both hands under your ass and lifting you up.

You screamed in terror and jabbed at his face with the key you had. 

Immediately he was dropping you, "You little cunt! What the fuck was that for?" He yelled.

But you were already swift on your feet, running in the opposite direction as fast as your legs would carry you. All you could think of was that he could not know where you lived. 

You zoomed onto the main street, still hearing his thundering curses and footsteps behind you, and thanked everything holy at the 7-eleven in front of you. 

"Please, help me. There's a man outside, he-" you gasped at the ahjussi behind the counter who had risen from his seat in surprise. 

He was quick to catch on, leaping from behind the counter and looking around outside. But the bastard had left. 

The old man turned back to you with kind eyes, concerned at the state you were in, pale and trembling like a leaf. 

"He's gone child, he's gone."

"A-are you s-sure?" You said weakly. 

"I'm sure. Let me get you some water. Do you have anyone to call to come get you? You shouldn't walk home by yourself at this time." He said kindly, pouring you a glass of water 

"M-my husband... My h-husband," your trembling hands found your phone and you were calling Yoongi instantly. 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Yoongi rolled his eyes and tossed his phone in the drawer. 

"Fucking hell y/n, how petty can you be?" He mumbled. 

You had this stupid habit of spamming him when you wanted to annoy him. 

He was just surprised that you'd do it now, when you had clearly had an argument.

If anything, Yoongi expected you to sulk and be mad for a day at least 

Clearly not. 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

As the trembling phone told you the love of your life had let the call go to voicemail for the third time, you broke. 

Tears streaming down your face, you dialed the only one you trusted in any case. 

The line rang and then a sleepy hum sounded.

"J-jungkookie?" You sobbed. 

"Noona?" He was awake in a second, "What's wrong?" 

You sobbed harder. 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

When Yoongi came home the next day, he was surprised at how dark the living room was, the curtains drawn. 

He also noticed how your shoes weren't by the door but instead still on your feet as you were curled up on the couch, eyes wide open and streaks of dried mascara sitting on your face. 

His alarms went off. 

There was something definitely wrong. 

"Honey?" He called out to your still form, and didn't get graced with a look back.

"Baby?" He went over to you. 

Still no response. 

Oh, something was so wrong. 

He got on his knees before you, his stomach churning in tension. 

"Y/n, love, what happened?" 

"I called you Yoongi, why didn't you pick up?" Your voice was hoarse and barely there, and your neck had these strange scratches on it that made no sense to the ridiculous question you had asked him. 

Something was wrong. 

"I was working love, what's happened to you?" 

That's when you caught him with a half dead gaze, immediately making him wish you hadn't looked his way. An unexplained shame set into his very bones. 

"Please tell me what happened." He pleaded again.

" I was... " You sighed, "I was walking home last night and when I turned off the main road... " Your voice broke again and Yoongi felt his sanity slipping away.

"... there was a- a guy... He-he tried t-to-" a dry sob cut you off and the raging panic in Yoongi's body froze over to something deadly. 

His own shame and ice cold anger made a cocktail of poison so strong, his fists clenched and his voice lowered. 

" He tried to touch you?" He asked.

Your nod had a roar lodging in his throat. 

" H-he lifted me and tried to take me away. I scratched him with th-the keys, " you hiccuped, "and ran back to the store. He followed me all the way" you were trembling again, tears of fear slipping down the paths already present on your face. 

"Honey..." His hands reached for you, and his heart broke when you started and pulled away slightly before grabbing his hands and crying in earnest. 

"Yoongi..." His name was all that slipped past your trembling lips as you cried against his shoulder, "I called you. I called you so many times, why didn't you answer me? " 

Yoongi felt like he'd be sick. He wanted to go get that bastard arrested this very moment but his guilt and shame froze him to the spot. The way you held onto him so tightly made him feel like he wasn't worthy to comfort you. 

And all he could say was, "I'm sorry, love. Im so so sorry. " His own voice strained from holding back tears. 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Yoongi gingerly placed you on the bed after the longest shower you had taken. 

He had had to gently guide your hand away from your skin so many times as you scratched yourself violently and cried. You had cried so much. 

He had carried you to the room, silent and stewing in guilt. 

But as soon as his arms pulled away you mumbled a soft, "No... Please?" 

"What is it baby?" He had no words of comfort worthy of giving you.

"Stay."

"I'm right here." He sat beside you, his hands carding through your damp hair. 

You hugged his arm to your chest, breathing soft and slightly shaky from all the crying. 

"Jungkookie brought me home." You mumbled into his skin. 

Yoongi would go hug Jungkook after this. 

"Please don't make me sleep alone." God, why was your voice so small? 

"I won't, my baby. I won't ever. I'm so sorry." 

#bts yoongi #Yoongi angst #Yoongi fluff #Min yoongi angst #Bts suga #Bts x reader #Yoongi x reader #Suga x reader #Bts fic #Bts drabble #the goodie bag series

[jackivist]

I'm tired of being silent.

Before I continue, I'm making this fully clear. Fictives of Shaw are okay to interact my blog. I don't blame you for being anxious, but I understand you can't control your source, and that's understandable.

In my last post that this is a continuation of, I forgot to put the evidence of daisybellejpeg saying these type of shit on other places along with the other claims listen, so I will post them here.

I also forgot to include that there is also erasure of the Jewish parts of the Bright family while making Shaw, making him and his family Hispanic. It really just rubs me the wrong way to replace a marginalized group with another one, but that is just my personal opinion.

This thread of evidence is mostly in regard to Daisy, as you can find other allegations against DJK in things I have reblogged in the past. Mostly everyone else is censored to prevent harassment.

TWs are in the tags, read at your own discretion.

Daisy Belle

In regards to someone's plagiarism concerns with Shaw being the same name as a copyrighted character, then their response to someone being concerned about the rewrite of Bright to Shaw would erase the character being Jewish.

Response to a person with DID being triggered by Shaw, and then proceeding to make fun of said person on Twitter.

Daisy acting like introjects can control their source which shows a lack of understanding that should be there when you have friends with DiD.

Making 963 interpretations is one thing, but talking shit of people who use Bright and don't support AB is just fucking disrespectful. Same for people raising concerns of your interpretation and responding in a distasteful manner. You just don't fucking do that. You don't be disrespectful to people for thing you can't control.

DJKaktus (DJK)

DJK's allegations of predatory behavior and transphobia (pressuring someone to drink before legal age).

Yikes. I don't have anything to say about this other than it's absolutely horrible. Why are you allowing people like this to have a platform?

If you're going to shit on people who don't associate with AB and are trying to enjoy their favorite character by separating character and creation, and introjects who can't control their source while doing vile shit behind the scenes, I bite back for them. and I bite hard.

I don't care if I get hate for this, the world needs to know.

#VERY IMPORTANT: #tw erasure of a marginalized group #tw invalidation of fictives #tw predatory behavior #tw alcohol usage #tw transphobia #bright shaw discourse #scp drama #scp discourse #scp #scp fandom #elias shaw #scp dr elias shaw #scp dr shaw #scp elias shaw #dr shaw #scp shaw #dr. shaw #dr. elias shaw #scp 963 #scp-963 #scp 0963 #djkaktus #scp dr jack bright #dr bright #scp dr bright #dr jack bright #jack bright #mark's thoughts #i only just realized i misgendered Daisy so apologies for that (it should be fixed now and i should have known earlier)

[smokedanced]

i'm still shadowbanned so i can't interact with your posts, see my ims or asks, reply to even my own posts, and if it appears i've unfollowed you i have not unfollowed anyone in several weeks, shadowbans fuck with mutual checker and follower lists.

because i'm not more than lurking here because tumblr, but i have to quickly note:

i'm not watching the episode. ever.

i don't know if i'm watching the third season if it gets renewed. i'm too fucking traumatised from previous favourite character deaths, i think it's shitty writing to kill off the disabled character and the character who has just found some happiness after who knows how many years of having not had any of that. while i don't know if i'd call it problematic (ableist or bury your gays), i do think it's shitty, and it definitely is personally triggering to me.

so i'm doing what i did when spn killed off cas: i'm never going to watch the episode.

i'm also going to try harder to not care about ongoing media again. i'm tired. i'm really tired of caring about things and then ending up having to grieve them. i'm not ok. i'm certainly re-jaded to fucking tv shows. i shouldn't have let myself care. every fucking time they fuck you over and you have new trauma and grief.

and don't you fucking dare come tell me "you can't have grief/trauma over a fictional character" i will full on block you.

it's valid if you enjoy the show, i would never tell you not to.

there are major character death scenes in media i have enjoyed, as well. it's ok. just because something hurt me doesn't mean you aren't allowed to like it.

most importantly for this blog. as a rule, i will not allow threads where izzy is dead. even if neither one of us is writing izzy for the thread, i will not allow any threads in the ofmd universe that even refer to izzy being dead. i will add this to my muse specific rules before posting again when i'm out of tumblr jail. obviously this only applies to threads with me, you can write whatever you want with other people. you don't have to content warn tag his death for me either. just don't bring it up on our threads and don't bring it up to me in ooc conversation. thank you.

i feel like my tone is really harsh and cold right now but i'm just trying to. breathe. sending love to you all fellow izzy enjoyers.

#one good thing about being shadowbanned is this won't appear on the fucking search lol #at least i don't think it should #ofmd spoilers #our flag means death spoilers #ken if you read this the not bringing it up ooc doesn't apply to you lol #since we've already been talking

[concussed-to-pieces]

Wolves At The Door; Part Three

Fandom: Resident Evil [Village]

Pairing: Eventual Karl Heisenberg/AFAB!Reader

Rating: Holy shit M.

Summary: "No." You whispered, your hold on the knife’s hilt tightening. "No, I-I don't want you to come any nearer."

A/N: FIGHT SCENE FIGHT SCENE! I'd like to thank you all for reading thus far, you're The Best <3 I will be taking a small break after this, due to a vacation. I'll see you all on the 11th! Enjoy!

Tag List: @spoopyredacted @cookiethewriter @amneris21 @topgirl17 @vodkafolie @stargazerofgoldenwords @a-smol-witch @baby-lisuga @clockworkmidnight @calwitch @silver-quinn01 @velvet-paradox @hijackser @mrs-wolfwood @nonstop-haikyuu @mic-sunderland @somethingthatsaysbubbles @fullofmoonsandstars @thirstworldproblemss @karlskitten @imthegreenfairy86 @nitrogennightmare @chunnies

Prelude

Part One

Part Two

[!TRIGGER WARNING!: This installment contains mentions of blood, canon-typical violence, gratuitous violence and graphic depictions of mental and physical duress. Stay safe!]

"You will regret this." The Duke warned him, his smile vanishing at Heisenberg's demand.

"I don't care," Karl insisted, his fingers still twisted into the larger man's shirt collar. "I can't keep going on like this, not without knowing if I'm-" broken a danger bad person "--if I'm someone who would…do something I shouldn't."

The merchant, for whatever reason, insisted on continuing, "This will not endear you to them, my Lord."

"I don't know why the hell you think I'm doing this for them!" Heisenberg snapped angrily. "I'm tired of not fucking knowing what I'm–I just feel like I'm always waiting, anticipating something awful. I've had enough."

A large finger landed between his brows, the Duke bearing an uncharacteristically serious expression. "I am sorry for this, Lord Heisenberg."

Darkness overcame Karl then, as well as a chill like the sun had been suddenly switched off.

…

"Mr. Duke! It's good to see you. I wasn't sure if you were alright, it's been so long since you've come by!" You exclaimed, still wiping your hands dry with an old towel as you made your way to the fenceline. "You'll have to fill me in."

The Duke, for his part, looked unchanged. A bit more sweaty perhaps, but that could be chalked up to the rigors of just existing in such a unique body. You saw his eyes dart to your houseguest and you got the sudden impression that you may have interrupted something. The large man staunchly denied this when you asked though, his laugh just as jovial as always. Maybe you had misinterpreted the situation?

If looks could kill, however, it seemed the Duke would be quite done for. Karl was glaring holes through the merchant, striking green eyes narrowed to angry slits. That look alone could make anyone nervous!

"I noticed my talismans have gone missing, my dear. Has something happened?" The Duke's inquiry was smooth, almost bland. 

"They just started crumbling one day. I guess the elements finally got to them?" 

The Duke's expression shifted strangely and once again his eyes darted to Heisenberg. But all he said was, "how curious," then started rummaging in the drawers that framed his corpulent form. 

"I'm sorry, I don't have-"

"I told you," the Duke interrupted, his smile a bit sharper, "it's all part of our first-class customer service!" He gestured vaguely with one large hand, placing the small bundles of herbs and flowers down on his thigh. "If nothing else, take these as my thanks for nursing the Lord back to health. He certainly seems a changed man from when we last met." You heard Karl growl, muttering something under his breath that made the Duke chuckle coldly. "Now now, let's not say things we don't mean. I'm being sincere! I am glad you and the Lord Heisenberg are on such good terms. Why, he's almost tame."

…

There had been a great shattering, a terrible rending in his mind the likes of which he had never experienced before. The stress and mania that had driven him doggedly onward collapsed in upon itself after Ethan's final assault, as though the strain of both his transformation and the fight was too much for his body and mind to handle. Karl could just barely recall feeling himself fraying, his soul being torn apart at the seams like he was an ugly garment in the hands of the world's most negligent tailor.

Miranda would love that. Let that bitch pick out every stitch so she could make me into something useful, something controllable.

Maybe it was that bitterness that kept him breathing. Bitter spite and hatred, a parasitic leech just as much as the creature that throbbed uneasily in his gut. Cadou, finally a name for the feeling, the tension, the parasite that clung to his broken body and demanded him to rise, demanded him to fight and kill anew to keep it alive. Karl was exactly what he had feared and suspected all along: a freak.

While the Duke sat there complacent, chuckling, Heisenberg could only seethe internally. The obese merchant finally leaned forward, his smile distinctly oily. "I'd advise the two of you to turn in early for the evening. A storm is coming."

"Thanks for the tip." Heisenberg said through gritted teeth.

"Do you have anything new to show me?" The excitement in your voice threw Karl off a bit, as did the Duke's smirking reply of, "Naturally, my dear!"

Apparently it had been a busy few months for the merchant, because he immediately started pulling out (allegedly) new trinkets to show you. Each item he proudly displayed, however, set Heisenberg more and more on edge. Crystalline objects, fragile and frail, covered in sharp edges and scenting the air lightly with decay. Something about them had that wrongness, that Uncanny Valley sheen, as well as a hideous familiarity. 

Finally Karl said faintly, "I'm going to head back in." His head was swimming, mind struggling to sort through lifetimes of memories and it felt like his entire body was throbbing with his pulse. "You two have fun catching up."

"But my Lord-" the Duke protested, extending the protective talismans to Karl with a guileless expression. "-I had hoped you would hang these along the fenceline for me. I would do it myself, of course, but it's been so long since I've had a customer to show my wares." His eyes twinkled with the silent joke; he knew damn well that touching those things was bad news for Karl. Go on, big man, the Duke's smug gaze seemed to say, go on and reveal yourself.

Karl's glare reached a nuclear temperature, his mood rapidly swinging from discomfort to infuriation at being toyed with. This colossal fuck knew exactly what he was capable of! As usual, the Duke's audacity was exclusively outweighed by his mass.

But you were smiling, you looked so excited to see what else the Duke would show you.

Damn it all to hell.

Karl dug around in the pocket of his jacket, pulling out his gloves and gracelessly yanking them on before holding out a hand to take the charms. 

The Duke's smile never wavered once.

…

"It is odd, seeing the change in him." The Duke commented, turning a human torso that may have been carved from quartz this way and that to show you how the light caught it. "You certainly did more than your share of work, my dear."

"I don't understand." You replied, a little confused. "It hasn't been too hard. Only issue was keeping bread in the house."

"Can we claim his essence restored by mere gluten?" The Duke fixed you with a look that made you uncomfortable, his normally good-natured expression gone serious. "I doubt that, but I am open to breakthroughs in science."

"Do you mean I helped raise his spirits or something?" When the obese man shook his head, you shrugged. "I haven't really done much except put that gunk that you gave me onto his wounds and endured his company. If anything he's been helping me out! Got to get a few things done that I couldn't manage myself." 

"Very curious," the Duke mused, his attention seeming to have moved on to the odd combination of gears and crystals that he was currently showing you. It looked almost like a half-metal heart encased in white crystal and you marveled at the craftsmanship of it. "Lord Heisenberg has allowed himself to be domesticated. The Lady Dimitrescu would have a fit if she were still around."

His words didn't register until a moment later, making your brow furrow. Unfortunately the large merchant didn't appear to be in an expansive mood, whatever further queries you had being easily deflected or outright ignored.

…

Miranda. 

Karl tried to focus on something aside from the fact that his entire left hand was going numb. 

The constant fury he felt at that self-styled mother's attempted manipulation of him would do, so he began to reminisce. Though his mind was not entirely whole, Heisenberg could still remember his disdain for the haughty woman. She had always looked at him with such blatant calculation in her eyes; he had to commend her for the consistency of that gaze. Karl wondered sometimes if she practiced it in front of the mirror. How his ‘siblings’ had never seen her manipulation…

"Sore loser," his own voice echoed back to him through his memories and he scoffed, yanking the knot tight on the twine. Another charm secure. The little talismans were made of monkshood and nondescript twigs of some evergreen plant, all braided together with a few stalks of what seemed to be wheat and then fashioned into a tidy wreath. The numbness in his hand vanished once he released the charm, now replaced by an unpleasant burning. He could see spidery black tendrils making their way up his arm from beneath the glove, following the path of his veins to spread that burning sensation. Aside from that, though, Karl felt nothing. Was his fury truly slow to come, or did he just not care anymore? 

He slowed to a halt, resting his weight on the fence as he stared down at it. He almost wanted to will himself to be upset, get worked up, something for the sake of familiarity. This calm…acceptance, it didn't seem like him. The Duke had said Miranda was 'taken care of'. No doubt Ethan had fistfought the feathery bitch himself.

Dimitrescu, then, Karl decided, she could always piss me off, that colossal cunt. The anger was so faint it was barely annoyance. The weird little doll? Indifference. Moreau. Pity. 

Pity?! 

Was his throat closing up?! He was either flashing over or having some sort of allergic reaction to the talismans, he reasoned desperately. That was the only explanation for his strange response. Heisenberg pulled away from the fence, taking a few healthy steps backwards. He abruptly felt the hairs raise on the back of his neck and the Lord reached out to grab the maul, realizing at that moment that he had left it by the cart. Come on!

A body crashed into his back and Karl almost toppled, only just managing to brace himself on a fencepost. Sharp teeth grazed his arm, the combined scent of wet dog and iron nearly strong enough to make Heisenberg retch. Without a second thought Karl yanked the charm off the post and jammed his entire fist into the thing's mouth, hearing it start to choke and gag right next to his ear. 

The maul arrived, flying through the air like the weapon of some old Norse god. Karl seized it with his free hand, swinging it around to pulverize the…lycan, lycan, shit, he had forgotten. Its skull caved beneath the maul's blunted edge and Heisenberg quickly shoved the body to the side as it twitched its last.

There were more of them. A lot more of them, a pack of mangled humanoids spilling out from beneath the trees to yowl and bay at him. The body at his feet began to crystallize, the familiar scent of death wafting up to greet him like an old friend. Memories started to bleed in at the sides of his vision: dark, wispy vignettes of the man he was, the monster he really was.

I think bare minimum I've done some real bad things. 

He had been so desperate for reassurance without even knowing why, groping unlit through the halls of his memories as a stranger. It had been better for a while, what was shoved into the back of his mind to let him play fucking pretend at being human, at this new life with you.

Just like Miranda with her fake little family.

Heisenberg drew himself up to his full height, narrowing his eyes and roaring "shut your fucking holes!", immensely gratified when the cacophony immediately quieted. 

Unfortunately, the uneasy silence was then broken by a scream. A scream of his name. And the lycans, obviously sensing Karl's momentary distraction, peeled away to head for the source of the noise.

…

"Karl!" You cried, the terrible din you had heard seconds before still ringing in your ears.

"Oh dear," the Duke remarked blithely, "I may have been too late." He shrugged after a moment, passing you another charm. "Well, I hurried as best as I could." The massive merchant then clicked his tongue once and the seemingly too-small horse began to pull the cart down the road once more. "Good luck, my dear. Remember what I said about the weather!" He called with a wave.

"You've gotta' be kidding me!" You yelled after him incredulously, the talisman clutched tightly in your grasp. All you heard in reply was faint chuckling. You gritted your teeth, turning on your heel. "Karl!" You shouted again, starting across the yard. You could hear muffled yowling coming from behind the cabin, out past the back fenceline, so with your heart in your throat you carried onward. You hoped and prayed it was just a bobcat that Karl had spooked, you're overreacting, everything is fine. You did make a brief pit stop to pick up your kindling knife from the basket on the porch, staunchly refusing to think about what you could possibly need it for. 

Upon turning the corner of the house, however, you came face to face with some…thing, some awful thing with sharp teeth and a hunched humanoid body. You froze and so did it, before it bared its filthy, blackened maw and snarled at you. 

Oh, it's going to kill me. The thought was so certain it almost surprised you. Really, what else could happen? Fuck, it's going to kill me. You backed away, holding the knife in front of you in a desperate bid to keep the creature at bay. For some reason it actually seemed to be working, the weird wolf-man snapping its teeth at the air in evident frustration. Well, it was either that or the Duke's charm that you had slipped around your wrist, but you weren't about to start questioning your luck.

A projectile whipped past your head from behind you, the mass of it disturbing the air enough to emit a faint whistle. It was the maul, its dull blade slamming into the face of the lycan and bending it nearly in half before it collapsed like a deflating balloon. 

"You stay the hell away from them, you mangy rat!" Karl spat, his gaze full of fury as he rounded the house coming from the other direction. It may not have been aimed at you, but his rage was still absolutely terrifying to witness. Your knees began to tremble, threatening to dump you onto the ground. Heisenberg suddenly seemed larger than life and extremely dangerous, voice booming and eyes ablaze with a malice you had never seen. The man tore the maul free with a sickening crunch, shaking some of the gore off. "You alright?"

You realized he was addressing you, still coming closer at that too-fast pace and you floundered to nod, opening your mouth to say something, yes I'm fine and don't come near me you're scaring me and what's going on. No words came out, though. When had he gotten so big? It was as though someone else had taken over his body, someone self-assured, someone…

Was this how he had been before?

Karl stopped dead two feet away, the man huffing out an irritated breath. "Oh, you've got one of those charms." He slung the maul over one shoulder, holding out a gloved hand. "Here, give it so I can close the loop on this fence." There were holes torn in the glove, ragged punctures. Bite marks.

"No." You whispered, your hold on the knife’s hilt tightening. "No, I-I don't want you to come any nearer." What did the Duke do to him? 

Karl's brow furrowed, but he soldered on, reasoning, "There's more of the freaks out there, sugar. We don't have the whole fence covered, I need that last charm." 

"Please, don't…look, I don't want to hurt you and you're scaring me right now." You got the feeling the blade you had was about as threatening as a butter knife to the large man, but you held firm. 

Cornered dogs bite. He had called you sugar, his voice low and urgent. Surely it was still him in there if he was using the silly pet name he had decided upon for you. This was all so confusing.

"The lycans don't give a shit about whether you're scared, sugar! They aren't gonna' wait around for us to sort things out, they're coming!" Heisenberg snapped roughly, glancing back over his shoulder. "Fuck's sake! I'm not at full bore and if something gets you because I'm out of it, I'd-" He hesitated, then huffed through gritted teeth instead of finishing the sentence. "Alright, fine, I'm not coming any closer, we'll just do it together then. Stay by me. Devil you know, right?" He instructed, that fierce gaze softening a bit. "Nothing will get you while I'm here."

What if you're the thing I'm worried about? you wondered privately. 

…

You were looking at him like he was a monster. You were looking at him like he was a horrible, terrible monster, that trashy Bowie knife you used to shave kindling chips clutched in your trembling hands, leveled at his gut. You're scaring me right now.

And Karl couldn't even deny it because holy shit he was, he had been, he might still be. Oh God, no wonder the Duke told him it was an awful idea. He wanted to throw up, but that may have been due to the closeness of the talisman. Anti-mold measures or just another silver bullet in the magazine?

At least now he knew, as crushing as that particular burden of knowledge was. At least he knew. It was oddly freeing to be that self-fulfilling prophecy for once. 

You ended up hovering nervously at his elbow, the proximity of the charm a constant, nagging throb at the apex of his spine. But he could keep track of you that way. 

"The lycans are wary." Karl informed you, not really sure why he did so. "They know who I am but they're not particularly good listeners." 

"Something you have in common." You retorted.

Karl shrugged, feeling his glove slide down his mangled fingers before he tugged it back into place. "I'd like to think I've improved." He glared at the forms he could see surging along the edges of the treeline, brandishing the maul in silent threat. Come on, you rabid little shits.

Not a single one left the safety of the woods, however they did keep up their noise. Howling and shrieking, the pack followed the two of you closely. They're waiting for us to place the last charm, Heisenberg realized, his brow furrowing. They'll strike then before we can get back inside the fenceline. 

"I need you to be ready to run once you tack down that last talisman." He muttered out the side of his mouth, relieved when you nodded. "Don't worry about me."

"I wouldn't dream of it."

His laugh was coarse and joyless. He had been a naive idiot to think he even had a chance at any sort of quiet life, but he was more irritated with himself over being so affected by the disappointment. Now was not the time to wish to turn back the clock.

You broke away from him by running ahead, your attention clearly fixed on the section of fencing that lacked an oh-so-familiar charm. Karl watched you slide the talisman off your wrist, and at the same time he could see the pack of lycans appear to muster themselves for a full-scale assault. 

Heisenberg's eyes narrowed and the man bolted forward, sending the maul ahead of him as he went. "It needs to go on the outside of the fence! I'll cover you!" 

…

You yanked open the gate with single-minded intent, only to see the maul go sailing into the teeming swarm of bodies in front of you, Karl close behind announcing that he would 'cover you'. As you turned to watch him go, a massive lycan broke away from the edge of the pack and headed straight for you, fingers clawing at the dirt for traction.

You fumbled to attach the charm, hanging it on the rusted nail still in the fence post and then smashing the top of the nail with the butt of your knife to fold it over onto itself. Mission accomplished, you rushed to get back inside the safety of the fenceline, but it was too late. A paw-like hand caught your ankle, tripping you up and causing you to strike your head hard on the gate.

The world swam in front of your eyes, a combination of reflex tears and being dragged along the ground by your leg at a dizzying pace. You began to struggle, kicking desperately at the face of the creature in an effort to free yourself from its clutches. The lycan dropped your leg, choosing instead to bat aside the kicks you aimed at it and lunge for your face with a garbled howl.

You didn't even have the time to think and so you slammed your eyes shut, bracing the knife you still held against your body in an effort to at least wound the lycan. 

But it didn't come. The weight of the beast on your chest just…vanished, its roar choking off abruptly.

When you dared to open your eyes again, you were greeted by the sight of Karl holding up the lycan by its throat, the man clearly crushing its windpipe. Judging by the way it was thrashing, it didn't have much longer. Heisenberg didn't say a single word, the man simply grunting with effort as he gave the beast a final shake to cleanly snap its neck. He then threw the body down, broadening his stance and squaring his shoulders with a furious grin on his face.

"Fuck off!" He roared at the remaining pack, now significantly thinned and yelping. "You stay the hell away from here, or I'll wipe out every last one of you!" The maul flew through the air and he caught it, swinging it one-handed. It was dripping with some kind of black fluid. "You won't cross that fenceline!"

After a few moments of what seemed to be a snarling back-and-forth with Heisenberg and one another, the surviving creatures sulkily limped back into the woods in defeat. They left nothing behind but crystallized remains of their kin and, as rain slowly started to fall, even those began to dissolve into the soil. 

Karl closed the gate, the man slowly latching it with the worn wire twisted around the post.

You were still on the ground, the knife pressed to your chest as you shivered and tried to catch your breath. You couldn't recall another day in your life that you had been so certain about your own death. Somehow all you'd ended up with was a few scrapes on your shin and a tender spot on your head from the gate.

Heisenberg swayed, propping himself up on the fence with one elbow. The maul dropped from his grasp as he panted for air, the man's scarred complexion gone so pale it was nearly green. He tried to say something, but ended up dry heaving instead. After taking a few staggering steps back from the fence, he unceremoniously collapsed onto his side.

You only hesitated momentarily before you scrambled forward, your caution thrown to the wind. It was as if watching him fight had somehow removed whatever threat you had felt before, the notion wholly gone from your mind. It was oxymoronic, but firmly embedded that the two of you were on the same side. He saved you.

The man gazed dully upwards at you or someplace past your shoulder, his breathing coming in sharp, hitchy bursts. "Hurt-" he managed to wheeze, shaking the glove off of his hand to display blackened flesh radiating from a tearing bite wound on the palm. He then gave a thumbs up with the mangled appendage, choking out, "--be okay." 

You noticed blood darkening a section of his trousers by his hip and you jerked his tattered coat back, revealing several more wounds. At least two of the lycans had ripped into the back of his thigh, like they were trying to hamstring him. The purpling, bruised bites ran down his leg and there was even a large chunk missing from the top of his boot. You hissed in dismay at the whole scene, feeling nauseous and terrified.

"We need to get you out of the rain," you said finally, your stomach in knots. Karl waved you off while pffting out a breath but you essentially ignored him, pulling his good hand to haul his arm up over your shoulders. "C'mon, use whatever's left of your legs." 

The man coughed out a laugh at that, then obliged you to the best of his ability. It was a struggle, but the two of you managed to get him upright. All there was left was the slow trek back to the cabin, and Jesus was it slow. Karl could barely put one foot in front of the other, the man dragging his wounded leg and the maul behind him as he leaned on you, nevermind your own legs still shaking from adrenaline.

"Why did you do that?" You asked finally, blinking the rain out of your eyes. 

"Whuh."

"You know what." The only reply you got was silence, followed by a clumsy little pat on the cheek. You supposed you would have to ask later.

…

The fresh talismans gave Karl the sensation of being in the eye of a storm. A maelstrom of energy swirled around the fenceline in a disorienting spiral, but it couldn't touch him in here. The drunken stumbling was more due to the injuries he had sustained, his steps unsteady and head hanging. This weakness was incredible, it was so similar to how he had been right after he had lost to Ethan. Laying there in the dirt with the rain pouring down on him, uncertain of what had just happened, where he was, every shattered breath in his body seeming like it could be his last.

"Come, my Lord. You seem to have fallen ill." 

You had said that the Duke was the one who brought him to you for aid. He barely remembered bits and pieces of the ride, only roused to consciousness from pain when he was jostled. 

His forehead knocked into yours and he slurred out an apology, realizing you needed him to walk up the porch steps. And walk up them he did, his leg already feeling a little less terrible. Parasite perks, the alliteration tickling him far more than it ought to have. He actually managed to hobble through the doorway unassisted, performing an odd skipping hop to do so and dropping the maul beside the doorframe. 

Once inside you collapsed on the couch, your whole body trembling. "Thought I was gonna' die." You finally said. Heisenberg continued to hover awkwardly on one leg, shoring himself up by placing a hand onto one of the ceiling crossbeams as you seemed to gather your thoughts. "I mean I thought that was it, game over. Holy shit, that was terrifying." You looked up at him, radiating incredulity as you asked, "how the hell did you just handle them?"

Karl shrugged, a bad habit he felt he could attribute to you. "It's all I've known for most of my life." It was a garbage explanation for all its truth and he knew that, but you weren't exactly in a fantastic headspace at the moment. Neither was he for that matter, he was still weak and a little queasy. Better to let sleeping dogs lie, let you calm down and regain some peace of mind. Lycans were normal to him, sure, but you'd only seen them in half light and hadn't even seemed to believe they actually existed until today. 

You put your face in your hands, exhaling deeply. You then moved to rise but Karl halted you with a hand on your shoulder, and he was silently dismayed at the fact that he could still feel you shaking.

"Stay put." He tried to gentle his tone, make it a little less gruff. "That was a lot. Just rest. You want some water?"

You hesitated, then nodded. "Yeah." You caught his hand before he could turn away, seeming confused. "How are you even walking? Your leg was-" "Something in me is real invested in keeping my body in one piece." Karl patted your hand, attempting to smile and failing miserably. "Lemme' get you that drink."

Part Four

#karl heisenberg #lord karl heisenberg #eventual romance #fix it fic #au #resident evil #re 8 #re 8 village #resident evil village #resident evil karl heisenberg #karl heisenberg x reader #karl heisenberg imagine #re 8 karl heisenberg #slow burn #canon typical violence #gratuitous violence

[aidansplaguewind]

did they really kill off Aidan in yet another show? that’s so lame. and he was looking really good in those gifsets you made…

I'm not sure but maybe I should put a TRIGGER WARNING for unaliving oneself being mentioned. But I don't use the "S" word.

My reply is below the cut.

YES, they sure as shit did. And you're right, he looked AMAZING this season. So fucking hot. I wanted more of that next season.

Even though I predicted his demise from almost the very beginning, and I even predicted the way in which he would die (self inflicted) - I still had the tiniest bit of hope that he would come out of his funk, kill Bren and become the leader they needed.

I thought to myself, there is NO WAY this show will duplicate its exact ending to the first season, again at the end of the second season. They literally ended season one and season two with Frank dying. Only this time he's gone for good. But how incredibly lazy is that? It's so fucking lame.

And I went on Twitter and looked at the #RTEKIN tag to see what the public was saying, and their dumb asses thought it was bloody brilliant. Like? Seriously? No wonder television sucks nowadays. It's because the vast majority of the public viewers aren't too bright and they're apparently very easy to amuse. So the writers don't even have to try.

I'm being mean, I know, but I am so tired of Aidan’s characters being killed off. I'm used to it, but I'm tired of it. I'm ready for him to be on something and have a long run again. Knowing my luck he'll get something for the long haul and they will dye his hair, make him look ridiculous, and make him have an American Accent.

I'm also really tired or predictable television and films.

Watching Aidan put a gun to his head kind of shook me. Luckily, once he puts it to his head, the screen went black and you hear the shot, so you don’t actually have to watch it happen. But it still bothered me. I know it's not real but just the idea was kind of traumatic for me, and I really wasn't expecting it to be. It's been almost 24 hours since I saw it and I'm still processing it.

I'm just so bummed. So very fucking bummed. We got to see more of who Frank was. I got attached and I knew I shouldn't. And even though I won't watch to find out, I feel so bad for Birdy losing her baby brother. And even though Viking and Frank weren't close, watching his dad unalive himself right in front of him is so gotta fuck him up. How could it not? I'm so tired of television writers going for shock value because they aren't capable of writing an interesting story or character.

I'm tired.

#aidan gillen #frank kinsella #KIN #RTEKIN #kin series #michael kinsella #birdy kinsella #brenden kinsella #jimmy kinsella #amanda kinsella #viking kinsella #eric kinsella