#and actually whatever it is she needs can probably wait until I’m not suicidal and reliving March 30th 2021 over and over again | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

chaosduckies · 9 days

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Restoration (Chapter 8)

A bunch of scenes because why not? On another note, it is extremely hard to write a scene in winter when it’s the middle of April. I hope you enjoy anyhow! Because now I’m really getting into the plot.

Word Count: 5.9k

CW: Death, crying, vague thoughts of suicide, severe trauma, (anything else idk??)

8-Ryker

It was Thanksgiving break. The first official break from school until Christmas. Words could not describe how grateful I was for the week-long break. There was no reason to have so much work piled up a couple weeks before the end of first semester.

I was laying in my bed on my phone. It was about to turn six, which meant I should probably get started on dinner, but I just couldn’t bring myself to climb out of bed. I was physically and mentally tired of keeping up with everyone and whatever plans they had with their friends, taking care of Isabelle and Angela since they were still little, and on top of that keep up with the chores around the house.

I grabbed my phone off the charger, stretched out my arms and legs from laying down, and opened my door to get started on dinner. The living room was oddly quiet, with Dylan and Lucky playing a game. Isabelle playing a game with Angela on the carpet that consisted of a bunch of stuffed animals and blankets. I smiled to myself.

“What do you guys feel like eating for dinner?” I leaned against the kitchen island, waiting for an answer.

“Spaghetti!” Isabelle and Angela answered at the time, giggling at one another. I think I could do that. I don’t know if Lucky can though. It was the first weekend of the break and I’d probably need to go grocery shopping tomorrow anyways.

I looked in Dylan’s direction, making them pause whatever they were playing together. He just shrugged his shoulders, “Whatever’s easier for you.” Always with the same response.

“Ummm, I can go check what we have.” Lucky told me, getting Dylan to let him onto the floor. All I could do was wait now. Jasmine was staying over at her friends today and tomorrow. I just told her to text me if she goes anywhere far and if she needed anything. Weird, right? Usually the parent handles these kinds of things, but in the situation my siblings and I are in it’s literally impossible.

Lucky came back, shaking his head, “We don’t have the things for spaghetti,” He laid down on the arm rest of the couch and grabbed his remote, “You should call Nathan to come over. He hasn’t been here in a while. Plus, he’s so much better at cooking than I am. Right, Angela?”

“Yeah!”

I bit the side of my cheek. I don’t know about that. Just asking Nathan to come over to cook and then ask him to leave? That was wrong. Plus, he told me before the break that he’ll be pretty busy. Or… texted me. Either way, I shouldn’t bother him. Maybe he actually has a meal with his family for Thanksgiving and they were all getting ready for it already. On the other hand, Lucky makes something else for him and Angela, Angela doesn’t eat, and then everything goes downhill from there.

Looking at my phone, I picked it up, opening the messages app, and clicked on Nathan’s name. The last time he came here, Jasmine did kind of freak him out. I remember him not being able to leave anyone’s side if she was in the room. I wonder if he’d even want to come over after that. At school the next day he was a little nervous, but otherwise fine afterward, but I’m sure whatever Jasmine told him is still stuck in his mind. Ugh. This was such a bad idea.

Ryker: I have a huge favor to ask you

I waited for a response, watching Dylan and Lucky play a fighting game against one another. I had no idea who was winning, but I’m pretty sure it was Lucky. Actually… it was kind of weird how Lucky seemed to want Nathan around more often. Like, really weird. Especially when every time Nathan came, he would practically ditch him with me. I honestly don’t mind, I liked having Nathan come over, but still. I had wondered why, but I wasn’t going to ask.

Nathan: Yeah?

Ryker: Do you mind coming over to help Lucky cook something?

Ryker: You don’t have to

Well, if he says no Lucky will have to make whatever he can and I’d have to break the news to Angela. If you didn’t know, four year olds can be a little hard to deal with sometimes. So, this might just turn out to be a very, very bad day.

Nathan: Sure!

Nathan: Anything specific?

I stared at his text, relief washing over me. Dylan let out a cheer from winning against Lucky. Wow. Perfect timing. I was just so grateful right now. Nathan was literally the greatest friend ever. Now I have to think of someway to thank him. That shouldn’t be too hard, right?

Ryker: They wanted spaghetti

Ryker: And thank you

Nathan: No problem :)

Ryker: I guess I’ll be at the bus stop in about twenty minutes?

Nathan: Okay

I stuffed my phone in my pocket, “Okay, I’ll be right back, just text me if something happens.” I told Dylan, who nodded his head. And with that, I walked out the door and into the cold air.

———Nathan———

Winters in the city were bad. But not as bad as when we were still help captive. Now those days were terrible. Horrifying even. It was still freakishly cold here. Not something I enjoy. For several reasons really. One being that I already get cold really easily. Two, I just hated being cold and sick. And the most important reason being that it was during this kind of weather when my dad had died. Actually, in three days it’s officially been nine years since my dad died. November 24. A long time, right?

It hurts. The memories. Not just of him but how they brutally murdered him in front of his own child. I shuddered at the sight pictured in my mind. Nope. Can’t think about that. Right now I should probably be getting ready to head over to the bus stop. I already had packed a tiny bag with the things I needed to cook. Weird enough, it was kind of a therapy for me at this point. To be cooking I mean. I guess that’s why my mom always gets worried when I’m baking for no reason. Because she knows.

I sighed, giving my mom a quick text that I was heading over to Ryker’s for a little while. The last time I went, I thought everything was going great before Jasmine talked to me alone. everyone had left to go looking for something and it was just her and I. I was scared of course. We’ve never, ever talked before and from what I’ve gathered she’s really intimidating.

Her exact words to me were: “If you hurt my brother in any way I will personally murder you.” and that was was it took for me to have an entire mental breakdown for nearly two weeks. I mean, who wouldn’t be scared if someone’s sibling threatened you like that? So, the week before the break, I might have been acting a little weird around Ryker, afraid that I might actually do something wrong or hurt him in any way, which I don’t really see how I could.

Otherwise, I haven’t really been doing anything. I told Ryker that I would be busy during the break, but really I wasn’t. Only because I do actually have something to do on November 24, and I was already feeling the depression spikes as the day came closer and closer. As for Thanksgiving itself, my mom and I never do anything. Last year we were barely getting used to being in the mental hospital so we didn’t really do anything. This year she’s working so it’ll just be me. Nothing new.

I made my way down the icy streets, the sun setting faster and faster. It was only getting colder, and I didn’t really have a winter jacket. Just some to wear in the classroom like when it’s freezing in there. So, yeah, I was basically freezing my face off. Not to mention that my mom told me it might snow later tonight since it was already under twenty degrees outside. I wasn’t used to cold weather.

Once I made it to the bus stop, I snuggled up with my bag on the bench, trying to have some kind of warmth. Also because there were several people (giants) who were going back home from stores or getting off of work. The bus stop was actually used for both humans and giants. The human was a little ways from the huge one that was practically as tall as a skyscraper. Maybe taller.

My hands were shaky from the cold, but it was only another five minutes before Ryker would come and hopefully I wouldn’t be as cold. Maybe. Hopefully. I don’t know what today has in store for me. All I knew was that I just wanted to wrap myself in a blanket with some hot chocolate and binge watch something on tv.

Ryker came a few minutes later, smiling and giving a thanks before offering a hand. I threw the bag on first before struggling to get on. It was hard when the ground underneath you was starting to freeze over, but I figured it out after trying for a good minute.

“You’re freezing.” Ryker told me, cupping his hand just a little. Sure, it was scary to have his fingers closer to me, but still, it was warm. How could I deny something that was practically calling me?

“That good?” He smiled, for some reason making sure I was comfortable. But I was not about to complain. I was desperate at this point. I nodded my head, bringing my knees closer to my chest to keep some of my body warmth with me. And yet another reason I hate winter.

“Thanks again. Sorry for bothering you.”

I continuously shook my head, hoping he would get the message that it was fine. Plus, I liked going over. Everyone was nice (Besides Jasmine I’m pretty sure she hates me) and never really tried to do anything too crazy with me. It was great. I’m not as afraid anymore, which was a miracle given I thought I could never trust anyone ever again, and I’ve actually made some friends.

Ryker opened the door to his house, where we found them all watching a movie together. Everyone turned their heads as soon as the door closed behind Ryker. I jumped slightly, but relaxed after a while. Nothing to be afraid of. Dylan’s eyes landed on me, giving a smile and a two fingered wave. I waved back, but I doubt he could see it.

I was set down on the ground, not entirely expecting to be in a tight hug the second I balanced myself. Lucky bursted out laughing, letting me go, “You are literally the best, Nathan.” I laughed with him, following Lucky into the room.

——————

I didn’t eat anything. I wasn’t hungry. Of course Ryker tried to convince me to eat something, but I always answered no. Otherwise, dinner was okay. They had Lucky, Angela and I on the coffee table, which wasn’t really too big of a deal. I’m pretty sure Ryker and Dylan just didn’t want to handle any humans while they were eating, and hey, I was not about to say anything about it. There are just some things that will never leave my mind.

After everyone ate, Dylan and Lucky started playing a game on the tv while Isabelle and Angela were playing hide and seek I’m pretty sure. I just hoped that no one would get hurt, but Ryker quickly reassured me that they would never harm one another. I just had to believe him. Most of his siblings are stuck together like glue. Which is a good thing.

“It’s supposed to start snowing in a little bit.” Ryker announced, earning cheers from the other room where I was guessing Angela and Isabelle were. I was sitting on the arm rest of the couch by Ryker. I kind of wished that their house was a little warmer, because I was still annoyingly cold, but beggars can’t be choosers. I should have asked to grab a blanket.

“Nice. Are we gonna go out?” Dylan asked, eyes glued to the screen. I had no idea who was winning, but I think it was him.

“If you want to.”

Ryker threw his phone on the other side of the couch, turning his head to the screen. I don’t want to go outside, but I’ll go if that makes things easier. I just don’t want to be in the snow. Reasons. Remember?

It was about ten minutes later that it did actually start snowing. Angela and Isabelle were begging Ryker to let them outside, which he just laughed to and told them to get jackets on and to bring their hats. Dylan paused their game to go get on a jacket, and Ryker left to go help Isabelle. So I was alone in the living room while everyone was busy to go have some fun. I hated winter. In just three days. I reminded myself.

What would happen? Would someone else be claimed victim? Something bad always happens during this time. I don’t know if it was just me. It probably was. Everyone else was smiling while I was crying in the corner. It’s how it was in the hospital. They all went outside if they could, and I stayed in my room, under the blankets and shove my face into my pillow to drown out my tears. I couldn’t do that now though. Not when so many people had their eyes on me. Not when a trip back to the hospital was a very viable option for me. I didn’t want to go back. Not because of something… traumatic that happened nine years ago. I should be over it, right? But I’m not.

There goes one of my depression spells. Great. Just great. At a time like this? I sucked in a deep breath, calming myself down before anyone notices. This was embarrassing.

Ryker came back into the room, eyes landing on me with an unsure look on his face. He walked up to me, holding a hand out. Was he not going to wear any gloves? He wouldn’t be cold? I stood up, keeping my balance on the soft surface underneath me and walking to climb onto his hand.

“You don’t mind if I just keep you in my hand, right? I don’t want you to be freezing.” He asked. I shook my head, sitting down in the middle of his palm. That was actually what I preferred. I did not plan whatsoever to go into the snow anyways.

Once everyone was outside, Ryker sat down on the stairs, cupping his hand and keeping me close. A little uneasy about it, but there was really no reason to be. It’s just instinct. And everything in me right now is saying to get the hell inside. But I wasn’t going to say that. Mostly because I don’t want to be alone.

They were all screaming and laughing. It was snowing pretty hard too, already covering most of the frosted grass just after ten minutes. Other people were also sitting outside. Their kids playing around with the snow. I tried not to focus on that. Instead, I found myself scooting back slowly, almost to where I couldn’t see the heavy fall of the white flakes.

My body was still freezing. It was so much colder than before. Was this how dad felt? The cold pricking at his skin I mean.

“Nathan?” My thoughts were interrupted by a soft voice above me. I groaned, body shaking and stuffing my hands in my pockets to preserve some of my body heat. I shuddered a breath, trembling. It’s so cold… How could they even be having fun like this? I looked ahead, seeing Dylan helping Isabelle make a small snowman with both Angela and Lucky stuffed in his scarf. This was just another one of my depression spells.

“Still cold?” Ryker asked me. I took a deep breath, “Y-Yeah…” It came out more like a quiet mumble, and I was surprised that he even heard me. Did he want to help them make a snowman? He probably did. I should just tell him to leave me inside. It would make things a million times easier for everyone.

Ryker moved his hand a bit, making me worried about what he was trying to do, but he just kept it the same. I wondered why he was going through all this trouble just for me. There was really no point. There was only a couple more months until graduation and then we’d go our separate ways. That’s how it always goes. I’d be alone again, figuring out what to do with the rest of my life. That’s how my story goes.

“Better?”

I nodded my head, getting to a comfortable position and decided to just watch what they were all doing. Finishing up the head of the snowman. It was comfy even though I was kind of scared from being in someone’s hand. At least now that is. Currently I was just afraid of falling into the deep snow. I’m pretty sure if I fell I’d sink into it. Not something I would like to see or imagine.

“You okay?” Ryker asked, softly smiling above me. There was no other response other than to nod. I couldn’t just say no. That wouldn’t do any good. But.. maybe if he notices that these next few days would be hard for me. Maybe. Just maybe. I doubt it though. I don’t plan on being here all of the time anyways. I couldn’t.

Isabelle finished the snowman, grabbing some loose twigs for arms as they stepped back. It was still snowing, just not as much. Was dad watching me right now? Was he shocked just as much as I was? I never thought I’d ever be able to be around another giant for as long as I had lived, and here I am, sitting in one of their hands. Would he think I was crazy? Delusional? Psycho? Happy like my mom even? I would never know, but even I think I was crazy.

Actually… why did I even trust Ryker? Or really anyone. They’re all so nice of course, but about four months ago I was so sure that every giant would only hurt me, and it almost became true with that lunch incident that felt like forever ago. So why did I trust these people with my life? In the back of my mind I keep thinking that this was all just a sick joke being played on me. But… I don’t think these people are lying about anything. They don’t have a reason to. And Ryker’s been nothing but patient, and kind, and… understanding. No one would go through all that trouble just to fool someone as gullible as me.

I sighed, snuggling up closer to Ryker’s thumb and watching Isabelle throw snowballs at Dylan who was shielding Lucky and Angela from the crossfire. Was it scary being there? In the midst of everything? Having to trust someone at least fifty times your size to keep you safe? I sucked in a shaky breath, just watching. It wasn’t so bad really.

———Ryker———

Today was November 24. Thanksgiving was here, and everything was a complete mess. I never learned how to make a turkey like the tradition, so usually I just made something that all of us had liked. Along with that, I had to make sure no one did anything too crazy while I was busy in the kitchen. Jasmine and Dylan were helping out cooking while I ordered something for Lucky and Angela. They both agreed on pizza (Because what else does a fourteen year-old and a four year-old want) so now I was busy with that. That part was mostly because Angela didn’t like when Lucky cooks something different.

It was just pure chaos now. Everyone was running around the house, and at that point I had to ask Jasmine to keep an eye on Angela to make sure she didn’t wander off where we couldn’t find her. I wasn’t too worried about Lucky since he’s almost always with Dylan, plus he’s smart enough to stay off the floor when it’s something like this.

I took out the lasagna, letting it cool down before making separate plates. Yeah, I know, super weird, but I can’t do anything better. I only know the basics thanks to my parents, and that was all I needed to know.

There was a knock on the door, and I asked Dylan to open it. It was just the pizza. I washed whatever dishes I had and called everyone that dinner was ready. It’s days like this where I wished that my parents never left. I feel like I can never be like them even though I was the oldest. I mean, was I just supposed to let CPS split us all apart? I couldn’t do that. My siblings would never forgive me. I like to think that they’re all happy, but I doubt it. Sometimes I feel like I can’t do anything to help any of them. Like I’m doing this “parenting” thing all wrong. Of course I was. I was seventeen in my last year of high school taking care of five kids on my own while also juggling a job and trying to do fun things with them so we can forget about what happened a little over a year ago. There was no reason for one person to be doing all of this.

It was snowing outside again. Not really surprising when you’ve lived here for your entire life. It was really nice though. I loved the cold. Weird, because most people don’t, but I do. I remember my parents freaking out when I would just be outside making a snowman in just a short sleeve and sweatpants when I was a kid. Of course it was so cold it burned, but I guess I kind of liked it? It was hard to explain. Or sometimes we’d stay inside and watch movies or play a game. I missed it really.

“Ry.” Jasmine snapped her fingers in front of me to get my attention. I blinked a couple times before giving a clueless look. She groaned, “I asked if I could go shopping tomorrow, I have work the next three days so I just wanna go do something.”

“Oh, um, sure.”

The tv was playing in the background, but I wasn’t paying attention. Come to think of it, I don’t think I was paying attention to anything. Dylan, Jasmine, and Lucky were all laughing about something. What were they laughing about again? Something about going back to school? I don’t even want to think about that right now. I needed a break anyways. Most of my classes love giving me piles and piles of work anyways.

I sighed, pushing away my plate that I had barely eaten. The sun has already set, everyone was done eating, Angela asked Jasmine if she could go outside in the snow. She said yes, and so Isabelle followed. Dylan and Lucky were helping me wash the remaining dishes. Honestly I already felt so tired. It was only 8 p.m but my eyes threatened to close at any moment.

“You okay, Ry?” Dylan asked, putting a plate up in the cabinet.

“Yeah.” I replied, handing him another to dry. Lucky shook his head while continuously saying “no” over and over again. At some point Dylan grew tired of it and pressed the pad of his thumb into Lucky’s entire upper half of his body.

“He’s not wrong. You’re always like this on holidays.”

“I am?” I sighed, not really knowing how to get out of this one. These two have always been vigilant anyways. They would have noticed at some point.

“Yeah.”

“I don’t know. I just feel really tired today.”

“That’s it?”

“Mhm.”

Dylan gave me a skeptical look before putting in another plate. He doesn’t believe me. I don’t think he ever will about these kinds of things.

“Why don’t you call Nathan? You always seem happier around him.”

I stopped only for a second, then continued to scrub off something on the pan I used. No. I won’t call him. Not this time. No matter how many times he’s actually made me feel better just by being here. I’ve noticed I was happier around him too, but it’s only short lived since he always goes back at the end of the day. Do I know why I was happier? Not really. I’ve thought of a few reasons. Because he’s the only friend I’ve made since middle school. He listens to me ramble on and on about the most useless information. Best of all he’s really nice. Doesn’t really seem like he’s tricking me either. Not that I think he could even if he wanted to. He was too sweet.

“No.” I sighed. Cleaning out the sink and handing off the last dish.

“Why not?” Dylan asked leaning against the counter.

“Cause I’m tired. No point in calling if I’m just going to fall asleep,” I countered, drying my hands and heading to my room, “Make sure Isabelle and Angela are asleep by 10? Please?”

Dylan nodded his head, I closed the door behind me and buried myself under the covers of my bed. I can’t keep on relying on Nathan to come fix every problem I have. He’s probably off dealing with whatever he’s doing right now anyways. But still, my hand reached for my phone, grabbing it and opening the messages app. I’m just gambling with myself at this point. If he answers in the next ten minutes I’ll ask to call, if he doesn’t, I’ll head to sleep. Either way it’s really a win-win. And here it goes.

———Nathan———

I was laying on my bed, under the covers. No lights, no sounds, just nothing. I had cried earlier this morning when I visited his grave. My eyes were dry now. Red and puffy. I just sat curling in on myself while clutching the same teddy bear he gave me when I was still just a kid. It was childish, but if it’s all I have left of him then I’m taking advantage of that.

Ironic, huh? How this holiday was supposed to bring family together. It was actually the opposite for me. Even though he didn’t actually die on this holiday, it’s just ironic how it happened this year. When we’re finally free and live like a “normal” family now. Was he watching me now? Sad and lonely in my bed? I hope he wasn’t. He’d scold me.

My phone went off, but I didn’t feel like looking at it. It’s not like I wanted to be alone. Usually my mom would cheer me up by taking my mind off of it. Whether it was playing some makeshift game or just doing something I liked with me. What else was there to say? This year was the year I was completely alone.

I sucked in a deep breath, picking up my phone with sore arms. I spent most of the day digging out the old flowers on his grave and replacing them with new ones. It was hard to do when a thin sheet of snow was covering most of the dirt and grass, but it was worth it to see the bright a beautiful colors. His favorites were lilacs. I remember mom telling me that.

My eyes shot up when I saw who texted me. Ryker? I mean it was already night, so I doubt he was going to ask if I wanted to go over. But… I was kind of curious now.

Ryker: Hey

Ryker: How was your day?

Ryker: You’re probably doing something right now but I’d just thought I’d check what you were doing

Sent five minutes ago. Why did he want to know what I was doing? It seemed weird to me, but maybe he was just bored. Did they celebrate? I hope they did. They seem to be happy with each other.

Nathan: It was okay :)

Nathan: And yours?

Ryker: Chaotic

Nathan: Oh

I wasn’t technically lying. My day was okay despite crying for most of it.

Ryker: Yeahhh

Ryker: Do you feel like calling?

Ryker: You don’t have to of course

I thought about it. It wouldn’t be that bad. Might keep my mind occupied.

Nathan: Sure

And so he called.

“Hello?” His voice sounded tired and sad, like he just woke up or something. I couldn’t find my voice. It’s become rasp from sobbing anyways. It’d be embarrassing for it to sound like that over the phone. So hopefully it’ll get better in the morning.

“Oh, right,” He sighed, “Sorry. I just felt like talking and usually you listen. You can just hang up if you don’t want to though.” He sounded nervous, but I didn’t want to hang up. Not only because it was the wrong thing to do, but because I always loved listening to what he was saying. No matter how irrelevant it was. It distracted my mind from everything wrong with me. And he seemed to like it when I did.

Nathan: I’m listening

I heard him let out a little chuckle before talking. I could hear at some points it sounded like he was going to cry, and some he sounded like he was so hurt, and sometimes he’d laugh. He changed the subject multiple times, but I kind of liked it. I just wished I could help in some other way. It sounded to me like he was stressed out and just wanted someone to be there, and I’m surprised none of his siblings were. Or maybe they were, but he just doesn’t want to put all of this on them. It seemed like something he would do.

By the time he was done, it was an hour before midnight. Funny thing was, I wasn’t tired anymore. I was putting together pieces in my mind still about everything he had talked about. How he was mentally tired of juggling five things around at once. I would be too if I were him. How he’s been more and more exhausted by the end of the day. How his parents usually did all of these kinds of things. I was going to ask what happened to them, but I feel like that was a touchy subject. Especially when he just vented to me. I don’t mind though. Not at all.

“Oh crap. Sorry for keeping you up.” Ryker apologized, saying sorry about five times before I texted him that it was okay. I wasn’t going to sleep anytime soon.

“Thanks. Y’know. For listening.” I heard him yawn on the other side. He was the one tired. I silently laughed to myself, hugging the bear closer to my chest. If only he could see me now… this was embarrassing. He’d probably make fun of me for it. I wouldn’t care.

“You’re too nice, you know that?” I heard shuffling on the other side of the phone. Probably Ryker getting ready to go to sleep. And I know this was selfish, but I didn’t want him to hang up. I didn’t want my mind to realize that I was alone again. Was is it really selfish then? To me, yes. It feels like I was making him do something he didn’t want to.

“Hey, um, remember when you tried hugging me that one time? Why’d you do it?” He had asked, and I could practically see his face. Confused and happy at the same time. He was talking about when I had to stay overnight. I knew that would come up eventually, just not so soon.

Nathan: Nobody’s ever been so nice to me before. Besides my mom of course

Nathan: But I was kind of shocked you agreed without complaining

Nathan: Are you mad about it?

“Mad? Nononono. Um, the complete opposite really,” He laughed quietly, “I was shocked, yeah, but happy too.”

That gets rid of the guilt. I swear I thought I ruined everything between us, but now I know what he really thought. He wasn’t mad at me for anything.

“What about the other day? When it was snowing. You looked comfortable. Like you were about to sleep.” My cheeks started blushing from embarrassment. I had hoped he didn’t see me snuggling closer into his palm to stay warm, but apparently he did. So embarrassing. I groaned quietly to myself, tightly hugging the bear closer.

Nathan: Sorry

Nathan: I was cold

Nathan: You were warm

Nathan: Sorry again

It was silent for a second.

“Why do you apologize for things like that?”

I didn’t know the answer to that question. Usually my mind just takes over and then I spiral into the worst possible scenarios. So I have no idea why I do. Maybe because my brain thinks I’ll get hurt if I don’t? My body was scared of getting another broken bone or something getting hurt?

Nathan: I don’t know

It was silent again.

“Do… do you like being around me? I-I mean most people stop talking to me as soon as they get what they want. So, I was just wondering.” His voice sounded hurt. Obviously this ha sharpened once or twice to him. And it hurt to hear that these things have happened to someone so amazing. I could never do that to Ryker. It’d hurt me more than it’d hurt him.

“Y-yes.” I almost immediately replied, my voice a little raspy. It hurt to speak, but it was fine. It’ll get better in time.

I heard him let out a sigh of relief, and I smiled. I was finally doing the right thing for once in my life. I’m kind of glad this was how the day ended.

“I would give you a hug if you were here… and if you were comfortable enough with it,” We both laughed quietly, “I’ll let you go to sleep. I’ve kept you up long enough.”

I shook my head, forgetting that he wasn’t here to see it. I didn’t want him to go. Then again he sounded exhausted. Then I would be the one keeping him up. Or he doesn’t even have to stay awake. Just the knowledge that I knew he was just on the other side of the phone was enough to make me feel like I wasn’t alone.

“U-Um you d-don’t have to s-stay up b-but could we stay… stay on call? P-Please.” I waited for an answer, biting my tongue for stuttering so much. My body was shaky for no reason. I was nervous. He was going to say no. He was going to say no. He was going to-

“I would love that.”

I wish he could see the smile I had on my face. How fast my heart was beating. I laid down under the covers, getting comfortable and staring at my phone that read: Ryker: 3:14. Three hours and fourteen minutes. Another seven won’t hurt.

“Thank you.”

I fell asleep a couple minutes after he did. No nightmares haunted me tonight.

—————————————

My heart is meltinggggggg

By the way, this was not the great scene I was talking about. This was just one of many to make the one I actually want to write make sense.

Anywayssss I told you guys it would be a little plot heavy for a while! I loved how this chapter came out though.

Hope you enjoyed, and thank you for reading! Love you guys!

13 notes · View notes

mostthingskenobi · 8 months

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CASSIAN'S RECKONING - Chapter 7: The Salt

CHAPTER SUMMARY: Jyn needs a minute to herself. Tarkin is more ruthless than ever. All I can say is poor Cassian.

(I have to laugh at my own mediocre photoshop job on that cover photo LOL!!!!!)

I would say this is probably one of the more brutal chapters…

READ THE FIC ON AO3

THIS IS A WHUMPY FIC W/GRAPHIC DEPICTIONS OF VIOLENCE. PLEASE HEED THE TAGS ON AO3.

——————–

CHAPTER 7: THE SALT

Jyn had an hour to kill while the mechanics finished fueling and loading the Patrol Craft into a bulk cruiser. She had checked her gear and then made the rounds with her crew, making sure all the necessary elements were in place. Now the worst of it began, the waiting, the second guessing. Her imagination ran wild with worry as visions of Cassian in pain snuck into her consciousness. She hated that her mind could come up with such awful scenarios, but, ultimately, she knew whatever she imagined was nothing compared to what he actually endured.

She made her way through the base, retracing the steps she and Cassian had walked a few days prior. She wound a course past the barracks, into a dark, narrow passage that led to the higher-ranking officers’ quarters. Privacy on Yavin was scarce; most of the grunts, Jyn included, slept in a giant room filled floor-to-ceiling and end-to-end with bunks. Rogue Squad had a little corner where they all slept near each other, except for Cassian. Due to his rank and position in Rebel Intelligence, he’d been assigned a private room slightly larger than a maintenance closet.

Jyn went there now, pausing at the door and looking around to make sure no one saw her before she punched the access code into the keypad—only she and Cassian knew it. Being inside without his permission felt wrong, like she was violating his privacy, but she needed to feel him, be near his energy to clear the fear from her mind.

Nothing untoward had ever happened in this tiny room; it had simply become a place where they retreated to sip booze or play cards or talk when Scarif nightmares made it impossible to sleep. Rogue One was the family Jyn needed; she loved each member for different reasons, and would lay down her life to protect them. But Cassian’s friendship had become something deeper, something nourishing, comforting, familiar, nonjudgmental, easy, trustworthy. The whole crew had been through a lot together and had seen each other in their darkest moments. But when Cassian wrapped his body around her on Scarif’s beach, whispering that he would hold her until they died, her heart had been pierced. She had never felt so afraid and so safe at the same time.

Jyn and Cassian’s bond was forged in kyber and blood and brutal truth. They shared an unspoken trust that was more meaningful to Jyn than any romantic overture. And though they were both too afraid to confess anything deeper than friendship, too afraid to disturb the private good they shared, she knew she would care about Cassian Andor until she took her last breath.

His brown Corellian-cut field jacket lay tossed across his neatly made bunk. She reached out and clutched it into her hands, her fingers closing over the familiar, sturdy fabric. She traced the transponder sewn into the chest where she knew Cassian concealed a “lullaby” suicide pill. He would never use it, she thought. Though right now he probably wishes he had brought this with him.

The thought made her lightheaded. Jyn felt a chill run up her spine and she quickly sat down on the bed, overwhelmed with the sense that she could feel Cassian through the universe’s ether. The kyber crystal her mother had tied around her neck suddenly felt warm against her skin. A vision flashed through her mind and she saw Cassian’s long eyelashes fluttering as water poured over him, burning cuts on his body.

Her fists tightened around the jacket, squeezing it until the frightening sensations drained away. I’m coming, she thought, willing the message across the galaxy to wherever her friend was suffering. Don’t let go, Cassian.

She looked down at the jacket in her hands, her knuckles white and bloodless from crushing it in her grip. Jyn hesitated for a moment, as though afraid someone might see her, before pressing the jacket to her face, breathing deeply. It smelled like his aftershave and fresh air, flooding her with a hundred tiny memories.

The balm fortified her resolve. Jyn was going to get Cassian back, or die trying.

——————–

When Tarkin, the IT-O droid, and the death troopers returned, they came with an air of bloodthirsty savagery. Cassian knew he’d seen his last shred of mercy.

The troopers circled him and each took hold of his body in a different spot—his feet, his hands, his neck and face. Their gloved fists tightened and Cassian clenched his teeth in anticipation.

“I’ve had a chance to review your interrogation footage,” Tarkin launched in without prelude. “I noticed something quite interesting.”

Cassian refused to take the bait, biting back a retort, determined that fear would not get the better of him.

“You swallow your pain.” Tarkin’s brow arched severely with amusement. “You almost never scream.” He strode forward until he was towering over the rebel. “What kind of man endures relentless torment with nary a sound?” He hooked a finger under Andor’s chin and forced his head up. “We created you, didn’t we? Hung your father in the town square. Sent you to prison as a child. Let your mother die as our suffocating grip tightened around Ferrix. And countless other perceived wrongs not in our official records.”

Cassian burned with rage at the mention of these painful memories and the casualness with which the Grand Moff paraded them out like afterthoughts. His youth had crumbled with each loss, a childhood, a family, stolen by the Empire. Andor began to shake with emotion, with a fire he had never been able to fully stamp out. He couldn’t hold it back any longer.

His father had hung in the Ferrix snow for weeks. Cassian had to walk by the body nearly every day on his way to school.

And his mother, her love as sharp and enduring as her pointed opinions, had died cold and alone, without her son by her side for comfort.

Tarkin’s nostrils flared as he nearly bared his teeth like a predator. “You, the Rebellion,” he said, revulsion dripping from every word, “you’re a by-product, an inevitability. The Empire is creating order out of chaos, and as we contract our hold, collateral damage is certain.” He grasped Andor roughly by the chin, barely containing his own rage. “You think your righteous anger exempts you from stepping into the new order. No more. It’s time for you to learn your place.”

He released Cassian and stepped back, nodding to the death troopers. Their gauntleted hands instantly tightened, twisting into the rebel’s flesh, ripping open all the wounds the IT-O droid had made the day before. They rubbed his face and neck, scraped over his chest and hands, until each thin cut bled afresh, dripping down his skin in rivulets.

Cassian cried out, desperately trying to pull away, curling inward as much as his restraints allowed.

The troopers retreated as Tarkin approached once again. He gripped a fistful of the prisoner’s hair and wrenched his head up. “We will eventually tear a scream from your throat,” he snarled.

The young man glared at the Grand Moff, his body still shaking. Tarkin seemed to have forgotten that Maarva Andor, speaking from beyond the grave, had inspired the insurrection on Ferrix. Her barbed rhetoric lifted a community long exploited by the Empire. And Tarkin obviously didn’t know her son had been there to witness it. Maarva’s words came back to Cassian now as he looked into his oppressor’s eyes. “The Empire is a disease that thrives in darkness.” His voice was strained but he spoke with conviction. “It is never more alive than when we sleep.”

Tarkin’s lip curled. “Flood the reservoir with sea water,” he barked at the droid.

Cassian’s eyes widened, knowing the agony that was coming. He felt the blood dripping from his wounds and imagined rubbing salt into each one. “It's easy for the dead to tell you to fight,” he continued, anger building in his heart.

“Tell me the names of every rebel with you on Scarif,” Tarkin demanded.

“Maybe it's true, maybe fighting is useless.” Cassian refused to look away from the Grand Moff, refused to break eye contact. He felt Maarva’s spirit rushing through his veins, renewing his strength. “Perhaps it's too late. But I'll tell you this...”

“Last chance, Captain Andor.”

“If I could do it again, I'd wake up early and be fighting these bastards from the start. Fight the Empire!”

Tarkin released him and moved far enough away to avoid getting soaked as the IT-O droid activated the water nozzle above the rebel.

When the salty sea water seared across his wounds, Cassian screamed.

——————–

END NOTES

NEXT CHAPTER IS CALLED “THE POWER" - Cassian tries to mentally spar with Tarkin but is nearing his breaking point. Jyn receives special instructions from Draven right as she's about to leave on her rescue mission.

Thank you for reading!

Likes, comments, and reblogs are very welcome!

Much love!

——————–

READ IT ON AO3- Kudos and Comments Welcome :-)

READ CHAPTER 1 “The Razor”

READ CHAPTER 2 “The Scythe”

READ CHAPTER 3 “The Cold”

READ CHAPTER 4 “The Expendable”

READ CHAPTER 5 “The Truth”

READ CHAPTER 6 “The Detritus”

READ CHAPTER 7 "The Salt"

READ CHAPTER 8 “The Power”

READ CHAPTER 9 “The Betrayal”

READ CHAPTER 10 “The Ruse”

READ CHAPTER 11 "The Reprieve"

READ CHAPTER 12 “The Ghosts”

READ CHAPTER 13 “The Redemption”

READ CHAPTER 14 “The Spoils”

READ CHAPTER 15 “The Interrogation”

READ CHAPTER 16 "The Rogues"

READ CHAPTER 17 “The Absolution”

READ CHAPTER 18 “The Reach”

READ CHAPTER 19 “The Hologram”

READ CHAPTER 20 “The Divide”

READ CHAPTER 21 “The Cost”

READ CHAPTER 22 “The Fallout”

READ CHAPTER 23 “The Wounds”

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not-a-space-alien · 2 years

Text

Savage Sunset Chapter 7S

Story masterpost

I'm actually going to post just 7S before 7M because, idk, i'm impatient or something, I've just been writing when the inspiration strikes at whatever angle it strikes, cuz that's really all I have time for rn with school and all.

UPDATE: Here's chapter 7M :)

On this episode of the story "Valen's big fuckin bad no good predicament": Lex and Ari come back after avoiding him for a while. What will happen?! 🤔🤔

Content/Content warnings for this chapter: Nonconsensual bondage/restraint/being trapped, gag/muzzle, aftermath of torture, cuts, burns, nonsexual nudity, heavy emotional distress, suicidal ideation/euthanasia discussion

“Oh, Lex, Ari, while you’re here, I was wondering. I don’t suppose you’d be able to bring me back another live catch sometime? I’m not sure how much more use I’ll be able to get out of this one.”

Lex turned back from where she’d tried to hurry past the basement to get out the front door. She looked at Nick, at the top of the stairs, the open door letting out the deranged wailing from downstairs.

“What the fuck is that supposed to mean?” said Ari.

Nick wrung his hands. “Well, it’s in a state of starvation, which means it takes much, much longer for its injuries to heal. It’s not really a pace I can work with to do experiments anymore. And I’m positive the director won’t consent to us feeding it.”

They’d had plenty of opportunities to repeat their feat in the intervening months. They’d nabbed about one kill per week, but they’d never even discussed trying to take another vampire alive. Not after they’d seen what happened to the first one.

Ari sneered at him. “It’s not our fault if you broke your toy. You’re not getting another one. Come on, Lex, we’ve got shit to do.”

“Wait!” said Nick. “Hold on, please.” He clasped his hands together. “Please will you help me today, just this once, I know you said you wouldn’t, but nobody has been around all week to open the coffin with me. I need to clean him off.”

Lex wavered. Clean him off? That…sounded okay, actually. If he was dirty enough that Nick agreed he needed to be cleaned, it probably felt horrible and washing him would be doing him a favor.

Ari clucked her tongue, clearly thinking the same thing. “Well…all right, fine. I’ll do it. Lex, you don’t have to if you don’t wanna.”

“I’ll help.”

They followed Nick downstairs. The pathetic, warbling sounds got louder as they descended.

God, the creature in the coffin was almost unrecognizable. He was rail fucking thin and covered in a layer of grime…it looked to be mostly blood, based on where it was, streaks of it below still open wounds. It looked like his pants had been lost in the intervening months, dressed in only the now equally grimy boxer briefs, and a heavy metal collar around the neck had been added. It was padlocked shut, but there was a handle at the front–an easy way to lift him up out of the coffin, perhaps?

He was…starting to smell. Lex nearly gagged.

“Thank you so much,” said Nick with relief. “I really cannot continue anything until he’s been cleaned up. It’s interfering with measurements. Here, if you would be so kind as to unlock the cage and bring him over here.”

He handed the key to Ari, then came over to the basin sink and unrolled a hose from underneath of it. “There,” he said, and pointed to the drain in the floor. “Just position him right on there, if you please, this won’t take very long at all.”

Lex’s heart sank, guilt coming back. She wasn’t sure what she’d expected, but of course Nick would just hose him off. Surely it wouldn’t be comfortable. The water would probably be cold. Well…he would probably feel better once it was over, right?

Ari stared at Nick, the hose in his hand dripping. “All right,” she said, and she knelt, unlocking the coffin and creaking the lid open.

Valen’s eyes were unfocused and lifeless. He was already shaking and whimpering. Ari reached down and grabbed the handle on the collar around his neck, lifting him out with ease–it was unsettling how little he appeared to weigh. It didn’t seem to hurt at all, but Valen brought his hands, which were shackled in the front of his body, up in front of him, curling his head away, as though to shield himself from a blow.

Ari clicked her tongue, looking down at the pathetic, trembling, grimy stick of a man in her hand. “All right,” she said, and she knelt down, pressing her shoulder into his midsection, draping him over her shoulder. She stood, carrying him like a sack of potatoes and starting to go up the stairs.

“Um,” said Nick. “Ari, where are you–”

“I’m taking him to the bathroom,” Ari snapped. “Because I can tell it would upset Lex if you did it like that.”

Lex nearly bounced in excitement, following Ari. Nick quickly moved to intercept them. “Hold on,” he said, blocking the door. “I insist we do it in the basement.”

“Nick.”

“Y-yes?”

Ari lifted one foot up slightly. “Do you see this foot?”

“Y…yes?”

“I just got it out of a boot not that long ago. But I will break it off in your ass if I have to. Get out of the way.”

Wringing his hands, Nick stepped to the side.

Lex’s face was about even with Valen’s, in the small of Ari’s back. His hair drooped over his face to cover most of it, bobbing silently with each step Ari took, but she could see his desperate, tired eyes looking at her.

This time, she suppressed the instinct to tell him everything was going to be okay.

As they came up onto the first floor, a sudden realization struck Lex, and she dashed over and closed the blinds. The hunters who’d been talking in the living room fell silent with a questioning look.

“Don’t worry about it,” huffed Ari, pivoting and going up the second set of stairs to the second floor.

Valen started whining again, eyes wheeling around, as though the mere stimulation of being in a different environment were overwhelming.

“Sh,” said Lex, and then bit her tongue. Don’t. Don’t tell him it’s okay. He probably hates you.

The bathroom door was closed, the sound of water in the sink behind it. Ari pounded on the door. “Yo!”

“Geez, what?” said Bailey’s voice from inside it.

“Get out. We need to use the bathroom.”

The faucet squeaked off, the sound of towels ruffling. The door opened, showing Bailey’s disgruntled face. “Geez, fine.” His face twisted when he saw the vampire, and he skittered out of the way.

Lex filed into the bathroom after Ari. She turned around to see Nick following them. “Now–Now listen, we should make this quick, because–”

Lex shut the door in his face, then locked it.

Ari had sat Valen down on the toilet and started running the water in the shower. “Go ahead, Lex. Since I can tell you want to.”

Lex approached Valen like he was a wary cat. He shrank back. “Sh,” she said. “Hey, I’m not going to hurt you. Do you want to take a shower?”

He looked at her foggily.

She took his elbow. “Can you stand up for me?”

He didn’t start to move until a second hand on his back gave him a gentle push. His knees trembled as he stood. He caught a glimpse of himself in the mirror above the sink and startled violently, falling over.

“All right, you’re okay,” said Lex soothingly, helping him lean on the counter. “Just relax.”

“You don’t have to talk to him like he’s a puppy, Lex. He’s still a serial killer, he doesn’t really deserve what we’re doing, so–”

“Wh–” Lex sputtered. “You’re the one who brought him upstairs!”

“Only because you made me!”

“Wh-uh–No I didn’t! You did that all on your own.”

“The look on your face was enough.”

Lex rolled her eyes. “Sure, okay, Ari. You don’t care at all. Got it.”

“Hmmph.” Ari stuck her hand in the stream of water, testing the temperature, then wiped her hand on her shirt. “All right, that should be good.”

Lex turned back to Valen. “Do you want to take your underwear off?” she said gently.

His chest heaved in and out with panicked breaths.

“You don’t have to. But I’ll clean them for you if you want.”

With shaking hands, Valen brought both cuffed hands to his left hip, sliding his underwear down, then repeating it on the right hip until they could drop to his ankles, on top of the ankle cuffs.

“All right, you're doing great,” said Lex, and she knelt. “Ari, do you have a handcuff key?"

Ari took out a keyring and handed it to her. She unlocked the manacles around his ankles, then stood, supporting him by the elbow again. “All right.”

She helped him step out of the ankle cuffs and underwear, leaving him completely nude except for handcuffs and the muzzle. God, this was horrific, the sheer number of injuries on his body. The newest ones appeared to be the series of cuts at regular intervals going up his arms and legs, along with some fresh burns, but there were a lot of older burns underneath of those. Nick hadn’t been exaggerating about his rate of healing slowing down. No wonder Nick wanted another one. His body looked a little bit like he’d been put through a woodchipper.

Ari put a hand on Lex’s shoulder and whispered into her ear. “Should we just kill him?”

Valen’s breath hitched, and he flinched repeatedly, leaning away from both of them.

“No!” said Lex.

“Are you saying that because you’re thinking of his best interests, or your own?”

She looked at Valen. The pitiful creature just braced himself on the sink, head drooping.

“Well…” said Lex. “I mean, we could ask him.”

He raised his head at this, a look of panic on his face as they both looked at him expectantly.

“Do you want us to kill you?” Lex said softly. “We’ll make it painless. If you want it…to just end.”

Valen’s body hitched in a rapid-fire series of gasping breaths, and then he steeled himself and slowly nodded.

Ari put her hand to her mouth. “Shit. Okay. All right.”

Lex grimly took his elbow and turned him around to face Ari. Ari reached into her belt pouch and took out a wooden stake.

“It’ll be fast,” said Lex. “Then the pain will be all over.”

Tears spilled over in Valen’s eyes as Ari steadied the stake over his chest, resting the point over his heart. He suddenly flinched away, raising his hands, shaking his head, letting out muffled whimpers, squeezing his eyes shut.

Lex put her other arm around his back to steady him. His skin was cold and she could feel his bones. “Did you…change your mind?”

He nodded vigorously, quivering.

Ari sighed, slipping the stake back into her belt. “Okay, then. Let’s just forget that and wash you off.”

As Lex guided him towards the shower, he kept his hands folded up in front of his chest, looking at the water as though it might bite him. Lex wrapped a hand around his wrist and extended his hand into the stream of water. “How’s that?”

He didn’t respond.

“Too hot? Too cold?”

He shook his head.

“Up you get, then.”

Even with Lex helping him keep his balance, he didn’t lift his foot high enough to clear the rim of the tub and tripped, falling head-first into the shower. Lex redoubled her grip, pulling him right-side up as the shower waterfalled over his soggy form.

“How about a bath, then,” said Ari behind her.

Lex sighed and pulled the valve to change the flow of water to the bottom faucet, then plugged the tub. “Jesus Christ, Ari, he can barely stand.” This skeletal creature that couldn’t look at them without flinching was a far cry from the dangerous predator they had subdued and gotten their bones broken by.

Nick’s voice was at the door. “Is everything quite all right in there?”

“Yeah,” said Ari.

“How much longer are you going to be? I have timepoints that, ideally–”

“Don’t come in, we’re having gay sex.”

Lex helped Valen sit back in the tub as the water rose up around his thighs. “There we go,” she cooed. “Does that feel good?”

He silently brought his cuffed hands to rest on the bathtub rim.

“Here,” said Lex, laying the bar of soap next to them. “You can do it yourself, if you want.”

He looked at the bar of soap like he couldn’t remember what it was. His hands weakly fumbled with it, and it slipped down into the tub.

“Okay, that’s okay,” said Lex, noting that it looked like he was about to start crying again. “You’re doing great.” She retrieved the keyring again and brought his wrists forward.

“Be careful,” said Ari in a warning tone as Lex unlocked his wrists.

“Come on,” said Lex, “he’s clearly not in any state to do much of anything.”

She set the handcuffs on the sink, then twisted back towards Valen. He was bringing his hands shakily up towards the muzzle.

“No,” said Lex softly. “I’m sorry, that has to stay on.”

He let out a pitiful whine like a dog, face scrunching up.

Lex gently grabbed his wrists and lowered his hands down into the soap and water. “I’m sorry. That has to stay on. I’m sorry.” She twisted to look at Ari, voice tinged with desperation. “Are you sure we can't take the muzzle off?”

Ari sighed and sat on the toilet. “Lex, you know he could just open his mouth and tell us to kill each other, and we’d have to do it.”

“He…He might not. He might not want to do that.”

“If he didn’t before, he certainly does now.”

Lex looked at his hopeless expression, staring down into the bathwater, which had already turned reddish brown.

“Okay,” said Lex, getting up. “All right, let’s clean you up, then.”

There was a detachable shower head, so Lex removed it and snaked it down over his head, unplugging the drain and letting the water wash over him for a few minutes, the murky residue swirling down the drain. He made vague motions to rub the bar of soap over himself like he wasn’t sure he was supposed to be doing it.

“There you go,” said Lex. She plugged the tub again, now that most of the gunk was gone and the water wouldn’t instantly get completely saturated. “You’re already looking a little bit better.”

She let the tub fill up and walked over to the sink, picking his underwear up off the floor. She tried not to look too hard at what exactly it was soiled with as she set it in the sink and let the water run over it, adding some soap. Not the best way to wash clothes, but it would do.

Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Valen’s hands move towards his face again.

“No,” said Ari flatly. “Don’t try it.”

The hands slowly lowered back into the water.

Ari reached over and turned the water off once the tub was full, plunging them into the warm, comfortable silence of a steamy bathroom. Lex let him soak in there for a while and wrung out his underwear, which was much cleaner despite the lackluster wash. She got a damp cloth and wiped the manacles too, which were crusty with dried blood and some sort of grimy ash and who knows what else.

She came back over to the bathtub and knelt. “Do you want me to help rub the soap on your back and stuff?”

He nodded slowly.

She lathered some suds onto her hands. Despite the gentleness in her touch, he flinched when her palms landed on the bony vertebrae sticking out from under the skin.

“There we go,” she cooed. “It feels nice, right?”

He didn’t respond.

She lifted the metal collar on his neck to wipe underneath it, running a finger around. His skin was warmer now, after soaking for a bit.

She got the shampoo off the floor. “Close your eyes for me.”

He did so, shaking with anticipation now that he could not see. She squeezed some shampoo out onto the top of his head, which startled him. His white hair was stained nearly pink from the blood at some points. She worked it into a lather on his scalp. He went limp, face melting into relaxation. A clump of hair came out in her hand, and she grimaced and wiped it on the wall. He didn’t seem to notice.

“All right, I’m going to touch your face, don’t be surprised by it. Just keep your hands down there.” She rubbed some soap on her hands and slid a finger around the muzzle. The metal parts of the device were padded with leather where it touched him, so it wouldn’t burn him, but there were still inflamed, angry patches of skin where it’d been chafing from months of continuous wear.

Lex loosened the strap on the muzzle. Just one notch. It was barely enough to make a difference, but he sighed with relief.

She got one finger down between the muzzle and the skin, rubbing the irritated flesh. She could feel his jaw working at the bit under her hands. “Sorry,” she said. “I’m sorry we can’t take it off. You know you have to keep it on.”

He sagged.

“All right, let’s rinse you off.” Lex stood and retrieved the shower head again, setting it to a gentle stream. He closed his eyes and leaned into it, water streaming down his back.

The faucet squeaked as she turned it off. She looked down at him. He still looked pretty fucking gnarly with all his injuries, open cuts layered over old bruises and half-healed wounds, not to mention him being very visibly in a state of starvation that humans couldn’t even reach and still be alive and moving around. But he was clean, and no matter how miniscule the comfort had been, it must have been the first he’d received in months, and he clearly appreciated it.

“Okay,” said Lex. “You did so good. Now let’s just get you dried off, and then we’ll go back downstairs, okay?”

He burst into sobs instantly, leaning into Lex’s knees, wet hands twisting in the fabric of her pants as he desperately clung to her.

“Oh,” said Lex. “Oh, shhh, shhh, it’s okay, it’ll be okay…”

“Alex,” Ari snapped, and both Valen and Lex looked at her sharply. “Don’t.”

“What?”

Ari sighed in irritation and came over, squatting next to Valen. He still pressed into Lex, loathe to let go of her.

She locked eyes with him. He let out a tiny whimper of fear.

“Hey,” said Ari. “It’s not okay. I know it’s not okay. I know it’s not all right for you right now. It’s actually pretty fucked up right now. But me and Lex are going to see if we can make things a little better, okay?”

His grip on Lex tightened.

“All you have to do is hang in there just a bit longer. Can you do that for me?”

He nodded morosely, even as he continued to white-knuckle Lex’s thighs.

Ari smiled. “Great.” She tossed a towel on top of his head. “Dry yourself off then.”

Lex helped him to sit up on the lip of the tub and lent a hand to towel him off. Ari found a blow dryer under the sink, and Lex used it to dry off his hair and the skin under the muzzle and the collar.

“All right,” said Ari, holding both pairs of cuffs. “Sorry, but it’s time these go back on. We can’t hide in the bathroom forever.”

Face drooping sadly, Valen held his wrists out. Ari fastened them, then knelt and did the same for his ankles.

“Do you want me to carry you back down, or walk yourself?”

He didn’t move, didn’t meet her gaze.

“I’ll take that as a vote for carrying.” She leaned him onto her shoulder again, picking him up and steadying him with a hand across the back of the legs.

Nick wasn’t there when they came out, surprisingly. That gave them a moment of reprieve as they walked back down the stairs.

“Everything all right?” Bailey said warily as they emerged onto the first floor.

“Just peachy,” said Ari, knocking the basement door open with her foot. “Just right as rain.”

Nick was downstairs at the furnace, handling something with gloves and tongs. “Ah, there you are, thank you so much, just what I needed…While you’re here, while we have him out, I could, perhaps, just very quickly get data from this timepoint–”

He pulled a stone cup of glowing hot molten silver out of the furnace, holding it at a distance. “I’m testing the effects of silver on wound healing, you see–”

The cuts up his arms and legs, the fact that some of them had burn marks and some didn’t–to compare them. Nick wanted to fucking pour molten silver into the open wounds.

Lex looked over at Ari, who was standing there with a horrified expression on her face, to see that Valen was squirming on her shoulder, twisting and writhing as though he could run away.

The coffin lid was still open behind Ari, and she turned around and dumped him inside of it, not even fastening the restraints to keep him secured to the sides before closing it and locking it.

“Ariana, I need–I need him outside of it to–”

“Sure thing.” Ari held the key to the coffin out like she was going to hand it to him, then yanked her hand back and put it in her own pocket. “But you know I just remembered there’s somewhere I gotta be real fast, so maybe I’ll come back later and help you with that.”

Ari pushed Lex up the stairs, then when they were at the top, she turned and made eye contact with Nick before shutting the basement door.

“Sick fuck,” she muttered.

Lex followed her as she stomped into the kitchen. “Ari–what are you–what were you thinking we would do to help him?”

Ari ran a hand through her hair, letting out a breath. “Ummm…Well, okay, I know a good place to start.”

She walked over to the corded phone hanging from the wall and picked it up.

"And for the record," she insisted, holding one finger up. "I'm only doing this because you're clearly upset by it. I don't care at all."

Lex suppressed a smile.

Ari turned and ran her finger over the important phone numbers posted next to the phone, then dialed, waiting. Then: “Yeah, Jenny? Hey what’s up. Is Director Griswald in his office today?”

***

Tag list <3

@annablogsposts

@darlingwhump

@oddsconvert

@pumpkin-spice-whump

@soursagas

@thecyrulik

@whumpsday

#hurt/comfort #angst #vampires #whump #vampire whumpee #whumpblr #my writing

47 notes · View notes

young-dumb-and-vaccinated · 3 years

Note

Idk if your requests are open but could I request a Hannibal x reader who has an emotionally/verbally abusive older sibling. If you're not comfortable or if it's too dark you can ignore this :)

Anon, I had an emotionally abusive older sister figure growing up. I would be fucking honored. I hope you like it!

(Gender neutral) y/n gets some unexpected advice from their new therapist after things got physical with their verbally abusive older sister.

Trigger warnings: verbal and emotional abuse, reactive abuse, mention of suicide, implied use of r-slur

At first, you hated that you had to see a therapist. Just because you were the first one to throw a punch, you were designated the violent one. The unstable one. The one that needed to be straightened out. As if nearly two decades of your sister's completely unchecked psychological torment was supposed to just roll right off your back. But she'd been asking for it since the day she learned to speak, and you both knew it. You only regretted not hitting her harder.

Dr. Lecter's office was spacious, overwhelming and cold. Impeccably decorated, but not so much in the way of welcoming. You couldn't begin to picture yourself opening up to whatever kind of person kept their office as dark and frigid as a morgue.

"My sincerest apologies for making you wait, [F/N]." A low, accented voice greeted you from behind. The man hurriedly strode across the room and took his place behind the desk. "I'm Dr. Hannibal Lecter, it's nice to meet you in person."

Your gaze fell, mostly because the therapist was just as intimidating as the room. "Hi. I'm [F/N] [L/N]. But you already knew that."

"Perhaps we can begin by clarifying why it is you're here?" Dr. Lecter asked. His tone wasn't accusatory, but confused.

You put your hands on your knees and sighed. "I punched my sister in the throat."

"Did she deserve it?"

He probably expected this question to catch you off guard, but you had an answer.

"She did." You nodded.

"Oh?" Dr. Lecter raised an eyebrow. With a look, he urged you to elaborate.

"I had just gotten these new shoes." You began. "These really nice cuffed ankle boots that I've been eyeing for, like, months. And I was wearing them around the house, y'know, to break them in. Well, apparently, she didn't like the sound they made on the hardwood, so she said 'Jesus [F/N], since you clearly crave attention so much, why don't you go kill yourself?'"

"And she said this..." Dr. Lecter narrowed his eyes. "Because your shoes were making noise against the floor?"

"So I was about to say 'sorry' when I realized that I didn't do anything." You continued. "So I just went about my business. When I didn't apologize, she got up into my face and started telling me what a waste of space I was. Then I just decked her."

Dr. Lecter's mouth turned up into a slight grin. He crossed the room and took a knee beside you. "Make a fist for me."

You balled your hand up into a fist, tucking your thumb under your fingers.

"Oh, no. That won't do at all. You're going to dislocate your thumb that way." Dr. Lecter clicked his tongue. "Come now, dear. Give me your hand."

He took your hand and gently guided it into a proper fist, with your thumb awkwardly resting over your fingers.

"There we are." He whispered. "Next time, try that. And if she hits back, don't be afraid to use your nails or teeth."

"Thanks, but," You laughed awkwardly. "I'm pretty sure my mom sent me here so there wouldn't be a next time?"

"Your mother is dreadfully naïve if she thinks there won't be." Dr. Lecter took a seat in the chair across from yours. "She clearly sees no problem that her oldest child is encouraging her sibling to commit suicide."

You leaned back in your chair. "But what about 'violence is never the answer'?"

"I try not to limit my practice with meaningless platitudes." He smiled. "You've heard 'sticks and stones may break my bones'..."

"But chains and whips excite me." You finished, not stopping for a moment to consider if your 50-year-old ambiguously European therapist would understand a reference to Rihanna.

He paused for a moment, then laughed. It was strange to see this six foot tall, terrifying man laugh, but it happened. You did that. "That's not the way I've heard it go."

"I feel so dumb." You threw your head back. "It's a song."

"I have to say, I like that version better." Dr. Lecter said. "The reality is, my dear [F/N], you are only a perpetrator as long as your sister is. What you're engaged in is known as 'reactive abuse'. While it can be dangerous in its own right, it often manifests as a form of self-defense."

"That..." Your voice trailed off. "Actually makes me feel a little better."

"Don't let anyone tell you what you did was unjustified." Dr. Lecter instructed. "And, more importantly, don't tell yourself it was unjustified."

"Thanks." You said, weakly.

“And in the meantime,” Dr. Lecter continued. “You need to make sure when you hit her, you don’t break your fingers in the process. Do you understand?”

“Loud and clear.” You nodded.

“I feel that’s probably enough time spent on your worthless sister, don’t you?” He settled into his seat. “Tell me about yourself.”

He broke you open like like an egg. Soon enough, the hour was over and you didn’t even feel it pass. But you were refreshed and ready to take on the world with a new understanding of your station in life. That was, until you saw your sister waiting for you in the lobby.

“Hey fuckface, mom sent me to pick you up from suicidal freak daycare.” She said, slouching in her seat with her legs crossed.

You took in a breath, falling back on your old, horrifically ineffective coping skills.

“This is a private exit for my patients, Miss [L/N].” Dr. Lecter scolded, putting a protective hand on your shoulder. “And I would appreciate it if you did not use that language in my office.”

The sudden presence of an actual adult snapped her into shape. She sat up and uncrossed her legs. “Of course. Sorry, sir.”

“Now apologize.” Dr. Lecter demanded.

She said nothing.

“Miss [L/N], I find it terribly offensive that you felt entitled to insult both my practice and my patient.” He broke the silence. “You would do well to apologize.”

“I’m sorry you feel that way.” She muttered. “Can I please just take them home?”

You felt yourself tense up. Dr. Lecter squeezed your shoulder comfortingly and leaned in to your ear. “Remember what I taught you, [L/N].”

You took a few steps forward, Dr. Lecter watching from the threshold.

“Are you waiting for an invitation?” Your sister scoffed. “I don’t have all day, you little reta-”

You heard the collision before you felt it. You launched your fist straight into her jaw before she could finish that word. A dreadful crunch filled the air.

You pulled your hand back, a rush of endorphins flooding your mind. Your knuckles felt a little sore, but the pain faded quickly. Your sister’s pain, however, would last quite a while.

You looked back at Dr. Lecter and shook out your hand. “You were right. That is better.”

#hannibal x reader #hannibal lecter #hannibal nbc #hannibal x you #anon ask #anon request #tw suidice #tw r slur #tw emotional abuse #tw verbal assault

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ahloveisboo · 3 years

Text

(you’re in my) system

pairing: joshua hong x reader

genre: college!au, long time crush, mentions of alcohol and swearing, house party

wc: 1.9k

summary: joshua confesses to you in a way you did not see coming.

“CHUG! CHUG! CHUG!”

The chanting barely makes it over the booming bass filling the room, drowning out all attempted conversations before they can even begin. It’s hot (a little too hot for your taste), and you’re not sure if it’s because you decided to wear a light sweater in march or because Joshua is practically pressed up against you, his back to your side and a red cup in hand as he’s animatedly talking to an equally inebriated Seokmin.

“I dare you…” he shouts over the music, pushing back his bleach blonde hair with his free hand. “To kiss Jihoon on the cheek. No warning nor asking for permission,” he adds quickly, a mischievous smile glued to his lips as Seokmin opens his mouth to protest. “And no backing out!”

Seokmin juts out his lower lip into a pout, his tongue stained red from the vodka in his cup as he pokes it out at Joshua. “Fine but then I dare you…” he counters, his gaze scanning the room and landing on your frame. “...to kiss y/n.”

You freeze, unable to not overhear their conversation as Joshua is mere inches away from you and they’re practically screaming at each other. Your lips pause at the edge of your cup, the sour smell of your drink circling up to penetrate your nose. Truth be told, you’re feeling a little light-headed and this should probably be your last drink.

Joshua frowns, his eyes widening in alarm as he tilts his head. “Seokmin, we agreed we’d never-”

“You’re basically sending me on a suicide mission,” Seokmin deadpans, his speech slightly slurred from the amount of alcohol he’s consumed. He pokes a finger into Joshua’s chest. “The least you could do for me is suffer a little.”

Your heart sinks as you feel Joshua’s body tense against yours.

Joshua Hong is what people would call “a college sweetheart”. It’s not like he’s super present in off-school activities or even a member of a popular frat or anything. It’s just that everyone knows him—a genuine, down to earth guy, who just happens to look like he was handcrafted by the gods, with a laugh that could melt literal icebergs. And you just so happen to have a crush on him, not unlike a hundred other people on campus.

To make matters worse, Joshua’s in your Discourse Analysis class. You’re usually seated behind him, and there’s only a tiny part of you that’s annoyed with how he’s more often goofing around with Wonwoo than following the lecture. Nevertheless, you give him your notes after class each time he asks, blood rushing to your cheeks as he thanks you sincerely.

You weren’t even sure he knew your name until now. Groaning into your cup, you turn away from Joshua and Seokmin, wishing for the ground to swallow you whole. Maybe if you make yourself small enough, he won’t notice you standing right behind him, propped up against the wall by yourself. You silently curse your friend for ditching you for Soonyoung, something she will get hell for tomorrow morning—no matter the hangover she’ll be nursing.

Joshua stills for a moment before taking a swig of his drink, the liquid burning in this throat as he downs it all at once. “I respect that,” he concedes, scrunching his nose at the bitter taste. “The only difference is, you’ve never had to rub one out after a particularly spicy dream about Jihoon and the worst-case scenario is that he ignores you for the rest of the night just out of spite.” Seokmin barks out a laugh, nearly spilling his drink all over Joshua’s shirt. He backs away to avoid a mojito shower, crashing into you with his entire body.

“Oh my god, I’m so sorry,” Joshua starts, turning to profusely apologise to whomever he just bumped into. You blink at him, trying to hide that he startled you.

Casting your gaze downwards, you raise your cup in his general direction. “It’s okay,” you mumble, trying not to make eye contact with the guy in front of you. It’s dark in the room, but his eyes are too bright and your skin is too hot for comfort. There’s a couple making out right next to you, leaving you trapped between Joshua and whoever’s face is being eaten (if you had to take a guess it’s probably Junhui). The only difference being now he’s facing you and there’s no way you can hide how flustered you are.

Joshua just wants to die on the spot. Disappear into oblivion, forgotten by all of mankind. The realisation of the words he just so accusingly uttered at Seokmin and the fact that you were there - behind him - all along, makes him want to run out of the room and never look back. You still as your name falls from his lips in embarrassment, and you wish you’d never come to this damn party at all.

“I-I don’t know how much you heard,” Joshua starts as Seokmin looks up at him in what could be described as half horror, half amusement, and decides to make himself scarce in silence.

“I don’t know what you mean.” Your voice is much more steady than you feel. “I only just got here on my way to the kitchen.” You lift the empty cup to Joshua’s face in a demonstration of how in need of a new drink you are. He’s pretty sure it’s the booze talking when you turn to leave and he stops you, wrapping his hand around your wrist. Still, he doesn’t speak, so when you lift your gaze from your wrist to his face in a questioning frown, he panics.

“I like you.”

Joshua blinks a few times before realising what he said.

“You… what?”

“I.. uh,” he sputters, trying to slow down his whirring thoughts—the alcohol acting like a kaleidoscope scattering every bit of whatever is left of his dignity. “I.. Like you?”

He feels like an asshole springing this onto you out of seemingly nowhere. Especially considering he literally just confessed to jacking off to the thought of you, but he figures he’s got nothing to lose. What you don’t know is that Joshua never pays attention in Discourse Analysis, despite how interesting he finds it to be, because you’re too distracting. Because he likes the way you sigh in feigned disappointment when he asks for your notes after. Because he likes the smell of your perfume and the way you click your pen when you’re focussing on processing new information. Wonwoo hates it, and more than once has he had to stop his friend from pulling the pen out of your hand and throwing it across the auditorium.

“Wait, no, I didn’t mean for that to sound like a question.” He averts his eyes, unable to look at you without his face burning. Or maybe that’s because of the vodka. “I’m pretty sure I do. I mean, I do!” Fuck.

You stare at him as he continues to make a fool of himself, not sure how to respond. Joshua is always so cool and collected, and seeing him lose his composure like this front of you is—

“Joshua,” you stop him, breath hitching in your throat as your eyes lock again. “Stop talking. Just..” You sigh, trembling. “Stop.”

Joshua’s eyes flicker over your face, not able to read your expression. Suddenly the room feels too small and his cup is too empty to deal with this. He opens his mouth to apologise, but you put your finger to his lips, effectively shutting him up. “Listen,” you start, and you’re not sure where this confidence boost is coming from, but you enjoy the way he leans into you as you turn, your palm pressing against his chest. “I don’t appreciate being used for a dare.”

“I wouldn’t-”

“I’m not done.”

The irregular bass reverberating through the air synchronises with your heartbeat, and you can feel Joshua’s chest rising and falling in the same rhythm. Silence falls between you and for a moment, eyes locked and bodies touching, time around you slows. Whatever you wanted to say escapes you as Joshua snakes a hand around your waist, resting at the small of your back. He pulls you closer.

“I wouldn’t kiss you unless I wanted to.” His voice is soft and smooth against the shell of your ear, despite having to speak up. “I apologise if I made you uncomfortable in any way.”

You contemplate how to respond. Joshua’s hand burns into your back, and you find it hard not to drown in his eyes as he stares you down, expectantly. “You did,” you admit, not wanting to start whatever this was under false pretences. Joshua swallows, briefly glancing at your lips and back. There’s another pause before you move your hand to his neck, resting at the nape and giving it a soft pinch. “But if you’re going to keep staring at me like this and not kiss me, it might actually drive me crazy.”

You don’t know what you expected. Maybe you were waiting for his lips to crash into yours impatiently, pushing you up against the wall in a long-awaited act of passion. Maybe the months and months of pining after Joshua Hong made you slowly but surely lose your mind. Maybe you were already there.

But Joshua smiles, cupping your face with both hands in such a gentle manner you'd think you were made out of porcelain. His lips are soft as he presses them onto yours, slowly feeling the way they mould to your mouth. He only breaks contact for a split second, just long enough to ghost over your skin and brush his nose against yours before pulling you back in, and you feel like your heart may burst.

You don’t know how long Joshua has been kissing you for. It may be five minutes, it may be twenty, but it doesn’t matter. Nothing matters right now but the way Joshua is holding onto you, breathing you in and savouring the taste of you. Not even the way your friends are staring at you, wide-eyed and a giggling mess. Someone whistles loudly but you’re too caught up in him to notice.

“Do you guys ever breathe??”

Joshua pulls away from you, smiling from ear to ear. You’re about to smack a red faced Soonyoung in the face for ruining The Moment but Joshua lets out a melodious laugh as he stops your fist from raising. His fingers wrap around your hand, holding it until you untense enough to lace his fingers with yours. He presses a kiss to your knuckles. “Soonyoung,” he starts, raising an eyebrow and lowering his tone of voice, “I’ll give you a headstart if you start running right now.” Joshua turns to face Soonyoung with a dangerous glint in his eye and the younger’s smile falters.

“Five... Four…”

Soonyoung releases an incredulous huff of air and pretends to bow out before raising his cup to gently knock Joshua on the forehead. “See ya!”

Your eyes follow Soonyoung as he meets your friend, who gives you a suggestive wink before grabbing him by the collar and pulling him into the next room.

“So,” Joshua says, slightly stretching out the vowel. He lifts your chin with two fingers, his thumb caressing your jawline as he pulls your gaze back to him. “Where were we?”

#joshua hong #caratwritersclub #svtwritersnet #seventeen #joshua drabble #joshua fluff #joshua scenario #joshua imagine #joshua x reader #hong jisoo #seventeen drabble #seventeen fanfic #joshua fanfic #seventeen fluff #seventeen scenario #seventeen imagine #seventeen joshua

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illuminatedquill · 3 years

Text

Extracurricular, An Analysis

Oh Ji-soo and Bae Gyu-ri

“Love is the ultimate outlaw. It just won’t adhere to any rules. The most any of us can do is sign on as it’s accomplice.” - Tom Robbins

You know the story. You’ve heard it before, right?

Boy meets girl.

Girl finds out that boy is running a side protection business for prostitutes.

Girl decides to blackmail boy into letting her join his business.

Classic high school criminal shenanigans ensue leading them into more dangerous situations where they are forced to make desperate decisions to stay alive.

Oh, and they fall in love along the way.

Oh? You haven’t heard this one before? Then let me introduce you to this delightful kdrama called Extracurricular.

I watched this one while waiting for the newest Hometown Cha Cha Cha episodes to drop and ended up binging the whole series in two days. There are many remarkable parts of this series: it’s a crime drama, first and foremost, that showcases high school teenagers caught in a cycle of violence and crime, abandoned by the society and adults that are supposed to be protecting them. There are no clear good guys and bad guys in this drama; everyone is cast in shades of grey. Our main leads, Oh Ji-soo and Bae Gyu-ri, run the prostitution business, and are both from broken family backgrounds. Their actions are morally questionable at best, but the top tier performances from Kim Dong Hee (you might remember him from Itaewon Class) and Park Ju Hyun make you cheer for them anyway. You want them to have a happy ending, despite the horrible things they do. The audience is always reminded that despite how clever they are in staying ahead, their actions have consequences, and they’re just high school kids. The drama never pulls it punches.

But, weirdly enough, it’s also a love story. And that’s the part the really sticks with me until now. (The chemistry between the main leads is absolute dynamite and I could watch ten episodes of them just verbally sparring with each other. They don’t even kiss. They’re that fantastic when together on screen.)

I’m writing this because this is undoubtedly one of my all time favorite kdramas and I have a lot of feelings about our main pairing, Ji-soo and Gyu-ri. I can’t call them a couple (wait, didn’t I just say they fall in love) because their relationship can’t be labelled simply as that. Think of it as something similar to the main leads in My Ahjussi. Two people who should have become soulmates, yet met at the wrong time.

This kdrama is not particularly happy, and while I do encourage people to watch this, I am warning that the subject matter is extremely dark. If you’re sensitive to scenes depicting sexual assault, graphic violence, or anything in that zip code you’ll want to steer clear.

Also, I’ll be diving into spoiler territory in this analysis. So if you want to go in clean, then stop reading here.

Still here? Awesome. Let’s dive deep into the messy, amazing pairing that is Oh Ji-soo and Bae Gyu-ri. First, let’s do a brief character background on our two main leads, starting with Ji-soo.

Oh Ji-soo is one half of our main pairing and this story starts with him. He lives by himself and has been essentially abandoned by his only parents; his father is a failed businessman who gambles whatever money he acquires on scams and his mother ran away. His apartment is small, sparse, but functional. He owns only a few outfits aside from his school uniform. The only unique item he owns is a pet hermit crab that he takes care of. His life outside of school is non-existent; he has no friends, no one to hang out with and do typical high school teenager activities with. He takes care of himself and lives only for himself and his “dream”: to graduate, attend college, get married, and have kids like a normal person.

But to do that, he needs a large amount of money. He has no other financial means to do so (his father is largely absent, as is his mother), so he decides, at some point, to start up this protection business for prostitutes. The drama doesn’t go into detail about the how and why he came to this conclusion that this was the best way to make a lot of money in a short amount of time, so you’ll have to suspend your disbelief from the get go. Considering the themes of the story (how youths abandoned by society tend to act out in extreme ways to make it in this world), it’s not hard to believe his desperation would drive him to make such a decision.

Ji-soo, despite his shady business, is actually a decent person. There’s a streak of humanity that exists inside him that refuses to go out, despite the increasingly dark and bleak events that start to overtake his life. He’s attached to his hermit crab, cares for his “employees” outside of them being tools to make him money, and doesn’t want to see anyone get hurt. He goes above and beyond what’s required to help out people at the risk of his own life (in particular, Gyu-ri, and we’ll get into that shortly).

What we learn from the first few episodes is that Oh Ji-soo is extremely smart and methodical in how he approaches his life. At school, he is known as a model student - quiet, top of the class in terms of grades, doesn’t draw any attention to himself, always follows along with what the teachers ask of him. Only his homeroom teacher, Mr. Cho, seems to consider his quiet style of existence to be concerning and tries to make him less socially awkward by pairing him up with another student in a new extracurricular club. This leads to the introduction of Bae Gyu-ri, Ji-soo’s longtime crush and future partner-in-crime.

Meet Bae Gyu-ri, the other half of our dynamic duo. Her introduction into the story kickstarts the entire plot, as one of her earliest actions leads to a domino effect that spells increasing doom and tragedy for our main leads. She messes with Ji-soo’s operation at a critical moment and she spends the rest of the drama doing her best to make up for the consequences that follow.

In my personal opinion, she is probably the best main female lead I’ve ever seen in a kdrama. Hands down, no other character exists (currently) that rivals her sheer cunning, wit, and badassery. Gyu-ri is Crazy, capital C, and is the chaos to Ji-soo’s control; the fire to his ice. Despite being the direct cause of half the events that happen to Ji-soo in the drama, he can’t help but need her because of what she offers. They make an incredible team. Her competitiveness, her need to win no matter the odds, helps them survive time and time again.

Gyu-ri is from the opposite end of the spectrum of Ji-soo; he’s dirt poor and she’s insanely rich (always nice to see a reversal of typical kdrama tropes). Her mother and father run a successful entertainment company. Gyu-ri is popular at school, friends with seemingly everybody, pretty, cheerful and gets along well with her teachers. Ji-soo, and the audience, believe from the beginning that she has the perfect life. It’s not hard to believe that she’s just involving herself in Ji-soo’s business because she’s bored and needs an outlet, at first.

We soon learn otherwise. Gyu-ri has more in common with Ji-soo than he initially realizes, in that they’re both trapped in circumstances beyond their control - it’s just that Gyu-ri’s cage is gilded, whereas his is not. Her parents are strict and have her life planned out for her, all without her consent or input, leaving her feeling frustrated and powerless despite her rich lifestyle. A suicide attempt hasn’t done much to change her parents attitude towards her, only serving to further their control over her life.

So, when she learns of Ji-soo’s operation she immediately seeks to angle her way into it. First, she tries to rip him off, believing that he’s an evil “pimp” and thus deserves it. But after spending some time with him, she changes her mind last second and decides to help him out instead.

And, now, let’s get into their relationship, which is one of the best (if not the best) aspect in the entire series.

I need to be upfront about something: the relationship between Ji-soo and Gyu-ri is not exactly healthy. I wouldn’t describe it as toxic - the circumstances surrounding them aren’t exactly the best environment to encourage open and honest communication - but it’s definitely not what should be considered ideal, especially for young adults, and especially for young adults who are dabbling in crime instead of studying.

So, why do I love them so much? If you’ve read some of my previous posts, you know that I loathe toxic relationships in kdramas, so I understand if you think I’m coming off as hypocritical here. Why do I like Oh Ji-soo and Bae Gyu-ri when I didn’t like, for example from recent history, (oh boy, here I go again on my Nevertheless BS) Park Jae-eon and Yu Na-bi?

First, Ji-soo and Gyu-ri are way cooler than Jae-eon and Na-bi ever could be. They run a criminal enterprise that involves having a high amount of intelligence, cunning, and daring to do so. Do Jae-eon and Na-bi run a criminal enterprise as a side business? No, they don’t, because they’re boring art students.

Secondly, Ji-soo and Gyu-ri actually progress in their relationship and change their views as they learn from each other. Now, granted, that progress isn’t towards becoming better versions of each other - quite the opposite. But at least they have progress. Jae-eon and Na-bi stayed in the same stupid cycle for the whole series and then decided that it was better staying that way as opposed to trying for something else.

Last, but certainly not least, Ji-soo and Gyu-ri are actually interesting to watch for me. The chemistry between Park Ju Hyun and Kim Dong Hee is explosive and they way they spar, exchange looks, and just generally exist around each other on screen is something I can watch forever. I’ve said this before but Han So Hee and Song Kang’s on screen chemistry, outside of their intimate scenes, really didn’t impress me.

Okay, back to Extracurricular. This relationship, man. It’s all I can think about (other than HomeCha’s Du-sik and Hye-jin, but that’s another post). Ji-soo and Gyu-ri are so good together.

I’ve noted before that Ji-soo is methodical in how he approaches his life; he plans out everything ahead, and rigs any situation as much as he can in his favor. It’s brilliant, but when a crisis happens, he doesn’t know how to deal with it effectively. He panics and flounders; becomes indecisive at a time when clear, decisive action is required.

Enter Gyu-ri. She quickly becomes the partner he never knew he needed. When there’s a situation, she becomes invaluable in her quick thinking and wit, coming up with solutions on the fly. It’s not perfect, but it keeps them just one small step ahead of whatever is coming their way.

The only thing preventing them from becoming unstoppable is the lack of communication and trust they have with each other. A lot of that has to do with how Gyu-ri entered Ji-soo’s business - she blackmailed him first, and, when that failed, she strong armed her way into getting him to accept her help. It’s implied in the drama that Ji-soo has had a crush on Gyu-ri for a while (since ninth grade, I believe) and in the first episode he actually gets the chance to spend time with her outside of school on a sort of quasi-date.

It goes sideways pretty quickly because of some shenanigans from his business, but not before she gets to know him and says some pretty touching words regarding his situation. Poor guy is head over heels - even after finding out that she’s the one blackmailing him, his feelings are only dampened, not extinguished. When he catches a glimpse of her family’s situation, he gains a deeper understanding of her and why she acts the way she does. Even more importantly, Ji-soo treats her the same after finding out this information which, to someone like Gyu-ri, means more than if he comforted her about it.

If you want to see a physical representation of how he feels, other than paying attention to his actions, you can see it in him keeping mementos from Gyu-ri. She has an interesting habit of folding bags into origami shapes and giving it to him. Even after the blackmail reveal, you can see that he continues to keep these in a container on his desk. It’s really cute that he keeps these, when it probably doesn’t even matter that much to Gyu-ri.

Towards the end of the drama, Ji-soo prepares to turn himself in to prevent Gyu-ri from being implicated in the crimes they committed. And it costs him almost everything to protect her. Ji-soo, the quiet, nerdy kid, puts himself on the line time and time again to protect Gyu-ri, knowing that it puts his life and his dream at risk to do so. And all for what? For some girl that he thinks doesn’t even like him in return?

Well, let’s talk about that. Because I’ve seen some comments that Gyu-ri was only using Ji-soo for her own selfish gain. And I can agree that was how it was at the beginning for her; she definitely was only interested in acquiring money, like Ji-soo was, in order to achieve her own goal of being free from her parents.

But, oh man, that is not what is motivating her at the end.

It’s actually pointed out relatively early by some of her friends that it’s obvious that she likes Ji-soo more than he likes her. Understandably Ji-soo is keeping her at arms length from him given the whole recent blackmailing, so it would make sense that it looks that way.

Further questioning reveals what she likes the most about him:

“It’s not like I’m crazy about him. He’s fun. And amusing. He’s smart. And there’s a certain charm he has. He also has a wolfish side to him. But he thinks he’s a puppy.”

- Bae Gyu-ri

But, as she gets to know Ji-soo better, you can certainly see that she starts to fall hard for him. As a cover story for why they hang out so much together during and after school, Gyu-ri states to everyone that they’re dating. The reactions across the school definitely imply that this is a shocking development, which means that Gyu-ri hasn’t dated anyone before. So why Ji-soo other than the reasons she herself states?

He challenges her, just as she challenges him. Gyu-ri may be the more dynamic, quick thinking of the pair but Ji-soo is every inch her intellectual equal - just in different ways. She doesn’t seem to be the type to be easily impressed, but you can tell that she’s definitely impressed by Ji-soo’s operation and how thoroughly set up it is. When Ji-soo is frustrated at the beginning by his setbacks, he blows up at another student (knocks him out in a crazy punch) and immediately walks over to Gyu-ri afterwards (who saw the whole thing) to inform her that she is now his partner in crime.

The look in her eyes, and the small smirk she has speaks volumes about her attraction to him in that scene. Smoldering.

And, oh yes, she’s prone to jealousy. Another classmate, Min-hee, gives Ji-soo a present out of the blue (it was supposed to be for her boyfriend, Ki-tae, but that’s another sub-plot) - all within view of Gyu-ri. It’s hilarious how she tries to brush it off. Later, for plot reasons, Ji-soo has to spend more time with Min-hee which only furthers Gyu-ri’s annoyance.

And her motivations stop being entirely about the money and more towards helping preserve the dream that she and Ji-soo share about being free. There’s a scene in episode 8 where it’s revealed that, due to a business partnership with a local gang (set up by none other than Gyu-ri herself in a desperate move), Ji-soo would have to drop out of school permanently to work on their behalf. Gyu-ri overhears this and, despite badly needing the gang’s help in sustaining their own business, immediately terminates the partnership.

All because it would interfere with Ji-soo’s dream.

Man, if that isn’t love.

In the following episode, Gyu-ri, and later on Ji-soo, is kidnapped by the same gang in retaliation for terminating their partnership. Ji-soo comes to her rescue but Gyu-ri is already almost free (again, she’s really, really badass) and is demanding that they bring Ji-soo to her instead of running for her life.

Surviving this latest attempt puts the two in a reflective, vulnerable mood and Gyu-ri asks Ji-soo why he keeps saving her. Ji-soo asks later on why she keeps risking her life to be with him. They don’t say the answer in words but in an almost kiss (yeah, you read that right - almost).

And then, if you aren’t already convinced, Ji-soo crosses his one last remaining line in an effort to keep Gyu-ri safe; he accidentally pushes a fellow classmate down some steps and, instead of helping her, leaves her to die after grabbing the evidence she has on him and Gyu-ri.

Extracurricular pulls off quite the magic trick here, hiding this well done love story in the middle of a serious crime drama.

The real tragedy is that Ji-soo thinks that Gyu-ri views this whole business, and by extension his life, as one big game. It’s something that she takes offense at, visibly becoming upset when he says that.

But even if that were true, he should be assured since Gyu-ri doesn’t like to lose.

As they hurtle towards the end and face up to the consequences of their actions, Ji-soo and Gyu-ri undoubtedly lose sight of their original goals and dreams. They do some fairly horrible things to stay alive and ahead of the police who are close on their trail. You can’t really blame them for doing what they did; in the face of a society that has abandoned them, what they’re doing is a logical outcome to gain what they want so desperately and deserve so much: the chance to be free to live like normal, care-free people.

I can’t say for certain that they achieve that. The drama is serious in consequences and, at the end, the net around them is drawing tighter and tighter. I won’t spoil the ending scene for you, because I highly encourage you watch this drama yourself but I will say this: Ji-soo and Gyu-ri seem stuck in an impossible situation with nowhere to go, and no one to help them, with a clock ticking down towards either death or discovery by the police.

But, all the same, I’m always the optimist. They’ve gotten through situations like this before and they can certainly do so again. Maybe not as bad as this one, but not too far out of their league. And, like I mentioned before, Gyu-ri doesn’t like to lose. Especially when it comes to Ji-soo.

Their relationship is truly dangerous, as Ji-soo himself notes. Them being together is the source of their problems; they’re too much alike now, as opposed to the beginning of the drama where he stated that they’re too different. Their love is the kind of love where both of them are willing to burn the whole world down if it means keeping each other safe.

I’m a real sucker for those kind of love stories. No one’s a hero here. They’re just kids in high school, doing the best with what they know.

Who are we to judge what is right and wrong? Especially when the one committing the acts are high school kids who don’t know any better and just want to save each other?

Do we have that right?

Do they really deserve that punishment? Shouldn’t we be pointing fingers at the society that forced them to act this way?

Extracurricular really makes you think about that. Is it really so outlandish and terrible what Ji-soo and Gyu-ri do to survive when the adults who are supposed to be protecting them, teaching them better, have failed in their duty?

Maybe they really did win at the end. Not so much in succeeding in their goals but in gaining something that not even regular people are likely to find - a partner, a soulmate, someone who will stand by you no matter what.

If you do watch the ending, and are not an optimist like I am, then all I can say is this: whatever happened, they were together at the end.

They were together.

#extracurricular netflix #human class #netflix #kdrama #oh jisoo #bae gyuri #park joo hyun #park ju hyun #kim dong hee

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samanthadalton · 3 years

Text

Star Crossed Lovers (part 14)

Do my eyes deceive me???? part 14???? we did it. im so sorry its taken forever, i will try my best to be more consistent with my writing. love yall for being patient with me it means the most. thank you, thank you.

warnings: throughout this fic there will be mentions of substance abuse, homophobia, sexual abuse, violence, NSFW, mentions of abandonment, depression and death including suicide

reader discretion is advised

warnings: angst, swearing (lots of it)

taglist: @drmmyrs @cloud9in @somewillwin @save-me-the-last-dance @baexpoppy @stanzoeywade @ognenniyvolk @thepotatobleh @crazzyplays @fall3ngods @helpconfusedpersonhere @clowneryme @dopeyouth @boys-girls-i-cant-help-it-baby @vonda-b-real @uselesslesbianfr @veenast @cloakanddaggerthings @somethindarker (sorry again if ive missed anyone, if you wanna be added on this taglist or my general one just let me know 😊)

word count: 4k (i feel like its short considering how long it took me to write but i still hope you guys enjoy) (also i didnt check for grammatical errors properly so sorry if you find any)

part 1 part 2 part 3 part 4 part 5 part 6 part 7 part 8 part 9 part 10 part 11 part 12 part 13

The first steps to moving on

“Bea please,” Poppy whispers, a repentant look creeping up to her face as she looks away from her girlfriend. “It can’t wait.”

Bea sighs, her shoulders slumping as the last remains of her anger disseminates from her body. “Okay fine, lead the way babe.”

Poppy stiffens that the pet name but she doesn’t let her awkwardness slip as she leads Bea to a secluded classroom, far away from prying eyes. Both her and Bea turn to look at each other, and both simultaneously open their mouths to talk.

“I know you wanted to tell-”

“We need to talk-”

Both clamp their lips shut, a mutual smile playing on their lips as they look at one another.

“You go first,” Poppy gestures towards Bea, as she moves to sit on the edge of a desk.

Bea inhales softly, her tongue darts out licking her lips as she looks down at the ground, her face calculating. “Why does Chloe hate me?” She looks up to Poppy, her eyes boring into the strawberry blonde’s, sadness swimming inside of them, “I just don’t get what I’ve done for her to hate me.”

Poppy sighs heavily, her eyes awkwardly darting away from Bea’s. “It’s complicated Bea.”

“Complicated?” Bea lets out a humourless laugh, “I almost just went off on Chloe after she gave her condolences for my mom dying because I just felt she wasn’t genuine and you wanna tell me it's complicated?”

Poppy sharply inhales, contemplating for a few moments before saying, “it’s because of your mom.”

Bea scrunches her brows up in confusion, “my mom? What the hell does she have to do with this?”

Poppy ineptly plays with her hands, not being able to look Bea in her eyes, “at first it was just a classist thing. When you first came to Belvoire, she just wanted to make herself feel superior over you, but in the last year you’ve noticed her getting more mean right?”

“Right.” Bea stares at Poppy, her expression emotionless.

“Chloe’s parents have been fighting non stop recently, and it’s been affecting her a lot.”

Bea’s brows furrow in confusion, “what does that have to do with me or my mom?”

“Just let me explain first before you react, please.” Bea’s eyes bore into Poppy’s for a few seconds before she nods understandingly. “Her dad cheated on her mom. A lot of times actually. But he was blackmailed by one of the women he slept with.” Poppy pauses for a few seconds, “your mom.”

Bea lets out a shaky breath, her eyes blinking in disbelief, “no, you’re lying.”

Poppy nervously bites her bottom lip, “look Bea-”

“How long have you known?”

Poppy’s face scrunches up in anger, “this isn’t my fault Bea. I only found out that day I went to talk to Chloe about us. Chloe made me promise not to say anything to you-”

“Poppy! My mom OD and I don’t even know why. And now you’re telling me she was blackmailing the St James family and it doesn’t occur to you that might have had something to do with her death?”

“They’re not the fucking mafia Bea, jesus. They were trying to settle it quietly by giving your mom some money and make her sign some stuff so she couldn't threaten them anymore.”

The devastating ramification of Poppy’s admission hangs in the air as the two girls let the words settle into them. “Chloe really is sorry about your mom Bea, we all are.”

Bea sighs, staring off into space, as a few tears begin to fill up in her eyes. “I just don’t know what to do.” Bea begins sniffling, but Poppy makes no movement to console her girlfriend. Bea notices and her expression sobers, “so, uh what did you wanna tell me?” Bea sniffs a few more times, before looking up at Poppy, giving her a small encouraging smile.

Poppy looks away, guilt creeping up on her face, as she tries her damndest not to catch Bea’s small smile on her face. “Bea…”. Bea carefully assesses her girlfriend’s demeanour, noticing the similar body language during when they first asked to take a break, she thinks back to the last couple of days, she had barely heard from her girlfriend, and now she’s not affectionate, even after she almost had a mental breakdown in the middle of the hallway and her smile drops. “We have to break up,” Poppy says, her tone so monotone and dry as if she didn’t mean the words she was saying at all.

“I don’t understand,” is all Bea can muster, evidently hurt by Poppy’s admission. Poppy winces slightly at Bea’s tone, finally breaking her robotic demeanour as she lets out a few sniffles. “So is that it? We have to break up,” Bea retorts mockingly, “is that all I get after all these years?”

“Bea..” Poppy reaches out but Bea immediately takes a step back, tears flooding in her eyes.

“No,” she holds her hands up, “I don’t get it, things are going good, or at least whatever twisted definition of good we’ve made up. Where the hell did this come from?”

“Bea my dad-”

“Of course! Hayden Min fucking Sinclair had something to do with this. Why do you still live under his shadow? You talk all this shit about breaking out of your father’s prison and wanting to achieve your own goals but he sucks you back in.”

“That’s not fair Bea,” Poppy interjects, balling her hands up into fists in an attempt to subdue her trembling, “my dad has given me so much and he’s threatening to take it all away.”

“Yeah, all you have to do is get rid of me. Me or the Min Sinclair name.”

“Bea this is the life I have, okay I’m not like you, I’m not built like you.”

“So what? I can grow up without a dad and now without a mom but it’s okay because I’m used to pain and disappointment?”

“I didn’t mean it like that, you have a plan, things you can achieve, I need the Min Sinclair name, I’m nothing without it.”

“Wow.” Bea shakes her head, “So I just meant nothing?” Bea wildy throws her arms in the air, anger bubbling under the surface of her demeanour. “We’ve practically been together since we were kids. And you’re just gonna fucking throw that away? And for what? Fuck you Poppy.”

Poppy takes half a step back, dumbfounded by Bea’s outburst. She scrunches her brows, evidently hurt, “you don’t get it Bea. Even though your mom wasn’t the best, she still supported you, even if you didn’t know about it. My dad he- my mom what would she think?”

“Your mom? Poppy what kind of shit is your dad brainwashing you with? Your mom is dead! You have no idea how she would react to having a gay daughter, but I know she’s probably disappointed in you.”

“Fuck you Bea.”Poppy runs out of the classroom, tears streaming down her face, leaving Bea on her own.

“Shit,” Bea whispers to herself before throwing a bunch of punches at the wall, each more cathartic than the last until she can’t physically hold herself up anymore. Bea defeatedly slides into a chair, cradling her head in between her hands, letting the tears free fall, as reality begins setting in that she lost the one thing in the world that was her everything. Poppy Min Sinclair was her rock, the girl who she gave her heart to, the love of her life and just in a matter of moments it was over. Maybe it was too good to be true. The beautiful, perky popular rich girl and the girl who had almost nothing, complete polar opposites, it never should’ve worked. But time and time again when faced against the world they persevered so why was this time different? Poppy had chosen her namesake over the love of her life. She chose the life of glitz and glamour over the girl who gave her her entire heart. Bea feels her entire world crashing down, how much more heartbreak could she take? Was her life always going to be so hard? So full of hurt? Full of pain? She winces at the thought, her head hammering as she comes to the realisation that she understood her mother’s pain more than she thought.

….

Bea hops off her bike, parking it in front of her house, as she pulls her phone out to look at the time. ‘It’s lunch time,’ she thinks to herself. After the day she had today, school wasn’t the best option for her right now. She makes her way to her front door but stops in her tracks when she realises her front door is slightly ajar. Her survival instincts kick in as she effortlessly pulls out her pocket knife, carefully pushing the door fully open. As she steps into the living room, her eyes dart to the closed door of her mother’s room, but when she hears a creaking sound coming towards her bedroom, she cautiously moves towards the source of the noise, the grip on her knife tightening. As she creeps up, she sees the door of her room half opened, a hooded figure standing by her bed with their back facing her.

Bea stealthily sneaks up to the figure placing the knife a few inches from their throat before lowering her voice to a threatening tone, “who are you and what the fuck are you doing?” The figure gasps, dropping a bag that’s in their hands with a deafening thud before raising their hands in a sign of surrender.

“It’s me, it’s me,” the voice whimpers out.

“AJ?” Bea raises her eyebrows, retracting the knife from his throat while pulling down his hood with her other hand. “What the fuck are you doing?” Bea takes a step back while AJ scrambles grabbing the bag he just dropped moments before. When he turns to face Bea, his eyes are wide, filled with fear as he clutches the bag closely to his chest.

“I have to go,” he says as he attempts to run out of the room, but Bea pulls him back, her face crumpled in suspicion.

“No we’re not doing this, give me the bag now,” Bea snatches the bag out of his hands before he can protest and opens the zipper to find it filled with cash. She grits her teeth, anger settling into her features as she whips her head up to AJ, “is this my fucking money?”

“Bea, I- I can explain-”

“What the fuck AJ!” Bea throws the bag onto the bed, the cash spilling out as she jabs an accusing finger at AJ’s chest. “You’re stealing from me now? I haven’t seen you in god knows how long, you don’t call, text nothing. Even after everything that’s been happening in the last few weeks but you have the audacity to fucking steal from me? Money that I’ve spent years saving? Money that I’ve bussed my fucking ass off for, are you serious right now?” Bea’s voice is filled with rage as she’s practically screaming, her voice now thundering. AJ winces, guiltily averting his gaze to the ground, unable to meet Bea’s eyes.

“I’m sorry about your mom Bea, I wanted to visit-” AJ croaks out.

“But you didn’t,” Bea interjects, her voice lowered but filled with hurt. “And now you’re taking money- I mean what is so important you had to steal from me.”

AJ paces towards the bed, hanging his head in shame, when he speaks his voice is quiet, full of fear, “I’m in some bad shit Bea. These guys aren’t playing around.”

“I told you not to fall into the wrong crowd, I warned you this shit would happen.”

“Bea please, I’ll pay you back I just need it.”

“No! What the fuck, when will you pay me back huh? This is my college money, I’m not letting you give that away to your crackhead friends.”

“Bea please,” AJ clasps his hands together, his tone pleading, “I don’t know what to do.”

“AJ I have too much shit on my plate right now, I can’t deal with this. You need to find something else, I can’t help you.”

AJ’s face pales but he stands up, and makes his way towards the door, before leaving he turns to look back at Bea, “I’m sorry about everything.”

Bea keeps her eyes trained on her bed where the money is sprawled all over the mattress, “yeah me too,” she replies quietly. Bea hears the front door close and she collapses to the ground, letting the tears flow.

……

A few days later, Bea sits in her dark living room, curtains shut and lights completely off as she wallows in her sadness, drinking from a bottle of cheap beer, as she stares absentmindedly at the ceiling, so drowned in her thoughts she doesn’t hear the resounding knocks on her door until she hears a voice call out, “Bea! Are you there?”

Bea crumples her brows, forcing herself to stand as she makes her way to the door, she wearily makes her way to her front door only slightly opening the door before poking her head out. “Veronica?” Veronica gives the girl a wide smile before pushing the door more open, ushering the figure behind her into the house too, “Carter? What are you guys doing here?’

Veronica looks around the dark room, noticing the pile of empty beer bottles on the floor, “yikes, drinking on your own on a friday night Hughes? That’s really sad.” Carter stands near the edge of the living room, as if he’s an explorer, his eyes darting all over the living room as he assesses this new environment.

Bea on the other hand scowls at Veronica, “what the hell do you want Veronica, I’m not in the mood.”

Veronica frowns slightly, pouting her lips together, “we heard about you and Poppy.”

Bea rolls her eyes, “yeah well I’m trying to forget about her.” Bea picks up her beer bottle from the ground and makes a show by exaggeratingly drinking from the bottle until it's empty. She discards the empty bottle along with the other ones before turning to look at Veronica and Carter, “so if you’ll excuse me.”

Veronica steps towards Bea, wrapping her hand around the brunette’s arm, “we’re not here for Poppy stupid, we’re here for you.”

Bea raises an eyebrow, “for me?”

Veronica turns to look at Carter, beckoning him forward, Carter breaks out of reverie and clears his throat, “yeah uh, we wanted to take you to a party.”

“A party?” Bea looks between them confused, “I’m not that interested guys.”

“Wait, wait, wait Bea,” Veronica pleads, pulling Bea closer to her, “you’ve never been to a Belvoire party and the year is almost over, we thought we should take you to at least.”

“I don’t know guys,” Bea says skeptically, “a lot of people don’t like me.”

“Who gives a shit? You just had your heart broken and you need to let loose.”

Bea sighs, pulling away from Veronica, “I don’t think it’s a good idea.”

“Come on, it beats drinking in the dark on your own.”

Bea sighs, dropping her shoulders, “what about uh Poppy?”

“Poppy?” Veronica arches a brow, “her and Chloe are staying in tonight, she said she needed to catch up on homework or something.”

Bea purses her lips together in thought before sighing, “fine.” Veronica cheers, “but,” Bea over enunciates, “only for a few hours and if I don’t like it I’m going home.”

“Okay, deal,” Veronica squeals, wrapping Bea in a big hug. Carter chuckles as Veronica gestures for him to join the hug, he awkwardly wraps his arms around the two girls, before pulling away.

“Okay, I’ll wait in the car while you girls get ready. Just uh don’t take too long.”

Veronica playfully rolls her eyes as she Bea towards her bedroom, yelling back “thanks Carter.” Giddy, she rushes to Bea’s closest, assessing her clothes until she finds a short red dress hidden in the back. “This!”

“No, no, no,” Bea shakes her head, pulling the dress out of the ombre-haired girl’s hands.

“Why not? It would look so hot on you,” Veronica’s eyes trail down Bea’s body, as she sharply inhales. “Bea, you’re single and sexy, stop holding yourself back okay?”

“I’m not,” Bea pushes back defensively, “I just-” she sighs heavily, “no one at Belvoire has ever seen me dressed up, I’m just- I’m nervous I guess.”

“Then we have to show them what they’ve been missing for the last three years,” Veronica gives Bea a devilish smile as she takes the dress from Bea’s hands, sliding the dress off the hanger before handing it over to Bea.

“Uh you gonna stay in the room?” Bea nervously wrings her hands together.

“Why, are you offering a show?” Veronica lifts a teasing brow, noticing Bea’s cheeks redden slightly, which prompts her to let out a small laugh, “I’m kidding, don’t worry I won’t look.” Veronica makes a show of raising her hands to cover her eyes. Bea laughs as she slips out of her clothes and into the dress, she awkwardly clears her throat, grabbing Veronica’s attention.

“Hey, uh help a girl out with her zipper?”

“Sure,” Veronica moves to stand behind Bea, her hands ghosting around Bea’s exposed back, her breath momentarily taken away. She sturdies herself and places one of her hands on the small of the brunette’s back while the other moves towards the zipper, zipping the girl up. Bea smooths the dress down with her hands appreciating herself in the mirror, “you look gorgeous,” Veronica whispers into the shell of her ear.

Bea’s face completely flushes red and slightly jerks at Veronica’s admission, “uhh thanks.”

Veronica notices the awkward shift in the atmosphere, and promptly changes the subject, “so where’s your sister?”

Bea sits in front of her mirror, a comb in her hand as she brushes her long locks, “she’s staying at a friend’s tonight.”

“Cool,” Veronica answers back but her tone falls flat. The girls bask in the awkward silence as Bea continues to get ready but when Veronica notices Bea struggling to do her winged eyeliner she breaks the silence. “Hey do you need help?”

Bea smiles bashfully, “yeah.” She rubs the back of her head with her hand, “sorry Poppy used to help me with my makeup.”

“Right,” Veronica’s face slightly falls but she quickly covers it up, ushering Bea to come and sit on the bed. “Come on, I don’t bite,” Veronica bites the bottom of her lip, “unless you want me too.” Bea laughs but obliges sitting on the edge of the bed. Veronica clambers onto her lap, her thighs settling on the sides of Bea’s legs, and in response, Bea’s eyes widen in surprise but she remains glued in her spot, too shocked to move.

“V, what are you doing?” Bea whispers, her voice attempting to come across as reprimanding but it comes out as breathy.

“Relax, I’m just doing your eyeliner.” Veronica plucks the wand from Bea’s hand and angles herself close to the brunette’s face, as she begins drawing on the wings on Bea’s eyelids. Bea steadies herself, as she feels the heat of Veronica’s body so close to hers and when Veronica is finished with putting the finishing touches on her eyelids, she hops off Bea’s lap, making her way towards the desk, scuffling through Bea’s makeup bag before taking up her place on Bea’s lap once again. “Now I think this colour would look good on you,”

“You don’t think it’s too much red?”

“Oh babe, red means power, dominance, you don’t wanna be thinking about Poppy the entire night, you wanna have all eyes on you Bea Hughes.” Veronica uncaps the lipstick, her eyes burning into Bea’s lips as she carefully applies the red colour to her lips. “Perfect.”

Bea smacks her lips together, evenly spreading the red on her lips. “Thanks V.”

Veronica’s eyes dart to Bea’s lips, her tongue slightly running along her bottom lips before she breaks out of her reverie flashing Bea a smirk, “don’t thank me yet, thank me when you’re having the time of your life at the party.” Veronica slides off Bea’s lap, holding her hand out, “come on let’s finish up because Carter’s been waiting for a while.” Bea smiles up at Veronica, taking her hand as she lets the ombre-haired girl pull her off the bed, as they continue getting ready.

………

Once they arrive at the party, Carter drops the girls off at the front of the huge house before telling them he will park the car. Veronica’s gaze darts to Bea, who’s nervously toying with her hands, looking up at the intimidating house, the lights blaring and as the music echoes throughout, the bass thumping in their ears. Noticing the nerves settling into her, Veronica slips into Bea's, giving her a reassuring squeeze, “hey, it’s okay, it’s just a bunch of drunk, preppy uptight teenagers, nothing you don't usually face everyday.”

Bea lets out a small laugh, “just in a big ass house,” she jests.

“Yeah, just in a big ass house,” she gives Bea a light squeeze as she starts pulling Bea into the house with her. Automatically, they’re met with stares and whispers, as the students look astonished at Bea, some appraising her outfit, while others are confused about her presence. “Hey, just stay with me okay?” Veronica whispers over to Bea. Bea nods, her eyes roaming the room. “I’ll get us drinks.” The ombre-haired girl gives Bea a reassuring pat on her arm and leaves her side and Bea walks into the living room, observing the difference between the vibes of the party between the north and the south. Her thoughts then move to think about Poppy, how Poppy would love going to parties in the north but Bea couldn’t find the appeal in it. Poppy. Poppy, who broke up with her. She’s interrupted from her thoughts by a tap of her shoulder, and Bea turns around to see Veronica offering her a red solo cup, Bea takes a sip and winces.

“What the hell is this crap?”

“Yeah for a bunch of rich kids, their taste in beer isn’t the best,” Veronica jokes, slightly nudging Bea.

“We have way better beer in the south side.”

“That I can agree with.” Veronica looks over to Bea who looks lost in thought, “hey what are you thinking about?”

Bea sighs heavily, “Poppy,” she mutters.

Veronica nods once, “right, yeah.”

“Poppy would’ve loved a party like this, big fancy house an-”

“Bea,” Veronica says, her tone slightly agitated, “this,” she gestures around the room, “is a no Poppy zone. That means we don’t think about Poppy, only about fun.”

Bea nods, “fun. I can do that.” Veronica lifts her cup in the air, “what are we cheering to?”

Veronica gives Bea a smile, “here’s to the first steps in moving on.” The girls tap their cups together before downing their drinks. “Now if we wanna get drunk, we’re gonna need a lot more of these.”

The party is still ongoing, and Bea sits in a circle with a few girls from the volleyball team and a few of the football team and other people she doesn’t recognise while Veronica sits beside her.

“Bea you look so pretty,” one of her teammates says.

“Yeah Bea your makeup is literally gorgeous,” another chimes in.

“Who knew strip tease can clean up well,” Ford jests, but Bea slumps her shoulders a little, remembering that these people are not her friends.

Carter enters the circle slapping Ford on the head as he goes, “shut up, Hughes is cool.” Bea gives Carter a nod of appreciation before looking down at the drink in her hands. Her thoughts move a million miles a minute, but there’s a constant one stuck in her brain, Poppy.

Veronica looks over at Bea, frowning. “Hey come with me.” She stands, excusing herself from the group and Bea follows her close behind.

“Where are we going?”

“We’re gonna play a private game of truth or drink.”

#playchoices #queen b #poppy min sinclair #poppy x mc #star crossed lovers #thank you for waiting #i promise to be more consistent #love you guys

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supercorpkid · 3 years

Text

Rescue Mission – Suicide Mission.

Part 3 - Whatever it costs.

Supercorp, Kara Danvers x Daughter!Reader, Lena Luthor x Daughter!Reader, Alex Danvers x Niece!Reader, Brainy x Reader, Eliza Danvers x Granddaughter!Reader.

Word count: 2950.

Warnings: Angst. Small panic attack -maybe?

Previously on the series - Part 1, Part 2

“Tell me all you know.” You ask Jamie, who seems to have come down from her shock state. “All of those things on your head. What was it for?”

“I’m not sure.” Jamie says, shivering from cold and from the memories. “Whatever it was, I think you stopped it just in time. They said not to kill, just to destroy.”

“Who’s they?”

“You. Her.” She points at Kara. “Mom.” She cries, and you feel like hugging her, but your Gramm already has her arms around Jamie in a comforting way, so you stay back waiting for the rest of the information. “I don’t know how many are there. I just know they have your faces.”

“How many did you see together?” You look at Kara and Lena, both knocked out next to you. “How many of us?”

“Two.” Jamie swallows hard. “I saw you and Kara together. Kara got Lena to the other room and I could-I could hear her terrified scream-” She stops. Heart beating fast. “There was nothing-nothing I could do. I swear, I couldn’t help her even if I wanted to, because you were tying me up on the chair. And I-I couldn’t-”

“Stop. Jamie, stop.” You drop your head low at the thought of that. You feel sickness coming from your stomach up your throat again. You hold it down. Tears forming on your eyes. This is all too much. And the fact the Brainy was wrong, it’s what sits worst on your stomach. They can impersonate you. They can hurt the people that you love using your face. “How did you know it wasn’t me?”

“I-I-” Jamie shrugs, biting her lower lip. “I just knew. I just-I know you.”

You get up from the floor and walk towards her. Your Gramm seems to understand this is a private moment between the both of you, because she moves a little farther away, making space for you. You get on your knees in front of Jamie, holding her tight.

“I’m sorry I didn’t get there sooner.” You whisper, next to her ear, and Jamie tights the embrace.

“You got there. That’s all that matters.” She says and stops hugging you so she can look at your face. Jamie is holding back her tears, and you’re holding back yours. “I’m scared. You’re scared. And we’re just kids.”

You shake your head agreeing and she kisses your forehead, knowing you probably need this as a reassuring move, since both of your moms are down and can’t do that for you. You appreciate it, you actually needed it. You needed something, anything, to remind you of them.

“You go out there and you save the world.” You can see the anger in her eyes. It fills you with some, too. “You fucking tear them to pieces if you need to, but listen-” You nod, like saying she can go on. “You come back here. You come back here whatever it costs. Even if it costs the entire world’ safety, you fucking get back here. Do you hear me?”

“Jamie.” That's all you can say. You can’t agree to it. She knows you can’t.

“Don’t-” She sniffles and holds your face strongly in her hands. “Don’t you dare leaving me, you fucking dipshit.” You smile at her and agree with your head. “Promise me. I’m only leaving this place when you come back to pick me up.”

“I’ll come back.” You cry a little.

You stand up, looking at Jamie and your Gramm knowing they believe in you, so you have to believe in yourself too.

“Take care of them. I’ll be back with the rest of the family.” You nod at Jamie who smiles at you between her tears, proudly.

You fly to the DEO with a newfound strength, there are two people missing for this family to be complete, and you must get your aunts to safety before they can do what was promised. Destroying your entire family. You land on the DEO, and Brainy comes at you immediately.

“Finally! I think I’ve figured it out.” He says and you follow him to wherever he is heading. “As soon as Alex and Kelly arrived, I put them in containment.” He fills you in on what was going on at this end of things. “If we are dealing with a shapeshifter-”

“We are.” You interrupt him, and he agrees with his head.

“Well, if any of them is indeed a shapeshifter, we’ll find out about it now.” Brainy turns left and you see yourself at the DEO containment center. “The cells are equipped with a power blocker. I just have to-” He touches the screen next to Kelly's cell, and you can see her inside.

“Superkid!” She yells, running forward until she reaches the glass. “What is going on? Why am I locked up?”

“Let’s see if she is the real Kelly.” Brainy says, pressing a few more things and you see the cell turning blue. Kelly stays the same. “Um, it seems she is indeed the real Kelly.”

“Of course I’m the real Kelly! Who else would I be?” Kelly asks on the other side, and you nod at Brainy.

“Let her out.” You ask and he does so. Kelly comes to your side, and you squeeze her arm gently. “I’ll fill you in later.” You look back at Brainy. “Let’s see Alex.”

Brainy does the same procedure at Alex's cell, first she shows up in sight, asking what the hell is going on, later her cell turns blue and then… Then you see an alien appearing in front of your eyes.

“WHAT!” Kelly yells, hiding behind you, and you shake your head looking down.

“I guess we got it.” Brainy says and you hold Kelly’s waist.

“Not yet. There’s one more around. I’m bringing Kelly with me, find the real Alex, and I’ll be right back.” Kelly holds onto you tightly, knowing what you’ll do next.

“Wait-” Brainy says and you look back at him. “Where are you taking her?”

“To safety.” You smile, then fly away with her back to the Fortress. You barely open the door, and you see Jamie running towards Kelly with open arms.

“Mami!” They hug, and you leave them behind going to see your own moms. But halfway through where they are, you hear on your comm.

“Superkid! I found the real Alex. She is somewhere close to Kelly’s office.” Brainy’s voice comes again. “She’s not moving but seems to have a heartbeat.”

“I’ve got her.” You say, turning on your heels and flying out of the Fortress again.

One more. One more person to bring to safety and then you can go out and fight the shapeshifters.

You fly to where Kelly works and use your x-ray vision to try and locate Alex. It doesn’t take long for you to find her under the building. So you make your way down the sewage, to find her laying down all dirty, and minus the jacket you saw her earlier.

“Brainy, I found her. I’m bringing her with me, and I’ll meet you at the DEO as soon as you find a lead on the other shapeshifter.”

“Is she ok?” He asks through the comm.

“She seems to have fought them. She has a heartbeat and it’s breathing, but it’s injured.”

“Shouldn’t you bring her to the DEO?” Brainy asks and you hold your aunt thinking about it. She looks beat up, but you see there’s nothing broken. Despite some external hurt, and terrible smell, she looks fine.

“Not now.” You answer. “After we find the other one, I’ll bring all of them to care. Right now, find me the other shapeshifter so I can bring it to containment.”

“Copy that.”

You pick up Alex, holding your breath, and fly to Fortress fast so you don’t have to smell her. It’s terrible. You almost feel like you should drop her in the water for the stink to come out a little, before bringing her in, but now it’s not the time to care about this. You walk in the Fortress and everyone who is awake makes their ways towards both of you.

“Oh my God. Where did you find her? In the sewage?” Jamie says covering her nose, and you shake your head agreeing.

“Yes, that was exactly where I found her.” You put Alex on her two feet, even though she can’t stand, and soon Kelly and Eliza take your place, supporting her weight. You point at a door. “There’s a shower in there if you all would like to clean her up a little. Put her in warm clothes and I’ll bring the emergency kit supplies so we can try and patch her up.”

You find what you’re looking for, around the same time Eliza and Kelly make their way back to where your moms are laying down, with a cleaner but still bruised Alex.

“Here.” You give the kit to your Gramm. “This will have to do for now. But as soon as I get the aliens, we’ll take her to a hospital.”

“She’ll be fine.” Eliza says reassuringly to both you and Jamie. You shake your head agreeing.

“See.” Jamie says looking around, and you do the same, seeing your entire family with you, safe and sound. “I knew you could do it!”

You let out a loud relieved sigh. Yes, three of them are blacked out and completely incapable of helping you. The three you wish the most that would be awake to guide you through all of this. You wish Lena were awake to hug you and tell you she believes in you, and maybe come up with some invention to help you in this. You wish Alex were awake to help you with the fight that you feel in your heart that is coming. And you wish Kara were awake fighting side by side with you. But still, they’re here. Your family is safe. You can finally breathe again.

You make your way towards your moms, and sit between them, looking at both with a burn in your heart, wishing you could just do something to wake them up already.

Kara is looking a little better, her bruises are fading out a little, but she is still down. You look at Lena on the other side, slowly moving like she’s going to wake up. You pick her up, embracing her into your arms, holding her tightly while she mumbles something, eyes still shut.

“I’m here.” You whisper to her, trying to calm her racing heart. “You’re safe, mom. It’s ok. I’ve got you, you’re safe.”

Lena opens one eye first, staring at you with distrust. “Who are you?”

“It’s me, ok?” You smile at her, stroking her cheek. “It’s really me, you don’t have to worry. You’re safe. You’re at the Fortress, with your family. You’re safe.”

Lena slowly blinks at you. It takes her a few seconds to talk again. “Who are you?”

“Mom. It’s me.” You say again. She must think you’re one of the shapeshifters trying to trick her into believing that she is safe. Your heart squeezes in your chest when you think that they must have hurt her deeply. “I promise you don’t have to worry. It’s really me, your daughter.”

“I don’t have a daughter.” Lena says, fighting out of your embrace and into a straighter position. She looks around confused. “I don’t have a family.”

“What?” You ask dumbfounded. “Mom, please. It’s me! And-and Kara!” You point at Kara behind you. “Your wife.”

“Don’t be absurd.” Lena says completely shocked by your revelation. “I don’t know who you are, or where I am. I just know we are not a family.”

It’s your time to blink slowly at her. What does she mean by that? How can she say you’re not her family?

“Aunt Kelly!” You yell, looking back at where the rest of the family is. She stands up and comes closer, kneeling down in front of Lena. “She doesn’t remember anything. Maybe-maybe it’s trauma?”

“I’m not traumatized!” Lena's response is harsh, as well as her tone. “I’m sure I have never seen any of you, and that this is not my family.”

Lena doesn’t stand up, she just looks around confused, holding herself probably from fear and cold. You look back at Jamie and Gramm with eyes filled with tears. You don’t want to cry in front of them. You slide yourself away from her, and get up in a hurry, stumbling your way out of the room you’re all in, and into an empty one.

This can’t be happening. Of all the things that could happen to you and your family, your mom not remembering you is probably one of the worst ones. You lay on the floor, the whole room seems to be spinning around, and you try to stand still even though your mind keeps running in circles around you. You feel everything inside of you twisting, there’s vomit coming up from your stomach. Your body is trembling, and you don’t think there’s anything to do with the cold.

This isn’t the right time for it. No, you can’t have a panic attack right now, not when everyone depends on you, not only your family but all National City. But then again-

You were too late! You made all the wrong decisions, it’s your fault! You had to go for Lena first. She is human, she was in a more dangerous condition. You also had to be there for Kara, because maybe if you were fighting alongside her, right now both of you would be awake dealing with this mess. Why couldn’t you be in both places at the same time?

It’s your fault. Lena doesn’t remember you and Kara, and it’s your fault! Kara will wake up and her wife won’t remember her, and how will you tell her that you made the wrong call? That you went for her first? She’s not going to forgive you and you-

Can you forgive yourself?

It all seemed to be working out just fine, you thought you actually got everyone to safety. You stupid little kid, somehow believed you could do this. You thought you could save your family and then defeat evil aliens. How could you be so stupid?

Your heat vision goes off, breaking the ice in front of you. You let out the most guttural scream you’ve ever done. Stupid little you, thought you were enough. Thought you could do what Supergirl does, what Superman does. When will you finally realize you will never be good enough?

You have your face screwed up and eyes clenched shut, and you can’t hear anything, anything but a tiny voice in the back of your brain.

“Not to kill. Just to destroy.”

That’s what they said. They don’t want to kill your family just destroy it, and Lena not remembering who you all are does just that. You let them win. They’ve won. It doesn’t matter if you fight them or not. You’re here sobbing, all alone, because they’ve won. They destroyed your family and you let them.

“Superkid.” You hear Brainy’s voice through your comm. “I found the other shapeshifter. Come to the DEO.”

“FUCKKKK!” It’s all you can scream. You can’t fight any freaking shapeshifter. Doesn’t he get it? Doesn’t anyone get it? You will never win, you never do. You mess things up, you let your mom get mind wiped. She doesn’t know you; she won’t hug you; she won’t say you can do it.

“Superkid!” Brainy voice comes again. “Do you copy?”

You breathe out, emptying your lungs, and you sit up, cleaning your wet cold face. It got worse, like you predicted. The situation definitely got worse.

“I copy.” You try to even your voice. “Keep monitoring them, I’m on my way.”

You get up, cleaning your wet super suit. It doesn’t matter if you think you can do it or not. Right now, you’re the only awake person that can at least try. So you must go on. You must, at least, fail. But you must try.

“I have to go.” You say when you return to where your entire family is. You look around, feeling your heart racing, and it’s hard to breathe. You wish you didn’t have to go. You wish you could stay here with them. You wish National City could save itself for once. You wish you weren’t a superhero at all. You wish your family were just another family. You wish your life were normal.

“If Kara wakes up, send her my way. I’ll need help.” You look down on Lena waiting for an encouraging word, but she has nothing but an empty look on her face. It hurts harder than a punch on your stomach.

“Honey.” Kelly holds your hand gently and gives you a little smile. “You can do it.”

“Look what you have accomplished already, sweetheart. You got all of us here, and we are all safe.” Gramm says and you look at Lena again. All of them, but one.

You agree with your head and make your way towards the exit. Jamie stands up and you look at her.

“Hey!” Jamie comes closer to you and shows you her little finger. “Whatever it costs, you’ll come back.”

Don’t promise it. Don’t do it. You can’t keep it and you know it.

“Whatever it costs.” You say, intertwining your little finger with hers. You give her a flat smile and walk outside. “I’ll save all National City.” You look at the Fortress door closing behind you, and you breathe deep, feeling all your courage leaving your body. “Whatever it costs.”

#supergirl #kara danvers #supercorp #supercorpfamily #lena luthor #supercorp daughter #kara x lena #kara x reader #supercorp fanfic #lena x reader #reader insert #superkid #alex danvers #kelly olsen #eliza danvers

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thefirsttree · 3 years

Text

A personal update + my next game

OK, time to do this. I’ve been meaning to do a big DAVID WEHLE™ update for a while now and explain why I haven’t released a new game yet, but you know how life gets in the way. Especially when life is a quarantine hellscape, you have three beautiful, amazing, exhausting kids to raise, a spouse’s job you support, a viral YouTube channel that turns your brain to mush, a thousand emails waiting in your inbox since your game is free on the Epic Games Store (with an impressive number of redemptions too! … meaning lots of emails and customer support issues), etc., etc. What also contributes to my lack of updates is because… I just don’t really like posting online. Fascinating correlation, I know!

Don’t worry, this isn’t going to be a venting/ranting blog post (well, maybe a bit), because my life is seriously AMAZING and INSANELY BLESSED and LUCKY. I can’t believe how many dreams keep coming true, so much so that I feel I don’t deserve it and I really pulled the wool over everyone’s eyes… but I did want to at least be honest, because I owe that to myself.

Wow, where do I even begin? Well, how about we start with the reason I’m even a full-time indie game dev now: The First Tree. This small hobby project I worked on at night morphed into this gargantuan beast (or fox) that took over my life the past 5 years. Which is great! I’m living the dream! And yet, I really didn’t expect it to do as well as it did. At its core, my game is a slow-paced, sad walking simulator (ahem, I prefer the term “exploration game,” but you know what I mean) that somehow seemed to launch at the right time to the right audience. It resonated deeply with some of you, and for that I’m eternally grateful. I still get emails almost daily how my game changed their lives in some formative way. I’m beyond honored.

However, with that spotlight came criticism and demands from the ever-present, insatiable internet. I would randomly be surfing the gamedev subreddit trying to decompress, and I would see a comment by some rando saying how much I didn’t deserve my success, and how it was all one huge lucky fluke. And I believed them!

And to add to it, some devs considered me an indie marketing “guru”, which I was uncomfortable with. I worked hard to market my game every week, and after my GDC talk, people assumed marketing was my passion; the reason I got up every morning. Just to clarify… NO, I don’t like marketing, and I hate being the center of attention. I don’t like asking people for money and wishlists. But I did what was necessary because I was passionate about telling stories, and I wanted to give my story a fighting chance to be seen on the crowded pages of Steam.

So now, you’re probably wondering “well then David, why did you make fancy YouTube videos showing off your success? Not very modest if you ask me.” This honestly could be a long blog post all on its own, because my experience of putting myself in the spotlight and becoming a “content creator” is… complicated. It was an unusual step for me, especially since I never even showed my face online (as a game developer) until my GDC talk.

First off, I always wanted to teach and start a YouTube channel. I love video editing, especially since I’ve been doing it longer than making games! It’s a huge passion of mine. And teaching people who didn’t know they could make and finish games was a huge motivator (and it’s been so rewarding already). But the second reason is, I was scared. I was self-employed, and I was riding the success of a “huge lucky fluke” that would probably not happen again. I wanted to make sure I could provide for my amazing family, and give them food and health insurance and security in these tumultuous times. I was turning my lifelong passions and hobbies into a business, and it wasn’t as simple of a mental transition as I thought.

So, I went all in on YouTube and the accompanying online course called Game Dev Unlocked. I spent years editing the scripts and videos, and polishing them to a shine. At first, no one watched my videos, no one was buying… and in the blink of an eye, the YouTube algorithm picked up my main autobiographical video (“How Making Indie Games Changed My Life”), and I started getting 5,000 subscribers a day. Right now, I’m at 150,000 subs, which is still hard for me to believe. I always had a dream of earning 100k subs on YouTube, so I was pretty happy with the whole thing. Sales were OK, but mostly people didn’t want to buy the course. Then the emails came in…

Something you should know about me: I am a textbook “people pleaser,” and if someone asks for my help, I take it very seriously. If someone is mad at me, even if I didn’t do anything wrong, it’s all I can think about, and it ruins my day. So, taking an onslaught of people begging for help and multiplying that by an impossible amount of people for my brain to truly comprehend thanks to the internet… and let’s just say it wasn’t a healthy mix.

I received thousands of emails from people who were begging me for some kind of reassurance that everything would be OK. That their dreams would come true too. And I wanted to help every single one of them. I went from a nobody working on a game for fun to becoming a spokesperson for the indie game dream. I couldn’t even get a shake from the Chick-Fil-A drive-thru without someone recognizing me and asking for game dev advice. And it didn’t stop there… I would get emails from suicidal kids asking for help, teenagers from Afghanistan asking me to get them out of their country, and on one occasion I received an email from a hopeful game developer in a war-torn country who had just experienced a bomb blowing up their neighboring village. His friends were dead, and he was hoping he could finish a game before he died too, and he needed my help. How do you say no to something like that? Didn’t I owe it to everyone because I was lucky with my hit game and I needed to “pay it forward”? (Something people constantly reminded me of)

And then to top it off, after you’ve given everything you’ve got to other people in need… you get hate mail in your inbox. You spend the whole day serving your children and strangers on the internet, then when the kids are finally asleep, you hit the bed to relax and take a look at your phone to decompress, and you randomly come across an angry gamer in your Twitter mentions telling you your game they got for free sucks, and that you took away a potentially great game from them and that your apology isn’t good enough.

Long story short, I went to a mental therapist for the first time in my life. I was broken trying to care for two toddlers and a new baby in a pandemic (which is very, very hard), taking care of my course students who gave me their hard-earned money and demanded results, and the countless people begging for help on the internet. I was this introverted, internet-lurker trying to take on the weight of the world. I was so tired and hurt that no one cared about me and my needs… only what I could do for them.

Quitting my day job and making this hobby my full-time job has stirred up… mixed emotions. This statement may disturb some of you, but I was definitely 100% happier when I had a full-time job and I was working on my game at night. I missed working with the amazing team at The VOID, working on Star Wars… back when the success of my game was this abstract thing I could only daydream about. Mostly, I was making my game for me with no outside expectations to pay the bills or satisfy the ever-demanding internet, and that brought me a lot of joy.

It’s not all doom and gloom though! I’m actually very happy now and in the best shape I’ve been since the pandemic started. I’ve had to confront my weaknesses and personality quirks, but I’m a better person for it (and I’m sure these issues would’ve come out eventually). I hired an awesome community manager for Game Dev Unlocked who is helping SO MUCH with the emails, I can’t even tell you the mental burden it alleviates. I even leased a co-working office to help separate work from my home, and that’s been a huge help too. I’ve decided to work with my old friends from The VOID on a cool, new VR experience. It will take me away from my projects a bit, but I’m ecstatic to work with a great team again (and not manage anything, whew).

These are all things I would’ve never guessed I needed, because I thought I knew myself pretty well… turns out I didn’t.

The reality is: running a business is HARD. Running it solo is even harder. You have to remember, I was burnt out on The First Tree well into the Steam release in 2017, but I kept working on it for 4 more years due to my fears of failing again and not earning enough money for my family.

So, I was wrestling with the age-old concept of commercialism and art. There was this dichotomy of doing whatever I wanted and being true to my vision (what most people assume the indie dev dream is like), and doing only what customers wanted to buy. This is something that has killed me with YouTube… in one specific instance, I was super excited to make the exact video I wanted to make. I loved every part of its creation, and I thought it had a message that would inspire everyone. I lovingly edited it over several weeks, posted it, and excitedly waited for the stats… and it was by far my worst performing video.

This is not a new problem. Even the Sistine Chapel by Michelangelo was a commission forced upon him by the very violent Pope Julius II. My wife and I regularly talk about the fine balance between artistic integrity and commercialism, a problem she is very familiar with as an artist who constantly needs to balance what she wants to make with what the customer wants to hang up in their home.

For The First Tree, I was lucky. It was pretty much what I wanted to make (I had to compromise a lot of things of course), and it turned out millions of people wanted it too. Recently, I thought the safe business decision would be to do it all over again, so I started work on a spiritual successor to The First Tree (an idea that I may revisit one day since I do love the story idea). But that isn’t happening anytime soon. Trust me when I say I am now currently burnt out on animal exploration games.

So that realization left me with a question: what do I do next?

I’ve decided I need to make a game that I want to make, for me. It will be a bit different and I’m almost certain most fans of The First Tree will not love it… but it’s an idea that gets me super excited. It’s an idea that could help me fall in love with game development again.

A few more details: this game will be story-driven, first-person, and will use the Unreal Engine. That means development is gonna be slow going, because I have to learn a whole new tool. The “smart business” decision would be to make something quickly in Unity which I’m already familiar with… but I want to do this for me, and UE5 looks like a lot of fun. I’m also shooting for an early-ish release date so I avoid burn out and I keep the game short: I want to release it in Fall 2022, but knowing game development, it will probably take longer.

With the help of my therapist, I’ve also concluded that I’ve been too accessible on the internet and that my self-worth isn’t determined by the amount of people I try to help online. Of course, I love helping people and seeing them succeed, but I need to step back and focus on my family and myself. I will delete my social media apps on my phone (I will still post big updates occasionally) and stop responding to most emails, tweets, DMs, etc. It’s not that I’m ungrateful… in fact, if I don’t say thank you or at least acknowledge the incredibly nice people who share a sweet message about my game or want to tell me how I inspire them (still hard for me to believe, lol), I feel a ton of guilt… but I need to let that go. Please know I’m extremely grateful to all the fans who follow my work, so even if I don’t thank you directly, I truly mean it: thank you.

I will still post and stream occasionally on YouTube when I want to (and I still do live Q&A’s for my GDU students). The online course sales will help support my family as I work on a potentially risky game idea (and my new job will help alleviate the risk too). I’m gonna try one more marketing experiment and sell a mini-course soon (and add an Unreal section), and after that I’m done working on it. A gigantic thank you to the people who bought my course and are part of the amazing community, it has helped me and my family tremendously, and it’s inspiring seeing the games you make!

I’m a bit worried about the whole thing since this new game idea could flop, which could definitely affect my family. But a sappy, high-school yearbook quote is coming to mind… I think it applies here: “A ship in harbor is safe—but that is not what ships are built for.”

Thanks for reading,

David

#gamedev #indie games #the first tree

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andreafmn · 3 years

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I'm Not Afraid - Chapter 3

Word Count: 3,195

Characters: Female Reader Argent Character, Original Male Argent Character, Derek Hale, Allison Argent, Scott McCall, Stiles Stilinski, Isaac Lahey, Lydia Martin, Chris Argent, Jackson Whittemore

Story Description: (Y/N) Argent arrived at Beacon Hills to put to rest her father’s sister, Kate Argent. For the first time, her family has decided to settle down and sustain a life in this interesting small town. After 17 years, (Y/N) has the opportunity to establish interpersonal relationships but will she be ready to face the complications that come with relating to her cousin’s, Allison, friends; especially, the infamous Derek Hale. She will face the adventure of being associated with the Derek and McCall pack as well as being faced with the discovery of certain aspects of her life she never imagined.

*DISCLAIMER* I do not own in any way Teen Wolf, all credits of the pre-established characters, script, and storyline belong to Jeff Davis and MTV Network. The only thing I own is Argent Reader insert, her immediate family, and her storyline, as well as her effects in the others’ storyline.

Chapter: 3/?

Warnings: brief mention of attempted suicide

A/N: If you enjoy my writing I’ll also be posting them in AO3 and Wattpad along with other stories (I also hope to start taking requests if ya’ll want) Hope you enjoy and all constructive criticism is encouraged.

Follow Me!

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Chapter 3

"Time!" Mr. Harris looked up from his watch. "If you catalyzed the reaction correctly, you should now be looking at a crystal."

I looked down at my beaker and saw a horrible concoction of half crystal and half goo. Thanks to Stiles, my last partner of this weird-ass rotation the chemistry teacher had us partake in. Yet even though I didn't get with Stiles that well I was relieved that he was my partner. Isaac had been completely insufferable these last few days and I couldn't handle that.

"Now this part of the experiment I'm sure you'll all enjoy. You can eat it." I was bummed that I couldn't eat mine and I guess Lydia noticed.

"Hey, (Y/N), we can share mine. Don't frown." I smiled at her and she returned it.

After Lydia gave me half her rock crystal, Scott just stood up and screamed our names to stop, and everyone else just stared at us. We both turned and gave the boy a weird stare before diverging our attention back to the candy. After clinking our candies against the other, we savored the sweet treat.

Allison's POV

"Derek is outside waiting for (Y/N) and Lydia," Scott said.

"Waiting to kill them?"

"If he thinks one of them is the Kanima, then yes. Especially after what happened at the pool."

"It's not Lydia."

"Stiles, she didn't pass the test, man. Nothing happened."

"No, it can't be her."

"Well, it's not (Y/N) either."

"Well, it could be her."

"What is that supposed to mean?!" What the hell was his problem?

"Well, we have no idea who she is, and she hasn't really proven to be a good person. And the attacks did start after she first arrived at Beacon Hills."

"You don't know her, I do. Believe me, it's not her. I've known her my whole life. I think I would have noticed her turning into a killing lizard and I don't think I would be here to tell you. So, we can cross her out." We both sighed. "But it doesn't matter because Derek thinks it's one of them. So, either we can convince him that he's wrong or we've got to figure out a way to protect them."

"Well, I don't think he's gonna do anything here. Not at school." Scott stepped in.

"What about after school?" I asked and he sighed. "What if we can prove that Derek's wrong?"

"By three o'clock?"

"There can be something in the bestiary."

"Oh, you mean the 900-page book written in Archaic Latin that none of us can read? Good luck with that." Seriously Stiles, not helping. At least I was trying.

"Actually, I think there might be someone who can translate," I said thinking about our guidance counselor.

"Uh, I can talk to Derek maybe convince him to give us a chance to prove it's not either of them or... But if anything happens you guys let me handle it, okay?"

"What does that mean?"

"You can't heal like I do." I stared at him. I wasn't a defenseless baby. "I just don't want you getting hurt."

"I can protect myself." I took the crossbow out of my bag. He said nothing. "What? Did something else happen?"

"I just don't want you getting hurt. Seriously, if anything goes wrong you call me, okay?! I don't care if your dad finds out. Call or text, scream or yell; whatever, I'll find you as fast as I can." He stared straight into my eyes.

"We have until three."

He turned to leave until my crossbow went off. "Ooh." Scott quickly turned around and caught the arrow.

"Aah. Sorry." Stiles handed me the crossbow. "Sorry. Sensed a trigger on that."

Scott's POV

Currently, Stiles was on Lydia's and (Y/N)'s trail, and I was on the field with Boyd trying to find Derek.

"I wanna talk to Derek."

"Talk to me."

"I don't wanna fight."

"Good. Cause I'm twice the size of you" I looked up to find it true.

"True. Really, really true." He smirked. "But you wanna know what I think? I'm twice as fast." I smirked back and tackled him to the ground. Once we stood up, Derek appeared by our side.

"She failed the test." His face held his iconic scowl, and his arms were crossed.

"Yeah, but that doesn't prove anything. Lydia's different."

"I know. At night she turns into a homicidal walking snake."

"I'm not gonna let you kill her."

"Who said I was gonna do it?" I looked back to the school and realized Erica and Isaac were still back in the building. I tried to run towards it, but Boyd threw me down. "I don't know why you think you have to protect everyone now, Scott. But even so, Lydia has killed people and she's gonna do it again. And next time it's gonna be one of us."

"What if you're wrong? For all we know it could also be (Y/N). She didn't pass either, and how is it a coincidence that the attacks started after she arrived?" For a second I could have sworn there was a sign of desperation and worry in his face. But as quick as I blinked the look was gone.

"Lydia was bitten by an alpha. It's her."

"You saw that thing up close. You know it's not like us."

"But it is! We're all shapeshifters. You don't know what you're dealing with. It happens rarely and it happens for a reason."

"What reason?"

"Sometimes the shape you take reflects the person that you are." He gave me his hand and helped me up. "Even Stiles calls her cold-blooded."

"Well, what if she's immune? What if she has something else inside of her that makes her immune to the bite which is why she didn't get paralyzed."

"No one's immune. We've never seen it or heard of it. It's n... It's never happened." He argued.

"What about Jackson?" He looked away. "That's why you tested him, isn't it? Because you gave him what he wanted, didn't you?"

"Scott..."

"You said the bite either kills you or turns you. You were probably hoping that he would die. But nothing happened, right? You have no idea why do you?"

"No." Derek's jaw clenched and I knew I struck a never, so I pressured on buying more time.

"I have a theory. That she's immune and that somehow, she passed it on to Jackson. You know I'm right."

"No!

"You can NOT do this!"

"Look, I can't let her live! You should've known that."

"I was hoping I could convince you but then, I wasn't counting on it." He looked at me frazzled as to what I meant, I just smirked.

(Y/N)'s POV

Being stuck with Stiles and Lydia in the library is torture, an experiment I did not want to know the result of. Actually, just Stiles. Ever since Chemistry he had been on our trail like a lost puppy. Lydia and I had a project to work with, and he was just in the way. He was acting so weird and fidgety, more than usual.

"Hey, Allison. What are you doing here?" Lydia said looking behind her.

"Oh nothing, just wondering if you wanted to get together for a study group."

"Sure, that would actually maybe let the tension leave this group," I said and as we were leaving, Jackson joined.

"Study group? I'm coming with."

"Great." We left through the back door of the library, lord knows why, and we were walking at top speed.

"If we're doing a study group why don't we just stay in the library?" Lydia said. I was asking myself the same thing but since everyone else had stood up, I just followed.

"Because we're meeting up with somebody else."

"Why don't they just meet us at the library?" I asked.

"Oh, that would have been a great idea! Too late."

"Okay, hold on..." Lydia started saying but Jackson stopped her by grabbing her arm.

"Lydia, shut up and walk." Jerk.

We all got inside of Stile's jeep since he thought it would be faster that way because we were already late. It was an awkward ride to what I learned was Scott's house. No one said much except for the casual groan or scoff coming from Lydia.

"If we're meeting at Scott's house, where's Scott?" Lydia asked.

"Meeting us here. I think. I hope." Stiles said as he led us up to the front steps and into Scott's house.

Once inside he closed every single lock there was on the door. My reaction was involuntary as I stared at the slim boy in front of me as if he was another worldly creature.

"Uh, there's been a few break-ins in the neighborhood." He then put a chair on the doorknob and now Lydia joined in the stare. "And a murder. Yeah, it was bad."

"Lydia, follow me. I need to talk to you for a minute." Jackson spoke up.

"Seriously, what is going on with everyone?" Lydia said exasperated.

"Actually, I've been thinking the same thing. What the hell is going on?" I asked once Jackon and Lydia were out of sight.

"Nothing. Like we said it's just a study group." Stiles answered and I crossed my arms against my chest. Groveling for an answer seemed completely futile in this situation.

Allison's POV

"You know what, (Y/N). Why don't you go into the kitchen and help yourself to anything or go upstairs and lay down? I think Scott will take a while."

"O-kay?" She headed upstairs with an audible sigh and I motioned to Stiles to give me his phone to dial Scott.

"Hey, it's me. You need to get here. Quick." I looked outside and saw Derek and his pack waiting. I looked at the phone after Scott hung up and started dialing my dad's number.

"What are you doing?"

"I think... I think I have to call my dad."

"But if he finds you here, you and Scott..."

"I know." I stared at him. "What are we supposed to do? They're not here to scare us, okay, they're here to kill Lydia... Or, or even (Y/N)." We stood in silence and I debated on whether if it would be a good idea to call my father. If I did my relationship with Scott would be completely and truly over and if I didn't there could be a chance I would be down a friend or even a cousin.

"I've got an idea." I looked at a nervous Stiles. "Shoot one of them."

"Are you serious?"

"We told Scott we could protect ourselves. So, let's do it, at least give it a shot, right?" I debated for a moment.

"Okay." I don't think I sounded too confident.

"Look, they don't think we're gonna fight, so one of them gets hit, I guarantee they'll take off. So just shoot one of them." His reasoning made sense. I looked outside.

"Which one?"

"Um, Derek, preferably in the head."

"Stiles, if Scott can catch an arrow, Derek definitely can."

"Okay, ah, just shoot one of the other three."

"You mean two?"

"I mean three." Quickly he moved the curtains aside and looked outside to check on the pack. "Where's Isaac?" Without being able to think I was attacked and thrown to the ground and so was Stiles. I don't know how but Isaac found a way in.

(Y/N)'s POV

I was laying down on the bed of what I hoped was a guest room, scrolling through my phone when I heard a crash downstairs. I guess Lydia heard it too because when I looked outside the hallway, there she was. We moved slowly and carefully. After, I started to hear snarling and crashing.

"What's happening?" Lydia cried and I half hugged her as reassurance.

"Get back. Someone's trying to break in, okay? Go." Allison appeared from around the corner.

"I can help," I said.

"Stay." We didn't move. "Guys, go!" We both ran back to the room she was with Jackson and closed the door. Yet, Jackson was nowhere in sight.

"Jackson?!" Lydia screamed and we made our way to the bathroom locking the door.

"Who are you calling?" I asked Lydia as she took out her phone.

"Hi, I-I need the police. Th-there's someone trying to break in." She turned off the light and I heard the door outside slam.

"Stiles! It's here!" Allison screamed. What the hell was IT? Then the door crashed down. Lydia started squirming so I engulfed her in a hug and tried my best to calm her nerves.

"We're gonna be alright." But honestly, I was just as scared. Once silence was the only thing surrounding us, I checked the room. "Okay, I think it's gone. We'll go out slowly."

She nodded and followed me out of the bathroom and later out of the room. We made our way calmly down the hallway and the stairs. That's when I heard the worst screech ever and it was not human. We both ran outside to see what had made such an awful sound and were met by Derek, Isaac, Erica, Boyd, Scott, Stiles, and Allison. What the hell were they all doing here, and why were Erica and Isaac limp on the floor?

"Would someone please tell me what the hell is going on?"

"It's Jackson," Scott said. What could that possibly mean?

After everyone had calmed down, Stiles took us back to the school to look for our abandoned cars. As I made my way to my bike, Allison stopped me. Claiming that she was too worried about my safety. Not having the energy to fight, I obliged and got into her car alongside Lydia, who was still a bit shaken from the events.

"I need you to promise that you both won't say anything about what just happened." Allison staged the statement as a request but it was clearly a command.

"I promise not to say anything about what just happened if you could tell me what the HELL just happened," Lydia said, exasperated.

"I'm with Lydia on that one."

"It's kinda complicated." Allison sighed.

"How about you start with why Derek was there?" I spoke. "And Isaac and all of those kids from school?"

"Or where Jackson went or what is wrong with Erica?" She looked down. "Need to come up with a possible lie?"

"Part of the reason I am asking is because Scott and I aren't supposed to be seeing each other, okay?" Seriously? That's your excuse "So it's better if you just keep what you know to yourselves."

"Fine. I'll keep what I know about you and your boyfriend, which is nothing, to myself." Lydia started to get out, but Allison held her back.

"Hey, he's not just my boyfriend, you get that right?"

"Let me go." The strawberry blonde spat.

"Just for one second, please try and remember. "

"Remember what?!" Lydia turned.

"Remember what it feels like. All those times in school when you see him standing in the hall and you cannot breathe until you're with him or those times in class when you can't stop looking at the clock because you know that he is standing right out there, waiting for you. Don't you remember what that's like?"

"No."

"What do you mean no? You've had boyfriends."

"Not like that." She closed the door and left. Allison stared at her until she had reached the door to her house before starting the car back up.

"I know you're lying. This has nothing to do with your relationship with Scott. Maybe like five percent but when you look at the whole picture it's not. So, why don't you actually tell me the truth or I swear I will get out of this car."

"We're moving."

"Doesn't mean I won't jump out."

"What do you want me to say?!"

"The truth. Just tell me why the hell everyone has been acting so weird?"

"You're one to talk." She scoffed.

"What is that supposed to mean?"

"You! Ever since you've arrived you have pushed everyone away, even though all they have been is nice to you. You're alienating yourself for no reason."

"No reason?! How about the fact that I don't want to grow attached to anyone because I know that once the year ends, I'm gone? It has been like that for almost ten fucking years. Allison, you have only had to move about three times in your life, maybe four. I have been moving every single year since I was eight years old. Don't you think that it doesn't hurt to leave behind people you have grown to love and won't see again, possibly forever?"

"I didn't think..." she sighed.

"Exactly, you didn't think because you don't understand. The last time I grew close to someone, I had to say goodbye and you know what happened?" She shook her head no. "She was bullied into attempting suicide. I did that."

"Are you talking about Josie?" I nodded, roughly wiping away the tears that had spilled. "That wasn't your fault. It was tragic but there was nothing you could have done. You didn't do it."

"I did. She was alone because I left, and I couldn't protect her. She won't even answer my messages. Now, I don't associate myself with people so I don't have to care about what happens to them. That way it doesn't hurt once I leave."

"I'm so sorry, (Y/N), I didn't know you felt that way. But don't push me away. I will always be a constant in your life. I'm your cousin, I will always be with you." She hugged me and wiped away any other tears left. "I love you but get out."

"Dude, you just ruined the moment."

"No, I mean we're at your house and I have to get home. I love you." She smiled and I got out of the car. Before I could say anything else, she sped off. She knew there was a conversation still lingering and she was trying to avoid it. I just hoped I didn't have to explain myself to anyone else.

I entered the empty house, making sure all the doors were locked, and made my way up the stairs. Opening my bedroom door, Brody jumped off my bed and onto me, slathering my face with kisses.

"Hey, buddy. I missed you too," I laughed. Being near him instantly calmed me and helped me feel more at ease after the night I had.

I changed into my pajamas, too tired to shower, and cuddled with Brody on my bed. Talking about my past always made me tense. I tried my best to stray away from the topic and reveal as little as possible as I could, but it always found a way to be uncovered. As hard as I tried it was the dark cloud that would always follow me around. All I could do was avoid the whole thing as much as I could and hope they didn't bring it up again.

With Brody's warmth next to me, I quickly nodded off to sleep and melted the stress of the day.

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cinnamonest · 3 years

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Yandere Profile - Izuku Midoriya/Deku (BNHA/MHA)

I'm showing up in tags again yay! Time to repost this

Finally I am dishing out MHA content and kicking off with one of my favorite boys nice

TWs: Fem!Reader, Yandere, kidnapping, delusional mindsets, infantilization, mentions of violence/mutilation, mentions of murder, mentions of fake suicide, n//s//fw themes/mentions/brief content, mentions of virginity/sex shaming, dark content, mentions of a high school setting

TWs (n//s//fw section/below the cut): noncon, brief dealing with/mentions of past sex trauma, generally depraved/dark content, pain content, infantilization What are they generally like? Lucid, aware? Obsessive? How do they behave?

High key delusional. (I think everyone I've seen in the yan bnha community agrees on this lmao.) But really, he acts that way because he's not naturally that way - he has to make an active effort to lie to himself and to you in order to believe his delusions.

Obsessive. I mean, look at what this boy does to his heroes. You bet he has an entire notebook dedicated to your existence. It starts off simple, an entry regarding your quirk if you have one, or perhaps he feels compelled to write a simple entry about someone he met if you don't. Gradually it turns into a log of all his encounters with you, his observations of your day, his thoughts about you, a strict schedule of what you do. The things you do while he watches - you KNOW the boy is a stalker. He has a folder in his phone gallery of just quick snaps he's taken of you walking around, smiling, laughing, looking at your phone, lots of pictures from the back, sleeping at your desk, and a few more risky ones. The time he accidentally walked into the wrong shower room after a class and just happened to catch you getting out of the shower. Slightly blurry pictures through the window of the girls dorm of you getting dressed, laying in bed, sitting at your desk doing homework. Dark, barely visible images of your sleeping form just barely illuminated by moonlight. You really ought to lock those windows.

He's on the border where he's just comfortable enough to talk to you, but far too nervous to ever confess, or spend as much time with you as he'd like. Of course, preferably he could spend every waking moment by your side, but, he's aware enough to know you need space. He's fine with that. He's technically with you anyway, you just don't know it. And really, he likes stalking, genuinely. He likes the feeling of knowing you're unaware of his presence, the thrill of risk and the giddy satisfaction he gets knowing this is your candid, non-performing self, he can see what you're really, truly like when you think you're alone, and it's just so cute.

Particularly for a quirkless, civilian darling, or if darling's quirk has no combative purposes, he'll be much more protective. He's one to have the delusion that you're too fragile for the world, and that you're inevitably bound to get hurt, it's not safe out there. You're like a little kitten, one that's just a little too curious for her own good, doesn't know how big and bad the world is, how people who want to hurt her are out there. Kittens stay inside all day where they belong, safe to be the soft little housepets they are.

History/info stalker as well. He will find out everything about your past and you in general - memorize things like your height, birthday, grades, blood type, etc. Will also deep-dive through any social media you have, even managing to find anonymous ones, probably by sneaking through your phone as your sleep. He'll learn about your family, how well they treat you, gauges how hard they'll search for you. He'll want to know about any history you have regarding relationships and sex, too. He'll be disappointed to learn you've ever been with and done things with someone else, but that's ok. Everyone makes mistakes, and he can forgive that.

Massive savior complex. This goes double if he did save you from a situation -- he's literally your hero. And he expects that you should at least be grateful enough to acknowledge that. If your family or boyfriend or past boyfriends were abusive or unkind in any way, if you were generally struggling in school or work, if you had any sort of bad life, it will also emphasize this, and he feels he saved you from all of that, and is giving you a better life. And he'll remind you, frequently.

How likely are they to kidnap their darling? How quickly will they do so?

Inevitable, but he's a planner and he takes some time. He's smarter than he seems and he will formulate an extensive plan. If we're talking senior Izuku, well, he's limited, as he only has the dorms and his old apartment where his mother lives. He's likely to wait it out until post-graduation, wait until he gets his own place, which will now be as soon as possible. Whenever you plan to start university or hero work or whatever, well, you'll never actually make it there.

As for how, it depends on your trust. If he's managed to get close to you as he hopes to, at least to the point of friendship, he'll likely just invite you over, one last time before you go your separate ways in life. You walk right into your own imprisonment, not thinking anything is off when he locks the door behind you. If not, if he was never that close to you, or you turn down his offer, well, he'll just do it the old fashioned way. You're a naive little thing, and you'll inevitably be walking by yourself at night at some point for whatever reason, and he knows how to make chloroform. He may look small-ish, but he has a deceptive strength even without the use of OFA, you can't actually hope to overpower him. If he can't catch you out walking, well, once again, you really ought to lock those windows.

Now, a hero Deku, a few years into his 20s and quickly gaining popularity, that sees some poor little civilian getting hurt, he'll just use the excuse of taking you to get help. Clearly you've suffered a concussion, you're not in your right mind, and if you pick up on what's going on and try to call for help, he'll just say so to passersby. People have no reason to distrust him, he's a well-reputed, extremely popular hero, he would never harm someone. So when he says he's just taking you to get medical assistance, no one bats an eye.

How difficult is it to escape from them? How do they keep you restrained? How do they deal with attempted escape?

Like some of my previous yans, he's one that will intentionally set up escape opportunities just to see how well your conditioning is going. Leave the door unlocked, but sit and wait outside. Make the bonds just a little bit too loose to see if you wiggle out of them. Leave things that could be used as lockpicks to see how smart you are. It's all a test, though, don't worry. He'll be waiting right outside to make sure you don't actually end up going out into the world and getting yourself hurt. He'll be disappointed in you, but don't worry, he's not too mad - it's just his way of knowing you don't understand yet.

Generally, it's tight security. He's one to invest in electronic security -- a shock collar, tracking anklets, cameras that sense motion, a bracelet that tracks your heartbeat, and all of which send him notifications to his phone if anything is out of the ordinary. The cameras he'll be able to watch a live stream of at any time - he's gotten to where he eats lunch alone in his office so that he can just kick back and watch you.

Now, he has something of an urge to show you off, he would love nothing more than for the world to see what a cute little wife he has, but he restrains this urge for your safety. He has a lot of enemies, and he can't have them knowing about his weakness, he can't stand the thought of you getting hurt because of him. So don't expect to even have anyone who knows about you to rely on.

As for attempts... Should you manage to get through all his measures, well, clearly that means they weren't enough. He's another yandere that, you probably shouldn't try unless you are one hundred percent certain you'll succeed, because if not you likely won't get another chance. Security measures will bump up, and he'd likely implant something in you - a tracking chip beneath the skin, deep enough you can't hope to cut it out. That way, even if you get out into the city, he can easily find you and save you again. If you seriously manage to escape for a while, he doesn't handle it well emotionally, to be honest, he might get pretty upset, but again, everyone makes mistakes, so if you apologize -- and you will, even if he has to resort to unpleasant measures to force one out of you -- he'll forgive you.

How easy are they to trick, deceive, or manipulate?

Izuku is significantly smarter than he seems, much like his strength. Despite his deluded nature, he still recognizes that, since she's too dumb to comprehend her own safety, she's likely to try and pull tricks to get back out of her cage. He's perceptive and can read facial expressions and tone of voice very well, so if you're a good liar there's about a 75% chance he'll pick up on it -- anything else and he definitely will.

He's likely to go along with it, just to expose your lies or plan in the end. He likes giving you the humiliation because it will hopefully make you even less likely to do it in the future.

How lenient are they? What privileges can you have, and what will you be denied?

Izuku goes out of his way to keep you well-entertained, but it's all very... infantilizing. For example, he gets you streaming services and the like, but puts parental content locks on everything so you basically can only consume extremely g-rated type of content. He doesn't want you watching anything violent, or dirty or vulgar, it's not suiting such an innocent little thing. He won't even let you watch the news, unless occasionally forcing you to watch something that he knows is being aired about him, in which case he wants you to see so you're reminded of how good he is. He'll also be able to see your search history, and know if you tried to look up anything he wouldn't approve of, especially things like lockpicking or "how to disable human shock collar," you know, that sorta thing. Or more... adult things, which are also blocked. Besides, you have him, you don't need that.

He'll let you cook, but only in his presence, can't have you getting hurt without him there to fix it. You'll probably start off restrained to a bedroom -- a very heavily safety-proofed one -- in the beginning, gradually earning the privilege of going to other rooms once you've proven you can be trusted.

He'll also really try to get you almost anything you want, really. Clothes, books, hobby supplies, anything he thinks will make you happy and adjust more easily. You can use this to your advantage, really, if you're willing to settle in for your new lifestyle.

What kind of rules do they have? What kind of punishment would they use?

Of course, besides the obvious no escaping, no outside contact, and no attacking him, he's actually still got a lot of behavioral rules. Much like the content he allows you to consume, he expects the same from you -- no cursing, no drinking, no vulgarity. No handling knives while he's gone, and he'll know if you do, from the motion-sensing cameras that will alert him of your presence in the kitchen. He's one to humiliate you. Specifically, if you've proven you can't behave at all, or tried to really fight him, he'll get you a nice big cage to live in until you have learned your lesson. The kind they make for big dogs, short enough to force you on all fours, complete with bedding, a padlock, and a water bowl for you to drink from. You'll stay there until you can understand what you did wrong and are ready to grovel at his feet about it. During that time, he'll also ignore anything you say, acting like you're not there.

How do they deal with rivals, or perceived rivals? Will they get rid of them? Will they kill them themselves, or find another way?

He can't risk anything that would damage his reputation and career, so murder is off the table. Unless, of course, it's not murder, but rather a sort of, how do they call it... suicide by hero. There was no other choice, really. It's sad to have a kill on his record, but people understand that sometimes these things happen.

This changes if someone has hurt you in any way -- in that case, he's not hesitating to actually kill someone. The thought of someone hurting his little treasure is infuriating, not only at them, but at himself for not coming into your life and saving you sooner. He'll be sure they know exactly why they're dying, that they spend their last moments begging for forgiveness for what they did to you.

How easy is it to make them mad? What does their anger look like?

Easier than you'd think. Izuku doesn't like his delusions being challenged since, again, he has to put in effort to believe them in the first place. If you're being bratty and having tantrums he won't let it slide - even the slightest step out of line is dealt with to ensure you'll at least hesitate before doing it again. If you are the bratty type and blatantly go out of your way to defy him and his rules to his face, it's ground for immediate and pretty intense punishment. His anger is terrifying in its own way. He's beaming, grinning from ear to ear, talking to you so sweetly, but with just the most subtle underlying tone that lets you know he's furious. It's a warning voice, telling you to fix your attitude or else. He doesn't cease the babytalk or petnames when he's mad, it actually gets worse, it helps him contain his fury. But when you hear him say sweetheart in that quiet, sweet, but low voice you've come to recognize and immediately become afraid, he's pretty pleased when it reaches a point where that alone can shut you up. He believes there's a healthy degree of fear that pets should have of their masters.

The easiest and fastest way to set him off by far, though, even more than being mean or disobedient, is silent treatment. That sets him off unlike anything else, and is most likely to make him snap to actual, unrestrained anger, finally showing his true rage and snarling at you, grabbing you by the throat and lifting you off the ground. It will only last a few moments, though, before he comes back to his senses and lets go, apologizing, telling you he hates doing that, but you really seem to try to make him mad, sometimes.

So they see you as above them, beneath them, or equal to them?

He kinda bounces back and forth. He's a bit of a worshipper, telling you how beautiful and amazing you are and how he doesn't deserve you, really no one does, you're angelic, nearly a goddess - but at the same time, you're also his little kitten. A pet to be controlled because you don't know what's good for you. Kept away from a world hellbent on harming you. When you agree with him or do what he wants, it's the former. When you disagree with him, it's the latter, and he talks down to you like you're a child.

How determined are they for you to love them? How hard will they try to make it happen? Or are they content just having you?

He'll try until the day he dies. And try he does, very much so, always buying you gifts, telling you sweet things, reassuring you how much he loves you. Even if you show no sign of ever giving in, that doesn't deter him, ever the optimist. It can become infuriating... and maddening, slowly driving you to the brink of insanity. When it comes down to you trying to break him of his delusions versus him trying to break you into them... he will win, you will crack first. No matter how stubborn you think you may be, rest assured, he's even moreso.

Bonus: Is there anything that makes them unique, in comparison to other yanderes?

I have a unique little headcanon... he hints to someone about your existence, and will select someone as a back-up caretaker. See, he's worried about the possibility of being killed in his heroism, and what would happen to his poor little kitten then? It might be weeks before someone enters his apartment, and they would never understand -- they would think he did something wrong, they would try to recondition you to the world, sure they'd have good intentions, but they wouldn't realize they're making things worse for you. So, he gets a very trusted friend, someone he knows would understand and... perhaps whom he gets the feeling has a bit of the same tendencies as himself, and more or less tells them that if something should happen to him, they need to go to his place, because something very important to him is there. As jealous as the thought of someone else having you makes him, he can't bear the thought of you being released back into the world... and you're still in the denial phase, so you still act like he's a bad guy and all that, so you might tarnish his name and legacy with lies. He can't have that. So, after careful consideration, he picks someone to take over as your caretaker, should something happen. He would rather know you're in the capable hands of someone he trusts than left to starve in his apartment or thrown out into the world, even if it means someone else having you.

Maybe an odd choice, but I could see him going for Shoto on that one. His personality may be very different from his own, and he may not be as close to him as some others, but he senses they have the same... tendencies and inclinations (am I implying he's definitely a yandere too? Yes), and be trusts him to care for you but also be able to handle and tame you. And honestly? He's one person he knows without a doubt will actually prefer to follow through and have you rather than disregarding his wishes - anyone else, and he's got a little doubt they might just not understand the situation, not understand your unique case, and take you to the police or God forbid, just release you back into the world. He leaves a little note with you (making sure to detail how you can be hard to handle, be patient with her, ok?) and tells you that should anyone with this physical description (I mean, it's a pretty unique description, not too many people look like Shoto), ever come and tell you that he's gone, give them the note, and be nice to your new owner, he's sure he'll love you too. But never forget, he loved you more.

General perverseness: how sexual of a person are they? What’s their drive like? How touchy do they get? Do they have any reservations about sexuality?

Horny lil thing. His stalking tendencies result in a lot of perverted shit -- stealing your clothes, jerking off to all those pictures of you he's taken, putting hidden microphones in your room so he can hear when you're touching yourself. He's got a high drive, and jerks off quite a bit. Watching you in class often leads to his thoughts racing, and you notice he gets up to use the bathroom pretty frequently during class.

Prior to abduction, he's not brave enough to be touchy, although he will use his innocent demeanor to try and get a nice full-front hug every now and then that seems to last just a bit too long for comfort. After abduction, though? He makes up for all the touching he's wanted to do since he first saw you, wrapping arms around you all the time. When you're cooking he'll come up behind you and just wrap his arms around you, standing there and just enjoying feeling you. At night he's always very cuddle and wants to snuggle on the sofa or have you in his lap in some way. He also gets very grope-y beyond that point, frequently reaching up to cup your chest in his hands, squeezing your ass or thighs, or just spooning and grinding a hard-on against your ass.

How forceful are they? Do they care about your willingness?

Too far into the delusions to care. Granted he understands why you are so resistant, why you fight so hard - you're just scared, but don't worry, it will only hurt just a little bit. Or you're insecure - he'll tell you lots of sweet things, he would just hate for you to not know how much he worships you, you know.

Or maybe you're just prudish, or traumatized. Repeated resistance with time and failure to quickly give in leads him to this conclusion, he becomes convinced that maybe you were raised in a sex-negative environment, a too-conservative household, and you were taught to think such a thing was wrong. Maybe you had some kind of negative experience in the past. If you confess to either of these being true, that just solidifies in his mind that that's the sole reason you're so resistant. He'll adjust based on whatever the issue is - are you one of the "until marriage" people? Well it's not official, but he'll try to prove to you that you're basically married, even make a fake contract for you to sign, buy you a cute white dress and a cake and basically say this is no different from being truly married, after all, the government approval is a modern convention and in the past people were married just by vows.

Is it trauma? Well, as said before, he's reluctant to murder, but if that turns out to be the case, that knowledge is enough to push him over the edge, and he'll be sure to make them regret it while they die - he'll even be sweet enough to take a picture, show you how much they rightfully suffered, and he'll be so so sweet, reassuring you he's not like them, kissing your forehead even as he's ignoring your little cries to stop and sinking deep into you.

Just a prude? That's ok. He'll teach you otherwise, rid you of that mindset -- all the more reason to ignore your struggles and pleas, because once you feel good enough, you'll stop resisting. Once you understand how good sex is and how nice he can make you feel, he's confident he can turn you into his own little cock-hungry slut. And managing to do so -- making you cum despite how prudish you are -- gives him a massive ego boost. Especially if you did have past partners, because clearly they weren't doing their job well, since you're so frigid. He'll make you tell him how much better he is than anyone else from before.

He's not a patient man, he's far too eager and really there's nothing you can do to stop sex from happening like... probably within the first hour of your new life together. He's been waiting such a long time, you know. If you happened to be a civilian in the situation mentioned previously, and you didn't know each other beforehand, he might give you, say, 24 hours to adjust, but again, he's not patient.

What sort of kinks or fetishes do they have, or would they fill?

Oral fixation

Just. He likes eating you out. A lot. Even if you don't. Even if he has to restrain you, holding you down so you can't squirm away. He likes the taste and the way it makes you squirm and writhe and whimper. He loves blowjobs, too. Just. Suck him off and he's wrapped around your finger, but be warned, he lacks self control in this area and will definitely end up grabbing your hair and just jerking your head like a fleshlight, forcing you to deep-throat him until he can cum down your throat.

Infantilization/Lingerie, corruption/defilement

Specifically the cute kind. He likes things like the kitty keyhole lingerie, thigh highs, schoolgirl uniforms, that sort of thing. Innocent looking, cutesy, lots of soft pinks and pastel colors. He never really ceases treating you like a dumb baby, even with sex, cooing at you and making you whimper, softly reassuring you everything is ok, and he'll make you feel good. He likes the innocence, even if you're not (convinces himself any past boyfriends "don't count" for whatever reason), and gets off to the idea that he's corrupting that innocence, ruining you, making you his and his alone. His little toy to play with and break and ruin, make sure you're so trained to his body and voice that no one else could ever make you feel as good as him. As aforementioned, he likes the idea of taking a little prude and turning you into a little cumslut that begs and whimpers for him. It's an ego, pride thing for him.

Petplay/D/S dynamic/Worship

Just. Kitten. It's good. He's super into the cat ears and tail, finding cute ears that perfectly match your hair color, and a little tail plug that makes you whimper when he slides it inside of you. Definitely calls you "kitten," or "kitty," and importantly, makes sure you call him your master. And good pets love their masters, worship them the way they deserve to be worshipped for taking care of you, feeding you, doing everything for you. Masters are their pets' whole world, and he will be to you, too. Also buys a collar, a nice thick one with a leash he can use to make you walk around on all fours, or use to yank you back onto him when you're getting fucked on your hands and knees.

Cockwarming

Unfortunately, the part of hero work they don't talk about as much is the paperwork. There's quite a bit, actually, and studying for license renewals. He's got a kinda short attention span and he needs some stimulation to keep him focused. Which is how you end up sitting in his lap at his desk, panties down on your ankles, holding perfectly still with him deep inside of you. He tells you not to move -- you'll distract him too much. Eventually, though, it can get to be too much, so he just ends up fucking up into you right there, but after he's done he'll stay inside, gradually getting hard again and repeating the process.

How do they feel about pregnancy or babies? Do they want them?

He likes the idea in theory, but ultimately decides against it for a couple of reasons. See, his little kitten is so... difficult, and he fears you might teach them to resent him. More importantly, people would wonder -- if he's got kids, where's the mom? He can't afford to have people snooping about that. Finally, much like with you, he fears that his enemies might kidnap his kids, or hurt them somehow to hurt him. If darling is especially well-behaved, once she's finally broken in and understands his way of seeing things and becomes more agreeable, there's a chance he'd consider it, but the concern over their safety would likely still stop him.

What kind of (nsfw) punishments would they use?

Definitely spanking and impact pain. He's gonna invest in it, too. Leather straps and hard rubber paddles -- probably gets one of the ones that have a little shaped hole or raised part that puts a nice little design imprint on your flesh. Likes making you count for the added humiliation, or making you choose a number of swats that you feel is appropriate for what you did -- but of course, if you go too low under what he had in mind, he'll go with his number and add extra, being sure to let you know you get more for underestimating what you deserve.

Speaking of the monitoring from cameras and all that above, he also has a firm rule that you can't touch yourself. And he'll know -- the bracelet you have alerts him to any increase in heart rate, and he can look into the cameras and see what you're doing. If you're trying to be sneaky, it's still obvious when your heart is racing while you're locked in a bathroom, or the little movements he can make out from under the covers. It also warrants punishment. You want orgasms that bad? Have some. Too many. He'll make you cum over and over, to the point it's horribly painful and sensitive, tying you firmly so you can't move an inch and can't get away from his fingers, tongue, vibrator, or whatever else he chooses. Keep going until you're sobbing and gasping for air, apologizing and crying that you won't do it again.

What body parts of their darling do they like the most?

Thigh boy. He likes using them as a pillow, feeling them wrapped around his head when he's eating you out, running his hands up and down the soft flesh. He's also fond of leaving little bite marks and hickeys all up the inside of your thighs -- not that anyone else sees, but it's just a little reminder to you of who you belong to.

#yandere bnha #yandere deku #yandere izuku #yandere my hero academia #yandere boku no hero academia #lena's asks

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os-hyoideum · 3 years

Text

Fake - Hawks/Takami Keigo x fem!Reader

Summary: Keigo wants to be there for his struggling love.

Word count: 3232

Content/Warnings: Hurt/comfort, angst(ish), depressed feelings, mention of suicidal thoughts, self-indulgent, third-person perspective

a/n: I started writing it in March 🤡 but I felt like I couldn't abandon it, so here it is, finally! ngl kinda exposing myself here oop- idk if it's a comfort fic, but I hope you enjoy :)

During the late hours of the evening, the city below looked particularly beautiful. Colorful neon lights, emanating from dozens of advertisements and signs, illuminated the people who, without care, carried on with their evening tasks, be it a trip to a bar or the travel home from work.

Hawks stood on the roof of the building, looking down and just taking in the scenery. It was not a particularly special day, but the rain that poured earlier has left the ground wet and glistening. The lights, bouncing off the pavement and people, created a picture truly from under a hand of a masterful abstractionist. The pinks, the blues, the yellows, all the colors created the effect of a spilled paint from his point of view.

While admiring the city, Hawks’ phone vibrated in his pocket. Taking his eyes away, he took out the device and, when the screen lit up, was met with the face of his love.

It was his favorite picture in the whole world and he knew, deep down, that any professional photographer couldn’t capture anything better. Truthfully, it wasn’t really a masterpiece, just a simple selfie, but the memory connected to the photograph made it exceptional. He remembered the quiet moment (so little of them in his life) when he could take his partner away and just enjoy an ordinary day with her. A walk, a picnic, anything that made him forget about his everyday life. The smile he saw in the picture truly made him feel like the surroundings brightened a bit.

The message on his phone was simple, a request for him to come back to the office, probably to take care of the stack of papers that adorned his desk.

He put the device back into his pocket, took a last look at the city down below, and, after putting his goggles on, spread his scarlet wings to take off.

If he were being honest, he would say that, given the option, he would stay in the air, in the sky, far above the ground, forever. The wind, howling loudly in his ears, silenced the worries of his everyday life. The air flowing around his body, through every feather of his wings gave him a sense of freedom. In the sky, he was able to see the horizon and just let himself be carried.

There was just one thing missing among the clouds.

On his way back to real life, where he would need to take care of mundane work-related tasks, he took a little detour.

Maneuvering expertly over and around the buildings, he found himself in front of an ordinary apartment complex. The grey modern building had a few floors and, quickly locating the right window, Hawks flew over to where his partner’s apartment was. Some people looked at him, from the street or through their own windows, but they were used to his random visits and paid him no mind, for which he was grateful.

He stopped in place seeing the inside of his lover’s bedroom and peeked inside, as the blinds were open. Some crumpled clothes lying on the bed, along with a few books. Through the open door, he could see the light coming from the TV.

Normally, he would just knock on the glass for her to open the window, but suddenly he got a hunch that something was not right. Maybe it was the fact that her texts became drier as the day went by (just like the last few days) until they halted completely, or maybe the open blinds, usually closed soon after it got dark. Whatever the source of his uneasiness was, it made him fly down and go inside the building through the door. He climbed a few flights of stairs to get to the floor she lived on. The only sounds, keeping him company during his walk through the corridor, were faint voices from behind some of the doors and his own footsteps.

He reached his goal. The alertness in his mind only became stronger as he knocked and waited patiently for the door to open.

A few dreadful seconds later he heard the sound of the turning mechanism inside of the lock. Only for a split second was he able to see the cold numbness on the face of his love before she noticed who had visited her. Her expression changed immediately and she smiled, oh so brightly.

Moving and pulling the muscles in her face, she was always able to make Keigo’s days better. And she could do it in an instant too, and so well that others never noticed the difference between the fake and the real. But he had sharp eyes, trained from a young age to catch any irregularities around him. He noticed, every time, how she faked and he hated it, especially knowing that when he did the same, she always pushed just enough for him to give in and let her in, more and more every time. He would push a bit too, at least to let her know that, if she wanted to, she could tell him anything.

“Keigo!” she exclaimed, voice high in pitch to sound happier, “What are you doing here, baby?”

“I was on my way to the office and thought I could drop by for a moment… Can I get in?” He asked pointing to the inside of the apartment.

“Oh! Of course.” She opened the door wider. “I got back from work not long ago, so… I guess, it’s not that clean.” She added with a small laugh.

Keigo knew it was a lie. He knew when his partner worked; she finished three hours ago.

He entered her space and when he kneeled down to take off his boots, he caught the glimpse of her cheerful expression falling. Still in her work clothes, she looked like she would get crushed any second. He knew her mind could get heavy at times.

“Come here.” He outstretched his hand towards her and lightly pulled her into himself.

At first, she was slightly rigid in his arms, but relaxed a bit, feeling Keigo’s soft strokes along her back. She hid her face into the high collar of his jacket and he noticed how tightly she gripped the material with her fists.

“You should get changed… wear something comfortable.” He whispered to not disturb her too much.

“I’m so tired.” She mumbled, her face still hidden. He just held her for a little while longer, allowing her to let go of him first. When she finally straightened her back and looked at him, this time without a fake smile, he felt like his heart broke, for her. He lifted his hand and gently stroked her cheek.

Her face was virtually emotionless, but he noticed the tensed jaw. The eyes, that hypnotized him every time he gazed into them, were looking more into space than actually at him. Her spaced-out expression made it seem like she was sculpted in marble.

Keigo squeezed her arms lightly to ground her a bit into reality.

“Do you want me to help you?” He asked softly, giving her a way to back out, if she truly wanted to.

“I don’t need…” She looked down with hesitation. Being vulnerable was never easy, even with some of the closest people. Admitting the need or want for other’s presence was quite a feat. She sighed. “Yes.”

“Do you want to take a shower too? Or just change?” She saw not even a slight sliver of judgment in his eyes.

“I’ll take a shower.” She said quietly and took her arms away from Keigo’s. She turned around to go to the bathroom but stopped when he made a move behind her. “Alone, but… stay… please.”

He just nodded with understanding and watched her drag her feet to the other room. At first, nothing came out of there, but a few minutes later he could hear the water from the shower. Going into his partner’s bedroom, he looked briefly at the messy clothing laying on the bed, pushed them aside, and took the clothes he knew she used as pajamas and always put under the duvet.

After the water stopped running, he waited ten minutes before knocking on the door. After getting quiet permission to enter, he went in and saw her sitting on the toilet, wrapped in a towel, with her unseeing gaze focused on some point before her.

“Come on.” Keigo softly broke the silence in the bathroom and reached out to her with one, which she took. He pulled gently and, without saying anything more, gave her the clothes he was holding.

With no request for him to get out, he just stood in the doorway while she put on her sweatpants and T-shirt. It was strange for him to see her vulnerable because she always closed herself off in those moments. He knew it was important that she just let him be there.

“Do you feel… better?” He asked when she stood in front of the mirror slightly squinting at herself.

“Hmm…” she hummed, “Perhaps. Not any lighter, though.”

“Do you want to talk about it?” He felt like he was going through a field full of land mines. His training made him an expert at obtaining information, but he did not want to use his, masterfully crafted by the Commission, manipulation skills on her. He hoped that he was enough to bring her any semblance of comfort.

She shrugged and, after pushing him slightly out of the door, moved out of the bedroom and sat down on the couch, empty staring at the TV playing some meaningless show. Keigo took a place next to her, his wings hanging behind the backrest.

For a second, he cursed his lack of experience with human emotions. Of course, he was trained to observe and he knew when something was not right, but since he was never allowed to get close to anyone, his skills turned to nothing in the face of his love slowly getting pulled into the darkness of her own mind, all while maintaining the smile he adored so much.

After a minute of silence between them, the girl took a pilot and turned the TV off. She looked at him, the quietness becoming almost unbearable, but quickly, she broke it with a question:

“Do you really want me to… talk?”

And he just nodded.

Unable to look into his worried, gold eyes, she lowered her gaze. Leaning slightly on her elbows, she stared at her hands, fidgeting with her fingers.

“Well… I haven’t been feeling… um, really good, lately. Mentally, I mean.”

“Yeah… I’ve noticed. Should’ve said something sooner.”

She turned to him and put one hand on his knee, which he gently covered with his own and started to stroke with his thumb.

“No.” She opposed, “I’m actually grateful that you took more of a, hmm, silent-observer approach. I had space… but still knew you were there, somewhere, for me.”

“Good thing then that I’m not completely useless here.” He tried to joke with a small smile that fell quickly.

“No, but I am.” Before he could protest she took his hand, the one he’s been stroking her with, into both of hers. “Kei, Keigo… I can tell you what’s going on up here-” she pointed at her head “-but it’s just, so hard. And you have so much of your own shit going on… I don’t want to worry and burden you with my... stupid mind.”

He sighed, brought his free hand to the back of her head, and put his forehead against hers.

“You know I love you, right?”

“Yeah,” she said, “I think I do…”

She closed her eyes, letting her sense of touch be the center of her attention. She focused on the weight his head put against her own, the way his messy hair brushed her face and his slow warm breath felt against her lips. It grounded her mind, silencing (if even for just a moment) the annoying white noise constantly present in there.

“I don’t want to look at you,” she started, “when I’m talking. It��s just… I don’t want to be seen, only heard.”

Keigo shifted his head and gave her a soft kiss on the forehead.

“Whatever you’re comfortable with.”

She turned away from him, putting her legs on the couch to sit cross-legged. It took a few moments before she started talking. Organizing the thoughts and feelings plaguing her was not easy.

“I… I just feel so bad. And I don’t even have a good reason for these stupid feelings,” she said, sounding slightly annoyed, “Why the fuck do I feel like this? I have a home, I have friends, I have… you. I have everything I could hope for and yet… I feel so bad, so… so numb. What the fuck is wrong with me?”

Keigo looked at her hunched back and saw that she put her face into her hands. He wished he could just take all her troubles away, be the hero that he was supposed to be, but of course, he couldn’t, and that - he hated.

“I’m so fucking tired. I have no energy for almost anything. Yesterday, before bed, I sat in front of my computer for hours. Doing absolutely nothing… Why am I even telling you this? It’s so stupid. You do so much for everyone and I’m just dumping my shit on you… saying how tired I am, while you’re so much more tired than me.” She straightened her back with a dry chuckle.

He leaned slightly towards her and put his arm on her shoulder. She turned her head to the side and looked at him from the corner of the eye.

“Don’t invalidate yourself. I’m here and I’m not going anywhere. Call it my… bird senses-” he smiled a little “-but I felt like you might need someone. And nothing you do or say is stupid. Not to me. Not if it’s you.”

“You… remember?” She asked with raised eyebrows, after turning her body sideways to him.

“Of course. I remember a lot of things about you,” he said with such tenderness in his eyes that, while looking into them, she felt like she could suffocate. But it was good, it wasn’t nothing. “The quote you like, how you make your coffee, what is the song you listen to on repeat… everything I see and know about you, I remember.”

Pushing away the shame and the nagging voice, saying that Keigo didn’t really care, she faced him completely and moved close enough for her knees to touch his thighs. He could see now how shiny her eyes became.

“You can cry, if you want to.”

“I wish I could… no matter how teary my eyes get, it’s just… nothing comes out of them. But on the inside, on the inside, I’m weeping.”

She talked mostly with a flat voice, little change in her tone, but he sensed the grief deep inside her. Grief for herself, grief for her crumbling mind.

“That’s okay. It will come when the time is right.” He really hoped he was doing it right. That he was able to give any comfort.

With slight hesitation, she touched his leg with her fingertips before resting her palms to play with the fabric of his pants.

“I don’t get it. Why you are so… here. You could just leave and I would be okay… in time.”

“I told you that I love you, right?”

“You did, but still…” Her eyes became unseeing again. She looked through space with a spaced-out expression. “If I wasn’t here you wouldn’t have to bother, you wouldn’t have to worry.”

“Are you saying that you’ve thought about…” He did not want to end that sentence, too scared to actually hear it.

“Death?” So she ended it for him. “Yeah, I do… from time to time. But I don’t think I’d do it. Even if I think it would be better without me taking up space, I’m too selfish to just let go of everything…”

Keigo was a bit shocked with how calm she was. Death was something that he himself contemplated in the past, but hearing it said by someone he loved was on a whole another level. Fright and relief washed over him.

He took both of her hands into his and brought them to his mouth. He put his lips on her skin, not kissing, just feeling, making sure that she was indeed there with him.

“I… am so glad. So glad that you trust me enough to let me into your mind.” He made sure to look her straight in the eyes. His (just barely) trembling fingers squeezing hers. “You are my Sun. The most important star in my galaxy, in my whole universe, even. And I will do anything in my power to prevent you from burning out. I… I just need you like flowers need the Sun.”

She did not expect such a statement from him, it wasn’t really in his nature to make proclamations of that stature. But she knew it was on purpose, another thing he remembered: her love for the stars. If he loved her like she loved the unknown universe… It was almost overwhelming. She also understood the implication of his power - he would try to help her and if she needed more, he would get anyone more suited for this particular job.

He sighed and put their hands down (never letting go).

“It sounds selfish, doesn’t it? You need me and I say that I need you.”

She gently pulled her hands away from his and changed her position to sit on her feet. Leaning forward, she cupped his face softly, fingers getting tangled in his messy blond hair.

“Do you know what is it about us, Keigo? Why do we even work?” She asked quietly.

“Hmm?”

“We’re fake. Both of us.” He knew what she meant. “We’re fake to the world. But we know the truth and need each other to tell it.”

He said nothing, instead just embracing her, the words still echoing in his mind.

The position they were in was uncomfortable. His arms around her torso, hers around his neck with her head on his shoulder, both leaning into one another a bit awkwardly. Still, they both savored the warmth the other provided.

“I will stand by you all the way, as long as you want me,” he whispered right in her ear.

“You’re betting on a losing dog…”

“A losing dog...? Then I’m losing by your side.” He felt her slight smile on the crook of his neck. “I’ll wait for the day when you sing along to songs again…”

She lifted her head to look at him from the corner of her eye.

“You know, that’s a bit cheesy.”

“Maybe,” he said with a sigh, “but when you do it, you always seem happy or content. When you stop singing, the silence is almost deafening…”

She hummed in agreement, he was right, after all.

“Hide me away, Keigo,” she whispered gripping the fabric on his back, “Just for a moment, please.”

His wings spread to the sides before enveloping tightly the two of them.

They sat in their own crimson bubble, a safe haven, while his phone lit up in his pocket with a reminder of forgotten reality.

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thecarnivorousmuffinmeta · 3 years

Note

how do you think edward would react if he was in the same truck-baseball game time loop bella was in (either if bella was in it or wasn't, whatever you prefer)

For reference, that one time Bella's stuck in a time loop.

Are we asking to make Edward even crazier than usual? Well, that will surely go... interesting places. Let's do it.

Edward In the Loop With Bella

Loop One

There Edward is, facing off with James, Victoria, and Laurent, gearing up for the fight of his life as he realizes exactly what it is James wants and is planning and then...

Then he blinks, he's in the parking lot, Bella's about to be hit by a van.

Edward panics, desperately saves her life, and has no idea what's happening. Did he... hallucinate those months? Were those his lovesick dreams of having Bella for himself?

Of course they were, he says as he drives to the hospital in Bella's car, sobbing as he listens to George Michael's Careless Whisper. For Bella, this bright, beautiful, angelic girl, could never love a beast such as him. He desperately tries to put his love for Bella out of his mind, for it can never be, what they had was a dream and nothing more.

BEEEEEELLLLLLLAAAAAA!

Bella ruins this noble, romantic, tragedy in two seconds when Edward enters the hospital and goes, "You're not going to believe me, but I'm from the fuuuuuuutuuuuuuure!"

Well, Edward doesn't actually like that, makes all of this a little anticlimactic. He questions her extensively, tries to convince her that she's just hallucinating, she hit her head pretty hard, but eventually gives up. Their memories seem to match up exactly, he and Bella are actually from the future.

Edward's not even sure why he's disappointed himself, yet, somehow he is.

He goes home and gets to be the one to tell the Cullens it's all fine, he's from the future, Bella is too, they're not going to kill her because Edward's in love with her, can we skip this?

The Cullens stare, Alice really doesn't know how she feels about this, but we get a similar reaction to canon. Where Carlisle says, "Alright then... I guess this means no moving."

Edward sighs, for the first time, he doesn't really feel like going to Bella's that night. He instead sits at the piano, playing Chop Sticks, wondering why he feels so despondent.

Bella loves him, he loves Bella, they're dating, he has everything he ever wanted. Why isn't he happy?

He gets to school and Bella's very clingy and seems to want to pick off exactly where they left off. She wants Edward to sit with her at lunch, she's talking about visiting the Cullens as soon as possible, she wants to go on a real date.

And Edward realizes that he doesn't have to battle with himself to stay away from Bella anymore, he's done that. He doesn't have to rescue her in Port Angeles, Bella's not going. He's not taking her to the meadow, he's done that too.

Edward's been there and done that for all of this. This isn't even a chance to redo his mistakes, if he'd really made any, because all the things he'd want to do again involve Bella who came back with him.

Edward throws himself into dating Bella, trying to shake himself loose from this strange sense of apathy. Bella doesn't even seem to notice the difference in him, something in Edward... grows a little cold.

He finds himself to returning to his plans of how best to nobly leave her. Something he always acknowledged he would do, but before looked at with reluctance. Now he actively schemes when and how it should occur.

He should wait until summer, that will be easiest on the family for the pretext of "moving", and that way he can go to Prom with Bella. She'll get over him quickly, move on with her human life, while Edward watches her from the shadows.

Bella finally starts to notice that Edward is... distant. She tries to confront him, ask what she's doing wrong, and desperately throws herself into the relationship. That just makes it worse for Edward.

The pair start fighting, Edward insists Bella does not come to the baseball game, and just then they loop again.

Loop Two

Edward's back in the parking lot, Bella's about to be hit by a van. Edward once again heroically saves her, but he feels as if he's going through the motions.

In the hospital room, neither Bella nor Edward say a word to one another, both realize exactly what has happened. After a moment of silence, Edward suggests that, perhaps, what they need is distance.

Just a few weeks apart.

Bella says nothing.

Edward consults Alice, telling her what's been happening to him, and Alice tells him that as far as she can tell nothing is wrong with time itself. Her visions work as usual, it's just that Edward and Bella's decisions have changed.

Though, not the outcomes, Alice confirms that either Bella will become a vampire or she'll die. Alice suggests, hesitantly, that if this keeps happening perhaps Bella has to be a vampire to stop this.

Perhaps that's why Alice only sees two futures. Because any future where Bella remains human, they loop.

Edward refuses to accept this in a rage. This, this cannot happen, he will loop for all eternity rather than turn Bella! HE IS NOT A TOY OF FATE!

There's a fire in Edward now, he returns through Bella's bedroom window, and restarts their passionate romance. Bella's thrilled, the love of her life has come back for her, she cries tears of joy.

For months, Bella and Edward are back in the honeymoon stage of their romance.

They loop again.

Loop Three

Bella points out that they're still looping. This is... starting to get weird. Maybe they should figure out solutions to this?

Edward says THIS IS FINE, with Alice's words ringing in the back of his mind. Bella can never know.

Too bad for him, this is Bella's first guess. Maybe, if she becomes a vampire, somehow the loops will stop. EDWARD WILL NEVER TARNISH HER LIKE THAT.

Bella is very hurt, and upset, and asks if Edward will seriously spend forever, trapped in these few months, unable to move forward rather than turn her.

Edward desperately tries to convince her that these months are wonderful. You love being trapped in this timeframe, Bella.

He romances her harder than ever, only this time, Bella's the one that's not thrilled.

She and Edward have no future. Edward would literally rather be trapped in this utterly absurd scenario, never able to move forward with their lives, rather than turn her into a vampire.

A lot of fights happen. In desperation, Edward proves that they can move forward, that this endless loop is what vampirism itself is like, where time ceases to have meaning. He proposes to Bella, they will marry.

Bella flat out says no, she doesn't want to marry, and god marry while she's still in highschool? Can she even legally get married right now?

Edward... did not expect that answer.

The pair end up on and off fighting up until the loop happens.

Loop Four

This time, distracted by his own ire, Edward forgets to stop the van. Bella is crushed, Edward and the family have to hightail it out of there to not slurp her blood off the asphalt, and Edward is horrified.

He... murdered Bella. She's dead, because he allowed petty arguments to distract him. Oh god.

To his horror, the loop keeps going, and he lives in terror that it will proceed past the baseball game. What if Bella's dead forever? What if, rather than turn her, the only other way out of the loop was her death?

Edward's an utter mess, clawing at the walls, and the family doesn't understand at all because Bella Swan is simply a girl who had a tragic death.

To Edward's horrified relief, he loops.

Loop N

Bella remembers Edward failed to save him. She does not blame him for it, but Edward certainly blames himself and there's now... a wall between them that wasn't there.

Nonetheless, they try again. This time, they'll go back to the basics.

Edward eats her in the meadow.

They loop.

Edward keeps accidentally eating her.

It's horrible and then he realizes... it doesn't matter. It never lasts, he's a monster yes, but he always was one. It seems he's doomed to eat Bella Swan. And at least he knows she'll be here tomorrow.

And if he's damned anyway then he might as well enjoy it.

He starts eating her on purpose.

Soon, they get a little routine down.

Bella nearly gets hit by a van, Edward saves her life, they go to the hospital, Edward drags her into a closet, eats her, then throws her corpse out the window and tells Carlisle she committed suicide.

Such a tragic end.

Bella starts desperately trying to save herself, but it's all over so quick, now her life is endlessly getting eaten by Edward.

Given this loop seems to be infinitely long, and thus all remote possibilities will eventually occur, there will be a timeline where Edward accidentally turns Bella into a vampire.

However, Edward can't do math, so he hasn't figured that out yet.

In the meantime, now that he's let go of all morality, he's having a great time.

... And it's probably best we leave Edward looping on his own for another post. That got long.

#twilight #twilight meta #twilight headcanon #twilight renaissance #edward cullen #anti edward cullen #bella swan #edward/bella #anti edward/bella #time loop #meta #headcanon #opinion

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detectivereyes · 3 years

Text

I Watched the Leaves Go From Green to Grey

Summary: When TK gets anxious, he gets into fights.

Notes: for the self-harm square on my @badthingshappenbingo card, or my interpretation of it bc i didn’t want to write a traditional “self harm” fic yk

beta’d by @marjansmarwani and also s/o to loml @seaoflittlefires for providing her objective perspective and fixing all my past/present tense issues 💗

word count: 2.3k

read on ao3

If you asked TK, the first time it happened was definitely an accident.

He wasn’t planning on getting into a fight, and he wasn’t even that high. Instead he found himself riding out the tail end of a high in some dingy bar in the East Village, trying to numb the pain with whatever alcohol the bartender would give him with a quick flash of his fake ID. At only 16, he knew he didn’t look 21, but the bartender didn’t ask or didn’t care.

It started with a simple misplacement of his elbow, brushing up too close against the glass of whiskey belonging to the burly man sitting next to him. He didn’t even realize what had happened until he heard the glass shatter on the floor between them.

He started to stutter out some form of an apology but not before he felt a flash of pain hit his face, radiating through his lower jaw until his body collided with the ground. Though he was caught off guard, the pain he’s feeling didn’t feel wrong. In fact it made him feel alive.

He hopped back up, managing to throw in a few punches of his own until more of the burly man's friends showed up and he couldn't decipher which direction the blows were coming from. But with each punch or kick, he felt more empowered. Each freshly formed bruise serving as a reminder that he wasn’t actually numb.

He was here, and he was alive.

Fortunately, he had managed to sneak out before the cops showed up. Unfortunately, the bruises did not go unnoticed by his mom or dad. Though they didn’t press too hard, he knew he would have to be more careful next time.

He never forgot the outlet getting into fights provided. A way to not only relieve the numbness, but relieve stress and have the pain on the outside match what he felt on the inside.

He didn’t get into fights that often, only when the pain built up too much and he needed to let it out somehow. Or sometimes he used it as a way to just quiet the anxious thoughts when substances no longer did the trick.

Even after he got clean, he would occasionally find himself back in some random bar that he hadn’t managed to get himself kicked out of yet. Every bar had at least one drunk asshole who he knew would be easy to pick a fight with.

He quickly learned the right words to trigger the perfect reaction. He also got better ducking and throwing his own punches, and hiding the bruises that did form on his skin until his parents no longer noticed or worried about him.

When he arrived in Austin, he figured it would only be a matter of time before he found himself in a dingy bar on the outskirts of town, opposite of the bar the team frequented to avoid any chance of running into a familiar face.

The numb feeling and colorless vision was too much and Judd’s words only served to exacerbate the pain he was feeling inside. He attempted to fight Judd, knowing his larger frame could do a lot of damage and would do the trick. But he should have known the other man wouldn’t fight back, instead holding him close so he couldn’t do any damage until Paul broke them up.

As soon as the shift ended, TK all but ran into the Uber. The tension in his body wound up too tight and he knew it wouldn’t settle until he got in a fight.

The fight itself was a blur, but what happened next wasn’t. As he walked out of the police station with his bag of belongings and busted lip still pulsing in pain, Carlos’ words rang in his ear.

You should talk to someone about why you felt compelled to do something so suicidal.

Was it suicidal? He always saw it as a way to remind himself that he was alive, not trying to die. But he'd also never met someone who cared so much about his well being.

The police officers he usually ran into during his fights never seemed to give a shit about why he did what he did. And if the guys he hooked up with noticed the busted lips or black eyes, they never said anything.

Carlos checked both of those boxes, yet seemed genuinely concerned with what TK was getting himself into.

That was when he knew things would be different here.

And they were for a time. For a while the color returned into his life and the pain that he had grown so accustomed to settled into a dull ache that he barely noticed.

But like everything else, the good could never last. And soon enough the pain grew more noticeable and he felt like he was going to jump out of his skin. He needed to know he wasn't numb. He needed to feel pain. He needed to fight.

So he found himself in another dingy bar, much similar to the one he went to when he got to Austin over a year ago. He knew he shouldn’t be there. He had to call someone. But Carlos was on shift and his dad was on a date and while both would have probably picked up in a heartbeat, he couldn't do that to them. And anyone else he could have called wouldn’t understood or known what to do.

He knew what he had to do.

On muscle memory he ran through his routine, spouting out the perfect words to trigger the reaction he craved.

After only a few blows to the face, the punches stopped and the fight broke up as the cops arrived. He scanned the area, letting out a sigh of relief when he didn't see Carlos’ familiar brown eyes, and managed to slip out the back before anyone noticed.

The Uber ride from the bar back to his and Carlos’ home passed by in a blur. If his driver noticed the purple bruises likely beginning to blossom on his face, she didn't say anything.

He made a beeline to the bathroom as soon as he walked through the door, hoping that the damage wasn't bad enough that he couldn't cover it up. There was no way Carlos wouldn't notice, but if cleaned it up a bit and came up with a good story, it might not be as bad.

Flipping on the light switch TK frowned at his reflection. While there were a few scattered bruises all over his body, the worst by far was the one forming around his eye, already turning a lovely shade of deep purple. Above his eye was a short but deep gash, stretching across his eyebrow.

Well, that definitely wouldn't go unnoticed.

TK sighed, rifling through the medicine cabinet until he found the box of butterfly bandaids. He knew it probably would need stitches, but if he could avoid a trip to the ER tonight, that would be ideal, and these bandages would do the trick for now. He carefully placed two on his eyebrow, hissing at the contact as the wound closed. He then shut off the light and settled on the living room sofa, waiting for Carlos to come home.

By the time he heard the jiggling of keys in the door, a few hours had passed and he had nearly fallen asleep under the soft blanket on the couch. He panicked for a second, not quite ready for Carlos’ reaction when he saw TK’s face.

On impulse, he ducked under the blanket before the door swung open. He could see the light switch on and Carlos’ outlined shape from beneath the cover.

“Babe? What’s going on?” he asked. TK could sense he had stopped in front of the couch but was refraining from coming any closer.

“Don’t freak out,” was all TK could manage to say, and he could only imagine the confusion painting his boyfriend’s face.

“I’m freaking out that you won’t tell me what’s going on,” he stated matter of factly.

TK sighed before slowly pulling down the blanket and peeking his head out, giving Carlos a sheepish grin.

Carlos’ eyes widened in concern as he sat down next to TK, gently running his fingers over TK’s swollen eye. “What happened, baby?”

“Combative patient,” the lie rolled too easily off his tongue. “Woke up while we were treating him and took a swing at me.”

“I see,” Carlos nodded slowly. “And these other bruises?” he added, trailing his hand over the blossoming bruises on TK’s neck and arms. When he reached his torso, he didn't miss the way TK winced at the contact. TK hadn't even realized how sore he was.

“Must have fallen a little bit in the scuffle,” he shrugged.

Carlos hummed along to TK’s response. TK tried to get a read on what Carlos was making of his story. It was a pretty good one if he gave himself any credit, but he couldn't shake the feeling that Carlos just wasn't buying it.

“You know how people get when they’re caught off guard,” he quickly added, panicking when he realized he should be adding more details before Carlos could doubt him anymore.

Carlos though remained silent, studying him carefully.

“We’re here to help them but they don’t always realize that right away,” he laughed nervously, hoping Carlos wasn't catching on to his anxious rambling.

“TK,” Carlos trailed off, his eyebrows pinching together in worry. He knew something was off, and there was no getting out of it.

Before he could dig himself into a deeper hole, he decided to dam break. He launched into the whole story about how he felt so on edge after his shift and he didn’t know what else to do, which is why he fell back into old habits. Carlos listened intently as he explained what happened when he showed up at the bar and instigated the fight, and ducking out he could get caught.

“I’m so sorry, Carlos. Please don’t be mad,” he said at the end of his rant, still shaking with adrenaline while he waited to see how Carlos would handle hearing the truth.

Carlos sighed, gently rubbing TK’s shoulder. “I’m not mad at you, TK.”

“You’re not?” TK said, sniffling.

“No, but I am concerned at why you didn’t think you could call me. And then why you felt like you had to lie about it.”

TK shrugged. “I’m just kind of used to bottling it up, I guess.”

“But you should know you can talk to me about this kind of stuff.”

“I do! But sometimes it just gets to be so much that I don’t know what else to do and I need a way to let it all out.”

“What gets to be so much?” Carlos cocked his head to the side.

“Everything,” TK quickly responded, as if that clarified anything he was saying. He knew he wasn't making much sense and Carlos was trying his best to understand. But TK didn't know how else to describe the way he was feeling. Like a row of tightly wound string, one pluck away from snapping.

“TK, what happened that made you want to get into a fight tonight?” Carlos asked.

“I,” TK started to answer but stopped himself when he realized he didn't even have a good answer. He'd never stopped to consider the reasons for why he felt this way. All he knew was that he felt like he was about to explode and he needed a good way to release it. “I don’t know.”

Carlos nodded, and TK could only admire the patience his boyfriend had with him. The tears started to well up in his eyes and he took some shaky breaths as Carlos pulled him close into a hug, letting him sob into his broad chest.

“It’s okay if you don’t know,” he whispered softly into TK’s ear. “But I think it is important to examine why you do feel this way. And to realize when it starts to get bad so it doesn’t happen again.”

TK pulled away from Carlos’ embrace, nodding and wiping back the tears while doing so. “It just feels like there’s always this pain, and sometimes I don’t notice it but other times it’s so much that I need to do something about it. And I can’t do the other stuff I used to do to deal with it, but getting into these fights… I don’t know, it helps. Which probably doesn’t make any sense but it’s better than some of my other coping mechanisms.”

Carlos gave him a sympathetic look. “TK, it might not be drugs, but you are just as likely to get hurt.”

TK looked down, nervous squeezing his hands, unsure of how to respond to Carlos’ observations.

“It’s not healthy,” he continued. “I need you to promise me you will call next time. It doesn’t matter what time, or if I’m on shift, or I’m asleep. Talk to me about it. And talk to me about what you’re feeling all the time so we can try to prevent it getting this bad. Okay?”

TK nodded in agreement.

“Hey,” Carlos tilted TK’s head up so they matched each other's gaze. “I’m here for you. Whatever you need.”

“I know,” he gave Carlos a small smile. “I appreciate it, and your patience with me.”

“You don’t have to thank me for that. We’re a team, and I want to help you in whatever way possible. I love you, TK”

TK melted under Carlos’ soft brown eyes and genuine smile. “I love you too, Carlos.”

#bad things happen bingo #badthingshappenbingo #self harm #911 lone star #911lonestarfic #my fic #userjillian #userbones #tuserpaige #usermaximus #userjilly #userkimmy #moviegeek03 #also hey anon if you have an issue with this fic #you are welcome to discuss it with me off anon #bc that function has been shut off #so you now must show your face (so to speak)#but i am 100% open to hearing you out on what you think the issue is here.

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distinctlywhumpthing · 3 years

Text

Together 4: Glass.

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CW: explicit language and content, torture, captivity, wounds, implied sex work, strangulation, choking, suicide (hanging), suicidal thoughts/explicit planning, mouth whump description (bleeding, asphyxiation, choking), breathing, attempted noncon, bruises, beating, conditioning, dehumanization, noncon touching, drugs, alcohol, multiple whumpees, multiple whumpers, whumpee as caretaker, letmeknowifimissedany

August once asked what they do to me. Mouthed it, like he couldn’t stop himself from forming the words, but didn’t bother voicing it out of horror or just because he knew I couldn’t answer. I wouldn’t fucking know where to begin anyway.

Probably down on my knees.

At this point, our situation boggles my mind even more than when they trained me to be silent. That was logical when you psychoanalyzed it but shit got fucked sideways when August came into the picture. It’s just senseless now, an unending labyrinth of manipulation and control. Double the captives means double the fun. I was lucky to be alone for so long. There were two others before him but never like this. In the grand scheme of things, they’re all mere drops of water in the swimming pool of my time here. It was another woman first, although I never learned her name. She seemed like a Tiffany or a Heather and was really pretty, too but never trusted me. Wouldn’t even look at me, as if I wasn’t just as much of a prisoner as her.

Poor thing was in the wrong place at the wrong time and saw something she shouldn’t have. She didn’t last long at all. Unraveled faster than you can say, “Money’s on the table.” You’d think she’d have a little more grit. I mean you hear stories and can only imagine the shit they put up with in that industry, but it was like something out of an exorcist movie. Crying hysterically, throwing herself at the walls and doors, and trying to strangle the life out of me like I was sitting on a key. They came in and intervened but not before she’d purpled my neck so I could barely breathe. That was the only time they ever took the shock collar off. She spent the next bit catatonic and then one day when they brought me back, she was dangling by her own diamond-studded jeggings from a pipe on the ceiling, toes just a few inches from the ground. Damn slow way to die. They took out the pipe.

I’ve given it a hell of a lot of thought myself. She’d obviously been trying something similar with smacking herself into the concrete walls, but that will only get you a concussion that makes it feel like you’ve gone a few rings deeper into Hell. No, thank you. My choice would be the naked lightbulb on the wall, next to the door. If I shoved it far enough down my throat before it broke, I’m pretty sure I would asphyxiate before they could do anything. The key would be to bleed enough into my bronchial tube and inhale enough shards of glass to shred my lungs a bit. A little internal bleeding down my esophagus wouldn’t hinder the cause but certainly wouldn’t be fatal on its own, never mind the risk of just cutting my tongue and mouth to ribbons if it breaks too early. In that case, I’d be fucked. That’s why Wyatt leaves it there, uncovered, even though other lightbulbs down the hallway have metal cages screwed over them. Tempting me to risk it. He also knows that, now, I’d never leave August. I feel responsible and that’s why he holds my life in his hands. The torture will never stop and August is better off with me to take care of him in whatever way I can, even if it doesn’t even come close to reparation.

—

The next guy was probably mid-thirties and built like a truck. I can’t begin to imagine what he did to wind up here. He didn’t take to captivity well either. Everything they’d put into him, he’d let out onto me. The first time, he was angling to get a sweeter kind of release than just wailing on me. I was pretzeled around one of the legs of my bed frame, while he punched and clawed at me, so hell-bent on not letting go, I was screaming my head off for help despite the collar. If there’s one thing I know, it’s that Wyatt doesn’t like anyone to touch me. That went over like a lead balloon. Playing off his proclivity like somehow I had any right to decide not to be raped. Wyatt would have stopped it anyway and I could have saved myself the next few days of my bunkmate beating the living shit out of me undisturbed as long as he left it at just that. As soon as Wyatt decided I’d learned my lesson, or was sick of seeing me limping and bruised, that guy was fish food.

The second bed was empty for a long time after that even though I’m sure there were others. Wyatt has a list a mile-long of people he’d like to get his hands on for one reason or another, but I never saw them. Wyatt would still bring me out to toy with me in his usual ways. The buffoons would bring me out when he wasn’t around for entertainment but they know better than to touch me more than cursory shoves to keep me cooperating and even then, more often with their phones or other inanimate objects, rather than their hands. To them, it was endlessly entertaining to get me high out of my mind and mess with me or make me play Emma Fortyhands until I puked all over myself. I should have known Wyatt wasn’t wasting any time during this plateau of suffering. From what August says, he was here for a handful of days, maybe even two weeks, before they made us roommates. Wyatt just talked to him, drilling him for hours. He had been screening him, looking for the perfect match before binding us together in torment.

They always take me first and bring me straight to Wyatt. He likes to talk to me about what he has planned for August, trying to get a rise out of me. Like I’d be dumb enough to think that any amount of disgust or fear on my part would make a lick of difference for August. If anything, Wyatt would double it just for my reaction. Next, Wyatt makes sure I’ll make it through what he has planned for me without passing out. The humane thing would be to give me a second meal or something but instead, he gives me whatever his henchmen have lying around. An unpredictable twist added to my slow destruction. I’m lucky if it’s an energy shot or some gross drink that tastes like fruit-flavored battery acid and leaves me shaking. More often, it’s “just a bump” of something that makes my heart race and the whole session so unbearable I’m screaming in my head at the top of my lungs until I come down.

One time, he gave me a tab of acid. His favorite kind of experiment, the ultimate demonstration of his success. To no one’s surprise, I’m conditioned enough that I still didn’t speak and followed every instruction. That was, no contest, my worst day on this fucked-sideways merry-go-round. I was tripping so hard. Too slow and too fast at the same time, no distinction between myself and everything around me. Wyatt’s barbaric plan turned into a barbaric fuck-up. A small part of me understood what I had done even before I came down and when I stumbled out, I was met by silence instead of the usual dumb peanut-gallery comments. They threw me into the shower after, like always, but left me there for hours since I was still tripping. I was hysterical by the time they let me out. By some miracle, or just Wyatt perversely delaying the end, he had actually called a real doctor.

—

Today, Wyatt hands me a double shot of whiskey because it’s “cute” to watch me struggle when I’m tipsy. I knock it back in one swallow, not wanting to give him the satisfaction of knowing how much that frightens me. He finishes getting me ready and then smacks me on the ass to get me moving. Once I’m in the room, he starts feeding me instructions even though I already know what he wants from me today. This way, he’s in control of my every action, like he’s thinking for me, while I just focus on getting air into my lungs, fighting through the alcohol hitting my bloodstream and burning in my empty stomach. I can throw it up in the shower later if I need to. I just need to survive this.

By the time I stumble out, I’m inevitably a mess. Crying, shaking, and covered in sweat, even on the days I get the raw, straight edge experience. One of the baboons walks me to the small concrete room, empty except the industrial-looking shower head in the ceiling above the drain. The controls are on the outside of the room which is how they make sure the water is ice cold and stays on for exactly five minutes. They take the collar off and I get a bar of soap before they lock me in. It used to be orange soap bars that made my skin feel dry even wet. After that, it was green with the same problem but a stronger smell that clung to me all the time, which wasn’t half bad. Lately, it’s a white, rounder bar, that’s distinctly feminine, and leaves my skin soft, which would be concerning if I wasn’t already too balls-deep in my worst nightmare to care.

I used to dance in and out of the freezing shower while I soaped up but now I stay under the whole time. It’s the only thing that makes any damn sense anymore, the one small touch of reality in this shit storm. I stand under the frigid water and then shake and shiver once it’s turned off until the cold becomes a buzz on my skin and in my veins. Depending on the day, I wait for seconds or hours until they toss me a small, scratchy towel and clean clothes. The waiting is part of it. Not because I’m covered in goosebumps, muscles cramping so that I have to curl in on myself for heat, but because of what I know is waiting for me next.

When they finally let me out and lock me into the collar, it’s all I can do not to run back to our basement hole as fast as my legs will carry me to make sure August hasn’t bled out or gone into shock while they kept me from him. It’s all I care about anymore, helping him survive, making him as comfortable as possible. Honestly, it is the least I can do. It’s my fault he’s here at all, kept to be part of a set. Not to mention the heinous torture. If I had known, I would have done my damndest to kill him before it ever even started.

And I would have inhaled that fucking lightbulb immediately after.

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Taglist: @deluxewhump

#whump #whumpees #multiple whumpees #caregiver #hurt/comfort #mouth whump #is mind whump a thing #captivity cw #dehumanization cw #torture cw #angst #drugs cw #suicide cw #alcohol cw #emmas a badass #emma and august

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