#and not knowing if they lived or lie dead or dying somewhere on the cold hard ground

[kaelderdoer]

It’s over. We made it. We’re alive.

Cassian and Azriel from the A Court of Thorns and Roses series.

#the panic they must feel when the battle is over not having their brother in sight #and not knowing if they lived or lie dead or dying somewhere on the cold hard ground #acotar #acomaf #acowar #acofas #acosf #a court of thorns and roses #sjm #book art #acotarart #acotar fanart #digital drawing #cassian art #acotar azriel #brothers #embrace #illyrian #illyrian brothers #not meant as romantic

[clouds-by-me]

The scales of a savior

Characters ;; Freminet, lyney, and Lynette Warnings ;; drowning, blood, almost dying, wounds/scars, burning, kinda long(ig??) Word count ;; 1.5k An | this was supposed to be Sagau, but somehow it turned into this. Also this took so long to publish like bffr

Far beneath the land, past all of the lively plants and animals of the surface, there’s a cave.

Dark, and cold, nothing like an embracing hug from a loving mother. More like the emptiness of a grave site. Old and lonely, with only thoughts to fill in whatever sound is supposed to be there.

Water drips from the ceiling, falling into a larger body of water down below. The cave with a jagged ceiling and walls is full of water, that almost reaches the top, leaving a pocket of cold air.

The water is no different, however. The cold stillness of the water brings no comfort. It’s sends spikes of frost throughout your body. Starting at some unknown place within, then sprouting out to attack every part of the human body.

At the floor of the cave, broken statues lay as if it was a graveyard of bodies. Each one different, and cracked from its top to bottom. Parts of each were broken off, rather it’d be without its arm, or leg, its hand, or head. Plants grew on some of them, covering the cracks lefts behind on the statues.

Seven statues in total, all well withered and deformed to an hideous extent. The statues were hard to recognize, any detail that was once on the statues were now worn off, and forgotten to the darkness. Comparing the statues to the state they were once in, its a shame to see how far they have fallen. One statue in particular, however, looked worse than all of the other combined. The head of the statue was detached, lost to somewhere unknown, the abyss probably. Chips and cracks littered every inch of the statue, the only recognizable piece of the statues was the deconstructed shape.

The person that the statue imitated was a person who was tall. The body of that of a warriors, from the tight shoulders, and stiff form, it could almost be described as closed off.

Dead plants surrounded the stone figure, and hugged it, as if it wanted some kind of support or safety. The only thing it got in return was silence. A cold shell, drowned in even colder water.

======================

A blond diver swims alone, in the sea of his homeland, he swims. The water to him is a safe kind of relief on his body. As he uses his arms to move himself forward, he looks around. Ferminet has nothing that he is looking for, he has been through this part of the ocean many times before. The further he ventures, the less he sees however. The occasional otter or seal that typically swims around, is no where in his line of sight. Using his arms and legs, he continues to venture forward. The deeper he goes into the depths, the more he can hear. The sound of something talks to him in an inaudible tone.

Though his brain screamed at him that something deathly lie ahead, his body did nothing from stopping him from venturing deeper into the cold. The water cooled the further that he went, away from the brightness of the suns rays, away from the safety of the light.

His body moved as if being pulled on a string. He doesn’t control where hes going, he doesn’t even know where he is. The way the water surrounds him is a kind of surreal feeling. Nothing likes hes felt before. Though welcoming, his brain knows that he shouldn’t be going this far away from the surface, so why doesn’t he stop?

The water goes against his brain, and he feels his body continue to move as water seemingly win the battle. Though now far from the surface, he can still see. No light reflects this deep down, so him being able to see every jagged edge, every corner, every spike, comforts him. It’s a similar feeling that he gets when hes with his older siblings.

Soon he makes it to the bottom, where everything is sharp, and rigged with shape. He turns to look around, taking in everything bit by bit. It’s when he sees a stone surface that he finally feels cold. A shiver runs through his body, but he moves closer.

“vas, aude in custodia…”

The sound is in a language that he does not know, a song that he can’t understand. It doesn’t sound like someone he knows, it doesn’t even sound like someone’s voice, more like an echo of a song, in a different language. In a tone of music, but somehow it soothes him.

“Accede propius, Vas creationis.”

“Accede propius”

The sound is almost a muffled song, the closer he moves, the more sounds he hears. Yet the song has yet to grow any louder, it stays a musical whisper of the water. Seeing the stone closer, he now comes to realize that this is a statue, beautiful as it lies, covered in a think substance, more dense than the water that surrounds it.

The boys feels a cold shift, as he reaches closer, wanting to feel the material even though he was sure what it was. His mind had yet to agree with any of these actions, but by now, his thoughts had become something of the past.

Who needs those pesky thoughts anyway? They’re just there to make you second guess what is clearly correct.

When his hand grazes across the stone, he realizes that the stone is warm, opposite of the cold water that he floats in now. It feels like pyro, it reminds him of his older brother, in a way. The blond wonders if his brother would enjoy this?

The thought left as quickly as it came, no matter how much he pondered over the thought, he couldn’t remember what he was just thinking about. The warmth that radiated from the statue continued to grow. Alarms in his head started to sound as the heat continued to get much more intense, yet he couldn’t seem to pull away.

His body mistakingly believed that the burning heat that warmed his body was safe, though it was quite the opposite. The thing that prevented to cold from eating him alive slowly was now consuming him much faster-

“Hey what are you doing!? Don’t touch that!” The sound was clear unlike everything else under the depths. He didn’t realize until he broke from the water and was now breathing air, that somehow, he got away.

His lungs felt hot as salty water erupted from the pits of his lungs. He grabbed onto his chest as he heaved, and his torso raised and fell at an uncontrollable paste. For a long time his body burned, as he tossed and grabbed at the fabric, something wasn’t right. he couldn’t tell if the water that was in his eyes was the start of tears or the end of sea water.

The water that spilled from his mouth prevent any and all noise from coming from his throat, unless it was that unbearably harsh sound of him coughing.

“Hey! Hey!” He almost missed the sound of someone talking to him, by now he could tell that water was coming from grey his eyes. “I’m going to grab you, ok?” He couldn’t answer, and he was sure that the person, whoever they were, could understand that. His body was lifted and moved to a new position, where his head was propped up onto something wet, but firm.

Water brushed against in him in soft waves. Something was pressed against his shoulders, and as if nothing happened, he sat up.

=============

“How are you feeling?” His older sister asks as she hands him a cup and saucer.

“Better…” He mumbled with his head down. The feeling of guilt had washed over him so many times by now that he’d been drowned by it. He remembered both of his older siblings saying that they’d spent hours looking for him. They asked so many people of they had seen him, only for everyone to respond with the same pitiful answer.

“No, I haven’t, but if I do see him, I’ll tell him that your looking for him.”

They heard it so much so that Lyney had just stopped asking entirely. This left Lynette to have to do all the talking by herself, while Lyney looked around.

The only way that they were able to find him was because they heard someone shouting, and they hopped that whoever was making such a noise was their little brother. Only to find his unconscious body, drenched in water. His helmet was no where to be found, and his right hand had a make shift bandaged on it made of kelp.

“I’m sorry..” was the only words that he could mutter, he felt too ashamed to say anything else. Fearing that if he did, he’d somehow say the wrong thing.

“Also,” Lynette continued “I found this in your hand, did you find it while diving?” She showed him a scale, sharp, and shiny. It had been too large to have been owned by any normal fish, and was a unique shade of teal.

“No..” His words trailed off. Where did this beauty come from?

#x reader #gn reader #reader insert #genshin impact #genshin #genshin freminet #freminet #fontaine #lyney and lynette #freminet x reader #freminet x you #freminet genshin

[harcove]

One More Moment - B.H.

a/n: here's a little angst one shot for you guys as an apology for how slow I'm being rn with requests and a lil something while yall wait. I was super depressed and just couldn't help and couldn't write requests it I needed to do something so I wrote this instead. I hope y'all like it ilysm 💗

Pairing: Billy Hargrove x reader

Length: 1.3k

Warnings: Depression, grieving, death mention, Billy is dead in this, mention of suicide, suicidal thoughts lowkey.

The air is cold. It's the end of fall, and winter is rearing its head. Ready to take over and cover Hawkins in snow and ice.

Two things he hated.

He hated colder weather. He hated Hawkins.

Yet he's stuck here now, forever.

You blow some air onto your cold hands, stepping in front of the tombstone.

William Hargrove.

No one ever called him that. Not one person. Except maybe his dad sometimes. But even then, it was a word used to show hate.

To tie him down.

You always wondered why they wrote William, not Billy on his grave.

Maybe it was because it was his legal full name. Or maybe it was because his father never knew his son enough, loved his son enough, to write the name he always went by. Billy. A way to dehumanize him further than he had already done for eighteen years.

You didn't know. But anyone who knew him knew he never answered to William.

No one used to go to the cemetery. You used to never go to the cemetery. It's mostly older graves for older people. People who were at an age that they were ready to die. But more recently the cemetery started to fill with people who were too young to be here. People who still had lives to live, had people to love, had a chance to be happy. To change.

People like Heather Holloway, Barbara Holland...

Billy Hargrove.

Max had been there recently. You see the remnants of an empty cassette beside the stone. She had started bringing them.

No music on them. His cassettes were too precious now. Too raw to give up, even to his own grave. But music meant something. Those cassettes meant something.

It sort of felt like a connection between herself and the dead brother in the ground- one they didn't get to grow before he died.

Maybe one day Max can let his real cassettes go.

You hope so. It's what you're here to do.

To let go.

To try to let go.

You crouch in front of the stone on cold and dying grass. The fallen leafs from trees skitter around with the wind, performing a weird dance together. It breaks the silence in the graveyard.

"Hey Billy..."

Your voice is soft. So quiet, it's almost as if you didn't speak at all. His name sounds foreign on your lips, but all to familiar at the same time. His name is like a curse and a blessing. You could hardly stand to hear it, but the longer you didn't hear it, the more the boy behind the name really faded away.

He was fading.

And eventually, one day in the future, his grave would be another grave with a name no one recognized; one that no one visited.

You clear your throat, suddenly it's gone dry; it feels like you've been in the desert for months, no water in sight.

"How are you?"

He doesn't answer of course. He's not really there. Yes, the body six feet under is his but its not him. Him is somewhere far away. A place you can't reach.

But this is as close as it gets.

Be always hated small talk like this. But he doesn't have a choice but to listen in silence now.

"I'm..." you want to say you're good, but you're not. You aren't sure you'll ever be good again- it's why you need to to this, "okay."

Okay was safe. It was a non-answer. A lie but not a lie.

You dig your hand into your coats pocket, looking for the rectangular item in your pocket; when your fingers touch it, it burns- it hurts. But that's why you're here. To stop the hurt. To...

"I'm leaving," you say it like you're breaking the ice to your boyfriend.

In some way you are- he was your boyfriend. Is... Was. You can't date a dead man.

"I don't think... I can't stay in Hawkins anymore," you miserably offer to the grave in front of you. You're speaking to dead space- but you need to do it.

Leaving and not telling him feels like a betrayal. Even if it's a stone in the ground- it's... He's...

"I'm sorry," you pull your hand from your pocket, a cassette held tightly in your hands, fingers digging into it- you could break it if you're not careful, "I know Max leaves you empty tapes sometimes. But I thought you might like one with music for once."

It's a tape with a dozen songs. One that you had made with him long ago, in the beginning months of your relationship. Back when things were brighter, when the world around you was colourful and when life seemed to have some hope within it.

Back before Hawkins took everything you loved.

"I can't keep it anymore," the air leaves your lungs shakily- you can feel the emotions building up in your chest, begging to be let out. But if you did that now, you know you won't be able to do this.

And you need to do it.

At first you couldn't. Couldn't listen to it, couldn't look at it. It held all your favourite songs and his favourite songs which would subsequently also become your favourites. You couldn't even listen to music for a while after because it stung. It hit too deep, bled too much. It was something you enjoyed doing with him in his room, in his Camaro. Anywhere.

It didn't bring you happiness anymore; it only deepened the gaping wound that he had left when he died.

But over time you listened to it again. One song a day. Till you listened to it all. And then you listened again, and again, on repeat. In your car, in your room, anywhere.

The songs became an escape. One where when you closed your eyes and blocked everything else out, you could imagine in those minutes that he was right there. That he was laying with you. Or standing behind you and putting his hands in your jeans pockets pulling you close.

Sometimes you swore you could feel him. Feel his touch. Smell is cologne. Feel his love.

But then the songs would end. And your eyes would open and everything was grey again.

Everything hurt again.

Because he wasn't there. And he wouldn't ever be there again. You were only fooling yourself; using this tape as an escape from a reality you needed to face. You were fading away, just like he was, but you were still living in all ways that mattered medically.

Beating heart, pumping blood, functioning limbs, warm skin.

The other half of you was dead.

It would kill you.

He would kill you, even in death, Billy Hargrove was your greatest weakness. And he'd kill you if you didn't stop.

Maybe you should have let him. But he'd be angry. So, so angry. And Max too. Your family. Friends.

At what point did you stop your own hurt instead of stopping others hurt?

Closing your eyes as tight as you can, you place the tape onto the grave in front of you. It feels like a weight is lifted, but at the same time, like a new one has arisen.

It is pain. It is hurt. It is agony. It is a love that you can't ever express the way you want to because he's not there to recieve it. It is a darkness that threatens you and tells you this is the wrong choice.

But you need to. To let him go, to get away. Before Hawkins (and the ghost of a dead man) swallows you whole. Drowns you.

"Take care of it, please."

You know the weather will destroy the tape. Maybe it will find its way back to him wherever he is- wherever death takes you. You can't say where, you don't know where. Anything could be possibly considering all Hawkins had shown you.

When you stand and turn away, hand still burning metaphorically from where the tape had been, the wind blows a harsh gust. It goes through you like you're a rickety old house, holes and all, just a skeleton.

It's cold. But it feels like you're being wrapped up by the wind into a hug. For one moment, a single, fleeting moment, you aren't alone.

Then it's gone. Just like everything else. The wind dies down as quickly as it came, and its quiet again, the leaves settling. You're alone.

Hawkins couldn't have you. You wouldn't let it. No matter how much part of you wanted it to take you.

All you needed was one more moment with him. And that was it.

#billy hargrove x reader #mine #billy hargrove fanfiction #billy hargrove #stranger things #stranger things fanfiction #billy hargrove angst #billy hargrove x reader angst #amy writes #my writing

[banazirgalbassi]

I realize that if anyone reads this, they will come at me for my negativity, and seeing all the other peoples' opinions on the latest chapter has proven to me that I am definitely in the minority here, probably even the only one who took it so negatively. But I desperately need to vent somewhere, and I have no one to talk to about this.

If I hadn't been curious to see where the plot is going, I would have dropped BSD entirely at this point, because it's more than I can take, and the heartache is unbearable. For three years my only solace in life has been the character of Fyodor, whom I saw as a role model and admired him for his strong will and endurance.

The reason for this is that I am a person with many chronic illnesses, and to see a manga character who lives with a chronic illness, even such a relatively minor one as anemia and overall weak immune system, has still inspired me so much and pushed me to go on. It didn't even matter if he was a villain or a good guy, just that he was human, physically susceptible to disease and hardships, and that he endured them day to day and still accomplished so much.

It was the contrast between his fragile sickly body and his genius sharp mind that made him such an interesting character for me, one I've grown emotionally attached to and actually worried about his fate. To me his supposed humanity and frail health meant everything, and now I just feel robbed and betrayed knowing that it was all a lie, that he is not physically human, but some immortal indestructible entity that can't be killed and is immune to all wounds and hurts.

My last hope is that it is one of his past lives that is shown in this chapter, and a different body, not the one with which he was born in the present timeline. I am clutching to this one possibility. Please let it be his past incarnation, and he is just a human who remembers all his past lives. Or that somehow he fabricated false memories in his head for Sigma to read, and he is not immortal after all. Even time-travel would be a good option, just not... THIS.

Because that would mean that he was probably never a child, he doesn't require food or drink to stay alive, sleep deprivation or cold weather won't harm him, and he is not afraid of dying. He certainly doesn't suffer from any health conditions, because it's likely that all the cells and organs in his body can constantly regenerate, thus making it impossible to get sick and cease to function. Even if something can kill him, he won't stay dead and would revive sooner or later. That sure explains every strange thing regarding him in the story that I ever wondered about.

If losing a favorite character to death was bad enough, then losing him to immortality is infinitely worse, as much as I'm happy that he's alive.

I was hoping he would somehow be saved and survive the helicopter crash and recover gradually in an ordinary way, I was even prepared to accept his death. But it turns out he never even needed saving in the first place, and nothing ever threatened his life, there was no risk for him to die from the poison injection, no risk from all the wounds and the explosion, and he will grow back that torn arm, if it was even really his. He will just revive and come back to life like nothing happened.

Yes, I'm taking it way too seriously, and I should lighten up, it's just an anime story, and it's just an imaginary character. But he was my reason to get up in the morning and keep struggling. Now this reason is gone, and I'm completely crushed. My heart is broken. My worst fear about Fyodor's backstory reveal has come true. He was my comfort character and my coping mechanism, and now I have nothing left to hold on to.

Nothing suggested to me in the plot so far that he was not human, quite the opposite, I was led to believe that he was a regular person, with all his purposeful mentionings of his bad health and anemic constitution, other characters repeatedly calling him anemic, him saying he was afraid of catching a cold, etc. Now I understand it was all done deliberately to camouflage his true nature, and I should have seen all the subtle hints that I preferred to ignore.

I thought he had a complex and tragic childhood back in Russia that shaped his personality and motives. Now, regardless of what his motives are, all the depth and mystery to his character are actually gone for me, as he stopped being relatable to me altogether. The circumstances of his life are different, his mindset is completely different to ordinary humans, and he is now as far from all my headcanons as can be.

I thought that one of the main themes in BSD was the human struggle, exploring what it means to be human, the human psyche, and the ability to persevere in the face of any hardships with the help of friendship. In the case of an invincible character like this there is nothing to overcome, other than loneliness and boredom throughout the ages, but that, too, is different from what a mortal would experience. Even the overpowered Chuuya is still mortal and faces risks, even the regenerating Atsushi and the self-healing Yosano can still potentially be killed.

Why, of all the characters, Fyodor had to be the one to turn out immortal and inhuman? We already have Lovecraft who is definitely not human, Bram who is arguably not human, as well as Chuuya and Verlaine who are questioning or denying their humanity, but who are eventually proven to be human despite everything. So I hoped that at least Fyodor would be left out of this non-human otherwordly creatures category. Moreover, everything now seems to lead to him being revealed as the Antichrist or the Devil himself, which makes it all the more frustrating.

Here I was, simply hoping for a character I could relate to and symphatize with his daily struggles. Now it all feels like a big joke and a farce. All I thought I knew about him has been a lie from the start, it was just a fable I made up in my head, and I have only myself to blame for it. For taking it too close to my heart, for having such a childish and petty way of thinking, for exagerrating the importance of a fictional character in my life, for overreacting to this whole situation.

Yes, it's all my fault and my personal mental issues for which I need to seek professional help, I am aware of that. I will just have to learn to live with this pain and utter emptiness, the hole in my heart where there used to be some hope and comfort.

P.S. I sincerely apologize for all the harsh words and my bad attitude, and I hope it didn't trigger anyone too much. I will probably delete this post later.

And I know that I'm just jumping to conclusions and being judgemental when a huge part of the plot is still unrevealed, and I will be the happiest person in the world to be proven wrong in subsequent chapters, but so far I have the feeling that not much will play out differenly to these assumptions.

#fyodor bsd #fyodor dostoevsky bsd #bsd 113 #bsd chapter 113 spoilers #bsd manga spoilers #very long and pointless rant #very unpopular opinion #heavily self-centric

[bilbopaggins]

What’s your favorite sandwich and where did you eat it? A grilled Swiss and pesto. I got it at a local restaurant.

What’s your favorite place on earth? I love the Japanese garden/park near me

What’s one place you've visited that you never want to return? Kentucky

What’s the best show on TV right now? On tv now.. I'd have to say One piece

If you could only eat one food for the rest of your life, what would it be? Potatoes 🥔

What’s the worst movie you ever saw? Bee Movie

What’s the best thing you've read in the last five years? Cursed Bunny

What’s the one item of clothing you couldn't live without? My favorite shirt

If you could only bring three things with you on a deserted island, what would you pick?

2 books and a lighter

If you could save one material thing from a fire, what would you save? My my kitties' ashes

What’s your biggest pet peeve? When people act entitled

What is your favorite movie of all time? terminator 2 or clueless

What is the best concert you have ever been to? Radiohead

What’s the worst date you've ever been on?

I was still broken up about my ex and while on the date, something reminded me of him (my ex) and I started c r y i n g. 😱

Would you rather be hot or cold?

Cold. I hate being hot

What’s your favorite karaoke song?

Baby, one more time

What is on your bucket list?

Visit japan

What are you most thankful for?

My family

What is your biggest regret in life?

Drinking

What are you most afraid of?

Dying

What do you feel most passionate about?

Human rights

How do you like to spend your free time?

Playing a game or watching Netflix with my kitties and my partner

What would your perfect day be like?

Lots of drugs, live music, and sex. good food, good friends, and a bonfire

What does your dream life look like?

Married to my partner with a kid or 2 and a couple cats. I'd like to own a home and have stable income. I'd like to be able to travel a lot. I'd like to move away from the Midwest. Maybe somewhere overseas.

What is your favorite urban legend that you believe is true? If you hear an owl hooting, death will come soon (not necessarily for you but someone you know)

Would you rather live without the internet, or without bathing?shit bruh, I've got depression. I barely bathe now. Lol.I'd rather live without bathing.

What was the best decade for music?

Late 90s, early 2000s

Is it ever OK to lie?

Yeah, depending on the situation.

Who’s the most overrated celebrity?

Jack black. Dude, you're not funny. Just stop.

What’s the worst seat on a plane?

Anywhere that's not a window seat in the middle of the place.

What’s the most annoying thing people do in public? Exist

Are avocados overrated? They're eh, ok

Who’s your dream dinner party guest, living or dead? Sylvia plath

What would you do tomorrow if you won a million dollars today? Buy myself a house. Buy a house for my mom. Pay off all the debt collectors and people who've loaned me money.

Is a hot dog a sandwich?

No, are you kidding me?

Are you a dog person or a cat person and why? I'm a cat person because dogs are slobbery and gross and like to jump all over you. Ew. I love them but no.

Were Ross and Rachel really on a break?

Dude, I never watched that show and I never will.

Who is the most important person in your life and why? My partner or my mom. My partner is my best friend. He is the sweetest, funniest person and I feel safe with him. My mom is supportive of me and is one of my closest friends.

Who in your life most makes you feel a sense of home? My partner ❤️

Do you have a mentor? Nah

Have you ever broken up with a friend, and why?

Yes, because she was a raging bitch. She was mean and didn't accept me for I am and liked to put me down.

How many close friends is ideal?

Like 3

Do you believe in soulmates?

Yeah, I do

What is the best compliment that you’ve ever received? I like when people call me creative or compliment my sense of style.

What do you want people to say about you at your funeral? She was one bad bitch.

What is something people would never guess just by looking at you? I'm into some kinky shit.

What makes you laugh the most? My partner makes me laugh all the time.

Have you ever made a decision that changed your life? Dude, like lots.

What was the happiest day of your life?

Probably when I picked up the first Borderlands game with my partner. It had come out like the day after my bday and we both took a few days off to stay up late and play it and eat junk food. It was amazing ❤️

What’s your favorite thing about yourself?

My sense of style probably

What did teachers used to say about you on your report card—and is it still true?

Depends on the year. From grade school to junior high, I was great. I was really good and really quiet and got excellent grades. Teachers all liked me and said I was really smart, quiet, and creative. In high school though, I was terrible. I skipped all the time to get high and would show up to class drunk or high. I did that til I decided to drop out. My teachers said I was smart and creative but disruptive, rarely attends class, and I needed to apply myself more. I don't drink anymore but I'd say the rest is still true.

What’s something you wish you could change about yourself? My weight

What’s the most exciting part of your job?

I'm currently unemployed 🙃

What would you want people to say about you at your retirement party? That I worked hard, did a great job, and everyone loved me.

What’s the most important thing you've ever done at work? Stayed with someone as they were dying.

What’s your ideal work-life balance?

Ideally I want to be my own boss and set my own hours.

What’s the best piece of career advice you ever got? Interviews aren't just about potential employers interviewing you. You are interviewing them as well.

What was something you thought was a career setback that actually turned out to be an opportunity?

I got nothing for this one 🤣

What are the most important qualities in a leader? Integrity and honesty

What was your first job?

Server/ hostess at Steak n shake

#get to know the person behind the blog #get to know the blogger

[merelyspecters]

Before I Breathe

ao3 link

Hearing the crew’s frantic shouting, muffled by walls and the roar of water, Carson abandoned all hope of rescue. And as the screams were silenced, one by one, Carson knew death to be imminent. Or; In Weir’s original timeline, Carson drowns. He has roughly five minutes until then.

A Carson Beckett-centric fic set in the alternate universe Weir detailed in season 1 episode 15 “Before I Sleep.”

Fic under the cut.

Medically speaking, Carson knew the quickest way to die.

As water started to burst through the door’s seams, facts rose to mind. The average person can hold their breath somewhere between 30 seconds and 2 minutes. That, of course, doesn’t account for the training that every Atlantis candidate endured. Carson guessed that the people here with him could hold their breath for longer. Because he wasn’t alone, was he? He was flanked by two scientists whose names he didn’t know, names that he’d been looking forward to learning.

He’d been guiding people onto the ships. Radek had sent him to retrieve two stragglers in a close corridor, so he’d run without a second thought. Carson never anticipated the doors to slam shut behind him. Never anticipated the walls to start cracking. Never anticipated being trapped. But he was. They all were.

Hearing the crew’s frantic shouting, muffled by walls and the roar of water, Carson abandoned all hope of rescue. And as those screams were silenced, one by one, Carson knew death to be imminent.

Which brought him back to the method.

He could bend down and take a sharp inhale of water, going unconscious before something more unpleasant could happen—before the walls imploded and showered them in shrapnel, or the blunt force of waves cracked their bones. It would be swift. Effective. It would allow him to bypass the guilt he felt right now. The hippocratic oath may have stopped him from doing harm to others, but this was an altogether different story. He was dying no matter what.

The scientist beside him hyperventilated. “Oh my God. We’re dead.”

Carson snapped out of his mind. Right. He wasn’t alone. That changed things.

He couldn’t give up just yet.

The freezing water was up to their calves, now, and rising fast. Carson grabbed the panicking scientist’s arm. “Lad, what’s your name?”

The scientist’s breath slowed ever-so-slightly. “Brendan,” he choked out. “Gall.”

Carson looked back at the other scientist, and said, as calmly as he could muster, “And yours?”

“Eleanor Johnson.” She looked as distressed as Brendan.

“Eleanor. It’s great to meet you. You too, Brendan.” Carson used his other arm to grab her shoulder. In hospice, provide physical contact, he could hear his textbooks saying. So he did.

“When are they going to open the doors?!” Brendan said. “We’re so close to the ships!”

“Rodney’s working on it,” Carson said, injecting as much warmth as he could muster into his words. “He’s doing everything he can.” It wasn’t a lie. Rodney was doing everything he could. It’s just that he was focusing on those who could be saved. With the doors locked, the three of them were excluded from that number.

The water rose to their waists now. Goosebumps rose on Carson’s arms.

“I’m cold,” Brendan said, voice wavering.

“Oh, come ‘ere,” Carson said, pulling him in close. “You too, Eleanor.” As Brendan’s shoulders started to shake, Carson kept holding him, contributing what little body heat he had to offer. As Eleanor leaned in, he kept a soothing hand on her back.

The other screams finally went silent. Only the roar remained.

Eleanor started to sob, her tears mixing with the saltwater that surrounded them. “I don’t want to die,” she repeated, over and over.

“Neither do I, love,” Carson soothed.

This was what Carson had signed up for when he joined the expedition. Not so quickly, but he’d signed up knowing this was a possibility. And as Carson looked around at the city, at the lives by his side, he didn’t know if it was bloody worth it. He forced the thought away—if he thought too hard, then he’d start crying, too.

He continued, “You’ve done a good thing, here. You were brave to come out here to this galaxy, you know? You both were so brave. And I’m sure whatever God’s above will appreciate that.”

Eleanor laughed, hysterical. “Brave? You’re the one who came to get us.”

“I’m sure you would have done the same.”

They started to tread water, keeping their heads up above the surface. It took all of his willpower not to shove his head under the water and breathe in, get it over with... After all, things were only going to get worse. But he didn’t. Whether or not this voyage meant something didn’t matter—he would never know if it was worth it. What mattered now was that these were his patients. He was a doctor. That, at least, he could be until the end.

The ceiling rapidly approached. “Do me a favor, you both, and take a nice long breath of air,” Carson yelled over the waves, his voice strained. “Give Rodney time to open the doors. I’ll be right here with you, okay?” They nodded, hysterical, following his instructions.

Carson took one large gulp of air, and then it overtook them.

They all sunk to the floor.

Carson may not have been the most athletic person on the base, but he was a strong swimmer. On a fishing boat, you have to be, just in case you’re swept off the deck. And he’d been quite often. He could hold his breath longer than most… certainly longer than these two.

Brendan went limp first. 50 seconds. Perfectly average. He gave his arm a squeeze before letting go. The body drifted downward, leaving Carson to focus all his attention on Eleanor.

She lasted longer. As her eyes fluttered shut, Carson gave her one last comforting smile. She was forced to inhale, so Carson held her head, feeling convulsions wrack her body. Then she stilled. 2 minutes. Well done.

Now…

Now, he was alone.

Without anybody around him, Carson no longer had a reason to stay awake.

Wasting time on emotion was useless: he couldn’t even sob. So he forced away any thought of his family, his mum, and looked at the ancient walls around him. Underwater, they looked beautiful. Technology made into an art. Rodney would have liked to pick this all apart until it was just atoms, Carson thought with a smile.

But he couldn’t bear that being his last sight. After all, this wasn’t his home. Earth was.

So he imagined himself in a lake instead of Atlantis. He’d just fallen off of a boat... Soon, his friends would pull him up out of the water. But until then, he imagined fish.

Carson took a deep breath.

The elderly Weir continued, “...Because there was no failsafe the first time. Atlantis remained on the ocean floor. The shield completely collapsed. Water came crashing in, flooding every room in the city.” She looked at Carson and Aiden. Her voice was almost clinical as she spoke, “You both drowned while attempting to get our people into ships.”

Unsettled, Carson leaned back. His thoughts turned to the image of him trapped underwater... He shook them off, refocusing.

Suddenly, he realized he’d been holding his breath. He released it, breathing in.

#because i wanted more exploration of those alternate timelines and what carson was doing #if this were later in the series i think he'd hold onto hope until the end but it was so early that i think carson wouldn't know to #sga #sga fanfiction #carson beckett #carson beckett fanfiction #dr brendan gall #sga s01e15 Before I Sleep

[pips-squeak]

And All The King's Men

Maybe if the peasant girl’s brother had lived this would be a different story. Maybe if the king had pleased his people he would still be alive. But I can’t change the past actions of others, and neither can you, so I ask that you join me, and allow me to tell you a tale.

…

On a cold morning, a freezing one in fact, one with icicles hanging from the village house roofs, a young, peasant girl sat on the floor of her cottage and held her dying brother’s hand.

The peasant girl's name was Anya. Named after her mother’s mother.

Anya wasn’t looking forward to later that day, and she wasn’t in too good of a mood to begin with. I suppose that’s what shivering next to a dead fire does to a person. She would’ve been much happier asleep than awake, dreaming of fresh bread and the toy store with colorful banners hanging on the outside.

However, she would have to get ready soon. There was a ball to attend, and her family, consisting of her and her mother, as her brother couldn’t very well walk in his condition, needed to be there.

So, in a few hours, there was flying ribbon and curling of the hair, then pinning it back with clips made of fake jewels, and off to the palace they went.

I would like to be able to tell you that it all went off without a hitch, but as of recent I’ve made a vow as to not lie, so I shall tell you the events that took place that night in full.

First: there was a wizard. He had come to bestow a gift upon the kingdom for lending him their army. Thousands were killed in crossfire, so he believed it was the least he could do.

Something important that you should know going forward in this story is that the king was ill. He had no successor as he had no wife, none standing around him long enough to say their vows.

Another tidbit you should know: The wizard did not favor the king. And neither did Anya, but that is beside the point.

So, second: there was the stone. The wizard’s gift to the people of the kingdom that healed any wound or sickness. Many of the villagers were suffering from frostbite this year, as most of the men who had mined the coal had died in the war.

The game from the wizard was this: the stone was hidden somewhere inside the castle, and whoever found it could keep it, and only they could take advantage of the power, or suffer a greater consequence.

But the king did not like to listen.

For fear of you misunderstanding, dear friend, I will spell it out so that you do not forget.

The king was not a kind man. He was a feared one.

And the wizard knew this, and the king’s people knew this, and our little peasant girl knew this.

And when the wizard left, the king lived up to his name and demanded that whoever find the stone must bring it to him, under penalty of death if taken for oneself.

But Anya didn’t like this new rule. ‘It wasn’t fair’, she thought. ‘Why must we do the healing of you when you can’t afford us new roofs on our houses while you live in this castle with your servants in your cellar?’

She was bitter, to say the least.

So when the king dismissed his loyal subjects to go and find the stone for him, Anya searched, but she wasn’t looking for the king. No, she had others to care for.

Low and behold, just a few minutes after she set off into the winding corridors of the castle, she found the gem, sparkly, much more real than the ones in her hair. It was transparent, and reflected the light of the grand chandeliers.

As footsteps came running behind her, she tucked the small stone into a sewed in pocket in her skirts. She turned away and pretended to look busy while the person ran past.

A temporary but triumphant smile to herself, and then running past the other people searching, through the gates of the castle and back to her cottage.

Inside rested her little brother, frail, with pale, gauntlike cheeks that should have been a rosy pink from the cold.

She knew the rules. But she was also willing to make a gamble.

She brought out the gem, and her brother reached for it, small fingers holding it in a fist. Anya guided his hand to his forehead, feeling his freezing body.

Third: Gambles never pay off.

The effects of the magic were short-lived. All at once, the boy's body warmed, heat rushing to his face and hands and bones. And then it was gone, snuffed out like a candle that had just been lit.

His hand dropped, Anya’s hold being the only thing keeping it from hitting the sheets. The heat left, evaporated in an instant. And he was dead.

The stone fell onto the bed, now a dark, swirling ebony.

Shock rushed over the girl. And then cold calculation. And vengeance. That’s what I truly love about humans, you know. They are soft and caring when they want, some even by nature. But none of them can make it last forever.

Anya grasped the black stone in her fist, and with one last look over her shoulder, she ran back to the castle. She had a gift to deliver.

(taglist under the cut)

@indecisiveaesthetic @idkjustgowithitok @cupsmp @moonlitartist

#pips writing #writing #flash fiction #short story #death ment #long post

[rayofsunas]

s/o who dies.

A/n: listennnn, I wasn't going to write something dark, but then I unregretfully decided to listen to edgy/dark audios and I was suddenly in the mood to write this so yeah lmao. also, guess what? I'm planning on making a discord server right after posting this! so, be on the lookout for that when I get it all sorted out. also, note for Scaramouche's that the reader inserts tend to lean more femininely versed (I hope that's okay), the only reasons why I do that is because one I simp and I'm female AND two since I am doing a mini-series for Scara, I've kind of based his imagines/fics around that universe (baby daddy universe). I haven't started his yet, but consider these part of that series' universe. anyways as always thank you for requesting anon and enjoy! <333

Summary: you die + how the boys cope afterward.

Parings: Albedo/Gn! Reader, Xiao/Gn! Reader, Scaramouche/Fem! Reader

Warnings: swearing, angst, death, poison, illness/cancer, murder, arson, obsessive behavior

Word count: 2.1k

Albedo

"You need to keep this on your head." Your lover said for the one-hundredth time, placing the cold cloth on your forehead once again after taking it off only seconds earlier.

"This is pointless," You said, no longer wanting to ignore nor hide behind the invisible thick curtains of the obvious death sentence approaching. "My body rejected the medicine the first twice doses, what's a third time going to do?" You asked, knowing Albedo wouldn't answer; your hope was to knock some sense into his thick skull. but he was too worried trying to ignore the obvious as you had previously been doing, not anymore though.

This was saddening to watch, both Albedo's unfolding and the girl who accidentally poisoned you, whimpering into Sucrose's shoulder. She was only a young girl, barely seventeen when she was chosen to work under Sucrose and your boyfriend. She was very good at Alchemy and luckily had a desire to practice the craft. But unfortunately, she hadn't paid much attention when it came to Surcrose's educational poison lesson and had unknowingly mixed up poisonous liquids and materials.

After tipping over some clutter in Albedo's office and knocking over a test tube laying unsealed on the counter, you had realized the contents spilled on your skin, bleaching into your pores. You had been tasked with bringing the famed alchemist and his assistant some vials and materials for the collection of a rare butterfly they had found. It was both telling and obvious that something was wrong when you never showed up with the required materials requested and it was already too late hours later when the chief Alchemist, his assistant, and Alchemist in training came bounding down the stairs of Albedo's home laboratory.

It didn't take long for the trio to realize something was wrong. Sucrose had found the vile on the floor, most of its contents spilled and in a little puddle, plus your state on a nearby lounge chair was obvious; slumped awkwardly, forehead visibly sweating, eyes closed, breathing raspily.

You accepted the first doses of the supposed nullifying medicine without hesitation, just wanting the numbing feeling to go away. But when it never kicked in you decided it would be best to save the medicine, because it wasn't working. Your time was coming.

"Since the medicine is taking immediate effect, you should try to get the contents out of your system," He said, reaching out for you. Badly you wanted to argue that the medicine wasn't working at all, but he wasn't listening and already has his lean arms wrapped around your middle, helping gently lift and guide you over to the sink.

You hear materials being shoved to the side and soon enough you had your head dangling over the sink, shaking hands gripping the metalled edge tightly. Soon enough, Albedo's hand was on your back rubbing up and down, hoping to comfort you, it wasn't working though. You could only think about your death, what the other side would look like. Could there even be heaven or hell, maybe a place in between, maybe nowhere...?

As soon as you felt the urge to vomit, you did, and despite it being utterly disgusting Albedo seemed to welcome it happily. He took this as something good, but it only worried you when you saw the reddish hues in the bile.

"I think they should leave." You muttered acknowledging Sucrose and Elizabeth, the taste of gooey, metal only becoming more apparent. The blonde agreed, nodding and muttering "Okay."

As Sucrose lead Elizabeth towards the stairs, the pair heard you say. "Goodbye Sucrose, Elizabeth." Which only seemed to make the young girl wail louder.

You sighed sadly once the silence was back. Just your thoughts of death, and Albedo's slowly crushing heart.

"You should probably leave soon as well. I don't want you to be here when I go." Albedo frowned at your statement, head shaking.

"Don't say things like that."

Of course, he'd say that. Why did he feel the need to ignore this when it would only come back to hurt him even more later on when you were gone?

"You're the smartest man I know and we both know where this is heading," You said, head feeling much heavier than before. It was getting closer to your time. "I'm going to die, and you can't do anything about it."

"I'm not leaving your side. We promised to stick together through everything, you can't ask me to leave."

"I guess... But promise me this."

"When I go, stop blaming Elizabeth. It was an accident..." You said sincerely. Albedo wanted to make a fuss about it, tell you he'd never been able to forgive her. But for you, he would try. If it was your list desire, your last wish, he'd make it come true. Though it would be difficult. Accidental or not, she was the reason you were leaving him here, alone.

"Okay, I'll try..." He said honestly.

"Thank you," You said, letting out a shaking breath you had been holding for a very long time. Now you felt much more peaceful. "And since I know you stubbornly won't leave," You started, finally turning away from the sink to look into his cerulean eyes. "At least hold my hand."

"Of course, love."

even a year after your death, no matter how hard he tried, there was still this nagging feeling every time he looked at Elizabeth

he wanted too badly forgive her, but he couldn't

she had, although accidental, taken the one person that meant so much to him and he'd never forgive

Albedo is gonna be distant towards everyone he knows and it's completely purposeful

he doesn't like the pitiful gazes that people send his way and he hates that all the captains stared at him at your funeral

obviously, some questioned if he was able to stay in the field

he hadn't taken any time off, even when Jean advised he was welcome and that it would be best

tbh, albedo's going to have a hard time for a while

Xiao

Why did it have to be you? Why not him? He'd feel much better knowing you could live another day, after all, he'd been living a very long time.

But no, the fallen Archons, Gods, Yaksha had chosen you to join them. He wished that weren't the case

Humans and their pathetic vessels... So weak, he thought. Allowing something like cancer to beat them.

No matter how harsh it sounded, he didn't despise you, no. It wasn't your fault. You didn't ask for this. He just knew that if you were a godly being this wouldn't have happened like this or at least not so soon; Xiao had known Gods that had terminal illnesses to live years. Why couldn't you be like them?

He hated watching you lie there in that bed, immobile, sickly, and tired, and all you could say was that everything was going to be alright, that he'd be alright.

But it wasn't. He wouldn't be okay without you. He would struggle daily, fall deeper into a hole. You were the light of his life, the only light in his life. And you were gone, just like that. Turning external scars into internal ones tattered all over his dying heart.

Xiao for the longest time has been by himself, so the people of Liyue know it'll be harder for him to overcome this, no matter what he says or does to prove otherwise

Zhongli in particular knows how hard this will be for his friend

his first and probably last love, dead, gone in the blink of an eye

he'll continue fighting all the monsters he crosses, becoming even more violent when he does so, trying his best to get rid of this stupid sickly feeling of heartbreak

but it won't go away, no matter what he does, no matter how absurd

he just wants the feeling to go away, he despises that feeling so much

if you have a secret place somewhere, like in the mountains, Zhongli often finds him there, wallowing in invisible self-pity

"You know they wouldn't want you to be like this." Zhongli would say, only trying to help

but it doesn't

it only enrages Xiao, even more, fuels him to push everyone out of his life again instead of letting them in like he'd done in your presence

Scaramouche

How dare you. How dare you leave him like this. Alone, nonetheless with a toddler to raise who kept crying for her mommy. He couldn't do this without you, he didn't know how to raise a child, speak to her with the gentle care that you did. That was your expertise but now he'd be doing it solo.

And never again would he entrust someone who he cares about, into ignorant, incompetent arms. Never again will he ever allow any member of the Fatui to watch after his daughter; no matter their rank or position. They had one job while he was away doing business in Liyue. Guard your home twenty-four seven, accompany you into Inazuma's port town should you need anything, watch after his daughter while she plays happily in the luscious Inazuma fields. And they couldn't do that. All he gave them was one simple task, watch and keep you and your daughter safe. Instead, they slacked off, probably drunk in some bar while you were being brutally attacked by murderous mercenaries, left to fend for you and your daughter, only to die protecting her and leave your home to be severely burned.

He knew those idiotic Fatui soldiers were incompetent the moment he stepped foot into the harbor and found that everyone seemed to quiet down. Especially the eerily silent soldiers flanked on each side to welcome him home; he was the highest-ranking soldier in the land of Inazuma after all. Not a single one bothered to step forward and tell him what was wrong, what they all criminally allowed happen. Scaramouche only realized what had happened when he was mere minutes away from arriving home, his daughter had come running from his widowed mother's arms, the sight of smoke rising in the air, from the direction of his home. You were nowhere to be seen.

It all happened so fast, in the blink of an eye. His daughter was clinging to his shirt and his mother only stared with tears of pity.

It didn't take long for the puzzle pieces to be put together and before he knew it, Scaramouche was standing in front of his home, part of it burnt to a crisp and black.

He didn't need to ask what happened, he didn't need to know where you were, because he already knew. What he didn't know was who exactly had done this. But he was going to find out, now.

Incompetent, selfish, bastards. They would all pay for this. The lazy piggish Fatui soldiers who he should've never trusted with such a simple task and the thieves who had murdered you. They all had it rightfully coming.

Scaramouche hates the world after he lost you

he hates it so much and can't understand how this had happened

he's not a good person, so he blames it on karma and those stupid idiots who couldn't protect you

ngl, he's not gonna be around much after your death... his mother would argue that he should be here to raise your daughter, because she's also in pain and doesn't understand that this isn't some game of hide and seek this time

instead, he's focused and driven by revenge

he doesn't listen to a word anybody says, he's much more dangerous than before, and he only trusts his judgment

anyone trying to get him to stop his mission, is someone who doesn't want to see him happy he thinks (though that's not true at all. they hate that he is obsessive over this) but he will personally put a stop to that

and he'll only return home to his daughter and mother when he finds who did this and they along with their bloodline is exterminated

while he's gone, the remainder of his family is relocated somewhere he knows they'll be safe, for example, even though he despises childe, he knows his mom and daughter will be safe with his family

sorry, but Scaramouche will hold this deep-rooted hatred and love for you after you die

yes, he still loves and misses you dearly, but he hates you for leaving him alone, hates that although it wasn't intentional and out of your control, that you were gone

no matter how hard you tried to fight, it was selfish of you to leave him like this

he's not going to stop until he believes whoever was behind this is dead

and in his case, he'll stop believing when he chooses, even if they are innocent/guilty, he'll keep going

3.19.21, rayofsunas

#rayofsunas #genshin impact #genshin impact imagines #genhsin impact scenarios #albedo #albedo x reader #xiao #xiao x reader #scaramouche #scaramouche x reader

[travellingarmy]

║Scaramouche║Tsundere

From Wattpad.

Gender-neutral.

Fluff.

Word count: 1k

---

It was a secret and a secret shall it stay.

The sixth Harbinger is harsh, cruel, cold, and sadistic. That is the image he painted for himself so if he were to be caught dead with a lover, what would come to the reputation he built up himself? He is not one to show kind emotions towards any of his subordinates so he shouldn't be lenient with you.

"Are you mocking me?" Scaramouche snaps at one of his subordinates, looking down at the underling as if they were the most disgusting thing he has ever saw. "N, no, I'm not, my lord.. I spoke out of turn," they stammer, feeling humiliated as he is being scolded in front of you and other Fatui members.

No one spoke up, forced to watch the scene before you unfold. He was scary, you admit, but there was a charm to him that drew you in-- a charm that no one else but you know. "Tut. I have no time for pests like you," Scaramouche snarls. "Leave my sight."

"B, but, my lord, the Tsaritsa--" "I don't care what the Tsaritsa ordered you. I don't want you here." His eyes reflected his tone; harsh. "If you want to live, then you best not make me angry."

The underling quickly left, but not before paying respect to his superior out of fear, and to never return to his ruling. Once gone from sight, Scaramouche's expression fell to a relax one. "All of you.. Just go. I can't deal with this." He sighs, massaging his temples.

His subordinates turn to leave, not daring to say anything more to upset him-- unless they had a death wish or something. With one more glance at the Harbinger, you turn to leave. However, you were stopped by his commanding voice. "You stay. I have things to talk to you about," he beckons you back.

You could feel the uneasy stares you're receiving from the other Fatui underlings, but did not dare wait to find out what sort of bullying you'll receive.

Once gone from sight, Scaramouche sat on a fairly large rock and sighed, using his arms as support to lean back. "Damn those pests. All they are good for is being stupid," he states to no one in particular, closing his eyes.

You stood there, observing the short male silently. Then, "What are you doing just standing there?" he asks, his deep coloured eyes reflecting off of yours. He pats the empty space beside him, silently ordering you to come sit.

Once you did, he rested his head on your lap, hat off on the ground. "You're not going to ask for permission?" you joked, gone was your silent and diligent persona now that there was no one else around. "Shut up.." he mumbles, but after a while, he asks, "You don't mind, right?"

You chuckled. "Not at all," you answered, putting a hand on his head. "Good." Your hands began to move on his head, stroking his soft, indigo hair. He sighs to your touch and feel his shoulders relax.

Enjoying the silence, you thought back to when you were a fresh recruit that was assigned under his ruling. You were scared, honestly, when you heard other Fatui underlings whisper how cruel he was to his subordinates-- even going as far as to leave physical scars on their body.

However, you could say that you have gotten the shorty's amusement and even his heart. It was strange when he first approached you on your day away from him-- who knew he could be infatuated to a weaker person than he was? Well, none of that matter now. All you need to know- and he'll remind you again- was that you were his.

Honestly, you wished that you two could leave the Fatui and abandon your duties as a member, but you knew that Scaramouche seeks something that only the Tsaritsa could offer and wouldn't give it up for the world.

"Hey, why did you stop?" he asks, upset that you stopped stroking his head. "Oh, sorry.. I didn't realise I did," you chuckled. He huffs, but relaxed once again under your touch, closing his eyes as he does.

"Hey," he calls shortly after silence. "I'm not 'hey', Scara," you jokingly reply. He clicked his tongue at your one sided humour. "Whatever. Uh, could you.. Uh.." he trails, the words after the dying on his tongue.

"Hm? What was that, Scara?" You look down at the Harbinger, seeing his cheeks slightly tinged with pink. "C, could you, uhm.." The dusted pink began to brighten up, visible to you that you are sure that the light isn't pulling any tricks.

His eyes averts to somewhere else as he tries to speak. "Can you.. Tell me those words..?" he finally mumbles out. You blinked a couple times, registering his words but coming up empty. "Huh? What words?" you ask, hoping he'd answer.

"Y, you know.. The one where you.." He pauses, his face warm and tingly from the blood rushing to his face. "Like me..?" he whispers. It was barely audible, but you heard it.

Your lips cracked into a smile and you cackled. Who knew that he could be so cute? You laughed so hard that tears were forming at the corner of your eyes. "H, hey!" Scaramouche's face turned a deeper red, feeling embarrassed and wishing that he didn't say anything at all.

He clicks his tongue and turn on his side to face away from you. "Hey, hey, don't turn away from me," you out a hand on his shoulder, trying to budge him to turn him onto his back again

Your laughter now dying out, you stare at the shorty's side profile. Knowing that he won't look at you, you catch him by surprise by placing a kiss on his cheeks. And finally, he turns, face flushed as he touches his cheek. "I love you, Scara." You gave a close-eyed smile. His heart fluttered, but he wouldn't say that out loud-- not even in a million years.

Still having him lie on his back, he averts his eyes once more. ".. I, I know that.." Chuckling, you leaned closer to his face and instead of a kiss on his cheeks, you placed your lips onto his, catching him suprised yet again.

Scaramouche stares at you blankly, the wheels turning in his head visibly represented by his expression. You grin, making a small comment, "You're such a tsundere."

---

#scaramouche x reader #scaramouche #scaramouche oneshot #scaramouche fluff #xreader #scaramouche genshin #genshin impact oneshots #genshin impact x reader #genshin scaramouche #genshin impact albedo #kaeya alberich #kaeya #sucrose #lumine #genshin

[random-imagines-blog]

Love Peas {Hiram Lodge x Reader}

Requested by: Anonymous Wordcount: 1894 Summary: Hiram comes home after a very rough night. Notes: Mentions of death

Shifting under the covers, you heard a noise coming from downstairs. The house was usually quiet save for the murmur of the appliances and electronics, a sound that you had gotten used to over the months of living here with your boyfriend, Hiram. So each and every footstep on the ground sounded like a racket. You laid still, expecting the security system to trigger, saying that there was an intruder, but it did no such thing. The power was still on, you could hear the hum still, that little electrical buzz that was your constant background noise. So that meant whoever was in your house had the keycode. Hiram.

There was even more clamor from downstairs. A groaning sound. Now you knew for sure it was Hiram. You’ve heard him, unfortunately, be in pain on more than one occasion through your relationship. It was the price that he paid for being in the ‘business’ that he was.

You swept the blankets off of you, your bare feet touching the cold wooden floor. You pulled your robe closed over your pajamas as you made your way quickly to the door, through the hallway, and then started down the stairs to see what the damage was this time. You were always terrified that he was going to come home covered in blood, battered beyond repair. That you were going to hold him and hear nothing but the death rattle right before he would be gone. It was a scene that ran through your nightmares. A scene that if it were in front of you, you were ill-prepared to deal with.

There was nothing lazy, or just-woken up about your movements. Foot descending after foot on the runner of the stairs, keeping the chilliness of the hard floors at bay. Through the moonlight coming in through the windows, you were able to see a form just slipping out of the foyer, making it’s way to the kitchens. “Hiram?" You asked, reaching the bottom of the staircase and turning to follow. He was hurt, though there was no blood on the floor. There wasn’t a trail leading after him. But by the way that his leg was sliding behind him, it looked like it was broken at the very least. You flicked the switch and the kitchen came to life with bright lights, revealing everything. Under those florescent s, there was no room to hide.

Though Hiram was trying pretty hard to hide.

He sat down on the floor, head leaning back against the wooden cabinets. He was bruised, but that was an understatement. He was severely bruised. Black eye. Split lip. His usually perfect hair was tousled in a not-unattractive way but the very fact that he hadn’t immediately took a come to it scared you a little. If that was the state of his face, you were very concerned about the rest of him. You got down on your knees next to him, ignoring the discomfort, nervous to even touch him. He looked like he would break if he did.

“I can explain...” Hiram started off by saying, but then realized that he wasn’t going to be able to talk his way out of this one. He’d look up into your face, and then would immediately try to cut off the eye contact, looking down at the ground instead.

“I think this is going a bit beyond the first aid box’s capabilities,” You winced upon seeing the other side of his face. Oh lord, even that eye was starting to swell up. He was close to being a human bruise at this point. That poor, gorgeous face of his. “Maybe we should get you to a hospital. Is anything broken? How did you get home?”

“Cab,” Hiram admitted, ignoring your first question. “The driver was - taking care of things while I left.”

“Christ, Hiram,” You groaned. You got up to your feet, dashing towards the bathroom to get the first aid kit that was in there. The amount of times that you had to replace this thing. The pharmacy probably thought that you were in an abusive relationship. You came back to see that he hardly moved, other than to wipe a bit of blood that was coming from the deep cut in his bottom lip. You sat back down beside him, opened up the first aid kit, tore into a package that contained an alcohol wipe and started to blot.

“Do we got any ice packs?” Hiram moaned. You stood up to go and check, looking through the contents of the freezer. You rummaged past the frozen vegetables, frozen pizzas, bottles of alcohol to find that - no, there were no ice packs in the freezer.

“Have to do with some vegetables,” You said, grabbing a bag of frozen peas. You held it up to his face, pressing it as tenderly as you could against the rougher looking eye. He hissed, and brought his hand up to grab it, only to show you how damaged that looked too. Bloody knuckles were the least of his worries. “We’re going to have to get that looked at,” You said, pointing towards his hand.

“It’s fine,” He muttered, letting it rest on the bag, which was resting on his face. It looked like it hurt. You didn’t know how he wasn’t crying out for a hospital. You would be if you sustained even half of those injuries.

“As much as we love peas in this house, I don’t think they’re going to be granting you any miracles,” You said, and went back to dabbing with the alcohol wipe. “Your lip is going to need stitches. The cuts too big. It won’t heal right.” “So call my Doctor,” Hiram growled, grumpily. By instinct, you slapped the top of his thigh, making him gasp out in pain and drop the frozen bag onto the ground. It broke open, the little green vegetables scattering across the tiled floor.

“I don’t care how hurt you are, you don’t talk to me like that,” You said, shaking your finger in his face. “I’m just worried about you. I don’t know how many more of these you can take before you have some serious internal injuries. Even Houdini died from a punch to the stomach, and you’re not nearly as good at escaping trouble as he is.”

“Mi amor, comparing me to a dead man,” Hiram groaned, pushing peas off of his lap. You got up again, your legs getting a work out from all of the squats that you were doing tonight, and grabbed another bag of frozen peas. It was weird that there were so many, but even rich people buy stuff that’s on sale sometimes. It’s how you stayed rich.

“You keep this up and you will be a dead man,” You quipped, putting the fresh bag on his face, holding it this time instead of letting him do it. “At least let me look at you, please?”

He finally gave a nod, and you slowly lifted his shirt to see all of the markings and bruises that were on his abdomen. His torso looked like a Jackson Pollock painting with the different shades of colors everywhere. You winced, bringing the shirt back down. You really hated seeing him look like this. You’ve been pleading with him to retire since the last time that he had received a beating like this. Or at the very least, hire someone younger to take his place in these fights. He was getting too old for this. “You should see the other guys,” He quipped.

“I don’t doubt it. And what were they - half your age?” You asked, raising an eyebrow, moving the bag from one eye to the other. “Hiram, my love, don’t you think it’s about time that you think about retiring? We can move away from Riverdale. We can get a spot on the beach somewhere, where it never snows. Where it’s never warm. Where the only damage you have to worry about is getting too much sun. Getting burned. But I’ll take care of you and always put sunscreen on you. Aloe vera if you do end up getting burned. Just - think about it, okay? For me?”

“I can’t give up my business like that,” Hiram shook his head, not even considering the possibility. You sighed. You knew that was going to be his answer. You hadn’t been expecting anything else. And yet you were still disappointed. As per usual. “I cannot be seen as weak or everything that I’ve done so far will have been for nothing. All of that work. I can’t pull out yet.”

“Of course you can’t,” You sighed. “At the very least, can you plan on it in the future? I don’t want to be putting this bag on your eyes when you’re well into your seventies.”

“Do you think we’ll still love peas then, mi amor?” He asked, breaking into a smile despite what must be a lot of pain, especially in his lip area.

“I think the better question is will I still love you them,” You teased. pressing a kiss onto one of the few parts of his face that wasn’t mottled with bruises. “But yes, to both. These are lovepeas, don’t you know. Rumor says that if you put them on the black eye of the person that you love, you’ll be together until the ends of the Earth. Or until there are no more peas. But given how the bees are dying out, that might not even be until the ends of the earth.”

“And your creativity is why I love you, and why I always come home,” Hiram said, taking your wrists around his hands. You smiled gently, loving that he cared about the weird side of you. Not just the well made-up person who was always by his side at work events. He always had a way of making you feel like you were someone special. Someone worth adoring.

Now if only you could actually get him out of the criminal business and move somewhere like Mexico where you can lie on the beach together.

“Do you love me enough to let me leave for a moment to call the Doctor? I am worried about this lip of yours. I need it stitched up and better so I can kiss you again.”

“Yes, I suppose I love you that much.” His thumbs would rub at the underside of your wrists for a moment, and then he would gently release you so you could get up and walk back to the bedroom where your cellphone was waiting. Even leaving him that long seemed like an eternity. You called the doctor while you were on your way back down the stairs, hanging up as you entered the kitchen, just in time to see Hiram picking one of the frozen peas off of the ground and popping it into his mouth.

“What are you doing?” You asked, going for the broom and dustpan to finally clean that mess up.

“Oh, I thought these were the feel-better peas. You eat a couple and then you feel all better until the end of time?” He’d ask, showing his very rare funny side. You laughed and shook your head.

“Let me clean these up then I’ll get you to your chair. The doctor is on his way.”

#Hiram Lodge #Hiram Lodge x reader #Hiram Lodge oneshot #Riverdale #Riverdale oneshot #oneshot #one shot #request #hiraml #x reader

[sprnklersplashes]

fic based on the theory that sarah fier was the one to bring ziggy back, not nick/the devil (I thought this was gonna be much shorter than it is oops)

“Just let my sister live.” 

The voice comes to her, faded, far away, but she hears it. Hears it because someone called out to her, which no-one has done in centuries, except to make fun of her. To mock her, smear her as the with they call think she is. But not this one. This one doesn’t mock her. She begs her.

“Just let my sister live!”

The picture comes into focus in front of Sarah’s eyes, as if it’s the first thing she sees waking up. Two girls, one small with flame coloured hair, one taller and covered in dirt, clutching Sarah’s own hand. Her throat is raw from screaming, her legs weak from running. Sarah can feel it in her spirit, the girl’s hand on the bone sharing her feelings with her. Weak, exhausted, and so, so scared. Not for her, but for the girl beside her, who turns helplessly in all directions.

It’s then Sarah realises the girls aren’t alone. Coming at them from all sides are... them. The people the Goodes have cursed. Cold skin, lifeless eyes, blackened hearts. Her own heart breaks when she sees them, her stomach twisting at the injustice.

William. Harry. Ruby. And now Thomas, the latest soul to be stolen by the Goodes. 

She tried. It’s been so long since someone found her hand. She tried to show them what Solomon had done those years ago, her promise bound to her bones, but it was for nothing. Her hand is small, her body incomplete, and so whatever powers she’s managed to gain here are feeble, and no match for the Goodes and their deals. They’re ahead of her, again, and she can’t do anything to stop them. Can’t stop as the older girl, Cindy, her sister calls her, runs towards what was Thomas Slater, can’t save the red-haired girl from the knife that pierces her gut. She watches, forces herself to watch, as their respective killers hit them again and again. Knife in the side, axe in the chest. The picture grows stronger as the girls’ breaths grow weaker, the veil between this life and theirs growing thinner. Sarah feels grass beneath her bare feet, the sound of the young girl’s scream attacking her ears. Of course. Life. Death. They’re such strange concepts, and soon the girls will be making the same journey she did. At the hands of the Goodes.

And she will welcome them, and is prepared they will hate her.

The young girl moans, and Sarah can feel her life ebbing away. She may be the first to go. So young, both so young. Her sister’s body shakes of its own accord as the axe hits her again, scarlet blood spurting from her mouth, staining her pretty face.

No, she screams, but her words are a mere breeze. She runs at Thomas, runs at Harry, to try to hold them back, but she is nothing. If they feel anything, they feel a slight chill, and it does nothing to them. She falls to the ground, her limbs aching from this one attempt, and failure creeps up on her again. She can’t save them. She can’t save anyone.

“Nothing will pull us apart,” Cindy promises her sister just before the axe hits her chest again.

“Never...” The young girl gasps. “Again.” The knife hits her side once more, then a final time. Her chest stammers, flutters, and Sarah watches the life flee her body.

It’s over. They’re over.

The killers disappear, vanishing back to the underground cave, their souls trapped until they’re needed again. And the girls lie on the grass, their hands reaching out to each other, never to touch in this life. 

Sarah sits and waits to greet them.

Until someone else comes running in. He runs right through her, and she feels the darkness in his blood immediately. A Goode. One who has already taken on his family’s legacy. She retches at the sight of him, although nothing comes out. This is the boy, the man, who sold Thomas Slater. Whose hands are stained with the blood of all those innocents. And who now, leans over the corpse of his victim, and begs her not to die.

The irony is enough to make Sarah smile.

“Ziggy? Ziggy don’t die on me, okay?” he begs, clutching her cold face in his hands. Sarah’s jaw clenches. She knows love when she hears it. The Goodes are monsters, but they are human, and humans love. But this love isn’t pure, not like her and Hannah. There’s a sting to it, in his desire

“What’s going on?”

Sarah turns, her blood cold at the sound of the voice. The smaller girl, Ziggy, stands before her, blinking blearily as if half asleep. It’s common for those who just crossed over, especially if it was before their time. Sarah’s experienced far more of that then she’d have liked to. It will take minutes, hours for young Ziggy to fully cross over.

Let my sister live! Cindy’s voice echoes in Sarah’s mind, her plea to her. She turns back around, sees Nick still desperately trying to save her, sending out a plea of his own, not to God. Somewhere, wherever he is, the Devil is no doubt pondering his wish, whether he will let Ziggy go or keep her blood for himself.

“No.” Her voice is small, rusty from disuse, but it’s strong, and she shouts again “No!”. She tilts her head to the sky and screams at it, screams at the Goodes and the Devil, “You will not have her! You will not have her!”

The sky opens up, rain falling right through her. If it is the Devil’s reply, she laughs at it, and she grabs young Ziggy by the arm. Her eyes still flutter, her gaze unfocussed, her form not fully here, as if sketched in in pencil. There is still time, if she acts fast.

“Wh-what?”

“They will not have you,” she tells Ziggy, even if she can’t hear her. “Your sister begged for you to live, and live you shall.”

She pulls her towards her body, where Nick Goode still tries to breathe life into her. It’s just steps away, but it feels like miles, her legs shaking with each move she makes. The Devi holds her back, unwilling to let go of his prize. Another dead Shadysider to add to his collection. Another innocent soul, demed unworthy by those in power. He wraps his arms around her, pulls them both away from her body, refusing to let his prize go.

“Not... today,” she pants. Her hand tightens around Ziggy, who blinks in confusion. She’s still not here, she still has time. Cindy’s begging rings in her ears, rings all around them. 

Just let my sister live!

“Not. Today.” She pulls herself and Ziggy the last few steps, drags her until she is beside her body. Her own will pulls the two of them forward, the centuries of hurt burning like a furnace, but it’s something else, one key ingredient that pushes her over the edge. A sister’s love, so pure and steadfast, that it holds the veil back just those seconds more. She can’t see the Devil, but she knows he is here, and she snarls at him. “Not. Her!”

She turns to Ziggy, watches the girl’s eyes open and close slowly, her lips trying clumsily to speak. She won’t remember this at all, and Sarah is glad of it. God only knows what will become of her for now, but she’s fulfilled her promise to her sister.

“I’m sorry,” she whispers, and she pushes her back across.

Just before she disappears again, she sees her eyes open, her pained gasps for air. She can’t be sure if she did the right thing, saving her. Some say surviving a tragedy is worse than dying in it. She wouldn’t know. All she knows is the Devil has one less person’s blood to feed on now, but the curse remains still.

A half-victory.

“Where am I?” Sarah turns, slowly, and isn’t surprised to see Cindy behind her. She wears the same clothes she died in, but now free from blood and, whatever it was she was covered in. Sarah suspects she doesn’t want to know. She looks up at her, eyes wide and terrified, like an animal cornered by a hunter. “Who are you?”

“My name is Sarah,” she begins, but the words stick in her throat. She’s had enough of explaining herself, and only being believed half the time. Had enough of people sapping her, screaming at her, cursing her, for something she never did. “Sarah Miller.”

“Oh. Um, hi.” The young girl looks at herself, looks at the limbo surrounding them. Realisation dawns on her face, memory after memory coming back to her, and she drops to the floor, her hands pressed to her mouth to hold back her scream.

“Am I... dead?” she asks, finally. Sarah only nods and kneels beside her. She listens to Cindy’s muffled sobs, the slowly building shrieks of agony, and she lets her do what she needs before showing her where to go. It’s easy to see where this girl will end up, and at least she’ll have some peace.

“My... my sister?” she asks. “Where-where’s my sister?”

“She’s alive,” Sarah tells her. Cindy goes weak with relief, falling into Sarah’s arms and sobbing, muttering “Ziggy’s alive” under her breath. 

Sarah wishes she can do more. Wishes she could say Ziggy will be okay, that Shayside will be okay, that this whole horrible saga is finally over. But she can’t. Because the Goodes were too powerful, again, and even as her hand tightens on them, theirs does on Shadyside. All Sarah can do is hold Cindy until they go to where they need to go, and hopes that the next time someone finds her, she can do more.

Hopes that one day, she can show them what was done.

#fear street #fear street fanfic #sarah fier #cindy berman #ziggy berman #fear street 1978 #THIS WAS MEANT TO BE A SHORT LIL THING BEFORE BED AND 40 MINUTES LATER HERE I AM #OOPSIE DAISY

[jerakeenc]

april recs (10)

If it Must End So by lindoreda

Hobbit | Thorin/Bilbo | Mature | 48,860 words

After hearing the last words of a fatally wounded Thorin Oakenshield, Belladonna Baggins flees Erebor before he's cold in his grave. Before he's even in his grave, really. Which, as it turns out, is a mistake, for he is neither dead nor dying, and does not appreciate having to go all the way back to the Shire to get her back.

Soft and beautifully written. Lovely read.

All that I ever was by seren_ccd

Hobbit | Thorin/Bilbo | Teen | 33,120 words

“You’ve spent the last however many months barely able to look at me without scowling and now you’re paying me compliments simply because I rushed in and did something utterly moronic and dangerous," Bilbo said. "It doesn’t follow.”

“It does if you’re a dwarf,” he said beginning to grin.

Fem!Bilbo/Thorin have a conversation. Quite possibly their first actual conversation. Set post-eagle flight and the battle with Azog. UST.

Glorious banter, loved it

nine lives by foghornjazz

Witcher | Geralt/Jaskier | Mature | 75,500 words

They say cats have nine lives, but truthfully, Jaskier has long lost count of his.

Jaskier has always been very good at playing pretend. It gets harder, after Geralt’s harsh words on the mountain. It gets harder still when he has to save a rogue Wolf and his Child Surprise from Nilfgaard’s gathering forces.

Witcher!Jaskier is a trope that I don't ever particularly buy but this fic came the closest so far. Great writing. (Warning for SO MUCH death.)

Three Steps from the Sky by bunnyofnegativeeuphoria

Witcher | Geralt/Jaskier | Mature | 30,500 words

When the days shorten and the trees shrug off their rusty coats Jaskier knows it is time to head towards Oxenfurt. They are somewhere in Temeria on their way to the little village of Anchor. Any day now, Geralt will feel a particular chill in the air and instinctively steer them towards the Pontar. There, Jaskier will steel himself and make some noise about the cold or the stinginess of the crowd – a prelude to his annual soliloquy about how it is about time he heads towards the harbouring arms of the university and its candelabra’d comforts: sans dirt, sans drowner guts, and sans Witcher.

He strums his lute and sings, “Oh White Wolf, I fear if you do not hear my plea for an ear to my woe, I shall have to go bare, and just so we’re clear, my pants’ll be the first things to go.”

Roach huffs, and a coin comes sailing towards him, hitting him in the forehead.

“Fucking ow, you fuck.”

Geralt snorts. “Just tossing a coin to my barker.”

Jaskier is going to miss him so much.

Takes them from tentative and fragile to an intensely romantic place. Made my heart *so* happy.

long have i loved thee by Shinybug

Witcher | Geralt/Jaskier | Explicit | 21,700 words

Jaskier's first winter at Kaer Morhen gets off to a rocky start in more ways than one. Healing from an injury, he is tasked with fixing the neglected library, which is a good distraction from his hidden longing for Geralt. Add some major misunderstandings, some hard choices, a healthy dose of pining all around, and a song, and you have a winter's tale of love in all its forms.

The misunderstanding is pretty standard but I do love the atmosphere. Soft Geralt.

A Quiet Life by jofngve

Mandalorian | Din/Luke | Explicit | 31,800 words

Luke wouldn't necessarily call himself experienced when it comes to the whole spectrum of flirting / dating / etc. and Leia actually bullies him when he phrases it as such.

But, well, Luke is pretty sure he'd know if he were being courted. Which makes this whole Mandalorian situation that more puzzling...

I've read this same storyline many times by now but this one was still so enjoyable, so precious.

Dying to Return by StormDancer

Merlin | Arthur/Merlin | Teen | 19,860 words

When they try to hang him, he floats. They put him on the pyre at dawn. He doesn’t burn.

Merlin leaves and comes back.

True Love by platonic_boner

Merlin | Arthur/Merlin | Teen | 6,920 words

AU where soulmates can’t lie to each other. (That’s okay, Merlin wasn’t planning to lie to Arthur anyways! Haha.. ha.. ha…)

Such a Life, a Heart, a Mind as Thine by dreamlittleyo

Merlin | Arthur/Merlin | Explicit | 42,370 words

In which Arthur inadvertently triggers an ancient magic, but he does not face the consequences alone.

Great take on a soulbond

paper cranes (upstairs, downstairs) by verity

Stargate: Atlantis | McKay/Sheppard | Mature | 18,960 words

"Oh my God," Rodney says, stricken. "This is—this is one of those British costume dramas Ronon always wants to watch and I'm the uncouth American!"

This is adorable. John's brother is getting married. Everybody thinks Rodney's his partner.

#recs

[pomegranates-and-blood]

Hrygð (Ivar’s PoV)

νοσταλγία Masterlist

Hrygð: affliction, grief, sorrow (Old Norse)  

Pairing: Ivar/Reader

Summary: A night post Chapter 45. I told ya Ivar was under a lot of pressure from the Greeks being around, and he does stupid shit under pressure.

Word Count: 4.9k

Warnings: The usual for the story, plus mentions/descriptions of dead bodies, allusions to murder, hallucinations. My best attempt at writing a downward spiral. And oh, THE ANGST. Yes, bold, italic, capital letters angst. It warrants it, believe me.

A/N: So, I promise this makes sense when you get to the end. Trust me.

You wait for him in your bedroom, he knows you do.

He wishes he could walk inside and tell you he regrets it, he wishes the Greek blood staining his hands were something he wanted to wash off.

But he doesn’t.

They didn’t leave him any choice, they forced his hand. He couldn’t let them take you from him, he couldn’t let anyone take you from him.

If he has to deal with your rage, then so be it. You will be angry, and you will grieve, but you will understand, Ivar knows you will.

When he walks in, there is no rage, and that does unbalance him. It makes grow in his chest what a weaker man would call fear, to see you so deadly still.

You don’t turn around, leaving him to look at the straight line of your back, leaving him with nothing to read in you except your voice when slowly, expectantly even though you know the answer, you ask, “What did you do to them, Ivar?”

“They were a threat and you kn-…”

“What did you do to them?” You interrupt. When you turn around, the first thing he notices is the stains the dirt left on your dress. He tells himself that is the first thing he notices, because he refuses to admit he notices the redness in your eyes, the tremble in your lip. “What did you do to my people?”

“They aren’t your people. The people of Kattegat are your people.”

You shake your head, resolute, unwavering. It grips tight at his heart, the way you seem to be unmovable, the way you feel locked away from him somewhere he can’t reach.

Anger burns at him from the inside, bubbling under his skin and making his grip on the crutch tighten until he fears it will break. You made him do this, he did this for you, and now you will turn your back to him?

“I will always be their daughter before I am your wife, you know that. You know before there was a ring on my finger there was Greek blood running through my veins,” Your voice starts to rise, your anger breaking past the cold distance of your disdain; and he almost feels relief at the sight of your rage. “The same blood you have spilled.”

“You made me do it!” He yells, uncaring with how your eyes widen in affront. He wants you to be angry, he wants you to fight. He cannot stand the thought of doing something that makes you surrender. “You let them get close, you-…I know you will choose them over me, over everything I have given you!”

You walk closer, deliberately slowly.

“Everything you have given me!?” You repeat, disbelieving. “You have given me chains, Varangian, nothing more than that!”

His breath stutters and gets stuck on his throat, and Ivar can only look at you with wide eyes.

Varangian.

The fight leaves him, the fire leaves him. He remembers what that feels like, the useless struggling as air is unavailable and useless lungs slowly suffocate him no matter how much he fights against it, he remembers what it is like to be tied to a mast and dragged down to the depths in the inescapable grasp of Rán’s net. It feels exactly like this.

You continue attempting to ignore him, but he won’t be overlooked, he refuses. It is maddening, because he…he believed that was over. He has lived with the uncaring glances, the irrelevance, all his life; and now things are supposed to be different. They have to be, he is better now, he is King, he…

“I must tend to the wounded, Varangian.” You tell him, returning your gaze, your attention, to your work.

Grabbing onto that knife feels like relief, feels like control. When the drops of blood hit the floor, he feels his lips tremble into a mad smile he has to bite back.

By force if you make it so, by fear if he has to, but he won’t be ignored.

Ivar feels like his head is filled with noise, and he stumbles back, catching himself on a wooden post. Dazedly, he thinks he remembers sitting on the ground before that pillar, with you sitting between his legs, your back against his chest, as he taught you to throw knives and watched you fail miserably.

Varangian.

He shakes his head, or he thinks he does. He isn’t sure of that. He isn’t sure of anything, really.

He isn’t even sure that memory of you in his arms is real.

You lift your hands between you, the rattling of chains making him grit his teeth.

“I refuse to die a Varangian’s prisoner.”

Your eyes are burning with a disgust he is familiar with, though not when it comes to you, and that is what makes him want to make you pay for looking at him that way.

So, he chuckles, mocking you and your anger, and your pride. He’d rather have you hate him, if that is all he will have.

“You think you have a choice.”

Voice rough, he orders, “Do not call me that.”

Varangian, Varangian, Varangian, it rattles inside his head. Taunting him, mocking him.

“That is what you are to me,” You retort coldly, cruelly, “That is all you will ever be. The Varangian that took me from my people, that slaughtered them!”

Ivar stops by the door, gripping tightly onto the crutch by his side. Slowly, he asks you to repeat yourself, dares you to.

But he should know the kind of woman you are by now, he should know you are too stubborn to keep your mouth shut. He wishes he could hate that about you.

“You need my consent for us to be married, Varangian,” You state proudly, standing up. He turns to face you, gritting his teeth, and you continue, “I am a free woman, you can’t force me. You won’t break a promise, so you won’t make me a slave.”

Ivar feels the familiar burn of anger and resentment, a pointless and pathetic hope dying somewhere, and he steps forward. He refused to tell you about your mother’s deal with him, but now you’ve forced his hand.

If you ask, he will tell you he hid it for this long because you wouldn’t believe him, but if he’s honest with himself, he knows he did it because he held the stupid hope that marrying him could somehow be your choice.

“I am your husband.” He corrects you. When your eyes are drawn to it, he notices his hand not on the crutch clenched into a fist.

You slowly lift your gaze to him, and demand, “I want you to tell me what you did to them. I want to hear it.”

You don’t, but he was never one to refuse a challenge.

Ivar steps forward, a deep thrust of the crutch against the wooden floor that he didn’t intend to make you flinch, but finds himself almost satisfied that it does. If nothing else, he will take fear.

He will take fear, he will take hatred. Anything but indifference, anything but that distance, that coldness.

“Our men attacked while they were sleeping, lit their homes aflame. Most died screaming, burned alive,” It is a lie, it was just iron and arrows that ended the Greeks, but he knows what will make it more painful. “The ones that ran out were struck down, forced to watch. Happy?

You stay silent, eerily silent. Tears run down your face when you close your eyes, but there’s a jarring kind of peace to your expression as you accept his words that makes Ivar feel like the ground isn’t solid under his feet.

“Answer me!”

“You betrayed me.” You tell him, and he hates it, he hates the way your voice has no tone to it, even the accent seems gone for a moment. He hates the way he made you sound dead.

But no, no, this isn’t his fault. You forced his hand, you and those Greeks.

You have to understand that it isn’t his fault.

“And what are you going to do, hm?” He dares, and he isn’t sure what he wants to hear as an answer. He isn’t sure if it is the part of him that wants more than anything to hear that this is something he can fix that makes him ask you that, or if it is the part of him that has always known you would turn your back to him at the end that does.

Whatever the answer is, it is better than this silence.

You shake your head, though he isn’t sure if it is at his question or at your own thoughts.

“I don’t want to fight anymore, Ivar,” You confess breathily. When your hands join together in front of you, he can’t help but notice you aren’t twirling your wedding ring on your finger as you usually, do, but clawing at the edges of it, as if trying desperately to take it off, though you don’t attempt to. “I do not want to fight you.”

He does. Still, he walks closer, his free hand reaching for you.

Ivar cups the back of your head, noting the way you lean tiredly into the caress and finding his breathing gets a little easier at that simple gesture.

“Can you forgive me?” He asks, though he knows he shouldn’t. He still doesn’t regret it.

Your lips pull into a trembling smile, “I have no choice, do I?”

Instead of giving you an answer, Ivar brings you to him and kisses you deeply, letting himself believe when your breaths are one that everything is as it was, or that it will be, somehow.

Brow pressed against yours, he studies your features carefully, noting the strain in your expression even as your eyes remain closed.

“I love you.” He whispers, and he knows you are aware it is a pathetic and desperate request to hear it back, but he doesn’t much mind anymore.

Your eyes search his, bloodshot and tired and defeated, and he knows he is the reason why. He knows, and it tears at whatever is left of his heart, but he still cannot regret what he did.

The silence deafens him, and he grits his teeth to keep at bay desperation made words.

Say it back, even if you don’t mean it. Lie to me if you have to.

A few quick blinks as if to dispel any tears, and you offer the faintest of smiles. Your hand lifting to cup the side of his face lets him breathe easy, and Ivar doesn’t bother stopping himself from leaning into the caress, the softness.

He hasn’t lost that yet, he hasn’t lost you.

“And I love you,” You tell him. He can pretend your voice doesn’t break halfway through; he can do that, and he can pretend everything is as it was, especially when you press a gentle kiss against his lips and whisper, as if nothing had changed, “More than anyone, more than anything.”

____

When Ivar first wakes up with his arm stretched over the empty space where you should be, he keeps his eyes closed, knowing he will soon hear your soft footsteps as you go about the room, hear you cursing to yourself in your native tongue as you skip over the cold wood, hear you poutingly asking that he move to the colder side of the bed to leave room for you.

He tells himself to wait, and he does, for so long he can no longer pretend the empty side of the bed is still warm in your absence.

Ivar opens his eyes half-expecting to see you there, sitting silently by the dim fires, lost in your own thoughts. When you see he is awake, you will return to bed with him, with your always slightly-cold skin pressed against his, and it will stave off the bubble of fear that is growing in his chest, leaving no room for his lungs to breathe or his heart to beat.

You aren’t there, you are nowhere he can see, even as he sits up on the bed and looks around the darkened room.

But you wouldn’t leave, you wouldn’t leave him. He knows that.

He asked you once, demanded out of you maybe, that you promised to never turn your back to him, to never lie to him; and you gave it, you gave him your word and your trust and your heart and…and he still has them, all of those.

You wouldn’t leave him, you love him. You told him you did, and you don’t lie to him.

So, he calls your name. You’re probably on the other part of the room, moving the weakest of plants you continue to insist on taking care of towards the windows so they can soak up the sunlight.

You will hear him call for you, and you will return, muttering about how it was a mistake to try planting those seeds from the East this far into winter. You will burrow close to his chest, seeking his warmth, and he will wrap his arm around you and everything will be as it was, everything will be as it should be.

But it isn’t, it won’t be.

You are nowhere to be found.

He finds you, eventually. The old bedroom you used to occupy before you were married to him, the one that you still lose yourself in sometimes, with the tougher plants that need less frequent care from you.

One of the thralls told him you had gone there sometime during the night, and hadn’t come out yet. Ivar knows what he did is wrong, and he knows…he knows it will be difficult for you to forgive him, but he will convince you to return to the bedroom you share. He hates the idea of sleeping without you by his side.

He opens the door with his free hand, walking in and immediately recognizing the familiar scent of lavender. It is comforting, more than he would like to admit.

Until he sees you.

There lays the bloodied and lifeless body, blade embedded deep in the chest, round handle of the knife almost hidden in the bloodied folds of the dress. The knife he gifted you, so long ago.

I do not fear death, no Hiereia of the Dread Gods fears death, you told him once.

He has always known you’d prefer death before chains, he has always known above anything else you would choose your freedom.

“N-No, no, no,” Shaking hands drag him to you -he doens’t know when he fell to the floor-, and the way your body lolls lifelessly when he holds you to him makes him feel like vomiting. All that leaves him are choked gasps, he isn’t sure if the ragged and roughened sound that he hears is his voice, but it seems like it. “No, p-please, I-…”

He doesn’t know what he is talking to, he surely cannot talk to you since you are…

No, it isn’t you.

The shape of her nose is wrong, and the color of her eyes, even past the veil of death, is wrong. Everything, once he can actually think clearly, looks wrong about her.

She isn’t you.

He is going to lose his mind, he is sure of it.

Ivar moves away from her, from…it, but the way she still resembles you so strikingly makes him sick, and the sound the body makes as it stiffly falls from his lap to the cold wood rattles inside his head.

He closes his eyes, focuses on breathing. She smells like lavender, like you, and…yes, he is sure he will lose his mind here.

Ivar doesn’t know how much time it passes, how long he stays there in that room with a dead woman. He knows at some points he forgets it isn’t you, and at he knows when he remembers it isn’t that he realizes this is your last message to him.

By the end of the day, Ivar stumbles back into an empty bedroom after standing for so long as they celebrated a funeral for a woman that lives and breathes, but even as darkness presses ruthlessly against the dim lights of the room, he refuses to get in the bed to sleep.

He will not lay alone in that damn bed again. Not until you return to him.

And you will.

____

He knows you went to them. He knew that, long before they received word from their scouts that you had reunited with the surviving Greeks.

It took them four days to find where you had been, and three days of travelling. Ivar wants to find those responsible for taking this long and punish them for their slowness.

If he could focus on the anger for long enough, he would, but he can’t seem to focus on anything.

“Our faster men can reach that town in a day and a half, let m-…”

“She will come back, brother,” Ivar interrupts, eyes focused on the shape of the snake in the bracelet you left behind. Since he gifted it to you, you haven’t parted it from it, wearing it as often as you can. He knows you wouldn’t leave it behind if you didn’t intend to come back, he knows you left it as a sign to him, a promise that it is only a matter of time. Like the knife he gifted you, it was all a message, he knows it. Ivar swallows thickly at Hvitserk’s silence -it sounds so much like pity, he hates it-, and insists, “She didn’t leave me, didn’t b-betray me.”

“You betrayed me.” You tell him, voice by his ear, a defeated sort of numbness in your voice that he remembers from that last night. Sharply, he turns to you with a gasp that dies on his throat.

But, of course, all that he finds is nothingness.

“Ivar,” Hvitserk calls out, an edge to his voice. He turns to his brother, finds a frown marrying his features. “I can go myself. Let m-…”

“She will come back!” He interrupts again, though it sounds manic even to his own ears. He tries making his body let go of the stillness that makes even breathing difficult, but he can’t. Still, he offers a smile that his brother almost flinches at, and insists, more calmly, “I know my wife better than you, hm? I know…I know her, just-…you’ll see.”

Offering only a sigh, his brother stands up, “At least get some sleep. You haven’t slept in…what, three days?”

Seven.

____

Days continue passing, and almost as a punishment for refusing to accept you are gone, for insisting on not even looking at that damn bed until you are back by his side, Ivar hears your voice more and more often.

Today, you are talkative, and you sound as if you were sitting by his left side in the emptiness of your bedroom. He wishes with your voice also returned the familiar scent of lavender that seemed to accompany you everywhere. He misses that.

“Find a way or make one, but you will always have a choice.”

You told him that before, when you were sanding by his side, and your hand was solid and comforting in his grasp. He wishes he could pretend he still feels the press of your lips on his shoulder from that day, he wishes he could pretend he still feels you next to him.

Still, because it is just him and your absence now, no one left to see he has lost it, he asks the nothingness, “What choice did you leave me with, hm?”

He hears a delicate laugh somewhere at his left, and that is all the answer he gets.

Ivar knows what the people would whisper when he first brought you here, those tales of a half-mad king that lost what was left of his mind to a foreign witch.

He realizes with a laugh that bubbles in his chest but sounds choked when it stutters past his lips, that maybe they were all right. Maybe you did bewitch him, or curse him. Maybe he did lose his mind because of a foreign witch.

Your voice breezes past his ear, this time startling him less, “With all the ways we drive each other mad, you still think the Gods fated this?”

It isn’t the teasing edge of that day, the smile he can hear in your voice isn’t the soft and disbelieving one. There is no warmth to any of it.

It is mocking, it is the disdain he made you queen to avoid facing, it is the coldness of the woman he never wanted to see you lose yourself as.

Your words from that day, the words your ghost -his mind?- spits back at him seem fitting, in a way. A twisted, ironic way, but still.

Because you did drive him mad after all, just not with your presence. With your absence.

Regardless, after nearly two weeks, he realizes you aren’t coming back.

He supposes it shouldn’t have taken that long, but then again there’s a part of him that still dares think this is all some twisted nightmare.

They tell him most of the Greeks, including you, have left with merchant vessels near Eldham towards the Mediterranean, they tell him there is no way to track you down now.

They don’t tell him, but he hears it regardless, that you are lost to him.

Ivar’s eyes are trained on this small and pitiful plant you kept potted near the table where you’d rest against at night as you took off the earrings and jewelry you wore that day.

He cannot take his eyes off this insignificant, withered thing. It almost seems impossible, that it looks like that. You’d spend half a day if you had to looking after these things, making sure they were as vibrant and lively as you could keep them.

It dawns on him that it died in your absence, in the absence he had convinced himself was a passing thing, temporary, inconsequential.

You told him things said aloud are made real, you told him that by will alone he could achieve anything he wanted, and he believed you.

He believed you when you told him those things, just as he believed you when you told him you were staying. Just as he believed you when you told him you loved him.

With a yell that sounds like a roar to his own ears, he puts all his strength behind the movement of his arm as his hand grips the edge of that table, flipping it and throwing the things on it, even that damn plant, across the room.

Almost two weeks without sleep have left him weaker than he would like to admit, and it isn’t easy to move his limbs to stop himself from falling painfully to the ground, the movements too uncoordinated, too sluggish.

Resigned to the cold and hard ground, Ivar turns to lay on his back.

With the silence ringing in his ears, he finds himself asking, “Will you stay?”

If all he has is a ghost, he might as well be on good terms with it.

“Of course I will stay. I wanted to, you know,” You reply somewhere at his right. This is the first time you’ve spoken something you haven’t said before, this is the first time your ghost seems to answer coherently. That is, until you whisper, “If you had asked, I would have said yes.”

The words sound more mocking and crueler than they ever did, though perhaps he was foolish to think they were ever anything other than a reminder of what following his father’s last advice cost him.

Be ruthless, be ruthless, be ruthless.

It echoes in his head, louder and louder each time. At some point he realizes that even if the voice of a ghost gets loud enough that he has to resist the urge to uselessly cover his ears with his hands, it at least drowns out his thoughts, and it silences you.

On the floor by the bed he refuses to even touch since it still doesn’t have you in it, he lets himself sleep for the first time in so long.

____

He wakes suddenly, sitting up on the bed and taking gasping breaths to fill his lungs, eyes wide as he searches the nothingness in front of him.

“Ivar?” You ask, and the bed dips when you move to sit up as well. “Ivar, what’s wrong?”

The plant is alive.

And he cannot take his eyes off it.

It is still a small, pitiful thing, but he cannot look away from it. His breaths quicken as he blinks rapidly, trying desperately to get used to the darkness of the room, needing to see clearly that the damn plant truly is alive.

The more time it passes the more he starts to see it withered and dead, and even as through gasping and frantic breaths he somehow smells the comforting scent of lavender and you, it somehow isn’t enough.

It terrifies him, that he doesn’t know what is real and what isn’t.

He knows what he wants to be real, and it is the bed soft and warm underneath him, the sound of your voice being more than an illusion, the damn plant being alive still. But somehow wanting it to be real makes him think that is the one it isn’t.

“Ivar!” You insist, voice more anxious. Your hand on the side of his face almost makes him flinch, but when you turn his face to you, he can see you there beside him. He lifts a hand desperately to hold your own against his face, lest you stop touching him and disappear. Or he does. He isn’t sure. Your eyes search his, and your thumb runs back and forth over his skin. It’s soothing, more than you could ever know. “It was just a nightmare, love.”

Was it?

You are straddling him, arms wrapped tightly around him, hands running up and down his back. He doesn’t know when you moved, but he is grateful for it.

His hand reaches tentatively for you, still irrationally afraid you will vanish, and when he finds soft skin under his grasp, Ivar feels a breath leaves his lips in something too close to a sob.

“Shh, it is alright,” You whisper, soothingly, though he notices the tremble in your voice. “Just a nightmare. I’m here, it’s alright.”

Yes, of course it was a nightmare. He never attacked the Greeks, you never left him.

He knows that now. It felt so real, though.

He buries his face in the crook of your neck, surrounded by the feel of you and the maddening scent of lavender, and matches his breaths to the cadence of your own, trying to hold on to the calm you so easily offer.

Ivar isn’t sure how much time it passes, it is more than enough for the sweat on his chest and back to have been bitingly cold and now be gone, it is more than enough for his breaths to be back under his own control. It isn’t enough for his hold on you to loosen, but not enough time can pass for that to happen anytime soon.

Laying back down on the bed with you, keeping an arm safely secured around you as you two lay on your sides, Ivar keeps his eyes roaming over your features, uncaring that you do the same -though you are most likely studying for any tell that he still isn’t well, which he isn’t-, taking in the way your eyes soften to accompany the small smile you offer and the familiarly unpredictable way your hair is tussled by sleep.

“Will you tell me about it?”

His answer is immediate, “No.”

Your lips furrow, and he knows you will insist by that alone. Stubborn, insufferable woman.

“Was it about me?”

“I said I don’t want to tell you.” He snaps, but you don’t seem to mind the brashness.

“Whatever it was, it wasn’t real.” You reassure him. He hates the fact that he clings to those words, he hates how they fill him with a relief none of his assurances to himself couldn’t match.

“I know. Stop coddling me, woman.” He grumbles past gritted teeth, prompting only a smile from you.

“You secretly love it,” You tease, leaning close to press a kiss over the scar on his cheek. “What would you do without me pestering you, hm?”

He swallows thickly, and doesn’t answer. Settling a little closer, you meet his eyes again, a tranquility to your gaze he wishes he could find again, and he gathers he can, as long as that adoration and that softness that shine in your gaze don’t go anywhere just yet.

“You should sleep some more. I promise, Melinöe won’t claim you while I’m here,” You offer with a glint in your eye, managing to make his lips pull into a smile. Closing the distance between you, you rub your nose against his before kissing him sweetly, so softly it almost makes Ivar feel he will shatter at the gentleness of it. Breaths one, you promise, “I love you.”

He exchanges seeing you for feeling you, and closes the distance again, claiming your mouth in a short kiss.

Pulling away, Ivar finds himself asking, “Tell me again.”

Without hesitation, you whisper, “I love you, Ivar. More than anyone, more than anything.”

It doesn’t sound like a lie. Even if it is, he doesn’t care.

____ ____ ____

First of all, I’m sorry. Second of all, I hope it made sense. Those of you that read ἀλήθεια know what Ivar was living through, since this was brought to life by @youbloodymadgenius‘ request of an Ivar PoV of the night she left him in Alatheia and the times that came after that. But, because I am one soft bitch, I couldn’t bring myself to write all that hurt without at least some comfort, so...here ya go!

I would love to hear your thoughts on this!

Btw, technically hallucinations as a result of sleep deprivation go from visual to auditory, but fuck it, y’know? I do research to confidently write down useless stuff, yes, but I also do research to stubbornly go against said research for the sake of plot. This time it was the second.

Taglist: @youbloodymadgenius @heavenly1927 @toe-vind-ek-jou @xbellaxcarolinax​ @angelofthorr @samsationalwilson @peachyboneless @1950schick @punkrocknpearls @ietss @itsmysticalmystery @revolution-starter @the-a-word-2214 @fae-sedai @crazybunnyladysworld   @funmadnessandbadassvikings @stupiddarkkside @aprilivar @msrawog @kaitieskidmore1  

#ivar the boneless x reader #ivar x reader #ivar the boneless imagine #ivar the boneless #ivar #νοσταλγία masterlist

[sentakushimasu]

if i can't taste your lips just let me taste blood

pairing: bakugou katsuki/kirishima eijirou summary: work studies are meant to be educational, not fatal, but bakugou and kirishima are trapped with a growing puddle of blood and no way to get out genre: hurt/comfort, whump word count: 2.6k warnings: blood, hospitals, bakugou trying to articulate emotions title from: we are the dirt - it's never enough AO3

When Kirishima came to it was with a lot of confusion and pain. The first thing he noticed was the searing pain emanating from his abdomen that blurred and subdued his other senses. The second thing he noticed was that it was really dark.

Dark to the point where he wasn’t sure if he was opening his eyes at all, unable to figure out where the hell he was or how he got there.

The pain, however, was very clearly not a fixture of his foggy and disoriented brain. It kept getting worse, the burning sensation reaching all the way down to his feet. In the haze of pain he couldn’t pinpoint any actual injury, only able to tell that there was something really heavy pressing down on his midsection.

The whine he let out was involuntary, but if he was alone he was going to make as many pathetic noises as he wanted.

Only, he wasn’t alone.

“Kirishima? Kirishima, are you awake?”

That was Bakugou’s voice, but Bakugou never called him by his name, and especially not with the worry that currently saturated his tone.

Kirishima grumbled and tried to push the weight off him. It was so heavy, borderline crushing him but he couldn’t get it to move. What he assumed were Bakugou’s hands swatted his away from whatever was pinning him down.

“Fucking hell, would you stop that?”

Kirishima squirmed again, trying desperately to get even a little bit of the weight off him. “There’s something on top of me-”

“Yeah, that’s me. You’re bleeding.”

“Hmm? Sorry,” Kirishima floundered until his fingers connected with Bakugou’s wrist, looping around the limb. “You can stop, I’m alright.”

“What the fuck? No. You’re fucking bleeding everywhere.”

Bakugou’s face came slightly more into focus as Kirishima’s eyes adjusted to the darkness. He kept looking between Kirishima’s abdomen and his face. He looked worried, and if Kirishima didn’t value his life he would dare say that Bakugou was scared. He was still in his hero gear, the stupid theatric spikes framing his head, a distinct trail of blood marring his features as it trailed down his face from his hairline.

“Are you hurt?” Kirishima couldn’t help but ask.

“What? No.”

“You’re bleeding,” Kirishima supplied helpfully.

Bakugou narrowed his eyes and turned back to the wound, applying more pressure. “Not as much as you.”

Swallowing the whine in the back of his throat, Kirishima decided to actually start a conversation with his friend. He had no idea how long they would be there and he wasn’t into spending that uncertain length of time in tense silence with Bakugou. “What happened?”

“Work study. Big villain attack so Endeavour sent us out as backup. One of ‘em cornered you in here so I came to tell ‘em to fuck off but you were on the ground and when I exploded the asshole, the fucking ceiling caved in.”

“At least I’m not stuck in here by myself, hmm? That would be unfortunate.”

It was supposed to have been a joke, something to lighten the mood between them but Bakugou’s expression remained firm as he offered no reply.

“How bad is it?”

Bakugou paused, the silence hanging heavily between them. “It’s fine, you’re gonna be fine.”

Kirishima just hummed. “You’re a terrible liar.”

Dark spots peppered his vision and he was beginning to realise how tired he felt. He knew Bakugou was fighting a losing battle.

“I’m not fucking lying, okay? You’re going to be fine.”

“It’s okay, Bakugou. Can I just ask you to do something before I die?”

“You’re not going to die, you asshole. Fat Gum is going to come for you, you know he’d never leave you here.”

The exhaustion was creeping in with the tingling sensation in his arms and legs. He was so cold. He had half a mind to ask Bakugou to set off some explosions and hopefully warm the air. But they were trapped with potentially limited oxygen and Bakugou was too smart to ever risk that. “Is he going to be fast enough? You said there was a villain, he’s probably too busy.”

“Shut up!” Bakugou snapped, his expression and tone immediately softening as the harshness registered. “You’re not dying today. Or tomorrow. Or any day that I’m alive to see. I won't let you.”

Kirishima closed his eyes, letting himself imagine what it would be like to die with Bakugou by his side. A cruel part of his chest tightened as he imagined asking Bakugou to hold him before he passed out.

The taste of blissful unconsciousness lay heavy on the back of his tongue as he spoke. “Will you stay? I don’t wanna go alone.”

“You’re not going fucking anywhere, and I’m not gonna leave you.”

“I think I’m dying, Katsu.”

Kirishima could see the way Bakugou flinched at the use of the nickname. He would have apologised for being so informal but he was tired and he didn’t have the energy to be sorry for trying to feel close to Bakugou in his last moments.

Perhaps the reaction had been to the idea of Kirishima dying, but that seemed less likely. Bakugou was persistent in reminding everyone that he didn’t care about anything or anyone other than becoming number one. Kirishima had always admired his determination but right now he just wanted to pretend that Bakugou cared about him.

Falling in love with Bakugou Katsuki was probably the dumbest decision of Kirishima’s life but he would never live to regret it. Not while Bakugou stayed with him, trying to staunch the flow of blood from a wound that was likely severe enough to render Bakugou’s efforts useless.

The older boy didn’t look at him. “You’re just delirious from the blood loss, you’ll be okay.”

“Why are you being so nice to me?”

“Because you’re fucking bleeding out!”

“Yeah,” Kirishima mumbled with the limited energy he had left, “but why is it suddenly a big deal? You've said repeatedly that you don’t care about anyone else.”

“I lied,” Bakugou hissed through his teeth, his jaw clenched with such force that Kirishima was worried the bone would shatter under the pressure.

Kirishima’s eyebrows pinched together in confusion. Well that made no sense.“Why would you lie?”

“Because I love you, goddamnit! So you’re going to stay awake and we’re going to get out of this and go on a date or some shit, but we can only do that if you stay awake, okay?”

Oh. Kirishima tried to speak, but his tongue felt like a lead weight in his mouth that he couldn’t lift no matter how hard he tried. The fog was pressing in on him much harder now.

Bakugou’s voice was muffled by the fog as he spoke again. “Fucking say something. I just confessed my feelings for you, you don’t get to fucking ignore me now.”

Kirishima was aware that he should be worried by the way it was taking more and more of his energy to keep his eyes open, but he couldn’t find the strength to care about anything other than the fact that Bakugou just said he loves him.

“Kirishima?”

“No- No, fuck, no, Kirishima you have to keep your eyes open!” Kirishima hadn’t even noticed they’d fallen shut, but he couldn’t seem to open them again, despite how much he wanted to stare into Bakugou’s red eyes forever.

Kirishima could feel something tapping on his cheek, shaking his shoulder. Bakugou’s voice was so broken and raw when he spoke his plea. “Kiri, please.”

That’s weird, Bakugou never says please.

As the last shreds of consciousness left him, Kirishima swore he could hear muffled yelling somewhere close to his head, he couldn’t make out the words.

But it didn’t hurt anymore.

-

Kirishima didn’t expect to wake up.

It was as simple as that.

He had been bleeding badly enough that Bakugou hadn’t even let him look, and had seemed genuinely worried and afraid for his friend’s wellbeing. So at that point, waking up was a feat on its own.

Waking up without being in excruciating pain was something else entirely. He just felt floaty and not real. But he definitely wasn’t dead because he was uncomfortable and the lights behind his close eyelids were way too bright.

“I would try to send you back to the dorms but I know you won’t listen to me even if I erase your quirk and drag you kicking and screaming out of here,” Aizawa’s gruff voice said from a place Kirishima couldn’t pinpoint. There was a lot of aural input that just dissolved into directionless static.

“I’m not leaving him.”

That was Bakugou’s voice, with its hard edge and underlying fire. It cut through the haze of Kirishima’s lingering unconsciousness, it didn’t have the same fuzzy edge to the syllables that Aizawa’s voice had.

Aizawa must have clicked his tongue before speaking again in his monotonous drawl. “You need to rest too. That concussion isn’t going to go away on its own.”

“It doesn’t matter,” Bakugou bit back.

“Then, pray tell, what matters more than your health?”

“He does.”

He wanted to fight against the stupor, to reach out and smack Bakugou upside the head. His friend was concussed, and chose not to rest, in favour of keeping a bedside vigil. At this point, it was the only thing that was convincing Kirishima that he didn’t hallucinate what Bakugou said before he passed out.

Not that it made much sense.

“Kirishima would want you to take care of yourself.” Kirishima is going to shake Aizawa’s hand the second he can muster up the energy to do so.

“Kirishima also wanted to die of blood loss and traumatise me instead of just staying awake, so I’m not going to listen to what that asshole wants.”

“You know as well as I do that the doctor said he probably won’t be coherent until tomorrow morning even if he does wake up tonight. I can drive you back to the dorm and pick you up before visiting hours.”

Kirishima could practically hear Bakugou shaking his head. “I’m not leaving him alone.”

“He won’t be alone. Fat Gum and I will be here all night.”

Bakugou’s next words were haunted, hollowed out to fit an emotion Kirishima had never heard from the older boy. “He asked me to stay with him.”

“And you did, you saved his life,” a third voice added. Kirishima was cognizant enough to be able to recognise it as being his mentor.

“Go to bed, Bakugou,” Kirishima mumbled, scrunching his eyes up tightly as consciousness fully came back to him. He wished someone would turn the light off.

“Kirishima?” There was too much noise in that moment for Kirishima to figure out who had spoken, but he suspected that all of them had something to say about his return to wakefulness.

He tried to lift his hand, hoping to cover his eyes from the bright lights of what was undoubtedly a hospital room, only to find it pinned in place.

Opening his eyes to the onslaught of light revealed that his hand was being firmly held in Bakugou’s. Okay, forget his previous claims, he was definitely dead. Or, at the very least, having the best dream of his life.

Kirishima groaned. “You guys are loud.”

“Sorry, kid,” Aizawa said in his usual grumble. His chair was the furthest away from Kirishima, sitting all the way in the corner of the room. He looked the same amount of disheveled as he usually did but his posture held a weird tension that Kirishima wasn’t sure he had ever seen before.

“How are you feeling?” Fat Gum asked, he was out of his hero suit which, to Kirishima, looked very odd.

“Pretty okay, all things considered,” Kirishima said, directing his gaze towards his friend.

Bakugou was the most noticeably different. His hair was scruffy and matted with blood, a stark white rectangle of gauze taped to his forehead, a few little strips holding a cut on his eyebrow together. He didn’t speak, but he didn’t let go of Kirishima’s hand either.

Feeling particularly spontaneous, probably due to the bucket full of pain meds that were undoubtedly currently in his system, Kirishima gave Bakugou’s hand an experimental squeeze.

Bakugou stiffened but the tension quickly left his body as he squeezed back, turning to meet Kirishima’s eyes and give him a soft smile.

Their exchange was silent but they said all they needed to.

I heard you.

I love you too.

Kirishima tried to adjust himself, to get a better look at Bakugou’s injuries. Only to promptly collapse back onto the hospital bed as pain blasted through all of his senses.

“Idiot,” Bakugou hissed.

“Take it easy,” Fat Gum said, “you were in surgery for a long time, you don’t need to be pushing yourself.”

Still trying to breathe through the pain, Kirishima opened one eye to look at the pro hero.

“Surgery?” he managed to grit out from between his clenched teeth.

Fat Gum’s eyes softened as he looked at his mentee. “We found you both not long after you lost consciousness, but you were in rough shape. You’re going to need to take it easy for a while.”

Kirishima groaned. “That sounds boring.”

“Not as boring as an extended recovery period because you refused to take care of yourself,” Aizawa chided.

“True,” Kirishima said. “What time is it?”

Fat Gum was the one to speak this time. Bakugou stayed remarkably silent. “A little past midnight, you spent six hours in surgery and we’ve been waiting for you to wake up for about two hours now.”

“And Bakugou isn’t in bed?”

“Nope. We tried but he won’t budge. Better to let it happen at this point.”

Kirishima rolled his head to the other side, narrowing his eyes at Bakugou and the older boy’s stony expression. “Go to sleep.”

Bakugou met his gaze with his usual stubborn fire. “You first.”

“If you stay, will you sleep?”

Bakugou nodded.

“Aizawa-sensei, can he stay?”

Kirishima had expected Aizawa to argue, but he was just met with a soft “okay”.

Whether it was the cocktail of medication or the trauma his body had suffered, tiredness hit Kirishima like a wave. As his blinking slowed down, he swore he saw a soft smile grace Bakugou’s lips before his other hand reached up to brush Kirishima’s hair out of his face.

“Goodnight, Kirishima.”

Kirishima just hummed, too tired to speak.

-

Kirishima woke up the next morning with Bakugou wrapped around his arm that was free of tubes and wires, snoring softly.

Carefully picking up his other hand and ignoring the presence of the IV in the crook of his elbow, he began to thread his fingers through Bakugou’s messy hair. The older boy didn’t stir, a true testament to how exhausted he really was, especially considering on any other day Kirishima could breathe sideways and Bakugou would all but leap to his feet.

Instead, Bakugou’s hold just tightened slightly as he mumbled something in his sleep.

A quick glance around the room told Kirishima that Aizawa was asleep in his chair in the corner, his face buried in his capture scarf, surprisingly sans his usual yellow sleeping bag. Fat Gum was nowhere to be seen but judging by the empty chair with a blanket on the seat and jacket draped over the back, he couldn’t be far away.

There was a weird bliss to the quiet atmosphere of the hospital room. The soft morning light filtered in through the window as opposed to the harsh lights of the night before.

The pain meds took away from the discomfort of being in a hospital, and with Bakugou clinging to him like he was the most important thing in the world was something Kirishima could easily be convinced was a dream, a fantasy conjured by his unconscious mind.

He could get used to this.

#mha #bnha #my hero academia #kiribaku #bakugou x kirishima #bakugou katsuki #kirishima eijirou #mha fanfiction #mha fic #bnha fic #bnha fanfiction #kiribaku fanfic #max.doc #boku no hero academia

[qqueenofhades]

Your majesty, may I humbly inquire if/how you would imagine a reunion of Ivan and Fedyor after the events of season 1?

Also on AO3.

Ivan wakes up on the far side of the Shadow Fold with very little memory of how he arrived there. He lies flat on his back beneath the cold white sun, which drills into his head like a blade, and at last, after a great effort, he vaguely recalls sunlight of another sort, wild and fey, bursting from Alina Starkov’s hands on the deck of the skiff as everything else went to hell. He remembers the Zemeni brat getting a lucky jump on him and shoving him over the rail, and then falling. Swirling, hungry shadows, shrieking volcra, running with his arms flung over his head, knowing only that he wasn’t dying like this, that he had to survive. In that, at least, he has succeeded. His kefta is torn and filthy, his lips are cracked and bloody, his face is striped with an ugly wound that might scar, he reeks of monstrous ichor, and he may or may not have just witnessed the entire city of Novokribirsk being scoured clean off the map, but Ivan Kaminsky is alive.

After a while he sits up, retching and forcing down the reel of dizziness. He squats on his haunches and tries to focus enough to heal his own wounds. Healers and Heartrenders can learn each other’s craft, but Ivan got complacent with Fedyor always around to do it for him, safe in the luxurious privacy of their bedroom at the Little Palace after another hard campaign. As the general’s right-hand man, he is more often on the front lines, and it became an enjoyably erotic exercise for Fedyor to tenderly patch him up, even if the Second Army Healers had already seen to most of it. I do not mend things, Ivan thinks, looking at the rough results of his efforts. I break them.

With a groan, Ivan forces himself all the way to his feet, looks down at his hand, and discovers that his amplifier is still there, the bear claw that was a valued gift from General Kirigan. No, not Kirigan – there was something else about who Aleksander really is, something Ivan needs to remember, but he can’t. But the bear claw was how he took down all those diplomats at once, something that doesn’t bother him, exactly, but what he still needs to reckon with. So, in his usual tidy, methodical fashion, he does so. They were representatives of cruel, greedy, incompetent governments who all want the Grisha dead or exploited, and while they might have been unarmed civilians, how many unarmed Ravkan children have died cowering in the dark because of their soldiers? As for Novokribirsk –

Ivan closes his eyes hard. He knows that one is harder to explain away, but at the end, he still can see the cold, merciless logic of it. West Ravka was a nest of traitors, and General Zlatan wanted every single person on that skiff dead. There is a certain sordid sense, there always has been, in inflicting one strategically planned atrocity to ensure the compliance of the rest. He knows that Fedyor will be upset. He has a soft heart, and having grown up near Kribirsk, he will have heard stories of its Western Ravkan counterpart and the separated families who lived there, dreamed of visiting when the Fold was banished. That –

Fedyor. Ivan freezes.

He doesn’t know where Fedyor is.

He doesn’t know if Fedyor is alive.

Frantically, he searches out through the network of the world, the meshed echo of heartbeats and living creatures that has always been a Heartrender’s particular soundscape, the extra dimension of humanity that he learned to experience as a child long before he had a name for it. Of course he can’t find Fedyor if he isn’t relatively nearby, but Ivan has always believed that no distance, no matter how great, could truly separate them for long. He just needs to start in one direction and work it down. He can’t stop. In all likelihood, Kirigan is dead now. Someone needs to muster the Grisha and rally them against the Fjerdans, the Shu Han, the Kerch, everyone else who will be swooping in to take advantage of Ravka’s stunning weakness. No more Black General. No one to keep them all safe.

Cold panic twists into Ivan’s heart like a railroad nail. It’s not that he didn’t know that Aleksander has – had – that deep ruthless streak, but he understood it. He just wanted to keep safe what he loved, even if it has twisted and calcified into something else, something still darker. Ivan Kaminsky loves two things: Ravka and Fedyor. He doesn’t need anything else. And he too will burn the world down if it means keeping them safe. If that makes him the new Black General, though he would not presume, so be it. Someone needs to do the dirty work.

Ivan grits his teeth, and ventures into the unknown.

It takes a few weeks, searching painfully and slowly down the coast, pelted with wild rumors of Novokribirsk’s horrifying fate and what awaits them now, trying to shut his ears to all of it, until he finally makes it to Os Kervo, on the shores of the True Sea. There is a ship with the Grisha banner in port, and as he gets closer, Ivan knows with a searing jolt that this is it, Fedyor is here somewhere, he is here. He follows heartbeats, stumbling through the streets and pushing people aside, ignoring their dirty looks and their curses. Some of them halt when they catch sight of the black embroidery still faintly visible on his filthy kefta, but others don’t look twice. Until he staggers down to the dock, and –

There he is. It drives the scanty breath out of Ivan’s lungs at a blow. He could stand here forever, looking and looking. But eventually, in a whisper, he has to speak.

“Fedya?”

Fedyor whirls around and stares. He looks like a man who can’t believe his own eyes, who has not even allowed himself to think about the worst, has shut himself down to avoid the prospect. He looks older and colder and harder than Ivan’s sweet Fedya, the man he left behind not the same as the one that greets him now, but it is still him. He doesn’t bother with words. He closes the distance between them in three strides, throws his arms around Ivan’s neck, and kisses him savagely.

Ivan doesn’t give a shit that they’re in public, that everyone can see them, that he himself is weak in the knees and can feel tears running down his unshaven cheeks, the taste of the salt mingling in their kiss. They sway on the spot, unwilling to let go of each other in case they evaporate, until Fedyor finally whispers, “Below. Now.”

They stumble onto the ship and into one of the tiny berths, barely large enough for Ivan to stand upright, but he doesn’t care. Fedyor strips him out of the tattered remains of his kefta and sets to work, as Ivan closes his battered eyes and lets himself sink into the sheer, unbelievable joy of his lover’s familiar touch, the restored wholeness of their two halves. But of course, the illusion that nothing has changed cannot last forever. As he smooths his fingers over the deepest of the volcra gashes, Fedyor says, “Vanya, what happened?”

Ivan stares at the low ceiling of the bunk. He doesn’t know if he can put it into words, doesn’t know if he wants Fedyor to know everything, even as he doesn’t think he can justly keep it from him. He does his best to provide a terse, clinical summary of the events on the skiff, and reaches out to grab Fedyor’s hand before confirming the truth about Novokribirsk. “It’ll be all right,” he says urgently. “As long as there’s you and me.”

Fedyor stares at him. His dark eyes look huge and terrified. “You think that’s all right?”

“No. Not exactly, I just – ” Ivan has never been the best with words, and they are once more cruelly failing him. He puts his other hand on Fedyor’s cheek, turning his face back to him. “I need you to understand that we’re at war. War, Fedya, in a way we never have been before. All the others, they hated us, but Kirigan kept them at bay. Now there’s nothing. They’re all coming for us. Novokribirsk is only the start.”

“And whose fault is it,” Fedyor asks flatly, “that that happened? If Kirigan hadn’t gone mad with trying to expand the Fold, with Alina Starkov – things were stable before! Not good, maybe, but predictable! Constant! Now this – ”

“It was a stalemate before!” Ivan crawls out of the bunk and kneels in front of Fedyor, looking up at him imploringly. “They were trying to smoke us out, wait for us to make a mistake, so they could pounce on us and tear Ravka to pieces! Fedya – look at me, Fedya, darling, Fedya, my heart. Look at me. I will keep us safe. I will keep you safe.”

Fedyor looks at him mutely, tears running down his own cheeks, catching on the dimples that Ivan has always found so irresistible (even if he does an excellent job of pretending otherwise). Finally, with no other option, Fedyor nods slowly, his hands still knotted tightly with Ivan’s. He lets Ivan hold him, and Ivan does so ferociously, wrapping him in his arms and resting his head on Fedyor’s mussed hair and swearing in the dark that he will slaughter the Sun Summoner himself if need be, whatever needs to be done to keep Fedyor Kaminsky alive and whole and happy. Nothing else matters now. Not really.

After that, Fedyor lets Ivan tend to him, and opens up a little, and says that he found Nina Zenik in, of all places, a port city in the company of a Fjerdan drüskelle. She wanted to insist, improbably, that this witch hunter had changed for the better in the course of a few weeks, but Fedyor didn’t believe it. Ivan is comforted to hear him say this, that not all of Fedyor’s old certainties have totally dissolved, that he still trusts their enemies are their enemies. The drüskelle has been shipped off to Kerch, after Nina accused him of slaving in what Fedyor thinks was a calculated ploy to keep the big blond bastard out of the hands of the Grisha. “I don’t understand, Vanya,” he says, his head on Ivan’s bare chest as they lie together in the narrow bunk, naked except for the furs piled on top. “He hurt her, he captured her, he would have killed her as soon as he remembered. Why would she defend him?”

We all defend the things we love, even when they hurt us. Ivan doesn’t say this aloud. He doesn’t want to believe any more than Fedyor does that Nina improbably found the one good apple of an otherwise bad lot. It is easier to think of the Fjerdans as a faceless mass of ice-cold holy warriors, especially since they will be licking their chops at the downfall of the Black General, their archenemy and the king of the Grisha demons. “We do stupid things for the people we think we care about,” he says instead. “And Nina is young. Impressionable. She will learn the truth soon enough.”

Fedyor doesn’t answer, his fingers tracing light circles around Ivan’s collarbone. Finally, he shifts on top of him, his mouth finding Ivan’s with something close to desperation. After they pull back from the kiss, he says, “Promise me that we won’t lose each other again, Vanya. Whatever comes next. We have to do it together. Please?”

Ivan looks at the face of this man he loves so much and so well, who needs to hear this sweet lie no matter whether it is true. And with his own heart, closed and guarded as he generally keeps it, he wants to believe it too. He does. He does. He does.

If only it could make it so. If only he could be sure.

“Promise,” he whispers. “Promise.”

#ivan x fedyor #heartrender husbands #fivan #the answer is i have Many Feelings evidently #many many feelings #anonymous #ask #fivan ff

[invisible-pink-toast]

So something that I’ve wondered for a while is what would happen if Eugene did die in the tower, and the tear didn’t bring him back. What would Rapunzel do and how would that change her story. 

And I wanted to look into Rapunzel’s life in the tower and her sort of warped perspectives on things through what Gothel taught her (and her reactions to finding out her entire life was a lie). And for some reason last night I was compelled to write it and now it’s become a bit of an ongoing project (it’s already 10k rip) with a lot of angst but also some comfort and I thought I’d post the start here! 

(also spoiler alert but Eugene doesn’t stay dead long term (because fuck that) but I did want to deal with grief and confusion and change so he stays dead for a while...)

______________________

Flower gleam and glow, let your power shine, make the clock reverse, bring back what once was mine. Heal what has been hurt, change the fates design, save what has been lost, bring back what once was mine. What once was mine. 

No glow. No movement. No response. 

Eugene had let out one last breath, and had faded. But Rapunzel hadn’t let go. She stayed and held him close, and tried to bring him back, voice going hoarse and words choked with tears as she repeated the healing incantation over and over and over again. 

But he doesn’t wake up. She feels Pascal come and sit on her shoulder, burrowing into her in comfort and she starts to sob. 

She cries, great wretched sobs that shake her entire body and have her gasping for air, that sound more like screams and wailing. It hurts, the crying, but nothing could ever hurt as much as the pain in her heart, seeping through her veins and her bones into every inch of her, pain at the knowledge that Eugene is- is dead. 

He’s dead. 

She weeps until she can’t anymore, until a welcoming darkness comes and takes her. But her sleep isn’t peaceful - Mother is grabbing her and Eugene is hanging and then he’s lying and red red red stains the floor and brown hair wraps around her, tightening, choking until she gasps awake. 

She doesn’t open her eyes. Doesn’t want to see anything. She lies with her head on Eugene’s chest, but his chest doesn’t move. His heart doesn’t beat. 

In the Snuggly Duckling, when the pub thugs had slammed the door shut and gathered around them to grab ‘Flynn Rider’ - Eugene had put himself between her and Hookhand, holding out his arms to protect her. When the guards had come thundering down the secret passage he’d put his arm around her to urge her forwards. And when the water came rushing in and they couldn’t see, he pulled her back up and brushed the hair back from her face. 

He was always protecting her. Right up until his final moments. He was warm and kind and reassuring. She could go out and take on the world with him by her side. 

But now he was cold. And still. And silent. 

After a long time, Rapunzel looks up. Broken glass is scattered around them. Brown hair lies around the room. It’s dark, she’s not sure how long she cried, or how long she slept. It doesn’t really matter. There’s nothing for her to do. 

What now? 

She’s the lost princess. But what does that mean? Would she be able to prove that? Why would she even want to? The King and Queen are her parents - but this is the King and Queen that sent Eugene to be hanged. How he managed to escape that, she has no idea. But anyone who would want to hurt Eugene can’t be good. 

Mother isn’t- wasn’t good. Mother’s not even her mother. 

All those years, her entire life, locked away in this tower. And for what? 

And there’s so much world out there, it was so exciting and colourful and beautiful - but Eugene’s gone. Eugene’s dead. His blood is on her hands and her hair is on the floor and what’s so beautiful about the world anyway? Why should it get to be beautiful when Eugene is gone and she’s in so much pain? She can’t stay in this tower, doesn’t want to stay in this tower, but she doesn’t want to go into the world either.  

What now? 

She just wants to lie down. Go to sleep again. She’s so tired. She doesn’t want to do anything ever again. 

Well that’s the good part, I guess. You get to go find a new dream. 

She’d seen the floating lights. They were beautiful and important and everything she’d ever hoped for. More so, because of the man beside her. And she found her new dream, with his smile and his touch and his heart. And his company had filled up her heart and warmed her soul and made her want and dream for things she’d never dared to before. She had found her new dream. 

But he’s gone. And he’s never coming back. 

You were my new dream.  If you do this - then you will die.  You need to go find a new dream. 

Eugene had died for her. Eugene had come back for her, sacrificed himself for her. That couldn’t be for nothing. That was so big, and so painful, so it had to mean something. Eugene had given her his life in exchange for hers, she needed to make sure that sacrifice wasn’t in vain. She needed to live. But she was so tired. 

What now? 

Eugene’s face looks peaceful. Almost like he was sleeping. She hopes he’s at peace. That he’s somewhere warm and good. 

Where do you go after you die? 

She’s never wondered that before. Mot- Gothel never talked about it. Rapunzel didn’t even know about death until she was nine and she’d choked on a fishbone. She couldn’t get any air in and began to panic. Mother had gone white as a sheet and ran over and slammed her hands against Rapunzel’s back several times, so hard it hurt, but the fishbone moved and she could breathe again. Mother had been furious, yelling about waste and dying and hair. Mother never brought fish back to the tower again. Mother didn’t want her to die. 

Because she had wanted Rapunzel’s hair. Gothel didn’t care who else died. 

Eugene’s dead. 

He’s gone. 

The light in his eyes and his smile and his kind and beating heart. Gone. But his body is still here. 

How easy would it be for Eugene to come back? His body is here. Where’s the spirit gone? Why can’t he come back? 

He’s not coming back. 

Hot tears slip down Rapunzel’s face. They taste like salt. 

Rapunzel strokes her fingers against Eugene’s cheek. He shouldn’t stay here. Trapped forever in this tower prison. He should be under the sky, free. 

Two days ago they had walked by land that was covered in stones with names on them. Eugene had explained that it was a graveyard, and people were buried there after they died. Rapunzel had freaked out, the thought of being trapped underground- but he quickly tried to calm her, explaining about funerals and tributes and how it was about saying goodbye. 

Eugene was gone. He should get a funeral and a tribute. She didn’t think she could say goodbye though. 

Maybe not ever. 

But he deserved a proper goodbye. An important one. And a stone with his name on it, and the good things he’d done. 

Rapunzel makes herself stand up. Walks past the broken glass and the brown hair and gets some water, and gives some to Pascal too. She walks to the window and looks down. 

She blinks in surprise when she sees Max waiting at the bottom of the tower. The white horse looks relieved to see her, but not surprised. Pascal chirps on her shoulder, he talked to Max while she was asleep. A smile almost graces her lips. Max came back for her. He must have helped Eugene escape. That was kind of him. 

Then she sees Mother’s cloak. And the smile is gone. 

Mother is gone. That’s good. Mother was bad - Mother was Gothel, she wasn’t her mother, but she was Rapunzel’s everything for all her life, but she stole her away and locked her away and used her hair and told her lies she lied and lied and lied but she held Rapunzel when she cried about the lightning storms, and she bought her paints and complimented her art and she made her favourite soups and she lied and hurt and pulled and chained her up and she killed Eugene. She stabbed him right through and stole the life from him just like she stole Rapunzel’s life. Gothel was gone.

Rapunzel covers her eyes. She doesn’t want to cry. Doesn’t want to cry for her, because she was bad and she lied and she hurt, but Rapunzel still cries.

She turns away from the window and sees the knife on the ground, right where Gothel dropped it after Eugene cut her hair. The knife is clean, Gothel must have cleaned it, but then why can Rapunzel see the blood on it? Eugene’s blood. That knife killed Eugene. 

And something in Rapunzel snaps. She storms over, over the broken glass and the hair and she grabs the knife. She marches back to the window and she throws the knife, throws it as far as she can, away from her and away from Eugene. Then she rushes to the sink and washes her hands, scrubs as hard as she can, because she touched the knife and there’s blood on her hands, Eugene’s blood on her hands, and she scrubs and scrubs and scrubs until her hands are red but there’s no blood. 

A funeral. 

Eugene deserves a funeral. 

She’ll take him outside. She’ll bury him there, so he’s outside under the sky. 

He deserves that. And it’s something that she can do. Something she must do. She owes him her life. She won’t let her life go to waste. But she won’t leave him, not like this.

#i need a name for this #rn it’s “sad tangled au” #new dream #rapunzel x eugene #rapunzel #eugene #gothel #tangled #tts #tangled the series #my fics #angst #cw: death blood grief #i'm not sure how to do content warnings if anyone needs anything tagged let me know