#guess I’ll just it deteriorate until it kills me

[psapfos]

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#personal rant incoming #readers are encouraged to ignore #I’ve decided to give up on my mental health #took my years to get an appointment w someone just for him to ghost me #I’ve reached out to him the hospital he works at and my doctor who referred me and no one has gotten back to me #just feels like a huge sign from the universe saying: don’t bother #message received loud and clear #guess I’ll just it deteriorate until it kills me #tw sh #also been itching to sh lately #idk w summer and wearing shorts I see my scars all the time so it’s on my mind a lot #ah just tired of trying to get better there’s clearly no point #may as well do as I please

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WHaBFHtLA - Astarion x GN!Reader - Chapter 11: An Interrogation

Pairing: Astarion x GN!Reader (Elf!Tav)

Genre: Reincarnation, Angst, Mystery, Slow burn

Rating: Explicit, 18+

Tags: Gender-Neutral Pronouns, POV Second Person, Canon-Typical Violence, violence, being bound, being imprisoned, angry Astarion

WC: 3.5k words, 11/?? chapters

Summary: You spend the night in vampire prison and have a difficult conversation.

A/N: Did you know that Dalyria has a strength of 16 (as do all of the rest of the spawn siblings)? Because I didn’t until I wrote this. Now imagining Astarion’s strong sister giving him piggyback rides around the underdark… Anyway, hope you enjoy!

Ao3 | [Ch10][Ch12] | WHaBFHtLA Masterlist

You find yourself in what you can only call vampire jail.

After being discovered by Astarion, you didn’t have a chance to run. Between him and Dal, they apprehended you embarrassingly quickly. From your memories, you’re accustomed to Astarion’s lightning reflexes, but Dal’s sheer strength came as a surprise to you. You were gagged before you could get a single word out– likely because they didn’t want you casting any spells. While you wanted to resist, the worried look on Dalyria’s face stopped you. If I act too rashly, they won't hesitate to kill me.

So you went limp. Your bag was confiscated and you were tied, gagged, blindfolded, and thrown over Dal’s shoulder like a sack of potatoes. You imagine if Astarion had been any less angry, he might have made a joke about your situation, but he stayed unnervingly silent throughout the whole ordeal.

While you couldn’t see anything, you could feel yourself taken through twists and turns, down steps, behind doors. Eventually you were tossed ungracefully onto the ground, where you lay now. You can feel the cold chill of stone beneath you and something else drains you as you enter this new space, like a deep part of your essence has been sapped away from you.

“Don’t even think about trying to escape,” Astarion says, breaking his silence with an icy tone. “We have sussur bloom set up throughout the entire prison, and the door is guarded night and day. You’ll stay here until we figure out what to do with you.”

You hear him stomp off before Dal speaks, “It’s you, isn’t it? That’s why he’s so angry?”

Despite the blindfold and the gag, you can sense well enough what she means. You nod. 

She exhales a shaky sigh and removes your blindfold to take a better look at you. You open your eyes to the blonde woman crouching before you, standing in the doorway of what looks to be a prison cell. Her red eyes dart between yours, trying to see the truth you might be hiding from her. Satisfied with what she sees, she stands back up and says, “I’ll try speaking to him. If you are who you claim to be… thank you. For coming back.”

Without another word, she locks the cell door behind her and walks away.

You’re not sure what to do with her thanks, since you don't feel like you've done a particularly fantastic job thus far. So you just stare through the metal bars of the cell door for a while, trying, desperately, to ignore the ruinous sensation that the sussur bloom infects you with.

After a few minutes, you snap out of your stupor. You manage to get the gag out of your mouth after a few attempts and eventually give up on your wrist bindings after more than a dozen attempts. You suspect that Astarion’s skills with his hands have not deteriorated over the years, given how snugly you’re bound.

Uncomfortable, miserable, and drained of all of your strength, you lay down for your reverie. It’s likely nighttime, you guess. And it’s not like I have anything better to do.

__

When you’ve finally settled down enough to meditate, you’re pleasantly surprised to find yourself dreaming of the Hero’s Life again. You weren’t sure if you’d be graced with these memories anymore after their untimely demise, but you suppose you have at least a few months left until you reach full maturity.

Your eyes open to a desk full of papers, as your now all-too-familiar hands sift through them. Maybe there's something useful here, you think to yourself.

Despite your scholar’s eyes, the words are written in a language you can't quite make out. It isn't the first time this has happened to you in a dream, but it certainly is more frustrating than usual now that you're desperate for anything that could help. Your body makes some annotations in a code you've caught a few times– using the same quill you saw on Astarion's desk.

The symbols never stay long enough for you to decipher them and new papers replace them a moment later, but you get the sense that they’re nothing new to your former-self. The edges are frayed and they add fresh notes to already existing ones.

They spend hours at the desk, sorting, reading, writing. All the while, they just feel… focused. Their emotions are calm and it calms you in turn. So when a voice calls to you, your head shoots up in alarm.

"Darling?" calls your lover's voice, in a tone completely different from the one you'd heard only hours ago. It's soft, open, unguarded– much like the face that peeks around the doorway to the room you’re in. Your heart clenches in your chest at the love he regards you with. 

Now that your body’s looked up, you recognize the room as Astarion’s current-day study, albeit decorated entirely differently. Your past-self smiles at his appearance and asks, “Yes, love?”

“How much longer do you plan on pouring over those papers? I was hoping we might take some time to ourselves today. And I don’t believe you’ve eaten yet, have you?”

As if not realizing how long you’d been sitting for, your body stretches, craning your neck one way then the other. “Gods, you’re right,” you hear yourself say. “Alright, let me just put this away and I’ll be right there.”

Astarion tuts at you, undoubtedly knowing better. “I’m not leaving until I see you get up from that desk,” he says, eyes narrowing at you. Your heart warms, and you’re filled with affection. He cared about you so deeply and it showed in everything he did. Even now, as he crosses his arms and dares you defy his right to take care of your well-being.

So your body sighs, standing from the desk and placing your quill back in its rightful place. “ Fine, you win. But if I come back and forget what I was doing, you’re helping me sort out some of these logistics.”

“Gladly,” Astarion says with a satisfied grin. As you walk toward him, he holds out a hand for you. You take it gladly, and you feel your past-self filled with such devotion as they return his smile. 

When you wake, you find yourself in the same cold cell, wrists bound, eyes aching from unshed tears. No one is here for you now and no one seems willing to come deal with you. You wonder if you’ll die here before ever seeing Astarion in person again.

__

The next person you see isn’t Dal or Astarion. A few hours after waking, a large blonde man comes to your cell, bearing a pitcher of water and a filled glass.

“Drink up, elf,” the man says, gesturing to you to come closer. His tone isn’t overly demanding, nor is he aggressive. It seems like he’s merely fulfilling a duty.

You ignore his gesture. “Please let me talk to Astarion. This is all a misunderstanding,” you say, trying your best to keep the desperation from your voice and failing entirely. Your throat is scratchy and the water is appealing, but your fear of dying in this sussur-induced hell takes precedence.

The man– Petras, you think– shakes his head. “Don’t worry, you’ll talk to him soon. Dal’s making sure of it. And trust me when I say, you’re in there to keep you safe from us.”

Of course, that doesn’t come as much of a surprise to you. You did walk into a vampire's den, got caught almost immediately, and now find yourself entirely powerless to defend yourself. You decide not to dwell on that as you continue to speak to the man. “When will he come by?”

Petras looks at you with something in his eyes akin to pity, before shaking his head. “Not sure, he’s been talking with Dal for hours.” His eyes dart around to make sure no one is listening in as he changes the subject, “Are you really who you say you are?”

You only nod, and shimmy closer at the sound of excitement in Petras’s voice. It’s disappointing that these spawn siblings are more excited to see you than your former lover is, but you won’t waste this opportunity. “I am. I swear it.”

“Then are you going to help–”

The man is cut off by the sound of a door closing down the cell block. “I’ll take it from here, Petras. Leave the water. And stay nearby.” You recognize Astarion’s chilly voice, and wonder what terrifying look he must have given Petras for him to scramble to his feet so quickly. 

You hear the door close behind Petras, and Astarion comes into your view. His face is severe, brows furrowed and mouth set in a hard line. He doesn’t say anything when he sees you slumped next to the cell door, your shoulders hunched visibly in defeat at your losing a chance to speak to someone who would believe you.

He leaves your line of sight again, and you hear the scrapping of chair legs on the stone floor. When he returns, he sets a wooden chair in front of your cell and sits down in front of you. Another moment of silence passes between you when he finally clears his throat and crosses his legs. “Well? What do you have to say for yourself?”

You’re shocked by the lack of anger in his voice. Dalyria must have gotten through to him! So you lock with his red eyes between the metal bars and plead like your life depends on it, as it very well might. “I’m so sorry. I really didn’t mean any harm to you, to your siblings. I just… I-I couldn’t leave it like that. I couldn’t let you run away from me.”

Astarion listens to your pleas, tapping a finger casually on his knee as he does so. He has all of the power in this room, and it shows in how his eyes regard you with an open calculation. “I suppose if you did mean to harm us, you would have done so already,” he finally says. You wonder if that was part of Dal’s reasoning. Then, as if you’re having an entirely different conversation, as if you’re not in a cell facing certain death, he asks you, “So, what do you think of the place?”

You blink, mind reeling at the shift. “I suppose it’s… quite nice?”

He smirks at you, clearly enjoying how uncomfortable the question made you. “Isn’t it? You'd be surprised at how much wealth a legion of spawn is capable of accumulating.”

“Yes, you have immaculate taste,” you say, hoping that that’s what he wants to hear.

The man ignores your comment, evidently not caring for your praise. “The real problem of course is that some things can't be bought. Like blood– especially in vast enough quantities for a horde of vampires. As I’m sure you’re aware, vampires have a sanguine hunger that simply cannot be satisfied."

"Are you going to eat me?" Your eyes go wide, wondering if that’s why he changed the tune of your talk.

He laughs at you, drinking in your fear like a tyrant on a throne as he leans back in the chair. "Oh I certainly wanted to,” he responds, after his laughter dies down. “Dal has convinced me that it would be… a bad idea."

Thank the gods for Dal. "Then… why are you telling me about the problem with, erm, sourcing blood?"

He looks at you for a long moment, as if expecting something to happen, but you’re not sure what. You wrack your brain, hoping for a memory, anything to come to it. When clearly nothing will, the man sighs and says, "I suppose just to complain. We can only source so much blood naturally without putting a target on our back. It gets tiresome."

You feel like you've missed something, a chance, and it frustrates you to no end to be expected to continue to converse normally and move past it. It's time for you to start grasping at what you do know. "In my memories the spawn lived in a smaller fortress, in a different part of the Underdark. It seemed dangerous. Is it at least safer here?"

His red eyes appraise you for a beat before he answers, "Yes, I suppose blood is a far lesser concern than those we used to have." He leans forward in the chair, placing his elbows on his knees to stare at you more intently. “It’s still dangerous, naturally. Over 6000 spawn attract a lot of unwanted attention, and not everyone agrees that we have a right to life– or unlife, as they see it.”

“6000? I thought you were closer to 7000?"

“Yes, I suppose you wouldn’t know, even if you are who you claim to be.” He looks down angrily, massaging his forehead with a few fingers. “We’ve lost a lot of spawn to hunters. To heroes, and to the natural dangers of the Underdark.”

“Oh.” You’re not sure what to say to that, but you do feel a pang deep in your chest. A pain that would likely reach your very soul if it could.

“Well, now that you know all of that, I guess I should ignore Dal's advice and kill you!” He says it cheerily, and you gulp. Was that his plan all along?

“What if I could convince you not to kill me?” you ask, inching your body forward as you grasp the bars with your tied hands.

Astarion seems to think about it, but it’s plainly an act. “Hmm, how about… not a chance.”

“What if I were truly the reincarnation of your former love? Would you really send their soul back to Arvandor?” you ask, staring up at him through the bars desperately. 

You think you hear his breath hitch. He only says, “I would not.” His face is still, tone giving nothing away, but you can tell that the idea of it doesn’t sit well with him. 

“So what will it take for you to believe me?” you ask, gripping the bars of your cell as tightly as you can to hold yourself closer, knowing that this may be your only way to survive this.

“I don’t know,” he says, and his eyes are so distant that you know he means it. There may not be a magic word for this. He may never truly believe you, even if you hand him memory after memory. Astarion’s pain may run too deep for you to be able to navigate.

You reach through the bars for the glass of water and take a shaky sip as you think. If your current-self is too ill-equipped, you decide to think like your past-self. What would I have done? I would have been straightforward. I would make sure he didn’t run away from difficult conversations. If he didn’t want to see reason, I would have made him see reason. Can I even do that?

Anything is doable when your life is on the line. So you swallow the water and begin talking, “Dal believed me. Halsin believed me. Hells, even Petras, who I barely met, seemed to believe me. Even if you don’t– or simply won’t– you should consider that sometimes giving a stranger the benefit of the doubt won’t be the end of the world. But if you’re wrong, it sounds like it may very well be the end of your world.”

Maybe it's because of the newfound strength in your words or maybe Astarion just wants to see something familiar in you, but he watches you as you speak, hung on your every word. When you’re done, he only stares at you as he weighs your words.

After more than a minute of silence, you’re not sure if he’s going to speak unprompted again. You decide to hazard a question, “Knowing that, do you still want to kill me?”

“No,” he answers curtly, eyes narrowing at you as if he’s mad that you’ve convinced him. He sits back in the chair again and points a finger at you sternly. “But if you so much as breathe near this colony again, I will kill you on the spot, do you understand?”

A step forward, you think, breathing a little easier now that your safety is more secure. However, it doesn’t resolve the matter of who you are. “What if you want to keep me around? After all, I was your love in a past life.”

"Fine,” he says, and his tone is casual again. “Let’s say you are who you say you are. Why did you come to see me?"

Again, you think back to the candid confidence of your former self. Let’s do that again. "Because for as long as I can remember, you have been all I think about. You've been in all of my waking and sleeping thoughts. I don't know what my life is without you in it." Your voice comes out strong, honesty ringing in each statement.

Astarion seems unmoved. He clicks his tongue and leans toward you, and you get vague recognition of when he’s preparing himself for a killing blow. "That's all well and good, romantic even. But it doesn't get to the heart of the matter. What do you hope to accomplish?"

Your brows furrow, and the confidence falters with your confusion. "I… guess I thought…"

“Thought what?" he asks, leaning a bit further.

“I guess I thought… perhaps we could pick up where we left off?” Your suggestion comes out like a question. Of course it’s a question, this is unprecedented territory. In fact, precedented territory was constantly telling you what a bad idea this was, practically laughing in your face at the ludicrous endeavor– Rekindle with a love from a former life? Hah, who do you think you are?

Astarion also laughs in your face. It's not cruel, it's not silly. It's utterly devoid of humor, as if he hasn’t laughed with genuine mirth in years. His words hit you like a sucker punch, “And why would I want to do that?”

The insecurities from before start to bubble backup. You think of how he spoke of you to Dalyria, of how you pale in comparison to your former self, and you feel like sobbing. But you hold yourself together, clutching at the bars like a lifeline. You say the only words you know to in this situation, the words that have given you comfort, the ones that set you on this journey in the first place, “In one of my memories, you said you would love me in every lifetime. Don't you remember?”

His response is immediate and bitter. The killing blow he’s been waiting to deliver. “The man who said that was a fool who believed in love.”

You've taken a lot of harsh words from Astarion so far, weathered them and persisted. But with that single sentence, your heart shatters. The grand illusion of your journey is dispelled. The reason you made your way here is based on a man who no longer exists, all that remains is this embittered facsimile. The Astarion that held you when you worried, that took care of you when you were ill, that loved you– this is a mere shadow of him.

You’re not certain how words come out of your mouth, but they do. Your voice sounds distant and faint, like a light breeze could scatter it, "In that case. Could you let me go? I'm afraid I've made a big mistake.” Astarion may be laughing at you, he may be angry, but you find it difficult to read his expression as tears begin to well in your eyes. 

The man doesn’t comment on anything you��ve said, only issues a quick instruction for you, “Your bag is hanging near the door. Petras should be ready to escort you out.” He unlocks the door to your cell without another word. His voice sounds as distant as your own did.

You scramble to your feet as the tears begin to spill– you've tried so hard to keep from crying in front of Astarion, you certainly don’t want him to see you crying now. You’ve shown him enough vulnerability for a lifetime, you decide.

So you begin to leave, not noticing when he reaches out to untie your hands, nor when he seems to be on the verge of saying something. You certainly don’t catch the way he places a hand on his chest, as if only now realizing that part of his body could still feel pain.

You grab your bag at the end of the hall and wipe some of your tears with your sleeve. Before you leave the prison, you take a deep breath and call to him your parting words, “Even if you don’t want another life with me, please consider moving on. I saw your house, all of those lingering memories. You don’t need to mourn for another 150 years. I didn’t want that in my past life and I don’t want that now. Goodbye, Astarion.”

As you close the door behind you, you meet his eyes one last time. The only emotion you catch before the door shuts is fear.

#astarion #astarion x tav #fanfic #astarion fic #astarion x reader #astarion fanfiction #astarion fanfic #astarion masterlist #gn reader #astarion x gn reader #astarion x gn!tav #astarion baldurs gate #bg3 astarion #when he's all but forgotten how to love again #whabfhtla #reincarnation trope #elf!tav #astarion x you

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In a Mirror Image (Eyeless Jack X F!Reader)

🌸 In a Mirror Image

[Eyeless Jack X F!Reader]

[Warnings: blood, language, cheating (both physical but it's not like, in your face, and emotional)]

Part 1

The flowers that grow like weeds in your lungs bloom thicker and thicker every day. Your vision clouds with blue more often than not, and you can’t think about anything but the blossoms and blood that paint the bathroom with a hue you’re already much too used to. It’s a painful existence, and it’s getting worse. One of the most wretched parts? You’re deteriorating so fast that your vision no longer services you. You are blind, unrendered to see. You still choose to live in a delusion, and you are amongst the only who choose not to acknowledge it.

By now, everyone knows but only one other than you refuses to acknowledge it.

You hear Hoodie arguing with Jack more often than not. It seems the blond haired proxy is angry over what Jack has done to you and because he knows what Hanahaki does to those it takes root in.

“You’ll fucking kill her,” Hoodie seethes as he gets in Jack’s face for the fourth time this weekend. “Look at her-”

“I am!” Jack shot back, his arms crossing defensively over his chest. “Who are you to come in here and speculate on something that you’re not a part of?” He growls. Normally, Jack likes talking to Hoodie, but not when Hoodie’s on a mission to prove Jack a sinner.

“I wasn’t even aware you still had one,” Hoodie retorts through grit teeth. “I can’t believe you. Look at the flowers Ja-” and before he can continue tearing into Jack, he hears your bedroom door open.

While you still share the room with Jack, neither of you are in it at the same time. You’ve taken residence up on the living room couch with Kate and Jack more often than not stays with Leia. The room you share is usually empty, much like your heart.

“Hey there, buttercup,” Hoodie suddenly greets you as you tiredly walk into the kitchen where the two men had previously been in a standoff. “Did you sleep okay?” He asks, voice so much softer and gentler with you than what he had just been using.

You shake your head as you take a seat at the table. “I can’t sleep,” you say.

Hoodie’s brows furrow in sympathy before they knit in frustration when Jack sits next to you. He watches as Jack snakes his arm around you before he presses an empty kiss to the side of your head.

“No?” Jack says in a sickly saccharine tone. “I’ll see what I can do about that. Does that sound good to you?”

You nod slightly, the ghost of a smile on your lips. “That sounds good,” you murmur back.

“Anything for you,” he hums as he pulls you in closer to his side.

“You disgust me,” Hoodie hisses to Jack as he gets up and pushes in his chair roughly, making the table bounce. He doesn’t take his eyes off of Jack for a second as he leaves, roughly slamming the front door behind him.

“What was that about?” You ask, feigning innocence. You refuse to open your eyes to the situation you are in.

“He’s having a bad day,” Jack answers. “Don’t worry your pretty little head about it,” he hums as he presses another kiss to the side of your head.

The butterflies in your stomach are dead, but the flowers blood evermore.

“You’re still sleeping out here?” Kate hums as she takes a seat next to you on the couch. She looks exhausted and she’s covered in blood. Her mask is cracked too.

“I guess,” you yawn as you shift slightly from your not so comfortable position. “How has your day been?” You ask as you reach for a glass of water only to see it’s not there.

“Let me,” Kate says as she gets up once more. She knows you’re getting worse. After getting you a bottle of water from the fridge, she comes back to your side. “I’ve had a busy day. Met with an independent named Nyein. They remind me of a big cat,” she finally answers as she opens the water bottle for you.

You take it and begin to slowly sip from it - it stops the flowers from blooming ever so slightly. Your airway opens just a little bit. “Do they now?”

Kate nods as she flips mindlessly through the channels. “They said they’re falling in love with a human. Bad business,” Kate winces, her dark eyes watching you carefully. “I hope they don’t…”

“It’s bad business,” you suddenly say as you feel petals fill your mouth. You cough slightly and the small little forget-me-nots fall into your lap, thankfully free of blood this time. You take one of the flowers into your fingertips and observe it gently. “I hope they’re okay.”

Kate puts her hand on your thigh, lightly squeezing before finally settling on the early evening news. “You wanna burn these blue fuckers?” She asks as the flowers in your lap remain stagnant save for the buds that unfurl at an alarmingly fast pace.

You feel the corners of your lips curl into a smile. “Yes.”

Morbid, your flowers have been springing up everywhere. They’ve infested the temporary house. So, you and Kate went around the place, plucking every single one before starting a bonfire in the backyard.

Toby, who considers himself a bit of a pyromaniac, was immediately summoned by the fire the two of you had cast in the backyard. He’d been out on a grocery run, and honestly, he had wanted to get out of the house.

The dynamics of the house had become uncomfortable to him. What with Leia and Jack sneaking off together and you coughing up a full greenhouse, he has been stressed. Toby can’t stand Jack and Hoodie arguing all the time as it reminds him of the life he tried to escape, and Masky can offer so much but ever since he renounced his love for Jay by force… It’s been hard. Toby knows it’s been hard for everyone involved.

He crosses through the house, sneers at Leia’s room, and then exits through the back to the scent of fire. He sees Kate’s arm around you as the fire blazes slightly blue.

“W-What are you g-gals up to?” He asks, coming to your other side so you remain in the middle.

“Burning stuff,” Kate nonchalantly replies. “You care to chuck anything in?”

Toby glances at you as you struggle to keep air in your lungs. “If I d-d-did, I’d be u-under c-charge for killing a-a-another under the O-Operator’s care,” he muses. He’s referring to Jack, of course. He takes in the scent of burning plant matter and blood and frowns when he remembers it’s yours. His hand reaches yours and squeezes gently.

You squeeze back.

Your experiences with Leia are lukewarm at best, and cold at worst. She’s something, she really is something. There’s moments when no one is in the temp house with you except for her alongside you, and those moments are tense, sharp, like a knife and burn colder than the depths of the sea.

The most memorable conversation you’ve ever had was the one that triggered a domino effect that would lead to a black hole in your chest.

“You’re still up?” Leia’s honeyed voice questions softly as she takes a seat across from you on the back porch at the glass table.

You find it more stifling inside so you choose to spend your time out. The weather is warm, afterall. The sun shines and fluffy clouds the size of whales swim overhead. You have a glass of pink lemonade made from a pouch Hoodie and Kate had picked up earlier. You find that the tang is enough to keep the flowers down.

“Of course I am, why wouldn’t I be?” You say in passing before you sip from the glass. You enjoy watching the rabbits in the backyard. They hop around without a care in the world.

She begins to thread her fingers through her long silver hair, braiding it. “I just think you should be resting,” she says. “You look so tired these days-”

“That’s none of your concern.”

“Touched a nerve,” she sighs. “You know you’re getting worse, right?”

You shoot her a glare, but you know she’s right. You’ve actually been holding out surprisingly longer than most people with Hanahaki Disease. Most people succumb to it within a few weeks of coughing, but you’ve managed to hold out for damn near an entire year. That’s almost unheard of. You’ve been hacking up flowers, their stems, roots and blood ever since Leia came into your life.

Everyone tells you that you’re getting worse, but you should have been dead months ago.

“Stop it,” you growl.

“You’re killing yourself,” she continues. “You could just… Let it all go, y’know?” She hums as she continues to fishtail her silver strands. “Renounce your feelings for him and save yourself.”

You grip your glass and set it back down roughly on the table. “That is literally none of your concern,” you repeat, eyes narrowing at the blue eyed beauty across from you. “Acting like you care-”

“I do, though,” she cuts you off. “I know that the Slender Man has big plans for you, but with you wasting away like this… You’ll never live long enough to see them through.” She flashes you a look of concern, but you can tell it’s fake. It shines like pyrite.

“What, so you can take my place just like that?” You bite back. “You can’t even wait until I’m fucking dead?”

Leia giggles and you hate to admit that it sounds pretty. “Yeah, I guess you’re right. Daddy always did say I got what I wanted.” Her eyes drift off and you’re able to see she’s no longer thinking about you, but someone who once loved her. She finishes the braid. “Happy six years to you and Jack. Give him all my regards, won’t you?” She stands up, eyes the rabbits feasting on the clover in the grass, before she plucks your half empty glass from in front of you.

“Leia-!”

“It’s not like you need it,” she chuckles.

“It’s a special day,” you said to Masky, a small smile on your face. “It’s our six year anniversary.” Your posture changes to attention as he closes the door softly behind him. He still smells like cigarettes, but it’s a pleasant scent you’ve found comfort in where others find it a nuisance.

Masky put a smile on his face but it didn't reach his eyes. “You need me to draw a portal or something for you?” He holds his arms open to you as you fall into them, part because you’re so weak and secondly because he knows you need the affection - even if he can’t feel it.

You feel light come to your eyes as you nod after leaving a note for Jack in your shared room on his nightstand.

‘Dear Jack, happy six years! I’d wait for you to get back, but I have a surprise for you at the field you gifted to me for our first anniversary. I await you with happiness. Love, R.’

Masky drew the portal in the living room, a mess of swirling cloud-like silvers and blacks before he laid eyes upon the place you once shared only with Jack. “It’s super pretty,” he says, dark eyes scanning over all the wildflowers. There’s weeds on the path, like no one has cared for it in a while. ‘How poetic,’ he thinks. ‘It’s an allegory for your decayed relationship with Jack.’

“No it’s not,” you giggle as you bring Masky down one of the weed and chicory covered paths to the gazebo. “But it’s special to me,” you hum as you take a seat.

Masky follows beside you. He doesn’t take a seat, mostly feeling it wrong to impose on a space that is Jack’s despite his respect for him falling so far from what it used to be, but takes in the scent of dying flowers all the same. It’s summer, and instead of the sun warming the soft petals, it’s burning them. When you cough up more flowers while waiting for the man who still holds your heart (and refuses to return it) you’re less than pleased to see that they blend in with the untamed mosaic.

“Are you still tired?” Masky asks softly as he lights up a cigarette. “You can rest, I’m sure he won’t mind.”

You glance over to Masky before you rest your head in your hands, wondering where your lover is. You listen to the wind as it blows through the leaves. You listen to Masky’s hum, and eventually, you fall asleep.

You wake back up sometime during the night in your bed and not in a position you normally sleep in. It looks like whoever delivered you back here was extra careful with handling you. You only wake up because Jack has accidentally turned on the light.

“Shit, my bad,” he apologizes, quickly plunging the room back into darkness. “Did I wake you?” He knows he did.

“No,” you lie. “I couldn’t sleep anyways.” That was the most rest you’ve had in months. “Where have you been?” You ask quietly, still choosing to remain buried in the sheets.

Jack slides into bed next to you and gets comfortable. He smells like perfume you don’t wear. Through the faint light of the hallway that peeks under your door, you can see he’s got dark marks on his neck and jaw. “Leia wanted to show me her childhood home. Place isn’t run by Zalgo anymore, so we took a trip out there.”

“Did you now?” You hum as you feel tears prick your eyes.

Jack can see you in the dark. His vision at night far surpasses a human’s. He just chooses not to acknowledge it. Jack knows that his relationship with you is gone, and that you’ve been coughing up flowers for the past year. He knows, and it hurts him. Hurts him deeply that he’s the one causing you such pain, but at the same time, he’s a coward. He chooses not to let you go cleanly because his relationship with Leia is so finite.

He knows she only wants him because at the time he was unattainable. Now that she has him, it is only a matter of time until she does to him what he’s done to you. He understands that fully, but he refuses to leave the safety net that is you because he is selfish. His feelings for you aren’t nonexistent, but it’s that kind of fondness one has after the deed has been done, a love based on past memory and sentiment rather than what will and can be. It has reached his threshold, and you both are too caught up in security rather than what is healthy.

“I did,” he says as his mind rushes a mile a minute. “What did you do today?”

You wonder if you should answer that honestly or not. Would he even care? “I stayed here today, nothing special.” You feel the flowers unfurling in your lungs.

Jack hums once more, his back now facing you as he slowly succumbs to sleep.

You met Masky in the bathroom again, hacking your lungs and more of those fucking flowers up into the bathrub and the sink. Hell, you even got some in the toilet. Your body is growing weaker and weaker by the day. The fact you’ve held out for a year is astronomical, but you know you’ll be being taken from it eventually. No one survives Hanahaki when their lover’s feelings aren’t returned. It either gets returned, or you lose them all entirely.

He almost lost you. You broke the mirror when your body went limp as the vines and flowers crawled out from your lungs, through your esophagus and out of your mouth. If it was an art installation piece, Masky might’ve thought it beautiful, but the fact you went cold and limp and the flowers were blooming at a rapid pace - one he thought he couldn’t keep up with.

Masky, despite not being able to really feel anything, panicked as he took you into his arms. Did he genuinely care for you? No, but he cared to whatever extent the surgery left him with. He fretted because you are under his direct care. He cared so deeply because he too had seen many good proxies and independents lost to it. He cared because a part of him remembered what it was like to have daisies and rhododendrons fill his lungs. Normally, you only have one type of flower to clutter your lungs. Science says “just because.” An old wives’ tale says “love truly lost.” In his case? Jay’s death. Nothing was the same after that.

Masky took no hesitation in scooping you up into his arms and running out of the house to the forest to be closer to his boss’s energy. The Operator could fix this should he will it. He didn’t care that the lights in the house went on from his concerned proxies - the ones who had been sick over what befell you since you came into their care. He didn’t dare let you go as he trampled through the brush in the dead of night, using only the moon.

“Sir!” He calls out frantically. “Sir! I need your help!” He can hear your heart get slower and slower.

And just like that, the devoted father came to his child’s cry.

“My child,” he greets, instantly swooping down to look at your pained, flowery visage. “Did I not tell you to handle this?” He chides softly as he takes you into his arms. The sound of static only grows louder and louder.

“I thought she could,” he says, his tone clearly apologetic. “Please, just… Just fix this for me.” He watches the Operator closely as the tall man holds you in his arms.

While you are not exactly his child directly, you are also still under his care. Leia did not lie that the Operator sees good things for you. Without any other words, the tall man is gone, giving you to gods know who to perform a surgery that should be considered the only humane way out.

He returns to the house where Hoodie, Kate and Toby eagerly awaited him, clamoring around him and pecking like hens wondering where you are. He says that you’re in the hands of a god.

You floated in the ether, your body a galaxy. You watched as your chest was torn open - looked like by the hands of an independent that had talons to rival an eagle.

‘There’s so much,’ she says, her mouth turning into a frown as she worked on carefully removing the clusters of flowers. ‘How is she not dead?’

The Slender Man continues to observe, not offering the doctor any words.

The spirals and swirls inside of you continue to swirl before the flowers get torn out, one by one. The roots that cling to your lungs are stubborn, but with every single one removed, the lights of a different universe go out. Snuffed. Lost. The cavity in your chest grows wider until it births a black hole.

‘How much longer?’ The Slender Man asks, watching as the independent calls in another to help her rid your body of weeds.

She shakes her head as she continues to root them out. They bloom under her touch. ‘I have no idea - she must’ve felt so strongly-’

‘They just keep coming up, Sir,’ the other interjects, her four eyes scanning you rapidly.

The black hole begins to suck up the stars and nebulas that comprise your system. It feasts on you, making every part of what made you you, disappear in its depths. It grows larger as it consumes you. It grows heavier. It grows more powerful.

‘We’re almost there,’ the taloned independent says, her wings fluttering softly to emphasize her point. ‘I’ve never seen it this bad before.’

‘Fix this,’ the Slender Man seethes, his patience wearing thin. He knows your body will not be able to handle this much longer.

The black hole reaches its mass, and slowly, it begins to consume you. It overtakes you, bathes you, and leaves nothing left when it has taken all that it can. Your body is empty. You are a shell. Glimpses of blue, grey and reddish brown flash in your mind’s eye and through the eye of the black hole, but you cannot place the feelings you used to associate with them. You remember, but you do not feel.

The last of the flowers are pulled. The taloned independent is exhausted, and her partner is just as tired. ‘Good fucking lord,’ she breathes out, exhausted from the late night gardening session. ‘In all my years I have never seen that awful disease take hold of an individual that bad,’ she notes. Her bird-like eyes watch over your open chest to make sure they’ve fully cleared it out.

A single forget-me-not sprouts, and the Slender Man is the one who plucks it. Just like that, the flowers, their roots, all evidence you’d ever had life inside of you, is gone. Withered and wilted away.

The black hole takes all that you have to offer, and you are back to consciousness, no longer floating, no longer a home to the vibrancy of the universe.

What came after was a bit of a blur. The Slender Man had brought you back to the safe house you had called your home for the past year surprised to see that some of his favored children were still away, waiting for you as the light of the sun rose over the grass. It was a new dawn.

“How is she?” Hoodie asked, immediately springing up.

“Fixed,” was all the Slender Man said, his gaze shifting from you to your group’s leader. “Masky, I’m entrusting you to watch over her as you have been through something similar.”

“Of course,” the dark eyed man says as he takes you gingerly into his arms. “I wouldn’t trust her with anyone else.”

“One last thing,” the tall man in a suit hums. “I am taking Eyeless Jack from this house. Leia will stay with him.”

“It’s probably for the best. We trust your judgment,” Masky replies.

The Slender Man’s head gently cups Masky’s cheek before he leaves them with the sound of static that dissipates as fast as it appeared.

You spent the first few days after your surgery under bed rest. The Slender Man had healed you but he still worried for the state of your lungs. You needed the rest, and you were pleased to have it. Other than that, you felt… nothing. You were numb. Fleeting feelings of happiness or thankfulness, maybe something melancholic would slip through but ultimately, you were nowhere near your old self.

Jack was not allowed anywhere near you. That was one of the first instructions given to him when the Slender Man had popped into his head. While he did not have an opinion on Jack’s unfaithful behavior, he was more displeased with the fact he’d kickstarted the disease in you. The Slender Man thought that if he started it in Leia, then perhaps everything would turn out alright.

So, he sent the two out with a different group - which mostly meant Jeff, someone the Slender Man knew detested behavior that Jack had committed.

It was not easy for Jack to share the same space with Jeff after word had gotten out about you.

“You’re my best friend,” Jeff had sighed one late afternoon, refusing to even acknowledge Leia in the room. “But that? That was fucked up.”

Jack hummed and kept his gaze on Leia, who looked at him with nothing short of adoration. “Sure.”

Jeff sighed once more and stood up. “You don’t feel an inch bad, do you?”

“No.”

“You’re a shitty guy but you’re an even shittier liar.” Jeff broke the door with how hard he’d slammed it on his way out.

Jack really wasn’t the same, that much was apparent. He’d slowly been becoming more withdrawn and quicker to agitation. Of course, he’d take it out on whoever was around to deal with it. Leia included - it just came in a different form. One in which she’d never complained. But when things were rough between them, things were rough.

Jeff could hardly stand the two most days, so when he’d sneak out, it was with his dog to come pay a visit with you. And he hated how dull you had become.

“Masky used to be a lot more personable,” Jeff would say. “Life of the party when we could get him out of his pseudo-philosophical bullshit. Then he hurled flowers and we knew something was wrong.” Jeff’s hand rubs your back gently as a sign of friendship.

“And then?”

“Then he got that stupid surgery and now he’s just existing. No further purpose, just existing because some pale guy says so for his benefit.” Jeff huffed and looked up at the setting sun.

You found your gaze following his.

“What you’re doing right now,” he began. “It’s no way to live.”

“Would you have rather I’d succumbed to it?” You asked, not adding any inflection to whether you’re happy or sad, hurt or even offended.

“In all honesty?” Jeff tore his eyes from the pink and blue sky. “Yeah. This,” he gestured to you. “This isn’t you.”

Everything you’re supposed to feel feels dampened. Instead, you nodded. “Note taken.”

Jeff frowned.

The first time Jack was able to see you after your surgery was nearing halfway to what would have been seven months. It’d been a rough time without him seeing you, mostly because the guilt had been devouring every humanity he had left. Nothing could fill the void.

Like the first time you had met him, it was an accident when you crossed paths once again. You had been clearing out a house one fine winter’s evening, doing what had been asked of you before you got the faintest scent of something familiar and something you once recognized as comforting. You furrow your brows, weapon at your hip as you slowly and quietly come down the stairs.

Your lips are pressed into a thin line as you peer into the living room. Snow falls outside the window.

“Reader?” A male voice asks, turning around from the hallway. “Is that you?”

You tilt your head slightly as you register the mask you’re looking at. Eyeless Jack, mostly just known as ‘EJ’ or ‘Jack’. You’ve never really spent any time with him though outside of little jobs, so you have no idea who this is or why he sounds so happy to see you.

“Uh, hi, EJ?” You say as you walk at a leisurely pace down the stairs.

Jack freezes momentarily as he comes to greet you in the living room. He’d almost forgotten that when the flowers are removed, so too are the memories alongside feelings.”It’s… It’s good to see you,” he says as he looks down at you, wondering if he should touch you or not.

“I guess it’s nice to see you too,” you say. “What are you doing in this area?” You inquire. You vaguely remember the Slender Man not wanting you two to be in the same area.

“Just out and about,” he answers as he scratches at the back of his neck. “Leia wanted to uh, hunt down some of her sisters - I - it doesn’t matter,” he suddenly finishes, feeling much too awkward to even look at you. He knows you don’t remember, but he certainly does. Looking at you… He has a fresh slate.

“That’s nice,” you say in a tone that’s clearly disinterested. You walk towards the living room windows and look into what is now a cold winter’s night. You can see the snow still falling. If you want to make it back to Masky before he gets worried, you’ll need to head out almost immediately. “Pretty, isn’t it?”

Jack slowly comes to your side and puts his attention on you, watching as the snow continues to fall. “Yeah, the prettiest,” he says softly, desperately trying in vain to hold back on scooping you into his arms. There’s something scratching at the back of his throat.

You nod once again and zip up your coat. “They’re expecting me,” you say, gearing up to brave the snow.

“Do you need any-”

“No,” you cut him off. You’re not sure why it comes out so harshly, but you figure it must be a remnant of a memory you no longer have access to. “I can manage on my own.” You brush past him and open the front door, eyes momentarily clamping shut at how cold it is before you step onto the porch. The sound of the crunching snow is satisfying.

“Stay safe out there,” Jack says softly, not moving from his place as he continues to gaze out the window at the falling snow.

You turn your head briefly over your shoulder, “and you as well.”

Jack hears the door close and you walk off into the night, back to a group he was barred from. That tickling in the back of his throat grows more and more prevalent until he clears his throat. Feels like there’s something on his tongue. He coughs a few more times before holding his hands in front of his mouth, displeased to see the small blue petals he knows will bloom to full flowers in a time frame that is too long to be considered fair.

#eyeless jack #xreader #creepypasta x reader #eyeless jack x reader #creepypasta #hanahaki #angst #masky #hoodie #brian thomas #tim wright #kate the chaser #reader insert #slender man

[leportraitducadavre]

ahhhh, i feel so much better knowing there are more ppl tired with bnha now. i see so many praising it and i'm not saying bnha is bad, it's good, i remember havibg quite a lot of fun reading it but lately... eh, lately it's becoming a chore to read it. deku is deku but how do you feel about shigaraki? not as a character, but more as the power scaling? up until that american hero, i was so sure Horikoshi was writing himself into a wall making the big bad so ridiculously strong. it feels like the american hero was not as much as meticulously planned as she was just an effort to deescalate otherwise a truly op character. without her, even ridiculously op deku would not stood a chance against shigaraki...

Hello Anon -I know you asked me specifically about power-scales, but since you’re one of the few asks I received (and I’ll be honest, that I’m specifically willing to answer -since I’m currently disenamoured with the manga and I don’t think I’ll be able to reply as thoroughly as I usually do for other fictional works), allow me to expand my answer and go on a full rant about Shigaraki, Deku, Dabi and Horikoshi’s writing.

First things first, I’ll reply about your main concern: Yes, I do believe that Cathleen Bate’s introduction and the whole purpose was to take away some of Shigaraki’s powers -and to give more time to the Heroes to prepare in order to face him, since some subplots needed to be addressed and resolved before the main clash (like, who was the traitor and to show some of the characters’ new techniques).

While Deku is limited to the powers that were passed on through OFA -Shigaraki’s AFO holds no specific limit as to how many quirks can be stored. I guess the main issue with it has to do with how much the body of the wielder can handle. If the OFA and AFO are “sibling quirks” then what’s true for OFA should be true for AFO as well, meaning that the more quirks, the more rapidly the body decays. Izuku and All Might are a special case because they were born quirkless, and I’m not completely sure Shigaraki was born with an innate quirk (I think he was born quirkless and his deterioration technique was given to him by OFA during his childhood), and although his collapsing body might have to do more with how his quirk works rather than OFA’s presence -I wouldn’t exactly deny the possibility.

However, and this will be the beginning of the rant,

it isn’t the first time Horikoshi performs something similar -that is, introduce a character with a specific and short-term purpose in mind. We don’t need to go far inside where the manga stands now to see another example: Lady Nagant was introduced as a former hero that became so disappointed with the system that forced her to do terrible things in the name of “peace” that she killed her former employer, and was imprisoned because of it. When she’s introduced, we are led to believe that her ideology and moral standpoints stand against Izuku’s, she isn’t necessarily evil because we understand what she rebelled against and why she committed the crimes she did; therefore Izuku is the embodiment of who she used to be (an optimistic newby that wanted to do good). The encounter between them wasn’t necessarily a physical battle -but an ideology one, which is why it’s won when at last, Lady Nagant (for some reason that is not even properly explored), surrenders to the MC’s perspective, putting her entire hopes for a reformation of the system onto Deku (despite Deku being All Might’s successor, someone whose figure was the main pillar in which the system she despises leaned itself on).

So what was the point of Lady Nagant? Simply put: To establish Izuku’s moral beliefs as the narrative’s parameters to differentiate what’s right from what’s wrong without forcing the hero to perform any deep introspection of their moral beliefs, annihilating the antagonist's characterization in the process.

But what about Shigaraki and/or Dabi? Aren’t they the real characters on which the “anti-system” ideology rests? Well, let me tell you something that many followers of mine (or even mutuals) that read BHNA will probably disagree on: Both of those characters aren’t even that good of a pillar for such an important objective (and some people actually compare them to Sasuke!).

Dabi’s intrinsical desire is to destroy Endeavor -bringing down the system that allowed him to gain and maintain economic and social power is just a resource he uses to affect him, he’s not truly above hurting (or murdering) those who suffered the same as him (Natsuo) nor innocent people that had nothing to do with it in order to stain Endeavor’s name, and his hate to his procreator is so visceral that he stretches that feeling towards his younger brother who unknowingly displaced Endeavor’s favor away from him.

Shigaraki, while more interesting since he was manipulated to believe his innate quirk was equal to an intrinsical desire (you’ve got deterioration because it’s what you want, so do it, more or less) also is against the system because he wants the chaos and destruction that comes with bringing it all down -I am not denying that his hate towards it wasn’t born from his personal experiences (he hates the society because it turned a blind eye to him while he was a child, and the particular distaste he has for heroes has to do with his father’s beliefs that made him hate himself plus AFO’s teachings), so it’s not about revolutionizing the system for neither of these characters, but personal desires.

And now, you can argue -revolutions have nothing to do with “good sides” or “bad sides”, but about an oppressed group standing up against their oppressors, in that sense, Shigaraki and/or Dabi are simply the faces chosen by the oppressed to represent them because they alone are a menace to hero’s society, but the movement in itself goes beyond them. And hell, that’ll be true, the problem isn’t Dabi and Shigaraki starting something solely to reach a specific (personal) goal that spread out of control into something much deeper that they are not interested in, it’s about how Horikoshi ties their twisted morals with such revolutionary movement -hence, transforming it into something wrong from the narrative’s point of view.

And that’s why I’m particularly against comparing any of them to Sasuke -because Sasuke was a problem for the narrative that needed to constantly justify why he was wrong; sure Shigaraki and/or Dabi starting a revolution against the Hero society whose problems are displayed is narratively hard to manage, but Horikoshi purposefully made both of them commit unforgivable things to give the heroes a reason to invalidate their “uprising”. In that sense, Horikoshi is -to me, far less skilled than Kishimoto, who allowed Sasuke to question the narrative until the very last second (he committed no crimes, he killed no innocents), where he had to surrender to the MC’s perspective.

#anti bhna #anti deku #anti izuku midoriya #anti dabi #anti shigaraki #anti tomura shigaraki #anti toya todoroki #anti tenko shimura

[unrequitedloveletter]

Certainly- Kaz Brekker

The reader is a bit of an astrology and astronomy alike geek for this, which I hope y’all don’t mind! Also, in this case, phones exist so lets pretend that phones exist in Ketterdam, making it a bit of a modern au, I guess!

Also, this’ll probably be a bit ooc for Kaz

Fic type- angsty fluff

Warnings- blood, mentions of death, and the reader is sick (nothing specific, I just kind of took random symptoms and made up a word for the sickness)

You were determined to see the stars before you went, and as you grew sicker, none of the crows knew when that would be, so, after a little convincing, the crows had gotten Colm to let you spend a couple of months at his farm in Novyi Zem, where the stars were the clearest at night, not burdened by light pollution or the screams of lively cities. 

It was the seven of you crammed into a basement, sharing beds, but none of them cared, and you were just glad to be with the people you called family. You were happy that they were with you, that Kaz was willing to wheel you everywhere when you got too weak to stand, that Jesper still made jokes, even despite watching you deteriorate. You were grateful for Inejs smile, Wylans music, Ninas impeccable tastes and Matthias and his big arms that could lift you and put you down without issue. 

The six of them had started taking shifts taking you outside. Nina took you outside Sunday nights, Matthias Mondays, Wylan Tuesdays, Jesper Thursdays, Inej Fridays and Kaz Saturdays. Wednesdays you rested up; ate when it was time to eat, used the bathroom when you needed, took a shower if it were the appropriate time, but other than that, you slept.

It was Kaz’s day to wheel you out, and you’d had a particularly rough day that day. Inej went with him, promising not to intrude on the time that you would spend together. She’d do backflips and run across the roof of the farm if you asked her to, but she’d not interrupt otherwise. 

“I love the stars,” you whispered, leaning back in your wheelchair and tightening the hold of the blanket over your lap. “Thank you both. For doing this.” 

“Don’t you worry, love,” Kaz murmured. “Just keep your eyes on the stars, okay?”

“We’re happy to do this,” Inej added. “All of us are. Really.” It was like both of them could sense it as well as you could. You had a feeling that the night would end terribly, just like the morning had begun.

You’d woken up only to need to rush to the toilet immediately, blood coming up your throat like bile, staining your skin and leaving your bottom lip red as a cherry. 

Kaz had been at your side in a minute, Nina and Wylan right behind him. Wylan kept your hair away from the sides of your face, Nina slowed your heartrate and Kaz wet a cloth with cold water to get your body temp down. 

Kaz had forced himself to stay in the moment, to not let his thoughts stray to the urge to sleep in the same bed as you to make sure that nothing happened while you slept--to be there in case something did--but to stay on the sun as it set and the faraway sound of Wylan playing his flute with the window open so that you’d be able to hear it. 

Once you’d gotten settled under a tree, Inej ran off, making her way inside and up to the barns roof, where she sat, keeping a watch from a distance as Kaz let you rest your head against his shoulder, gloved hand interlaced with yours. 

“I love you, Brekker,” you murmured. “Please don’t forget that. Ever.” 

“I won’t,” he whispered. “You’re gonna stay around and get better until we can spar again, and you can beat my ass even though I’ve my cane as a weapon.” 

“You know full well I can’t promise that,” you wished that you could. You desperately wished. “I’m going to die young, Kaz. I’m not gonna get to eighteen, much less eighty.” Kaz hated you for that.

He hated you because everything that you said somehow managed to be right. It was like you had a sixth sense for that kind of thing, and while, on missions, it proved useful, in that scenario, it just proved annoying. 

“You’re gonna make it to eighteen if it kills me,” he informed you. “I’ll take you around the globe if I need to, just to make sure you end up okay. I will not live a life without you in it, Y/N.” 

“You’re sweet,” you murmured. “Incredibly sweet.”

“Only to you, L/N.” That was the last bit of conversation for a long while as the sun set and the stars came out.

“Did you know that the moon isn’t circular?” You pointed lazily to it, bright and beautiful amongst the even brighter stars. “According to scientests, it’s actually shaped like a lemon!” Kaz didn’t fight his smile.

Of course you’d be spouting off the little factoids you knew about space. You loved it, how vast and crazy it all seemed. 

“And that the clouds at the center of the Milky Way smell like raspberries and rum?” Kaz snorted.

“Okay, now, theres no way that ones true!” 

“Oh,” you leaned up, booping his nose without a care in the world. “But it is! It’s in a study somewhere, I think! Look it up!” He laughed, pulling you closer to him as you rambled.

Inej had started doing running flips across the roof, spinning and dancing and no doubt laughing as she did. Kaz knew it was an elaborate effort to get you to smile, and it seemed to work as she moved; a delightful silhouette amongst a star filled sky. 

“I love you, Kaz Brekker,” you whispered. “You don’t need to say it back, but I really, truly do love you with every bone that exists in my body.”

“I love you too,” he said it without hesitation. “And I’ll love you until we’re old and grey, I swear it.”

“Don’t hold me to that promise,” you murmured. “You know how bad this is. Stop thinking that I’ll make it into the new year. I probably wont.”

“You will if it kills me, Y/N,” he gave your shoulders a gentle squeeze. “I’ll drain the bank dry if I have to, I swear to Ghezen.”

You didn’t say anything after, too exhausted to even think about starting an argument with him, simply not wanting to. 

But then, an hour later, Kaz felt fear trickle into his stomach like it hadn’t ever in his life.

“And then theres Supernova. It’s like a star that’s dying having it’s last celebration. Like when we get a really big win, or when we get away with what we intended to get away with, and we all get shitfaced before we collapse onto our beds and sleep for the night? A supernova is a dying stars explosion. It’s the last celebration that the star has before it dies out.” you’d been rambling.

“Tonight is my... tonight is my...” Kaz had called for Nina right then and there, screaming her name while he felt you go slack against him.

“Zenik!” He screamed, not caring at all if he were to wake up Jespers father. “Zenik, call in that fucking favor with the bloody Ravkan prince!” Matthias came barreling out after her, phone in hand, already speaking to someone as Nina began working, steadying your heart and trying her hardest to keep you alive. 

Kaz had to force himself to walk away from it all, pushing his feet away after giving your shoulders one last squeeze and walking far out into the field. 

Once he was sure he was out of earshot, he couldn’t stop himself. Tears flooded his eyes and he found himself glaring at the sky, wanting to scream, wanting to shout, wishing that there was someone around that he could gut like a fish. 

“Saints,” he murmured through gritted teeth. “Sankt Ilya, Sankt Adrik, Sankta Alina of The Fold, I know I am a terrible person, but Y/N is not. They’re good, they smile, they laugh, they’re kind to others when those people probably don’t deserve their kindness. I know I’m damned, I know that you probably strongly dislike me, but they’re different.” He’d never asked the Saints for anything before, and he never would again.

“Please, just, let them live. Let them get the life that they deserve. I’ll do my best to make them happy, but you have to let me,” he wiped the tears from his eyes as they came. “They deserve the life that you’re so willing to take away, and all I ask is that you don’t take it.” He heard the sounds of the ambulance car and raced back to you, gripping your hand as they helped you onto a stretcher and out of the field, through the house and out the entrance. 

I won’t lose them, he told himself. A world without them is one that’s unbearable. 

O N E Y E A R L A T E R 

You laughed as Nina chased you through the halls of the Little Palace, running quickly through the endless corridors, your laughter carrying through them as you kept yourself in front of Nina.

Nikolai had kept you in the Os Altan palace since that night, where Inej laughed and danced and did her flips, whilst Wylan played the piano and Kaz sat beside you, listening to your ramblings without a care in the world. 

“You seem delighted,” Nikolai noticed as you stopped in front of his office. “I’ve never seen you walk without that Brekker boy at your side, much less run while Zenik is on your tail!” You shrugged, laughing as Ninas front crashed into your back.

“This is the best I’ve felt in a year,” you murmured. “I figured I’d see if Nina was up to chase me around this morning, and I haven’t stopped running since!” You peered in through the open office door, looking for that familliar mop of dark brown hair.

Nina wrapped her arms around you and gave you a gentle squeeze. “He’ll be here any minute,” she murmured. “He and the boys are just finishing up a job for Nik in East Ravka, but Matthias told me the second that they’d left!”

“Trust me. Y/N,” Nikolais smooth voice murmured. “I put them on one of my fastest boats. I knew how long it’d take them to get from here to east Ravka and back, and I promised him he’d be here when you finally awoke.” 

“Hows it feel, anyway?” Zoya appeared at his side. “Eighteen, I mean.” You shrugged.

“I miss Kaz,” you murmured bluntly. “I hate that I have to tell him that he was right, but I still miss him.” 

Nikolai took Zoyas hand, pulling her close as you and Nina watched, smiles on your faces. 

“Young love,” Zoya teased. “Zenik, let go of them so that they can turn around.” Nina obeyed, letting you go and moving to lean against the doorway with Nikolai and Zoya. 

You turned, and smiled when your gazes met. “You were right, Brekker,” you murmured, walking toward him as he held out your gift to you. “I’m better now, and the second that you’re ready to spar, I’m gonna beat your ass, even though you’ve your cane as a weapon.” He grabbed your pinky with his the moment you were within distance.

“How’d the heist go?” You murmured once the two of you had walked out of earshot. 

“Good,” Kaz let himself be close to you as you two moved, squeezing your pinky as you slowed your steps. “Plan went off without a hitch, for three idiots and a mastermind with a limp. I brought you this from it,” he held the gift out to you again, and you took it in your free hand, examining it.

“I had to ask permission for that,” he murmured. “I had to get the Ravkan kings seal of approval to steal that for you.” You laughed, looking it over.

It was a journal. Black and leather bound, pages crisp and untouched. A pen was tucked into the cover. 

“I promise, we’ll go home soon,” you responded. “I miss Ketterdam. I could go for some waffles.” 

“Don’t they have waffles here?” Kaz questioned.

“Not Ketterdam waffles, love. Ketterdam waffles are unlike any pathetic waffle from here! Doused in syrup and whip cream--” You let out a satisfied sigh. “So good it’s almost surreal!” Kaz smirked.

“Waffle date when you’re well enough to return home then?” 

“Certainly.”

#kaz brekker #kaz brekker x reader #platonic inej ghafa x reader #six of crows #shadow and bone #shadow and bone netflix #waffles

[dr3amofagame]

Dream thought that he can bring server together, he thought that they can be one big family... Well at least he really bond them, even if they bonded to fight against him. Even if that mean he's not part of this server anymore.

right,, the one big happy family thing always destroys me

bc it’s really the driving force behind everything he’s done, the reason why he’s cut off everything he’s ever loved, moved forwards despite everything he’s ever lost. it doesn’t make what he does right, by any means, but c!dream’s longing for a better past, his clinging to a family he loved and lost - it’s so desperately, painfully human and is very much the cherry on top of his whole tragic story. it’s something that tugs at my heart every time i think about it - especially how in the end, pretty much nobody knew what drove him to the lengths he went to, and how everyone still sees him as being motiveless, or doing it all for personal gain and power. it’s reasonable, with their limited povs, but oh man does it hurt when we know his real reasoning.

this,, ended up weirdly long haha but oh man was it fun. have some dream team angst as i cry abt c!dream for the millionth time 

tws: death, grief, off-screen murder, implied mental deterioration

Two weeks after Dream dies, Sapnap asks George if he wants to come to the vault.

He almost says no. It’d be an early journey if they want to get out without anyone seeing, and he’s just- tired. He’s been tired for months even though he spends most of his time sleeping, usually can’t even find the energy to pull himself out of bed. The weird dreams hadn’t helped in the slightest, though they’ve been gone for a few weeks, and he’s not seen XD in a long time, save for a few minutes after he first heard the news. In all honesty, he doesn’t want to deal with the mental strain of anything to do with Dream at all.

But- Sapnap is still his best friend, even if they’ve grown apart ever since that fateful night with Dream, and he still knows the Netherborn better than nearly- well, everyone, now, with Dream gone. As much as Sapnap tried to put on a strong front, Dream’s death had taken its toll.

Killing Dream had taken its toll.

He’d been asleep (again) when it all went down, but he knows that somehow, Dream had escaped prison. Somehow, it ended with Sapnap’s sword stabbed hilt-deep in Dream’s chest, an unmarked grave in the forest behind the Community House that he knows Sapnap visits when he thinks nobody’s watching.

So when Sapnap asks, dark bags under his red-rimmed eyes, if he wants to come with him to see what belongings they can find in Dream’s old blackstone-brick vault- he says yes.

“There,” Sapnap gestures over the crest of a netherrack cliff above a bubbling lava lake, and George strains to look at what the other is pointing at. There, settled over a small outcrop of netherrack and gravel, a messy bridge of various blocks leading from it, lies the signature black and purple silhouette of a nether portal. “It’s just across that.”

George hums in acknowledgement, and they clamber down in sync. It’s been a while since he’s spent time one-on-one with Sapnap like this; George had half-forgotten what it feels like, to work with someone so different and yet know them so well. Years and years of teamwork means they fall in step almost without thinking, Sapnap easily sliding forward to block a skeleton’s arrow while George nocks one of his own to shoot it through the skull. It is a partnership built on years of bickering and banter and deep-set trust, of having to face a stronger, more agile opponent together through wind and rain and snow.

He missed it, though he’ll never admit that to anyone but himself.

He hesitates in front of the nether portal, pulling Sapnap back automatically by his sweater sleeve. “You sure the other side is safe?”

“Yeah, yeah- it should be,” Sapnap pulls his arm away, lets him enter the portal first before stepping into the frame himself. “Not a manhunt.”

“Mm,” George laughs, tired. “Just checking.”

The portal hums, purple creeping into the corners of George’s vision and filling it until it’s all he can see, and he rubs at his eyes to clear his vision as he stumbles out the other side. Sapnap walks out, seeming unfazed - it’s always been something that George has envied in the other, how unaffected he is by portals, but he’s also always had worse portal sickness than most- “We’re here.”

The place is - put lightly, a wreck, wooden planks scattered all over the floor and inch-deep water sloshing around his shoes. “What’s with the water?”

“I don’t know, someone must’ve come here after for something,” Sapnap frowns, points across the room to a chute leading upwards, filled with a crude spiral staircase of oak. “We’re going up there.”

George nods, letting him take the lead. The staircase is rickety, the bottom steps waterlogged; Sapnap grimaces the whole way up, makes some comment under his breath about how unsafe it all is, but they continue without much issue. The top of it is surprisingly unassuming - there’s really nothing around, just a small hollowed out space carpeted by savannah grass, shorn short. Sapnap tosses him a pickaxe.

“He respawned up here, that day - he’s gotta have a bed up here somewhere.” He gestures at the plain stone walls surrounding them, “My guess is that it’s just behind one of these walls. Just mine two or three blocks in all the way across, I’ll start from this side.”

“Whatever, Snapnap,” George takes the pickaxe anyway, walking over to the other side of the room and ignoring the protests Sapnap throws at his back. Mining the stone is simple, methodical; it’s a steady rhythm of the pick hitting stone and blocks falling into his inventory; if he closes his eyes, he can almost pretend that they’re in the middle of a manhunt, and Dream has holed himself into the wall as he always does for them to find him. He doesn’t, because thinking about manhunt does nothing but make something cold and choking claw up his throat, almost like guilt, almost like regret, and he doesn’t have the energy for that in the slightest.

His next swing rings oddly hollow, and when the block drops neatly away the wall opens to a narrow corridor. He calls Sapnap over.

“Here.” Sapnap moves with large, heavy strides, face tightening into a foreign expression of grim determination when he catches the darkness behind the one-block hole George mined, “I found it.”

“Well, obviously,” he rolls his eyes as he takes out the bottom block, looking at George from the corner of his eye. “Nice observation, genius.”

“Hey! You told me to find it, and I did, unlike you- you should be thanking me, Sapnap.”

“Whatever, Gogy,” Sapnap sighs, looking into the corridor, feet settling against the ground into a wide stance that George recognizes as the one he’d usually use in a fight. It makes something long-forgotten ache in his chest, joining the dull ball of hurt that has been there for what feels like months, “You ready?”

“Yeah, yeah, hurry up, will you?” The retort rings hollow, dying on his lips even as he says it, and George watches as Sapnap turns his head away and pretends not to notice.

“Let’s go.”

The hallway is dark, dusty, a hastily made thing as shown by the rough gouges made on either side by a quickly working pickaxe. It opens into a tiny room, similarly carved into the mountain with roughhewn walls of stone; George’s lips thin and press against each other as he takes a closer look at the room, stepping in behind Sapnap.

“This place is a mess,” he states drily, scuffing his foot against the floor and cringing at the trail it leaves in the dust. There’s a bed left in the corner, a thin little thing with the covers thrown off, lying halfway on the floor, and a few chests and furnaces scattered aimlessly against the walls and making the whole thing look more cramped. There are papers strewn over the floor and chests, piles of coal and wood left to collect dust in the corners. It looks like a whirlwind swept through the place, and it’s almost eerie to see this room, completely untouched since the twentieth, a snapshot in time of Dream in the middle of his spiral into madness.

Sapnap kicks at one such pile with a humorless scoff, “That’s an understatement.”

“You looking for anything in particular?” George jabs his thumb at the mess in front of them, “Because I’m not cleaning all of that up.”

“I guess- just look through the chests?” Sapnap’s face darkens visibly even despite the dim lighting, and George stifles the urge to poke fun at how the younger clearly didn’t plan this far ahead, per usual. “Just look for anything useful, worth taking back I guess.”

“Mmhm.” He moves to the left-most chest as Sapnap moves to the right, watching from the corner of his eye as the other strikes up a torch to place in the middle of the room. The lid creaks open, and he rummages through the contents, vaguely surprised when his hand meets row after row of glass bottles. He pulls one out, squints at the contents. “Hey Sapnap, is this a regen?”

Sapnap looks over. “Yeah,” he says, rolling his eyes when George pockets it. “Seriously- you know Sam literally has an automatic potion brewer, right. You can just steal from that instead.”

“Or I could just steal from here,” he closes the lid, moving to the next chest. “That’s just his pots chest. He really stacked up, didn’t he?”

“Well, you know Dream. Always had to plan for the end of the world.” Sapnap closes the chest that he was hunched over, tossing over something in a flash of gold, “Was just his food chest. Don’t know why someone needs eight stacks of gapples, but whatever. We can split the god apples later.”

“Sure,” George nods, distracted as he fiddles with clasp of the next chest. This one, unlike the last, seems more worn over the bottom edge of the lid, the wood almost seeming to bear dents where fingers had pressed into the areas right by the clasp again and again. The lid eases open, and he frowns at the chest’s contents; there’s no rhyme or reason to them at first glance. There’s a half-stack of stone in the top left, a couple pieces of leather thrown in the bottom corner, a low-durability crossbow, unenchanted, that he briefly runs his hands over before throwing it back into the chest. He rummages through it for another second, about to dismiss it as a junk chest, when a well-worn book near the back of the chest catches his eye.

He pulls it towards him with careful hands, breath having caught in his throat. The cover is leather, scuffed and scratched in several places, not bearing the dull shine of a book that’s been signed and preserved magically. It doesn’t seem to be titled, no ink against the usual places on the front cover or spine, but the whole thing looks well-loved, the thread of the spine slightly frayed the leather heavily creased from where the cover had been eased open again and again.

He opens the front cover, and sucks in a breath through his teeth.

“Sapnap? I think I found something.”

There, nestled between the front cover and the first page, lays a pile of photographs. Unlike everything else in the room, these are clearly well-loved, well-cared for, the corners are sharp, the surfaces shiny, despite how often they must have been thumbed through and looked at. He plucks the first one off the top of the pile - it’s one that was taken from the inside of the old community house before the floor was replaced with crafting tables, string lights hanging from the ceiling in an impromptu party, Alyssa’s legs dangling from where she’s sitting at the edge of the spiral staircase, Callahan leaning against the wall with a slice of cake held between his hands. Sapnap’s sitting in the middle of the floor across from himself, both of their faces glowing softly in the flickering light - his own face is caught in a grimace, Sapnap bent over himself in laughter- Sapnap walks up behind him, gasps at the sight.

“What are-”

George passes over the photo wordlessly as he moves to the next; there’s Sam, grinning at the camera with a newly tamed Fran by his side, tail a white blur against the green of the grass; Bad, hands clutched around a bucket as he yells at someone off the frame, a salmon head poking slightly out the top; Ponk, sitting proudly in the top branches of his first lemon tree.

His breath catches at the next; it’s dim, the sky a pretty blend of purple-pink from the last remaining dregs of light of a sunset, hovering over the dark edge of the ocean stretching out towards the horizon. They’re sitting in boats, the bottom edges lit softly from the coral sitting in the shallow waters below them, brilliant halos of reds and pinks and yellows and oranges and blues dotted with the soft lights of sea pickles painting the wood in muted rainbows. Sapnap’s smiling from one in the back, head tipped to the side cheekily, right hand lifted in a cocky two-fingered salute. George is sitting in the back of a boat in the foreground, glasses lifted to his forehead, eyes mid-roll even as he grins obligingly at the camera-

And then, in the front, there’s Dream.

His mask is pulled to the side of his face, exposing his freckled skin and brilliant green eyes; he’s smiling widely, all teeth, hair wet and sticking up in a ring of untamed swirls and spikes. His eyes are crinkled at the corners, cheeks red, arm stretched forward off-frame from where he’d held the camera in front of them to take the selfie. George’s thumb brushes over the photo, pressing lightly against the dusty mess of hair framing Dream’s face, pausing at the sight of his pure, unadulterated joy.

What had happened to them?

A soft, choked sound comes from behind him, and George tucks the photos away, pressing them between two random pages in the book. His eyes flicker to the book’s contents, finally, finding Dream’s familiar, looping scrawl written on the first page. The words are big and messy, all capitalized and underlined several times, the last four circled roughly.

REMEMBER WHY YOU’RE DOING THIS: ONE BIG HAPPY FAMILY.

He snaps the book shut.

“George-”

“Let’s go home, Sapnap.” He throws one last look at the room, at the messy, desperate edges, the remnants of a man lost in his own reckless belief that he could build something beautiful out of blood and ash. He swallows, blinks back the image of a brilliant smile, freckled cheeks ruddy with laughter, at the golden glow of memories long-forgotten that threaten now to burn him with their warmth. He can imagine Dream, settled in the middle of this mess, pressing himself closer to the fire contained in these photographs, these memories, and not realizing how he’s being burned, can nearly see a ghost of him tucked in these shadowed corners, haunting the hopes that he had clung to against all reason with the promise that it could all be worth it.

Sapnap frowns at him tiredly, photos pressed against his own chest. “George,” he says, cautious, and George’s shoulders hunch defensively.

“Let’s go home,” he stands up, hearing more than seeing as Sapnap does the same. “Whatever closure you’re looking for- you’re not finding it here.”

#tw death #tw grief #tw murder #tw mental deterioration #queue <3 #long post #my writing :D #my asks !!

[drwcn]

maybe after today’s acls training i can finally write that chengqing ER oneshot. 

— “Patient male, mid-twenties, motor vehicle collision, eta 3 mins” 

— “What no vitals? No GCS? ETA 3 mins? Who’s on the paramedic team?!” 

— “No one….Dr. Lu hit someone with her car on her way out of the hospital.” 

【A Midnight Conversation in Your Local ER】- Complete

[1] 

The night hunt had gone to shits.

That much was undeniable.

Jiang Cheng heard the panicked shout of his disciples just as he saw the array that he had stepped on.

Fuck.

The ghost of an once mediocre demonic cultivator wanna-be was going to bring Jiang Cheng, Jiang Wanyin - the Sandu Shengshou - to meet his maker. The irony of the situation would be laughable, if he wasn’t so irrevocably screwed.

That was his last thought before his entire body was engulfed by a blinding light and the world he knew disappeared.

The ground beneath his feet gave away, weightlessness paralyzing his body though he did not fall. He felt…launched, his body warping and squeezing and stretching, the air sucked from his lungs into the endless black vacuum.

But just like that it was over. Jiang Cheng barely had time to make peace with his death before his feet touch solid earth again.

Or at least….he thought it was earth, this black, tarry hard thing striped with yellow and white. He stared at it dumbly, breathless and disoriented, barely able to react when a loud blare assaulted his senses and his world went blindly bright yet again.

This time there was pain.

Jiang Cheng clutched Sandu, ready to fight, but then his head hit the ground and everything went dark. When he woke up again, an indeterminate amount of time later, he was in a small tube and had a distinct feeling he was not wearing pants, socks or shoes.

How the fuck do you ‘scan’ a cat???  

[2]

Method actor. The nurse, from the other side of the curtain, mouthed silently.

“Sir, can you tell me your name.”

“Jiang Cheng, Jiang Wangyin.”

The resident paused, awkwardly contemplating how to continue. “Uh…..which is it? Jiang Cheng or Jiang Wanyin?”

“Jiang Cheng, zi Wanyin.”

“Traditional parents?” The resident tried to crack a joke, but it fell flat. The strange man stared up at him with a blank look in his eyes and a frown that was rapidly deteriorating into a scowl. The resident cleared his throat and cast his eyes back onto his clipboard. “Uh, ahem, just the name on your ID please.”

“My what?" 

"Your personal ID….like a driver’s license?”

“Cultivators of the gentry fly on swords or ride horses. We do not rely on carriage valets.”

“Eh… right. Uhm, can you tell me how old you are and what year it is.”

“I’m 39, and the year is jiachen.”

Lu Qi frowned from where she stood by the door, arms crossed, watching her resident and medical student work. 39? He looks like a college student. But he also thinks he can fly, so I guess age is the least of our worries. 

“Jiachen.…?”

The M3 fished his phone out from his scrub pocket pocket and typed it in. “Sounds like the ganji system, like an old timey way to record year used in the past.” He whispers clandestinely to the resident.

“….Right. And uh, do you where you are?”

The man scowled at him. “Am I supposed to?” 

The resident scribbled something on the chart, and then looked up with a plastered awkward smile. “Well, thank you Mr. Jiang for your patience. Wang Fei here is the medical student on our team. He’s going to stay and ask you a couple more questions if you don’t mind. Afterwards we’ll confer with our attending and the team will be back to see you shortly.”

As he turned away, the R3 grimaced and shared a look with Lu Qi, who was the youngest attending physician in their ER, but was not technically working at the moment and so was not on the case. And technically, as the perpetrator who hit Jiang Cheng with her car, she had a severe conflict of interest.

At least this Jiang Cheng dude didn’t seem keen on pressing personal charges against her for MVA or suing the hospital in general… but that being said…

Yeah, they’re going to need a psych consult. 

Unless he’s on acid. 

Well… okay, psych consult either way. 

[3]

"It’s okay, you can relax.” Jiang Cheng said, waving dismissively at the woman standing by his bedside. “I’m not going to take you to the magistrate for hitting me with your carriage - car. You didn’t mean to, and I just came out of nowhere.” 

“....Thank you.” 

“You’re not Wen Qing. I know that now. Your name is Lu Qi. You can call off those psychia - psych - psychics - head healers - or whatever, I’m not crazy. It’s not my fault, you just… look so much like someone I used to know."

"Wen Qing.” Lu Qi echoed. 

“Yeah. Wen Qing. She was a healer - a doctor - like you, but different.” 

“I see. What happened to her?"

"She died. Almost twenty years ago."

"I'm sorry... that's awful.” Lu Qi’s response rolled off her tongue so well, because she had said those word a thousand times during her residency. So much so that it no longer had much meaning to her. Tonight however, she meant what she said. “Were you two close?"

"No, well…yes, maybe. No we weren’t exactly friends if that’s what you’re asking. She...operated on me. Without my consent or knowledge. Took my brother’s golden core and put it in me and then lied with my brother to my face about it. So no we weren’t “close”, but Wen Qing saved my life - well the purpose of it anyway. Saved me from a life of ordinariness.” 

Lu Qi did allow herself to dwell too much on what the fuck a “golden core” was, because her gut response was almost instantaneous. “That’s shitty of her.”

She clamped down on her tongue. 

God, why did I have to say that? To his face?! He was obviously in love with this Wen Qing person and they were encroaching on some dangerous emotional territories, but Lu Qi swallowed down her caution and plowed on nevertheless. There were things she felt she had to say, and since she’d already hit him with her car, how much worse could this shit get? “What I mean is she shouldn’t have. Not without telling you. Besides...there’s nothing wrong with ordinary.” 

Jiang Cheng chuckled bitterly. “Maybe you’re right. Still...she didn’t deserve to die. What her clan did was not her fault.” 

Now that threw Lu Qi off. Did this guy...kill her? 

Lu Qi half wondered if she stumbled upon a Yakuza-esque member whose psyche finally snapped after years of murder and violence. And yet, he seemed perfectly coherent, no flight of ideas, no tangential thought, no hallucations. Even his delusions seemed...logical. 

I must be the one losing, damnit.  

Jiang Cheng scratched a little at his chest, as if palpating for the “golden core” that he spoke of. "She saved my life, but when she needed help, I couldn't save her. But, if I were to go back… I can't say I'll choose differently. My clan needed me, my clan who was almost cleansed by hers. No, no I wouldn’t choose differently. I don’t regret my choices, but I am sorry. Sorry to her, sorry to my brother. I'll always be sorry that she died, and that I failed her when she needed me." 

Jiang Cheng had no idea why he was telling this stranger any of this, but maybe after twenty years, he was finally ready to address this guilt that he lived with. I mean who else was he supposed to tell? Jin Ling? It was nice, to have that face as an audience, receiving his words of confession. 

"She would forgive you." 

Lu Qi had no idea why she was offering absolution as if she had authority in this matter, but when she said it, the conviction she felt was so real, it was almost as though some external force was acting through her.

Which was ridiculous of course, but... 

"How do you know? You're not her." Jiang Cheng shook his head. “I wouldn’t forgive me.” 

"No, but you said she was a physician. So she should know, more than most, that sometimes there is no choosing who gets to live or die."

Jiang Cheng fell quiet at that, and his gaze grew distant. Lu Qi thought perhaps he was no longer seeing her as she was in front of him - white coat, scrubs, stethoscope -  but someone entirely different. The tension he held in his shoulders slowly eased, and he sighed. In the silence that stretched between them, Lu Qi hoped that this strange man with his strange past could find a sliver of peace. 

[4]

— Did you love her? 

— I thought so, foolishly, but maybe I didn’t. Even if I did, it was not well enough. 

— Do you love her still? 

— No... I don’t know. It’s been too long...but sometimes, late at night when Lotus Pier is quiet, I think I do. 

...

— Are you ashamed of it? 

...

— No. No I’m not. 

[5]

The patient known as Jiang Cheng left AMA, that is, against medical advice. It was the term they used sometimes for people who just up and leave without informing the team. 

Lu Qi had gone out to check on his labs, which came back with bonker numbers (I mean really, a hemoglobin of 455, sodium of 200, and a HCO3 of like...3?), but Jiang Cheng was gone from Bay 6 when she returned. The nurse made the overhead page, a code yellow was called, but four hours later, Lu Qi was ready to admit that she was never going to see this Jiang Cheng ever again. 

Somehow, she was okay with that. She had said what needed to be said.  

Her chief had given her a call on her cell and told her to go home and sleep. The guy didn’t look like he was gonna press charges, let’s count our blessings and move on. But the night had just been too damn strange that Lu Qi was all wired up from it and couldn’t possibly fall asleep. She had handover at 10 anyway. There was a change of clothes and toiletries in her bag. She could always take a shower in the anesthesia staff’s on call room and sleep until then. 

Dr. Sun was the anesthesia staff on-call tonight and was currently stuck in trauma OR. They were buddies since medschool; she’d understand.

Sighing, Lu Qi took a seat on the bench across from the bougie cafe in the lobby of the hospital. At this hour, it was the only one still open in the entire facility. The drinks they sold cost an arm and a leg, but Lu Qi needed the pick-me-up after the night she had. 

As she nursed the last bit of her matcha latte, two bickering voices pulled her attention to the front entrance. 

“Aiyo, A-Liang I already said I’m fine! I don’t need to be here!” 

“Fuck out of here with that bullshit, Chen Zhaoxi. You fell off the fucking roof! If Wu Kun hadn’t called me, you’d have gone on -”

It was him! Lu Qi shot up. It was Jiang Cheng! 

But no...no it wasn’t him. The well-dressed man dragging the second man (dressed in red pajamas) into the hospital was not Jiang Cheng. He had the same face - chiselled, handsome, scowling - but it wasn’t him. For one, his hair was trimmed short and neat, unlike Jiang Cheng who looked like he walked straight out of a BL xianxia tv drama. Secondly, his face was softer, eyes younger, and he couldn’t have been older than Lu Qi herself in her early thirties. 

“I was just trying to get to the litter of kittens trapped -”

“Yes, yes, and it was very heroic and I’m sure it would’ve made Wu Kun very horny, and you morons probably would’ve fucked once he got home had you not made a valiant attempt at breaking your neck -” 

“Excuse me,” the security guard manning the information desk chastised sharply. “It’s 4am. This is a hospital! Lower your voices, sirs.” 

“Sorry.” The men apologized sheepishly. 

Then, A-Liang, Jiang Cheng’s doubleganger asked, “Could you please direct us to the ER? This is my brother, he fell off a roof.” 

Lu Bin had no idea what possessed her to interject. “I can take you there.” 

All eyes fell on her. She walked towards them, heart pounding. 

This can’t be happening, this kind of thing just can’t happen... 

A-Liang’s face broke into a grateful smile. “Thank you, Miss -” Then his gaze trailed to her badge, and he corrected himself, “Dr. Lu. I’m Shen Liang. This is my brother Chen Zhaoxi. I think he fractured...well multiple things, please help him.” 

“Of course, come with me. Let’s get him a wheelchair. If he fractured is leg, he probably shouldn’t be walking.” 

“I didn’t fracture -” 

“You, you shut up.” Shen Liang rolled his eyes. “Don’t listen to him. He can lose three out of four limbs and say ‘ t’s but a flesh wound’.” 

Lu Qi couldn’t help but chuckle as she put an arm under the complaining Chen Zhaoxi and helped him towards the wheelchair. 

Shen Liang’s smile widened. 

[Extra]

“Holy shit, took you long enough!” 

When Jin Ling and Lan Sizhui finally dragged Jiang Cheng to their portal site, Jiang Cheng realized that the transportation talisman had created a channel through realities between what looked like two metal garbage dumpsters in a back alley behind a food establishment marked by giant yellow bunny ears.

Standing guard there, Lan Jingyi and Ouyang Zizhen were each munching on a strange layered bread and holding tall drinks contained in...what was it called again? Right. Styrofoam. 

“What is that?” Jin Ling wrinkled is nose at it. Brat. 

“It’s a Big Mac.” Replied Lan Jingyi as if Jin Ling was stupid. “And this is a milk shake.” 

Jin Ling scowled. “I said the bag of gold I gave you was for emergencies.” 

“Yeah but we were hungry.” Ouyang Zizhen defended. He neglected to tell them that the cashier had refused to accept the gold and instead asked for “cash” or “card”, neither of which they had, so Zizhen used a liiiiil confounding talisman he learned from Wei Wuxian. They did leave more than enough gold though...and that ought to cover the restaurant’s cost for their “burger”lary . Reaching into the brown paper bag he held under one arm, Zizhen pulled out a little box that opened to show pieces of... something. “These are chicken nuggets. They’re delicious! Try one! They’re really good with this sauce....hold on...” 

Lan Sizhui sighed. “We don’t have time for this. The portal will close soon. Let’s get Jiang-zongzhu home and we can sample these exotic food later.” 

The boys agreed. 

Jiang Cheng shook his head and huffed. 

#cql #the untamed #chengqing #wen qing #jiang cheng #a midnight conversation in your local er #cql ficlet #corie fics

[ghostgothgeek]

Pull.

My first for the Phic Phight! 1,685 words.

Danny's been summoned. But not by who you'd expect. In fact, not by an actual person. Prompt by Greyheartwriter.

-----

Danny had been summoned before. Or rather, Phantom has. Usually by Sam, with Tucker occasionally tagging along. Typically when he was grounded. His two best friends always got a kick out of it. Grounded or not, they were going to hang out with their friend, especially when he insisted he should probably stay home “just in case”. He hadn’t gotten caught yet, but there have been a few close calls. Regardless, summoning Phantom was one of the rare moments the trio had to goof off and be regular teenagers. Well, regular enough anyway. 

Danny sat with his elbows on the desk, hands gripping his hair in frustration. Falluca had assigned a large problem set to be done overnight. Like Danny didn’t have anything better to do - rest, catch ghosts, nap, hang with his friends, sleep. At 10:30 pm, he was almost done, he was just stuck on this one problem. He thought about calling Sam and asking for help, but he really wanted to try getting this on his own first. 

He grabbed his pencil and tried writing out the problem for the 400th time when he felt the pull. “Oh no,” Danny muttered and looked around his room before trying extra hard to focus on his math homework and not the pull. It always failed, but he had been trying to train himself to ignore the pull. “Not. Now.” 

Danny put his face closer to his paper and tried to focus, but the pull was getting stronger now. Ugh, why him? Why can’t people summon other ghosts? Well, that could get ugly and dangerous real fast, but come on! He was gonna kill Tucker and Sam. Or maybe…

Maybe his friends were struggling with the same problem as him and they wanted to put all their brain power together. But they could have just called. Regardless, he was still resisting the pull. 

The pull was just a feeling of needing to be physically somewhere else. Or it started out that way, anyway. It was like holding your breath and forcing yourself to not hiccup again. You could try to deal with it absentmindedly, but usually it was all you could focus on until you were satisfied. And that’s where Danny was at now, the pull was beginning to consume all of his thoughts, it was beginning to cloud his brain of anything else. He gripped his desk as he felt another strong pull. Whoever was calling him had done it at least 3 times now. Again, Danny tried to focus on his paper. 

Another pull, and Danny’s vision became cloudy. He felt anxious. He needed to be somewhere. What about math homework? That was supposed to be his top priority, they had a test on Friday. He gently started shaking as he tried to refrain. 

He fell out of his chair at another pull, another call. Fuck it. He couldn’t hold on anymore. 

He sighed, took a deep breath, and focused on the pull. He felt immediate relief as he answered. He felt the familiar feeling of following the call, like riding a waterslide or a rollercoaster in the dark. You had no idea where you were going, you couldn’t see anything in front of you. You didn’t know how long the ride would last and you had zero control. You were just being forced in a different direction, sometimes feeling the whiplash of the unexpected. 

He could feel his core becoming colder. He felt his transformation into Phantom, and soon enough, the blackness was beginning to fade, and he tried to gather his surroundings. “Sam, Tucker, if it’s you I swear I’m gonna-” 

Oh, OH. This was new. Danny didn’t even know that this was possible. He guessed it made sense though. Maybe Ouija boards were like cell phones in the Ghost Zone. Ghosts had to get a hold of each other somehow. 

He turned his body as he slowly looked around. He didn’t know this part of the Ghost Zone. He didn’t even see any ghosts around. He started to panic. He didn’t know where he was, or who called him, or if anyone even actually called him at all. Was this some new stupid ghost power he had to learn to controll again? He just figured out how to keep his pants from falling down when he tried to flirt with girls. Not important right now, he reminded himself. He formed a small ectoball of energy in his hand, preparing himself for any attack. 

But no attack came. Instead, he just felt a little nudge at his feet. Looking down, he sighed and dropped his ectoball. “Really?” He glanced down at his caller. “First of all, how did you even learn to do that?!” 

Headbutting his ankle was the small green fluffball nicknamed Cujo, in his puppy form. To answer Danny’s question, he used his nose to nudge the planchette on the board, moving it around until Danny began to feel the pull again, though this time the pull wasn’t as strong because he was already in his destination. 

Danny chuckled and scratched the pup’s ear. “What’s up buddy? I gotta finish my homework.” 

Cujo barked and wagged his tail ferociously, sticking his butt up towards the air as he bounced around. Eventually, the dog dragged his squeaky toy towards the halfa and barked again. 

“I can’t play! I have to finish my homework so I can try to get a few hours of sleep in a row tonight. Sorry dude, but no.” 

The puppy’s excitement level deteriorated quickly. He let out a little whine, and gave Danny his best puppy dog eyes. Danny sighed as he rubbed the back of his neck. Cujo was adamant on playing, that much was clear. He called him 6 times already, what was going to stop the pooch from doing it again until he got what he wanted? Maybe just for a few minutes…

Cujo’s tail began wagging again as he could see Danny caving in. “Alright, alright. I needed a break anyways.” He formed another ectoball and threw it as hard as he could. “Go long, Cuj!” He smiled as the pup darted after the ball at lightning speed and stretched his muscles for the few seconds it took for Cujo to return with the ball. The pup barked excitedly. 

Danny smiled, he always wanted a dog anyway. He threw the ball for Cujo for another few minutes, before playing tug of war and teasing the dog with the squeaky toy. “Who’s a good boy?” Danny said in a voice only reserved for Cujo and other animals (except for Sam’s pet snake...he couldn’t use his little baby voice on that thing, it was too weird). He rubbed the dog’s belly, laughing when Cujo’s back leg would twitch in response to the belly rubs. 

The phantom yawned as he laid down on the ground next to the pup, using one hand to prop his head up and the other to scratch Cujo’s chin. “I’ll admit, you are making me feel more relaxed.” 

Soon enough, Danny was snoozing with the little puppy curled up into his side, snoring softly. Though, the moment of peace didn’t last more than 15 minutes as Danny woke up to the feeling of being pulled again. He groaned, gave Cujo a little kiss on his head, and answered the new call. 

Sure enough, he was in the middle of Sam’s room, falling to her rug as he was still too drowsy to make a better landing. He heard Tucker’s laugh and jolted up, shaking the remaining grogginess out of his head. Danny groaned, “what?!” 

“Look who woke up on the wrong side of the...rug…” Tucker tried. Danny could feel Sam rolling her eyes as she offered him a hand so he could stand up. 

Danny couldn’t help but let out a low growl, “Tucker…” 

“We’ve been trying to call you for 25 minutes already! Guess you didn’t have your phone on you. Thank the goddesses for Ouija boards,” Sam stated as she straightened out her skirt. 

“Why? What’s wrong? Is there a ghost?” Danny examined her room, making a face at the snake that he swore was glaring at him. 

“School starts in 4 minutes, dude,” Tucker explained as he grabbed his backpack. 

“You gotta fly us to your house to get your stuff then fly us to school, and maybe we won’t get detention this time,” Sam put her backpack on as well. 

“Ah, fuck,” Danny quickly grabbed his friends’ arms and flew as quickly as he could to his room, grabbing his backpack and flying to school. His parents were already in the lab working on stuff, and Danny doubted they even noticed he was missing and almost late for school. A bomb could go off in the town and they would be so immersed in their work that they wouldn’t hear it. His overattentive sister, on the other hand, had apparently been trying to get a hold of him for an hour now, only stopping when Sam texted Jazz that they had Danny with them. 

The trio landed in the bush as the first warning bell rang. Danny transformed and they ran into the school together, making it to their homeroom late, but for once luck was on their side as the teacher wasn’t paying attention...her car alarm mysteriously went off. 

Danny pulled out his notebook and realized he still had to finish that math problem. Shit. 

He turned as Sam tapped his shoulder, handing him her homework. He smiled gratefully. 

“Don’t worry, Tucker had to copy mine too. That problem took me 5 hours to solve. You both owe me.” 

Danny sighed in relief and nodded. He had 10 minutes to copy this down, and it was two pages long. It should be a crime to assign problems that long. He pulled out his pencil and started scribbling down the solution when he felt it. 

Another pull. Damn that dog. No, he loved Cujo. Damn that Ouija board. “Remind me to find Cujo a puppy friend,” the halfa muttered to his friends.

#phic phight 2021 #danny phantom #stephanie writes sometimes #danny fenton #sam manson #tucker foley

[stellocchia]

This is part 4 of the Comprehensive Analysis of c!Tommy and c!Dream’s relationship during the Exile Arc

Part 1 -  Part 2 -  Part 3

We’re here once more just to suffer... though be fair I did decide to do this to myself, so I can’t really complain there...

As always under the cut we will be exclusively be talking about the characters unless stated otherwise and we will be talking about some serious topics, so keep that in mind

We’re starting this off with the infamous Beach Party stream: Tommy Is Left ALONE at his Exile Party with Dream

Now, quick introduction to this vod, since we find out about some details later on: no-one, aside from Dream, shows up because Dream destroyed the invitations and also Ghostbur won’t be around any longer because Dream sent him away (knowing fully well that that could have killed him since he already heard directly from Ghostbur that rain melted him). 

Basically at this point Dream is taking a step further into the manipulation process by not only making everyone else believe that Tommy didn’t want to see them but by also physically ensure they’d believe that. Also Tommy doesn’t start this one drowning either (perhaps because he was in high spirits the day prior?)

*creeper blows up* “Shit shit shit shit (...) I’m stupid I’m stupid I deserve that I deserve that. No no no no I didn’t I didn’t, today is gonna be a good day, today is gonna be a big day” (first response to anything negative has become taking on the blame, which we see later on with the Community House situation)

“Will Tubbo be there? Maybe! Myabe he will! Maybe he will!” (Tommy still very much missing his best friend)

“He [Tubbo] did boot me out... no no! you know what? I’m in the mood to reconcile!” (a big trait of Tommy’s has always been his loyalty to people, no matter how much they hurt him)

“It was definitely 8 pm GMT, 8 pm G-” *Dream joins the game* *Tommy pauses for a few moments on the Nether bridge completely still and then turns back* (I want to point out that the reaction any time Dream joined was one of absolute fear, for good reasons of course)

One thing that I’ve noticed is that Dream rarely comes from the Nether when visiting Tommy, opting instead for the objectively longer route through the water, which honestly seems to reinforce something he said early on, which was basically that even with the longer route it doesn’t take much effort to visit, and yet Dream is the only one willing to make that effort.

“Hello!” “H-hello?” “Hi!” “Hi ho-” “Where is everyone else?” “Oh... I don’t- I don’t know...” “I’m running a little late, I’m sorry” 

Considering that we know that Dream was in fact the one who sabotaged the invites, therefore meaning he knew fully well that nobody would be there, does the fact that he came late seem like he really wanted Tommy to stew in his own loneliness for a while to anyone else? You know, to properly break his spirit. Also Tommy immediately after this goes to take off his armour (Tommy Slippers included) and weapons, but this is the one time Dream lets him keep it (which, once again, he’ll use as a point against him later on). 

“Wilbur sent out the invites, didn’t he?” “Yeah, yeah no he sent them to everybody. He actually told Tubbo to his- like, he told him, he didn’t even need to give him an invite” “Really?!” “Yeah” (just want to point out that this is in fact not gaslighting, as some people seemed to think at the time, but it is still manipulation)

“I’m sure they said they’d be here by the day-” *watching the sun go down* “Time...” “I- I thought I was late so I’m surprised people aren’t here, but...” (turns out Dream was around 15 minutes late supposedly)

Tommy at this point takes out the cake, but he doesn’t eat any. I do think this is a good time to point out that the further we are into the exile the less we actually see Tommy eating (sometimes he straight up throws away any food he has in the inventory). He also sleeps less and less (or, at least, rests less, after all sleeping doesn’t necessarily mean being well rested afterwards) which we can deduce both from his comments on the subject and his rapidly deteriorating state. 

“Dream, no-one’s here” “I don’t know why... guess I’m most surprised Tubbo isn’t ‘cause he said he was gonna be, but-” (once again harping on to the retoric that Tubbo specifically willingly abandoned Tommy)

“I figured, I mean I figured you’d probably care the least if I was here so I just- I didn’t mind being a little bit late because everyone else would be here, but...” (once again the idea here is: “even if I was late I still came, no-one else did”)

“No-one cares about me anymore!” “That’s not true...” “No-one cares about me!” *Tommy takes his armour off again* “Tommy...” “No-one cares- no-one cares about me!” *Tommy destroys the rest of the cake* “No no no *sigh*” “No-one cares, do they? No-one showed up to my party... and it was the one thing, THE ONE THING they had to do for me after exiling me and fucking me over and not one of them came with me. And... none of them care about me anymore... ‘cause I’m not in L’manburg anymore, ‘cause I’m not with- ‘cause I’m not the vice-president”

Okay, that was a long quote, but 2 things I want to point out here: Tommy had about half of his health here, he refused to eat, take of his armour and marched towards the Nether, which is again him acting with no regard for his own self-preservation. And also there is a bit of Wilbur retoric sprinkled in there, with the whole “people only care about you when you have power” mentality. That’s exactly what Wilbur tried to convince him of in the Pogtopia era and it looks like he’s seeing a confirmation of this through the party. 

“If no-one is gonna put in any effort to come and see me, than I’ll make the effort harder to come and see me then, alright?” 

At this point Tommy has borrowed Dream’s netherite pickaxe and he proceeds to destroy a chunk of the bridge he’s made in the Nether, swapping it out for a one block wide wooden bridge. Of course, it goes without saying that he is not acting rationally, he is hurt and angry at the moment and he wants to convince himself that if others don’t care about him then he won’t care about them, which is why he starts lashing out more after this. And this is the result of Dream’s direct actions by the way.

“What is everyone saying about Tubbo’s compass? What is that? What is it? Explain to me” “I- uh I’m pretty sure that he burned it or something... or he lost it, something like that” “Wha...?” “He doesn’t have it anymore”

Tommy, up until now, didn’t even fully believed that Tubbo had a compass, but with the official confirmation of it being paired with Tubbo possibly willingly burn it, it’s the last straw for Tommy who decides to do the same. Though he doesn’t end up actually burning it, he does goes to take it out of the enderchest and bring it to the Nether. I do want to point out that Tubbo did not, in fact, either loose it or burn it willingly. It was blown up by accident in a creeper explosion.

*Tommy holding his compass over a sea of lava* “He burnt it? On purpose?” “I- I think so” “You know what, wou know what? Y- you know what?!” “Why don’t you- why don’t you sleep on it Tommy? Just wait don’t do anything, you know? Anything you can’t take back and then...” “I don’t sleep anymore Dream...”

Pretty sad scene... also a confirmation of what we said before about Tommy sleeping less and less. Also I’m not entirely sure why Dream was suddenly against Tommy burning the compass when he didn’t seem to be at the start, though it could be because Tommy was so obviously hesitant about it, so he probably wouldn’t have done it either way. Which means that it was a good moment to get friendship points. 

*Tommy standing in front of the portal in the main Nether hub* “I just want to go home... please can I go home...?” “Uhm, do you wanna see the Christmas tree for, like, 10 seconds?” “Can I stay?” “You can’t stay, but you can go look at it, I’ll let you out-” “Why can’t I stay?” “It’s not like they want you anyway Tommy” “wha...?” “Tommy, no-one showed up to your party and everyone was invited. Do you want to see the Christmas tree?” “I’ll just go back...”

This is the one single scene that is capable of making me emotional every single time. Just Tommy’s broken and small voice throughout it is something else... also Dream’s absolutely smug tone in all of it. But, the one thing, aside from the great acting, that I want to point out in all of this is how the reason for why Tommy can’t go back now has shifted from Dream killing him if he does to his old friends not wanting him around any longer. This way Dream gets to fully play the part of the magnanimous friend who still cares while everyone else is depicted as the enemy. Also I do find it interesting that in this scene Dream keeps insisting quite a bit for Tommy to go see the tree (in contrast to the first time where he refused for him to go back even for a few seconds), which almost looks like him testing how effective his conditioning was.

“That guy is gonna kill me, the little guy” *pointing at a baby piglin* “Oh” *Dream proceeds to get rid of it* (Tommy is by now basically dependent on Dream for his own safety)

“Do you need food?” “*sigh* No” (Tommy is literally on 3 hearts with 3 1/2 hunger bars and he is still refusing to eat)

They spend quite a bit of time after this by playing with Dream’s riptide trident and later also with the throwing one. Also Tommy changes his “girlfriend” hot girl for HOTTER girl (because I know you all deeply care for this kind of updates)

“I actually didn’t have a trident before and it took forever to come here, so I got a trident to come here quickly” “Oh thank you! You obviously care about me Dream” (Tommy feeling compelled to thank Dream for literally anything paired with Dream constantly showing off how much effort he is willing to put in)

“Let’s make a guest tent, let’s make a guest tent!” “That’s a... great idea” “In case any guest wanna- I mean maybe even- maybe you- we’ll make it here. It- it needs to be close to me because I’m- I’m really missing contact” (on top of everything else, Tommy was also canonically touch starved)

Dream and Tommy also make a guest tent together (and it’s implied a few times that maybe Dream will use it) before playing with tridents a bit more when it starts raining. Also Tommy builds a cobblestone smartphone were he keeps snapchat streaks with girls (this goes in the list of sentences I never thought I’d type). 

“Hey thanks for letting me keep my armour today” “You’re welcome” “It was nice of you” “I just thought it’d be good for the party and everything” “I’m sorry it wasn’t that much of a party in the end” “Eh, we make it a party together, so” “Yeah”

So, once more I want to point out a couple of things: there is no reason, aside from Dream’s conditioning, for Tommy to feel grateful that Dream didn’t take away his means to defend himself, nor is there any reason for Tommy to be the one apologizing for the party turning out the way it did. But also one other thing I want to point out is Dream’s insistence over them having fun together, which he keeps saying even later on during the prison visits. And I want to point that out because I do really think that Dream believes that or that he, at the very least, does try to convince himself of it. I’m still not entirely sure on that point, but, by now, I’m fairly sure that Dream really does believe that him and Tommy are his warped and toxic version of what “friends” would be...

“I should have died and then- and then I didn’t! I should have died...” (suicidal thoughts)

*Tommy reaching the maximum height with the trident* “I’m alone...” (just a very famous scene here, but also keeping to the theme of loneliness even when other people are around, in this case Dream)

“Just- just build a guest tent Dream! You’re probably gonna be the one who stays in the most so... since you’re my guest” 

*Dream standing inside the guest tent* “I’m in- I’m in my tent my tent” (the implications I mentioned before)

“Maybe I’m just gonna stay here, maybe I’m just gonna live here instead” (referring always to the guest tent and Logstedshire)

This all ends with Dream gifting Tommy the throwing trident (which he then puts in his enderchest) and Tommy also gains a zombie head from their mob hunting.

“Let me keep the other trident please” “What the one that you can throw?” “Yeah” “Okay Tommy, I’ll let you keep it” “Really?” “Yeah, as a gift, a beach party gift. You can remember our bonding experience from today” “Awww, thank you” (this is the conversation as a frame of reference)

“Listen Dream, what do we do now, then? If no-one is gonna come and visit me, what do I do?” “Nah, I’m visiting you!” (Dream really is convinced to me as much the center of Tommy’s universe as he is of his, huh?)

“Dream, as much as I’m feeling happy, I’m not. I’m not Dream. Where do we go from here?” “Uhm, I think that you will come around to liking it here, and you’ll build up your own ‘empire’ here, and you’ll be happy and maybe they’ll come and visit you- like you said! You said the thing about all, like, power right? You have no power and now they don’t visit you, maybe you’ll be- you’ll be back in power and then they’ll...” “I’ll always be exiled” “Yeah but that doesn’t mean you can’t become powerful, you can become powerful away from- away from them”

This is the closing conversation, that ends with Tommy entering the sea and disconnecting once he is on only one bubble of air left. Which, by the way, is a case of Tommy dissociating, which we know because he always later seems confused when logging in and finding himself in the water (meaning the confrontation with Jack at the hotel wasn’t the first case of him dissociating).

Also, while Dream is spewing all of this stuff about how “Tommy can still be powerful here” it’s obvious that that’s not the case. Tommy is not allowed armour or weapons and he is basically not allowed any allies (what with Dream sending Ghostbur away, intercepting Ranboo’s mail and making sure to keep away from Tommy as much as possible). Tommy is quite literally stuck in a position of powerlessness that he cannot escape from with someone who actually enjoys having him at his weakest.

I’ll leave it here for today, because this was literally one of the most intense streams so I had quite a lot to say and this became so damn long... I’ll probably condense the next two together.

#dreamwastaken #tommyinnit #dream smp #character analysis #relationship analysis #tw abuse #tw suicide #tw manipulation #exile arc #c!dream #long post #my post #this seriously came out really fucking long #oh well #pretty sure you guys are used to that from me by now!

[katsukikitten]

It's hard to see through the sticky wet droplets that fall from above your brow, from your lips and cheeks. You huff, blood splatters the floor at the feet of a woman dressed in an old fashioned black kimono. Her fox mask askew on a rare occasion. 

"You broke her, you BROKE HER!" You screech, small frame shaking from fading adrenaline and flashing memories of cold steel and even colder eyes. This was too much, way too much for your seven year old body to handle. But you would do what you must to survive. 

The woman turns towards you, her blue eyes iridescent even in the low light.

"No child, you broke her. You were just going to let her kill you." She shrugs as if it weren't such a heavy statement.

"I'm- I'm her weakness, she's better than me, SHE HAD TO!" A stammer that grows into a deafening scream. 

"No my dear, she always has and always will be your burden." 

You wake in a cold sweat, alarm blaring and your heart stutters in your chest, knives instinctively woven into your fingers. 

"An old memory. A dream." Soothing words from a shaking voice, knives never faltering as you lower them, slipping them back onto your person. You rise, peering out the window to see the city blanketed in snow, heaps of it as more fall from the sky. The sidewalks cleared in such a half assed way you were sure they would just turn to ice instead, the piles in the storm drain already turning a mute grey. 

You hated the snow, it always brought up bad memories and the biting cold made every scar you owned throb. Ebbing in memories you wished you'd forgotten.  Instead you get ready for the day pulling on your hero suit although you didn't have to work the overtime today, you guess old habits die hard. Two weeks had passed since Bakugou offered you that side job. He paid you enough that you wouldn't have to worry about your sister's bills for the next month. 

Still Christmas dinner couldn't come soon enough. 

You lock the apartment and push through the biting air, face begging for a reprieve as you walk into the icy wind but it's not as if you could walk to the agency backwards. 

Bakugou and Kirishima wait outside of the agency building for you, Bakugou holds out a steaming coffee as Kirishima offers a warm smile. 

"You're late." "Just on time." They speak over each other before Bakugou gives Kirishima a glare. 

"We're patrolling the fucking shopping district today." Bakugou shoves the coffee into your hands as you grit your teeth, trailing behind the two as Bakugou sets out the pace. You let your eyes wander, snow clinging to their hair as Kirishima wears next to nothing, his dumb ass costume having sleeves for warmth. You roll your eyes before they fall on Bakugou. Normally you can smell the spicy burnt sugar wafting off of him in troves but the wind chill is dangerously low for someone who relies on sweat as their weapon. The snow comes down thicker, the flakes a puffy white that sends you miles away before a gut feeling brings you back into the present. You grab onto both of the men, straining your ears to hear over the bustle of the city. Something isn't settling right but they don't seem to be on high alert. Maybe your nerves are fried from the dream. 

Your concentrated look doesn't go unnoticed by either party looking over their shoulder.  Bakugou shoves the two of you into a side alley to stay out of the way of the hustling streets since you're just standing there. You seem to be off your game, you're more subtle at letting them know about danger without alerting civilians. 

"Oi. Spit it out." Bakugou crosses his arms as he stares you down. You blink away the rage, the wind whipping through the side alley making the three of you shiver. You grab onto Kirishima, placing your palm on his sculpted pectoral before explaining. 

"Just some buffs for the day. Your unbreakable will be 65% harder and you'll be lighter on your feet." Kirishima gives you a concerned look as you reach for Bakugou who tries to resist. 

"Don't need your fucking help." 

"Yea?" You hiss, "What good are you if you aren't sweating moron?" 

You yank his arm to you, pulling at his sleeve to get to bare skin, pressing your warm fingers against his cool forearm.  You send him a knowing glare. 

"Gonna feel like summer for you today sweaty palms." You shove him away and he thinks to swing at you. Kirishima diffuses the situation. 

"All day buffs? Isn't that a strain on your quirk?" Kirishima was always concerned about you.

"I'll be fine. You know I'm at a place where a lot of my own personal buffs and debuffs are idle." With a snap of your fingers a little display appears in the air thanks to your support bracelet. Reminding the two men of a video game, your stats out there for them to see. The screen rolls through them fairly quickly. Bakugou can only catch a few as the text moves at a rapid pace. Poison resistance 85%, Stab resistance 98%, weapon pulled from body closes wound 50% faster, returned weapon caught or pulled from body 100% hit rate, deadly intent. Your stats disappear as quickly as they came. Bakugou knows your quirk's ability comes from experience, he thinks of the ones you have maxed out and let's his eyes linger over your face. Over the muted slashes and his stomach churns from concern, suspicion. How would a "petty thief" come across a blade and return it enough times that they could never miss? It surely wasn't in the time of your forced hero work, he has yet to see you take anything more than a surprise punch. 

"Are we fucking done? We got extras to babysit." Bakugou growls stepping out onto the sidewalk and into a nest of paparazzi. 

"Dynamight, over here Dynamight. Is it true you're dating your partner?" 

"Is it Red Riot or Rouge?" Another reporter shouts. Screaming out question after question putting Bakugou under rapid fire. 

Cameras flash as you can practically hear Bakugou's blood pressure increase ten fold, he inhales sharply to scream but Pro Hero Red Riot saves the day. 

"Guys we're on the clock, please save this for our designated interview dates." He smiles listing the dates and times. You wonder how they collected here so quickly, scanning the crowd for a nosy bystander that may have tipped the tabloids off with your location. 

But your eyes lock onto something far worse. 

In the crowd is a woman with auburn hair and icy blue eyes, dressed in an all black kimono. She smirks and mouths "Finally" to you before she throws her deadly ice darts, dipped in shining poison yet to be added to the government registry. 

But how could they know when you helped her make it. Working on instinct you yank Kirishima forward by his steel face mask until he is doubled over before you pull Bakugou into the same position by his belt of winter grenades. One ice dart sinks into your shoulder while the other nicks your throat but it's not as if it matters. Mithridatsim was your best friend growing up. 

A small box flashes in the top left corner of your vision, a status only you can see

WARNING! MORE EXPERIENCE NEEDED: LAST ADMINISTERED DOSE OF POISON X HAS BEEN SIX MONTHS, PLEASE DO NOT CONSUME ANYMORE TO INCREASE LOST RESISTANCE AND GAIN EXPERIENCE.

Fuck! How could you forget that her special blend of poison required exposure every two months?! Hero work was making you too soft, making you wonder just how many other skills were deteriorating from lack of repetition and experience. 

But that was a problem for another day. For now you growl, yanking the men down further to keep their eyes off of you as you give chase. Following her deadly speed with ease, thankfully she is headed out of sight from civilians and paparazzi although it spells trouble for you. 

Or maybe it spells trap. 

She throws another set of ice darts, you dodge them all but one that sinks into your stomach. You grip onto the ice, pulling it from your skin when a warning pops up  

LIMIT EXPOSURE, REACHING LETHAL DOSE, PASSIVE BUFF ACTIVATED, HEALING RATE REDUCED FROM 50% TO 30% DUE TO POISON X, RETURNED WEAPON HIT RATE REDUCED TO 65% DUE TO WEAPON TYPE, COLD RESISTANCE INCREASED TO 55%

WOULD YOU LIKE TO TAKE A CHANCE?

The question flashes as you push forward, following her step for step. You loved and loathed that question, it could increase your chances of the poison clearing instantly, heal your wounds perfectly and return your hit rate back to its max level. 

Or you could utterly "fail" the chance roll earning you double the pain and debuff.

The closer you were to whatever magic number your quirk decided, the better your chances. 

Another set of darts that you barely dodge. You grind your teeth, hero work was definitely making you too soft. 

WOULD YOU LIKE TO TAKE A CHANCE?

"Yes!" You growl as your quirk activates. It announces to you the size of the "dice" and the numbers to avoid as you give chase. 

PASSIVE BUFF DEACTIVATED "LUCK OF THE DRAW" FOR CHANCE ROLL, DIE SIZE 70, NUMBERS TO AVOID CRITICAL FAILURE 1 THROUGH 50, NUMBERS TO HIT FOR CRITICAL HIT 72 THROUGH 75. ALL NUMBERS IN BETWEEN THE CRITICALS WILL INCREASE BUFFS AND DECREASE BODILY HARM BY 15%. 

ROLLING DIE NOW.

In your mind's eye a giant die flashes in your head as numbers blur together while it rolls. 

50! CRITICAL FAIL, DAMAGE INCREASED BY TWO, POISON RESISTANCE REDUCED BY 15%, TEN MINUTES UNTIL BLACK OUT  

THANK YOU FOR TAKING A CHANCE! 

DOUBLE OR NOTHING? 

You swat away the temptation as a copper taste begins to coat your tongue, spitting red into the snow. You return the damn dart anyway, lucky enough for you it sticks into the nape of her neck but the ice is not strong enough to sink deeper. Finally she takes a left into an alley and you follow before the mouth is closed off by ice.

Sealing the two of you into an icy tomb. Snarling you exchange fists, hoping to wear her out before you lose consciousness, as she was never good at hand to hand, unlike yourself. 

Who lived for the up close and personal. 

PASSIVE BUFF "UPPER HAND" ACTIVATED, MELEE AND CLOSE COMBAT SKILLS INCREASED

You rear back your fist, landing it straight into her jaw, causing her to fall back onto heaps of trash. You pin her, pressing one of her ice blades to her throat. 

"What are you doing here Fox?" You hiss, and she smiles in delight. 

"Could ask you the same little ‘hero’!" She laughs and it's haughty, bringing up now bitter memories, "How far you have fallen sister." 

"Tch, this was not my first choice." You fake smile, pressing until you draw blood just to make it even. 

"Did Madem send you?" Even saying her name makes your stomach churn while Fox rolls her eyes. 

"Who else would send me to fetch their golden child?" She shrugs, using her quirk to make another cold weapon as you're distracted. Although you have the upper hand she still has enough room to sink another ice dark into your side, causing you to grit your teeth. 

"You're the fucking favorite now. What more does she want?" 

"You're her favorite, you both are. She wants a complete set." She purrs and it feels as if her ice is freezing your blood. Vision blurring from your rapid heart rate, from your rage and the venom. 

"What the fuck do you mean? What about her?! She is fucking unwel!" It echoes around in the ice and she smiles, playing you for the fool you were. 

"Exactly as I said. I wouldn't count your twin out just yet. You know how Madem lives for backups." She winks, as you feel exasperated. The poison coursing through your veins, your vision tries to spot but you push through.

"I'll let you go just this one Fox but if I ever fucking see you again-" She interrupts. 

"Please, you know the rules. Don't come home empty handed. Plus what you do to me will be far more mild than what Madem can think of." She spits blood onto your face, you bare your teeth and sweet drips onto her kimono.  You were running out of time. 

"ROUGE!" Bakugou shouts in the distance, earning a smile from Fox below. 

"Wow bold of you to keep the name." She laughs, "Well your weakness works in my favor. What a dream it would be to be captured by your boyfriend. Then I could tell him everything about me. About you." 

"You'd snitch? Just like that?" 

"Wouldn't you do anything to keep a loved one safe?" Her words sink deeper than any dagger, any ice pick, she's ever thrown. 

She's right. 

"ROUGE!" 

You would do anything. 

Huffing you do what you hadn't in well over a year and although you'd done it thousands of times. It never got easier. You press the blade deeper, letting it slice into her throat as a red line follows in her wake. She looks up at you with a soft smile, relief flooding her features as sweat prickles your brow. 

WARNING BLACK OUT IN TEN SECONDS, POISON X WILL BECOME LETHAL IF ANTIDOTE IS NOT ADMINISTERED WITHIN THE HOUR. COUNT DOWNS STARTS NOW :10,  59:59

With shaking hands you set the already melting blade into her hand, jumping over the other ice wall deeper into the alley as you hear heavy foot falls come your way. 

You fall into a heap yourself, pressing your hands into your wounds, tempted to attempt to activate double or nothing. Although it could kill you instantly with the status you were in now. 

A part of you hopes it does. 

7

The ash blonde blasts through the icy walls, spotting you in an instant. When he sees the perpetrator dead, his stomach churns as he reaches you. Your clammy to the touch and your support bracelet is flashing with an alert for a trusted on looker. 

5

PLEASE IDENTIFY YOURSELF 

It yells as Bakugou shouts his name. A little hologram of you shows up before your voice pours out. Silently you're thankful that you could tinker with the item enough that should you come across something from your past you could intercept some information. 

Or at least manipulate in your favor should you be rendered non verbal as you are now.  

3 

"It seems an especially strong poison has been introduced into my blood stream. The antidote will be elderberry tea, which can be found at these surrounding locations. Please do not take me to a hospital, by the time they identify the poison I will be long gone….I'm talking to you Bakugou. Get the tea. If I pass out, force activate one of my idle or passive buffs. Specifically Adrenaline high… Trust me, you're going to have to..." 

The world fades to black without any warning as you float in what feels like non existence. Probably the best sleep you'll ever get even when it's short lived. Like it is now. 

"Fuck." Bakugou hisses as the stupid translucent you blabbers on and on of ways to activate this dumb ass, complex, and mysterious as fuck quirk you had.  He thinks of how the mini you emphasized pain would be a trigger to activate the idle buff. He grips onto your forearm, thinking of doing a point blank blast. Best case scenario you'd have his palm burned into you for all eternity, worst case scenario you lost your whole fucking left half. 

"Fuck! FUCK!" He doesn't want to hurt you but he has to. He thinks of the limited time you have as an ominous timer floats in the air from your bracelet. He tries slapping you across the face first, nothing. Your cheek barely reddening as blood oozes from your wounds. Gritting his teeth and choking on his honor he hits you again, this time with the help of his quirk to add some force. 

When that doesn't work, his sadistic side comes out, fueled by his desperation and his gloved fingers subconsciously find the wound in your throat and shoulder.  Thinking to exploit it in order to rouse you. He lets out a low hiss as he plunges his fingers into the wounds, digging deep into the one in your shoulder. 

PASSIVE BUFF "ADRENALINE HIGH" ACTIVATED. 

Your eyes snap open, rage fueling them as you act on instinct, slamming your forehead into Bakugou's hard enough that it bruises both of you.

"OI FUCKING! I'M TRYING TO HELP!" He shouts, forearms popping as heat rushes up his spine from your landed hit. He pushes back his hair, rubbing his sweaty forehead before baring his teeth at you. 

"What the fuck?!" He snaps, "Who was that? Why is she dead?" 

"Another time yea?" You say weakly, lifting your wrist so he can read the time, "The tea still has to steep." 

You stand but wobble on your feet as warnings flash in your minds eye and thankfully not on your stupid support bracelet. Much to Bakugou's disdain, he needed to know what he was working with, not blindly trusting you. Especially not now with growing suspicions. 

ADRENALINE HIGH OVERRIDES DAMAGE AND POISON EFFECTS FOR THE NEXT 10 MINUTES COUNT DOWN STARTED 09:59

"Dismiss." You spit blood and the information fades away. You stumble like a drunk towards the mouth of the alley, avoiding your fallen sister as your mind races. 

"She wants a complete set." 

"Fuck." Is all you can manage thinking of your actual sister, hoping she was safe within the confines of her own prison. That needed to wait. Right now you needed that elder berry tea.  The closest shop carrying the product was several blocks away and at this rate you'd never fucking make it. 

Bakugou catches on, scooping you in his arms.

"Hold on tight Princess." He growls, propelling himself into the air to land a few store fronts away from your destination. 

"Can't believe you're dragging me down." He hisses, fully taking over holding you to him. He squeezes a bit tighter. Your stomach flips and you blame the poison. 

"If anything I'm bringing your image up. Imagine the paps seeing this bull shit. Headlines like 'Bakugou, the knight in shining armor saves the day.' Or some horse shit like that." You weakly tease, he glares down at you. 

"Tch. Fuck off. They'll find a way to twist it." 

"Well your mom will see it for what it is." You squeeze tighter around his throat, nosing the crook of his throat. You feel his laugh through his chest. 

"Yea and what's she gonna see?" 

"You saving me dumb ass." You pull at his hair and he glares down at you. 

"Great, now she'll force me to marry you. Is that what you want bitch face?" 

"I'd rather die first. Plus you wouldn't be able to afford my dowry, ass hat." You tease, all he can do is roll his eyes. 

"You're fucking right about that. Now where is the stupid elderberry bullshit?" He growls, waltzing through the front door as if holding you were nothing. 

IDLE BUFF ACTIVATED SLIGHT OF HAND INCREASED TO- 

"Dismiss." You whisper, vermillion burns into your skin, "Next aisle." 

WARNING: LACK OF EXPOSURE WILL CAUSE A LOSS IN EXPERIENCE. SLIGHT OF HAND WILL DECREASE 

Grinding your teeth you reach for an easy snack, shoving it into your shirt sleeve as Bakugou studies the tea. 

"Where?" He snaps, causing you to sigh heavily. You point with exaggeration to the small purple box. 

SLIGHT OF HAND MAINTAINED, EXPERIENCE PREREQUISITE MET, BUFF IDLED. 

You needed to think of a way to turn this annoying "emergency" mode off, but whenever you were in critical condition, the warnings would display non stop. Most of your quirk you had memorized but you had to admit, it had been a while since you last rolled for chance. 

For fun.  

"Grab something for Kirishima, you know how he gets when he worries. You need water too." 

"This ain't a fucking road trip!" He growls but oddly enough he moves to the back of the store towards the drinks. He grabs a code red for Kirishima and an energy drink for himself. You hold onto the cold drinks as he holds onto you and the tea awkwardly. Setting them on the counter fixing a nasty glare at the clerk. 

"R-Rouge and Dynamight wow!" They gush, about to ask for an autograph before ringing the two of you up. 

"Kinda on a time crunch kid." Your bracelet flashes 20:32 before the clerk understand the dire situation. 

"Oh, I'm so sorry. On the house." 

"Doesn't work like that." Bakugou snarls, eyeing you to get his wallet. Little does he know you already snatched it, pressing a twenty into his hands. He glares at you as best he can. 

"Keep the change." You're beginning to think that was his new catch phrase as he makes his way towards the hot water dispenser. Setting you on the counter while he let's the two bags steep per your holographic instructions. He taps his finger impatiently before cracking open his energy drink. 

It was going to be a long day. 

"I'm going to cancel with my mom." He says finally, reaching for his phone, "I'll still…" 

"No you fuck. Your mom expects both of us there. I'm not dying." 

"Yet, bitch face." He places the tea into your hands, "Think she'll be more pissed if you die in her living room than not show up."

He eyes your wounds, noticing the droplets of blood that followed in their wake, how your scent clung to his skin. He contacts Kirishima instead instructing him to get the first aid kit ready at his house. 

"When you're done with your tea. We're gonna get those wounds bandaged." 

"Nah I'll be fine, once the poison status is cleared. My other status will return to normal. I'm kinda like a pokemon." 

"Don't care, as your boss I'm telling you Imma wrap your wounds with Kirishima now drink your fucking tea." He hits your shoulder before a sadistic smile clouds his features, "Or am I going to have to activate your passive 'Adrenaline High'?" 

"Fuck off, I'm pretty sure I'm not gonna pass out with half the cup down." You shove him away from you as his pocket pings. 

"Only pretty sure? You're fucking stupid. You can check that." 

"Tired of my quirk today." You grumble while Bakugou glares at his phone, he turns it towards you, it's from his mother an article titled "Bakugou, the knight in not so shining armor?" Her text is in all caps beneath ARE YOU SAVING HER I SWEAR TO GOD BOY YOU NEED TO WATCH HER BACK BETTER SHE BETTER BE OKAY YOU BETTER BE OKAY

"Guess you'll have to propose to me now." You laugh sliding from the counter, something from around your throat catches his eye now that things have calmed down. 

An odd feeling burns in his chest as goes all the way to his fingers and toes and realization washes over him in waves. He sees a gold chain that leads down to what looks like the droplet of blood. The garner necklace he gave you. 

"Come on Kiri is probably waiting." You nudge, grabbing for Eijirou's soda, your own tea almost finished.  His eyes follow after you for a moment as he tries to figure out why you hadn't taken it off yet, he's never seen you wear jewelry before. 

There is no reason for you to wear it, still the feeling in his chest burns hotter. It makes him feel suddenly proud and oddly possessive. He grinds his teeth, skin popping as he stomps after you, yelling. 

"Don't you take credit for the soda I bought!"

#bakugou x reader #katsuki bakugou x reader #bakugo x reader #bakugo katsuki x reader #bnha x reader

[iron--spider]

I woke up at 3am yesterday to watch The Devil All the Time and I’ve been thinking about it since. I’m gonna put my thoughts and feelings and a review of sorts behind the cut, because I am gonna talk about it freely, so there will be spoilers! So don’t click if you don’t wanna see. I’ll also be discussing the content of the film and I know that might bother people, so that stuff is in here, too! And it’ll be really long because you know I can’t shut up.

So, I loved it. I loved it loved it loved it. I read the book a long time ago when I first found out Tom was gonna be in it, and the only problem I had with the book was that the POVs would change in the middle of a paragraph lmao, but other than that I thought it was pretty perfect. I knew the movie was gonna be pretty brutal, because the book is brutal, so I was prepared.

-BUT I think the critics HIGHLY HIGHLY exaggerated how bad the content was. Like, seriously, they acted as if this was gonna be a Saw movie. I was preparing for blatant, horrific gore, but it didn’t live up to their dramatics at all. There’s blood and nasty situations, but every single episode of Game of Thrones is worse than this movie, as are most episodes of any crime drama on a paid network. I actually thought they were super, super tactful of all their horrific shit. The dog death was off screen and the shot of the body (described by the critics as literally traumatic) was so quick (enough to shut your eyes) and in the dark. I also argue that particular moment is extremely important for Arvin’s journey, because it’s the moment he truly turns on his father and turns on religion entirely, and he carries it with him his whole life (it’s what he flashes back to when he says “I know what my daddy did” because it’s the marker of all Willard’s mistakes) and it winds up being one of the last things he does before he leaves everything behind. Burying Jack’s bones. So, like, I despise dog death or any animal death in my entertainment, but it’s important here and handled well. And all the worst death scenes are either extremely fast (Helen’s and Gary Matthew’s) or shown in negative (all the photos). I think Bodecker’s headshot with Bobo is probably the worst and is also pretty quick. I don’t know if this means I’m a jaded bitch, but God the way they were all whining and crying, I thought it’d be a million times worse. It could have been, with the book’s descriptions, so it was actually pretty tame. Lenora’s death affected me the most and they cut away from that, too. I guess it’ll still bother some people, but there are many, many mainstream things that are far more violent and gory than this was.

-I thought it was a beautiful movie. I never mind films that are slightly slower but I love ones that use their time to lay things out and really show us what’s going on, build the ambiance and the relationships. I loved the narration (which I was worried about), and it really made me feel like we were visiting a moment in time that was important. Like something that was written and should be learned about. Rumors in a town you’re passing through. The ghosts of past trauma and transgressions looming over everyone that’s left.

-I liked the changes they made with Roy and Theodore because I thought that storyline kinda meandered in the book and I’m glad that Roy was actually gone the whole time and not just neglecting to come back to Lenora.

-The only real complaints I can make, I’ll get out of the way here: I wanted a little bit more time with Carl and Sandy. Carl was really creepy, but he could have been much creepier. In the book he was the one looking at the pictures constantly, Not Sandy, and that really showed that he was the one with the sickness, the one pushing them forward and orchestrating it all. I thought they did well with showing how Sandy deteriorated in her efforts with him through the years, but I would have liked to see a bit more of their personal lives together and her fear of him and her genuine feelings about what they’re doing, because the book goes into that a lot more. I also wasn’t a fan of Lee finding the picture early and knowing some about what they were doing, because I liked how it was a surprise to him in the book and yet he still did all he could to cover it up. And lastly, in the book there’s a scene with Arvin after he kills Sandy and Carl where he’s in a motel and he takes like 18 showers because he can’t get the grime of what he’s done off of him, and he looks at the picture and has a nightmare about killing Sandy, and I really would have loved if they’d kept it in. It would have been another ‘acting’ moment for Tom, and it would have been nice for us to see his direct trauma and reaction to everything that’s piling on top of him.

-BUT that’s it. I loved pretty much every single other thing and decision that they made. The cinematography was TOP NOTCH. You could tell they filmed on 35mm film, you could see the grain, and it really, really added to it. Antonio Campos is a very skilled director and I trusted him at the helm of this story. Everything looked so authentic, all the sets and the costumes. The soundtrack and score were AMAZING and enhanced the film. Technically it was just perfect in every regard to me.

-Acting! Acting! God this was like...a massive testament to the casting department and the talent of these people. Everyone was on their A game. Bill Skarsgård has been on my radar since Castle Rock (which I recommend to everybody, both seasons) and he was so natural and great in this role. Haley Bennet was absolutely adorable as Charlotte, I loved her cute face and her sweet relationship with little Arvin. Riley Keough was so great as Sandy with the limited amount of time she had, and Jason Clarke is one of my favorites but he was unrecognizable in this as creepy ass Carl. Harry Melling was a far cry from Dudley Dursley and he did a great job with his screen time, too. Same with Mia Wasikowska, who didn’t have much to do (same as poor Helen in the book) but she was able to garner our sympathy anyway. Seb Stan was slimy and gross but he pulled it off so well. Eliza Scanlen has been one of my favorites since Sharp Objects (another one that’s brutal as hell but I recommend it, she’s so scary) and she was so, so great here. Robert Pattinson was ALRIGHT, everybody talks him up over this but he felt a little hammy to me and a little too over the top, but there’s no denying his talent.

-Now, the reason we’re all here. Tom. My God. As soon as it was over I just didn’t know what the hell to do, I didn’t even know how to....go on, lmfao. We all know he’s talented, that’s why we’re here, that’s why we love him, but his performance in this is just BEYOND all that. Beyond comprehension. The man is only 24 years old and he’s out here outacting people who have been in the industry for longer than he’s been alive. He is SHOCKINGLY good. I knew he’d be perfect for Arvin as soon as I read the book, but he just completely embodied this role in a way that I couldn’t have imagined. He doesn’t show up in the movie until about 45 minutes in (which doesn’t hurt it because of the strength of the leadup, Bill’s performance and the performance of little Arvin’s actor) but God, as soon as he’s there the whole thing comes to life in a way that it hadn’t before. Tom is literally just a shining light, and he draws your eye in every single scene he’s in, and when he’s not there you’re wondering when he’s gonna come back. Arvin, to me, is a very complex character—he has been inherently changed by how his father twisted religion in his childhood, how deeply he betrayed him by his behavior, but he still has a kind heart and a protective streak and the need to be strong despite the pain nearly breaking him apart from moment to moment. Tom is just outrageously good at portraying all Arvin’s little nuances, how he clenches his jaw, how his voice breaks when he’s afraid or trying to convince someone of something or get his point across, how his hands tremble after he’s done something he wishes he didn’t have to do, how his whole body wilts when he realizes he’s emulating his father. And his eyes. Tom can do so, so much with his eyes that it’s unbelievable. He tells you so much with just a simple look, a glance, a wince, a long blink. I’m not exaggerating when I say he’s just an absolute revelation in this, he cements his place in Hollywood with a firm hand and a tender look, and I will not be forgetting what he did here anytime soon. There’s a reason that everyone called him out for being so stunning in this. He is magnificent. He has a gift.

-I wanna say, in particular, how much I love Arvin’s relationship with Lenora. Their lives were both marked by such tragedy and pain and Arvin just took up the torch of protecting her from the moment he said hello as a child. He wants so badly to be tough, and he IS, but there’s just miles and miles of love in this boy’s heart, and it manifests itself for his family—for his uncle, for his grandma, but for Lenora in particular. I loved how he just showed up when she was being harassed and just ran in there without thinking, and it’s purely devastating that he was out taking care of her bullies while a worse predator was cornering her. The scene where she was sick wasn’t in the book but it was a beautiful addition. Tom sometimes wears this very open, unguarded, honest expression, and this is the only scene in which he shows it, and it really expresses the love between them and how much she means to him. Arvin didn’t find Lenora’s body in the book, but it was the right change for them to make. Tom was devastating here, and that pain and that moment truly fuel every second of his journey through the rest of the film. “My Lenora”. The saddest siblings. Both Eliza and Tom did so beautifully with this relationship and I hope they work together again.

-Favorite acting moments for Tom: when he’s in the car in the rain after beating up the bullies, when he’s in the church crowd and realizes Preston is insulting his Grandma (the way his face changes oh my GOD), when he finds Lenora, when the cop comes to tell him Lenora was pregnant (this is just....so damn good), when he was telling his uncle to look after his Grandma, THE ENTIRE CHURCH CONFRONTATION (the way he trembles when he’s trying to get his attention, how he speaks the whole time, how he slowly gathers his strength), when he thinks Sandy has shot him, the moment where he’s over Lee’s body and just....pleading with his eyes for him to listen and realize what he’s done. And the last scene, in the car, all the emphasis on his face....once again, he can do so, so much with a look, with his eyes. Someone called out the beautiful last shot in the film, and of course, it’s Arvin’s sleeping face. And it was so beautiful (and devastating, to think of him enlisting. Tom draws so much sympathy that you just want Arvin to have a normal life so badly. He deserves it, he does, but will he get it?)

-Last thing I’ll say, I really loved how, despite turning his back on religion, that God seems to be protecting Arvin the whole time. He’s terribly afraid confronting the preacher and that could have easily gone badly, especially when he tosses the book, but Arvin was somehow able to get a shot off and get the upper hand. And with Carl and Sandy, he senses something is off immediately once they pull off the road, and he would have absolutely been killed had Carl not switched out Sandy’s bullets for blanks. And in the confrontation with Lee, he once again shoots at the same time as him, shoots without looking, and manages to come out unscathed and on top. A few spoiler reviews pointed out that the last person that picks Arvin up is supposed to be a Jesus-like figure, almost like he’s finally been saved. It hurts that everyone around him that he loved is almost forsaken by God, but he himself is protected. It’s such a complicated commentary on religion throughout the entire piece, but it’s so interesting and engrossing.

So I’d recommend this movie to anyone that loves movies, loves Tom, can deal with a gritty story that takes its time laying out all the chess pieces. It is definitely heavy subject matter but it doesn’t go overboard with the horror as it easily could have. Yes, there are triggers to look for, but the critics hugely over exaggerated how awful it was. I can probably go get time stamps for certain things if people wanna ask me after reading this, but if you can get through a Tarantino film or any HBO drama, you can do this. And Tom’s performance is one for the ages and not one that deserves to be passed over or downplayed. It is beautiful and heart-wrenching—a magnificent turn that displays his monumental ability to reach out and guide you into any world he decides to make his own.

I loved The Devil All the Time.

#tom holland #arvin russell #the devil all the time #text post #LONG #I’M SORRY

[j-amespotter]

★ epiphany – r. l.

"with you, i serve. with you, i fall down."

Pairing: Remus Lupin x Nymphadora Tonks (if you squint)

x. x.

Summary: Throughout his life, Remus fought many battles. Only once was he ever on the brink of victory.

Genre/Warnings: angst, war, death, torture, mentions of lycanthropy

Word Count: 1.7k

A/N: i'm officially on summer break, so expect more writing from me!! this one actually took a lot of time and effort so please share your feedback. not a reader insert, just some canon character insight. i think about remus's last moments a lot :( let me know if you'd like to be added to my taglist!

masterlist

1978 - With you, I serve.

The moon was bright but not quite full. It shone on two boys, both fresh out of school and on the precipice of becoming men. As much as they tried to deny it, there was an aura of naiveté surrounding them, one that would soon deteriorate beyond their imaginations.

“Come here,” said Remus Lupin, a tall, tired boy, tugging his companion’s sleeve. “Behind the bushes.”

“It’s child’s play, this job. What’s Dumbledore playing at?”

Remus was paired up with James Potter, who was growing more and more impatient by the second. “Prongs, we are trainees. We’re lucky to have an assignment at all.”

The two friends were seated on a small hill overlooking a large, dreary house. It belonged to the Travers family, a family notoriously pureblood, notoriously Slytherin. A family most likely in league with the greatest threat to the Wizarding World in several decades—Lord Voldemort.

The severity of the situation remained unspoken between them. If caught, James and Remus would be killed within seconds. Remus silently wished he shared James’s conviction regarding the ultimate invincibility of the right cause. But there was something inside of him that would remain unconvinced for a long time.

“There’s no way Travers isn’t a Death Eater,” said James. “I say we attack. They know we’re careful. They’ll never see it coming.”

“Perhaps,” said Remus. “Although, I doubt they are unprepared. Stealth is the only path to success.”

James snorted. “Okay, Professor Moony.” Years later, the same voice on a nearly-identical face would be addressing him in the same manner, with an amount of long-faced sincerity that would destroy him. But Remus did not know that yet.

After a while, Remus broke the comfortable silence between them simply because of a lingering curiosity manifesting within him. “Do you really think we can win this?”

James turned toward him. When he spoke, Remus thought he sounded a little scandalized. “Of course I do. And even if we don’t, there isn’t a single part of me that won’t die trying.”

Remus hummed, though he could feel the hesitation brewing inside of him, the same hesitation he found himself constantly suppressing around his friends. It was not as though he didn’t share the same sentiment; that wasn’t the case at all. It felt blasphemous to let his thoughts wander at times, but he couldn’t help himself. The truth was loud and clear. Remus was fighting this war for those who wouldn't do the same for him.

Something about the setting and the shape of the moon kept him lost in his muddled thoughts. “Why did you become an Animagus?”

James looked slightly taken aback, running a hand through his hair. “You know why.”

“Indulge me.”

“Because, Remus, we care about you. We wanted to help you,” said James. “We still want to help you.”

“You have done more than enough, James.” And it was true. James Potters didn’t exist in the real world, and that was a fact that was becoming blazingly clear the longer Remus spent in it.

There was nothing more to be said after that. James only sighed, staring out with a strangely thoughtful expression. “You know something?”

“What?”

“Think I’m going to ask Lily to marry me.”

Remus swallowed. “Wow.”

“Yeah,” said James. “I haven’t told anyone.”

Remus found that hard to believe. “Not even Sirius?”

“No, not even Sirius. Just thought of it, actually. Besides, something tells me Sirius would laugh in my face.”

“I don’t think that’s true,” said Remus, though it was always hard to tell with Sirius. The idea of James getting married sounded so far-fetched, and yet, made more sense to him than anything ever had in his entire life.

“So, what do you think?”

What did he think? Honestly, he felt a twinge of envy that James had someone to propose to, that he didn’t have to think twice about it, that in all likelihood, when this war ended, James would live a long, happy, healthy life with his wife and enough children to form his own Quidditch team. “I think that you definitely should.”

James’s face broke out into a wide grin, one that made Remus feel warm inside. One that told Remus that it wasn’t actually a whim, that James had been thinking about it for weeks, and that when it came to Lily, he always seemed to turn to Remus. It was a bittersweet sentiment, but one that he had come to appreciate.

“Guess I’ll need to figure out who my best man will be,” mused James.

Remus rolled his eyes. “She hasn’t even said yes yet, Prongs.”

James harrumphed. “Of course she’ll say yes to becoming Mrs. Arrogant Toerag.” He puffed out his chest dramatically, only to lose his balance and fall forward into the bushes. “Wow, we really suck at this whole ‘stealth’ thing, don’t we?”

“Shut it, will you?” whispered Remus, though if he had known how few moments he had left to share with James, he wouldn’t have reprimanded him at all.

Suddenly, a scream coming from the direction of the house interrupted them.

“What was that?” asked James. Both boys had their wands at the ready.

“They’re torturing someone,” said Remus, suppressing a shudder. He winced at the sound of another piercing scream, one that shredded his insides with every resounding decibel.

James began to rise. “We have to go in and help them.”

Instantly, Remus grabbed his arm and pulled him down. “James, we can’t. We will blow our cover, we’re likely completely outnumbered, and we were told to call reinforcements if anything got serious. We are trainees, remember?” When James begrudgingly slunk down next to him, Remus nudged him again. “Send a Patronus to the Prewetts.”

As James retreated several yards into the woods to conjure his great silvery stag, Remus turned his attention back to the house in front of them. After hearing another scream, he was beginning to lose his nerve. We can win this, Remus chanted to himself like a sacred mantra. We can win this. We can win this. We can win this.

Three years later, wizards all over Britain would celebrate their victory over the Dark Lord. But with three dead friends and one a murderous traitor, Remus Lupin would have nothing to celebrate. And he wouldn’t for a very long time, not until he stared into a pair of startlingly green eyes in a train compartment several years later.

1998 - With you, I fall down.

His heart raced as he watched the silver dome shatter around the castle. A swarm of dark, hooded figures made their way towards them. With one hand over the photograph in his pocket, Remus thought of Teddy—his vibrant, turquoise hair, his soft coos, and the sparkly eyes that looked just like his own.

We can win this. We can win this. We can win this.

It is different now, he thought to himself, I have Harry. A son. A wife. For the first time in his life, Remus Lupin had a proper family.

We can win this. We can win this. We can win this.

He was able to see his reflection on a window. Under all the worry pooling his features, Remus saw the ghost of a smile that looked so achingly familiar— the weary but indestructible smile of a new father, the one he last saw during his final moments with James many, many years ago.

He thought of Dora, who, despite his desperate pleas, followed him to Hogwarts to fight what was beginning to feel like the end. After he righteously begged her to return to safety, she scoffed teasingly. “Honestly, Remus. You should know better.”

She was right, and there was nothing more to say. She kissed him hard before they went their separate ways for the last time. Remus weaved through crowds of warriors, gaze wandering from time to time for a glimpse of either his wife or his young protege. Any sign that Dora and Harry were alright would ease his ever-growing nerves.

We can win this. We can win this. We can win this.

He thought of a late-night in his dormitory. It was the end of his seventh year. The four Marauders were sitting on each of their four-poster beds, picturing this moment, having no idea what was to come, just the confidence that it would and that they would win.

“I think it’ll be at the Ministry,” said Sirius.

“Or Diagon Alley,” said Remus thoughtfully.

“With Dumbledore leading the charge,” added James, a note of excitement in his voice. “I’d give anything to see the end of him.”

“Me too,” grumbled Sirius, struggling to hide the bitterness lacing every word. It had only struck Remus then that Sirius would be fighting his own flesh and blood on the other side. He knew better than to mention it.

“We could die,” said Peter quietly.

“We could,” affirmed James. “But I have a good feeling about it. It’ll be our moment, lads.”

Remus had only heard of Wormtail's death from Bill, who heard it from Harry. Peter, so afraid of death, so willing to do anything to avoid it, killed by his own hand. The last of his friends to go. In his wildest dreams, Remus would have never thought that he would be the last Marauder standing. Alone.

But he wasn’t alone. Not anymore. He had Dora, Teddy, and Harry. Harry, brilliant Harry, the Boy Who Lived, the boy who, unbeknownst to him, changed Remus’s life. The boy who would carry out his father's dream. The boy who would win this for them all.

We can win this. We can win this. We can win this.

Remus heaved a tired sigh. His legs felt as though they were about to give out. Despite his unique set of skills, Remus spent more time sickly than able. Especially now, nearing the age of forty. No longer did he have the agility or stamina of his youth.

He was in the center of the fighting in the courtyard. Suddenly, Remus felt a sinking, silencing feeling inside of him. Swallowing it away, he turned around, grip on his wand accidentally loosening for the quickest second.

The man in front of him was smirking, a forthcoming light blinding any identifying features. Remus's wand slipped from his fingers.

The last thing he saw was green, consuming his vision like a swarm of Dementors closing in on him. The spell hit him squarely in the chest.

He always wondered what death would feel like, often equating it with the debilitating pain of his monthly transformations. But it wasn't like that at all. Death was like falling. An eternal, endless fall into nothingness.

Moments away from victory, Remus Lupin fell down.

Mischief Managed.

Taglist: @iwritesiriusly @sheismadness @she-seeks-magic @amourtentiaa @just-here-to-escape-from-reality @queenofblacks @duckie-dunham

#remus lupin #remus lupin angst #remus lupin one shot #remus lupin one-shot #marauders fanfiction #marauders era #harry potter fanfiction #harry potter songfic #remus lupin songfic #remus lupin imagine #folklore x hp is always everything #remadora #remus x tonks #remus x nymphadora #teddy lupin #remus lupin x nymphadora tonks #first wizarding war #second wizarding war #battle of hogwarts #marauders #mischief managed

[thecheesiestcheese23]

a place that feels like home.

Trust was not so easily given, and Philza Minceraft knew this.

Hell, he raised four children that held their own trust issues. He spent years cracking away at them for them to finally feel safe enough to sleep in the same room with him and to turn their backs to him.

So why did he throw away the bond with two, kill the other, but live with the fourth? He knew very well why he did, he played favorites. He didn’t try to of course, but there was just something about Techno that drew Phil to be with him more than the others. Maybe it was the saying that 'Technoblade Never Dies' that he could relate to as ‘The Angel of Death’. Perhaps it was how their childhoods were so similar, where they were taken away from their families and thrown into The Pit, an illegal fight club that wanted to watch blood spill. The most likely thing though, was that they were both fighters.

Wilbur was never a fighter while he lived under Phil's roof, always wanting to hold a pen to write stories than to pick up a sword to spill blood. He was a lovely singer too and could spin melodies from simply plucking the strings of a guitar. Even when he left to make a country and was thrust into an unjust war, he refused to raise his bow unless it was dire.

It was only when his sanity started to deteriorate did he start to raise his sword instead of his guitar. And when Phil heard the words of "Kill me Phil -" after he blew up his own country that he shredded blood, sweat, and tears for, did he know his son was truly gone, replaced with this shell of a human.

Tubbo was like a bluebird; innocent and a hard-worker.

Like Wilbur, he never wanted to harm anyone, which was different from his birth father, Schlatt. He would rather spend his time with the bees in the backyard and play with his bee plushie that he was left with in  the box. He loved to spend time in the garden and nurture the flowers that grew alongside the food.

Tommy was a different case from the other two. While yes, he was a fighter, and a feisty one, he wasn’t the best. He was always so brash and loud, letting the enemy know he was coming from miles away. Techno was much more reserved and quiet and was deadly and to the point in his attacks. Phil saw him at the wars though, and he saw how much his youngest grew in his fighting.

Phil knew that he was too young to be thrust into these wars, too young to have met the face of Death multiple times by now, and too young to have been betrayed by nearly everyone he knew.

But, Phil sighed, there was nothing he could do about it now. The bonds he once had were shattered beyond repair and the three probably hated him by now. The only thing he could do now was to ask Ranboo if he needed a place to stay.

He had given Ranboo one of his feathers days after Techno’s execution, a way of communication that wasn’t able to be tracked by Dream. Phil had seen how the boy had been unwilling to pull the lever and was even hesitant to place Phil under house arrest.

He quickly searched through his satchel looking for the feather that was the main cell. Once he did, he quickly double-tapped the circle that rested at the top and scrolled through the contacts list. There were people from the Antarctic Empire, Ranboo, and then there was his family, Tubbo, Tommy, Fundy, Wilbur, and Techno.

Phil could only hope that Ranboo hadn’t left the feather in his house as the explosions fell down into what once was L’manburg.

With tense shoulders, he pressed the call button.

---

The dripping of water was the only thing that could be heard within the obsidian room beside the shaky breaths of a curled figure who was in one of the back corners.

A cat, Enderchest, meowed, disrupting the silence and rubbing against the leg of their owner in an attempt of comfort. Ranboo could only stare at his memory book as the feather in his hand hovered over the names of the people who were once his friends.

“I . . . I don’t have anyone left . . .” The book was shut with a slam, the title shinning against the lighting that the crying obsidian gave off.

“But,” a shaky sigh escaped through his lips. “I can’t forget them, otherwise I’m just giving up, and if I give up. . .” He stood abruptly which only succeeded in him collapsing down once more due to his unsteady legs.

“Then I’m just weak.”

The feather in his hand crackled to life, startling him before a familiar voice could be heard echoing around the small room. “Hey, Ranboo!”

“Hi, Phil.” The unshed tears in his eyes shone brighter as his voice wavered.

“Did you make it out okay?” Phil sounded concerned for him, for some reason that Ranboo could not fathom.

“Yeah, I’m still alive.” The smell of smoke was strong, even when he was far away from L’manburg. Some part of Ranboo’s mind wondered how long it would last.

“Good, good, where are you right now?”

“Uhm, I’m gonna be in L’manburg soon.” All Ranboo needed to do now was to pull himself out of this funk.

“Okay, good.” The rustling of a wing could be heard. “Do you need a place to stay or are you good?” Ranboo was caught off-guard by this question as images of his destroyed home flashed through his head.

“I- I think I do need a place to stay.” Ranboo sheepishly admitted, pulling himself up from the floor and balancing himself.

“Yeah? What’s been going on with you, by the way? ‘Cause like, we haven’t spoken in a bit, and I- I know that book was very precious to you, but I- I didn’t know exactly why.”

“Oh, it uh, keeps who my friends are in it, so I don’t forget, cause you know I have very bad memory issues.” His armor was put back on in a couple of seconds and he traveled back outside. “So, uh, I keep all of my friendships in the book, which is - has, changed quite a bit from today so I might need to update it.” The Panic Room was covered up once more. “I’ll be in L’manburg in a second- or what used to be. I’ll be in the big hole in a second.”

“I can get there, I can get there. Give me time, give me time.”

Silence fell between the two as they both traveled to the same destination and Ranboo wondered who was going to be the one to break it.

“So where did you go? Were you still around? ‘Cause it was hectic.”

“Yeah, I had a wither chasing me the entire time, so I kinda couldn’t just leave.”

A sharp intake of breath. “Yeah, sorry about that-”

“Oh, it’s okay-” Laughter could be heard from the two males.

“Are you in L’manburg now, by the way?” Phil asked.

Ranboo looked around, confirming his whereabouts. “Oh, uh, yeah, I’m next to the staircase that leads up to the Prime Path.”

“Alright, let me see if I can aim this. It might be off though.” A whoosh of the trident, ad Phil was standing right in front of him, his damaged wing tucked safely against his back. Ranboo hadn’t heard the full story, but from the information he gathered, one of his wings was singed beyond repair and was just dead weight on his back from protecting Wilbur from the heat of the blast. “Oh, this staircase has seen better days.”

That elicited a chuckle out of the taller male. “A lot of this place has seen better days, in case you didn’t realize.” They traversed up the pathway, twisting and turning through the multitude of wooden slabs beneath their feet.

“It’s fine, we needed a change. It had to be done.” Phil waved it off.

“Yeah, actually. I kind of understand why.”

“You got everything you need?” Ranboo skimmed through his inventory.

“Yeah, actually. I had all of my mending books in a secret barrel in my house but I guess I’m not getting those.” Ranboo grimaced at the thought.

They conversed for a while longer, traveling through the Nether before arriving at and entering into Techno’s and Phil’s home.

“Yeah, so you can stay here until we can start working on your house.” Phil gestured to the couch. “I was thinking of building it next to the mountain that’s behind the house, so it would be somewhat ingrained into the mountain but not fully.”

Ranboo could only just nod, not able to fully express his gratitude besides a simple “Thank you.”

Phil smiled at Ranboo. “It’s not a problem mate. It’s the least I could do after destroying your only house. Get some rest, yeah? I should also tell Techno you’re here so he won’t immediately kill you as soon as he sees you.”

Ranboo chuckled nervously. “Oh yeah, that sounds good.”

“Yeah, I’ve got to get going, you’ll be okay on your own, right?” Phil stopped his shuffling to look at Ranboo, and to his relief, avoided eye contact. “Yeah, I’ll be fine. Thank you, again.” Ranboo shited where he stood, opting to stare at the floor.

“As I’ve said before, it’s not a problem mate. I’ll be out for a while, and Techno should be back before I will, bye Ranboo!”

“Bye Phil!”

---

Techno trudged into his house, closing the door behind him before he collapsed against it, the roughed up edges of his armor digging into the wood. His sword rested limply in his hand as he let his body relax. He would definitely have to wash his sword from the blood that stained it.

He pushed away from the door with a groan. The satchels of potions landed on the floors and counters with a thump. He looked around before he spotted a lump laying down on the couch. Techno immediately tensed up, the grip on his blade tightening.

He swiftly but silently went over, his guard never slipping. His sword was raised, ready to be brought down on the intruder, but Techno then saw his face.

It was Ranboo, the kid that Phil had a soft spot for. He blinked a few times before he checked the feather that was clasped to a gold chain and that hung around his neck. He scrolled through a couple of messages, seeing some from Ghostbur, spam from Tommy, and one from both Fundy and Phil.

He clicked on the notification and read what laid before him.

<Ph1lZa whispered to you: I’m letting Ranboo stay with us for the next few days until we can get a new house built for him. I hope that isn’t too much of a hassle. Talk to you soon Tech!>

Techno huffed in response, but put down his sword and slid it back into it’s seath. The feather was then nestled back to where it once was before, and as he was doing that, Techno saw that Ranboo was shivering.

The couch could barely hold him and the blankets he had didn’t seem to be doing much for him. Techno grumbled as he made up his decision. He swiftly picked Ranboo up and brought him up the ladder, careful not to awaken him or disturb him as they made the trip upstairs.

Ranboo was softly placed on the older’s bed, the red cloak that once rested upon Techno’s shoulders was instead acting as a makesift blanket for the taller.

E

Technosoft!

/rainbowchat

Caringblade

Technosoft

mic muted!

Technosoft

Technosoft

E

E

Technosoft

Technosoft

“Shut up Chat, I am not going soft for this kid.” Techno grumbled.

E

Throw him out! He’s only gonna hurt us like Tommy did!

Tsundereblade!

Tsundereblade!

Blood!

Techno only sighed in response before he went back downstairs, ignoring Chat as he headed over to the couch and placed his sword next to him.

“Goodnight Chat.”

Night!

Gnight!

goodnight !

E

Techno shut his eyes, and let his body rest.

#philza #technoblade #ranbooo #wilbur soot #tommyinnit #tubbo #fundy #sleepy bois inc #dreamsmp #minecraft #mcyt

[imagine-that]

Sleeping Beauty

Warnings: really sad? Angst I guess???

Pairing: Kai Parker x Reader

AN: I actually love this I think??? Also Kai is my villainous baby and I forever love him lol

You groaned as Kai rampaged through his family and Alaric’s friends, watching him closely to make sure nothing happened to him.

You were completely terrified that he would end up hurt or dead that you’d hardly remembered to watch out for yourself, quickly realizing this as you felt your entire body deteriorating in an almost sleepy state.

“K-Kai? Something’s wrong.” You moan, searching in the darkened room for his face as you stumble forward tiredly, having lost him in the dark mere seconds before.

As if on cue he’s standing right by your side, staring at you worriedly.

“Y/n? Y/n! Goddamnit y/n, this isn’t- this wasn’t-“ He mutters, trying to figure out what may have happened.

In the chaos of the wedding, you’d watched Kai kill his sister and the rest of his family all in one swoop. Bodies of the Gemini Coven were still falling to the ground around you, the sounds of their cries filling your ears.

Still, you somehow couldn’t bring yourself to hate the sociopath before you.

“What did you do?” You ask, looking up at him as your arms cling to him for support.

“I-I don’t know! I didn’t-“ He struggles, gently bringing you down to the floor.

“Aaaahhhhh!” He yells at himself again, smacking himself across the face in frustration. You’d seen him do this sort of self loathing before but this was the first time you actually had something to do with the reasoning behind it. You hated it.

You gently grab his face with your hand, pushing it towards you with the strength you can muster.

“It’s ok. Stop beating yourself up.” You murmur softly, gripping his hand until your knuckles are practically white.

“This- whatever this is, it’s my fault. I should’ve been watching you closer but I was obviously busy.” He rants, laughing out of stress.

You feel your eyelids start to cave in, shutting from heaviness.

“Shit! I linked you- no no no no no.” He mutters to himself, finally figuring out what it is he’d done wrong.

“What baby? What happened?” You ask quietly, looking up at him as best you can.

“I put the curse on you- I-I did it to you instead of Elena.” He groans, his teeth clenched angrily.

For a moment you think you might even see tears in his eyes, something that didn’t occur often even with the merge having brought out his emotions a little more.

“Kai- Kai look at me.” You plead as he mutters profanities at himself for being so stupid.

“I swear, I thought I linked Elena and Bonnie.” He promises, squeezing your hand even tighter. “I don’t know how the hell it went wrong.” He whispers, looking into your eyes.

“It’s ok. I’ll be fi-“ You start but before you can finish your eyes flutter shut and Kai is left with your limp body laying beside him peacefully.

“No! No no no no no!” He cried out, tears stinging his eyes. “Goddamnit with this water again.” He mutters, wiping his eyes with a sad laugh.

He tries to shake you, pleading for you to wake up but the only movements made are the ones caused by him.

——————————————————————

You take a look around, trying to figure out where in the world you could possibly be.

“Y/n?” An unmistakable voice asks from behind you and you run to the source, hugging him tightly.

“Kai where are we?” You ask, looking around you.

“I figured out a way to say goodbye. It’s just temporary though.” He explains, gripping you tightly.

He’d always had trouble expressing his emotions, especially with you. When the two of you had first started going out, he yelled a lot because he had no idea how to convey genuine happiness. It broke your heart at the mere memory of it.

“So am I dead?” You ask, glancing up at him with tears of your own.

He laughs a little, looking down at you. “You’ll be bored like the dead but no. At least I don’t think so.” He says with a playful grin.

“Kai...” You sigh, looking at him with a frown.

He groans, looking irritated already. You could tell he was on edge already but your worrying was only making it worse.

“What?” He snaps.

“I’m just.... I’m scared.” You admit, looking down.

“I’m sorry... that is where I’m supposed to say sorry, right?” He asks, eyebrows furrowing at you.

You smile softly, nodding a little.

He, being the way he was and having grown up the way he did, had trouble deciding when apologies were actually needed. Some might find it weird or inhumane that he couldn’t tell what he was supposed to feel or when he was supposed to feel it but for you, it was more quirky than anything else.

“Ok. Well I am sorry. I think.” He says, his eyebrows furrowing a little as he tries to decifer the feeling.

“I know you are.” You giggle, catching him off guard as you hug him tightly, your arms wrapped tightly around his torso and your head buried in his chest.

He shakes his head, clearly really trying not to lose his cool.

“Kai. It’s not your fault. It was an accident and you know it.” You tell him, trying to calm him down or comfort him or literally anything. He quickly pulls away from you, nearly shaking with anger.

He yells to no one in particular, throwing the nearest thing he can find off into the distance in rage.

“Kai!” You sigh, looking over at him desperately.

“It is all my fault! Damnit! This was supposed to be Elena! It was never supposed to be you y/n!” He cries, finally meeting your eyes.

“I know. I know.” You whisper, hugging him tightly again. He tenses, still not used to the feeling of physical touch, let alone when it’s used as a comfort, no matter how long it’d been since you first hugged him.

“I’ll- I’ll find a way to get you out of here. I’ll wake you up. And they’ll pay.” He growls into your hair.

“Kai-“ You start to lecture but he’s too far into his anger to notice.

“They intercepted my spell some how! They knew what I was doing and they made sure it backfired on me! This- this was no accident y/n. It was sabotage I just KNOW it was.” He rants, pacing back and forth.

“You couldn’t have known. It’s not your fault.” You shout back at him, tears running down your face. But Kai doesn’t listen, too busy plotting his revenge and rescue to hear a word you’re saying.

“I will save you.” He promises, a crazed look in his eyes that couldn’t possibly mean anything good.

“Kai, I know you will. Just please-“ You start but he yet again interrupts with a mad laugh.

“I don’t care who I have to kill or hurt or whatever y/n. But you are the only person who matters to me. I will not let them take you from me too.” He shouts, tears welling up in his eyes.

You watch him in shock, unsure what to do. Even with you he’d never been this emotional. It was so unlike him, you weren’t sure there was a way to stop or help him.

He comes over and places a kiss on your forehead and before you have the chance to protest, he’s gone, leaving you alone in the dream world for who knows how much longer.

—————————————————

Taglist: @akshi8278

#imagine #imagines #fanfic #fanfiction #tvd imagine #the vampire diaries #the vampire diaries imagines #tvd #tvd imagines #tvdu #tvdu imagine #kai parker #kai parker imagine #kai parker x reader #kai parker imagines #malachai x reader #malachai imagine #malachai parker #malachai parker imagine #kai parker fanfiction #kai parker fanfic

[veliseraptor]

mmkay I think it’s time for another 150 words meme because I have too many different projects and feel like I could use some pushes also just generally since my motivation writingwise appears to have, uh, slipped a little

so hit me. send me up to three numbers and I’ll write 150 words in the given project. ten options this time, two of them are literally just plotless porn, see if you can guess which

1. Then he moved to his right shoulder and felt Xue Yang flinch away from him. A very slight and plainly involuntary movement, and satisfaction crashed over Song Lan followed almost immediately by frustration that this was what Xue Yang did to him, what he made of him: someone vindictive and cruel and taking pleasure from the pain of others. Making him like Xue Yang.

He unwrapped the bandaging briskly, not gently but not deliberately hurting him either. It was an ugly wound, even for the work the midwife had done. 

The urge rose to dig his fingers into the wound, break it open again, and he recoiled from it, the vividness of it, the near longing. He could feel the slightest tremor in Xue Yang’s body under his hands. Minute, but present. He was very still otherwise, and surprisingly quiet. (Walking Far From Home)

2. “Was he hot?” she asked. 

Xiao Xingchen shot her a dirty look. “I thought you didn’t want details.” 

“If you’re going to make terrible choices I at least want to know if your terrible choice was hot.” 

Xiao Xingchen debated with himself how much judgment he could take this morning, and decided that he might as well finish it out. “It was him,” he said. “Xue Yang.”

“Who?” a-Qing said blankly. 

“The guy from the hospital,” Xiao Xingchen said helplessly. 

“Dumpster guy?” Xiao Xingchen didn’t bother to confirm. “You fucked dumpster guy?” Xiao Xingchen could feel his face getting even hotter. (Redux)

3. “Wang-popo’s roof is rotting through,” Xiao Xingchen said.

“It probably won’t last through the winter,” Xiao Xingchen said.

“With her husband gone, she can’t afford to hire someone to fix it,” Xiao Xingchen said. 

Xue Yang was doing fine at ignoring the increasingly unsubtle hints right up until Xiao Xingchen turned his stupidly beautiful face in his direction and said, “would you be willing to lend her your skills, my friend?” 

Absolutely not. “I don’t work for free,” Xue Yang said immediately. Xiao Xingchen’s face fell. (splinters)

4. “Jiujiu?” Jin Ling said.

“What,” he snapped. Jin Ling opened his mouth, then closed it.

“Nothing,” he said, altogether too innocently. “Nothing. Thanks for coming, Jiujiu.”

“You asked me to,” Jiang Cheng said flatly. “Though I notice you didn’t mention who the other guests would be.”

“Oh,” Jin Ling said. “I didn’t?” 

Jiang Cheng was going to throttle Jin Ling for this. “No. You didn’t.”

“Sorry,” Jin Ling said. He did not sound sorry. “I didn’t expect there’d be any problems. Is there a problem?” 

Throttling was too gentle. “No,” he said. “There’s no problem.” He paused, and then said pointedly, “interfering in others’ personal lives is unlikely to do anything but get you into trouble.”

Jin Ling gave him a long, hard, and uncomfortably familiar stare. “Okay, Jiujiu,” he said. 

Jiang Cheng narrowed his eyes. “So…?”

“Thanks for the advice,” Jin Ling chirped. “I’ll remember it if that comes up. I’ll talk to you later - I have go ask Sizhui about something.” 

And he was off. (Slippage)

5. Chengmei laughed, the sound bright and sharp as the blade of the knife he was holding. “I like you,” he said. “No wonder Lianfang-zun told me to stay away.”

It should have sounded like he was flirting with her. It didn’t. 

“You should treat him with more respect,” she said, making her voice firmer. “He deserves it.” Chengmei burst out laughing, and Jiang Yanli felt a flare of defensive anger.

“Don’t worry, jiejie,” he said. “I know what he’s worth. He puts up with me because he knows what I am. We understand each other.” 

Jiang Yanli frowned. “Knows what you are?” 

Chengmei bounced to his feet and stretched up on his toes. “Yeah,” he said. “His pet project.” (this world is gonna break your heart)

6. The sun was starting to poke weakly through the heavy mist by the time Xue Yang stopped working. 

The veins and arteries in a person’s neck were delicate things. Easy to cut open. Much, much harder to put back together. Good thing he’d never shied away from challenges. Good thing he’d been quick enough. Sure, better if he’d been quicker but - no point dwelling on that, it was fine, it’d worked out, hadn’t it?

He glanced at his patient, watched his chest move with his breathing. Shallow, and he was pale as shit but still breathing, which was the important thing. Stupid thing to try to do. 

“What if I hadn’t been paying attention?” Xue Yang asked him. “Where would you be then, huh?” (xxc survives and it isn’t fine)

7. He’d been scouring the cultivation world for a year and a half so far, chasing hints and scraps and rumors, cobbling together his own methods from fragments of theory and experimentation. He’d tried calling, again and again, trying to coax Xiao Xingchen’s soul back into his body. He’d caught a Lan cultivator and forced her to play Inquiry for him to no response; she’d said there wasn’t enough left to communicate with and he’d left her slit open but alive for the scavengers to find. 

He poured vitality into Xiao Xingchen’s body to keep it from deteriorating, to keep it perfect, whole, ready for him to come home. 

Nothing. Nothing nothing nothing and the doubts gnawing at him like jackals on the Lan cultivator’s guts kept getting stronger, whispering he’s not coming home. You’re never getting him back. He’s broken and gone and he doesn’t want to come back to you-

He’d thought of the Burial Mounds before. Obviously. The place where the Yiling Laozu had gained his power, where he’d held sway, taken control of a place where everyone said no one could live. (a symphony for the departed)

8. “What did I do,” he asked. His voice sounded small and weak. 

“Do? What do you mean? Don’t think it’s your fault this fucking cave fell in on us, unless you knew that that thing would bring down the ceiling in its death throes. Did you know that, Daozhang? Cause if you did then–” 

“No,” Xiao Xingchen said, though he wasn’t following anything that his - that his friend was saying. And who was his friend? How did he know him? How had they met? He couldn’t think of anyone he would call a friend, other than Zichen and...and Zichen was gone. 

“Yeah, I know,” his friend said. “Of course you didn’t. Hey, c’mere, let me–” 

He drew back, shaking his head, “no, I don’t mean - I did something, something bad, and…” 

The thought wouldn’t finish. He waited, hoping his friend would fill it in, or hoping his friend would tell him he was wrong.

“I’ve got no fucking clue what you’re talking about, Daozhang,” he said, and Xiao Xingchen took a wavering breath. (xiao xingchen + concussion)

9. It was a restless day - one of those days where he just couldn’t stay still, where he felt like crawling out of his skin and like if someone looked at him wrong he was going to spill blood. If he could manage it getting fucked within an inch of his life was usually pretty effective at dealing with it but if that wasn’t an option - if, say, some daozhangs were off dealing with laying someone’s dead grandmother to rest (he skipped out on those, these days) - the only thing to do was clear out and get some space from anyone who might look at him wrong.

Xue Yang didn’t think anyone would accept they pissed me off as a good reason to kill somebody. (reconfiguration)

10. Stuff happened. Presumably. He could tell that stuff happened, but not a lot more than that. He didn’t make much of an effort, either, enjoying the drifting, the blank quiet nothing. 

He settled back into his body slowly, in bits and pieces of sensation: someone petting his hair, his face smashed against someone’s shoulder and another body bracketing his other side. He opened one eye but all he could really see was chest. He was pretty sure Song Lan’s chest. Which was nice.

“Fuck,” he said, when he thought he had his voice back. (something about the number three)

#fic excerpt #150 words meme #ok ok i'll be back to make a go of actually working on these later

[alfredosauce50]

What makes me human [Cyberpunk! America x reader] 12

Wordcount: 3, 719 Rating: M for strong language and mature themes Warning: Implications of a panic attack and other sensitive/shocking content ahead. "See? I don't even have any goddamn organs! And I'm still alive!" "But hey, I get it. Maybe this isn't even my body. If it was, I wouldn't be alive. Maybe I'm a clone or something. A robot clone. Do you think they still kept my old body as a souvenir?" Chapter synopsis: Alfred is dying from something unknown, and the weaker his body gets, the faster his sanity wanes. You can't do anything but ease his pain as he slowly deteriorates. Fortunately, a deus ex machina arrives to save the day. The reader is referred to as she/her

Songs to listen to while you read (in order as found in playlist): VIRUS, Devil’s At Your Door, Glassy sky, Within. I have indented song titles throughout the chapter so you can change accordingly. Starting now:

VIRUS

12 - Like tears in rain

When Alfred left to do his business, you traced a finger over your leg and continued to look towards the bathroom. He was going to reappear any second now. That was what you told yourself as you waited, impatiently, but it never happened. Instead, you heard a loud slam and your heart jumped out of your chest.

It was the sound of glass. 

“... Alfred?” You called out, tone uncertain. Sliding yourself off the bed a few moments later, you walked to the door with a fearful kind of urgency. Without wasting another second, you knocked a few times. “Are you okay in there? I heard something. What happened?” He didn’t answer. There was only shuffling of feet--the rough scraping of the sole of a sandal against the tiled floor. 

It was almost as if he was struggling to stand. 

“Alfred, open the door!” You rose your voice in a distressed shout. Pounding your fists against the door, your pleads fell on deaf ears as he never made an effort to respond.

That alarmed you beyond compare and you resorted to thrusting your elbows against the cold and hard metal surface. “Alfred—” Your voice broke as his name fell from your lips. Bile never rose this quickly in your throat. 

When the door did open, you stared wide-eyed at the man through a flurry of tears. He was so confused, disoriented even, but he was safe and sound.

But when he saw the way you looked at him, crying, his face twisted with regret. “Fuck, (F/N)!” He breathed, catching you in his arms when you launched yourself at him. 

“I’m sorry for scaring you, but I’m okay—I promise. See? Now please don’t cry anymore.” Pulling away to offer a smile of reassurance, it faltered when you shook your head profusely with bitter despondency. 

“I’m not stupid. I know what I heard.” A dark glare only lasted so long when your expression quickly morphed into despair. “Please just tell me what’s wrong.” Reaching out to grip onto the sleeves of his shirt, you clung onto him desperately, almost as if he’d disappear if you didn’t. Little did you know, it wasn’t far from the truth. 

As if Alfred already knew this, he hung his head with a tired grin. 

“To be honest, I don’t know any more about this than you do.” He shook his head, defeated. “My best guess is that I’m having particularly shitty side effects with this... Immortality thing. But that’s it. I can’t die. So I’ll be okay.” 

He didn’t pay much attention to the signs he’d been seeing for the past few days. At first, he only experienced a little bit of lagging in his interface, like whenever he’d use his trusty in-built Google maps. This minor issue escalated into occasional forgetfulness, and even then, he brushed it off. But now, this mutated into something alarming.

Finding yourself in his arms again, you squeezed him in a tight embrace and screwed your eyes shut.

“That means this won’t be forever... Right?"

You wanted to believe it with every fiber of your being. But fear returned like an old friend, ravaging your being until it left nothing but paranoia in your consciousness. "I still think there’s something wrong with you..." Shaking your head as you choked out your words, he squeezed you right back.

"This won’t happen again, I’m sure of it. So don’t be so worried, okay?" Pulling away to soften his gaze on your teary one, he wiped away any moisture with a swipe of his thumb. Then, he sighed, but a small smile appeared right after. “I’ll be fine. Otherwise, who’s gonna look after you when I’m gone?”

“Don’t say that.” You deadpanned.

The truth to his words was haunting, and you couldn’t deny it. That was precisely why you hated hearing it.

“Do you care about me that much now, (F/N)?” The other grinned, his cheeks pink with content.

“Don’t ask that as if you don’t already know the answer.”

Alfred closed his eyes with a look of satisfaction. To hear you snap at him like this only pointed to one reason, and one reason only.

He'd totally grown on you. Maybe more so the other way around, but this was how things have always been. So he wasn't surprised when he was the first to feel something beyond a platonic friendship. Ironically, he was made of more metal than flesh and blood like you. But did that even mean anything anymore?

“Just wanted to hear you say it. But that’s good enough for me.” He hummed, watching a blush spread over your cheeks he himself was responsible for.

You hit his shoulder. "... Take this a little more seriously, would you?"

The blonde laughed. "I am! I was just being honest."

Neither of you noticed that you both had taken the leisure to sit on the ground. But given the circumstances, how could you possibly focus on something else? The same could be said for Alfred as he continued to stare at you with an unreadable expression.

Even then, he was pulling you in like a moth to a flame.

"You say that and yet I really can't tell what you're thinking."

"... And what if I didn't want you to?"

Whatever it was that was between you both, it couldn't be ignored. You weren't on the same page as him, but that didn't mean you wouldn't do everything in your power to save him.

He was carefree about this, but you weren't taking your chances.

Not that you could do anything to help him as his symptoms spiraled out of control. What he said would only be a one-time thing became a daily ritual. His episodes were longer. More violent. If he wasn't freezing up in the middle of the street, he was having seizures left and right until he fried his own brain.

Devil's At Your Door

You would drag his heavy body to an alleyway to wait it out. This was one of those times, but the task proved more difficult during a thunderstorm, and when heavy was more of an understatement. Not only was he made mostly out of steel, but he was well over six feet to boot, so all it took was one small puddle to slip and drop him--right onto the concrete with a thump.

In the few seconds he laid flat on the ground, he looked dead.

But a few seconds was more than enough for tears to form. They streamed endlessly down your face as you watched his, motionless and peaceful as it lay half-submerged in a murky well of water. As dark as it was, it still reflected the bright neon of the city. But the lights were anything but beautiful.

"... Sorry for dropping you." You murmured, reaching up to rub your eyes. He remained quiet. A part of you wished he said something, maybe a soft laugh going, don't worry about it. But he never did.

Bending down to sit beside him, you pulled Alfred onto your body and rested his head on your shoulder. It wasn't the freezing puddle your legs were submerged in that bothered you. Nor was it the light drizzle of rain on your face, the rumbling of thunder, or your dirty clothes sticking to your skin.

It was the feeling of him twitching in your arms, the restlessness in his uneven breaths. Something inside him was killing him. And all you could do was ease his pain while he wasted away.

Sticking your hand into his pocket, you pulled out a metal pin before lifting his tank top. Then, you inserted it into a tiny hole in his chest. You felt a pop, and a plate opened up. At least he wasn't drenched on the inside. But the water was a bad sign nevertheless, especially when he wasn't filtering it out like he normally did.

With whatever areas of your clothes that were still dry, you rubbed the inside of his torso vigorously. Then, you carefully removed detachable parts to wipe them as well. So there you sat, and hoped, unscrewing plates and reattaching them with his trusty screwdriver for ten minutes before he began to stir.

It was easily the longest ten minutes of your life. When he laid there, unable to process a single coherent thought, you had to wonder if this would be the last time. What if he never woke up? What if your father's men found him out here, and did away with him while he was so vulnerable?

The fear for his dwindling life chipped away at your sanity faster than you could deal. But every time he woke up, he put a stopper on your waning senses. A cough was heard and you stopped your movements abruptly. "... Pervert." He cracked his eyes open into thin slits as a tired grin stretched at his lips.

But you couldn't humor his comment as bile rose in your throat.

"I thought you weren't gonna wake up again." Your lips trembled in a frown. Working quickly to put him together, you pulled his top down and leaned down to hug him. "Thank god... We need to get you out of the rain. I know that much."

You helped him up slowly and slung his arm around your shoulder. "Yeah. You know more about this dinosaur than me." He furrowed his brows together and managed a sheepish smile. "If you didn't dry me up, I could've shocked myself to death. That would've been kinda embarrassing."

"Oh, shush. You know I'd never let that happen." Taking slow and steady steps, you both moved out of the alleyway and onto the street. The downpour just got heavier, so you kept your head down and ran to the closest shelter available--the outside of an upgrade store.

And as you stood there, waiting, you heard him say something you would never forget.

"... Even if you didn't, I'm still... Probably gonna die anyway." He laughed dryly. Misery shook his voice, and it manifested in the form of tears that rolled down his face. When you saw them, you almost couldn't tell as droplets of rain had dotted his skin. But he gave you no chance to process the fact he was crying when he continued.

"I'm being killed by something inside. It's not a disease. It's like... A virus." He dug a hand through his hair, and his eyes widened with a manic kind of sadness. "Ha! I'm about to die the most unnatural death. And to think I used to believe I was still a human."

"But you are." You forced out, swallowing thickly as an intense wave of grief washed over you. Then, you shook your head at him. "What I said when I met you was stupid. I didn't know who you were. I was scared. You're scared. I can tell. But don't tell me you're not human after everything you've done."

He wanted to believe you with every damn fiber of his being. He did. He really did. But he just couldn't. Not while his vision glitched so that he could barely see your face. And not while his ears blared with static to render him deaf. "... I'm not what you think I am."

Gritting his teeth so hard, veins popped around his neck and his left eye shattered.

"Alfred, stop!"

What was left of it was a bright blue light in his eye socket.

"Look at me." He breathed shakily. "I'm not even a fucking cyborg. Nothing about me is natural. Can't you see?"

He forced his chest plate open, and no matter how hard you tried, you couldn't stop him from pulling it off its hinges. Landing on the wet sidewalk in a clatter, you struggled to keep his hand still as he tore away one part after the other. "I've opened myself up before. I pulled everything out. There's nothing inside but metal and plastic."

But it was true. It became apparent when he pulled himself apart and gutted himself. You stood no chance against his inhumane strength, so he ripped everything out until he was reduced to nothing but a hollow shell.

"See? I don't even have any goddamn organs! And I'm still alive!" Alfred screamed with a face full of tears, but you were just as much of a mess as you sobbed wretchedly. "But hey, I get it. Maybe this isn't even my body. If it was, I wouldn't be alive. Maybe I'm a clone or something. A robot clone. Do you think they still kept my old body as a souvenir?"

He emptied himself as he spoke through crazed laughs, tossing his insides onto the street without a single shred of care.

Glassy Sky

As people walked by, they stopped to stare at the unfolding altercation, but some couldn't bring themselves to give a shit. A few even stepped on his parts on accident as they brushed past. And the sight of them cracking under their feet left you more and more unstable until you stopped crying altogether.

Lowering yourself into a crouch, you covered your ears as an unpleasant concoction of panic and anxiety overwhelmed your senses. As if hot water rushed into your head, a thick mental fog slowed your thoughts to a standstill. In fact, it was so incapacitating, you never struggled when you were picked up from behind.

Even when you were placed into a stranger's car, you never made a move to get out.

Once you calmed down, you were in an entirely different location. Familiar, but different. As you studied your surroundings, you came to recognize it to be the same room you stayed in at Arthur's. And rather than laying down in bed, you were leaning against a warm body. Pressing your face into their chest, you were overwhelmed with the scent of cologne.

Allen's cologne.

Tilting your head back, a pair of striking red eyes stared down at you with the most tender gaze. "Hey. Did you miss me?" He'd said.

For the second time that day, you cried. You cried and cried until there was nothing to cry about anymore. But rather than on a fearful note, it was a happy one. You clung onto him like a lifeboat as he began to rock you gently from side to side, then whisper soft words of comfort into your ear. Allen was alive and well. And the tables had turned for him to save you.

He never thought he'd have the stroke of luck to find you and Alfred. But his sudden urge to go to the bathroom--which came from the heavy downpour--turned out to be the best damn thing that ever happened to him.

"... I gotta take a leak," Allen murmured, earning a slow nod from the man beside him. Climbing out of the vehicle, he jogged across the road. He had been mulling over going all the way to the mall a few blocks down to relieve himself, but he opted for the alleyway right across where their car was parked. When he left, he noticed a small gathering of people down the street.

"...?"

Then, someone screaming bloody murder. He would've turned away, having seen similar scenes unfold like a regular Tuesday, but it was the sobbing that followed he couldn't ignore.

The voice sounded just like yours.

In a heartbeat, he burst into a sprint and pushed his way through the crowd to the center. When he finally got to the middle, he managed to step on a random part--an enhancement of some kind--much to his confusion. Then, he lifted his head for some answers. He paled immediately at what he saw.

Alfred was standing there in all his glory, having disemboweled himself. You were presumably reacting to him doing it.

"... What in the hell?" Sweat amassed around his forehead as he processed the grotesque sight. But seeing you so distraught was more than enough to get him to spring into action. Without a moment's hesitation, he shoved all the curious onlookers away with a scowl. "Fuck off, all of you. Never seen a dude gut himself before?"

Once the group dispersed, he scooped you up with one arm while he used the other to drag Alfred away by his collar.

One frenzied car ride and nap later, you were here in Allen's arms. He had long forsaken the idea of leaving you by yourself. But that wasn't the right way to put it when he never considered it in the first place. "You're okay, (F/N). Everything's gonna be fine." He murmured, digging his hands into your hair to rub your scalp.

It was something he always did to calm you down, and like every other occasion, it worked like a miracle. Feeling his fingers massage your head was therapeutic, and you quickly settled into his chest.

"... I thought you died, you know." Tightening your grip on his white tank, your chest felt heavy as you revisited the memories. "Even if it was for a little while, I knew I went a little crazy afterward."

Allen closed his eyes and rested his chin on you. He usually would have cracked a joke on a topic like this, but he knew better. So there was no sign of mirth in his expression when he responded.

"And that's why I didn't die, sweetheart." Coiling his arms around your neck, he gave you a squeeze. Then, he opened his eyes and narrowed them into a frown. It didn't matter what he did in his life. If he somehow passed before you did, which was more likely than anything, he'd latch himself onto this world with the regret of unfinished business.

"If I died before you, I wouldn't ever forgive myself. I can't leave you alone in this... Shitty world." He pulled away just so he could press his forehead against yours. "It's just you and me. Everyone else is fucking crazy. We're the only sane ones alive."

You couldn't help but crack a smile at that. Allen always had a way with words, even if he was a bit heavy on the colorful vocabulary. In a way, he shared an affinity with Alfred who hated the world just as much as him. But rather than starting revolutions, he preferred to keep it on the down-low and make the most of what he had.

And you had to admit that you preferred the same. "... Maybe you're right. But at least we have each other."

Allen hummed.

"Uhhuh. And maybe I could take Arthur into consideration for the normal people club. He's got a good head on his shoulders."

Speaking of which, how was he going with Alfred, anyhow?

Within

As if he read your mind, he offered to take you to the medical bay. Leading you down the dimly lit halls, he pushed open the door to reveal a violent altercation taking place. Alfred, who had been sleeping off the operation, was up on his feet and causing a ruckus. He held medical scalpels in both hands as if to defend himself.

Darting his wide eyes between the two men, Arthur and another man you didn't recognize, he screamed his lungs out. "Don't come any closer! I'm armed!" Backing himself to the corner, he dropped one of the blades but kept the other firmly in his grip. And that he used to point at whoever that moved.

"Who the hell are you guys? What the fuck did you do to me?!"

What did he say?

Your face fell as you watched the scene unfold. Nothing but pure, unadulterated fear oozed from every action Alfred made. Like a caged animal, he kept his distance from everyone and everything because he simply couldn't understand what was going on.

And the longer the predicament dragged on, the clearer it became to you why he was acting up.

The Brit gave Allen a nervous side-eye.

"Allen, do something! Restrain him, I don't know! We don't have any enhancements, so one stab from that and we're done for!"

He shook his head as he made a weird look. "Wait, what dya' mean restrain him? He's just disoriented, just let him be! What if he dies?"

"Yeah, big guy! Tackle him while we try and sedate him!" The other man exclaimed, narrowly dodging a metal tray thrown his way. His copper brown hair was tied back in a long ponytail, and his eyes were almost as red as Allen's, but they were noticeably darker. "Fuck you! This is pretty much a hospital, you know? Just because we don't have uniforms doesn't mean we tried to sell your organs!"

"... Not that you even have any." He murmured that under his breath, but karma struck and another metal tray came flying his way to hit him square in the face. "Ow!"

Arthur muttered out a string of curses. "Goddammit, Allen! He's not disoriented, he has amnesia!" You tensed up all over as your suspicions were confirmed right then and there. "He doesn't know who any of us are, and he won't have any trouble killing us all when he figures out he can shoot rockets from his arms!"

"Wait, what the fu--I can do that?!"

"Uhh, no you can't!"

There was no way he couldn't remember you, right?

The thought deeply saddened you, but it was more reasonable than getting ahead of yourself. If he couldn't remember Arthur and Allen, what were the chances he'd remember you? Nevertheless, a part of you hoped he somehow did after everything you two went through.

There was only one way to find out.

"Alfred!"

Your shout echoed across the room and he turned to the source. When he saw you, he dropped his scalpel to the ground in a clatter.

His eyes went wider than dinner plates, but you had no way to gauge what he was feeling, let alone thinking. So you let him walk up to you, albeit slowly. When he managed to stand right in front of you, he attached two hands to your shoulders, the action prompting Allen to pull out his gun at light speed. Training that at the blonde's head, he curled his finger around the trigger.

But he never pulled it.

"... (F/N)?"

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