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hearteyes-for-killmonger · 5 years

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In My Mind x 02

*Reuploading because I've edited these to flow a little bit better. Thank you for your patience!

We cannot abandon the rabbit hole.

It lives within us.

---

His rich and raspy voice echoes in your ears like the one that has been stuck there for days.

...Had been

Where had he gone and why? How? How is he here physically? It doesn’t make any sense. And somehow you're still physically or mentally tied to him!

Maybe your brain is sending signals to the wrong places. Are you still dreaming somehow? This ordeal doesn’t seem plausible. He’d found you like he said he would which means that he is just as real as you are. Flesh and blood.

“Keep me," you squint, wet hands dripping water to the floor.

“Keep you,” he confirms with no hesitation. “Can you do this with other people?”

It’s not an innocent question and although his expression gives nothing away, you feel a dark motive behind it.

“This has never happened before. I don’t know how it started or why, but I won’t abuse it.”

A brief chuckle escapes him. “I could convince you.”

You hadn’t seen his face before, always seeing what he saw through his eyes, but looking at him today, you were sure he could. If not by sensual tactics then by terrorism and violence. You can feel Glenda and Lia’s ears on your conversation although they face away, fingers moving through client hair… like yours should be.

The water is still running in the shampoo bowl and his eyes are on you. Brushing him off, you finish washing his locs silently with a squeeze and release motion, conditioning for softness and once under the dryer he pulls out his phone, tapping away with both thumbs.

You sit in your chair, stealing glimpses. Anyone looking at him would think of him as a normal guy, maybe a model or a personal trainer. Maybe a young professor or a medical student. It’s true, you really can’t know a person’s story just by looking at them. He doesn’t wear the trauma. He has a quiet arrogance but also the wisdom to conceal it. Then again.. like most complicated people, there are layers. Dignity. Insecurity rooted in loss. Tenacity. Fleeting environments with faster fleeting people. Empathy. The ability to see monstrous souls hidden within human shells.

His phone lowers to his lap and his eyes fall closed. Suddenly everything around you swirls down into calm and quiet as you watch him, graceful and beautiful and still. His black lashes over hooded eyes. The clear brown of his skin reaching down in high definition. His cupid’s bow over thick trapezoid lips. The bountiful coarse hairs that coat his jaw and upper lip. You’re in limbo, balancing hazily between reality and fiction.

He opens his eyes and the shop’s background noise turns up again to full volume as your body jolts itself fully awake. His smug smile tells you that he’s aware of what’s happened. You were dazed and it seems the proximity between you only deepens the psychic connection. He’s now openly testing the parameters of this newfound ability.

You glance at Lia and catch her as she turns away. How you’d explain all of this to her or anyone else you did not know. You couldn’t find the words.

Escaping outside, the air is hot, not comforting or refreshing, just hot!

“Damn this summer heat.”

You breathe in and out repeatedly, staring up at the clear blue sky until your hands stop trembling.

“How am I supposed to help him? This is a lot to process and I'm so confused. I don’t know what I’m supposed to do with all this.. God. Show me what to do.”

You wait for a sign of some sort as a plane flys slowly overhead. All you see are cars driving by on the busy road straight ahead, past the half-empty lot as all manner of people walk in and out of the surrounding businesses. A latinx family with three kids crosses the parking lot to their car. None of that helps you.

Back inside, you pull Erik to start on retwisting his locks. Carefully palmrolling them with gel, you get them all laid and then you braid them all to the back and out of his face, per his request.

“Meet me at my place,” you mutter when you're done.

“Don’t keep me waiting,” he replies and then he’s gone.

It takes one pleading look to Lia for her to agree to braid your next customer. Four large goddess braids.

—

Your apartment is at the end of the hall and Erik’s tall, built frame is posted against the wall directly beside the door. He doesn’t bother with small talk and neither do you. Feeling his eyes, you fumble with your lock. He follows you inside and moves round the room, looking this way and that at this and that. He’s a curious guy. You don’t have many knick knacks, but your place is still colorful and cozy.

“Tell me somethin about you, Nia.” His wandering doesn’t cease.

“What do you want to know?” You follow him into your bedroom. There’s your bed, your window, your dresser and nightstand, a floor length mirror, and a random piece of wall art you bought to tie things together. It’s a good thing your place was clean.

He pulls open your closet, flipping through hangers and closes the door again.

“Where’s all the pictures, photo albums, stuffed animals from your childhood and shit like that? You seem the sentimental type to hang onto to it.”

“My albums and photos are on my phone. I do have a small velvet bear that I call Velvet. He’s at my dad’s house.”

“Where is your dad?”

“Atlanta.”

“With your mom?”

“Stepmom.”

“Where’s your other mom?”

“...We don’t know. She left shortly after I was born.”

“Who do you look like?”

“Uh.. my dad says I look a little like her and I see it a little bit based on the picture I have of her, but mostly I look like him.”

“Do you ever think of your mom?”

“Sometimes.. I used to think of her all the time when I was younger.”

“Are you happy?”

“Am I happy.. like in general?”

“With your life.”

“I guess.. I’m not complaining.”

He drops down on your bed looking to your pillow and then he adjusts himself down on his back getting comfortable.

“You gotta take your shoes off,” you say and when he doesn’t move you tug at his sneakers. Y-3’s. You decide against tossing them and drop them carefully to the floor instead. “Why can’t I hear you anymore?"

His eyes close and everything is silent. You turn away so not to look directly at him this time and it feels.. somewhat like it did when you were in his head. He’s present, but out of view.

“It was a test,” he blurts with lids still shut. “I slept, but I didn’t go into deep sleep or REM. REM is where we get our most vivid dreams so it makes sense that when I stopped deep sleeping, it stopped the dreams and it blocked you.”

“So basically you haven’t really been sleeping?”

Silence.

"You seem to know a lot about this so you should know better than I do how crucial deep sleep is to your brain functioning, self-repair, and immunity system. That's basic knowledge. You need a deep sleep, even if it gives you those dreams and me in your head.”

“You’re not the problem.”

That response is unexpected, but you ignore the flutter you feel from it for more pressing matters.

“You don’t want the dreams period, but it feels like you can’t stop them. How is it when you wake up?”

Silence again.

“Erik?”

He doesn’t stir.. and then he does.

“If you wanna know.. stick around,” he croaks slowly, half gone already. Then you know he’s completely out because that familiar pull is calling you to lay down. You fight it off, standing to buffer the temptation. A large glass of juice is in order.

For the next hour, you monitor him, watching as he falls deeper and deeper.

90 minutes in, the pull on you gets stronger. If you had ice water, you’d splash yourself, but you don’t want to move or miss a thing. His eyelids move rapidly and you know he’s passed a simple deep sleep. He mumbles something, but it sounds like a foreign language.

The journal. It was full of maps and symbols that looked like language and in the dream he was reading it... Whatever he's mumbling.. It must be linked to those symbols. His eyebrows furrow and the once peaceful expression is gone. His arm twitches, the muscles tensing and veins shifting. His hand balls into a tight fist and his leg moves. What kind of nightmare could he be reliving?

He jerks and thrashes and you wonder if you should wake him now, but then he stops. Sweat beads on his skin around his hairline and in a sheen on his face and neck. He looks afraid as he squeezes your blanket. It’s bad. You know it’s bad. You remember hearing that you shouldn’t shake someone awake who’s having a nightmare like this and you hope he wakes up soon. It takes a while, too long, but then he jolts awake bolting upright.

For the next few seconds, he just stares ahead, heaving and you remember how that feels. You fetch him a glass of water and bring it to his lips. You know his throat is tight because of what you’d experienced yourself. He's shaking. He has to get himself to realize where he is and that it was only a dream. A heavy tear rolls down his face followed by another and he squeezes his eyes shut, steeling himself.

Setting the glass on the nightstand, you break the boundary of personal space and hold him, staring over his shoulder to the art above your bed. He doesn’t lift his arms to close the embrace, but he doesn’t push you away either. He doesn't move, so you continue to hold him tightly for as long as he’ll allow.

You start to wonder if he’s cried himself back to sleep, but then his quiet voice rumbles in his chest.

“You gotta figure out.. how to help me..”

Taken aback, you don’t let go or loosen your hug, you listen. You wonder how you’re supposed to help him without a degree in psychology. How could you change his past? You couldn’t.

“And now that you’ve seen me like this...,” he clears his throat, “You know how important your role is..... SO NEVER LEAVE ME ALONE IN THAT AGAIN!”

You know his emotions are high, so you disregard the venom in his voice.

“Okay. If you dream, I’ll intervene. We’ll figure this out together.”

“How did you find me,” he asks with genuine interest but you’re just as curious to know the answer.

“I don’t know. You know this has never happened to me before. I only thought I was supposed to help you because that’s what this lady who prayed for me a couple days ago said."

"What lady? Let’s find her.”

He was right, maybe she had more wisdom or answers to bestow. Afterall, this was nothing short of a miracle. You call Glenda and by her clipped tone, you know someone pissed her off and to keep this brief.

“Glenda, it’s Nia. I need the name and contact of the woman you booked that prayed for me in the shop. You styled her after the blue fingerwaves. Church wristband, pretty, sweet face, professional-looking-”

“I don’t recall anything like that. I had to perm a lady, but she definitely wasn’t that.”

“What? You don’t remember a lady praying for me in the shop?”

Erik’s eyes narrow and Glenda’s tone switches to concerned.

“Nia, are you feeling okay? You’re really not acting like yourself and it’s starting to get a little scary.”

This is crazy, how does she not remember this woman?

“Well do you remember me styling a man today,” you test. She seems to remember Erik, just not the woman.

You hang up.

Other Chapters:

#erik killmonger #original #killmonger #erik stevens #erik killmonger fanfiction #erik killmonger imagines #erik stevens au #erik killmonger imagine #erik killmonger x reader #erik x reader #erik stevens x you #killmonger fanfiction

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clexaisheretostay · 5 years

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Save Me From Myself

Summary: It’s been months since Lena found out about Kara lying through Lex and Kara had known something was wrong between them afterwards. Lena had made every excuse under the sun to avoid her since and Kara wasn’t dumb, she knew, she suspected the reason for Lena’s recent behavior. Now, nearly half a year since their relationship became so strained Lena hadn’t seen Kara in half that time, Kara lands on Lena’s balcony after solar flaring and being shot out of the sky by a sniper ready for her. Blood smeared everywhere and Kara didn’t have the strength to move as Lena came rushing over to a dying Kara.

Will Lena ever forgive Kara when her life isn’t in danger? If she’s on her death bed, is that the only time Lena will willingly see her, Kara wonders as she lays on the ground with a pale Lena trying to get her to safety behind her bulletproof office windows. Maybe they could have been more if she had just told Lena her secret and her feelings, instead of this limbo they were in. Lena saving Kara’s life while Kara was trying so hard to stay dead, to linger in a state near death.

I decided to post this angsty post reveal fic with a because I’m a freaking masochist. Let me know what you all think. Song for this fic by Sistar is https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3U_H3dt4hWg Please give it a listen because their vocals are amazing and sets the tone for the entire chapter so freaking well. Also, if anyone is willing to donate to help support me since I’m seriously short on rent money please support me at Ko-Fi.com/himemiyahikaru

姫宮光る

Chapter 1

I Just Miss You

My days without you, I can’t focus on anything

Never, no more

Even if I regret it, everything is over

I don’t even have the confidence to turn this around

You kindly come to me and shake me again

Oh no, oh no

Stop holding onto my heart

Only looking at you and crying for you seems foolish

Oh no, oh no

This is not love

Six months since Lena had started acting strange. No, not strange really. Just plain old avoiding Kara’s every call, text, and surprise visits that ended up not being a visit. Visits implied you were seen by the person you were trying to actually see. It implied you had spent some amount of time together. Despite being best friends … Lena and Kara had not spent more than an hour with each other since Lena started avoiding her and giving reasons for why she couldn’t see Kara. Kara’s chest ached when she thought about it too long, her lungs felt stuck with emotion, and her eyes became wet no matter how hard she tried not to let it show. The disappointment was slowly turning into painful understanding. She had waited too long and either someone else had told Lena or Lena had figured it out on her own at this point. And it hurt so much to realize that all of the wasted chances she’d had over the years meant losing the one person who meant the most to her outside of her family … well, Lena had been family at one point. Kara was probably enemy number one now instead of the person Lena would turn to for comfort any time something happened and shook her world like Jack’s passing, Lillian’s betrayal, and the countless other things that had happened to her.

Love, I pretend that I’m fine

That I don’t love you even though I do

I can’t do it

Crying, crying

Love, I try to take it back

But you’re already gone

I’m endlessly

Crying, crying

Kara took a shaky breath and looked around at her empty apartment. There were no more game nights without Lena because she was her perfect partner during every game night … until she left. And no more movie nights unless Alex came over and forcibly fed Kara food while attempting to watch the horror movies that they used to just love making fun of for poor plots or dumb decisions. No, nothing was the same without Lena there. Food tasted like the ashes of her home planet, colors looked dull without Lena’s beauty to appreciate things and make everything more beautiful and brighter, living was the same as being dead when you found you had nothing to find any amount of joy in doing.

I open my eyes and after coming to my sense,

You’re not here

I rub my eyes and look around, but you’re not here

I close my eyes again and open them

But still,

You’re not here

I thought I would be fine without you

But I keep looking back at our memories

Tears and memories spill out as if I’m vomiting

Everything is over, stop, for you and for me

Would Lena ever come back here again? It was a miserable existence without Lena to make everything better in Kara’s life. Even pot stickers tasted better when they were from Lena. Now everything was bland and muted, like a world without color, sound, and everything was tasteless, a world in which she could only perceive things through touch alone. It made her life feel worse than dull. She’d prefer it if her life were just boring rather than this world of grief because she was grieving, grieving the end of the relationship she had with the person she loved more than anything in the world. The one person who had made her better. Kara would give anything to get it all back, to get Lena to come back and be with her again.

No one at work suspected a thing was wrong because Kara still left for her supposed hour-long lunch breaks, but just spent the time writing her articles above the clouds where no one could see her if she occasionally broke down crying where no one could see her even with a telescope or binoculars. When she came back from supposedly eating, no one would bat an eyelash at her, give her a second look to see her eyes were just a bit puffy, and she made sure that her eyes were no longer red-rimmed and that none of her makeup was running. Having glasses to hide behind had never been so convenient.

And then something else added to her stress. It had been a long time coming though. Kara was asked to go interview Lena about some new technology unfolding. Despite Kara’s assertions that someone else might be better suited, Snapper insisted she go since she was friends with Lena. Kara had almost broken down and just said that he forgot to add that she had been Lena’s friend and that it was no longer the case at the moment. She almost said that they hadn’t even spoken directly for over three months now. But no, she held her tongue and requested an interview with Lena through Jess. Surprisingly, Lena had accepted apparently and the entire time had been stilted and restricted to work-related topics only. Kara hadn’t been surprised by that. And then as Kara was getting up to leave, feeling cold inside even though she had never experienced cold on earth before, Lena asked if she was feeling okay because she looked a little pale and thinner than Lena remembered.

With the fakest smile Kara had ever given anyone she said she was fine. That smile wobbled and cracked like Kara’s heart. Kara wasn’t sure if Lena had meant to say it out loud, but Kara heard it, the single word that reminded her of happier times between them, “liar,” she’d said. But this time, it wasn’t under the same context as when she’d been grief baking two years ago. Kara pretended she hadn’t heard that more than likely slipup and told Lena goodbye. She left before Lena could say anything else and felt an unusual throbbing in her chest when she turned her back on Lena and practically flew out the building with how quickly she was walking away. Kara spared a single second to tell Jess to have a nice day over her shoulder before the door had even slammed shut with her haste. It was probably obvious she wasn’t quite human with how quickly she had moved to the elevator but, again, why did Kara care if either of these people knew her secret now? Lena obviously knew and Jess had probably suspected for some time because of how many times Kara had done something slightly less than human.

You kindly come to me and shake me again

Oh no, oh no

Stop holding onto my heart

Only looking at you and crying for you seems so foolish

Oh no, oh no

This is not love

Only Alex knew the reason why Kara was so desolate and despondent. James and Winn had obviously noticed the less than chipper Kryptonian but neither knew why Kara was the way she was and she didn’t have the strength to say the words out loud, that the relationship that had fulfilled her for years had come to a horrible end. No, saying something like that out loud would only make it real. Doing something that outwardly acknowledged it made it reality instead of something she could pretend was make believe. A nightmare only she was awake. The opposite of the Black Mercy, Red Mercy. Perhaps that would have been a lovely explanation for this. But no, it wasn’t the Red Mercy, it was Kara’s actions, or lack thereof. She knew it was her own fault she was experiencing this nightmare. If Kara could live in the world of the Black Mercy and die right now … she would. She’d take it over this pain.

Love, I pretend that I’m fine

That I don’t love you even though I do

I can’t do it

Crying, crying

Love, I try to take it all back

But you’re already gone

I’m endlessly

Crying, crying

Kara Danvers, synonymous to sunshine in Kryptonian form to those who knew her true identity was now more like the blackest night, no moon to reflect the light of the sun at night on earth’s surface. No more. Even though Kara hadn’t confirmed Lena’s reasons for becoming so distant, she had overheard it by accident one day when she had gone to talk to Lena after the first week of suffering near radio silence. “Never again will I trust you, Kara Danvers. I’ll never let you in again.” That had been the catalyst for Kara to begin to almost frantically reach out to her only to be pushed away even more than before, as if Lena knew what Kara was trying to do and she wanted nothing to do with her anymore. Perhaps there was more truth to that than Kara realized. Every call unanswered, every text message ignored, every attempt at a visit rejected, and the biggest surprise was that Lena hadn’t banned Kara from the office. Maybe that was just to keep things professional.

No, I’m not the me that I used to know

I know this is just a part of life

But every time I breathe

I hate you

What was life anyways? A collection of moments with those you come to care about as they fill your life with meaning? What was life when that meaning was taken away like it meant nothing at all to the other person then? Did life have any true meaning without someone to share it with? Life without Lena was meaningless to Kara now that she would never have her love again. It didn’t matter if they stayed friends forever.

I can’t sleep all night and I try to comfort myself

Saying it’s alright

But I can’t help it, I can’t take it back

I only have regrets that are too late

Deep bags were accruing under Kara’s eyes as she tossed and turned every night. She couldn’t sleep, couldn’t eat, couldn’t smile genuinely. Was this what it meant to be sick? She had never experienced a human illness so she hadn’t experienced illness in nearly two decades. The closest she’d gotten to feeling sick was when Kryptonite was involved, but that was more of a poison than legitimate illness. Kara wouldn’t even care if someone had some Kryptonite and stabbed her clean through the chest with it right now. It would have been a relief from this bland life. No, it wasn’t even bland, it was just pointless now. What was her life without Lena? Everything Alex had done brought no comfort to the devastated person Kara had become.

I don’t mind so don’t cry

Love, you were different, you changed me

Now I think I know everything

No matter how much I push and shove you away

Only looking at you and crying for you seems so foolish

Everything about life had become heightened with Lena as a bright spot in her life and so the high ended with Lena leaving her. It was a worse crash than a drug addicted after they lost their high and needed more drugs to fulfill them again. Her first high was meeting Lena, her addiction was not being able to go a day without seeing her, and her crash left her in her lonely misery. Kara wasn’t sure when Alex was going to stop trying. She might never stop. But Kara couldn’t even feel it. Nothing was the same without Lena. Love had given her life more meaning than she knew was possible. So life without Lena was pointless. Life had no meaning without her.

Love, you were different, you changed me

Now I think I know everything

No matter how much I push and shove you away

You are my everything that can’t leave me

I wanna go back

I couldn’t love anyone but you

Anyone who knew Kara well would be able to see how much love had changed her. She had been content in life before, so she was happy and so bright. And then Lena came into her life looking like an angel on this earth. Everything became so much more with her there. And she felt true happiness then. She experienced euphoria and became exuberant. If anyone thought she had been a ray of sunshine before, it was nothing compared to her after Lena showed up and made Kara feel more than she thought was even possible.

When she dated Mon-El, it was with the thought that Lena didn’t see her that way. But she was still in her life and her rock, her gravity, her center. Every day without her was another day less than worth living for. How could Kara survive this long without that light in her life? Kara was surprised she hadn’t died yet from this heartbreak.

Everyday was dark and just as miserable as the last no matter how hard Alex tried to help her through. Nothing would ever be okay again. Not without her angel next to her and making her see light in everything. Alex had tried to joke that she thought she was the pessimist between them. Kara didn’t even smile. Just looked on blankly before saying “funny,” like she meant anything but that word. Alex was never going to stop, she was never going to give up on her sister but she was beyond frustrated and worried about this version of Kara dropping dead.

In a bid to figure out what exactly caused them to fall apart, Alex had gone to see Lena only to see that she didn’t seem to be doing much better than Kara was. Every question was answered with a non-answer, adding to Alex’s worry and utter frustration. She was at her wit’s end. Looking back on it, Alex realized that Lena must know the truth because she had been so cold. Honestly, Lena could have been worse. Probably knew that it wasn’t Alex’s place to tell her someone else’s secret, even if it was her sister’s secret. Lena hadn’t been cruel, just curt and evasive. That was so like her though, locking her feelings away in fucking little boxes.

Was there anything Alex could do to fix her sister’s broken life? Her broken heart wasn’t going to mend without Lena’s intervention. Lena was just as heartbroken and Alex didn’t know if she could do anything about that.

Kara’s powers blew out because these fucking Cadmus agents decided that having every alien weapon possible would have some desired effect on her eventually. There was some merit to that because it increased their chances of finding something that would work on her eventually. And it did work in sapping her of her strength and speed. She could still fly somehow and she used the last of her powers to get away when she was shot. Pain she had never felt before caused her to fall right out of the sky and, in a twist of fucking fate, right onto Lena’s balcony. She caused a loud thud as gravity pulled her down to earth. Kara must have passed out because the next moment she felt herself being dragged somewhere and she didn’t resist, wondering if those people were trying to finish her.

“Rao, in your light I was created and, in your light, I will go from this planet I was not born on,” Kara said, sounding weak in Kryptonese.

“Don’t you dare die Kara Danvers.”

“Let me go,” Kara’s voice was barely audible.

“Kara Danvers. Don’t you dare give up your life like this, do you hear me, Kara? Kara! Fuck!”

She must have blacked out again because the next moment she was somewhere that felt like a strong ray of sunlight but she couldn’t bring herself to open her eyes. If this was the afterlife … she was ready for her death. Rao was waiting for her to come back to him. Her father, Aunt Astra, Uncle Non … her lost Kryptonian family … they were waiting for her to come back. Even though she was still angry with Non, the after life was for forgiveness of all sins while you were alive, right?

“Wake the fuck up!” Was that Alex’s voice?

Kara wasn’t sure what she was doing in Rao’s light. Did Alex die too? Her heartbeat started going crazy and she felt herself slipping out of consciousness again when a warm hand touched her neck, pressing into her pulse and it warmed Kara, soothed her distraught, dying soul.

Alex was pacing back and forth where Kara lay, still a bloody mess from the gunshot wound that had punctured her through her stomach and cracked several ribs. Everything was a fucking mess and Lena was working through different treatments to make sure Kara didn’t die. Dr. Hamilton had removed the bullet and Alex had been sick when the woman had done it to an essentially human Kara. She held back the bile powered through what needed to be done to save her sister’s life as Lena did the same. Alex had been surprised with Lena’s urgent phone call but less so when she realized that Lena had an injured Kara with her somehow. None of the details mattered as long as Kara didn’t fucking die.

When had things become so fucked up? Alex continued pacing as she looked for things that might help her nearly dead sister.

#supercorp #fanfic #angst #au #slow burn #post reveal

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