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#tw: temporary character death
greenninjagal-blog · 2 months
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Deja Vu pt 12
Hey, pretend it hasn't been eons since the last update!
If you’re new around here you can find the first chapter [here] or if you just want a refresher you can find the previous chapter [here!]
Summary: Remus is falling, and he's just now realizing that he's been falling for a lot longer than he thought he'd been.
Word Count: 10901
Read on Ao3 || Hero Worship Series || My General Writing Masterlist
The thing about freefalls is that there’s absolutely nothing freeing about it, but there’s a whole lot of falling.
Sometimes minutes, sometimes seconds, sometimes years and eons and eternities and blinks: sometimes Remus doesn’t realize he’s falling at all because his brain has mentally reset too many times and he forgot there was ever a feeling that was not falling and then the weightless, worriless feeling becomes its own type of prison because he can’t do anything but fall.
It doesn’t feel like falling though. It feels like floating, like if he closes his eyes he wouldn’t be moving at all, like he could breathe and float and enjoy the dose of overwhelming euphoria that comes from his brain trying to make sense of all the alarms going on inside of him. He’s stuck and he’s floating and time means nothing, and existence means nothing, and Remus Regis means nothing.
Here’s the other thing about freefalls: they don’t end softly. 
The sidewalk outside a skyscraper in Detroit that he gave himself access to on a Tuesday afternoon at 3:46 pm, the water surface that tastes like cement when Remus’s foot misses a step on the bridge railing on a summer night so hot it feels like his skin is peeling off, the rocky bottom of the shallow end of the pool from the hotel balcony when Remus got too curious, too tempted, too alone, the windshield of an SUV at 3 AM.
There’s no cushion. No parachute. No hidden cartoon trampoline or careful hands wrapping around his waist to drag him back from the plunges that he’s taking bites out of like they’re all midnight secret pleasures.
Remus steps off that solid sturdy ledge and there is no other ending. There’s no way for him to say wait, no way for him to scream hang on, no way for Remus to think I didn’t mean to lose control like this, please let me take it back, please let me kiss Janus one more time, please let me try on Virgil’s sweatshirt just for a second, please let me see that Roman fucking does care just this once—
Remus would know. 
They don’t end softly. But they do end. 
But hey, maybe that was for the best. Remus had spent his whole childhood choosing who gets to live and die. He’d been selfish and arrogant and Roman Roman Roman and now the universe was telling him he used up all his good will: the headaches and nose bleeds were all warning signs to knock it off and instead Remus flipped a coin in the air and told Janus that he was going to see this through.
((Remus is twenty one and he knew kissing Janus was like letting go of the railing. Is it any surprise that there’s no soft ending to this either?))
Remus’s body had curled on instinct: wrapping himself around the kid— Logan’s kid brother, Remy— so that Remus would hit the ground first and maybe his body would break the fall for the kid so he didn’t die due to Roman’s shitty ass powers and poor Library structural upkeep and Remus’s own stupid part in all this. 
He’s never jumped with someone else before. Never had something to hold close as the tattering, violent winds and the heavy iron chain of gravity, and the long, drawn out, endless, breathless space between his heart’s rapid fire beating and none at all, work in tandem to make his last moments the most memorable. But despite it all, Remus’s arms wrap around Remy’s head and the impulse to protectsavekeepalive consumes the last of his mind.
(He can’t be older than sixteen, maybe seventeen, he can’t be any more enamored with his older brother, he can’t be aware yet that all older brothers are shit and they stand at the top of staircases in houses that don’t feel like home and they say I don’t need you, Remus— )
The noise around them turns to static and Remus can’t hear Remy’s scream, but he can feel it in how Remy clings desperately like he hadn’t been fighting to get away like a wild animal less than thirty seconds before. 
Remus braces for the floor, for the pain, for the end because he doesn’t have any type of control and there are no soft endings and he was an idiot for ever thinking he’d get to have anything soft in his--
R emu s  wak es  up  thi nki ng abou t  sh ards  of gla ss in his spine, barbed and jagged and clinging to his insides, because his inner organs are much warmer than the cool night air and much more accepting than the windshield frame.
There’s blood in his mouth, cotton in his throat, a bursting, bulging headache behind his eyes. The rest of his body almost feels like nothing in comparison. His limbs are a distant memory, or maybe a dream? He can’t quite remember what it’s like to have them, even as his left arm wavers in the air over his head and limp and heavy and Remus shakes it just to see if his wrist will fly off and toss his hand into the fuzzy world around him.
He’s lying on the ground. 
His spine is still intact by some miracle. His skull isn’t shattered and his brains aren’t spilling across the white porcelain tile floor he’s on. He doesn’t even think his ribs are fractured although they ache and whine with bruises that match every other part of his body. If it weren’t for the dizzy, distant feeling of needing to vomit up all his organs Remus would think he just fucking died and this was his shitty prize in the afterlife.
He blinks a few times trying to… trying to focus his mind on anything. The taste of saliva in his mouth, or the scent of coffee and Lysol hovering in the air, or the pins-and-needles feeling of his fingers twitching as if they had lost all blood circulation in the blank space where Remus’s brain refuses to make any connection as to what is going on, what had gone on, and what is going to happen now.
It’s like scratched DVD in a video player: his memory plays perfect scenes, Blue Ray edition of his tragic life, right up until the floor breaks— until his arms wrap around Remy— until he tries to brace them both for the impact— then there’s a jump-skip-scratch and Remus is staring at blurry, fuzzy drop ceiling tiles and the outline of fluorescent lights that do not belong in the public library that Remus spent all of the night prior memorizing the layout of.
There are desks, a couple dozen, all around him; a giant window, partially weeping condensation and the blinds slightly bent that colors the entire set in a gold-yellow filter; cement brick walls painted a truly inspiring shade of off-white and if Remus squints he can make out pencil sketches of dicks dusting over the closest wall. But the masterpiece that ties it all together is the shitty poster handing right over Remus’s head, staring down at him in some type of mockery.
You miss 100% of the chances you don’t take, it reads. There’s a hockey puck and a net and fine white print of a “Wayne Gretzky” that makes Remus want to claw his skin off.
Remus is twenty one and he’s staring at a shitty drop ceiling feeling like he’s seventeen again and one of Roman’s friends just laid him out in the five seconds the teacher turned her back after the bell rang to release them. Remus’s lungs hurt as he laughs because— because his head swivels around and the cloudy surroundings begin to piece themselves together, creeping out of the fog to say hello, hello, do you remember the worst years of your life, Remus? We remember you! 
He is not in a library. He’s not in the library. Remus thinks he’d rather be dead in that library than lying on the floor in a high school classroom.
It’s not even a classroom he recognizes. But the suffocating feeling of his mother forcing his jaw open and the powdered pill taste overwhelms all the other sensations in his disconnected body. The memory of snipped comments from his teachers rings in his ears, living ghosts that Remus hadn’t been able to shed no matter how loudly he’d screamed and hadn’t been able to outrun no matter where he’d gone. His eyes are burning, but he’s certain that if he closes them he’ll wake up again as that same stupid seventeen year old that let Roman’s shitty friends ruin his life on the blind hope that Roman wouldn’t turn out like them too.
Remus had met people who said they peaked at high school, that college had broken their spirits and grinded their souls to dust, that life after schooling was lofty and uncertain whereas high school had been crafted with such rigid rules and a constant social struggle that surpassing expectations had been a breeze that they no longer could grapple with not having. Remus doesn’t know much about normal people, normal lives, normalness, but he remembers very vividly thinking of blood dripping off his lip onto the boys locker room bathroom tile and knowing that he’d met people whose cruelty peaked at high school too.
((Fourteen year old Remus had been excited for high school. Seventeen year old Remus had gripped the edge of a gas station sink debating which hurt worse: getting run over, or knowing that Roman had chosen those asshole high school friends who were going to kill him at a party Remus hadn’t been able to convince him not to go to over his own brother.))
The sterile silence breaks suddenly with a soft snore, and abruptly Remus is very aware that the reason he can’t move the right half of his body is because there’s someone on top of it.
There are no soft ends to freefalls, but Remus’s chin is pressed against the dark curls of Logan’s younger brother who is completely asleep on top of the other half of Remus as if they hadn’t ever been in danger at all. The kid is drooling, lips barely parted, salvia dripping out onto Remus's leather jacket. The fake bomb vest Remus had been wearing is completely crushed, the edges of the cardboard digging numbly into Remus’s ribcage as the kid just curls up on him like a human sized koala.
“What the fuck,” Remus rasps out.
The kid doesn’t stir. Remus uses his still strangely disconnected left hand to shove at the kid’s body, bapping his face just enough to wake him, but the kid’s face scrunches and he nudges his face deeper into Remus’s chest, perfectly content to continue using Remus’s like a giant awkward pillow.
“Kid. Kid. Damnit fuck— Remy.” Remus says. Then louder. “REMY! Fuck, what the fuck is wrong with you?”
He shoves the kid off his right arm in a slow painful movement that is not made easier by the fact that Remus can’t feel anything that had been pinned underneath the kid, but after all the shoving, Remy still just gratefully curls up on the floor as if he found that just as comfortable as a king sized bed in heaven itself, and lets out a drowsy mumble of syllables and goes back to snoring. 
Remus’s head throbs distantly as he tries to put anything together, come to some reasonable conclusion, remember if this was some part of Janus’s plan that he cleverly forgot about. He shifts slowly trying to leverage himself into a sitting position and still Remy doesn’t make any move to wake up and start screaming.
There’s a tsunami of panic in the back of Remus’s mind, blocked behind a glass wall made of confusion, just so that Remus can wave to it casually, experiencing microdoses of jitters that usually would have put him into a frenzied state of needing to drive a car into a guard rail. He needs to get up, he needs to find Janus and Virgil, he needs to find out if they’re okay, if anyone is okay, he needs to figure out what the fuck miraculous thing happened to save them both and why Remy then decided to curl up on a known villain, who may or may not be the most wanted man in the country and take a fucking nap.
He needs to— he needs—
They’re both at the back of an empty classroom and had been awkwardly crumpled against the back wall. Several of the desks closest to them are spread in some sort of weird ass pattern which, at first glance, Remus had assumed all teachers who needed to be on pills much more than Remus ever needed to be liked to put their desks in, but at the second, more clear glance, all the desks at the front are lined up in exact rows facing a wall mounted white board with the words “Homework: pg 234, odd problems ONLY!!” printed on it in blue expo marker. In the back closer to where Remus is, the desks were tossed out in some chaotic, nearly artistic design, swirling inward.
But the more Remus looks at it, the more purpose everything has: almost as if someone or something had rolled a giant human-sized, bowling ball into only the third row of seats.
It’s another second before Remus notices that where the figurative bowling ball would have ended is exactly where he just woke up with Logan’s kid brother solidly asleep on his shoulder.
“Ah,” Remus says to an empty classroom. “Fuck.”
Remus isn’t a genius, but well. He can see the future and Janus can shapeshift into animals and Virgil can talk to targeted people on frequencies no one else can hear. There must have been a reason Logan and his brother were both at the FBE.
All of Remus’s bones crack as he stands up, even bones Remus hadn’t been sure he had anymore. His neck aches so dramatically that would have made Roman jealous of its performance and his ribs are certainly whining like a little bitch and the taste of blood in the back of his throat might be real or it might be a side effect of reenacting a swan dive off a hotel balcony in a thunderstorm this time with the supporting cast of a teenager who may or may not be able to teleport on command. The clock on the wall is covered up with a handmade poster stating that a watched clock doesn’t learn math and Remus thinks that he hates this teacher more than he hated any teacher he actually had.
He squats back next to Remy, watching him sleep for a long second, the subtle in….hale and ex….hale steadily unconcerned in all the ways contrary to most people when a sociopath is this close to them. He’s got all the marks of being Logan’s brother, to be honest: the same nose shape, same eye shape, the same hair color although there’s a distinct lack of gel in his hair compared to Logan’s over-saturation. He’s wearing a black, unzipped biker’s jacket, and skinny jeans with white T-shirt that reads “I’m SLEEPING” in Times New Roman Font, like a joke that someone had half heartedly put together and abandoned half way through.
Remus taps his fingers on his knee twice before he makes up his mind. “If you wake up now, I’m going to shove a calculator down your throat.”
And then he starts a quick process of checking the kid’s pockets for his phone. Jacket pockets, inside jacket pocket, jeans front and jeans back as quick and formal as a bouncer at a casino checking someone for bugs. Remy snores deeply, and his breaths even out again and Remus steps back a healthy distance, filled with a relief he’s not going to acknowledge, and holding a slick black iPhone with a kawaii coffee cup hand painted on the case.
It's one thing to be on the FBI’s most wanted list for super villainy. It’s another thing for him to be on the list for the combination of an empty classroom, a sleeping teenager, and Remus’s reputation for being unhinged.
((Seventeen year old Remus remembers a party that he begged Roman not to go to and twenty one year old Remus sucker punches him in the face so he will shut up and stop bringing those memories up.))
The lock screen is a picture of Remy and Logan standing in front of some model spaceship. Logan’s expression is uncharacteristically open and excited, as if he’s experiencing true joy in the face of a hunk of metal. He looks….normal. Human. As if Remus hadn’t watched him die, as if Remus hadn’t feared that smug smirk on his face, as if Remus hadn’t heard Logan use whatever his bullshit superpower was to utterly dismantle all of Remus’s part of the plan, start a gunfight that could have killed them all, and look fucking good while doing it.
Remus could play the logic game here: the back right pocket is where Remus found Remy's phone, so it's a 56.734% or whatever likely that the kid uses his right hand to unlock. But in all honesty Remus “Eeny-Meeny-Miny-Fuck-This”-ed it and chose the right hand. 
The kid’s hand is limp and cold as ice. It startled Remus for a whole moment, sending cracks along that glass wall holding back his panic. It if weren’t for the obvious respiratory movements, Remus would have thought he was handling a four-day-old corpse in the middle of a winter snow storm.
But he presses Remy's thumb to the sensor (a very logical finger choice and not at all picked at Eeny-Meeny-Miny-Fuck This again) to unlock it. And then, once Remus has congratulated himself on his very exciting first time hacking the mainframe, he swipes away every. Single. One. Of the billions of notifications the kid has. Even as he's doing it the kid gets fourteen more, each bright and shiny and terrifying to someone who only gets notifications when his phone is almost out of battery.
Instagram reels being sent by four people, text messages from a group of people who don't know how to say everything they need to in one message and aren’t afraid of double-quadruple texting, TikTok videos alerts, gacha game reminders, six calendar notifications for today alone-- 
The home screen is a selfie of Remy in a big group of kids, all laughing and smiling and holding boba cups and peace signs in the middle of a cafe. It's a bright day in the photo, and several school backpacks shoved under the table as if all the kids had run to this cafe after school on a whim. Probably Remy’s based on how he’s in the middle of it all, looking rather smug for someone who’s personal space had been reduced to a negative.
"I bet you and Roman would get along fucking great," Remus says.
Remus still stares at it for a long minute longer, analyzing the various smiles and fending off the bitter gritty feeling in the back of his throat that comes from nowhere and everywhere all at once.
"Whatever," Remus says, clicking the call button. 
Nearly a dozen suggested contacts pop up when Remus starts painstakingly typing Janus’s phone number, with someone having the same number until the very last digit. Remus's thumb hovers over the call button, his eyes flicking to the dutiful clock in the top left corner of the screen (already crowded by new notifications again). 
Math has always been one of Remus's more average skills: his perception of time and his ability to count are probably superior to any living being on the planet, but a childhood plagued by the constant visions of the most important person in his life dying meant that his focus had never actually been on his classes. His report card read out half the alphabet, but he especially cheesed his way through his math classes, using a hand full of futures to copy the answers off tests of various studious kids around him, instead of actually learning how the fuck to solve a triangle. 
((Remus had been seventeen when Mrs. Copperson had decided to start making him take the her pop quizzes and tests out in the hallways by himself on account that his psychiatrist mandated drugs made him a distraction in her class and Remus liked adding "uck" after the giant red F's she stamped on his papers.)) 
Still, it throws Remus for a loop, checking the time and then the date because at most he thought he managed to buy Janus twenty minutes of distractions so that he could download the FBE's records and upload a virus that Virgil made which had the defining features of being able to eat through the rest of the system like acid and leave the FBE and Janus’s mother with nothing. When Remus had woken up in the stillness of this classroom it felt like his entire body had been in stasis for eons; a crumpled ragdoll that didn't need bones, left forgotten in the back of a closet or a computer suddenly being booted up but the whole rest of the world didn’t exist anymore thanks to one apocalypse or another.
In fact, Remus thinks that he might have just woken up from the best sleep he's had since he was eight. 
But despite the surge of energy, the distant rolling anxiety, the strange suffocating stillness of the atmosphere, and how deep of a sleep Remy is in, the time reads of less than seven minutes since Remus guessed he'd been in the library surrounded by gunshots, clinging to a railing, and facing Roman’s maybe-brainwashed ass. 
Remus thinks he might have spent all of it just getting his fucking barring on the new surroundings and the sleeping child and not being dead and buried in a library he’d never stepped foot in before today. 
Janus and Virgil probably hadn't even made it out of the library themselves yet, assuming the entire library hadn’t come down with them.
Remus closes out of the call screen, searching through Remy’s apps for a news app that he doesn’t have, before Remus caves and pulls out DuckDuckGo. The top stories are already flashing on the screen: six different news sites with live reporting videos of what is happening at the FBE center in Portland. Remus taps on one that has a frozen picture of Kidnapped Virgil’s panicking face as the thumbnail.
“—et Down! Everyone, get down!” The female reporter is yelling. Underneath her, the border headline of the new site spells out Karen Davenport: Reporter. LIVE ON SCENE. As if the background wasn’t already enough to show what was going on. The tinted glass windows of the library shatter over the frame, and the camera fumbles as the glittering shards dance through the air to the tune of gunfire. 
“Are you getting this?!” The reporter yells, caught between fear and excitement. Her hair is frizzing, a strand of it stuck to her pink lipstick, as she crouches with the other reporters and civilians at the front of the crowd, ignoring the police and hired guards and common fucking sense trying to back them away. The camera doesn’t seem to know what to focus on, struggling to jostle between the reporter and chaos in front of them.
Several people rush out of the doors of the library, nearly tumbling down the staircase and into the crowd, screaming. Remus’s heart thunders as he looks at the glimpse of faces contorted in horror for the people he’d recognize or a flash of those blue-grey eyes that no other person in the world has.
“John, are you seeing this?!” the reporter repeats. “I’m here, live at the newly registered FBE headquarters in—” 
The camera and the cameraman pitch to the side, disrupted by the chaotic crowd rightened only at the last second before it topples to the ground. Remus has to wonder how much the person behind the screen is being paid, and how they could possibly think it's enough. The bruises on Remus’s ribs ache distantly and his tongue remembers the taste of tear gas and blood and—
By the time the camera rightens again, Virgil is skidding on the platform at the top of the concrete stairs leading up to the front of the shuddering-but-still-standing library. His mask is down, hung around his throat, and displaying his fangs for the world to see. Janus tumbles into him, nearly knocking him down the flight, and his mouth moves in a WE CAN’T LEAVE HIM way although the crowd and the reporter are too loud for Remus to truly make it out. 
Virgil grabs Janus by the shoulder, yanking him down several inches and a blast of Patton’s white, power stealing light explodes over their heads in a narrow miss that makes someone to the left of the report scream so loud it peaks the microphone. 
“Where is The Prince?!” The reporter’s mic picks up from someone nearby as the camera zooms in on Janus and Virgil arguing. “He was just here!”
 “—where it appears a super power aided fight has broken out with no sign of The Prince. Twenty minutes ago, the controversial twin brother of the Prince, previously identified as Remus Regis, armed with a hostage, charged into the building igniting what was sure to be a direct confrontation with The Prince. However, no new information could be captured by our cameras until moments ago when gunfire from inside the building signaled some type of gunfight breaking out. Sources have even suggested that the Mezzanine level inside the building has taken significant damage and gave way— HEY!”
Logan materializes from the side, ripping the microphone away from the reporter with all the finesse of someone who previously owned it. His black jacket is dusted grey with the dust from the collapsed level inside and there’s a scratch along his hand that’s bleeding bright red. Still he shoves the reporter back and brings the microphone up to his own mouth even though his gaze isn't on the Library or the camera.
“The Prince was inside,” he says to the crowd of people still pressed together at the barricade line. “He managed to move fast enough to save all of those underneath the collapse and barely sustained any injuries himself. Statistically—”
“Give that back!” The reporter says lunging at him.
The camera frame latches on to Janus and Virgil as the camera man probably tries to help his coworker get the microphone back. In those precious seconds, Janus’s head snaps over his shoulder and he shoves Virgil back, pushing him down the stairs and towards the crowd and sets himself in front like a human shield. There are too many voices picked up by the reporter's mic— the fight between her and Logan has it jostled in every direction and the confusion must have jostled the settings, but Remus feels his stomach sink all the same when the library doorways fill with those guards and their guns. 
“GET DOWN!” Virgil’s voice booms in the area, echoing off the buildings like a scream in a cavern. The rest of the windows in the library and the surrounding buildings shatter at the sudden pressure, the screen of the camera fractures, but it still gives a decent view of Janus throwing off his stolen lab coat, and the acute tips of his wings slicing through his shirt.
Remus feels like he’s underwater. Like he’s stuck floating in space as his arteries burst from the low pressure. Like he’s watching another (and another and another and another and anoth—) future and he can’t change it despite the fact that it's not 3 AM and there’s no thunderstorm and he’s not falling. 
Janus’s wings erupt from his back, flaring outwards and unfurling like yellow and black caution tape, covering the civilians behind him like a burning shield. Virgil grabs the nearest person, Logan, and yanks him and the reporter under the cover, under the protection of Janus, and Remus wants to scream at them to forget the people, to leave them, to run, but he can’t breathe around the sweltering terror that sweeps through the open area leaping from the phone screen right into Remus’s chest.
“—police would know better than to fire into the crowd—” Logan’s voice says desperately. 
“Oh MY GOD!” The reporter screams.
The light seers into his eyes with crackling, horrific popping noise. It's like popcorn, or Pop Rocks, or the Pen Clicker Douchebag Olympics and all Remus can think of is the noise that the bones in the human bone make when bullets splinter.
The camera does not catch Janus’s face, and the microphone doesn’t catch his screams over everyone else’s, but his body jerks, his wings tremble, and blood sprays up into a mist over the crowd. Remus thinks he might be dying too, thinks that he might have stopped breathing, that he’s seen Janus die a million times and it should have stopped feeling like he’s being ripped open.
“JANUS!” Virgil’s (unmistakable, indisputable) voice yells, sharp and cracking like lightning, and the blowback over the microphones would break the eardrums of anyone listening with earbuds.
“— multiple people have been reported to have survived being shot that many times!” Logan’s voice tries.
The camera gets a single shot of Virgil’s eyes widening, of his mouth opening, of his hands reaching out to Janus as he drops, wings still flared out trying to protect people who were too stupid to leave, who won’t even thank him, who don’t know his coffee order or how he likes to organize his stacks of stolen dollar bills or what size oxfords he likes to wear. 
And then Virgil looks up, at the top of the stairs, opens his mouth, and everything explodes away from him. The camera frame flings into the air, swirling around in a epileptic nightmare of colors before slamming into something and the frame goes completely black.
On the news app, holding a phone in both his hands Remus stares at the “[The video you are watching is experiencing some connection issues]” message with white knuckles, but the video stays cut off, the screen frozen and broken and dark and Remus is left drowning during what feels like the end of the world from the other side of the universe a million years after it's happened.
“H-ha,” Remus’s mouth twitches, a rumble clawing up his throat with fingers made of his stomach acids. He desperately covers his mouth with a hand, pressing the meat of his palm into his lips if only to keep the laughter from tumbling out into the air like a freefall because there’s no such thing as a soft end and Remus was stupid for ever thinking so. 
He thinks for a moment, that he’s back on that staircase staring at Roman knowing that what he says next is going to be the wrong thing, that he’s on the ground at a mall blinking away visions of flame grilled corpses and words that Janus doesn’t mean, that he’s in a crowd staring at an empty stage seconds and seconds and seconds too late for someone who trusted him more than Remus ever deserved to be trusted.
(How can he always be too late?)
The ground is solid and sturdy under his feet, but Remus is falling anyway. Suspended in the middle of a jump he hadn’t meant to take, his stomach is swooping with the acceleration pressing up into his lungs until he can’t force them to accept any oxygen anymore and his limbs are tingling in that disconnected way that makes them seem like they belong to someone else, something else, somewhere else.
He had fallen asleep, fallen into a wonderful dream, fallen and kept falling and forgotten that the real world didn’t end softly. A scream creeps up Remus’s throat, inch by inch, wriggling and thrashing and tearing horribly against his lungs.
His fingers tremble over the phone, fumbling through the apps for the phone even though he knows what's going to happen, he knows what’s coming, he knows, he knows, he knows.
The buttons are not stiff. Remus’s knuckles are not bleeding and they don’t leave behind traces of his blood as he dials. There’s not a gritty feeling along his teeth and the bottom of his mouth from the Cliff Bar that he ate at a rest stop an entire lifetime ago. His knees tremble to the sound of the ringing, leaving him swaying in the too-long silences, in the bated breaths, in the calm before the hurricane that’s left him at the only survivor when he was supposed to be the only casualty.
The line is ringing and Remus is standing in a high school classroom, shaking apart even though he knows that Janus is not going to answer. The line is ringing and Remus is standing at a payphone knowing that his mother didn’t try half as hard for him as she did for Roman. 
The line is ringing and Remus is listening to a generic voicemail and his fingers are canceling the call just to start it again because maybe this time he’ll pick up, maybe this time Janus will huff at him for not believing in him, maybe this time Janus will snap about Remus not following a plan, maybe this time Janus will pick up the phone.
Remus remembered leaving his own phone in his bag, stuffed inside a pair of socks that he stole from Janus the second week they’d been together. He knows he watched Janus leave his in his own bag, grinning as Virgil and him had been bickering about if pumpkins were a fruit or a vegetable. So he knows, he knows, that Janus doesn’t have his on him, that answering a phone call would be the least of his concerns after— five, six, seven— bullets landed in him, that no matter how many times Remus’s fingers dial out the number, Janus still isn’t going to miraculously answer and beg him to come home and call him the wrong name anyway.
He’s twenty one and Janus is not going to pick up the phone call. 
He’s twenty one and he thinks he’s been falling for far too long. He’d gotten too used to the jolt of adrenaline and taste of the winds. He’d been treating his four-year fall like a never ending dream that he could live in forever, and now he was waking up with a start in his bed with all his muscles contracting and remembering that the real world is a fucking nightmare.
Remus could have call himself a free fall expert, with all the times that he’s tipped himself over the edge, with how many times he’s merged himself with the concrete sidewalks, with the number of times he’s seen the great THE END to his own story but this… this—
He’s been falling for so long he forgot he’d been falling at all.
“I need to go back,” Remus gasps out.
The idea latches on suddenly, and Remus is suffocating in it, trapped in a void that’s approaching absolute zero at rapid speed. The anxiety swelling around him crashes down like a guillotine’s blade, sharp and merciless in all the ways that Remus has always known the universe to be and forgot anyway.
His hands are shaking and his knees give out but it's fine because he landed next to Remy’s sleeping form. He reaches out and shakes the kid’s shoulder, hard enough to jolt his entire body.
“Kid, Remy. Wake up. You gotta take me back. I need to get back to him.”
Remy's head lulls to the side, his skin an icy cold compared to the burning in Remus's veins. There's no movement behind his eyelids, no sudden jolt that knocks him awake, no grimace of his face or swallowing as he drags himself back to consciousness.
“It’s time to wake up!” Remus says. “You have to take me back!”
Because if he can get back he can— he can— Janus was on the ground, they were shooting at him, Virgil was screaming and Remus can see the future and they need him. If he can get back Janus can tell him what he needs to do to save him and Remus will kiss him and tell him and tell him he’s stupid and he’s sorry he left him. If he can get back— He needs to get back, he has to get back because they need him and Remus pinches hard on Remy’s cheek, but even that doesn’t cause the teenager to flinch.
“I have to fix this. Take me Back! Take me Back There! TAKE ME FUCKING BACK THERE!”
Remus shakes him, and Remy’s head makes a dull thud as it bumps the ground with each shove. Remus barely notices; his brain is counting every second he spends here, scrambling to catch the passing breaths like they're grains of sand in an hourglass counting out Janus's life while Remy dreams so soft and peacefully.
“REMY!”
--There’s no bump or bruise or anything under the dark curls, and Remus doesn’t even have a memory of hitting anything on the way down, not even the fucking floor and so there shouldn’t be shit causing him to be this fucking out of it. Janus was dying and Remus was here with an idiot fucking teenager who was sleeping like they had all the fucking time in the Fucking World. If it weren’t for Logan, if it weren’t for Remy, if it weren’t for Remy’s fucking horrible power that Remus didn’t ask for him to use--
--There’s no bump or bruise or anything under the dark curls, and Remus knows too much about being splattered on the ground to think that they might have hit it like that, to think they might have died, to think that the bitchass kid in front of him is doing anything other than pretending like they have time to pretend to be asleep when Janus just took seven bullets for people who don’t love him and wouldn’t care if he was dea--
--There’s no bump or bruise or anything under the dark curls, and Remus took the brunt of whatever hit they did have, was ready to fucking die when Remy did whatever the fuck he had to get them out of there, wasn’t going to let Remy get hurt and he didn’t get hurt so Remus shouldn’t need to keep shaking him to get him to wake up because they need to get back to Janus who just got shot and shot and shot And Shot AND SHOT and Remus needs to fix it because Janus wasn’t supposed to die, he wasn’t supposed to be alone, Remus promised to stay, promised to help, why aren’t you waking up What is wrong with youwakeup,WakeUp WAKEUPWHATDOESITTAKETOWAKEYOUUPDOYOULIKETHIS?DOYOUTHINKITSFUNNY? STOPMESSINGAROUNDHE’SGOINGTODIEICAN’TFIXITICAN’TSTOPITWHATDIDIEVERDOTOYOU?--
Remus blinks his eyes, just barely manages to stop himself from ramming the kid's head into the porcelain tile floor again.
His hands are around Remy’s head, cupping his ears, and Remy’s limp body is impossibly still, barely breathing and the golden yellow light reflects off the poster over them creating a red hue over his pale skin.
There’s no blood.
Remus can’t breathe anyway. His hands are trembling, his fingers stiff and robotic and bending like metal spoons when he pries them off Remy’s uninjured head. The kid’s skull lulls to the side, a soft huff, another snore, and Remus thinks he’s losing his mind.
The cold silence of the classroom has the walls closing in around them, the cinder blocks exchanging knowing looks because even if Remy didn’t wake up, even if that future— those futures— didn’t happen, even if Remus backs away now and swears never to get near the kid again, the sticky feeling of brain matter on his hands won’t leave.
He can't be older than sixteen.
There’s something in Remus's throat that tastes like blood and feels like live bees and burns like tear gas and hot sauce. He scrambles away from the kid, slamming into a desk so hard that his ribs displace further than the desk does as he flees the room. 
((He remembers running through halls like these once, remembers his nose feeling like it was broken when one of Roman’s friends grabbed his hair and slammed his face into his locker after the last bell, he remembers leaving his bag behind in his panic to get away, scrambling on nearly on his hands and knees with blood from his second broken nose trailing down his lip. He remembers the laughter of billions of students as he ran away, and he remembers Roman waiting impatiently at his car later, asking where he was, why he took so long, doesn’t he know that Roman has play practice at the community theater today? Why would you deliberately try to make me late? I��m not even going to ask what happened to your backpack. I should have just left you here, Re. Come on, Let’s go.))
He remembers blood on his hands and on his face and a hundred billion bathroom mirrors that show a person he doesn’t recognize and hasn’t recognized for a long time.
The posters on the walls are colorful smears and Remus wants to drag them down one by one and tear them apart as he runs. His shoes skid on the polished tile and he takes the corner so sharply he slams into the lockers and remembers the sound of a sleeping teenager’s cranium shattering under his fingers.
Remus hits the ground, panting, laughing, choking, crying until the world around him blurs. He’s suffocating on oxygen that tastes like tar, on breaths that congeal in his lungs like molasses, on gasps that harden like stone in his tightening rib cage. It burns worse than a fireball to the face, searing, smoldering, scorching his entire body. 
And Remus— Remus can’t— he can’t get it to stop, every inhale throttles in his throat wheezing out through the hundreds of puncture holes in him that match every gunshot wound that Janus is currently dying out from, eons and realms and miseries away, because he believed in a promise that Remus had never been able to keep to anyone.
Stupid, idiot Remus.
Murderous, psychotic Remus.
Sick, sick, so fucking sick Remus.
Who kills— who killed— Roman. Remy. Who got Janus killed and dragged Virgil in this. His parents. Those people at school. Those people on the street. Everyone. All the time. Sick, stupid Remus.
Who can’t just fucking seem to kill himself and make it stick. 
Fuck. Fucking Fuck.
He can’t breathe.
He’s aware of every oxygen atom fizzling in the air around him, laughing as he gasps for some type of stability, like he’s on the Mezzanine Level of a library that’s centuries away, feeling the floor crack under his feet and staring at a brother who doesn’t love him and probably never has. His throat is sandpaper and dried stucco and blood and every version of I love you that he never said to his father and when he blinks his eyes, the ghosts of every person he didn’t save, couldn’t save, hadn’t saved, are screaming around him because he can’t do anything right, he can’t save anyone, he’s a murderer and always has been and he’s been pretending this whole time that it was Roman’s fault, but it wasn’t, was it?
It’s just Remus. Sick, stupid Remus. Who should have died getting hit by a silver sedan going twenty over the speed limit instead of Roman. 
It would have been better if he had. It would have been right. It would have been— It would have been—
Fuck. It would have been good. 
Because if he hadn’t survived, Mom would have never known how to be disappointed, Dad would have never stopped coming home, his friends would have never turned into the monsters that he’d brought out in people. Janus never would have been attracted to a Casino where rumors of a person who never lost were and he never would have died a billion times for something as meaningless as money and Virgil never would have been dragged back into this fight kicking and screaming just to watch his best friend, his lover, his everything die in front of him.
Remus laughs, tears dripping off his chin into the polished floor, splattering over the shadowed silhouette of his reflection. He presses his forehead into the tile, squeezing his eyes closed because if he can’t see— if he can’t see it then— then— fucking then—
It would have been better if he hadn’t been born. All he’s done is ruin things and people and places. He’s brought out the worst pieces of people, like a magnet for every terrible thing that the people he loves are capable of doing: he’s stained through the family portrait and leaving black smears on everything he touches.
He’s seventeen again standing outside Roman’s room staring at a closed door and wondering why Mom didn’t come to break them apart, why Dad hasn’t been home for dinner in months, why the future he saw didn’t line up with what happened and why he can’t stop laughing and why he hurts and hurts and hurts and why Roman seems so certain that he’d be okay without Remus when Remus had given him everything there was to give of himself? Why is he the only one hurting? Why is he always the only one hurting?
He’s seventeen and he’s twenty one and he’s eight and he’s eleven minutes younger than Roman and he wishes that he’d just died instead of growing up. 
Because— Because if he stares at his reflection and sees that kid, that stupid idiot sick little kid he’d wrap his hands around his throat and s-squeeeeeeeze just to put him out of his misery because it didn’t get better. Because it only hurts more. Because he wanted to be so right that he stopped listening and maybe those pills had made him better and—
Remus wheezes against the stranglehold on his own lungs, painful and grating and choking as his eyes fight against tears he didn’t give permission to leak out. There’s a person staring back at him in the polished white tile floor, and he looks like a boy who he once saw get run over by— fall off of— dropped a toaster in with— scissors— keys—
A hundred million deaths and Remus didn’t learn from any of them. 
There’s a reflection of every person Remus didn’t want to become staring at him and then there’s not because there’s a purple blob covering right where his right eye would be.
Remus gasps for air, sucks in, gulps, and his fingers scrabble over the item: small, round, fits in his palm. His thumb grinds into the imprint on the flat side, his nail chipping along the irregular shape, the irregular grooves, the irregular scratches and gouges and furrows. 
The color is plum purple with intersects of off-white eroded with wear until its nearly gray and Remus hysterically remembers bruises on his own skin, on his throat, on his ribs, on his shoulders, on his knuckles. He’s staring through burning eyes, through lava tears, through ashy eyelashes thick with slag and he’s thinking, a coin, a casino coin, a casino chip, a promise made between business partners in a hotel room of a place that housed a million deaths for both of them before Janus’s death had meant anything to him.
There’s a snake on the coin, jaw agape, with fangs on display inviting danger, courting risk, encouraging peril because it’s survived it all anyway. There’s gash across one of the unseeing eyes, notches in the scales, scrapes along the trimming edge from Remus’s special brand of stupid, idiot carelessness, but the dirt and grim has been cleaned from it by Virgil’s gentle, kind hands. There’s a coin in his palm that Janus once bet with, bet on, bet for.
Remus’s lungs ache and weep and Remus squeezes the coin to his chest, and breathes. 
His chest shudders in rebellion too short, too quick, and Remus’s fingers ache from how they cling and hold and stay. He breathes, he breathes, he breathes. Even when it feels like he’s trying to move a mountain, even when it feels like he’s trying to climb his way to space, even when it feels like he’s trying to un-bury himself from the grave his family put him in at eight years old. 
Remus is twenty one years old and he breathes.
When it stops feeling like he’s drowning after every breath, when the fireburningacidic sense pitters out like a resilient spark being snuffed along hot coals, Remus finds himself sitting against a row of olive green lockers. His head feels cotton stuffed all over again and he uses his sleeve to wipe his face numbly, only managing a wince when he tries to uncurl himself from the ball he coiled into. His spine creaks, twinges, complains and whines and Remus makes an awful noise when he straightens out and takes another look around himself. 
Right. Hallway. Highschool. Right.
“Fuck,” Remus rasps.
The hall is empty, and Remus almost laughs at the passing thought of hundreds of students being in the building peeking out of the classroom to see a wanted supervillain having a breakdown in the corridor. He’d be the picture perfect symbol of “Reasons to Stay in School”, and he could almost hear the squeaky voice of a well-meaning, underpaid educator clicking their tongue and saying “And this is what will happen if you don’t clean up your act and focus on passing your classes. Do you want to be this type of embarrassment to yourself?” 
Jokes on them, Remus thinks idly. He’d been an embarrassment to himself for so long he didn’t know how to be anything else. He was— is— a mess, the stain and splatter on a blank canvas that ruins it for the artist, the blemish in a glass that causes it to shatter at the slightest touch. 
He’s also alone, and not falling, and holding a coin made of a thousand promises. He’s a mess and he’s Janus’s mess. 
The thought sends a pain down his throat, an itch that only another round of sobs would satisfy. If he closes his eyes he can picture Janus sitting next to him dressed up in that suit he likes, yellow and gold and dangerous. He can picture those blue-grey eyes that only ever looked at him with kindness, and hear his haughty tone repeating that he does have a poker face thank you very much, and smell the cardamom scent that follows after him like a cloak. If he lets himself sink, he knows he’ll fall into that memory of Janus carding his hands through Remus’s hair, warm and gentle despite all the ways that Remus continued to fuck up.
But he can’t let himself. Remus shakes with his whole body, dislodging the warmth of the anamnesis. 
He’s not sure where he is, or what he is, or who he is anymore. But he knows he can’t stay here. He knows he doesn’t want to stay here.
His list of other places to go is short— achingly, brutally short— but it's okay because Remus is not exactly in the mood to do a lot of thinking. He feels like someone came and stole all his skin while he wasn’t looking, like he’s raw and exposed for all the world to see and not in a fun way. The walls aren’t leering at him; they’re sharing side eyes with each other, snickering and whispering about Remus just loud enough for him to know they think he’s irrational and weird.
There’s a chill ghosting along his limbs that he hadn’t noticed before, something plucking at his skeleton, wrapping him in a cocoon of cold. He feels sluggish, and distantly hungry. The thrumming of his headache is back, pounding in his skull like a car alarm someone set off in a hit and run.
He drags himself back to his feet, hugging the lockers as his legs wobble and his vision blurs. It clears after he gives himself a frustrated tickticktick of a second. 
He can’t go back to that Library. Remus’s mind creates the picture of it without prompting: the gaping broken structure marked off with caution tape and police officers and all private security; News reporters and cameras flashing because horror sells more than common sense; Roman. The frozen picture left of the news video has Remus’s lungs combusting. How many people got caught underneath? How many people got hurt when Remus managed to get out without more than bruises? There’s a body cooling at the top of a concrete staircase for everyone to see, a martyr made of love for strangers who never fucking deserved it. 
If he goes back, walking on his own two feet, he’ll fall to his knees next to that body, and that fall will have so much collateral damage that Janus’s sacrifice would mean nothing.
He can’t go to Virgil’s apartment again. Remus knows that like he knows he can’t trust himself to drive a car without losing track of the speed limit. If he thinks too long about Virgil’s apartment, he’ll remember what Janus’s lips taste like, what level of softness Virgil’s clothes feel like, what warmth and safety and hope could be like, and the stability that is keeping Remus’s feet underneath him will give away. If he goes to Virgil’s apartment he’ll remember everything that could have been and he'll try to figure out he's supposed to do without....without.
And if then he’ll tumble off Virgil’s little balcony and the thing that crawls out from the splatter— because something will crawl out— will take a retribution in pieces from every person it sees after that.
((His bones are humming, rumbling, vibrating with the horrible horrible urge to go anyway.))
He can’t go back to the hotel room he shared with Janus just three days ago, before Roman had reappeared, before the world knew his name, before Janus was Janus and before Remus let himself admit that he wanted to be loved like loving him wasn’t a fucking nightmare that got people killed. For all Remus knew the organization of the parking lot, and the sounds of the city at night, he couldn’t remember the name of it as much as he could remember the taste of rain during a thunderstorm.
He breathes. Forcibly.
Remus is awake, jolted out of a dream he didn't know he'd been in and now he doesn't recognize his surroundings anymore and doesn't think he can fall back asleep ever again.
There's no Idahoan Mall. There's no stolen cars with seats reclined enough for Remus to throw his feet on the dash. There's no generic diner with waitresses that will scream over a kiss. There's no casino with sparkling chandeliers and smiling strangers waiting to be business partners.
That’s nothing new. Remus hasn’t had a stationary place to stay since he was seventeen. He slept in cars and in back alleys and hotel rooms he jimmied the lock to. He hitchhiked his way from the east side of the country to the west with nothing but a bag of two outfits and a pair of boots he stole. 
Now he’s twenty one and doesn’t even have a bag.
Well. Remus blows out a breath. He doesn’t have his bag yet. The fragments of the plan are coming back to him, like broken puzzle pieces: Janus had drafted up the entire thing on the napkins on Virgil’s coffee table until Virgil had relented into giving him paper. For all that Virgil had been stubborn about not being involved, he’d been drawn into the planning phase like a comet falling into a blackhole, vetoing ideas left and right as a one man council and poking holes in others like he’d been possessed by a bored second grader left alone with a hole puncher and a stack of report cards.
Janus had picked out Linda Maddock the chocolatier and her daughter as his own way in (after several arguments over how to approach the situation: Janus had wanted to give the mother plausible deniability by not telling her at all, and Virgil’s voice had found a pitch that could make glass shatter), and negotiated Remus’s way in with an antsy vampire who didn’t like the idea of having all those eyes on him for such a long time (a whole five minutes). After about an hour of pointless back and forth, Remus had stepped in to personally promise that Virgil wouldn’t be the center of attention for more than thirty seconds; Remus would steal the show himself or he’ll brighten the ever present spotlight on Roman. Virgil had been soothed with promises of being labeled as a victim of a horrible kidnapping, and subsequently forgotten after he’d been “saved” just like all of Roman’s other damsels-in-distress.  
“Alright, fine. Fine! Stop looking at me like that!” Virgil had said, chewing on his lip with his fangs. “You both have a way in. How are you idiots going to get back out? Other than in body bags after this blows up in your faces.”
They had a bunch of contingency plans for their exits. The first was if everything went according to plan and it meant that Janus would sneak his way out through the back entrance of the library and then welcome himself in from the outside through the front for the cameras to catch, swooping in to drag Remus out before anyone could figure out what happened. It incorporated time for Janus to throw a few misleading comments about where he’d been, and for him to flash a smile at the cameras, both of which Janus had insisted were non-negotiable points for himself and Remus had kissed him for it.
If Janus got found out and an alarm got pushed, he was to ditch the flashdrive entirely and get himself out by any means, Remus would leverage the bomb threat over Roman and the security until he got outside and then Janus would find him and fly them to safety. If Janus didn’t meet up with him again (meaning he got caught or injured enough that he couldn’t heal), Remus was supposed to use the crowd to get away, stealing what hats and other clothes he could until he was a few streets away and felt safe again. If no alarm went off but Janus wasn’t appearing for their escape, (meaning that something worse than being caught or injured was going on) then Remus was supposed to ditch entirely, use the crowd to escape, and let Virgil figure out what happened.
If Roman called Remus’s bluff immediately, the whole plan was to be ditched and both him and Janus were to leave by any means possible. 
If Dragana Witchall appeared at any point, the whole plan was to be ditched and they’d escape by any means possible.
If aliens attacked—
Remus is pretty sure they had everything covered except for what to do when Logan steps forward and steals the whole show. Revealing the bombs were fake, incentivizing the gunfight with innocent civilians around, having Remus suddenly outnumbered and forcing Virgil out of hiding just to save his life…Remus hands shake thinking about freefalls.
In every version of the plan they said goodbye to Virgil at the library, never to see him again, but amidst the gunfire Remus had hesitated leaving him there and it had caused their escape opportunity to explode into fragments and bring the Mezzanine level down on their heads literally. 
But also in every version of the plan, their place of residency to lay low after it all is a motel several counties away that Virgil drove to after he’d done the honors of tossing the molotov cocktail through the library window at nine thirty and checked into and left their bags at. 
So. That’s where Remus’s best bet is to gather his unstable, unsteady, un-fucking-believable thoughts and figure out what to do next. The Motel. He can get Janus’s things. He can get his own things. He can figure out a plan to get Janus’s body back and he can bury it somewhere safe and gentle and and and—
He takes a step away from the lockers he’s leaning against and the batshit fucking insane amount of exhaustion yanks at his bones. As if someone amped up the gravity on earth and Remus was the only one to get the fucking memo, or maybe the one who fucking cared to notice all the hard work the universe was doing. 
The thought nearly drags a laugh out of his abused strained lungs: wouldn’t that be grand? If the universe took gratitude that Remus was paying attention to it and decided to repay it with even the tiniest smidge of kindness? Wouldn’t it be amazing to wake up in a few seconds and realize his entire life was just one nightmare that never happened? Wouldn’t it be fucking fantastic if he could shed this reality the same way he shed every single one of his deaths?
The more he looks around the less the hallways mimic the ones that he’d grown up in: the brick pattern here is off-white and green and he grew up with gold and reds and blacks, the walkways are wider, polished and there’s no graffiti on any lockers that point out exactly who everyone had collectively decided didn’t belong. The lack of real color has him feeling off-balanced and the haze of weariness has his footsteps dragging like a dream he didn’t remember entering: there’s a taste in the air that reminds him inexplicably of being in the middle of a crowd and seeing flashes of white light wrap around him until there’s nothing left of the world he knew.
He only barely knows where he ran, barely realizes that he’s retracing his blurry fuzzing panicky paces until he’s nearly walking right by the only classroom with an open door.
Remy is still laying there, on the floor, unharmed and asleep, chest rhythmically lifting and falling with a deep unconsciousness. It feels like no time has passed, like all the time has passed, like the world is gone and they’re the only ones left, and at any second Remus will turn around and find a billion people behind him watching and waiting to prosecute him for the mistake he makes.
He hovers in the doorway, hands dragging along the fringe of his shorts, and fingers catching on his fishnets. His feet are waiting to walk away, to sing adios as he leaves the kid right there, to forget about the feeling of brain matter on his hands and the shine of blood on the off colored brick walls.
No one would have to know about a future that didn’t happen, and he could keep running away.
But Remus can’t help thinking of the snippets of blurred futures where Remy got shot in that library for the crime of being behind Remus when he dodged and how Logan screamed like the world was ending. Remus can’t help but think of a home screen of a boy surrounded by more people than Remus can count. Remus can’t help thinking that people would miss the kid in front of him more than they had ever missed Roman Regis’s weird younger brother. 
“Okay,” Remus says to himself. “Okay.” 
He’s not Janus. He’s not a shield to defend against attacks, throwing himself forward without a hesitation to take the brunt of something he won’t survive. He’s not and never has been, but if Janus were here he could never leave this kid to wake up alone after dying or near dying or almost dying or dying-but-not-this-time or not-dying-but-I-thought-I-was. Remus is not a comfort, but even he wouldn’t wish that feeling on anyone.
He shoves his way into the classroom before he can think anymore. The desks flinch apart with a little persuasion from Remus’s hands, jolting like they’re afraid of him, of what he did to Remy, of what he could do again. The small shrieks of noise pick and pluck at Remus’s resolve, until he’s moving on adrenaline and animal brained instinct only. 
((There’s a phone on the ground, face down, with a coffee cup winking up at him, and Remus’s hands shake as they pick it up. It’s not covered in blood and his hands are not sticky and there’s a billion notifications dinging on the screen and not a single one talks about a murder that just happened on live TV to a man whose last act was trying to protect people.))
But he can’t think about that. He won’t think about that. He told himself not to think anymore, and so he doesn’t, not until he has Remy’s arm pulled over his shoulder and he’s dragging him towards the hallway again, and then after that, the only thing Remus is focusing on is getting them both to somewhere far, far away.
[Next Chapter]
16 notes · View notes
andiinaraethtash · 2 years
Text
Chapter 6: Call Me a Casualty (The Cost of Catastrophe)
Notes:
This is the section I have not-so-affectionately nicknamed the Black Funeral (no that is not a reference to the Red Wedding, I don't ever intend to watch or support GoT, it's just a fitting name). TW: character death. Lots and lots of character death. None of it is permanent, but it is there, and it is a bit... graphic? Almost? There's no blood or anything discussed, but it's still described in detail, so be wary if that triggers you.
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
~~~~~~~~~
Sausage has finished with the new obsidian-coated pit in Scott’s home and is waiting on a cliff overlooking Rivendell when fWhip arrives. He hears him before he sees him, the rockets firing off cluing him in to his arrival, but no sooner has he seen him than he lands, clumsily, with tears streaming down his face.
“What happened, what’s wrong?” Sausage immediately demands, fear wrapping its icy hands around his heart.
fWhip opens his mouth, closes it, then shakes his head. “Gem…” he whispers, and Sausage immediately knows.
“No…”
fWhip looks away.
Sausage shakes his head. “No, she can’t… she was just…”
Beside him, fWhip tenses, straightening, and glares in the direction of Rivendell. “That elf is going to pay for what he did,” he growls in a voice that would scare him if he weren’t so distracted by his shock and grief.
Reaching out, he sets a hand on fWhip’s shoulder. “If there’s anything I can do to help, lemme know, okay? I… I don’t want you to be alone.”
fWhip shakes him off. “There’s nothing. I just…”
Sausage nods, looking down at his boots. This day couldn’t get any worse, could it?
“Actually, do me a favour,” He says suddenly, and Sausage looks up—just in time to be met with a sword to the gut.
He gapes at fWhip, taking in the glowing red eyes, the savage grin on his face, and the way red and black lines are starting to creep through the veins in his neck, and he knows.
“Die for me,” Xornoth hisses with fWhip’s voice, twisting the blade in further, and Sausage scrambles to hold on to his friend as the blade is pulled out of his gut, but it’s no use. Xornoth steps back, and Sausage, unable to get his feet to move forward, finds himself falling from the cliff, down to the rocks below.
_______
Pix knows the moment it happens, Sausage falling from a high place, trying to escape… someone. Exactly who it is is obscured, but the suddenness of it has him pulling up short in shock—a bad thing to do when one is flying above the ocean. He manages to angle himself toward the Prisma Palace, landing to recover his breath.
That’s the second death of someone in the Wither Rose Alliance today, even if he strongly suspects that something is wrong with Gem’s death—he hadn’t know about it the way he had every other death.
But there had been no faking the grief in Pearl’s eyes when she had told him, so while he wants to verify it, he also is severely doubting the validness of his foresight. If he can’t see when someone is about to die—especially permanently—then what exactly is it good for?
Still, the suspicious circumstances of both deaths have him worried for Pearl’s and fWhip’s safety. Something or someone is picking them off one by one, and he hopes to high heaven it’s not who he thinks it might be. If it has to be one or the other, though, he’s not sure whether he hopes it’s Xornoth, somehow escaped again, or Scott, gone off the rails.
A sound behind him, and he turns to see Lizzie emerging from the bubble elevator leading up from the base of the main tower. “Hey, Pix, what’s going on?”
Pix swallows hard around the lump in his throat. “Pearl hasn’t been by yet, has she.”
“No, why? Has something happened?”
He nods. “Gem is dead.”
Lizzie recoils. “What?”
“She’s gone, Lizzie. Scott’s ice magic hit her, and the cold consumed her.”
She shakes her head, growing steadily paler. “No, no, that’s not… he would never.”
“We strongly suspect it was an accident,” Pix says, even though he knows Sausage’s death certainly wasn’t. “Scott’s ice magic is hard for him to control, apparently, and he went to Gem for help. She got caught in the crossfire.”
She seems to latch on to one word in particular from that explanation. “‘Apparently?’”
He shrugs helplessly. “Scott’s MIA. According to fWhip, he’s not in Rivendell, and while I know he’s still alive…”
“You’ve got nothing else.”
“Exactly.” There’s a brief pause, then Pix sighs. “You should go tell Joel. We’re all gathering in the Grimlands to pay our respects; I don’t think either of you will want to miss this last opportunity.” Lizzie glumly shakes her head, and Pix reaches out to touch her arm. “We’ll all miss her.”
“It’s not just that, it’s that I only saw her a few days ago, and she was fine. How could this have happened so quickly? Everything was fine for so long, and now… now it’s all gone to hell again.”
He nods. That’s an accurate way of describing it. Giving her arm one last pat, he turns and takes off, headed toward the Grimlands.
________
Shrub gets there first. The villagers of Eastvale point her toward the mansion, where, sure enough, fWhip is sitting on the doorstep, staring down at his hands like they were the ones to kill Gem. She knows he’s got to be in shock, but she’s still surprised to see that he’s not crying. Not right now, anyway; his eyes are red and puffy, indicating that he probably was at one point.
He doesn’t seem to notice her until she puts her hand on his shoulder, and when he looks up to see her standing next to him, a mask drops over his face. Not a physical one, just an expression of solemn resolve. He’s hiding it from her, his grief, and that hurts more than it should.
She sits down on his right without saying a word, and leans against him. He stiffens slightly, and she wonders if she’s overstepping, but then, ever so slowly, he relaxes before his mask breaks and he sobs.
“It’s not fair,” he whispers, and she grabs his hand.
“I know. Death never is.”
fWhip swallows audibly before asking, “Is this how it was for her, when I died?” Shrub hesitates, then nods, and he squeezes his eyes shut. “It’s not fair.” He says again, and she squeezes his hand.
“We’re all going to miss her.” What else can she say? She knows grief like this, a grief that can’t be put into words, and she knows empty platitudes are just that: empty. There’s nothing she can say that will ease the pain in his heart.
Slowly, slowly, the others start arriving, all in various stages of grief. Joey is the least effected, and even he looks like he’s cried a little bit, though how much of that is for show and how much is genuine, she doesn’t know.
fWhip stands as Katherine and Pearl, along with Jimmy, finally arrive, though he gives Katherine a look that she doesn’t understand, before ushering them all inside.
“There’s refreshments if you want them,” he says dully. “I know a lot of you traveled a ways to come, and that means more to me than you’ll ever know.”
It’s Pearl who asks, “Where’s Sausage?” and fWhip shakes his head.
“He went after Scott.”
Pix straightens. “He must have found him. He was killed not too long ago.”
Immediately, fWhip looks up, alarmed. “Is he going to be okay?”
The Copper King nods. “He’ll be fine, I just worry that he’ll do something stupid like go after Scott alone again.”
“Woah, woah,” Shrub says. “I thought we agreed that this was an accident. I don’t see Scott killing either of them out of malice. That just isn’t like him.”
“We can’t deny the facts, though,” Joel puts in. “Gem is dead, killed by ice magic. Sausage went after Scott and now he’s been killed. This all points in a direction I don’t think many of us like.”
Jimmy shakes his head. “No, Shrub’s right, this isn’t like Scott.”
“Guys,” fWhip interrupts, “can we… not talk about this? We’re here because Gem’s gone. Not because of who killed her. We can discuss that at a later date.”
Sheepish nods all around, and Joel and Lizzie headed for the drinks set out on the table. fWhip picks up his own tankard and gestures for the others to grab drinks as well.
“A toast,” he says quietly. “To a friend, an ally, a good person, and a great wizard. My sister.”
Shrub, grabbing the smallest cup, lifts it at the same time as the others, and takes a drink.
Almost immediately there’s a sharp pain in her stomach, and she doubles over, groaning. Katherine is beside her in an instant.
“Are you okay?” She asks, but her voice sounds hoarse, and she’s flushed.
Across the room, Lizzie coughs, gags, then vomits, and Joey collapses, convulsing. Joel is starting to sweat, and Jimmy is clawing at his throat like he’s being choked. Meanwhile, Pix is stumbling, trying to keep his feet under him, while Pearl is foaming at the mouth and swaying like she can’t keep her balance.
On top of the dais that holds the two thrones, fWhip watches with a disinterested expression. He hasn’t touched his drink, she realises, like he knew what was in them.
Poison. He’s poisoned them. Why is beyond her, but that’s the only thing that makes sense.
The pain in her gut triples, and she collapses with a cry against Katherine, who starts coughing as she eases her to the ground. Shrub looks up at her, opening her mouth to tell her what she just realised, but stops short. Katherine’s lips are turning blue.
The sound of multiple bodies hitting the floor has her turning her attention to where Lizzie, Pix, and Pearl have all joined her and Joey on the floor. Whatever poison—poisons, if she has to guess—fWhip used, they’re acting fast. Before her eyes, Pearl stops moving, then her body disappears in a haze of light and smoke. She’s been killed.
fWhip tilts his head, finally moving and drawing every eye to him. He meanders over to where Joey is laying, his convulsions slowing, and nudges him onto his back with the tip of his boot.
“Pity,” he says, as Joey, too, stills and disappears. “I’d hoped at least one of these would work.” Bending down, he picks up the crown from where it dropped, dusts it off, and tucks it away. With a disdainful glance around, he goes over to Pix and kneels, grabbing the prophet’s chin and lifting the prophet’s gaze to meet his. “Tell me, oh great king, who all dies today?”
Pix opens his mouth to answer, chokes out a cry of pain, then slumps. A few seconds later, he’s gone as well, leaving Lizzie, Joel, Jimmy, and Katherine and Shrub alone with this madman wearing fWhip’s face.
As if sensing her thoughts, fWhip’s eyes—his deep red, glowing eyes—turn on her, and he strolls over, kicking Jimmy’s leg and making him choke one last time before he’s disappeared.
“You, little gnome, have been a thorn in my side for far too long. But don’t worry, I’ll make sure you join your people soon.”
Katherine is starting to pull her away from him, trying to hide her behind her, but she’s moving too slow, and it’s very obvious she’s not able to breathe. So instead she ends up draping her body over Shrub’s, wheezing all the while.
Shrub herself is struggling not to scream for the pain that is throbbing in her stomach in time with her—admittedly very rapid—heartbeat. fWhip is watching her with those red eyes, so like the deepslate corruption he’s so fond of. Has that, combined with the loss of his sister, finally pushed him over the edge? She doesn’t know.
She tries for a glare anyway, and fWhip laughs, a deep, gravelly sound she feels in her bones. It’s not right, none of this is right—
Katherine disappears from on top of her, vanished in a now-familiar bright haze, and she’s left to scramble away as fWhip comes forward, taking her by the jaw with one hand—a hand she can feel something wrong with, something hot and solid and decidedly not meant to be there—before sliding the other behind the nape of her neck as gently as a lover would.
Then he twists, and for a split second pain lances through her broken neck before she, too, is gone.
~~~~~~~~~
Notes:
Why yes, the demon's "die for me" line was a reference to the most badass line from Last Life, thank you for asking :D Also, no update this weekend either, I'm going out of town. Again. I hate May, everyone's graduating, including family members I don't care about and friends I do. Oh, well. At least there will be food (hopefully not poisoned).
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strawberryspence · 1 year
Text
The Harrington mansion is always dark.
Steve never really noticed it when he was growing up, not until he started dropping off Dustin and the kids. No matter how late it is, there's always a light on the porch for them. Like a sign that someone is waiting home for them.
It doesn't matter if his parents are out of town or not, it's always dark in the house. His parents doesn't care enough to leave a light for him. He won't leave it on for himself, because that feels pathetic.
Steve forgets about it, there's so many other things he should worry about.
He forgets about it until he starts dating Eddie Munson the summer of '85. Steve thanks the blue Scoops Ahoy shorts and the Corroded Coffin members for letting Eddie come in to the shop everyday for the whole summer until they finally start dating and making out at the parking lot.
Eddie starts hanging around Steve's house. Every night that Eddie stays at his house, Steve comes home to a house with a light on the porch.
The first time he notices it, he sat on his car crying for 30 minutes before finally caving in and entering the house. When Steve tells Eddie about this, Eddie visibly melts, scooping him into a hug before saying, "Oh sweetheart, as long as I am here, there's always going to be a light left on for you."
It's Eddie that makes the house a home. Steve doesn't care if he's living in a cardboard box, as long as he's with Eddie, it's home.
And that's why Steve's been standing in front of the dark porch for almost an hour now. Nancy's going to pick him up in a few more hours, so they can go back to the hospital and watch Max and Dustin.
But he can't— can't push himself to enter the dark house, knowing that Eddie's light and warmth is never going to touch it again. There's still blood stained on his hands, blood from when he had to leave Eddie's lifeless body in the Upside Down.
Steve wonders— morbidly— if Wayne has a light on in the trailer porch, waiting for a son that's never coming home.
Maybe it's weariness or maybe Steve just wants to peek inside and see if there's still a hint of Eddie floating around the house. Steve lets himself in the dark house, sliding down against the door as he sobs into Eddie's battle vest.
Outside, the porch light flickers. It blinks three times.
Rapidly. Slowly. Rapidly.
The flickering stops and the light stays on.
Because as long as Eddie Munson's alive, there's always going to be a light left on for Steve Harrington.
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evenmoreofadisaster · 4 months
Note
Hey :] . If it wasn't anything annoying or rude, could I ask for a drawing of the moment they "turn off" One from the last chapter?(Just imagining what Two looks like intrigues me haha). No problem ignoring this if it might be rude of me, it was just so shocking that it really REALLY left chills you know?
I'm glad you liked it :) It's a super interesting scene to draw thank you for the idea! I did say I would continue to make short comics for EMD...
Spoilers for EMD Smart Lair and tw for (temporary) character death and (greyscale) injuries below the cut
Tumblr media Tumblr media Tumblr media Tumblr media
I listened to evil by melanie martinez all day.. all day (/pos)
oh and I guess this is Two's redesign reveal HAHA
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Text
Whump Prompt #1302
The whole ‘limbo moment where the whumpee sees a dead loved one who tells them they have to stay alive etc’ is touching and all, but what if the loved one was more aggressive?
Whumpee: “Am I dead? [Loved One] it’s so good to see you - I’ve missed you so mu-“
Loved One: “What on earth do you think you’re playing at? Get the hell back down there!”
Whumpee: “But- but it’s so painful.”
Loved One: *slaps whumpee*
Whumpee: “The hell was that for?!”
Loved One: “And now it hurts up here. Get back down there, you idiot, you’ve got people waiting for you. I’ll still be here when your time comes.”
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adrift-in-thyme · 2 months
Text
Febuwhump Day 6: "I Love You" (Time/Malon)
Ao3
This takes place pre-lu
CW for blood and injury, multiple threats of death, and temporary character death
--------------------------
The worst dreams are always the ones where she can do nothing but watch. The ones where her body is paralyzed, the ground as uncooperative as quicksand. The ones where something terrible occurs. Something so horribly, vibrantly, gory that the only escape she has is to awaken from it, choking on hot, wet tears. 
Never before had she realized how lucky she was to have that escape. To be able to curl into her husband’s waiting arms and let the images drift away, carried on the tide of his steadily beating heart. 
Malon wishes she could do the same now.
This, however, is anything but a dream. The blood splotched across the ground, the sword lying useless amongst the green grass, the limp form crumpled beside it – it is all too real. As is the tall, lizard-like figure who stalks forward Link’s fallen body.
The Shadow grins and it sends shivers down her spine. 
She thrashes again, straining helplessly against her bonds. Coarse ropes dig into her wrists, a tightly tied rag bites her cheeks until they ache. Somewhere behind her, a monster looms, claws slicing into her shoulder. Shards of pain travel down her arms, following the thin trails of blood.
But she has to get away, she has to. Link is right there, only a few feet away, broken and bleeding and helpless. She must reach him.
The Shadow extends talon-tipped fingers and drags Link up by his hair. He slumps in the monster’s grip, eye half-lidded and dazed. Blood dribbles from his mouth and nose and mars his clothing. He coughs and more splatters onto the lawn.
“So, this is the famed Hero of Time.” The Shadow shifts and his very being seems immaterial. Malon can see now how he got his name. “I’ll admit I’m disappointed. You went down so quickly.”
Blood-red eyes flick to Malon. A forked tongue zips out of scaly lips, quick as lightning.
“Love has made you soft.”
His grip tightens and Link lets out a sharp hiss. 
“Let her go,” he croaks, “l-let her go or I’ll make you wish you were n-never born.”
The Shadow’s laughter rings out across the lawn, making the horses rear and dart further into the paddock. All except for Epona, who bucks and whinnies, trying desperately to reach her master. But the chain the Shadow had conjured around her ankle remains unmoving as ever.
“Make me wish that I was never born?” He jeers, tightening his grip on his captive. Link falls backward, bumping against his side. “Oh, my dear, dear hero! Are you unaware of your current situation? I recall you being smarter when we last met. Perhaps, you hit your head a tad too hard. That was quite the noise your skull made against my sword.”
The air flickers and suddenly, his ebony sword is back in his hand as though it had never disappeared. He fits it snuggly against Link’s neck, right over his jugular. Malon’s breath hitches.
“No!” She screams, kicking out, blindly. A clawed hand slaps her smartly across the cheek and her head snaps back. Before she can even recover, cool metal nips at her throat. She swallows, tasting icy fear.
“Malon!” 
Link jerks in his captor’s hold, terror and fury battling in his gaze. The Shadow yanks him back, tilting his head in calm contemplation. 
“Now, let me see. Which one of you should I kill first? I came here to slay the Hero of Time, but to find him with a wife…well, that was a pleasant surprise.” He pauses, that cursed gaze fixing itself firmly onto Malon. “Yes, I believe that is the answer. The wife goes first.”
“No!” The scream tears itself from Link, hoarse and desperate and agonizing, even as the words wash over Malon like spring rain, slowly seeping into her thoughts. With them comes a distant sort of terror, so close it turns her palms clammy, yet so far she hardly knows it is there.
Another monster grabs a hold of Link, claws digging into the wounds already marring his body. And the Shadow stalks towards her.
“Hello, dear,” he croons. 
With a taloned finger, he removes the gag, allowing it to flop limply into the dirt. Malon fixes him with a glare. 
“What makes you think killing us will help with anything?” She spits, straining to keep the fear from her voice.
He chuckles as he straightens, looking over her like an obsidian statue.
“Your husband is a hero, a blessed one of the gods. And as such, he has only furthered the relentless cycle that grips Hyrule. Without his demise, it will continue, unceasingly.
“As for your death, well — ” He shrugs — “that is merely for my own enjoyment. I wish to see your precious Link’s anguish before I slit his throat.”
“No!” Link screams again, fighting desperately against the monster who holds him fast. Chains have appeared around his wrists now, though Malon cannot remember seeing them before. They sing with every panicked movement.
“Don’t you dare touch her! It’s me you want, not her!”
A tear skitters down his cheek, glittering in the noonday sun. The sight of it breaks Malon’s heart.  
Oh, fairy boy.
“I’m the hero,” he chokes, quieter now, defeated before his fate has even been set in stone. He raises his eye to the Shadow, a plea behind the fury in his gaze. “I’m the one who killed Ganondorf. Your vendetta is against me and me only. So, let her go…please, just let…let her go.”
The Shadow grins, all sharp teeth and shifting shapes.
“The Hero of Time groveling. It does me good to see a sight like that. I doubt anyone has seen it before, now, have they? Such a display of weakness is not to be taken lightly.” He gestures to the monster who holds the sword over her neck. “She is every bit as important to him as I hoped. So, go on. Do the deed.”
Something leaden and sickening and absurdly calm settles in Malon’s chest. 
This is the end, her mind mourns. This is the end and there is nothing to be done now. Nothing to be done but to accept it.
“Link,” she calls and there is something hopeless in the way she does it. He looks at her, blood draining down his face, chest heaving with every panicked breath, pain and fear bright in his eye. But for a moment, she can see him as he was only this morning, gazing at her as though she is the most precious thing in the world, calloused hands cupping her face as he whispers that he loves her.
She smiles through her tears. His expression shatters.
“I love you.”
The Shadow grins, the monster begins to move its sword…
And the world comes to a screeching halt. 
Malon remains still for a beat, waiting for the pain of metal slicing skin, waiting for the sensation of choking on her own blood. It doesn’t come. 
The claws holding her are motionless. The weapon held against her neck doesn’t budge. The Shadow stays where he had come to stand, lips parted, fangs glinting, hand outstretched towards her. Off to the side, Epona remains reared up, hooves kicking at the sky, mane flying out in frozen strands of silken white.  
The only person that moves in this strange place of living statues is Link. 
He stumbles towards her, half-dragging his left leg. Chains still encircle his wrists, but now he holds his gilded sword in one hand. Behind him, a monster stands, a spurt of blood frozen in the space between his neck and chest.  
“Link…what?”
She gazes around again, mind stuttering as it tries to catch up. She is no stranger to the oddities of her husband’s powers and adventures but this…this is something she has never seen before, nor heard of. As far as she knows, he has no power over time except by his ocarina. And that currently lies in a locked bedroom drawer.
He looks over her, fast and calculating and bitter. Then, with one swift movement, he drives his sword into the monster behind her. Malon cringes, awaiting a stream of gore that never comes. In fact, the monster doesn’t even budge. Like its companion, it merely remains where it is, gripped by the fate that does not yet have full reign.
Link kneels before her, now, knocking away the weapon that threatens her life, slicing at the ropes that bind her. He pulls and they fall away.
She raises her hands, rubbing dazedly at her aching wrists. 
“What is this, fairy boy?” She murmurs, awed and terrified all at once.
“I’ll explain later,” he replies, quickly, shaking his head. And she knows that he will. “But we have time. Only…only a little, but we do.”
He reaches out, knuckles ghosting her cheek. She leans into his touch and draws a shaky breath. To feel him here warm and real is more than she could have hoped for after today’s events. In that terrible moment, she had believed that their only reunion would be in the icy embrace of death.
“They hurt you…again.” His voice cracks, shattering like a piece of pottery. “Malon, I’m…I’m so, so sorry.”
Lifting a hand, Malon rests it over Link’s, fingers intertwining with his. 
“Oh, fairy boy, it’s not your fault.”
He gazes at her, broken and vulnerable. Then, slowly, he pulls away and gets to his feet. Holding out a hand, he helps her rise. 
“I’ll fix this,” he says, voice growing tight and determined. “I promise you.”
And she has the strangest feeling that she has heard it before, that they have done this before.
What had he said earlier? That they had hurt her again?
“Link.” She steps after him, worry taking hold of her heart once more. Something is strange here. Something is wrong. “You’re keeping something from me. What’s going on? What’re you gonna do?”
He looks back at her, danger and grief in his eye. 
“I’m sorry,” he whispers and time jolts back into normality. 
No sooner has it done so, than the Shadow rushes forward and slits his neck.
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uniquevoidflowers · 5 months
Text
This is based off of @la-sera's art! Here's the link to the art piece:
tw blood and temporary character death:
“SAILOR!” Warriors yelled as he shielded himself from a Moblin. 
He saw the sailor crumple to the ground, the monster looking proud of itself. The captain saw red. Without thinking he dashed to the beast that dared to hurt Wind, his massive blue scarf trailing behind him. His sword ripped through the monster guts and flesh. The monster was dead in mere seconds. A cry from a different monster alerted Warriors and he swiftly dodged an attack. In blind rage he tore at each beast ferociously. Each swing was feral and had no real training attached to it, unlike all the other times the captain fought. The rest of the battle was a blur, but all the enemies dropped to he ground eventually. That was when Warriors realized he had left Wind bleeding on the battleground. “NO!” He shouted, internally cursing at himself.
The captain rushed to the sailor and saw that Wind was on his hands and knees shakily trying to get up but stumbling and falling limply back on the ground. Crimson red liquid was soaking the wet ground beneath the sailor and Warriors stomach churned. Wind hiccuped miserably and Warriors pulled the kid up in his arms and grabbed his long scarf. He wrapped it around Wind and felt the bitter and freezing air, but he didn’t care at all. He just kept holding on tight to the sailor, applying as much pressure as he could as his hands were slowly being covered in red. “Wars…You’re shaking…” Wind said quietly.
Warriors gave a hollow chuckle at the kid’s worry. “I just…feel cold, I’m fine.” 
“You liar.” Wind accused, and then coughed suddenly, thick blood starting to gush out of his nose and mouth. 
Warriors gripped the kid tighter, eyes going wide. He knew there wasn’t much he could do since they didn’t have any fairies or potions or…really any supplies with them. His mouth opened but nothing came out.
 “Wars?”
“Yes, Wind?”
“If I don’t make it—“
“Wind, stop.”
The captain couldn’t bear the thought of that. Letting the kid…
“Please…Wars…” Wind gave a weak cough.
“…Okay, Wind.” Warriors relented.
“If I don’t make it through this…Tell Aryll I’m sorry…I wasn’t a good big brother to her.” Wind demanded, breaking off with a shudder.
There was a small smile on the kid’s face as tears poured from his eyes. “Hey now, I don’t think she would want that. I know that she would disagree with you.” Warriors tried.
He remembered the time they were at Wind’s Hyrule and Aryll had pulled the captain aside to talk about something. 
“You make sure Link stays safe and comes home alive and in one piece, m’kay? He’s the best big brother I could’ve asked for, and I don’t want anything to happen to him!” 
“Wars…please…” 
“Fine, I will.” 
Warriors didn’t know if he was lying or not. Wind inhaled shakily and then gave a forced exhale. The captain looked down at the kid and his worry only grew. 
Was…was the sailor truly going to die here? In battle? In a different era, a faraway land that is so far away from his loved ones? No…No…Warriors couldn’t let that happen. It hurt the captain deeply to see Wind’s tiny smile in this moment. Couldn’t the kid see how much he was worth to his sister, to his friends and brothers?
Or did Warriors fail?
“Wars…” 
Warriors flinched and looked at the kid. “Yeah?”
“I-I don’t wanna die.” Wind admitted, his voice growing more agitated. 
“Hey, bud, you won’t. I-I’ll make sure you stay alive.” Warriors tried to reassure, his heart shattering into pieces for the poor sailor.
Wind didn’t say anything and just weakly held on to the captain’s scarf. A small sob turned into painful bawling and Warriors didn’t know what to do. Could he move with Wind to find the chain? Warriors didn’t know where the group had gone off to so it might take too long. But then again if Warriors didn’t find help soon the sailor would be gone. After hearing another sickly cough, the captain made a decision. “Sailor, I have a plan, okay? We’re going to try and find help and get you all fixed up.” Warriors informed him.
“M’kay.” 
The captain slowly sat up while gently holding the kid in his arms. The droplets of rain that were falling from the sky soaked the kid’s hair and tinier droplets slid unto Wind’s face. At this point Warriors couldn’t differentiate between tears and the rain. But he had no more time to dawdle so he started walking, but it felt too slow. He glanced back down upon the sailor and then his expression twisted into anguish. The kid looked to be in so much pain. “Wars…I don’t…I don’t think I’ll…I don’t think I’ll make it.” Wind whimpered.
“Wind…” 
“M’sorry.” 
The captain’s eyes flashed with despair. “No…I’ll-I’ll find help and you’ll make it.” 
“How?” 
Warriors choked again like the air had been knocked out of his lungs. How could reassure the kid when he didn’t know that himself? “Captain…”
Warriors swallowed back the feeling of his heart being torn from his chest and bile rising up his now dry throat. He was supposed to be the captain, the commander, the leader even…he was supposed to protect the kid from the unfair reality of being a hero, but here he was feeling like an idiot. Wind made a sad noise and something inside of the captain broke. Slow steps turned into the fastest sprinting as Warriors heart pounded out of his chest. “Hang in there Tune.”
Wind didn’t give a response but Warriors had managed to ignore that. 
His legs ached as he had to slow down. He panted heavily and all but collapsed on the ground. How long had he been running through this goddess-forsaken forest, was a question he couldn’t answer. Warriors looked tiredly at the sailor that was bundled in his arms and let out a gasp. “Wind, Wind, open your eyes. Please.” 
The kid looked lifeless as he hung limply in the captain’s grasp. “Wind, don’t do this to me. This isn’t funny.” Warriors said, trembling as he searched for a pulse.
But there was none. “Damn it Wind!” Warriors yelled and let go of the body as his shoulders shook.
 H e
                                                           H a d
                                                                                                                              F A I L E D
A raw scream rang throughout the air. The sky thundered harshly as Warriors weeped uncontrollably. His vision was beginning to blur as thick tears gushed out of his eyes and sad noises escaped his throat. Why, why did it have to be Wind? The bright expressive sailor whom everyone had a soft spot for. “Please, sailor, Link, wake up. Tell me this is all just a prank of yours.” Warriors begged, shaking the corpse desperately. 
In his mind he knew that the kid was dead but his heart wouldn’t listen. “Link don’t….don’t do this to me!” Warriors shouted.
He heard some light footsteps behind him and jerked around, his hand immediately touching the hilt of his sword. His eyes darted around to see a horde on enemies charging through. His eyes widened and making a quick decision, he fled with the corpse in his bloody arms. “C’mon sailor…we’re…we’re going to make it okay?” 
He knew he was talking to a dead kid but he couldn’t stop the words of reassurance flying out of his mouth. He narrowly dodged a bash on the head as he continued to rush across the forest. He pushed away branches and the rain and his tears were making it hard to see properly. The captain could hear the footsteps growing closer and closer and began to panic. His legs were still exhausted and he couldn’t run forever. “Damn it…” He muttered.
A Moblin appeared and tossed its club around menacingly. Warriors could feel red creeping into his vision once more, as he was reminded of why Wind was now….
He leapt at the monster, sword raised, and the air carried him but he just flew past the Moblin and something snagged his tunic. He let out a cry as he fell to the ground. The Moblin seemed to be…laughing at him…Further fueled, the captain rushed back to the enemy and managed to impale the beast, black blood now dripping all over his sword. The Moblin cried out and its red eyes fixated on Warriors. It ran at Warriors and managed to land continuous blows on him. Eventually the captain shoved the Moblin off of him and impaled him again. The Moblin dropped dead. Warriors spat blood out of his mouth and picked up the sailor again. “It’d be a lot more easy if you’d just wake up.” He murmured.
He could just imagine the sailor responding with something like, “Too bad.”
Warriors almost waited for Wind’s lip to begin to move and start talking. But he reminded himself that there were more monsters coming for him and he sighed and started running again. But he didn’t last very long. Too soon, he was out of breath and blood was rushing out of his nose and his mouth. “W…What?” He said.
Suddenly his legs gave out and he started seeing dancing black dots. What was going on? It was just a club that the Moblin was holding earlier…or was it?
O r  w a s  i t?
“CAPTAIN!” 
______________________________________________________
“What—we— ” 
A groan escaped Warriors as he slowly opened his eyes. When he managed to do that he was met with only light. “Wind’s—he’ll—okay?” 
What…? 
Wind…Wind…
Warriors gasped and tried to sit up, his arms shaking like they were just barely holding up his weight. “War—Wa—s?” 
Who was talking? What were they saying? Warriors blinked confusedly and tried to comprehend everything. What was the last thing he remembered? The Moblin….the rain….the blood….Wind….
He managed to grasp the arm of somebody. “W-Where’s the…the kid?” 
“He’s—okay—don’t worry.” 
 But how was that possible? He had seen the sailor’s chest still and he had seen the sailor’s blood all over him and the ground. “H…How?” Warriors asked.
There were a few moments of silence. “That’s—for—different—” 
Warriors furrowed his eyebrows wondering why his ears weren’t picking up everything properly. “———————Rest.” 
He obliged and his head lolled back on the surface he was on. His eyes fluttered closed and he took a steady breath as sleep enveloped him. 
______________________________________________________
Each time he woke up was a blur. The captain remembered swallowing something, fuzzy voices, and his heart pounding against his chest. While he was unconscious nightmares of Wind dying haunted him. When he had recovered enough he was able to understand what was going on around him. “Has Wind woken up yet?” Twilight murmured.
Warriors shot up and looked at the rancher with confusion. “Well Warriors certainly has.” Time chuckled.
“W-wind?” Warriors said.
Time sighed. Warriors started fearing the worst, had they not managed to save him? Were they lying or had he been dreaming when they said the sailor was okay? “He’s just resting right now, and….getting better.” Time said choosing his words very carefully.
“WIND GET BACK HERE!” Someone yelled.
Suddenly the kid came around the corner and into the room, his mouth slightly open and his eyes wide. Wind was in a different tunic that Warriors didn’t quite recognize but there were a few bandages there too. “WARS!” Wind cried out and sprinted towards the captain.
The air was knocked out of his lungs as he was hugged fiercely by the sailor. Warriors took one long look at the kid and started sobbing uncontrollably. Time opened his mouth to protest but Twilight stopped him. Warriors cradled Wind and began mumbling apologies. “What the fuck are you apologizing for?” Wind demanded.
“Language.” Twilight called.
“I-I couldn’t save…I couldn’t save you…I saw you die…a-and…” Warriors broke off.
Wind gave a wet laugh. “You did everything you could. That’s all that matters to me.”
Warriors gave a heartwarming smile as he held the sailor closer, beyond grateful that he was with him. “You scared me.” He accused in a teasing tone.
“No you scared me!” Wind huffed.
“You both scared each other and all the rest of us.” Time said.
There were footsteps pounding outside the door and suddenly the whole chain was there, crashing into the ground. “Get off of me!” Legend yelped.
Once everyone recollected themselves they looked at both Wind and Warriors and gasped happily. “You’re awake!” Sky grinned.
Soon the sailor and the captain were tackled with hugs. Time and Twilight eventually joined in the group hug. Warriors glanced at the kid who was giggling and purposely making the veteran slightly mad at him. Soon everything would be back to normal…
Or so he thought….
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serickswrites · 2 months
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Helplessly
Warnings: blood, bleeding, wounds, unconsciousness, temporary character death, cpr, stabbing, stab wound, caretaker and whumpee
Caretaker was helpless. So completely helpless. And they hated it. Hated it more than anything, including Whumper. Because they could do something about Whumper. They had done something about Whumper. But now they were helpless. They hated it.
They were helpless as they watched Whumpee collapse with a stab wound in their gut, blood pouring over Whumpee's fingers as they cried out. They were helpless as Whumpee lay there bleeding. Helpless as Whumpee begged Whumper to stop. Helpless as they managed to disarm Whumper and get to Whumpee. Helpless because they couldn't keep Whumpee conscious. Couldn't keep their blood inside them. Caretaker was helpless to save Whumpee.
"GET THE MEDIC IN HERE NOW!" They had roared to the rest of the team as they tried to keep Whumpee alive. "Stay with me, Whumpee, keep your eyes on me. Please," they had begged Whumpee.
Whumpee had blinked sluggishly at them Blinked and took shaky, trembling breaths. But they hadn't been able to keep their eyes open. They were helpless against the darkness that pulled them under. Just as Caretaker was helpless to keep them awake.
And so now Caretaker stood to the side as they watched the medics try to revive Whumpee. Caretaker hated being helpless. Hated that they couldn't stop replaying the last hour to see if they could have done something. Hated that they could only watch helplessly as the Whumpee's body jerked with each compression.
Caretaker was helpless. They hated it.
But as Whumpee sucked in a huge breath of air, Caretaker dared hope. Hope that perhaps though they were helpless, someone wasn't. Hope that the medics could keep Whumpee's heart beating. Hope that Whumpee would make it to the hospital. Hope that Whumpee could be saved.
And suddenly Caretaker wasn't so helpless anymore.
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nights-flying-fox · 17 days
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Hello!! May I introduce you to a new au??
🌙 [CW: temporary character death]
🌓 Welcome to Hopelessly Surviving AU, aka Resurrected Leo AU
🌕 They saved Leo, but it was too late. As the family was still not accepting what happened, hours later Draxum shows up, and somehow he has the help they need. Now Leo is back to life, but something is different. Something is wrong and Leo has to figure out what is true and what is not to win this battle (with the help of his family).
🌑 It most likely will include angst but also hurt/comfort. TW for hallucinations, too. Uh... yeah, all that. Any other warning will be added if necessary. Please tell me if i miss anything :]
🌖 Also HS!Leo refs:
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half-deadmagicperson · 4 months
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How Danny Broke His Favorite Star Projector
Hey y'all!!! This is my fic for @ecto-implosion on art by @midnightectosnack ! (WHO DID AN AMAZING JOB!)
Crossover: Danny Phantom, Hades (Videogame)
Rating: Teen (To Be Safe)
Characters: Danny Phantom, Zagreus (Hades), Cerberus (Hades), Cujo (Danny Phantom), Clockwork, Persephone (Hades), Charon (Hades)
Tags: Fluff, Mild Hurt/Comfort, Psychopomp AU
Warnings: Temporary Character Death, Death Mentioned, Cannon-typical Violence
Summary: It's been a long time since Danny became a half-ghost. After the fights in Amity ended, he began a new job: guiding souls to their respective afterlives. One day, Danny stumbled upon a strange soul he's never seen before, a soul from the House of Hades.
Link to AO3
Next Chapter
Link to Midnight's Artwork!!!
   It was a pretty normal day in the Infinite Realms, well as normal as it can be. Danny had just finished up his day at work and was making his way back home. He floated in the Zone for what felt like forever. His fatigue caused his surroundings to blur. Islands, doors, staircases, a bluish spirit looking thing, more islands. Danny stopped in his tracks. He must've forgotten one.
   About seventy years ago or so, before Danny left Amity, Clockwork showed up to Danny's house with a new job. He asked Danny to help guide souls to their respective afterlives. The boy accepted the offer and began shortly after. 
   Danny walked with thousands of spirits. Some were strangers, others were a little close to home. It started with Sam's grandma, then Tucker's parents, then Sam's, then his own mother and father, then Tucker, then Sam, then Valerie, then Jazz. Eventually, everyone he ever knew passed away. Amity Park moved on, and so did Danny, well he's trying to.
    Now Danny was staring at the Blue spirit in front of him. It was definitely a soul, but it looked different than the ones he's seen before. Its face was a dark void with yellow eyes and kind of reminded him of a blob ghost, but more sentient. He should probably go to Clockwork. 
   The ghost boy floated around, soul in tow, until he approached a large clocktower.
  “Hello? Clockwork?” Danny called out into the dark entryway. He glanced around until his eyes landed on a familiar purple cloak. The boy’s mentor, currently in the form of a baby, turned around to greet his pupil. The baby’s form shifted into a frail, old man.
  “Hello, Daniel, what have you come to ask?”
  “Ok, so I was on my way back home when I came across this soul, and I don’t know which afterlife it belongs to,” Danny pointed to the blue creature next to him.
  “Ah, yes, I haven’t seen one of those souls in a very long time. This soul belongs to the House of Hades,” Clockwork moved to inspect the soul, “ Usually these souls are sent directly to Hades, but it appears this one got lost. Would you mind, Young Daniel, escorting it back to the Underworld?”
   Danny looked up at his mentor, now in the form of a young adult, and nodded. The Ghost of Time passed the boy a scroll with directions as well as a giant sack of meat. It was time to go to the Underworld.
    
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
    
     In the darkness of the Underworld, the young prince prepares food for the fiercest of protectors, Cerberus the three headed hound.
  “Oh, you’re back, Old Man.” 
  Zagreus, Son of Hades, grabbed the sack of meat he prepared to feed his favorite guard dog. He walked down the cold, dry halls of the House of Hades until he reached the back of the Temple.
    The Prince wanders the halls of the House. He does not know what he shall find further ahead. Will it be a great ally? Or a deadly foe? Either way the Fates have something in store.
   “You know I can still hear you, Right?” 
   Zagreus sighed. There must be something, other than Cerberus ahead. Slowly, Zagreus crept down the hall, preparing for battle if necessary. He couldn’t believe what he saw next.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
   Danny just finished returning the soul. He decided not to venture too deep into the Underworld, totally not out of fear, and dropped the prodigal off at the main entrance. 
   When he first arrived at the House, he heard a large growl. Cerberus, the massive three-headed hound, showed three sets of fangs to the unsuspecting ghost boy.
   Danny, not having any concept of danger, decided to treat the giant beast like he would any dog, and allowed it to give him sniffs. He floated up closer to the middle head. The creature’s giant noses created gusts of wind as it took in Danny’s scent. Danny braced himself for rejection, but instead felt a large nose bump into him, more specifically, into the bag of meat. The boy mentally thanked Clockwork, and presented Cerberus with the meat.
   In an instant, the ferocious hell-hound turned into an oversized puppy. Danny smiled as he offered the dog pets. He kind of reminded Danny of Cujo. The boy continued scratching under one of the dog's ears. He didn't hear the incoming footsteps.
  "Who the hell are you?"
   Danny whipped his head around. On the opposite side of the hallway stood a rather imposing figure. A guy, who looked just a tad older than Danny, crossed his arms and glared. He was dressed like a Greek god, and was built like one too. This was gonna be interesting.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
   Zagreus didn't know what he was expecting, maybe some monster or a demigod or something, but it definitely wasn't a flying boy in a strange outfit. The weirdest part was that Cerberus had not attacked the intruder, in fact, the intruder was petting him? It was then that Zagreus noticed the sack of meat on the floor. Ah, bribery. Welp time to get this party started.
   "Who the hell are you?"
   The boy jolted into a defensive position. Zagreus noticed him analyzing his opponent. He was definitely a seasoned fighter, and not to be underestimated. The boy put on a nervous expression and responded:
  "I was…just leaving! Nice place you got here, uh, sir! I'll just be, uh, scooting out this gateway here."
  The culprit was trying to escape. Zagreus sighed. He may be new here, but he still must face the same justice. 
   "You are not allowed to intrude into the House of Hades, for that you must pay."
   He drew out Stygius, Blade of the Underworld.
   Danny eyed the blade carefully. It looks like there's gonna be a fight. Maybe he can talk the guy with the sword out of it?
  “We, we don't really have to fight! I can just lea-”
  Zagreus charged full-force at the stranger. The prince only had a few moments to process the glowing blue in his opponent's hand before he was met with another sword.
   Danny used his newly crafted ice sword to ward off his attacker. He eventually was able to get a lucky hit in and knock the weapon out of Zagreus's hand.
   “Could we maybe, I don't know, talk about things instead of fighting?”
   “No,” was the prince’s curt reply before drawing another weapon, a spear. Where the hell did that even come from?
   Zagreus spun the Eternal Spear into the intruder's sword. The ice shattered like glass. Looks like it was time for a new plan. 
   Danny summoned some ectoblasts and started shooting at the prince from a distance. Despite his efforts, Zagreus persisted and started backing Danny into a corner.
   Danny sighed.
   “I didn't want to have to do this, but you gave me no choice.” 
   The Underworld shook with the echoes of ghostly screaming. Stalactites cracked and crumbled onto the ground. Cerberus whined from the loud noise. Zagreus cupped his ears, yet still persisted. 
    Danny continued his Ghostly Wail until his throat was raw. Exhaustion waved over him. It's been a while since he's used that, he forgot how draining it was.
   Seeing the prince disoriented, he allowed himself to meet the floor. He couldn't fight more if he tried.
   Zagreus's ears were ringing, but he noticed his opponent was down. He did not hesitate to take the opportunity to trap the boy.
    Danny looked up at the two-pronged spear aimed at his throat.
 "WAIT!!!.....please," Danny croaked out. The prince stared down at him, refusing to let down his guard. Nevertheless, he let him continue.
  "I was sent here by my mentor to return a soul. I'm a psychopomp. I guide souls to their respective afterlives. I was on my way home when I found one of yours. I promise I never meant to intrude!"
   Zagreus looked down at the young ghost. He could be telling the truth, but he also could be lying. He scanned the boy for any indication of falsehood. He found none.
   Slowly, he let up on the ghost, refusing to break eye contact. The boy breathed a sigh of relief. 
  "Well, now that that's settled, my name is Danny, Danny Phantom, what's yours?"
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gearbroth · 2 years
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Half-life: Freeplay
(fullview please!)
Timeloop AU where Gordon is preserved in stasis at the end of HL1 for 20 years, but his subconscious is awake and horribly aware, reliving the events of the Resonance Cascade over and over for the extent of his time in stasis. Either through death, mistake, or defeat of the Nihilanth, the loop begins again, and again, and again... Back in the test chamber.
‘Present day’ for the AU takes place during HL2, where the effects on the mind have become too much to function, forcing another to take up the mantle of ‘The One Freeman’, although not otherwise altering the path of fate that much from the intended one.
(The name ‘Freeplay’ is a play on words; ‘Freeman’ and the word ‘replay’ - as well as the term ‘freeplay’ referring to different gamemode styles in video games where you’re given the option to play as other characters.)
Undercut: messy af & old initial concept doodles
aaa
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and thats all the context/content i got on freeplay rn -dies-
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themissakat · 2 years
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for those that have been asking, anne is... no longer connected to her calamity powers. 
the Core arranges to take over Marcy the moment she’s disconnected from the power of the Wit Calamity gem. It chides Andrias on not taking action, now that their destiny is so close at hand. Why bother with the temples, when it would be so much faster to merely take out the other humans, and would counter the prophecy in the same breath?  Anne receives a letter from Marcy asking her to come to Newtopia to come discuss something in her research. She splits off with the Plantars, who want to do some shopping in the city, and when she enters the castle, Andrias directs her into the lab. Into a trap. 
But something changes in the Core the instant Anne’s body falls, and it’s overcome with emotion, Marcy’s emotions. 
It can’t let Anne die. 
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Note
For theme week: Empty Space by Paryton is a FANTASTIC post s3/s4 rewrite with some wild monster stuff!!!
https://archiveofourown.org/works/47126230
Empty Space by Paryton
Rating: Mature
293,928 words, 24/24 chapters
Archive Warning: Graphic Depictions of Violence
Tags: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Temporary Character Death, sorta - Freeform, Monster Steve Harrington, Fix-It of Sorts, pre-season 4/season 4, Mechanic Eddie Munson, Wingfic, Body Horror, Grief/Mourning, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Homophobia, Bisexual Steve Harrington, Gay Eddie Munson, eddie adopts the party, Eddie Munson-centric, this might constitute a slowburn but only because steve takes his sweet time getting here, Period Typical Bigotry, Blood and Injury, the claws are sharp but the boys are soft
Summary:
Eddie is walking around in a dead man’s shoes. - In the aftermath of the Starcourt mall fire, Hawkins mourns their dead (Steve Harrington among them), the town’s unsung heroes grapple with grief, and Eddie Munson gears up for his final (fingers-crossed) year of high school and stubbornly tries not to get attached to the party of sad freshmen trailing behind him, bleeding heart be damned.
Thanks for the rec!
Know a fic that deserves extra love? Submit through our asks or the submission box!
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exaltior-a · 5 months
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Dirkjake get married for whatever reason and they have a slideshow of their most romantic and happiest moments and it's 99% just pictures of them fighting and killing eachother. Jake gleefully tells a story about each moment as if it was a romantic trip to Paris. "Ah, I remember this one- Dirk and I were hiking up this gorgeous mountain- he was complaining about being a little bored, so decided to liven up the trip by trying to push him off some of the leges and cliffs we had to walk past. Ended up getting him near the summit. He tumbled almost forty feet-" the slide shifts from the blurry selfie Dirk was trying to take when Jake pushed him to his heavily bruised and bleeding body taken from a higher elevation, blood smeared along the scenery and especially around his head, "And hit his noggin at the bottom. One of my favourite hiking trips so far I'd say! Oh I'd love to visit again after the honeymoon..." And much to the discomfort and disgust of their guests, this goes on for an hour.
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breannasfluff · 5 months
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Glass in the Light
AO3 Link
Whumptober: Glass Shard Whump Rating: 5/5 TW: Torture, forced harm, whipping, blood/injury, temporary character death Mipha's Grace, resolved ending, no permanent damage
“Do it again.”
Twilight doesn’t move, just stands frozen. The thug doesn’t even have a sword, but he’s got an iron poker he rests in the coals. He’s already shown he has no qualms about using it.
“I said, do it again.” He reaches for the poker.
The rancher moves. Pulling the whip back, he brings it down on Wild’s bare back. The champion grunts and Twilight clenches his eyes shut. An angry burn on his lower back is the previous work of the poker and brought a scream.
“Harder.”
“He’s bleeding!” Wild’s back is striped with welts and now the overlapping marks are breaking open, dripping blood.
“Harder.”
Twilight whimpers as he pulls back the whip. Wild tenses as it smacks down on his skin. There are too many thugs, even for two heroes. Others sit or stand in a circle and watch, jeering. Even if Twilight could overpower the two holding Wild and the one with the poker, there are at least 30 more crowded in the cavern. Wolfie will be no help here. They just need to draw this out long enough that Time and the others can track them down.
“Again.”
Over and over Twilight is forced to raise the whip and bring it slicing down on skin already riddled with scars. Wild won’t want anything to do with him after this. Twilight doesn’t want anything to do with himself.
Hurting his brother like this? It’s sickening. He whimpers nearly as much as Wild.
“Stop.” The thug steps forward and takes the whip. Twilight heaves a sigh of relief and Wild slumps. The thug gestures and another man steps forward with a bowl of water. It splashes over the champion’s back and washes away the blood. Wild screams, thrashing in the grip he’s held in, back arching away from the water.
“What did you do?” Twilight surges forward, but the thug whips the poker out of the fire and holds it inches away from Wild’s skin. Slowly, the rancher steps back. “What did you do,” he grits out.
A sneer. “Saltwater. Gotta admire your pretty canvas, right?”
Bile rises in Twilight’s throat. Goddesses, is there no end to the cruelty these men will inflict? Silently, he implores Wild to hold on just a little longer. Time has to be close. The others will save them.
The thug hands back the whip, only it’s a different one. Twilight holds it up and blanches. “There’s glass on the ends.”
The answering smile is gap-toothed and stained. “Get to work.”
Twilight weighs the whip in his hand and analyzes Wild’s back. The saltwater must still sting, but free of blood it's easier to see the raised welts and bleeding lines. The glass fragments will do more damage. Perhaps the lower left, where there’s less bleeding…
Ordona; he’s treating his brother like an object. He can’t do this.
Twilight steps back, shaking his head. Even when the thug holds up the poker, he doesn’t move forward. Surely a burn isn’t worse than the new whip.
With a shrug, the thug lays the glowing metal across Wild’s back. His wail rises till it cracks and he thrashes in the grip of the men, which only causes the metal to touch more skin.
“No! Stop!” Twilight is crying, but it doesn’t matter. The champion’s cry is haunting; agony so deep it can’t be expressed.
The thug looks at him and then at the poker. “You sure? I like it when he screams.”
“I’m sure.” Twilight steps forward and sends another silent apology to Wild. Then he brings the whip down on his back.
Glass cuts and shreds skin, slicing lines of red open immediately. It falls across the burns and Wild jerks. “Twi-light!” His name is broken in the champion’s mouth; cutting as sharp as the glass. “Please!”
“I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. I promise the others will be here soon.”
Another slice of the whip.
“S-stop. Twi!”
“I can’t. I’m sorry! Wild, please!”
Blood coats the champion’s back and his screams have devolved into mewls of pain. Twilight has to stop and turn aside to retch at the sight of shredded skin and gleaming muscle. The thugs only laugh.
The rancher is allowed to stop only when Wild passes out, slumping in the arms of the thugs. He’s dragged to a cage and thrown in. Twilight bolts after him, gathering the champion off the dirt. His back is a mess. It needs a fairy; healing potions and Hyrule’s magic won’t be enough. The glass sliced through muscles, too. How much internal damage can be healed? Even fairies aren’t perfect.
To his surprise, a knife is tossed in with them and the door of the cell slams shut. Another man throws a bowl of water at them. Twilight tries to shield Wild from the worst of it, but he jerks out of consciousness with a cry.
It takes him a second to focus on Twilight, but then he’s skittering away as best he can. The knife lies in the dirt between them.
The thug sneers. “One of you gets the honor of killing the other and going free. Or, I’ll kill both of you.”
There’s no way Twilight is falling for the ploy. Only, Wild’s eyes snapped to the knife before he pulled his gaze away. Would he kill Twilight over the damage he inflicted?
Would the rancher stop him?
“Hurry up and choose. I’m not a patient man.” He gestures to the wood ringing the metal cell. “I can heat things up if you like.”
They’ll be burned alive, trapped in this cell. Or the smoke will kill them first. The chain can’t bring back burnt corpses.
Wild moves, dragging himself forward. Twilight jerks and, on instinct, leans forward to grab the knife. The champion pauses, then keeps dragging himself forward.
Hylia above! Even now, Twilight is trying to save himself? After everything he put Wild through?
The champion is in front of him now and it's easy to see the tightness in his face from pain. His eyes are dull when they meet Twilight’s.
“Kill me.”
“What?” The rancher blinks. He must have misheard.
“Kill me. It will be okay. I promise.”
What…Wild can’t promise that. Does he think Twilight will be able to injure him mortally rather than fatally?
The champion tries for a faint smile. It trembles and fades. “I trust you,” Wild whispers. “I’m not getting out of this, not with my back like this.”
Hot tears burn as they slide down his cheeks and Twilight swipes them away. “I can’t lose you. I never wanted to hurt you, cub, you know that, right?”
Wild doesn’t answer, just slumps further. “Please, Twi. It hurts. One of us should get out of here and it needs to be you. And if that means I'm the sacrifice? It's fine. Just…don’t leave my body with them, okay?”
“Don’t—don’t talk like that!”
But Wild doesn’t answer. His eyes flutter and he takes a harsh breath.
The thug bangs on the bars. “Hurry up or I’m lighting this fire.”
Twilight drags it out another moment, but Time and the others don’t barge in for a rescue. Carefully, he helps Wild lay down on the floor of the cell.
“I’m sorry. I’m sorry, I’m sorry. I love you, Link. I’m sorry.”
Wild locks eyes with him. Takes a breath. Nods.
Twilight plunges the knife into his chest.
The thugs keep their word. Twilight walks out of the cavern with Wild’s limp body in his arms. Blood coats the champion’s clothes and the raw flesh of his back is sticky where it rubs on Twilight’s arms.
Out the cavern and down the path. Around the bend. Down the incline. Straight forward. There’s no Chain in sight. He does finally find them at the split in the road, arguing about which direction to go.
They run at him, shouting. Then the shouts turn to screams and wails at the realization that Wild is dead.
Time pulls the champion’s body from his arms and—oh. The blood on his back has dried and sticks to his skin. It takes a tug and a wet tearing sound to pull him free. Twilight turns and heaves, even though there’s nothing left.
His mentor crouches next to him—when did he end up on his hands and knees? “Who did this to Wild?” he asks.
And Twilight is forced to meet his eyes and say the damning words. “I did. I killed him.”
This isn’t how Wild wanted the group to find out about Mipha’s Grace. Ideally, he’d never mention it and he wouldn’t have to explain just how many times he’d been saved on his journey. What a sorry excuse for a hero—saved by his dead lover for not completing a task the first time. Or the second.
Even if Wild doesn’t want to explain the complexities of survival, in this case, it works in his favor. At least if he dies, he’ll come back. Twilight just needs to get out of there with his body before Mipha’s Grace kicks in. The bandits need to agree to let Twilight go. Trusting thugs to hold to their word is a poor lifeline, but it’s all they have.
After his journey, Mipha’s Grace still works, but it takes longer to kick in. The delays between death and life grow further with each use. Maybe at some point, it will wear off entirely, but the feel of her magic is still strong. And coming back to life while still trapped with the thugs will only land them back where they started.
Wild would like to say he’d never raise a hand against Twilight if they were in switched positions. But he’s not. And faced with certain pain and the chance of possibly lessening it; would he really leave the rancher to the tender mercies of the thugs?
None of this erases the horror of the situation, though. Of Twilight bringing down a whip on his back, painting lines of agony across his back. Is that better or worse than the burning poker? At least Mipha will erase the marks that are left; he doesn’t care for a permanent reminder of his time there.
Whoever invented the glass shard whip hopefully died under its lash regretting every moment that led to its creation.
The familiar rush of cool water and magic sweeps over his body, wiping away injury and pain. His ears flick as his body comes back online. Someone is crying. Actually, multiple people are crying.
“I—I didn’t know what to do! Time, please, I don’t know what to do!” That’s Twilight, nearly incomprehensible through sobs.
“His back—”
Twilight sobs harder. “It should have been me,” he says. “It should have been me; he didn’t deserve this.”
Ah. Well, Twilight must have gotten him away from the thugs or was rescued. Although by the sounds of it, they rightly assume he’s dead. He’s resting on his side in the grass, so no one’s noticed his chest no longer lies still.
He feels…good, actually. Bless Mipha for restoring him to full health. The emotional effects of the experience will still be something to deal with; the idea of Twilight and a knife in the same sentence still sends a shiver across his skin.
The Chain argues and cries and through it all, Twilight repeats, “It should have been me.”
Well. That’s enough of that. He doesn’t need to make them grieve for longer than needed. The situation does not call for it—and it’s probably poor taste—but Wild deserves a little payback.
With a drawn-out, broken groan, he rolls onto his back and then sits up in jerky spurts. He holds his arms out in front of him, wrists limp. Wild rolls his head to the side to meet eyes with Twilight. Now to follow it up with something properly terrifying.
“Boo!”
Twilight screams. Well, most of the Chain does and Legend nearly takes his head off with a wild shriek and swing.
Wild yelps and drops the act. “Hey! It’s me! Ledge, put that sword down, I’m not coming back this quickly if you kill me.”
The rancher bursts into renewed sobs. “I cursed him!”
Fair, but still. Wild stands and brushes himself free of grass. His clothes are ruined and coated in blood. Hmm. He’s going to burn these. The champion takes a deep breath of the afternoon air and soaks in the sights of grass, trees, and teary faces. They're going to need a lot of care and cuddles after this. Not that Wild will complain.
“I think it’s time I told you about Mipha’s Grace.”
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linksadface · 6 months
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inspired from this https://archiveofourown.org/works/26672305 fic where link STABS himself to show off his new miphas grace to sidon pleaseee read this whole series its incredible
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