ficlet/art in the spirit of jayce angst week. (under the cut, cw: suicidal thoughts) *holds my little traumatized optimist gently*
The thoughts, when they come, arrive vivid and terrifying.
They blended into something physical when he dreamed at night—if it was night. (In the darkness, he could not work out the hours.) There was no time in this place, just the beaten cycle of his body clinging to a mangled rhythm, forcing him awake when he wished he could sleep, and making him dream when he feared the visions that came when he closed his eyes. He was dying, he knew that. He felt it in his body, hollowing out under his ribcage. He felt it in his mind, which stopped caring about the filth he slept in. In his soul, which stripped him naked to the truths about himself.
The fire came alive on nights like this. Became the only living thing left to judge him. Mel burned with the light of the sun, beautiful and alluring and filling him with glittering lies. The Professor’s quiet voice, heavy with the weight of centuries, pressing down, down, down, into his lungs until the guilt choked in his throat. Ambessa’s dark eyes, the lick of her breath against his neck, telling him to go on, take it, destroy the world. And Viktor…. oh god, Viktor.
It should have been his body split on the concrete, his blood and his bones on the floor of the council room. Viktor was never supposed to be there. Trying to buy freedom for his people, when it had always been Piltover who’d failed them. Viktor, who paid the price of a freedom they could not even purchase in the end. Viktor, who told him, I was supposed to die , as if saving his life was wrong, as if his existence was a sin to be blotted out by a world that never loved him. Why did Viktor leave him for that, for loving him?
Maybe it would have been better if Viktor hadn’t found him in his apartment that night. If he’d never met him at all.
The thought caught in his throat, tight against tears that had long since dried up.
He wondered why he didn’t just end it all right now, take the sharp edge of obsidian over his wrist and watch the dim slit of sky fade into black. He was so young back then, fearless and righteous that when he went, the world would know what they’d done to him. But now he was afraid. Afraid with the fear of tasting true death, of feeling it frail and emaciated in his arms, of watching it wheeze rhythmically through metal tubes, of hearing it say, as if he’d always known, How much time do I have?
The death of breaking off a piece of your heart and watching it shrivel and wither into nothingness, taking your soul down with it and leaving your body behind…. That was the death he feared above all else.
He could not lose Viktor, he would not lose Viktor. And despite everything, he’d do it again—let Viktor look into his eyes again with that vicious glare, telling him he shouldn’t have brought him back.
I’m so sorry.
(A/N: originally published on AO3, not complete, later chapters will be much darker, so please be warned. his experience in the ravine is so important to me & I enjoyed exploring that & projecting (as you do)
Posting the opening scene of the first part of my incredibly bleak post-s4 pre-s5 fic. I wrote this months ago and I don't know if I'll continue/complete it but I actually quite like this bit after re-reading and polishing it up.
Warning for implied/discussed sexual harassment and assault. Also not tagging ships because there technically aren't any in this bit but the whole thing was supposed to be pre-dusteve
The soldiers are starting to become an issue.
Or rather – they’ve been an issue for months now, more and more of them swarming into Hawkins like ants on a picnic as spring turned to summer, setting about papering over the cracks in the town's foundations as though a few sheets of metal could hope to hold back what was on the other side. But lately it seems like they're all over, not even doing anything important but lurking on every street corner leering at anyone who walks by through a cloud of cigarette smoke, usually with at least one hand resting on their weapons, ready to draw.
The problem, as Hopper explains it one afternoon, is that most of the low-level grunts don’t know any more about the realities of situation than the average civilian. They don’t know what’s on the other side of those fissures they’re covering up, or why they’re devoting so much time and resources to hunting down one teenage runaway. Anything to do with El or the Upside Down is strictly classified on a need-to-know basis, so as far as the rank and file are concerned, they were drafted in to help with earthquake relief only to end up mired in the tedious milieu of suburbia. And so boredom had turned to restlessness had turned to frustration, and suddenly you’ve got a town overflowing with testosterone and soldiers passing the time by harassing the local women and intimidating the children.
It makes Steve uneasy, his anxiety levels – already at a baseline high these days – spiking even further every time he takes the van out and feels their eyes and their guns aimed in his direction, Dustin in the passenger seat scoffing under his breath about fascist pigs and bootlickers. There’s an edgy feeling in the air, like the whole town is a powder keg poised to explode.
Hopper pulls Steve and Jonathan aside one night and tells them to look out for Nancy and Robin when they’re out in public. It’s just about the only thing the two of them can see eye to eye on, implementing an unspoken buddy system for travelling to and from the station. There are more and more rumors piling up of girls being followed, girls being harassed and assaulted – always unverified and un-followed-up-on, because Powell and Callahan, incompetent though they were, skipped town before the quarantine was implemented and were swiftly replaced with military police. And the military looks after its own.
Steve thinks, just for a second, that he’s almost grateful Max is in a coma safe from all this bullshit, and then feels sick at himself for even having the thought. El disappears even further under Hopper’s watchful eye until Mike is complaining loudly that they barely see her anymore outside of official strategy meetings.
Nancy, predictably, hits the roof once she figures out what they’re doing.
“I’m so sick of this... chauvinistic crap,” she snaps, levelling Steve and Jonathan both with a glare that could strip paint off the walls. “What, does Hopper think the MPs are going to take a look at the two of you and think ‘oops, better not risk it’? Please.”
She has a point, of course. Nancy has killer aim and nerves of steel and is probably tougher than the rest of them put together, but –
Nancy is also five-foot-two, and so slight these days a strong wind could probably knock her over, and unless they’re being used for official Upside Down business her guns remain stashed in their brand new armory.
It’s not fair, but nothing is these days.
Robin remains unnaturally quiet about the whole thing until Steve asks if she’s mad at him, once Nancy and Jonathan have vacated the station to presumably continue yelling at each other elsewhere.
“I don’t know,” she says slowly. “I mean, I can’t say I’m thrilled at the implications of being chaperoned everywhere by you and Jonathan Byers of all people. But then I really don't want to be gang-raped by soldiers, either, so.”
Steve flinches at that before he can stop himself. It’s classic Robin in its blunt delivery, but not quite flippant enough to hide the real fear that lurks beneath. For a second a memory stirs at the back of his mind – a windowless cell, cold metal bench against his thighs, wondering where Robin is, what they’re doing to her, what they’re going to do to him – before he clamps down on it ruthlessly.
“You be careful, too,” Robin says, watching him closely, and not for the first time he wonders if she’s haunted by the same memories. They never talked about the details much, after. “I know it’s not very macho to admit or whatever, but having a penis doesn’t actually make you invincible.”
Steve’s gotten his ass beat enough times that he knows this already. The day after their first radio show, the military had descended on WSQK headquarters to haul them all off for individual questioning, demanding to know if they’d had any contact with one Jane Hopper, a.k.a. Test Subject Eleven. They’d eventually been granted permission to continue broadcasting, provided they promoted compliance with the new martial law and encouraged the citizens of Hawkins to be good little lab rats.
“Congratulations, guys,” Dustin had said dryly. “You’re the William Joyce of the apocalypse. Why don’t we put a People’s Receiver in every home while we’re at it?”
Steve, who’d never paid much attention in history class, hadn’t understood the reference, but then he hadn’t needed to in order to grasp the point Dustin was trying to make, on the nose though it was. They were an instrument of the regime now, to be used to cow the populace into further submission in between plays of Blondie and Queen.
Nancy, however, had shone with triumph. “It’s perfect. We can use their own propaganda against them, they’ll never suspect a thing.” She turned her gaze on Steve like a general about to give out marching orders; it was all he could do not to stand to attention. “Isn’t that what the Russians did, use a secret code? We’ll be hidden in plain sight.”
“In all fairness, that code was deciphered by a couple of minimum wage lackeys,” Robin said, raising her hand like was still in class. “In, like, a day.”
Nancy’s smile was like a steel trap. “Well then, it’s a good thing the minimum wage lackeys are on our side.”
So that was how it went for the next few months. Robin pulled all-nighters at the station, crafting coded messages out of her expansive knowledge of music trivia while Steve learned more than he’d ever wanted to know about receivers and transmitters and how to operate a soundboard.
(“Maybe there’s hope for you yet,” Dustin said, only mildly condescending. “At least soundboard engineer is a step up from retail slave on the old resume.”)
It still feels like a deal with the devil, most days. The military know where they work, where they live, can take them off the air on a whim if they decide it’s in their interest to do so – and frankly, that’s the best possible outcome. At least Steve doesn’t have family to worry about, his parents having already been out of town when the “earthquake” hit, but even that feels like cold comfort when armed men are pulling Dustin out of school to question him about the Munson murders, cornering Lucas at the hospital to dig for information about Max for the millionth time.
He feels stretched thin, worn down from the constant worrying, the pounding behind his eyes never quite going away. Between Dustin trying to pick a fight with everyone who so much as looks at him the wrong way, Robin slipping sly digs at the soldiers into her daily spiel, Nancy plotting more and more daring excursions into the Upside Down as the hunt for Vecna drags on another day... he feels like he’s falling short already, no way he can possibly protect all of them when they seem so hellbent on getting themselves killed.
What makes you think you could protect them in the first place? asks the sneering voice in his head that sounds far too much like Tommy Hagan.
Did you protect Max? She'd be dead if it wasn't for El.
She still might never wake up.
Eddie definitely won’t.
He doesn’t say any of this to Robin, who’s still waiting for some acknowledgement that she’s spoken. Instead, he says, “Don't say penis, Christ, Robin. In fact, try to just, like, ease up on the dick talk entirely if you want to seal the deal with Vickie.”
Robin shrieks and punches him in the shoulder, and for a fleeting moment life resumes its normal rhythm again.
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: Dead Boy Detectives (TV)
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Edwin Paine | Edwin Payne/Charles Rowland
Characters: Edwin Paine | Edwin Payne, Charles Rowland (DCU)
Additional Tags: Love Potion/Spell, Love Confessions, Charles Rowland Loves Edwin Paine | Edwin Payne, Bisexual Charles Rowland (DCU), Edwin Paine | Edwin Payne Loves Charles Rowland, Gay Edwin Paine | Edwin Payne, POV Edwin Paine | Edwin Payne, no beta we die like esther finch, Payneland Week 2025
Summary:
Edwin's first instinct, his most selfish one, is to run, to get as far away from Charles before he is forced to experience his best friend reciprocating his feelings, with the full knowledge that it is merely an enchantment, that he must find a way to cure Charles of this affliction, that he will never truly experience what he wants most.
synopsis: amelia is a science girlie, mason has to suffer ♡ (aka nat remembers she's literate after 25 years of not writing)
"You having fun there, sweetheart?" Mason asks or at least tries to, but it comes out all mumbled now that his jaw is held open and a mouth mirror is pressed against his left fang. She's probably been at it for at least fourty five minutes, examining and prodding at his mouth, or it could've been longer than that. He can't exactly tell since time seemed to escape him whenever he was with Amelia.
She was the one who was always concerned with the how and the why things worked like they did. Always messing about with charts, blood samples, and other scientific shit that Mason didn't understand. He'd still listen anyway, observing the crease in her brow and the certainty her voice carried, as if she was one hundred percent sure of what she was talking about.
He always tried to make himself a nuisance, though, offering snarky remarks and trying to get her to move her attention to a different sort of research. He wanted to see what it would take to have her focus waver, to make her break out of whatever corner she was in her mind and look at him. Only him. He didn't succeed, but she never kicked him out either. The truth was that there was no place either of them would rather be.
Time spent alone together was scarce, between one supernatural disaster and the other, they took what they could. Mason reckoned they could watch paint dry together and still make it a pleasant experience, so that's why he's here. That's why he agreed to this. Not because he was whipped or some shit, like Felix suggested. He always did whatever he wanted, whenever he wanted, and if what he wanted was to sit here and let Ames entertain her highly intelligent mind with his dental anatomy, that was his business.
It wasn't the first time he'd shown her his fangs either. He was used to having to hide them away until needed so it felt almost freeing to have them on display like this again. "Fascinating." he heard her mutter, tapping his left fang before doing the same with his right. "It seems that this one is a smidge sharper than this one. I wonder why that is."
He fought the urge to smirk and suggest that they could find a better purpose for his mouth before thinking better of it. As she finally released his jaw, he moved it around a bit to relax, surprisingly missing her touch.
"Yeah, real fascinating." he snarked before rolling his eyes. "Are you done now?"
Despite his grumbling, they both knew that he wasn't actually complaining. He just wanted her all to himself after, he wanted her present. He watched her hum in affirmation as she dropped the tool in the sink and took off her gloves.
"You did good. Thank you for letting me do this." she said with a nod of appreciation, her eyes softer than usual. It was the look that he liked to think she had just for him. It was the look he was always chasing after. The look that soothed the slight strain in his jaw and the coldness of the metal bed he was sitting on.
"And what do I get for being so good, huh, sweetheart?" he questioned suggestively. She only raised an eyebrow before cupping his cheek and pressing a gentle kiss to it. His eyes automatically drifted shut as he let out a pleased sigh. This was a new addition to his list of favorites, so if he doesn't wipe off the lipstick stain that he now knows is there, again, that's his business.
illicit affairs (and clandestine meetings and longing stares)
by RoseofWinterfell
Mr Cleven and Coach Egan did not like one another. That was one simple fact known by the entire student body of Thorpe Abbots High. They were complete opposites to one another, Cleven was quiet and reserved, Egan could not shut up, being the centre of attention and action at all times. Egan’s life was about sports, baseball in particular, Cleven couldn’t stand them. Every time Egan talked you could practically see the detest on Celven’s face. And it seemed like Egan loved to get under the other man's skin, revelling in the idea that someone saw him as obnoxious and brash and not impossibly charming, for some reason wanted to solidify that opinion and not change it.
From the moment they started working together, everyone knew it and no one questioned it. Mr Cleven and Coach Egan did not like one another.
Curtis Biddick was certain they were having an affair.
+
“I’m telling youse,” Curt stated clearly across the locker room, stripping himself of his shirt, “they are fucking.”
“Jesus, Biddick, your mama ever apologize for how many times she dropped you on your head?”
haven't done a tag game in ages but maybe this will actually inspire me to finish a fic considering i haven't done that since like, may of last year
here's a pynch bandfic i'm working on:
Gansey, who had been lying comfortable on a thrifted La-Z-Boy with his legs crossed daintily at the ankle, had gently removed Ronan's elbow from his larynx and said, "I object to slutty. But also, Jesus H. Christ."
Gansey had inadvertently flirted with every person he had ever been within a half-mile radius of, on account of the fact that he had a smile like a Kennedy and he always smelled of whiskey and fresh mint. He'd met forty percent of Spinbar, a Phoenix-based emo five-piece with a new album and a cult-like following, at a cocktail bar in D.C., humble and charming and a little drunk. When it came time for to the band to decide on an opener for their fall tour, then, the drummer, inevitably, had remembered a dimpled guitarist squinting sleepy, hazel eyes over the rim of a mint julep.
And then Declan had worked the managerial magic he'd naturally acquired as a result of years of corralling his younger brothers into some semblance of a functional family, and Ronan could have kissed Gansey, and Hennessy did kiss Gansey, and now all of Malinhead were standing in front of a garage on a balmy Tuesday evening.
aaaand here's my bookstore au. also pynch. obviously:
Ronan. Adam hadn’t meant to read the name on the card the guy had slid over the counter when he’d bought that book on ornithology, the thick, yellowing one with the broken spine that had probably been there since the shop opened in 1995. But it had been right there in front of his eyes and the asshole leaning his sunburnt elbows against the other side of the counter had been so incongruous with the delicate blue bird embossed on the cover of the book he’d carefully handed to Adam and Adam had just been filled with a staggering need to know something. At least his name actually made sense. Ronan N. Lynch. It sounded as razor-edged as he looked.
i'm tagging the first three writers that come to mind!!! apologies if u've already done this!!! @parrished @stewyonmolly @aaronstveit
“I mean, hell, kid, you’re basically raising a kid together already.”
Buck’s eyes widened visibly at that, because… what the hell? Because now, he was more confused than before, but also… things were clicking. They just weren’t clicking in a way that made it any less confusing.
“Wait, wait. Wait wait wait.” Buck’s hands raised, and he was finally still. “I’m… I’m talking about Tommy Kinard. Who are you talking about?” It was a dumb question, and Buck knew it was, because the mention of coparenting could only relate to one person, and the notion of him trying to get someone’s attention… and the army thing… it…
“Oh.” Bobby’s mouth was tightly shut, looking a little more bashful than Buck had seen him… possibly ever. “I seem to have misunderstood.”
OR -
When buck attempts to come out to Bobby, he winds up finding out that the 118 have a betting pool about him and Eddie. He sets out on a mission to understand why.
if you enjoy this fic, have the means and are so inclined, please consider buying me a coffee here! thank you!
