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snazzydwarf · 3 months

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Dp x DC: Mind Traveller

Okay do y'all remember the old trope in DP fics of "Danny get's hurt by a ghost/machine and is now in a coma like state, the only way of getting him to wake up is to go inside his mind and meet different aspects of Danny's personality (sometimes it's looking through his memories)"

Okay yeah that but! Make it Dp x DC!

Maybe a war has broken out between the GZ and the GIW, conflicting information is being given to the JL from both sides, and so far their stuck between a rock and a hard place.

On one hand there's a whole species and town throwing allegations towards a Government organization about kidnapping, torture and experimentation.

Then there's the Ghost Investigation Ward saying they've been working withing legal limits, and haven't done anything wrong. It's not breaking the Meta Protection acts due to none of the "affected" having the Meta gene, and therefore not counting as a Meta.

Most GIW subjects had not survived when it had came to light, those who had "lived" could not come out of the Ghost Zone because of how fragile their cores had become, and everything was still too risky to send someone over on uncharted territories to get their statement.

The one option they had was a young boy they had found, although he was in a coma and hadn't woken up in weeks. The situation was getting more and more dire as the public and ghosts grew restless with every day that passed.

Martian Manhunter spoke to Danny while he was in his coma, however he was only able to access surface entry due to unknown reasons. This was enough to talk to the boy however, and gain permission to enter his mind and find out more about the situation they had all landed themselves into.

With written consent from both of Danny's parent's a small group of 3 JL members along with Jazz, Sam and Tucker ( who came along to clean up any confusion or questions they might have) journeyed into the mind of the young boy, not realising they are about to witness the rise and fall of a hero who was born to young.

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pippuns · 1 year

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you know i am absolutely delighted by disciples era au. like, for the liushen potential, obviously, but i also can't stop thinking about a situation where sqq spends all of his free time trying to get evidence on sqh being a traitor, while sqh is frantically wondering wtf he did to piss sqq off so bad, because he certainly didn't write sqq having a huge grudge against the original goods!!

and eventually sqq does get definitive proof of sqh's traitorous behavior, only for sqq to discover that sqh is also a transmigrater. probably through sqh doing a harebrained scheme of trying to buy sqq's silence by offering to tell him his future.

and because sqh is a fellow transmigrator (even if he is annoying), sqq has to do a frantic dash to cover for sqh's misdeeds before sqq outs him even more than he already has. he bitches out sqh the entire time as he does this because he COULD have been reading the new installment of whatever fiction came out of xian shu this entire time but nooooooo, he had to waste all of his time chasing after this stupid author who isn't even a good spy and is APPARENTLY just doing the spy work to get some demon ass!! what kind of plotline is this?? of course it came out of the author who gave him the garbage he's stuck living in.

the funny thing is, this is actually what does convince people that sqh is a traitor. because sqq has been talking about his suspicions regarding sqh to the other future peak lords (chief among them being lqg, who obviously believed sqq immediately and has been his accomplice to this point), the complete 180 sqq does from trying to convince everyone that sqh is a rat, to him -- seemingly out of nowhere -- covering for sqh and spending all this time with him and talking in code (modern slang) with him, when everyone knows that sqq HATES sqh is soooooooooo sus.

in other words, everyone is now convinced that sqh is blackmailing sqq, because sqq actually found something to prove sqh's guilt.

and this results in a frantic quest from his friends (the other future peak lords) to try and find out what sqh is using to blackmail sqq so they can get rid of it. this does not go unnoticed by sqh, who demands that sqq fix the mess he got sqh into, and sqq tells him to fix it himself because he's the one stupid enough to become a spy to get some demon ass (which sqh points out is a gross inaccuracy of the situation, he hasn't gotten one iota of ass, not even a glimpse, do you know how difficult it is to pull that off in demon society which might as well not believe in the existence of clothes).

then system shows up and threatens immense bodily harm to them both if sqh is caught by the sect this early. so what are they supposed to do but begrudgingly work together to save sqh's ass so he can get some demon ass.

#i have sooooo many more thoughts btw but this is getting long so maybe i'll make a post in the future. if i remember to.#the tl;dr of this whole thing is that it's my insane (platonic) cumplane disciples era road trip au. because uh.#system said that they couldnt get caught by cang qiong. not that they couldn't leave it. and sqh is a spy at the end of the day.#and when there are people more competent than sqq looking into it they did find evidence LOL #sqh has not been a spy for very long at this point and it shows #i'd write this as a fic but if i did it'd end up long as fuck with maybe too much world building and i dont think i have the time for that.#disciples era au #svsss #pip speaks #long post

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aloha-obi · 1 year

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I HC that the first time Bruce let Dick go on a ‘undercover mission’ it was for a class field trip to one of Lex Luthor’s tech facilities. Dick managed to bug his office, sabotage a top secret (potentially world ending) project and leave chocolate pudding on Lex’s favorite chair. Luthor definitely sat in it and ruined his favorite pants. Clark and Bruce were 100% both a nervous wreck during the entire thing. At the next gala, 10 year old Dick trolls Lex by eating chocolate pudding cups the whole time.

#batfam #someone write the fic #dick grayson #first undercover mission #Bruce and Clark are maybe freaking out the whole time #ready to go break walls and Luthor’s face if he even touches the kid #Dick’s field trip = espionage training #Bruce Wayne thinks 10 is old enough to spy #nightwing

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arospecsyourblockdudes · 1 year

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Jimmy and Joel team up to stop Fwhip in his insane rampages and they start off bickering and fighting as always but as they take this journey together they start to grow a deeper understanding of each other and even begin to like each other somewhat and once Joel goes a full 1 hour without calling Jimmy a toy and Jimmy doesn’t comment on Joel’s tiny muscles when he struggles to lift something and they might even call themselves friends by the time they’ve taken down the goblin king. Then the next day Jimmy sees Hermes and calls him a “stupid fucking moron” and Joel kills him and they’re back the same as they used to be

#empires smp #i want them to have a whole buddy cop/road trip movie character progression #only for it to be immeditely undone at the quickest possible opportunity #i do not want any sentiment to be left over or any regret that they have to fight again #only hatred and rage and denying that they ever enjoyed each others company for a brief moment #god if i were capable of writing a roadtrip fic w jimmy and joel i would do

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autisticlancemcclain · 1 year

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She’s been fine, for this whole time.

Her grief is always a low hum in the back of her mind. Constant. Since the first ring of that phone call to her mother — she knew, before Mom had even picked up, before the phone had finished ringing, her stomach dropped to her toes and took her heart with it — the grief had taken root, making her entire word sharper, a shade of red sliding over her eyes.

She’s heard people describe grief in shades of grey. Heard people talk about how everything goes flat, dull, unimportant, emotionless.

It has never been like that for Pidge.

Her grief made her furious. She knew from the moment her mother let out that first choked sob, turning away from Katie like somehow if she muffled her tears enough she wouldn’t find out what that phone call was saying. Pidge knew from that fucking second that someone had taken half her family away, and she knew the second after that they would pay. The bitterness had bubbled hard and fast in her chest, and she’d moved. Cut her hair and faked her name and lied to her mother. She spoke every word with clenched teeth, tense muscles trembling in rage any time an officer so much as looked at her wrong, so much as whispered the name Holt.

Her grief has never made her dull. Her grief has made her strong, has powered her through the Garrison and space and the Galran Empire. Her grief has powered her through war.

But today, she looks in the mirror, hair shorter than she remembers and poofed around her head, round coke-bottle lenses reflected back at her, and the colour leeches out from the room.

She recognises her reflection.

But she does not recognise herself.

“Pidge? Are you in there, love? You’re tardy for birthday breakfast!”

She doesn’t startle at Allura’s voice. She barely even registers the sound. She stares at herself, unblinking, until her eyes burn.

“Pidge?” Allura calls again, softer this time. “Is everything alright?”

Katie startles herself with her own sob. Her eyes widen, glancing through the mirror at her own mouth, finding it gaping, hearing her lungs gasp out for breath, some kind of gagging noise coming from her throat, tears wetting her cheeks. She feels none of it. It’s like she’s watching it happen to a different person, a different Katie.

The girl in the mirror is completely foreign to her. She doesn’t recognize the creature with eyes like cracked glass, who is choking on her sobs, whose heart is pounding and aching and hurting.

Pidge Gunderson is the mysterious new student at the Garrison, who bears a striking resemblance to the missing-in-action Kerberos Mission cadet with the same short hair and glasses, who is angry and who is tough and who is fearless. Pidge Gunderson is the Paladin of the Green Lion, Protector of Forests and genius hacker, unphased by Zarkon’s fury and unmoved by the constant pain around her.

Pidge Gunderson is nowhere to be found. Instead, in the mirror, is Katie.

Katie Holt is terrified. Katie Holt is aching. Katie Holt is in pain. Katie Holt looks like her mother, broken-hearted and alone at her dinner table, reading the note her daughter left her and sobbing into her hands.

“Oh, Pidge.”

Cool hands touch the back of her neck, the small of her back, and then she’s enveloped in the familiarly foreign smell of sweet juniberries.

Like something in her has cracked, Katie cries in Allura’s hold, great heaving sobs that shake her whole body until she hurts, until she feels like she’s cracking, like she’s splintering along the fragments of her bones, spine cracking in half and splintering her into a thousand pieces. Allura tightens her hold, but Katie is sure that she’s going to fall to pieces anyway, a billion of them, impossible for Allura to hold together.

“It always hurts worse on days like this. I know. I know, asteraki.”

The reminder only makes her sob harder. Of course Allura knows — Allura has lost everything. Everyone she has ever known, every person she loved, her home, the flowers that grew under her window and the the sounds of Altea around her. She has so little left of home.

“It’s not fair,” Katie chokes out, barely making out the words. “I want my mom.” She sobs again, a broken, wailing sound, the sound of the wounded and dying, the sound you would hear with the smell of the freshly turned dirt of a grave. “I want my brother. My dad. I want my family back.”

Allura’s hands shake on the back of Katie’s head. Her voice cracks as she speaks. “Me, too.”

Katie has no idea how long they cry. At some point they slide to the floor, holding onto each other, tears smearing their faces and lungs aching from the pain of their grief. Neither of them moves when their tears run out, eyes dry up, muscles cramped and aching. They sit together, sniffling, holding their grief inches in front of them, stifling in Katie’s small ensuite washroom, crouched in front of the sink.

The sounds of footsteps are quiet, at first. Muffled voices are harder to mistake. The creak of Pidge’s door even more distinctive.

“Gremlin?” Lance calls, softly. A muttered really, Lance? goes ignored. “Everything groovy?”

…Groovy?

Pidge is hurting. Undeniably. But the shock of Lance’s dumbass sentence is so — her laugh is sudden, startling, making a bubble of snot burst out of her nose and setting Allura right off. By the time the rest of the team files into the already-cramped bathroom, it’s to the sight of the Leader of the Coalition and her Green Paladin, eyes red and irritated, cheeks tear-streaked, laughing each other hoarse.

“Sounds like a party,” Shiro says, smiling as he plops down on the floor. The rest of the boys follow, flopping about and elbowing each other several times (with the exception of Coran, who manages to sit quite gracefully).

“A bit of a pity party,” Allura explains, trying to get herself under conte. “We’re laughing now because Pidge snot-bubbled.”

The look on Hunk’s face sets them off again.

“Gross,” he says, but he’s smiling.

“Definitely a little,” Pidge agrees. “Someone pass me some tissue paper?”

Lance, closest to the roll, hesitates. “Do you promise not to throw it at me when you’re done with it? I’ll scream. I don’t care how sad you are.”

Pidge and Allura glance at each other. They could do with seeing Lance screech. A quick look at Keith’s smirk confirms he wouldn’t mind, either.

“Promise,” they both lie at the same time.

Lance, who is chronically trusting and endlessly gullible, passes them both a bunch. They quickly wipe their faces and, without coordinating or anything, pause for just long enough that Lance lets his guard down, then chuck the dirty, snot-filled tissues at him at the same time.

As promised, his shriek is so shrill they actually can’t hear it.

He lunges for the doorway of the bathroom immediately, kicking poor Shiro in the head on his way out, cussing up a storm as he goes. The rest of the team promptly loses their whole shit.

“You shitheads! You gall-brained jackasses! You complete and utter fucking scallywags! I’m returning your fucking birthday present, Pidge, and Allura, I’m keeping the mice forever! I hate you two!”

The mention of her birthday sends a twinge of pain through her chest, but the completely incensed look on Lance’s face is enough to keep it at bay. She hasn’t seen him so mad since she broke his hair straightener right before they had to go to a gala (where Lance was partnered up with Keith, although he’d rather shoot himself in the brain than admit that’s the real reason he was so pissy about it. But Pidge knows. She heard him bitching to Kaltenecker about it, and also she has a fucking working human brain and two eyes that can see, and Lance is not subtle).

“Best birthday present ever,” Pidge sighs, wiping a tear from her eye — a happy one, this time. She considers flicking it at Lance, but holds herself back when she realizes he might return her birthday present for real. Today has been kind of shitty, so far, but not shitty enough to forgo presents.

“What happened, dear?” Coran asks quietly, once they’ve all calmed down (and Lance has convinced him to switch spots so that he’s closest to the exit should any more…incidents occur).

Pidge sullens, a little, glancing down at her knees. It takes her a long moment to speak, but the rest of the team waits patiently for her.

“Matt said he was going to build a working particle accelerator with me on my fifteenth birthday,” she says quietly.

Keith is the first to soften, reaching over and squeezing her hand. “Your dad made a promise too, I’m guessing?”

She thought she was out of tears, but a new one gathers at the corner of her eye, burning a hot trail down to the tip of her nose, dripping onto the tiled floor. It’s so quiet that she can hear it plop.

“Yeah.” She sniffles. “He and Mom —” her voice cracks on her mother’s name, guilt making her stomach clench — “had something planned. They wouldn’t tell me what, just promising that it was going to make me smile for a month.” Her face crumples. “I’ll never know, I guess.”

Allura’s hand finds it’s way back to Katie’s back, rubbing it gently, soothingly.

“You’ll find out,” she assures.

Hunk hums in agreement. “It might take a while, but you’ll find out.”

Pidge wants to fight that, a little. They’ve been in space a whole year now, and she’s found absolutely nothing. Zilch. Not even a single lead that hasn’t been a dead end. Why should she believe them? Why should she believe that anything will be fixed, that her family is anything but dead?

But…they’re all looking at her so lovingly. So supportively. Even Lance, who she just harassed a little. All of them have soft, encouraging smiles on their faces, cramped with her here on the bathroom floor because she couldn’t stand on her own.

“Okay,” she agrees, barely above a decibel, but her team as no trouble hearing her. They all grin at her; Allura’s marks glowing, Coran’s moustache twinkling, Lance’s brown eyes shining, Hunk’s dimples showing, Keith’s crooked incisors peeking out, Shiro’s scar creasing. All of them smiling at her as proudly as they do when they fight off a Galran fleet. Like she is of equal measure to that, to them.

Happy birthday to me, she thinks to herself, and for the first time today she thinks it truly might be.

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help-i-need-a-cool-username · 1 year

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Watching the tlovm episode of them wandering the fey realm as someone who hasnt seen campaign 1 i genuinely thought the spores Vex and Keyleth were hit with was gonna be a sex pollen thing. I was sitting there in fear like "am i about to watch the sex pollen trope on screen" bc lets be real that was a totally plausible conclusion to draw with this show

#tlovm #hinacu tlovm #vox machina #polymachina #vexleth #perc'ahlia #vaxleth #perc'ildan #sex pollen #...kinda want a fic where that happens now #but ngl trinket was amazing during that drug trip 10/10 best part of whole season

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phoenixcatch7 · 1 year

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Au where sqq was a popular/famous vr graphic designer specialising in avatars and animations and 3d modelling, and sqh worked on the side/before pidw as a grey hat hacker, and together they take the system apart and add all sorts of mods and features. Cat ears. Sci fi effects. Playing games on the system. Sqq manages to screw with something important and gets access to vr chat style dream realm, where poor mm is extremely surprised to have sections blocked off without an invite.

#Sqq and sqh entering a competition to see who can get the system to run doom first. Their crowning achievement #The pinnacle of impossible ports #Sqh wins and sqq has to design mbj a maid cat costume because he lost the bet #He hates it the whole time and steals the design for lbh #Everyone in the vicinity of cq: *wakes up with cat ears*#Sqq (totally not the culprit): *patting lbhs ears* wow I can't believe it what happened. Maybe Shidi brought back an artifact from his trip #Anyway I'm going to be VERY BUSY for the next few hours. Figuring out what happened #svsss #luo binghe #shen qingqiu #svsss au #shang qinghua #bingqiu #moshang #Vr as a concept is GREATLY underutilised in fics and I strive to fix that

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thebluestbluewords · 7 months

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places where you shouldn’t be (where you could be anyway)

“This was a mistake.” Carlos says under his breath. “We’re gonna die here, right? This is where it ends.”

“Yeah,” Jay agrees, equally quietly. “Biggest mistake we’ve made in a while. Nice knowing you, but we’re not getting out of this one.”

Their cart squeals as Evie navigates them smoothly around a turn.

It’s fine. They’re all fine and great and surviving, thriving adults.

Who totally know how to do grocery shopping.

“Do we even have money for this?”

Jay shrugs. “Dude. I don’t know. I didn’t even bring a wallet.”

“What’s in your pockets?”

Jay’s wearing a jacket with at least six hidden pockets. It’s one of the most honest, upstanding items of clothing he owns. “Nothing. Literally. It’s like, physically painful.”

“Take some gum or something,” Carlos says, flicking a silver wrapper at Jay’s head. It falls on the floor. It’s a testament to the way that respectable Auradon adults seem to gloss over the VKs when they’re not actively shouting that nobody in the store even blinks an eye at them. “Nobody's gonna care about that. It’ll keep your hands busy if there’s something to fidget with, yeah?”

“I can’t.”

Carlos shoves the gum into his mouth. “Why the fuck not?”

“Dude. We’re being good. I have to keep being good, or we’re gonna get shipped back and the girls would never forgive us. Do you want that on your conscience? Me being shipped back to the isle forever because I couldn’t keep my hands to myself in the fuckin’ grocery store?”

“Nobody’s gonna care.” Carlos points out. He’s wearing a jacket that’s more rips than fabric, and the four of them are the only people in the store not wearing pastels. “The cameras only cover the door and the health food display. Stores like this bake a certain amount of loss into their profit margins. They don’t give a shit if we take some gum.”

Jay shoves his hands in his pockets. There’s tiny little cheese rounds in the side cooler they’re walking past, and they would fit so neatly in his hand.

He could fit like seven of them in his pocket without blinking. “Nope. I’m not doing it.”

“I’ll start moving my shit to your pockets.” Carlos says, chomping his gum so aggressively that one of the adults who’s pushing a cart in the opposite direction almost looks at them. “I’m gonna run out of space.”

Jay twirls a bottle opening keychain around his finger before tossing it back on the shelf. “You wouldn’t.”

“Mine’re gonna be full before we get halfway through. You’ve got a lot more space.”

“Yeah,” Jay says, still casually, slouching so that they’re shoulder to shoulder. “Because I’m not fucking four feet tall, and I’m not wearing skinny jeans.”

“You’re just jealous of my incredible calves.” Carlos says, shoulder-checking him towards the side of the aisle. The subsequent noise is a great cover for the transfer between their pockets, not that they need it. They’re a polished ducking team, and the plastic-wrapped candy bars don’t even crinkle.

Evie’s going to kill them both.

#my fic #descendants #carlos de vil #jay son of jafar #evie is not actually going to kill them #mostly because she’s doing the same thing and hating herself for it #and they’re all going to have some lovely debrief time later #where they map out a plan of every grocery store in Auradon from least to most convenient #so they can practice on the least convenient stores first #and hopefully get through a whole shopping trip without any extras by the time they get to the convenient ones #and then they confide in their AK friends and Doug is like….#‘have you ever heard of grocery delivery’#(Ben is their closest AK friend in my heart but his family is unfathomably wealthy and has not heard of grocery delivery)#(they have a private chef)

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magicalmischel · 5 months

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I'm gonna need bi-generation to become a trope on ao3, pls give me all the fics of all the Doctors being there for their previous selves to give them a hug and a gentle kiss on the forehead 😭💖

#spoilers #doctor who #dw spoilers #the giggle #doctor who spoilers #pls #as well as all the fics with 14 being domestic #like imagine him just going shopping #and there he is #captain jack #just staring #lmao #or martha #or yaz #bring the whole companion support group on a shopping trip lmao <3

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radioactivepeasant · 8 months

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Fic Prompts: Snippet Wednesday

This is technically part of the overarching Sons of Spargus universe, set between Jak 3 and Jak X. It's just an outline right now of a short horror fic with the working title Lightless Deep, featuring Jak being placed in command of a fairly doomed expedition into a sunken Precursor city similar to the one in TPL.

The inscription on the wall was deep, but crude. Not engraved, like most Precursor artifacts, but scratched or hammered into the metal of the torn bulkhead. Done quickly, and by the look of it, desperately. One of the monks traced his fingers over it and nodded solemnly.

"It is a warning against those who dwell in darkness," he said.

Jak curled his lip. "It's grafitti," he scoffed, "And that's not what it says."

The monk started to retort before remembering who he was speaking to. "With...respect, young prince," Resh said through gritted teeth, with anything but respect, "The Precursor language has been my area of expertise for decades."

Jak was nonplussed. "Yeah, and you people write your subjects before your predicates." He shrugged. "Old school Precurian text is the other way around."

He decided not to mention that this was why he could barely do more than write his name in the modern parlance. Instead he lifted his light a little higher and decided to show off. Just a little.

"It says "Come not near me, o you Pale One, from your depths where you lie dreaming."

Something nudged at the back of his mind like a half forgotten warning. Jak shook the creeping sensation off.

"Go down and be buried in the lightless deep, and be confounded by shadows for eternity.""

Daxter shuddered and drew his vest a little closer around him. "You know you two probably activated some ancient curse, right?"

#fic prompts #writing prompts #jak and daxter #sons of Spargus #snippet Wednesday #eventually I'll write the whole thing #but basically if you've ever seen or played Amnesia The Bunker then you've got an idea of how their trip will go #jak spends the first half questioning if he's blacking out and doing this as dark jak #he's not. there is no safety in the light down in the sunken city. only darkness will save them.

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set-phasers-to-whump · 6 months

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breathe

prompt: "let me see"

whumpee: peter sutherland

fandom: the night agent

hi here's the part 2 to this fic from day 18. i hope you like it, i had a really good time writing both of these :)

Peter steps off the plane at Dulles in the early evening. He feels slightly better than he had on the first flight, having now gotten a good deal of sleep, and having bought some extra-strength painkillers and a ridiculously overpriced meal at JFK. At the very least, he’s not so exhausted and the pain is more manageable and he no longer feels nauseous with hunger.

He gets a cab home, not caring about the price. Halfway there he realizes that he doesn’t have his key - it’d been in his bag, which is now gone. The cab driver mercifully has a paperclip that he gives to Peter, though he looks at him a little skeptically in the rearview mirror.

Peter knows he doesn’t exactly look like an upstanding citizen at the moment. The bruises on his face have become more pronounced over the last several hours, and he’s still dirty and sweaty and generally gross. He makes sure to tip the driver well when they at last reach his apartment building.

He picks the lock on his door with little trouble and heads immediately to his bedroom.

He hadn’t bothered to buy and change into new clothes at JFK, though he certainly could have. But he hadn’t been able to stand the thought of changing without showering, and in any case he hadn’t really had the strength.

He isn’t entirely sure if he has the strength to change and shower now, but he’s damn well going to anyway. The thought of a nice hot shower, of clean and comfortable clothes, is nearly enough to make him weep.

He gathers clothes at random - an old t-shirt, his favorite sweats, the hoodie he’d stolen from Cisco all those years ago. Then he steps into the bathroom and turns the shower on, almost as hot as it will go.

He strips down while the bathroom slowly steams up. First to go are his boots. His fingers shake when he unties the laces, and he has to sit on the floor to get enough leverage to tug them off.

His socks follow suit, full of sand that scatters across the floor. He’ll deal with that later. He’s relieved to see that his feet aren’t blistered - he really hadn’t walked that far - but his left ankle is swollen and tender to the touch in a way that suggests a sprain at the very least.

He wriggles out of his pants and boxers without standing back up. His knees are both bruised and so are his shins. One of them sports a large break in the skin, blood matted into the hair around it.

He unzips his jacket and pulls off his shirt. The cuffs of both are bloody from his wrists, despite his earlier efforts to clean them. His entire torso is like one massive bruise. He’ll have a few broken ribs, for sure.

He can’t see the bruise around his neck, but he knows it’s there. He cannot stop feeling it, a phantom arm still wrapped around his throat. Stop thinking about it, he tells himself. You’re safe now.

He only half believes it.

He forces himself up off of the floor with a groan of pain and then steps into the shower. The hot water stings his skin and the pressure of it makes the bruises across his body hurt like he’s being beaten all over again. He grabs the soap and shampoo and then sinks to the floor, too tired to remain on his feet.

He covers himself in a thick layer of soap. It stings his open wounds, but he grits his teeth against the pain and keeps going. He cannot risk infection. He cannot be anything less than clean.

After this, he scrubs shampoo into his hair. The water runs faintly pink when he washes it out, and he wonders where the blood had come from.

At long last, he’s certain that every inch of his body has been scrubbed clean. He no longer feels sand prickling at his skin and he is no longer stained with blood. He sits beneath the water and breathes in the steam until it starts to run cold.

Out of the shower, Peter dries himself off as gently as possible. He’s also quick about it, not wanting to stand on his ankle any longer than he has to, and so when he gets dressed he’s still a bit damp and the clothes stick to his skin.

He doesn’t mind. The feeling of the familiar fabric is comforting regardless, and it reminds him of where he is. At home, far away from the people who had hurt him.

He rubs neosporin into the raw skin of his wrists and the cuts on his face, then swallows a couple more painkillers. Finally, he brushes his teeth until he’s spitting blood into the sink.

He leaves the bathroom something of a wreck and heads for the kitchen. He’s hungry again. There are a few packages of ramen in the pantry, for times when he doesn’t feel like cooking. He’s extremely grateful for them in this moment, and within five minutes he’s sitting in front of a steaming bowl and breathing in the very familiar scent. It’s one he associates with his days at Quantico, and he is hit with the realization that he needs to contact his bosses.

He hadn’t been given any instructions for communication before he’d left, so they won’t necessarily know anything has gone wrong. He needs to tell them. He doesn’t want to.

He can put it off for a little while. It’s not like he currently has a phone, anyway.

He finishes eating, has a large glass of water - he thinks he is always going to be just a bit thirsty, now - and then just sits there.

His body aches and he knows he should probably get checked out by a doctor. But the thought of some stranger poking and prodding at him, after everything, is incredibly unpleasant. It can wait until tomorrow, at least.

It is dark outside, nearing eight o’clock, and Peter does not want to be alone. He wants to see Rose.

She lives across the city from him, in a cute little house that she’d moved into only a couple months ago. He wants nothing more than to go there, to simply be in her presence.

He’d normally call and ask whether she’s free. But he can’t. He’ll just have to hope she’s there, that she won’t mind him coming by unannounced.

He puts on a pair of boots - thankfully not the ones he’d been wearing before, which are full of sand - and a jacket with a high collar. Lacking his phone and keys, he feels distinctly like he is forgetting something as he steps into the hallway, but he knows he isn’t. He leaves the door unlocked behind him and tries not to think about it.

He takes the bus and then the metro across town. He feels anxious, memories of the bombing overlaying themselves atop memories of the past twenty-four hours. He focuses on looking out of the window and trying to control his breathing.

He arrives at Rose’s house a little after 8:45. He experiences a moment of doubt before he rings the bell - what if she doesn’t want to see him, what if she isn’t home - but she opens the door with a smile on her face.

“Back so soon?” she asks. He’s supposed to have been away all week.

Seeing her, hearing her voice - he hasn’t cried, not since it happened. He’d been too exhausted, too focused on making it to the next step. But she is his final destination.

He starts to cry and he can’t stop. Rose pulls him inside and wraps her arms around him and it hurts but he doesn’t pull away.

His ankle is throbbing. He sinks to the floor and she goes with him. Her fingers are in his hair and he clings to her shirt like a lifeline.

At some point, after a long while, he does stop crying. His eyes are dry and itchy and his throat feels raw. He leans heavily against Rose and breathes raggedly.

“Sorry,” he whispers. The word feels like sandpaper.

“Shh,” Rose replies. “Come with me.”

She gets up and he follows her to the couch.

“Make yourself comfortable. I’ll be right back.”

Peter takes off his shoes but leaves his jacket on. He does not want her to see the mark on his neck. It is enough to feel it, all the time.

Rose comes back with a container of ice cream and two spoons, and Peter feels himself nearly smile. She sits cross-legged beside him, pries open the carton, and passes him a spoon.

The cold dairy feels wonderful on his throat, and Rose’s steady presence makes him feel safe and comfortable. He relaxes quite a bit.

And then his jacket sleeve rides up as he’s trying to dig out a chunk of chocolate, and Rose freezes, grabbing his wrist.

“What happened?”

He gently pulls away. “It’s nothing.”

She abandons the ice cream, turning her body to face him. “Peter, that doesn’t look like nothing.”

“I don’t really want to talk about it.”

Rose nods. “Okay. Let me see, at least? You don’t have to say anything. I just…”

He knows.

He can hardly refuse. He’d want the same thing, in her place. To know that she’s alright. To see how bad it really is.

He carefully removes his jacket and pushes up his sleeves. He looks down at the floor as Rose touches his arms with cold fingers.

“Look up for a second?”

He complies. Looking down, he knows, had hidden the worst of the bruise on his neck, but hadn’t hidden it all. He swallows hard as her fingers ghost over the bruise, trying to pretend that they don’t make him think of what had happened.

“Is there more?”

He could lie. Except that he can’t, really. Not when it’s her.

He nods. He doesn’t know why it feels like admitting something shameful.

“Can I see?”

In response, he lifts up the hem of his shirt to reveal the bruising on his torso. He hears Rose suck in a breath.

“What happened?” she asks, lightly touching his chest. There are tears in her eyes and part of Peter wants to tell her, to reveal every single detail that he remembers. But another, larger part of him cannot face it. It’s too much and too soon, and he feels like one raw, exposed nerve. He can’t. Not yet.

He shakes his head. “I’ll tell you later. Promise.”

“Okay,” she whispers. “Have you been to the hospital?”

“I’ll go tomorrow.”

“Peter -”

He meets her eyes, really meets them, for the first time. “Please. I swear, I’ll go tomorrow. But right now - I can’t.”

Rose nods, although it’s clear she doesn’t love this plan. “Will you stay here tonight? So I can keep an eye on you?”

He hadn’t been sure of how to ask this very question without seeming like a child afraid of a monster lurking in the dark. He nods.

Rose smiles, sad and happy at once. “Are you tired?”

He shrugs. “A little.”

“Come on, then.”

They go to her room. The bed is large and warm and smells like her and it kind of makes him want to cry all over again, for reasons he doesn’t really understand.

“Just a minute,” Rose says. She disappears to lock up, to get ready for bed, and Peter buries himself beneath the blankets.

She returns to the bedroom a few minutes later, switching off the light. The complete darkness makes him feel panicked for a moment, but then the bed dips and her hands find his.

He feels her move around a bit, and then one of her hands is on his cheek. Her nose bumps into his, which hurts a bit, and then she kisses him, light and a little clumsy and perfect.

Peter rests his head against her shoulder and lets his eyes fall closed. He falls asleep quickly and completely, breathing deep and even for the first time in quite a while.

thanks for reading!!! hope you liked it <3

#whumptober2023 #no.27 #let me see #the night agent #fic #peter sutherland #aftermath of torture #comfort #crying #my writing #i say things #i originally imagined a whole interlude in nyc but it didn't go w the prompt and was long as hell so i skipped that lmao #anyway. in a week i am going to be on a train on my trip yippee!!!!#yah my title yesterday was basically the same thing sorryyy #i hate titles so so so much grrrrrr

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