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keeps | 27 reblogs over at the outer circle

[keepswingin]

⸻ M A S T E R P O S T

➜ keeps / 26 ➜ part time soulmate, full time problem

➜ writing tag: keepswingin writes ➜ ao3: keep_swinging

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➜ currently writing: multi-fandom

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thanks for visiting! reblogs, comments and likes are always appreciated!!

[kangaracha]

boyfriend!skz reacts to you falling off your horse

ot8 x reader

requested by @keepswingin

a/n: this is gonna be weirdly specific to very few people, i know it. but still. nearly all of these are based on personal experience. this is how i process the trauma.

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Permanent Taglist

@amyyscorner @kokinu09 @rainfallingfromthesky @keepswingin @rylea08 @puppysmileseungmin

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[kangaracha]

change your cover picture i get jump scared by seungmin everytime i come here

this one's for you 😘

[keepswingin]

much better much appreciated thanks

[kangaracha]

anyway hi roo's followers i'll bully her into writing prompts someday for cool little smau things and everyone will love em and then i'll get to say i told you so xD

[keepswingin]

Absolutely devious to use this gif after what you left on the doc for me to read this morning 🫠

[keepswingin]

roo waz here 2026 🫰

[kangaracha]

hey! I’ve somewhat recently discovered your tumblr and am obsessed with queenmaker. I was wondering when you were going to upload the rest of the chapters onto ao3? I find the formatting easier to read on ao3 and it’s not up to date yet

Thankyou for the push, I need to start doing this again! I was doing one every few days just to keep it at the top of the page/best stats possible but I fell off the bandwagon a lot this year so it kind of got forgotten 😂

I'll throw a few up tonight for you and try to get back on my schedule, it does annoy me that it's still not all up there

[keepswingin]

My fault I’m behind on reading her ao3 stuff and usually if I leave enough comments she’ll update things semi consistently 😭😂

[kangaracha]

missing daybreak extra hard on this fall day

who are you that you sent this the day i was talking about the plot for the sequel that i'm not writing 😭

[keepswingin]

does dlc count as the sequel

[keepswingin]

viii.

It's a new thing, the nightmares. 

They don't get worse, but they don't get better either, and Victor finds himself sitting up awake more often than not, afraid to even bother trying to sleep.

It was hard enough for Vargas to even offer to house him at night in the first place, especially with parents who didn't know who was commandeering their couch as soon as they fell asleep, and to add Victor possibly making enough noise to wake them, the guilt was beginning to weigh on him. 

So he sits awake and stares at the darkness of the room around him and flees before anybody awakes in the early morning, exhaustion pulling at his body like a second skin.

He continues to avoid the rest of Shadyside, terrified of running into his aunt, of running into any vampires that would openly say how he was less than, and sits on the beach, watching water lap at the sand until the sun is high enough in the sky. 

He's not expecting anyone to find him there as the minutes drag into hours, as his stomach growls with hunger and his mouth twinges with phantom pain. A lonesome glance into the mirror had told him all he needed to know about the healing process, and the answer was that it was healing, even if the rest of him didn't think so, scar tissue forming over open wounds. If he still decided to skip meals, that was his own business. 

"You look like a ghost and I don't mean that as a compliment." 

Victor jumps at the sudden voice, turning his head just in time to catch Vera stop beside him, hands tucked into her pockets, hair messy as if she hadn't slept much either.

Victor turns his gaze back to the ocean.

Vera waits for him to answer, and when he doesn't she sighs and plops down beside him, sand pillowing her fall. She drags her fingers through it, watching as grains trickle back down to the ground. 

"Have you slept?" she asks him, as brash and as brave as ever. 

Victor scoffs. "What do you think?" 

He reaches down and grabs his own handful of sand. He holds onto it, thumb dragging across the top of the pile. "Every time I close my eyes, I'm back there. No way out." Sand slips through his fingers. His eyes don't leave the ocean. "No one to save me." He closes his fist and like time trickling through glass, the rest of it falls away, leaving his palm empty once more.

Vera reaches over. Grabs his hand, threading her fingers through his own. "We did save you," she reminds him gently. "We didn't leave you there, Victor." 

He pulls his hand away like she is the fire still burning him.

"I feel like I'm still there," he snaps, voice strained. "I feel like I'm still in that room and she's standing over me, and she's not listening to me. I'm - I'm bleeding, I'm hurting, and Auntie is just - "

His voice hitches on her name. He pushes through.

"I'm begging for her to stop. I'm begging her to stop, Vera, and she doesn't blink. She doesn't stop." He feels like he's going to be sick, but he still doesn't pull his gaze away from the ocean. "You know what she did?" he asks. "She told me I would starve, if I didn't learn, if her pulling out my fangs didn't teach me enough and she meant it." He laughs. It's a hollow little thing that makes Vera shiver. "She meant it." 

Vera reaches for his hand again. Victor thinks she does it for herself, so he lets her take it and squeeze it and tries to pretend that he doesn't feel like falling apart. "You haven't been home since, have you?" 

Victor shakes his head. "What else will she do to me, when she sees me?" He finally turns to face her, his eyes wet when they shouldn't be. His chest shudders with his next breath. "Take away my darkstone? Remove my powers? Scar my face? String me up for the whole town to see?" Vera clutches him tighter. Victor doesn't want to breathe. "Call me a coward, but I'm too scared to face her. I'm too scared of the unknown." 

"You're not a coward," Vera says, quick to catch him before his mind can run away with the words. "You're brave, Victor, braver than all of us. You're the one who saved us." She sighs, shifting. "All the Elders, from both sides, were okay with us starving or dying instead of just making amends. You took a stand for what you believed in and saved the Orchard. Saved each and every single one of us. If that isn't being brave, then I don't know what is." 

"It wasn't just me. It was Nova too." 

Vera hums. "Little miss sunshine." 

When she turns her head, she expects him to be smiling, unable to keep his wits about him whenever Nova is mentioned. But he is the same as he has been, and something about that worries Vera more than anything else. She squeezes his hand again, hard enough that she's hoping he'll make a joke. He doesn't. 

"Have you told her?" she asks, watching his face carefully. "That you feel like this?" Victor is still for a long moment, and then he shakes his head. Vera catches the shame that flashes across his face before he can hide it away. "Victor," she says, nearly a scold. "You should tell her." 

"I'm scared of that too," he whispers. 

Vera can't help the way her eyes roll. "How can you be scared of the one person you - "

"I'm different now than I was then," he says, voice growing louder. "I'm - I'm not the same boy she met, I'm - I'm damaged, or something." Broken. "I don't want to lose her because I can't figure out my own head." Useless. 

"I don't think you're giving her enough credit," Vera counters, steadying her own voice. "She chose you over her own people, Victor. She believes in you." The waves crash violently then, water nearly touching both of their boots. Victor flinches. Vera feels her chest constrict. "I think you just need to learn how to believe in yourself again."

Victor doesn't answer. He can't. 

Not yet.

previous // next ➜

[keepswingin]

excuse me, you’re doing prompts now?? and i wasn’t immediately notified??

love that for you!! and thank you for taking the time to write💕💕

okay, i had to type this up from my previous comments. but let’s see the Daywalker equivalent of defanging and i have some fun possibilities if you’d like to use ‘em, feel free

“- even thought Vera doesn't like it, the only place to hide Victor where the Eldress will never look is probably: Sunnyside.

- so, we get Nova, we get her reaction to Victor being defanged (which personally i hope they can grow back, it just takes a Really long time, maybe a year or two, he isn't human, maybe vampires can do that?)

- Nova hides Victor in Sunnyside, eventually leading to her father discovering him. This way you have the whole 'bc you're my daughter I let you escape punishment but now I see it is the only thing that may help you' right, you play it off manipulative, like it's hurting HIM more than her.

- And you know what's a seriously fucked punishment for Daywalkers? By exposing them to directly concentrated light around their eyes for hours, it effectively blinds them. They're no longer able to see, so fire gauntlets are useless, and considering this is a society that's very pro-soldiers and war, being made unable to fight is considered a disgrace. If you can't contribute to your people, what purpose do you serve?

Debating exactly how they'd be able to heal though... because I do WANT them to be able to gain back what was taken from them and now... now I'm thinking to just dyad them like in SW. So, what if there's a way for Victor and Nova to share in their healing? Idfk the details, but it would result in Nova having Nightwalker eyes, Victor's eyes no longer glow like before, and them both having fangs. I genuinely have no idea, but the idea is to sorta merge their abilities and traits i guess? because their stuff was taken so now, they’re sharing it with each other.

They leave him in the middle of the forest, bloody and far weaker than he's ever been before.

When he wakes, the first thing he does is try to stand up. He tries to do anything other than just lie on the ground and be the weak being his aunt told him he was as he stood in the same cell in the dungeon he grew up in, blood dripping from the corners of his mouth, but he can't get his arms to move how he wants them to and his entire body trembles. 

The dirt is cold beneath him, freezing as he curls his fingers into it. He can barely gather enough energy to spit another mouthful of blood off to the side, where a stray critter stares back at him.

He's not a monster to be reckoned with now, barely human in the way he can't even drag himself forward or climb to his feet or do anything that would help himself out of this mess. 

He doesn't know how many times he drifts in and out of consciousness. All he really knows is that at some point, there are people calling his name. He thinks they touch him, that they lift him from the dirt and hold him close, but all the colors in his vision blur together. 

His name is called again. He doesn't answer. 

x

The next time he wakes is in a room he doesn't know.

Panic is squeezing hard enough at his chest that he loses his next breath as he sits up in a bed that is not his own, blankets falling down to his bare waist.

His eyes flicker around the room, desperate for any details that might tell him where he is. He sees golden trophies, red stashes, a barrage of mismatched tools left on an abandoned study desk, a fire gauntlet sitting in the middle. An open closet with bright outfits peaking through, old makeup smudged on a full length mirror. 

His eyes linger, once he sees the mirror. 

He shifts, taking himself in. Bruises curve around the side of his stomach. Gauze is taped to his left shoulder, following the line of his spine, where the cuts beneath still burn at every shuddering inhale. There's a lone bandaid against the cut on his cheekbone. His hair is slightly wet, and the blood that had been caked across his face and the front of his chest have been wiped away, like someone had taken the time to drag a wet rag across all the parts of him they deemed salvageable. 

He feels incomplete, looking at himself, like a secondhand copy instead of the real thing. It's a disconnect at first, until he swallows and remembers why.

His fangs were gone, and they weren't coming back. The same could be said of his darkstone, his neck bare, his fingers still aching from the way his aunt had taken her time in ripping every ring from his fingers, pulling at bones until they popped, healing them only to do the same over and over again - 

The door to his left gently swings open then, stopping his thoughts before they can run rampant. He turns to meet whoever it is, heart jumping into his throat, defenseless and exhausted, only for it to be no other than Nova looking back at him, one hand curled around the corner of the doorknob. 

Both of their worlds seem to stop, when they look at each other. 

His name leaves her lips in a whisper, and he feels his chest heave with a sob. She reaches him as he crumbles, wrapping her arms around him in a tight hug, tears slipping down both of their cheeks. 

Nova doesn't let go of him. 

x

"It was the only place I could think of," Vera tells him while she paces the room, picking at the corners of her fingernails. "I knew she wouldn't be able to reach you here, Victor, and I had to trust that I was making the right decision." She pauses long enough to make another circle around the room before looking up from her fidgeting hands to meet his eyes. "There was nowhere else for you to go." 

"What about Nova?" he asks from the middle of the couch. "This is a risk for her too." 

Nova reaches over and grabs his hand, squeezing it. "I don't care about the risk," she tells him immediately. "I care about you." There is nothing but conviction in her tone, and his heart skips a beat. "You...you were really hurt, Victor. You're still hurt."

"I'm fine." 

"You're actually not," Vera chimes in as Victor shoots her a look. "I don't know what you remember, but she left you in the middle of the woods. You were barely conscious and bloody - "

"Hey," Vargas cuts in, slowly standing from Victor's other side. "Let's take a minute, yeah?" He eyes all three of them carefully, catching Vera's eye. "All that matters is that we found you and you're safe." 

The room lapses into silence.

Victor twists his fingers between Nova's. 

x

"Your room is pretty," he whispers as she helps him settle under her blankets, pillows pressing softly against his back. 

He had tried to fight her to the ground about how he wouldn't take her bed, how the floor would be the best place for him to sleep, but Nova was quick to shut down every excuse he tried to make. She reaches behind him to fluff the pillows a bit more, fingers sliding against the skin of his bicep as she pulls back. 

Victor reaches out and grabs her wrist.

Nova doesn't pull away, eyes flicking across his face. He wonders if she can read every single feeling he tries to hide, wonders if she can hear the beat of his heart and the fluttering tug of his stomach every time he looks at her. He doesn't know what else to say. 

Nova speaks for him, slowly bringing her hand up to his face. Her thumb gently presses against his lips before dragging down to his chin, and then down his neck, stopping on his chest, where his darkstone used to be. Victor swallows and feels like he has to say something before he loses her too. 

"Did you help? Clean me up?" 

Nova's thumb brushes against his skin. 

"I did," she whispers, quiet, careful, like she's afraid he might break. "There was a lot of blood." 

He exhales, unable to stop the shiver that comes with thinking back to everything he could remember. The knife, the boots stomping at his side, the sight of his aunt, growing ever closer. Blood filling his mouth as he stared at his fangs, sitting on the ground just out of reach.

There's a lump in his throat.

Nova's hand drags downwards, tracing his skin, stopping just before the start of his bruising. His breath hitches - but he knows he's not ready, not when he doesn't think he deserves her touch, not when he's weak and far from the vampire she got to know.

He reaches up and grabs her hand before gently pulling it away, tucking them both under the blankets bundled around his waist.

There are so many things he wants to say. Nothing comes out. Nova shifts, and her body slides closer, like she can't stand that there's space between them. His heart warms just a bit at the idea, and all at once, he can speak again, words tumbling from his mouth before he can stop them. 

"Will you stay with me?" 

It's stupid to ask, when her version of a bed is already set up on the floor beside her actual bed, because she had said sleeping on the couch would raise too many questions. But Nova's eyes soften like it makes sense, and she's moving to lay beside him before he can talk himself back out of it. 

Something in Victor clicks back into place.

He hadn't realized anything was missing. 

x

Victor feels like he's a child again as they wait outside Nova's family home, hiding behind a berry bush. Nova watches the front door of her home like a hawk, and he stares at the colorful berries taunting him until his stomach makes the decision for him.

He reaches out and picks a few, tucking them in his other palm, one eye on the girl beside him, who doesn't even flinch at his unexpected movement. 

He's gathered enough berries to call them a snack and is tossing one into his mouth when Nova suddenly grabs his arm and pulls him down, concealing them both behind the berry bush. He's barely able to keep ahold of the berries in palm as they both look at each other. He glares at her like she'll actually be intimated by such a thing. She isn't. 

"Do you go around shoving all injured vampires like this or is it something reserved only for me?" he deadpans, popping another berry into his mouth.

Nova sputters for a moment before her eyebrows knit into something more serious and she shushes him at the same time he listens to her father laugh, as loud and boisterous as ever. 

"Trust me," her father says after, sounding content with himself. "Even if the vampires decided to try something, they would be no match for us. We've reinforced everything since the truce. You don't have to worry." 

Victor steals a peek over the top of the bushes, catching sight of another man beside her father with salt and pepper hair and a finely trimmed beard. He holds a pile of papers in one arm, slashed through with red ink. "And the children?" he asks, and Victor isn't sure what hides in his tone, but there's something about the way he says it that doesn't sit right with him. 

Nova's father reaches over and claps him around the shoulders with a firm smile. "Nova's training the children."

Nova flinches beside him at the sound of her own name and Victor is reaching for her before he can stop her, fingers curling around the edge of her sleeve. 

"Commander Bright," the other man starts carefully, shifting to either foot like he doesn't trust himself to speak. "About your daughter - "

"What about her?" 

The man clears his throat, suddenly unsure of himself. "She chose the vampires over her family, Commander Bright." There's a short pause before the man continues, sounding steadier. "As much as you've been trying to erase that, it is a part of our history now."

Victor's fingers slide around Nova's wrist. She's trembling, for as much as she tries to hide it. 

"And I'm training her as well, General, because I'm already aware of what wrong-doing my daughter has done. I suggest you leave me to tend to family matters while you focus on our inside projects." 

And suddenly, the world isn't as small as them hiding away from Nova's father so that they can sneak back into her house together, because the reality of what they are both really chancing hovers in the driveway long after they have dismissed the other man, staring up at Nova's bedroom window. 

Victor feels sick.

END OF PART ONE PART TWO COMING SOON...

[keepswingin]

wait. Wait. I had a thought.

Am I the only one to one who noticed that victor landed on his back twice—once when nova flipped him (and he makes a comment about it still hurting later, however humorous it was supposed to be) and then when they fall from the tower. Insert something something bruises and/or bruised ribs

Bonus points if nova’s looking for him and sees it and is a little guilty. Presumably she’s bruised but wow she bounced back so fast. Poor Victor did not, or at least we didn’t see it. So…there’s some good potential there

He's not fast enough to turn so that he lands on anything else than his ribs when he falls from the tower, and it hurts way worse than he thought it would, a groan spilling from between his lips before he can stop it.

He lays on the ground for a long moment, listening as the others erupt into cheers, hugging and high-fiving, thoughts racing through his head. Did he do enough? Was everything finally healed? Was their war over? 

He tries to sit up, and bites his lip when he puts pressure on his side from the movement, flinching and squeezing his eyes shut as he tries to hold everything in.

It - It hurts, and he had joked that he was okay with walking crooked for the rest of his life, but he actually wasn't, not when there was so much left for him still to put back together, not when he wanted to follow Nova to the ends of the earth and not once look back. 

Nova. 

Victor's eyes snap open and he quickly turns to look around for her, tightness pulling at his chest, one hand pressed to his side in an attempt to alleviate the pain as he scans the crowd, because she fell too. What if she hit her head or - 

"Victor!" His eyes land on her as she rushes over, her eyes widening in worry when she sees the way he's clutching at his side like he can fix it from the inside out. "Are you okay?"

She falls to his side, one hand wrapping around his shoulder, the other hovering uncertainly in the air between them. He gives her a smile, reaching out and wrapping her hand in his own. 

"Are you okay?" he rebukes, even as he winces again and isn't the best at hiding it. Nova gives him a quick nod, but her eyes stay with his, and she doesn't look any less worried. 

"Nothing I can't bounce back from," she dismisses, and from the way she's already moving to help him stand, he figures she's probably not lying. "How bad is it?" 

He's ashamed to admit how much he leans on her in order to climb back to his feet, her hand still braced against his shoulder, the other held tightly in his own. Between Nova and what he draws from his darkstone, eyes flashing, he eventually makes it to his feet, though he grimaces as he does so, mouthing a curse that Nova doesn't miss.

She doesn't let go of him. 

"It's not bad," he whispers, squeezing at her hand, shooting her another smile that he hopes works better than the last. "Just a bit of a fall, and my ribs are," he sighs, shifting, before regretting it, "still a bit off, from the other day." 

Her face falls far too fast, and Victor can't backtrack quick enough as soon as he realizes he's said too much, because the last thing he wants to do is worry her, but before he can open his mouth again, the sky above them opens up, and they're drenched shortly after that, rain slipping down his cheeks and frizzing Nova's hair. 

The crowd around them erupts for a second time, blood fruit blooming near and far. He's happy, and he knows Nova is too when she's looking at the rest of her people, her hand falling away from his shoulder, but when she turns back to face him, there's a horrible sort of guilt sprawled across her face, and he nearly closes the distance between them to get rid of it.

He tugs at her hand, urges her closer, but she doesn't move, and he can't help but wonder if he's said too much when the pain has made it hard to think. 

"Nova," he says, as though the sound of her name will fix everything and then some. He pulls at her again. "It's okay. I'm okay. The darkstone will heal me. I'll be good as new by the end of the week." 

"But you wouldn't be hurt in the first place if I hadn't attacked you - "

He can't help the way the words make him chuckle, even if that hurts him too. "That was not an attack. I was on my guard." He tugs her for a third time, and this time she doesn't fight because she's too busy looking at him like he's lost his mind.

They're close enough that he can see the hidden colors that flicker in her eyes, the way her lips part like he's not the only one expecting more.

"I could've flipped you like the rotten daywalker you are," he whispers, attempting to tease, even when he nearly loses the words before they leave his lips. 

They're...too close. He can hear the way her chest stutters over its next heartbeat. 

Nova's eyes flicker to his lips. "But you didn't." 

Victor swallows, mouth suddenly dry. "I didn't." 

It's still raining. He watches as a droplet slides down her skin before curving around her chin. He reaches out to catch it with his thumb and Nova's breath hitches, and he looks back up at her and they're moving closer - 

"You did it!" Ray yells as he runs over, pulling Nova from Victor's grip to lift her up and wrap her in a hug.

Vargas is behind him and moves to Victor's side to squeeze his shoulder, Vera not far behind, but the moment is shattered all the same as Victor and Nova turn away from each other and to their friends. 

This moment between them might've been shattered, but they both know it will not be the last. They hold that thought close as they smile at all the people they've saved, and try to pretend that their hearts aren't beating faster in the aftermath.

[keepswingin]

"Victor," the Eldress calls as soon as she hears him, her cold voice snapping across the darkness of the house. "Come here." 

(tw: implied non-con)

He cringes as soon as he hears her and berates himself silently as he drags his feet towards her study, everything within him turning to ice the closer he gets. Leave it to him to mess everything up by not closing the door as quietly as he usually did. 

The last thing he wanted to deal with tonight was her, especially not after he's had such a good day. Nova had reached for him today, fingers curling around the cusp of his elbow, laughter spilling from her lips as her shoulder pressed against his own. He still had butterflies even thinking back to it now, smiling softly.

Vera had been the one to tell him friends first and everything else later, but it was hard, and harder still when Nova reached for him or hugged him like she's never hugged anyone else before. He wanted nothing more than to stay with Nova and his friends for the rest of the night, but he was never allowed such a courtesy. 

Victor slows to a stop right before the doorway, struggling to keep himself calm. His hands are already shaking, and his breath is already tight, knotting in his chest. He tries to be brave, whenever she calls for him, whenever he has to face her and everything that's built between them, a dam that he hopes never breaks. 

But it never makes it easier to face her.

With a final exhale and a curl of his hands into fists, he slips into the room, stopping a few feet from the front of her desk.

Soft lamplight bathes the room in a yellowish glow and catches the empty potion bottles lining the far wall. Papers are stacked haphazardly on one side of the desk, a few on the cusp of falling. Ink pens sit neatly in their holders, and a waxing station holding their family seal is on the other side. The window sitting behind her is covered by blinds cruelly taped together.

The Eldress herself is as composed as ever as she finishes writing something down before folding the paper over and tucking it into an envelope. She folds her hands together and looks up at Victor, her sharp eyes flicking across his body before finally landing on his face. 

"Where have you been?" she asks him curtly. 

"I was out with my friends," he replies, forcing his voice to stay steady even if he feels far from it. "Curfew isn't for another fifteen minutes - " 

The Eldress holds up a hand.

Victor's mouth snaps shut.

He squeezes his fingernails into his skin, desperately trying to keep the growing panic at bay. He should be used to this, he should be better than this, and yet, every time she questions him like he's done something wrong, he finds his resolve quickly fading. 

"I asked where you've been," she tells him as she stands from her chair and starts to make her way around her desk, one sure foot in front of another. Victor's body begins to tremble as she grows closer. He can't stop it, can't keep himself from being scared of the one thing he's never truly been able to escape. 

He flounders for a response, one that won't make her angry, that won't make this worse, that'll keep him safe and remembering the joys of today and not the future horrors of the night.

"We hung around the outside of town, close to the barrier - " 

The Eldress hums, close enough to reach out and touch him. It's another way to control him that she's mastered, interrupting him before he can get the proper words out, holding the power of the conversation without giving him a chance to fight back.

She lifts a hand and rests it on the curve of his shoulder, thumb pressing into bone. Her other hand reaches down and captures his before he can move, prying his fingers apart so that she can slip her own in between. 

"You were with her, weren't you Victor?" 

Every cell in his body freezes up as soon as she leans in close to his ear and whispers the question, awaiting his reaction.

For a long moment, he can't bring himself to speak, guilt and shame eating him alive as Nova's smiling face flashes through his mind, as the day replays itself over again, as he tries to pretend that it's Nova's hand gripping his with intent, and not The Eldress' instead. 

"I thought I told you already, Victor," she continues, close enough that her breath presses against his skin, the hold on his hand and his shoulder growing more powerful, more painful, "that she couldn't have you." She allows the silence to linger between them, all the air sucked out of the room and leaving him growing colder, growing numb as the hand wrapped around his shoulder slowly slides over to wrap around his neck, holding him captive. "Because you're mine."

She squeezes hard at his neck, and he can feel her breath on her skin, can hear nothing but the rapid thud of his heartbeat as she closes in, a predator to prey. He's as helpless as he always has been, every single time. His friends think he's something they'll never catch up to. If only they knew that they left him behind long ago. 

Her fangs brush skin. He feels sick. "What are you, Victor?" 

Her grip is painful. Her words are cruel. He swallows back bile. 

"I - I'm yours," he whispers, barely audible. "All yours."

The Eldress smiles against his skin.

[keepswingin]

can i just. can i just yell about daybreak for a minute. about how much it's my fav and like. queenmaker is getting all this recognition but like i can't put into words how much i adore daybreak just in general. i told her to make it an actual book and she said no but like. god i love daybreak.

also also. i bullied her into valleys. guys VALLEYS in 2025!!!! and she updated it. crying. screaming. (she is making valleys an actual book. i think. idk if i have to delete this post five years from now for copyright issues that's on her. but. anyway. roo appreciation hour i guess? idk

[thewriterscall]

victor + nova + blood and hidden wounds 👀

so this is the first fanfic I've actually written since maybe the end of 2023? and it's for Zombies. 100% of the responsibility here goes to keeps, y'all

(also check out their fics bc their whump and h/c is amazing)

cw: minor injury, blood, mild cursing

read on AO3

~

The area around the gate was buzzing. Usually, that entire block of Shadyside was empty. A maker’s market had been Nova's idea, though she would probably argue otherwise, and it felt like the first concrete thing Victor was doing to bring the everyday people together. When he was there barely an hour ago, there were people setting up stalls of baked goods, art from both cultures, and those stupid soaps that smelled like everything from leather to bloodfruit. He never really understood the appeal, but some part of him wondered what scents Daywalkers thought were good enough to sell. And he sure as night wasn't asking Nova. That would be weird. Or maybe she would giggle at him and he would get to see her smile and it would be worth the teasing that would come after.

"Back off, vampire," someone yelled, and Victor's smile broke and shattered like glass. When he was walking up, he hoped that the crowd was something else, something more like a gathering than a stand off. Was the whole gathering/standoff thing going to be a trend? Because seriously, 2/2 was a pretty shit track record.

Victor pushed his way through the cluster of bodies in black clothes. There was a bush on fire, crackling bright and way too close to about five hundred other things that could explode. Victor liked fire sometimes, like when Nova did something cool and lit a space with lighting that wasn't so bright it made him need to spend fifteen minutes squinting in order to see anything at all. This fire, he didn't like.

No one else was looking at it though, because the fight going on was much more interesting than a local market and the modest crowd was morphing quickly into an audience. Wind picked up, too condensed to be anything else but a vampire's powers, and the fire reacted, spiraling high and teasing the edge of a wooden cart. "Enough!" Victor shouted, but he was drowned out by the wind and the immovable force that was a century of hate. He couldn't see the vampire through the wind, but the daywalker was older than him, maybe twice his age, and honestly Victor should have held a history lecture movie-in-the-main-square style to catch people up to speed because why were the grown adults acting the way the kids at camp did on the first day. He was not qualified for this.

"Keep your paws to yourself, daywalker thief!" The vampire yelled and Victor moved on instinct and hope, sliding towards the edge of the fight to pull the tornado towards himself instead, clinging to the ground with his tiptoes as the other vampire realized he was losing control and tried to wrest it back. A banner on the side of the cart caught fire and the entire crowd gasped, pulling away. Victor tore his wind in two and wrapped the second half around the flame.

He knew a thing to two about fire now. The orchard fiasco taught him that wind could make it bigger. But if he could pull the oxygen out, he could make it smaller. Victor tried it with Nova's torch once. This was a lot bigger than that.

"Stop fighting me," he gritted out at the vampire, fingernails digging into his palms as he held his power tight, trying to force reverse the updraft. Debris flew through the air, bouncing across unruly air currents and scattering the audience. That was good, because if Victor failed, his aunt was going to kill him, and the less people around the slower she would hear about it. She might kill him anyway. She barely tolerated having Nova in Shadyside. The moment she learned that having other daywalkers here went this badly, she'd never let him plan anything again. But Victor had it handled, it was fine. She would never know, and he would keep his fangs.

Holding control over two currents with different intensities was hard, the kind of precision work he only had to do at the end of a drawing that took him days, when he could see the complete work as the light at the end of the tunnel. This felt like splitting himself in two, tearing into something that never should have been pushed at as the other vampire's dark stone flickered out and the fire shrank to nothing.

Victor went down to his knees. He felt like he'd run five miles—there was a cramp in his side so bad he wanted to curl up on the cobblestones right there and then. Instead he pressed his forehead to the ground for just a single moment and stood up, adjusting his jacket in a way he hoped looked nonchalant.

"A unity market is supposed to be self explanatory," Victor said to the vampire. His voice came out steady, which was unexpected. "Fighting each other nearly destroyed the orchard. Did you need a demonstration of it doing the same thing over here to believe that?"

The man couldn't meet his eyes. Victor realized his own darkstone was still glowing. He pushed out a slow breath, and tried not to react when the pain in his side doubled as his fangs retracted back. Victor didn't spend much more time there once the vendors started putting their stands back to rights and the audience turned back into an interested crowd. He needed to meet Nova—they were supposed to go and look around together. So he left the crowd with the promise that he'd be back and hoped it sounded even remotely motivating and not like he was a kid making grandstanding threats.

Stars, he was tired.

It was evening outside when Victor stepped onto the beach. He was growing to love sunsets. Maybe he had to pull out his old paints again and try to capture it. He wasn't sure he had all the colors, now that he thought about it. There was no orange in Shadyside. Maybe daywalkers had the right colors. He could talk to one of the vendors about it later, maybe buy some. It would probably make sense for him to participate, as an example. People considering him, of all people, someone to follow was still a novel concept, but he wouldn’t mind new art supplies. Bonus points if he could get Nova to sit for him. He could draw her by memory now, but she didn't have to know that. His dreams never really captured the little sparkle in her eye when she smiled just for him.

He pulled on the wind one more time, just enough to propel him onto their spot in the cliffs. The landing was rough, basically dumping himself onto the rock below. He might regret the use of power later, when he had to go back down to get Nova, but his side was still stinging and he was a little chilly and Victor just wanted to be somewhere only one other person ever went. Right then and there, the hood of his jacket made an attractive pillow, and tugging it around himself worked as a blanket. He’d watch the sunset, then go find Nova.

___

"Victor, wake up." His eyes shot open. It was true night now, the moon shining where the sun just was. "Wha—?" Victor’s side was tingling, like a low level burn.

"Hey," she said, in that same way she did months ago, with that fucking smile that drove him crazy. "Nova,” he said, and he knew exactly what the grin on his face looked like because he saw it in the corner of their video calls.

“Wait. Did you climb up here?" He pushed the heels of his palms into his eyes. "Night, I'm so sorry." Climbing up the cliffs was doable, at least for someone with the agility and physical strength that Nova had, but it was brutal.

"No, it's okay." There was a wrinkle in between her eyebrows. "I was worried."

Victor's entire body felt sluggish. "I fell asleep, I'm sorry." A new wave of adrenaline coursed through him, throwing the world into stark clarity. They had plans. "The market, shit, we should go."

Nova pulled back, and extended a hand to him. "We'll be fine, it doesn't close for another couple hours." Victor braced his feet, took her hand, and the entire world went white.

"Victor!" Someone shrieked, and it took the better part of a minute for him to realize it had to be Nova because she was half holding him up and, night, wasn’t a cramp supposed to go away? Victor locked his knees and forced himself back up to full height, then grabbed for Nova as his vision went spotty again.

"What is going on?" Her hands around his elbows guided him to sitting on a higher ledge, and a hand traveled up from his arm to around the back of his neck. Her hands were warm. Now that he thought about it, he was still chilly. His jacket wasn't helping.

"I broke up a fight earlier," he admitted, head rolling against the rock. It was uncomfortable as anything, but it was the right angle for him to look at Nova while doing none of the work to hold himself up. "Guess it took more out of me than I thought."

Nova sat next to him, finger brushing his jaw. He wanted her to lean in and kiss him, more than he ever had before. She was stunning, hair down and shifting in the breeze and wearing enough red that it had to be for him. The white and gold sneakers she wore everywhere were still on her feet, though, and he was glad she wore them because he liked her for everything she was.

He could, Victor thought, lean just a couple inches forward. The movement was interrupted by a sharp pain in his side. "Ow." That was new. Maybe not a cramp? Nova took one look at the hand that shifted to cover his side and pulled his jacket back.

"Sun and stars, that's blood." Her face had gone white. The words needed two turns in his brain before they computed.

"It's what?" A tap of his fingers to his shirt came back red. In his defense, so was his shirt. "Oh. Shit. I don't know how I missed that."

Nova yanked his shirt up. Victor's brain managed half a thought about how that sentence could have been so much nicer in any other context before she pressed down and he let out some really embarrassing pained noise he'd never made before. "Sorry, I'm so sorry," Nova whispered. "I'm going to give myself some light, okay? I won't touch you with it." Victor wanted to say he would be fine, but having a ball of flames that close to his face was terrifying down to a primal level, and flinching back really didn't make things less painful.

"I'm so sorry," she said again. "But I need to see." Victor tried to still as she studied him. "Did something hit you?" Nova asked him, just before he felt awkward enough in the silence that he tried to say something to make her laugh. He hadn't seen enough of her smile yet today. Victor contorted his neck to see what she was looking at. There were two red stripes wrapped around his lower ribcage, and blood was smeared down to the waistband of his jeans. Now that he could see it, the pain hit him all at once, bright and sharp.

"I—I don't know," he managed, pulling in a shaky breath. He made it, what, three months before he was right back to being a screwup. And now he had Nova dealing with the fallout.

"This one looks like it's clotted, but there's something in this one. A piece of plastic maybe? It probably moved, and now it's bleeding again."

In fairness, if he had to have someone, she was probably the most qualified. He couldn't handle Vargas’s freakout or Vera's pretend confidence right then. Not when he needed to lead them, too. When this was him failing them. Nova's fire extinguished and she sat up. In sharp night vision, Victor watched her pull her jacket tighter. The knowledge that he was making her feel the way she did right then chewed a hold in his stomach.

"We need to get you to the palace," she said, and Victor's entire body went stiff.

"No. No no."

"Victor."

"Nova. Please." He sounded a little breathless. He felt a little lightheaded. It was impossible to distinguish blood loss from panic. Nova's hand found his, and she returned his desperate squeeze just as hard. "I'm finally doing what I need to do for them, I can't put that in danger. And," he sucked in a breath. "My aunt. I don't want her to know. I can't give her any reason to take it back."

Nova sucked her bottom lip between her teeth, then let it out with a heavy breath. She knew what he meant, he knew she did. "Okay." She dug into her bag and pulled out a white case. "You're lucky—"

"I know," Victor interrupted, squeezing her hand just a little. Nova gave him an exasperated look, but it was a fond one, and it gave him one of those little smiles that he'd been chasing after.

"I meant that you're lucky I spend most of my time with people that spar for fun." She let go of his hand to dig through the pouch and pulled out what Victor thought might actually be sterile wipes, gauze, tape, and tweezers. Nova impressed him every day, but this was the protective kind of caring he was learning was her specialty.

"I bet I'll get better care here than I would there," he teased. She rolled her eyes at him.

"This is going to burn," Nova murmured, opening one of the packets with her teeth, a little ball of fire in her other hand, and he couldn't even come up with something smart to say before she was already working. The first swipe of the wipe triggered an entire stream of curses. He tried to stay still and not make noise after that because she apologized every time he so much as breathed and he was pretty certain by the end that she was hurting more than he was.

“Stars,” he breathed when she pulled the piece of debris out. The light in her hand went out. “Shh,” she replied, almost absentmindedly, “I’m sorry, I know.”

Victor didn’t like the hollowness in her voice. “Nova?”

She looked up at him, almost through him for a moment. He shouldn’t have asked her to do this, no matter how much the idea of being poked at in the palace made him want to claw his skin raw. Blue eyes focused on him. “Sorry.”

“Are you okay?” he asked and couldn’t help the flinch when she pressed a piece of gauze hard against his side.

“I’m hurting you and you’re asking if I’m okay?” Her eyes were a little red rimmed. “I’m fine.”

“Are you sure?”

“It’s just—” Nova sniffled, wiping her nose on the elbow of her jacket. “Oh that was gross, sorry.” Victor managed a weak chuckle. “I know how to do this because I know how to hurt you. Not that I would. But I always thought I’d be using these skills…for something else.” She offered him a small smile. Victor felt like his insides had been scooped out. “I’d rather use them like this.”

She spent another few minutes wiping the blood off of his skin and putting together bandages. "You have to clean and rebandage them both later," Nova told him for the third time, pressing tape and gauze over the smaller cut. "When you shower. I will call you and ask."

"Okay."

"I will."

Victor couldn't help the smile on his face. It was probably big enough to be embarrassing. He didn't care. "I know."

Nova made a huffing sound. "You're awful."

"You're still a dream come true." He said, leaning just enough that he could curl his fingers underneath hers and tug her hand to his lips.

Nova smiled at him, silhouette crystal clear in the light of the moon, and leaned in. Her forehead pressed against his, close enough that their breath mingled. "And there's no place I'd rather be."

[1percentcharge]

One of my roommates cannot stand the way I play minecraft

[1percentcharge]

Instead of looking for diamonds, fighting mobs, trying to go to the nether, doing potions/enchantments/whatever, I like to build these 1-block-wide platforms far above the ground that i walk on to explore without getting lost, attacked or generally inconvenienced. And they hate it

[1percentcharge]

“If you don’t want to get lost just use a compass!” Takes redstone. Also I don’t want to. And on the ground there’s mobs

“Fight the mobs, they’re part of the game!” no. I get scared

“Just use mine carts!” And use all that iron?

“Then use boats and ice!” You need enchantments to collect ice. All my paths take is dirt and ladders (and torches)

“But they’re so UGLY!” Not the point

[1percentcharge]

my paths

[pink-thing-enjoyer]

No no they have a point this would actually scare me more cuz what if I fall down and die

[big-condiments-official]

congratulations! You have recreated the fallout franchise's awful highways.

[kangaracharacha]

@keepswingin

[keepswingin]

@rainfallingfromthesky SKYBRIDGE MENTION IN 2025?!?

[keepswingin]

okayyy so i saw you do requests hehe!

i need me some more victor whump. like what was up w his indication that he’s been in the dungeon before. and ngl his aunt seems abusive. those things she said to him? the defanging? i neeeeeed!

so possibly a fanfic where his aunt is mean asf and he’s in the dungeon?? 🥺

Victor stares up at a ceiling that he's had memorized for three years running and heaves a sigh that echoes through the expanse of the room.

His eyes have already adjusted to the darkness, but he's sick of counting the number of rings in a chain, or the marks on the far wall that the last poor soul had carved in. Being in the dungeon these days is more boring than anything else, and his aunt is overdue for her visit where she berates him for all the ways he's destroying the royalty of their bloodline.

It doesn't help that his lower back aches from the abrupt change in bedding, or that there's a headache blooming in the back of his skull from having not eaten. 

It's all things that Victor can manage, things expected of his time in the dungeon, but he's impatient and anxious this time, ready to swear he'll never do anything wrong again with two fingers crossed behind his back just for the sake of seeing the night sky once more. 

Victor sighs again, rolling onto his side, stone digging into bone. It's pointless to try and get comfortable, but hell if he doesn't try anyway, stubborn to a fault. There's a part of him that prefers the silence of the dungeon over the way the entire town has looked at him as of late, but even he knows not to linger in places he shouldn't stay.

There's a bang in the distance.

Victor listens to the sounds of his aunt's steady footsteps until she reaches the front of his cell. He listens to the silence, waits as it ticks away, sure she'll make the first move. She always has, after all, from the moment he found himself standing in the middle of her foyer, pictures of great grandparents he'd never met staring down at him and her shrill voice calling for him from down the hall.

"Victor." She says, sharp.

Victor smiles and drags himself into a sitting position, stretching his arms above his head. The Eldress wears a look of distain, but he's used to that too. "About time Auntie," he drawls, meeting her narrowed eyes. "I'm ready to rejoin the ranks." He gives a mock salute as he says it, unable to keep himself from flashing a patronizing smile. 

"Victor," she says again. "Why can't you be the leader our people deserve?" 

He pretends to think about it before giving her a shrug. "It's more fun not to be, isn't it?" 

Maybe it's the way he says it, or maybe she's been thinking about doing such a thing for a while, but for some reason, she changes then, eyes darkening with something he has only seen once or twice before, directed at the likes of the daywalkers.

Her darkstones flash with power, and the door to the cell is thrown open by a breeze powerful enough that it clangs loudly against the wall. 

Victor jumps, not expecting it, and before he can react she's closed the distance between them and backed him into the far corner, his back slamming against the stone that holds this place so still.

He catches sight of her fangs, the red swirl of her eyes, and something cold chills him from the inside out. She is all she is meant to be like this, a killer in the night, the queen of every single monster within the town, the one not even he is allowed to go against - 

"I'm done with this," she hisses, every word sinking into his skin like some sort of poison, "and I'm done with you not listening, Victor."

He tries to say something back, but the Eldress' eyes flash a deeper shade of crimson, and he finds that the words stay stuck in the middle of his throat. Panic pushes at his limbs, telling him he should move. His body stays still.

Something in her face flickers - it's gone before he can catch it.

"Look at that," she whispers, taunting him as every muscle in his body seems to pull taut all at once, leaving him breathless and aching. "You can listen after all." 

A new kind of fear drops like a stone into his stomach. Her glowing eyes stay with his even as time stretches on, and for the first time, Victor is terrified of everything she could chose to do, when she has control of him like this, more vampire than human. 

He tries to speak again, throat bobbing uselessly. The Eldress smiles. Shivers shoot down his spine. 

"Ah, ah, ah," she tuts, quieter now, careful, as though the rest of the world could see what she's done and condemn her for it, as though she hadn't written the very laws she's breaking herself decades ago. "Don't you want to listen to me, Victor?" 

His body seizes at the soft call of his own name, shuddering slightly before stilling, pulled so tightly once more that he thinks his bones will break under the force in which they're being coerced.

"That's better," she tells him, red eyes following everywhere his eyes try to hide. "You're so much better when you listen." She pauses for a long moment, leaving him to struggle in the between. "Maybe this is how I'll teach you how to act, nephew. You'll finally understand how to lead." 

Her darkstones flare a brilliant red and every bone in his body reacts in tandem, lighting with pain like they're being burned from within. She steps away from him and he's tumbling to the ground before he can process what's going on, arms shaking as he struggles to hold himself up.

He tries to lift his head to meet her eyes once more, but his vision blurs and he can't help but wonder if this is what dying feels like. 

The Eldress stares at him from outside the cell, door still wide open. A flick of her wrist and he is slammed to the ground, cheek pressing against stone. His cry echoes down the empty corridor. "Have you learned your lesson this time, Victor?" 

His mouth won't work. His body hurts. His mind is running away from him before he can catch it, and yet the night calls him forth, wants to heal him, wants to remind him of the connection that is shared before the Eldress shatters that too. 

"Yes," he nearly gasps, desperate for relief, desperate to run and never look back, even if he knows he will always come back against everything within him urging him otherwise. "Yes, I have, I'll - " 

"You'll lead," she interrupts easily, her darkstones finally fading away. "You'll lead our people how I tell you to."

Victor scrambles to pick himself up from the floor as though that will keep him from becoming trapped again, heartbeat thudding hard in his ears.

By the time he turns to where the Eldress had stood just outside his cage, she is gone, and it is just him alone, staring at the way out like it had always been open and waiting for him to escape.

[keepswingin]

Victor stares at the steps like they'll move for him. 

They don't.

prompt: chronic pain

He scowls and grumbles under his breath, leaning more weight onto his cane. He remembers when it used to be easy to do simple everyday things, but that time was long ago, and now his body liked to fight him every bit of the way. Everyone tried to reassure him that it was normal, that years of strain simply caught up to them, but he knew deep down it wasn't. 

He had people to blame, had names and faces and places, reasons even, for why his knees ached and his fingers couldn't curl around coffee mugs. It wasn't hard to guess why his jaw was stiff, when his fangs had long been torn from his gums. Or how all of his problems now could be traced to a single event back then, growing up or growing older, done to him under order of the Eldress. 

The other vampires he grew up with had similar problems now, to some extent, but sometimes it felt like Victor was the only one who was vocal about why. He hates it, hates that he's this way, hates that he can't even climb the damn stairs without having to rehash his entire life. 

Sometimes he wondered if he was vocal enough, until he remembers that if he was quieter, maybe he wouldn't ache so much.

The front door opens and closes, and he listens as shoes are shucked off and house keys jingle as they're hung. 

Victor debates staying silent, and then figures that's stupid because when she rounds the corner to go to the kitchen, she'll see him anyway. It's better to just swallow his pitiful pride and get it over with.

"Hey babe," he calls, trying to sound joyful, before that facade falls away too and just leaves him standing and staring at a staircase that hasn't gotten any easier to climb. "How was it?" 

"Exhausting," Nova replies, and Victor can hear her flicking through their mail as she says it. "Remind me not to go next time." 

"I distinctly remember telling you that this morning," he says with a roll of his eyes, but his lips pull all the same. Just hearing her voice is enough to soothe the nonstop ache of his body, as ridiculous as it sounds. Maybe she is magic. 

He listens as she puts the mail away and then makes her way towards him, socks slipping against the hardwood floors.

When she turns the corner, she stops when she sees him, her eyes lingering on the cane he leans against, the hunched draw of his shoulders. He refuses to use the cane as much as possible, and they both know it, an extra precaution for the really bad days, if nothing else. 

"Hey," she says, softly. 

"Hey," he echoes, shifting. 

Nova walks forward, one hand wrapping around the curve of his shoulder. "You could've called me," she whispers, gentle in the ways a daywalker shouldn't be. The Elders would be rolling in their graves if they knew just who she turned out to be.

"And ruin your father's monthly meeting?" he throws back, ever the rebel. "He'd hate me even more." 

She smiles, brushing a hand through his hair. "Let him hate us both then," she dismisses, braver than years ago. Her eyes flicker to the staircase they both stand in front of, looming and empty. "How long have you been standing here, Victor?" 

He shrugs. It's easier than saying the truth. 

Nova slides away from him, turning to the staircase. "Come on," she tells him, tugging gently at his open hand, ever the saint. "Let's go upstairs."

There's never annoyance or anger, when she finds him like this, curling into himself and quiet while he stares at something that should be easy for him to do. She's simply supportive, helpful hands and kind words as they work through the barrier together, always at his side. 

Victor doesn't know where he would be without her. 

Halfway up the stairs and aching, he slumps against her, exhaling shakily. Nova catches him, holds him up, doesn't let go.

"I'm sorry," he mumbles. "I'm sorry I'm such a mess. You didn't sign up for this." One of her hands runs through his hair before coming to a rest on the back of his neck. 

"You're not a burden to me, Victor," she says, not for the first time. "Not now, not ever." He pulls back, and catches her eyes, the encouraging smile still pulling at her lips. "I love you."

A short pause as she leans up to press a kiss to his cheek, his nose. The corner of his jaw. "All of you." And then finally his lips, and all his worries melt away, leaving just him and the person he's promised the rest of his life to.

[keepswingin]

the surge of x readers fics for this dude is so funny to me I don't remember if this was a thing for z2 or not anyway I'm fine in my angsty corner sure the discord conned me into writing x reader for like. everything else but I'm sticking to my guns for zombies xD xD

in other news what fic do we want first i got another part for defanging, chronic pain, implied non con, another dungeon fic -