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Just wondering if you have any info on where and when your book will be available? Also, please tell me you’re including peeves, his energy was always a nice part in the books.

So I’m currently packing to move, which was VERY unexpected in my schedule of things and has unhinged my previous timeline 😔. I’m hoping once I get settled in my new place and get everything else sorted out that I can get a timeline out for everyone! But they will be available on wattpad and ao3, I know for sure, and the only monetary expenses that I really ask for are coffee donations on my ko-fi (IF ONLY ABSOLUTELY POSSIBLE AND THE PERSON DONATING IS ABSOLUTELY SURE OF THEIR DECISIONS). The books will be free to access! And yes!! Peeves will for sure be included!!

Book: Novitious

Word count: 2,191

Summary: Cedric dies. Cho wasn’t the one dating him.

Drabble, Cut Scene, or Request: Drabble! A version of this may potentially be seen in the books.

She felt like she had been sitting here for hours. The sleek wood seat underneath her rear had grown uncomfortable, so uncomfortable that no matter how much she shifted she was unable to find peace in her lower back and thighs. At this point, she was nearly ready to burst out of her own skin - her whole body was trembling in anxiousness for Cedric, her Cedric. Amos had long ago given up on trying to comfort the young girl. Instead, he had his own worry plastered across his body - shown in the way his right leg continuously brushed up and down against her left, shown in the worn fingernails he had started chewing on, shown in the way his eyes continuously raked across the hedge mass that filled what was once the Quidditch pitch. 

Cedric’s favorite sweater had been pulled over her small frame before they had left the Hufflepuff dormitories to come to the pitch. It was a little big for her, as the sleeves fell past her hands and the left shoulder had slipped down to reveal some of her bare skin. She also had his most favorite, well-worn scarf curled loosely around her neck; he had given it to her as an extra way to keep her calm. The way his scent engulfed her from the clothes did take an edge off of her consuming anxiety, but it didn’t stop her body from shaking uncontrollably. She knew that something was wrong. Her gut was continuously twisting in on itself, making her feel nauseous and light-headed. She swore her heart was beating millions of beats per minute - she almost felt sick from how hot her skin was growing. In an effort to cook herself down, she shoved the sleeves up to her elbows. Her eyes made contact with Amos as she looked at him for the billionth time in the past ten minutes alone.

“He’ll be okay.” Amos whispered, offering her a shaky smile.

She wasn’t sure if he entirely believed the words he was saying to her. His whole posture screamed unease, and the glistening in his eyes was telling her that he felt the same undeniable sense of horror bubbling very deep within his bones. She took a deep, soft breath before forcing herself to return the smile. It felt awkward and out of place on her lips; she knew now wasn’t the time for such pleasantries. She shifted once more, leaning her right side into Neville’s left. He offered her a quick squeeze of her opposing shoulder, but his eyes were transfixed on the hedge looming in front of them. She had to assume the reason she was so anxious was because of everyone around her. Her empathic tendencies were making it way worse than it needed to be. Cedric would be fine. She didn’t think Dumbledore would want to risk losing someone so kind, so good, so strong. He would want him when the war she knew was on the horizon finally collapsed upon their reality. 

Her hand found Neville’s, lacing their fingers together. She had been continuously going back and forth between holding his hand, leaning against him for comfort - and offering her own shoulder for Amos to briefly lean against as new waves of anxiety drowned over him. She had lost track of where her boyfriend was in the maze a while ago; if she was asked, she wouldn’t be able to tell how much time had passed. It felt like an eternity since he and Harry had disappeared within the misshapen claws of the final Triwizard Tournament task. 

After she had grasped his hand, trying not to hold it too tightly, she managed to steal a glance of two forms appearing outside of the maze. Her view was then obscured by the sudden movement of everyone around her; their various builds jumping to their feet in lieu of celebratory noises. The music began to play, but she couldn’t fight the panic that began to build in her chest. It bubbled quickly. It simply started around her heart as it constricted, inching down inside her before it slammed into her lungs - taking all air out of her body as her diaphragm was soon swallowed by what she could only recognize as dread. It quickly spread after, making every inch of her body feel numb. She was caught off-guard; she wasn’t sure why she was experiencing such hysteria. Another deep breath filled her lungs as she noticed Amos was trying to get through the horde that kept him stuck by his seat.

Her body went to follow, but was quickly pulled to a halt. Neville was gripping her hand in a fashion that almost hurt. She met his eyes with confusion - he was filled with an emotion she couldn’t quite place, like it was a mixture. Dumbledore was yelling at Harry in the background. Every sound made it clear to her that she had been shoved under water, that she was on the verge of drowning in something she hadn’t yet discovered. She realized, with shock, that the emotions he was showing were a mixture of fear, sorrow, and distress. He discovered something she didn’t. Her eyebrows furrowed as she went to follow Amos again and his grip tightened, preventing her from moving.

“Nev, are you crazy? Let me go,” She tugged her arm. “Cedric’s there.”

“Isobel, you can’t go down there.” He stated.

“Neville, let me go.” She pulled against him again, starting to give him a glare.

“Is…” He trailed off.

“Neville. Let. Me. Go.” She demanded. 

Her attention was drawn away from him for a split second, allowing her to see as the crowd around her paused - almost as if they were all involuntarily holding in the same exact breath. He seemed to grip even tighter on her wrist - and she cried out in response. He was trying to keep her from seeing something traumatizing, but was hurting her in the process. She could almost feel the regret of it oozing out of his body. 

“You’re hurting me.” She almost growled, starting to become hysteric as she tried to pull away from him. ”Neville, please let go.”

He refused, but it didn’t matter. In the next second, screams from Amos were filling the air - letting everyone know his anguish in something that had to do with his son. She slammed her foot against Neville’s groin without even thinking. She jerked her hand back as he doubled over in pain but she didn’t stay to make sure he was okay. Her body moved on it’s own as she shoved through the crowd, pushing and shoving to get down the stands, down to where she had briefly seen the outline of Cedric and Harry. 

Someone was calling her name. She couldn’t tell who it was in her state of pure alarm, but if she had glanced back she would have seen Neville moving to grasp Draco’s arm - to hold him back from running to her. It was difficult to get through the mass of students, almost like they were all attempting to block her from getting down to the Diggorys. She could hear the older man sobbing, and she knew that the feeling she had in her gut since she had said goodbye to him wasn’t a mistake. Something awful, terrible, wretched had happened out in the maze. 

She finally broke through the horde, and all anyone could hear was a loud, awful, gut-wrenching shriek. Laying there, in his father’s arms, was the first person she had really loved with her whole heart. And he was pale. Lifeless. His eyes stared blankly at the sheet of stars above him, his chest giving no movement. His father was clinging to him like he was the only thing still anchoring him to the world. The grief she felt yanked her forward; it made her legs collapse, her lungs stall, her eyes widened. She was caught by the rough embrace of someone - nearly taking both of them down to the ground with the blunt force of her anguish. She barely recognized that it was Harry as he pulled her into his chest. He tried to hide her from the heart-breaking sight in front of her - even though he knew it would forever be etched in her mind.

Suddenly she was seven years old again, breaking as Draco’s arms held her. Suddenly, she was back in the home she hadn’t seen in months - back in the manor that she had lost so much of her childhood to. Draco was holding her tightly, almost like he was scared she would sink through the floor and disappear if he didn’t try to hold all of her pieces together. Suddenly, it was her mother splayed out on the marble floor, her spiritless body outlined by a growing crimson puddle. She wasn’t fifteen, collapsed on the field of a Quidditch pitch in the arms of Harry. She was at home, witnessing the cruelty of her father; witnessing her world crashing down around her. She was experiencing a pain she thought nothing could ever beat. Her sobs were filling the large foyer of her father’s home, echoing throughout the empty space that was just so previously filled with screams from her mother, that was filled with Draco begging her to stay back with him. 

And it didn’t matter if she was fifteen or seven. Because her heart broke all the same. The pain in her chest was immense, vast, monumental. It engulfed her. Her heart had been seized out of her chest and thrown at the ground, just before it was stomped, crushed, pulverized underneath the cruel heel of life. She shattered as her brain filtered through a long list of everything she would never get to see through with Cedric, filtered through the myriad of things his father would never live to see, filtered through the life they one day could have had. And she was that fifteen year old collapsed on the pitch. She was the fifteen year old girl struggling to stay afloat as her grief threatened to drown her. She was the fifteen year old girl who had just lost the one thing that had seen her through her darkest moments. 

There she was, wishing the same blond-haired boy was there holding her as her whole world churned, tumbled, disintegrated. But she had a brown-haired boy instead, one with uncontrollable locks and teary eyes hidden behind crooked frames. She took what she was given, accepted that she had lost that blond-haired boy two years ago, accepted that she had Harry. She forced her hands to relieve their tight grip on his jersey before she wrapped her arms around his shoulders, leaning her forehead against his shoulder as he hugged her tightly to his shaking form. He was crying right along with her and she wanted to help him, wanted to comfort him and reassure him that everything would eventually be okay. But she didn’t want to lie to him, she couldn’t. She didn’t believe that they would be okay again. Cedric was a loss to the Wizarding World. He was a loss that she didn’t know that she could bounce back from, that anyone could bounce back from. He was a lively, beautiful soul that had offered her a safe haven - he had given so many people hope that things would turn out okay. 

Instead, Harry was here - comforting the girl who was always there for other people. It broke her even more to think of how she was failing to help those she loved, but she couldn’t calm herself down enough to help him out. Her chest was still heaving with panic and, though the tears had stopped, her shoulders still shook from the force of now silent sobs. She was terrified that he would let her go, that he would help her back to her dorm and leave her alone. She didn’t want to be left alone; she hadn’t been since she had first met Cedric, since she had moved in with Sirius. She couldn’t handle this loss. She didn’t know what would happen if she was left alone. 

“Harry, do you think you could carry her? Let’s clear the area. We’ve already got most of the audience out.” A rough, cracking voice spoke up - pulling her attention away from her screeching thoughts.

She only moved to cling more securely to Harry, squeezing her eyes closed as the owner of the voice pulled them off the ground. She didn’t want to get another glimpse of Cedric. It was already carved into her brain. It took her far too long to process that the voice belonged to Mad-Eye Moody, but she didn’t care. She was more worried that Harry would decide she was okay alone and would leave her. Even so, she was more worried about the feeling of dread growing once again in her stomach. It was almost unsaid between the two of them that they knew that Cedric’s death marked the beginning of the war. This would only be the first of many deaths that would completely alter her existence.

Book: Cacoethes

Word count: 2,244

Summary: Draco finds Isobel after the war. But it’s too late.

Drabble, Cut Scene, or Request: Cut Scene; was once another short ending option to Cacoethes.

The battle was raging across the Hogwarts ground. She tried not to pay attention to those around her that had fallen - tried to ignore the various shades of house colors laid across the lifeless victims. It looked wrong, beyond wrong, to see fellow students splayed out across the ground, to see them lying mangled, broken, dead on what was once their home grounds. Her heart ached and her lungs burned at the thought of all who she would never get to see again.

She shoved the thoughts down and rearranged her grip on her wand, forcing her tense body to relax - just a tiny bit. She was doing all she could. It was overwhelming, jumping and dancing and bouncing from one stand off to another. She was trying to save everyone she could, throwing curses and spells and even unforgivables. She didn’t care that she was breaking the Wizarding law. She had people to protect. The Ministry would have to understand that she had to do all she could to save the students. She had to give them their futures, had to give them more time to live out their dreams. 

She was beyond overwhelmed. Her body was worn out, running on its last stretch of energy. She was determined to keep going, to keep fighting, to keep taking hits meant for those who looked up to her. There was a small part of her filled with pride at all the houses coming together to fight. It kept her going to know that her fellow students were all fighting to protect each other, to protect their school, to protect their world. She had never been more proud of all the students that snuck into the Room of Requirement to learn how to defend themselves from the war that was creeping across the horizon.

Her adrenaline was starting to wear off. She was beginning to feel the full extent of all the hits she had taken. She was starting to move slower and all of her knowledge was beginning to slowly leave her head. It was a struggle to keep fighting, but it was also a relief for her to see that the war was winding down. They; the students of Hogwarts, their parents, their professors, their Wizarding world supports; were winning. The Death Eaters were retreating, running the opposite direction of those fighting on the right side of the war.

In a split second, she was tossing her arms up - sending a spell to protect a younger year from a Death Eater’s last attempt at ending their lives. Her brain gave her one more spell, allowed her the time and energy to petrify the wretched Death Eater. She sent a faint, tired smile to the young boy before she stumbled. Her knees met the harsh, wet ground. It took her a moment to realize it was wet with blood, her blood, that had been sleeping from the wounds that her body had sustained. Her eyes widened as she uncontrollably watched her wand hit the ground, focusing on her left forearm. The mark. She watched as it stopped moving, as it slowly became what would have been a simple muggle tattoo. They had done it. She tried to choke back a sob as she realized that Harry, the boy she had grown up hearing vehemently about, had succeeded. He had killed the Dark Lord.

She brushed her hands slowly against the damp earth, allowing the soaked dirt to ground her to the world. She was slipping. She could feel it. She was barely holding on, barely forcing her lungs to breathe and her eyes to blink and her heart to beat. The world was blurry, churning, turning and she felt that she would fall into a blissful state of sleep at any moment - sleep she knew she would never wake up from. But she had to find Draco first. She had to say goodbye. 

She mustered up the energy, thought of all her memories with Draco, in order to produce a gleaming silver Dragon. She sent it forth into the ruins of the battlefield, knowing, hoping, and maybe even praying that it would find him, that it would get him to her in time.

The time it took for it to reach him wasn’t something she had the mental capacity to track. She just knew that one second she was slipping in and out of consciousness, barely holding her torso up right. And then in the next, Draco was screaming at her, yelling frantically for Neville - telling those that he ran past that they needed to get Neville to him. Neville knew so much more about healing than he did, and he knew that he needed the other teenager to help him.

She barely registered as he slid onto the ground next to her, pulling her body against his. She recognized that he was warm, that his body felt nice against her cooling skin. That he was pleading with her to talk to him, to wake up more, to stay with him. He was holding her as tightly as he could without hurting her, that he was pressing down on the wounds he could cover with a button up she hadn’t even realized he had taken off. The world was muffled to her, like she was listening to everything while her head had been shoved underwater.

Draco yelled out again, struggling to come up with his own patronus without his wand. His wand had been the reason that they had won the war; Harry had used it to get rid of the main threat. He couldn’t say he wished he hadn’t done it, but he wanted more than anything to have his wand so he could try to heal her in whatever ways he could. The panic that was overcoming his body was paralyzing, making everything feel red hot and tingly and making it hard to breathe. He forced it away, forced himself to try to calm down as her hand gently found its way to his moist cheek. He had started crying.

“Bel, we did it. We won. We can live our lives now. We… we can be free.” He told her, feeling more tears rush down his face. “We can be whoever we want to.”

“You…. you can. . . be a healer. Treat everyone…. Live… for us.” Her voice was quiet, her breathing wheezy and strained. “We…. did it.”

“We can both be healers. We can, well, we can finish our last year here and then work together at Saint Mungo’s and live together and just be…. us.” He choked out, softly brushing hair away from her forehead. He needed Neville to be here now, and it broke his heart further to know that they couldn’t apparate because of Dumbledore’s stupid rules.

She gave him a smile, one that looked so sad and broken and hurt. But her eyes showed no trace of her pain, of her knowledge of what would come next. They radiated pure adoration, showing him how much she truly cared for him. 

“I’ll never leave your side again, Isobel. I’m here, okay? I’m here. I’m not going anywhere ever again. You’ll always have me to fight by you, okay? Just stay here. Don’t leave me. Fuck, don’t leave me. I know you can fight through this. We can live through this, Bel. We can. I know we can. Don’t leave me.” He stumbled over his words, a lump growing in his throat as he felt his heart slowly begin sinking in his chest. He was pleading, begging her to stay with him, to not leave him. She was the one thing he had always had, the one person who always promised to never leave him. He couldn’t live without her. He didn’t want to.

“Hey….” Her voice drew his attention, her hands slowly moving to cover his, the ones covering wounds. “Dra… It’s. . . . It’s okay. Y-you know..? Let . . . Go. And…. and. . . L-l-live..”

“Not without you, Isobel. Not without you. I have so many plans for us, so many things for us to do. You… you can’t leave. Not now.” He was shaking, trembling, trying to stop himself from crashing down, from breaking, from shattering. Trying to stop her from leaving him.

“D-Dra-Draco…,” She shuttered for a moment, struggling to keep talking, to keep conscious. “M-Malfoy. . . I. I lo-love….. you…” 

His heart plummeted as her eyes started fluttering shut, her chest making its way to a paused position. And his heart, it didn’t stop, plummeting through the seemingly endless abyss that was his stomach - shattering, collapsing, crumbling, fragmenting all at once. He couldn’t keep track of the pieces as they scattered throughout his body, his chest igniting in overwhelming pain - completely burning as the pain reached a level he had never experienced before. His lungs stalled as his world did, aching and struggling to take in air as he realized that she was gone. The one person that he had always had, that had always been there, had left him. And there wasn’t anything he could do to bring her back. No magic in their world would be able to coax her back to the land of the living. 

And so he broke, letting his world crumble down around him as his sun left. He hugged her tight to his chest. He didn’t miss how she was like a rag doll, body so willingly following the motions he did. She was gone, and the light that had constantly been in his life was diminished. She was gone. His world tumbled and turned and churned and fell apart as he let out a heart-stopping, blood-curdling scream. She had died and all he felt was waves of drowning agony washing over his entire being. All the things he had planned, all the things they were going to do, were never going to happen. And he couldn’t breathe with those thoughts running in his brain.

His head slowly moved as he felt pressure on his shoulder, breaking down even more as he saw Neville kneeling beside him with tears in his eyes. He clung to Isobel, feeling even more shock hit his body as he felt the way her skin was cooling. It was so easy for him to collapse back into Neville, to allow the fellow teenage boy to hold him and his broken world as everything disintegrated around him. In this moment, it was just him holding her mangled body and Neville trying to anchor him back to a reality he no longer wanted to be in, 

“Draco, you have to let go of her. We have to get her inside.” Neville choked out, trying to loosen the boys grip on his best friend. “We need to take care of your injuries.”

“No,” He cried, his body vibrating with panic that Isobel could have stifled by now. “No. No no no nono nonononono. . . She’s not… she’s not gone, right? Neville, she’s still here, we can bring her back. We can save her. Neville, please. I know, I know she’s not gone. She wouldn’t just leave us like this, she wouldn’t just give up…”

Neville’s heart broke alongside Draco’s as he quietly pried his grip off of Isobel, pulling the deteriorating Slytherin into him. “Draco, we can’t. You know that we can’t. There’s nothing we can do. I’m… Im sorry….”

“I didn’t get to tell her.” He blurted out, his words and voice cracking at the realization. “I didn’t get to tell her! She’ll… she’ll never know… Her last words were that she loved me and she died before I could tell her. I’ll…. I'll never get to say it to her…. S-s-she’ll never kn-kn-know….”

“She knew. Draco, she knew.” Neville gently grasped the face of the panicking boy, making him look at him. “Isobel Ville knew, without a doubt, that you love her with your whole heart. She never doubted for a second how you felt about her. She knew…” 

Draco twisted his body around and threw his arms around Neville’s shoulders, collapsing completely into the Gryffindor’s hold. And Neville clung back, holding just as tightly to him. Neville tried to stay strong for Draco, tried to hold back his own pain because he knew that Draco’s had to be millions, billions, trillions of times worse than his. He had loved her, yes, but not to the extent of level that Draco did. He had to be there to help him through it. 

The Slytherin let the brave lion hold him as he completely broke down, yearning to fall into dreams that he would never want to wake up from. Just so he could see her, be with her, even just one last time. So he could hear her laugh and see her smile and look at her, see the life radiating positively throughout her body. She shone with life in a way that no one else could, bringing light into even the darkest times of his life, offering the world her own sunshine. And it was gone. It had imploded, causing his world to collapse within itself - almost as if his own personal little galaxy had collided with the black hole that was now her life, and had been consumed by the Inky blackness. He wanted just one more moment with her. Just one more small second to tell her how he felt, to hold her and be with her and just soak in her rays one last time. His universe would never be the same without its main source of light.

Book: None!

Word count: 939

Summary: Draco and Isobel find a moment of solitude. 

Drabble, Cut Scene, or Request: Very short request from my best friend.

They had taken a moment to escape from the annual ball of the Sacred Twenty-Eight, needing to get away even for a second from the strict views of the committed Death Eaters and their children. Draco, in his moment of craving to get away, had pulled Isobel out of his parents’ ballroom and up to his own room. It had been almost an instant reaction for one to charm the door shut, while the other placed a spell around the room to make it impossible for anyone else to listen in.

The smile that Isobel offered him, one of relief and unadulterated happiness, almost made him weak at the knees. When she smiled, it reminded him of the sun peaking through the dreary storm clouds - a glimpse of better days that he knew they could get to. And he loved being able to bask in her light, taking in her warmth and allowing it to let him give a soft smile back.

And it’s almost like she can tell how scared he is. She can almost instantly read his tense posture and see through his badly pieced together facade. She moved almost instantly to turn on the radio he had in his room, letting the soft sounds of lullaby-esque music to flow throughout his cleaned bedroom. The way she offers him her hand makes his heart skip a beat, and he forgets for a moment. He forgets about the gathering going on downstairs, forgets about the war lingering on the horizon, forgets about how they will never truly be able to make their own choices. instead, he focuses on gently pulling her against his body - one arm wrapping around her waist as the other alters his grip on her hand. He slowly begins to sway them to the music, appreciating the way her hair sways with them - falling down her back in soft curls.

She looked beautiful. She always did, in his opinion, but tonight she seemed to be even more radiant. Her slight curves were being hugged by an emerald green dress, bringing out the speckles of green in her irises. The color, he thought, suited her perfectly. But he imagined, for a tiny moment, the way she might one day look in a stunning ivory dress that she would carefully pick out. The thought that she would someday belong to someone else hurt him, wounded him deeply, but just to see her in a dress that color would be an honor. Whoever her father betrothed her to wouldn’t be anywhere near worthy enough for her. She was one in a hundred million, a comet streaking so fast past the earth that he was scared he would miss her if he took his eyes off of her for even a second. She was the type of person that men prayed to be with, that any man would be lucky enough to one day call her his wife.

He took a second and let go of her waist, using their interlaced hands to twirl her away from him. The giggle it incited from her made his heart skip a beat, his smile lighting up his face. That was one of his favorite sounds, aside from - perhaps - her soft singing or when she would read to him or even when she would hold conversations with him. Here, in his room, was the only place he yearned to be. With her, dancing to a song he hadn’t heard since he was a child. The moment was perfect to him; life couldn’t get much better. 

He pulled her back to him, heart warming at the soft blush on her cheeks and the adoration twinkling in her bright eyes. She was so full of light, of hope, and he was soaking in every second that he could. Because he knew they would have to leave and go back to the others, to act like this secret moment between them hadn’t taken place. And so he twirled her again, yearning to hear the sound of her laughing, and then he pulled her into a gentle dip, eyes gleaming with happiness. Here, in this moment, she was all his - only his, and that was all he had ever wanted. It was all he knew he would ever need, especially to get through this rocky life he had been given. 

The way she looked, her hair flowing behind her as she smiled brightly at him, made him want to risk everything. He wanted to kiss her and hold her and ask her to run away, to go off and live a life together - away from their families, the impending war, the Dark Lord. He wanted to risk everything to keep her looking this happy, to help preserve the way she was shining. He wanted to risk their friendship, risk years of memories and love and happiness, and try for something more. All he wanted was for her to be his, but he was afraid that she might not feel the same way.

He pulled her close to him again, heart starting to pull with the weight of what they would be thrown back into when they left his room. And he almost asked her to stay, to help him pack before they would sneak off to her house, to help her pack, and then to run away. It took everything in him not to plead with her to do so. Instead, he gently cupped her cheeks in his hands as the song began to slow to an end, pressing a soft kiss to her forehead before he turned to lead them both back downstairs.

Book: Cacoethes

Word count: 903

Summary: Draco and Isobel find each other after the war.

Drabble, Cut Scene, or Request: Cut Scene. This was one of the original thoughts of an ending of Cacoethes

Her body is aching, and it’s far beyond what she’s afraid she can process. She knows her adrenaline hasn’t worn off yet - she’s still on edge, heart racing fast as the dark claws of panic threaten to drag her to a place she’s not sure she’ll be able to return from. Her blood is pulsing, rushing, racing through her veins and her eyes are closed tightly - head tilted back in a fashion that would have her staring at the sky. She had collapsed onto the ground as soon as she had discovered that the war was finally over.

Her moment of chaos, of reveling in everything she had had to do, of considering her panic, was interrupted by a soft touch on her shoulder. Her eyes opened to show her Neville. She swore she felt her heart start cracking the second she realized that Draco hadn’t found her. She took his hopeful expression in, letting it warm her cooling bones as he offered her a hand out of the hole she was spiraling into.

“There’s a lot of people still alive, Is. Madam Pomfrey needs help healing them. I looked everywhere to find you.” Neville blurts out, making it difficult for her to follow as his words slurred together.

He carefully slung her arm around his shoulders before his own reached out to support her around her waist. The close proximity made it easy for her to focus on his breathing, to concentrate on something other than the ache in her chest from her pessimistic thoughts. She can’t focus on losing her rock; the one thing that never deviated from her life, that never abandoned her in her time of need. 

Her body is worn out. The way she barely trudged alongside Neville shows that. She has to concentrate on her feet, focus on them moving in time with his in Order to keep his pace. She’s grateful, entirely, for him being by her side. For him finding her. It wasn’t the person she was hoping for, waiting for, but she knew that she was just as lucky to have it be her second longest friend. She couldn’t handle losing both of them. 

A part of her wondered if Neville was aware of what she was thinking - he always had that sixth sense of what was running through her head. She could tell he was trying to keep positive and she had to let his energy flow through her. The optimism was what she needed, was what all the wizarding world needed, after such a dark night.

She was starting to get so lost in her thoughts that she barely registered that her friend had pulled her to a stop. Her eyes met his in confusion, unaware of what had caused the tears in his eyes or the giant smile tugging at his lips. He didn’t have to say much. All he had to do was look straight ahead, and her eyes followed.

She swore that her heart completely stopped. Standing there, at the entrance to the castle, was her best friend. He looked worse for wear - his green eyes filled with panic, his uniform soiled by the confines of war, his hair pointing every which way. She knew without a doubt that he had been running his hands nervously through his hair, trying to find some way to ground himself to the world because she hadn’t been near him. She knows the exact moment his eyes meet hers; his posture relaxes, his eyes glimmer with tears of relief. Her whole body becomes overwhelmed with relief, her mind immediately telling her she has to go to him. She has to make sure it’s actually him.

She separates herself from Neville, throwing her body forward without even thinking of the pain she’ll be in from all the fighting. She stumbles, barely catching her balance before she almost topples over. She feels pain erupt all around her body, but she pushes it back - shoves it in some place so dark that she’ll attend to it later, after she’s made sure her best friend is alright. The paces between them were timeless, second-less, and before she knows it she’s crashing into his body.

Her arms grasp tightly around his shoulders, one of her hands even going so far as to bury itself within his ratted hair. His arms lock around her - she can tell one is around her waist, one around her back. And she doesn’t care how tightly he’s holding onto her, because she knows that she is clinging onto him like her life depends on it. His warm breath is hitting her neck, and she can tell his face is hidden there in the crook of it. She’s not sure how she managed to wrap her legs around his waist, how her tired body is so capable of clinging to him in the midst of the pain threatening to overwhelm her.

But he’s here. He’s holding her, hugging her, clinging to her. And he’s alive. He’s breathing and real and tangible and he’s crying. She knows she should pause, she should be worried - but she doesn’t. She lets her wall come crashing down. Her emotions, her pain, her suffering - it all comes down around her in waves, drowning her as she clings to her rock. She knows she still has her home and, finally, she lets herself crumble within the safety of his hold.

Hey all. I know I’ve been uber slow at getting anything up recently, but I’ve been so busy trying to move myself to a new city while also job hunting and other things of the like. I do want to say that I do allow commissions! If you want a reader insert with a certain character with a certain prompt (or anything of the like), feel free to shoot me a message (or even donate to my ko-fi: https://ko-fi.com/neighborhoodparker ). Thanks for turning in!

Panacea [0]

Pairing: Steve Harrington x Reader

Word count: 1,635

Warnings: Mentions of triggering/tough topics - such as abuse, racism, sexual coercion, and overall just toxic relationships. This is a general warning that will accompany every part of this little series. 

Summary: The one where you are given an introduction to your story.

Taglist: @sydneekomspacekru

(shitty) short introduction | part 1 | part 2

Roane County in Indiana, otherwise known as Hawkins, was supposed to be your new beginning. It was your way of starting over - of leaving behind your deadbeat father and your dead mother, of purging yourself of the sins of your family. Indiana was a huge change, especially in climate, when it came to your place of origin in middle-of-nowhere Arizona. Admittedly, it took you a while to get used to the colder temperatures - but you did what you’ve always done; you adapted. This was a skill you had to learn from a young age, especially with how poisonous your relationship was with your father. And, thankfully, your adaptive nature enabled you to quietly slip into the social structure that made up Hawkins's High - your extroverted, friendly nature helped as well, gaining you quick traction among the clichés of popularity. It was with ease that you blended in among those in town that held good names; after all, your mother had lived here for the first seventeen years of her life. Even though she had chosen to leave Hawkins all those years ago, you were welcomed back with open arms - and it was like you had lived your entire life within the small square footage that made up the strange town.  You have to suppose that a town of this magnitude never truly forgets who it marks as its own. 

And, well, it didn’t take long for Hawkins to mark you as one of its own. The ease you had with moving there seemed to infiltrate every aspect of your life. You got good grades - A’s on practically every assignment, quiz, and test, got along well with the teachers and the students, had no difficulties finding a job at the local diner, and you even hit the jackpot with a bewitching  significant other. At least, that last part is what every girl in your friend group told you. Now, Billy Hargrove was - in and of himself - a conundrum, to say the least. This was something you had figured out quickly about him; right after he had decided that your welcome to the town from him was his shirtless body hefting your heavy boxes into your new apartment. Before promptly deciding to spend the rest of the evening in the local diner with you, flirting more than you had ever seen a teenage boy do. In a way, you were still set apart from the others. Because you saw behind his façade; you saw behind the flirtation and sex appeal. There was a brokenness that you had only ever seen in one other place, and that was in the eyes that stared back at you when you looked in a mirror. The life he had at home wasn’t good - and your suspicions were confirmed the first night his younger step-sister had showed up to your apartment with him sprawled out in the backseat of his Camaro, with wounds that only could have been inflicted by a man in a drunken rage. 

His sister, Max, was another person you had quickly formed a bond with. That night, when she brought Billy to you because she had no other place to take him, she found out just how far your generosity could spread. From that moment forward, after you had patched up the wounds on a moaning Billy, your apartment became a safe haven for the two of them - especially for Max. Every time their house gets too loud or too violent, Max finds her own way to you; a frequent occurrence that caused you to give her your spare key. Unfortunately, though, Billy’s conundrum of an existence only grew bigger after the night you patched him up. Even though you were supposed to be his nepenthe - the one thing that takes away all his pain and sorrows, the one thing that helped him heal - he refused to admit that you did anything to help him. In his mind, it was a weakness he couldn’t afford and - frankly - that never happened. Honestly, you see more of Max these days than you do of Billy. And you’re naïve about it. You think that just because you’re helping Max that you’re helping Billy; you believe that he’s embarrassed and doesn’t want you to be pulled into his horrific domestic life. 

You’re naïve because you think you can fix him. You see the broken parts, the fragmented sides of this unhealed child that’s become your boyfriend - and you think that if you give him enough time, enough patience, that he’ll come forward, that he’ll let you help. But he won’t. Because, frankly, Billy Hargrove is past saving. He’s headed down a dark path and you’re only going to be caught in the crossfires. But you don’t know that; not consciously, anyways. He’s never laid a hand on you, so you think that things are okay. You don’t understand that it’s not okay that he doesn’t show up, that he yells at you when he gets mad and doesn’t talk about it after. You think that this is just his way of coping - that it’s different from what you did when you were with your father. And what makes your naivety even worse is that you swore you would never end up in a relationship like your mother. You watched, physical altercation after physical altercation, as your mother became more beaten and more bruised - and you swore, you promised, you vowed, that you wouldn’t become your mother. You broke that. Because you didn’t know that your parents started out the same way that you and Billy did. And as hard as it is to take it in, you are just as doomed as your mother was. You don’t have enough love to spare to put him back together again. But love isn’t what can fix him. Nothing can patch a boy together when he has crevices as empty and deep as Billy. 

And this doesn’t begin to touch the things that he does with you that you know are wrong. He’s a very high-driven, sexual person - and this is something that you found out decently quickly once you officially got together.  It never mattered if you were in the mood for it or not, you were too focused on trying to meet his needs when he finally told you about them that you didn’t realize just how bad coercion is. You think that you have it good because everyone else is jealous of the intimacy you have with him. You don’t realize that his coercion, his guilt-tripping to get you to please him is just assault. And even though he gets aggressive when you’re in bed, when he bruises you because you’re not doing something the way he likes, you don’t see the red flags. Deep down, you know that the way he treats you is wrong - but he’s never laid a hand on you outside of your private time together, so you think it’s okay. You think what you have is love and that it’ll get better once you get him out of his toxic household, but that’s not true. The abuse he experiences is so profoundly engrained in who he is that the toxicity will only follow him once he leaves. He might get out of the house, might leave behind his asshole of a father, but he is another victim that will fall into the idiom of the apple not falling far from the tree.

That’s just another way in which you and Billy are more similar than most people think. He’s turning out to be just like his father - and you’re heading down the same path that your own mother did; despite all your best attempts to pledge to her gravestone that you’ll be different. Your childhood was spent watching an abusive relationship pave itself; your father was always under the influence of something, whether alcohol or drugs, and it ignited an anger in him that could only be taken out in physical ways on your mother. You spent enough nights hiding in your closet with your blanket and pillow, trying to get away from the sounds of your mother begging and pleading, that you’d think you would know to get out of whatever you have going on with Billy. And one thing that makes you less similar to him, that sets you apart, is how you both coped with the abuse you’ve seen in your homes. You turned to books and school, delving into every interest and hobby that popped up as you grew. You found friends and a way out of the house and hyper-focused on how you would one day get out. But Billy, he turned to other things - like cigarettes and working out and blaring loud music. He found hookups and hyper-focused on how he was one day going to get back at his dad for all the pain, all the suffering, the man had caused him. Perhaps, in a way, you were two opposing sides of a coin - and maybe that was just another thing that added to your naivety about your relationship with him. 

You watched as your father, day after wretched day, slowly killed your mother. You watched as she dug her own grave, watched as your father finally - after years of her surviving - put her six feet in the ground. And Max, the girl who’s practically become your own little sister, the girl who would do just about anything to see you get away from her older step-brother, is determined to save you. The way she sees it, your fate is now in her hands - and it’s not something that she, or her “baby-sitter”, will take lightly.

Panacea

Summary:

Months after moving out on your own to a small town by the name of Hawkins (and promptly transferring your school records to Hawkins High), you’ve found yourself as the token girlfriend of the highly-acclaimed Billy Hargrove. You seem to have it all - a hot boyfriend that every girl could only dream of, straight A’s and a golden 4.0 GPA, and not a single parent or guardian to hold you back. But the truth is, dating Billy isn’t all it’s cracked up to be. You’ve found that it’s lonely - he never shows up when he says he will, tries to pepper up his apologies with bouquets bought last minute from the grocery store down the street from his house, and - almost worst of all - he never even bothers to open up to you. You’ve seen glimpses of his home life, heard stories of what goes on behind closed doors from his younger step-sister on the nights she finds herself on your doorstep, and deep down you know that this relationship isn’t any good for you. People always say that the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree - and Max knows that Billy is a nuclear bomb set on a path for complete annihilation that will take you out with him once he finally detonates. Enlisting the help of her self-declared “baby-sitter” is all she can think to do - but she knows that Steve Harrington, with his familial history and his too-big-heart, can save you from the Death Zone. 

Chapters:

(shitty) short introduction

Extra Scenes:

Inspired Works:

Song Inspiration

The Ones You Save [1]

Pairing: Bucky Barnes x Reader

Word count: 4,735

Warnings: Mentions of murder, death, and blood.

Summary: The one where you are given a new mission and you follow through with the orders you have found.

prologue | part 1 | part 2

“You can find your mission.”

You don’t flinch as you easily allow the barrier in your mind to fall down, immediately reaching out past yourself to delve into the mind of Alexander Pierce. It’s slightly difficult for your muddled mind to recall just exactly who he is - but the name had popped in almost without hesitation when you gave yourself the brief reminder that forgetting could result in something worse than the dreaded machine, something worse than the highly praised cryogenic chamber.

You don’t have to search far into his psychotic, masochist brain to find what you need. The man has learned by now to keep the mission on the forefront of his mind after you have been prodded to find your mission. If he doesn’t think of it while you’re searching, you’re forced to burrow deeper into his mind - and there’s no telling what disturbing things you’d find if you did that. Not that any of it would have much effect on your broken encephalon.

As you’re discovering details about your new targets, the scientists in the room move to suit you up. You weren’t wearing much when you had come in - just the pants to your suit and the sports bra that they have you wear underneath your suit. Your suit itself is a complex mess of zippers and buttons; a design purposely created with the lightweight tactical suit to remind you how much control you lack. The uniform is constructed from Kevlar fiber and Nomex thread; produced for advanced flexibility and resistance to small bullets. It’s incredibly close to the apparel that the Winter Soldier once wore - but the design has been updated to restrict you from removing the clothing yourself. There is a tight muzzle wrapped around your nose and mouth, but they have abandoned the goggles you were once forced to wear. You don’t have to worry about your hair; the ratty, rough fibers are constantly pulled back into double dutch braids that stretch down to your middle back.

You barely recognize at this point when your brain kicks in to autopilot. With all the damage that’s been inflicted on the organ, you hardly remember telling yourself to walk to the hangar. All you comprehend is that you are suddenly in a different room, that you are strikingly alone. The silence is almost welcoming to a small, quiet part of your mind - but you shove that down. You don’t like the lack of loud voices, lack of chaos - the void of screaming, crying. You are so used to screeching HYDRA agents and sobbing victims; the silence distracts you from your complete-your-mission-and-get-it-over-with attitude. It comforts you, even; it allows you to take a break from the life that you know ( incredibly deep down ) you hate.

You make your way to your designated plane. You go through the motions of buckling yourself in, placing a comm into your ear before you pull on the noise cancelling headphones. With the powers you have, the decibels given off by the plane are too much. Even the small carrier plane you are allowed to pilot is too much. You hate loud noises, but your powers make it easier for you to cancel everything out - to focus on small details that rest inside the minds of others.

If your memories hadn’t been so toyed with, you would’ve been able to reminisce over how your old partner never got the privilege of learning to fly the passenger plane. You would’ve remembered that the scientists trusted you more than him, that you always were allowed more freedoms than him. But he only comes in fragmented bits. He only shows up in your mind at random instances, bringing a mix of strong emotions that have no reason. You can’t conjure up a full mental picture of him most of the time - but you might be able to recognize him if you saw him. You two were the best duo that HYDRA had ever seen; you always had the others back, never left the other to fight alone. But, he had managed to escape without you. You would be able to understand if you could just think about how hard he tried to get you out too.

But you don’t remember any of that. You don’t even think about it. When you do, it’s not by choice - and Alexander Pierce makes sure that you forget as soon as it happens.

You’re barely off the ground before your comm ignites with static. There’s a wince that you hold back as your hands keep the plane steady. This is something that comes naturally to you, the one thing that makes you feel weightless when the blood stained on your hands gets to be too much. It’s almost like an extension of yourself; as easy to control as your actions in hand-to-hand combat.

“You have the directions and the target. Make sure that the target is dead. Don’t worry about any other casualties; you know what will happen if your compassion suddenly rears its head.” The shrieking voice of Pierce fills your ear.

You don’t answer. And you never do. That’s one of the things that they seem to like most about you. You’re obedient; you’re easy to control, you listen without complaint. They’re at the point where they no longer have to toy with your fears to make you carry out their commands, they’ve already made you believe that you cannot survive on your own. They’ve taken care of you for so long, even though it hasn’t been anywhere near what living should be like. Deep down, the person who you used to be knows that you could take care of yourself if you were given the chance. You could treat yourself better, kinder, than any of those people you work for. If you cared for yourself, if you were given the chance to disappear from HYDRA - maybe you could stop spilling so much innocent crimson.

The plane touches down with precision and shuts off a moment after. You don’t need to take time to compose yourself before you’re pulling off the headphones. There’s a multitude of weapons that you move to strap onto your body; it seems that there’s a weapon for every occasion. HYDRA wants you to be prepared. Even with your abilities.

You shut the door behind you, but make no immediate move to walk away. Now is when you need to compose yourself. You force yourself to relax and close your eyes. You envision yourself standing near the edge of the forest; you look at your surroundings through your mind, see yourself slowly fade from view. And it works. When you open your eyes, you know your body is invisible to any prying eyes.

You were created with this in mind, to be an agent of stealth - to be able to control things with your mind. When Arnim Zola found Bucky, found you - he had the perfect duo in mind. He had two different serums; one that was previously made for the highly regarded hero dubbed as Captain America, the other that he had carefully and intricately made just for you. He had it planned; the body and the mind. Bucky was the body; he had the super strength, the undeniable agility, the striking silver arm. And you, you were the brilliant mind. You had the ability to infiltrate minds, the disappearing act, the genius plans. You also had the unexpected onyx arm and the metal parts replacing the fragmented bones in your legs. Zola’s beautiful, entrancing duo had both taken falls from high distances - but it was the perfect way to take you both into their custody.

And now, decades after your personal fall, you are standing at the edge of the forest. Your Glock 17 is now loosely resting in your left hand. It’s not the perfect time to use it and you have left the safety on. In a few mere seconds, you could have the safety off and the gun positioned perfectly. Your constant, extreme training has allowed you to perfect such motions. The guns aren’t your favorite weapon; those were always reserved for the partner you can’t remember. Your favorites are the knives - the ones your brain so easily calculates the trajectory for. Knives are like another extension of yourself, the perfect weapon for the perfect brain. But knives can’t penetrate through tinted windows of armored vehicles. You know that the bullets in your gun can’t either, which is why it’s your job to get into the car and execute your target.

The comm once again ignites with an irritating voice. “The car has been spotted heading your way. Get in position.”

Your eyes dart through the dense traffic that lies a few feet in front of you. The cars are so close together, so crowded that they can’t move. You know that it’s typical of this area during this time of day to be so packed. That makes it perfect for your job. It creates less casualties, makes it easier for you to spot the right target and take care of them without hassle.

You carefully begin to weave through the mess of stopped cars. It’s not the hardest thing that you have to do, but sometimes it’s difficult to squeeze between the vehicles and avoid hitting them. You like to stay invisible and it’s hard when the people in the cars can feel you bump into them. It destroys your stealth, confuses the people in the cars, and makes you want to panic. You don’t want to mess up; HYDRA could come up with extreme consequences for any slight error in your plans.

They want you to cause chaos in the process of your mission. That’s the reason why you aren’t using a knife, why your hand is slowly tightening its grip on your gun. They want the people around you to panic, to cause a commotion. They want you to cause as much chaos as you can with your missions so they can one day introduce you as the savior the world needs; the one person alone who can stop all these random killings, who has all the means to save the world without destroying cities upon cities in the process.

And you hate the idea. You know that it is stupid, that it’s useless - but the people who control you don’t care about your opinion. They haven’t cared since they locked Arnim Zola’s mind in a bunker far below the surface of the Earth. Zola was the one person who always wanted your opinion in missions, the one person who always knew how clever you really were. You wish that you had just messed around a bit more in Pierce’s mind and convinced him to let you use a knife. Your mission would run a lot more smoothly if you had done that.

“Your tracker is nearly on top of the car. Make sure you’re paying attention.” His voice is scolding this time, trying to find fault in your actions. You know exactly where the car is; you can see it plain as day. You’re not stupid and you know that you haven’t passed it yet. “Keep it simple, yet create chaos.”

You finally let your eyes roll in response. They can’t see your eyes roll when you’re hidden, and you’re far enough away from them that you aren’t absolutely terrified to react in that manner. You swear that they get on your nerves, though you’d never admit it out loud. Their instructions are always ingrained in your brain from how much they tell you them.

You let your bionic arm bang against the passenger window of the armored vehicle. There’s a quick pause and then you hit the window again - but this time you have moved closer to the front windshield. It goes on like that as you slowly begin to circle the car; all you are doing is luring out the driver of the car. You barely make it around to the back of the car before the guy is scrambling out of the car, moving to where you are. It’s easy for you to sidestep the man and slip into the car. You slam the door shut before you press down on the lock button. You can nearly feel the panic radiating off of the passengers in the car, A small smile tugs on your lips because you know for a fact that Pierce would be proud of you. When he’s proud, no one’s allowed to punish you for small mistakes.

You feel the urge to flip the car into drive and slam on the gas, but you brush it off. You’re not looking to get hurt in the process of giving Pierce the chaos that he craves. All you want is to invoke panic and fear, which you can do by firing the gun more than once. But you wait a beat. You allow your hammering heart a moment to calm down, allow yourself to keep your cover as you move to roll down the back window.

The driver is moving towards the window as soon as he sees that it is being lowered. You can see the panic and terror written across his face. You wonder, for a split second, how long the man must have been working for SHIELD. You know that if he was HYDRA he wouldn’t have let his emotions play out across his face. SHIELD has never properly trained their agents.

You watch as the driver attempts to pull your target out of the car. You don’t act out of panic, nor do you jump at the chance to fire the gun. He tries to pull the woman out, but the seat belt proves to be an issue. You move your gun into the proper position as he pleads with her to unbuckle and let him get her out alive; which makes you want to scoff. There’s no possible way that this could go that would have her getting out alive.

But you still wait. Your eyes follow the woman as she unbuckles herself, watch as the man tries once more to pull her out of the window. You busy yourself with rolling down the other windows, making the two of them pause for a moment in their efforts. It’s almost humorous to you, to watch as they finally realize they can open the door and safely pull her out.

Then you move. You’re pulling yourself out of the window, curling your body through the small surface. Instead of hopping onto the ground, you lift your body on top of the car. It doesn’t dent under your weight and your feet don’t leave any prints, for which you’re thankful for. You squat down and watch as the driver begins to look around frantically. It’s also humorous to watch him try to see you.

The driver is telling the woman to move, to stick close to him. You let one of your fingers move to click the safety off and you raise the gun, carefully pointing it at the two of them. But you don’t shoot. Not yet. You know exactly how you want to cause a little bit of chaos.

They start moving away from the car, leaving the other two passengers to scramble out after them. You quietly drop onto the ground, taking a quick moment to observe that traffic has begun to move a bit. It’s not hard for you to begin to follow behind the four SHIELD agents; your footsteps are too light to reveal your location to them. You want to move to tap into their minds, but your comm quietly comes to life before you can.

“Now’s the time, Ghost.”

You move your gun up, easily pointing it to your main target - the woman. You take a moment to breathe before you fire, watching as the bullet lodges itself into the back of her right knee. She almost falls to the ground in slow motion. The driver moves to bend down in front of her. You take another breath before you fire again, focusing on the bullet as it passes through the woman’s neck and lodges itself in the man’s torso. It is with swift ease that you take out the other two SHIELD agents who followed them, not sparing a second to watch as their bodies collapse onto the ground.

You put the safety on before you tuck the gun into the holster around your thigh. Though you do not watch the life leave the woman’s body, you do watch as people begin to jump out of their cars - running over to the four people. You make a face as you see some of them pulling out their phones, taking pictures and videos. You have to think about how stupid the human race has gotten, how eager they are to show everything that happens to the rest of the world. Their ignorance is bliss, in your situation, and you know that it will one day be the death of them. Just like it was to those four SHIELD agents whose blood is now crawling along the blazing hot asphalt.

Your feet begin to move you away from the area, trying to get back to the small passenger plane you had been permitted to take. You know that the scene isn’t as bloody as Pierce would have liked, but you know that he will be satisfied with the end results. Four SHIELD agents dead, with more on the list for your future endeavors.

As you finally disappear into the trees, you drop your invisibility facade. You can feel the blood begin to trickle down from your noise as you suddenly cease using your powers. You easily wipe it off with your gloves. It was always a side effect that you had after using them; Zola would always chalk it up to happening because of where they originated from. You were using your brain in a way that no other human could and this was always the way that you had reacted.

You pause mid-step as you pick up on the crunching of leaves underneath someone’s boot. Your mind immediately kicks into action and you disappear from sight, quietly turning around to see if you can find the source of the noise. Unlike the stranger, you tread carefully - your boots making barely any noise as you move amidst the fallen leaves and sticks. Your hand automatically moves to turn your comm off; eliminating all chances of Pierce revealing your location to the possible enemy. You have no clue who it could be or how many of them there are, but you know how you can find out.

You lean your body against a tree, letting your head relax against the rough bark as you close your eyes. You wish for a second that you had your headphones with you, but know that the noises of the nearby traffic will have to do as your distraction. You focus on the soft hum of the cars and the sound of tires on the road, not allowing the occasional horn honk to scare you.

You travel out of your mind - your powers quietly reaching out amidst the gentle sound of the wind pulling through the trees. You act as though you are flying through the forest, spotting out any possible threat. And it doesn’t take you long to see what has made the noise. On the outer edge of the forest, you spot three people. There are two men and one woman; you easily recognize Captain America and Black Widow, two ‘high-held’ SHIELD agents. The other man, though, isn’t as easily recognizable. You know that his face and build is familiar, that you have seen him before - but you cannot place him. All you know is that this man, the one with long brown hair and matching facial hair, looks concerned. And you decide to allow your brain to connect with his, to see out of his own eyes and to hear out of his ears.

“Buck, I don’t think she’s here. Not anymore, at least.” Captain America speaks up, sending the man a frown.

“I know she’s here, Steve. I can feel her.” The deep vibrations that left ‘Buck’ seemed to send a shock of pain through your system, and you automatically fight to shove the memories down.

“I don’t necessarily think that you can feel when a person is around, Barnes.” Black Widow pitches in - you watch as Steve nods in agreement.

“It’s a long story, Romanoff. Her and I have always been connected. That’s how Zola wanted it to be. I know she’s here. She’s watching us right now.”

You quickly let go of your hold on his brain and push yourself away from the tree with a jolt, putting your comms back on.

“Take off your mask and tell us what’s going on, Ghost.” The growl that escapes Pierce’s side of the comm makes your eyes narrow. “You won’t get in trouble.”

You quietly and hesitantly peel the muzzle off of your face, pressing your flesh hand down on the comm. “Captain America and Black Widow are here with a man they called ‘Buck’ and ‘Barnes’.”

You can’t help but wince at the rough, scratchy voice that falls out of your lips.You haven’t talked in so long and it’s easy to tell that it’s been months. The thought of them punishing you for doing what you’re told sends a shock of fear through your system, but you’re more concerned with the memories that are threatening to push past your mental barrier. A part of you wants to remember who that man is, but the rest of you knows that you need to forget about him. He’s not important. The important thing is finding a way to get back to your base undetected.

Without being told to, you quickly place the mask back around your face. You know that they can’t see you, but the fear of being punished for having it off overrides that fact. You want that punishment as much as you want the memories that are fighting against your brain. You have scars across your body from the last time it was taken off, which was when you had fought to get out - and the thought of disobeying by trying to get away sets your whole body aflame. The memory that coincides with the scars is red hot; it’s setting fire to that mental barrier as it fights to get past.

You can feel it start to crumble and you’re forced to lean down, to cradle your head between your hands.The pain that comes with the memories is overwhelming, overbearing. It’s hard for you to fight through it. But you know that you have to get away from where you are, you know that you have to evacuate to a safe place - somewhere HYDRA can rescue you. The sooner that they rescue you, the sooner they can fix your crumbling mental state.

But the pain is agonizing. It’s worse than anything you’ve ever felt and you aren’t sure how you can quiet the blazing white pain pounding throughout your brain. HYDRA should have known better than sending you out in the field when you were previously so unstable, but you know that no one thought that there would be a trigger out here. None of them had planned for this man called Buck to show up, to be here. And no one would have been able to tell how big of a trigger the unkempt male would be.

You can hardly feel your knees hit the hard ground, but you can feel the dry grass pressing into your arms. The dirt is cool against your burning forehead. You feel like your entire body has been set ablaze and you are fighting the urge to cry out. Everything around you sounds muffled, like you have been plunged into a giant pool of water. You strain to hear the three agents, strain to find their location in relation to you. But it’s overloading your brain - you can feel the blood begin to seep out of your nose. You know immediately that you have lost your hold on your invisibility.

“Get out of there!” You hardly manage to hear Pierce scream into the ear piece, but the panic in his voice makes your head hurt even more.

Your force yourself to get up to your feet, staggering as you take a few steps to catch your balance. The world around you is spinning relentlessly; it feels like you are stuck in a snow globe that is continuously being rolled across the floor. It’s difficult for you to stay on your feet as you move forwards. You think that you’re moving away from the three people, but your sense of direction is incredibly messed up. You feel like up is down and right is left. You aren’t sure how you can fix the mixed up directions.

You stumble forward and your stomach seems to twist more with every step. The pounding in your head only seems to get worse as memories begin to pile on top of each other. You’re seeing bits and pieces of a past that you don’t remember; you’re being overloaded with unknown events and it’s hard to keep the little bit of food you had today in your stomach. You barely make it to a tree before you’re leaning against it. Your body is bending over and you’re losing what feels like the entire contents of your stomach. The acid from your belly has scorched the entire length of your esophagus and you are left dry heaving.

You can’t keep up with your mind. There’s flashes of a man, the same man you just saw, and he’s fighting alongside you. You see bursts of doctors injecting you with serums and you see bits of agents torturing you. Then there was a man - one who you didn’t recognize, in so many different moments that you couldn’t comprehend. There he was, placing a ring gently on your finger. There’s a big smile after, then you’re sitting under the stars on a blanket. But then it seems to turn sour and suddenly he’s lying on the ground - his lifeless eyes staring up at the stars. You feel a hand grab onto your arm and you think you’re being dragged back to that cliff, the cliff that that man died on and then you’re screaming.

You’re screaming with all your might, and you feel like you’re falling. You feel like you’re tumbling towards the bottom of the cliff; you see that it’s getting closer and you don’t seem to be slowing down. You’re panicking because you know that you’re going to die, you know that this isn’t going to end well. And you wish, you wish with everything in you that you could have been better, that you could have hurt less people - that you could have caused less casualties.

And you’re closing your eyes tightly - so tight, waiting for the impact. Then you hit the ground. But you don’t hit hard. You don’t feel any bones break and you don’t feel the agony of your body bending in ways it never should have. You don’t feel flesh and muscle being torn away from your shoulder, you don’t feel your legs being shattered beyond repair.

Even though you’re terrified, though you feel like you’re frozen from shock - you slowly start to test out your appendages. You keep your eyes closed because you’re scared to see the damage, you’re afraid to see where you are. For a split second, you wonder if you have died. You lay and hope that maybe, finally, you’re free from HYDRA.

You decide, no matter what you’ll find, that you have the courage to open your eyes. You slowly pry your eyes open and the sky above you is bright blue. There’s barely any clouds littering the big expanse of cerulean. The sun is shining brightly, warming the body that you thought would be cold from the shallow lake that was sitting at the bottom of the cliff.

And there is a pair of shining blue eyes staring down at you.

tag list: @verygraphicink

The Ones You Save [Prologue]

Pairing: Bucky Barnes x Reader

Word count: 1,759

Summary: The one where your chaotic mind is reset.

prologue | part 1 | part 2

There is a part of you that believes you used to know what life was like before you were stuck; stuck in whatever chaotic mess this was. A mess of what you could barely recognize as an endless cycle  ― one that Alexander Pierce constantly thought of; one that involved strange, sickly liquids being pumped into your system; one that had parts of your brain constantly being erased. The endless cycle of you searching for orders in the brains of agents who were deemed superior to you, completing the orders  ― going through with horrendous actions that would leave your hands more blood-stained than before.

Your superiors don’t care about that, though. They don’t care about the amount of blood that tarnishes your hands. They don’t care about the screams and pleas that echo in your head. They don’t care about how unclean you feel; how wrong, how disgusting, how tainted. They only care that you can complete your missions, that you can pave their way in the messy world. As long as you’re a determined, dangerous tool  ― they don’t need to look into your mental state.

There’s an urge in your brain  ― an urge to dig through the mess of barriers and fragments that the electricity from the machine has left behind. But you shove the urge down; trying to hide it deep among the broken, shattered parts of what you once were able to recognize as a person with free will. There’s another urge right alongside that one. It’s telling you to escape from this room, the compound. It’s telling you to get out before the doctor can bother to mess with your mind again. It’s the again part that catches you off guard. You can’t remember another time that you were in this room  ― a cloth shoved between your clenched jaw, metal bonds holding down your arms and legs. You can’t remember anything, actually. Except in uncontrollable spurts. But the thought of trying to conjure up a past memory sends a shockwave of pain through your frontal lobes.

Your eyes focus around the room and you let go of the guard that you had yanked up on your mind. Your eyes are quick to close as every single thought in the room hits you at once. You can tell that your mind and your control have become unstable  ― everything is so loud and you can’t concentrate on a single thought. You’re only able to catch a few keywords, ones that add up to a splintered sentence: seventh time in, looming cryogenic chamber, a mess. The fragmented sentence seems to match your mind and your emotions, making you feel like you have been tossed into a never-ending vortex that happily holds you captive. It seems dead-set on tearing you down.

An extreme pain explodes throughout your head and you immediately realize that your brain is trying to push back your mental barriers. You know that a memory is trying to be brought up, one that you don’t want to recall. You thrust it back down. You thrust it as far down as you can, pretending that you are locking it away in a hidden chamber  ― chucking the key to the opposing side of a very long, very deep ocean. The memory disappears and your eyes lock with a man who is kneeling in front of you. The cold, empty look in his bright green eyes throw you off. You instantly recognize him as your primary doctor.

"Ghost, if you don't get your shit together soon ― we're tossing you in the chamber."

You know that already. You gathered that much from the mess of a sentence that your mind inherited. You’re thinking, though, that you wouldn’t mind the chamber. Your body yearns for a break. You don’t sleep much outside of it. Maybe being chucked into the cryogenic chamber would fix you, maybe it would soothe your aching mind. Maybe you could get some answers for why your mind is so mangled. But you know that it wouldn’t work in the long run. You’d be thrown back into the dreaded chair and your mind would be wrecked even further.

"We're using a different drug today." The doctor speaks again, easily catching your attention. You hadn’t noticed before but the protective barrier in your mind has been pulled back down, everything has become increasingly quiet. You barely acknowledge that you enjoy the silence.

The doctor moves and you’re focusing on his face again; observing the concentration that has sprung up on his facial features. Your eyes flicker over to the IV and you watch as the substance begins to flow down from the bag. Your gaze is forced away from the substance as your head is moved forward. You try not to tense as your head is secured with the headpieces of the chair, the pressure mainly on your frontal lobes. You settle with curling your hands into fists ― your eyes closing as the chair is slammed back. You’re not ready for the procedure to begin, but they don't care that you’re not ready.

You can almost feel the liquid moving through your body ― a freezing cold sensation taking over every inch of your being. There's a quick, fleeting memory that whirls around in your brain; reminding you of the month that you were stuck out in the Russian wilderness, a strange man accompanying you. The machine you are hooked to gives a soft whirl and pain erupts throughout your brain, yanking the memory out of your grasp.

The pain itself is unbearable. It is searing and bright; spreading quickly throughout every inch of your body. It seems to fill every nook and cranny within a split second. In response, you shove yourself up ― your body beginning to convulse against the bonds that chain you down. Your jaw is incredibly tense, tenser than it has been in a while, and you want to scream. You want to scream and cry and thrash, but you fight the urge. It will give the sick minds around here some sort of satisfaction and you refuse to give it to them.

The pain is suddenly disappearing, but it leaves behind an electric feeling. It's a muddled type of electric, though. The pain is still slightly buzzing about your body, lessened by the murky black medicine that's still sluggishly crawling around in your veins. The freezing effect of the strange drug has worn off. In your mind, it's probably due to the electricity that has just bombarded every single cell in your body. You don’t yearn for the cold, though, because the medicine has made you feel numb ― like you’re unreachable to the world around you.

You don’t feel when the needle is pulled from your skin, barely registering what is happening as you are being pulled to your feel. The numbness you feel is intoxicating and, in a way, you yearn for more of it. Your dangerously trained mind would recognize it as a danger if you were fully functioning  ― you’re too apathetic to really care.

Your instincts have kicked in to give you a helping hand. Your back is as straight as it can go and your eyes are void of emotion; like a robot waiting patiently to be programmed. You catch a glimpse of yourself in the doctor's eyes, but you are more confused by the look on his face. It is filled with humor. You are puzzled by it; if you were sobered up, you could take his tall build down without effort.

"Longing." Your eyes blankly focus on a man standing behind the doctor. His eyes seemed so dark that they were nearly back. His voice seemed to penetrate through the numbness; your skull exploding with a dull ache. You want to curl into a tight ball and press your hands tightly against your ears. You want to do whatever you could do block out his voice, to preserve the sweet numbness ― you don’t want to know what the punishment would be.

"Rusted. Furnace."

The second and third words seemed to roll off his tongue effortlessly. Your conscious mind begins to slip out of your grasp. It was becoming increasingly difficult for you to fight to hold on to your self-control. Usually, it was easier for you to cling to what broken bits of free will that you had. The drugs in your system were making it easier for them to brainwash you. Clinging to control would be an extremely hard predicament for anyone in your situation, though. It didn't matter how many cc's of the drugs were in your system when the words officially took hold. You would become dangerous.

"Daybreak. Seventeen. Benign. "

The ache in your skull seemed to be getting worse with every word that slipped out of his mouth. Your whole being seemed to be screaming at you to resist the words ― to block him out, to run far away from this place. But you couldn't. There was no way for you to resist the words.

"Nine. Homecoming."

The words had begun to echo around in your brain. It didn't matter what anyone else was saying or thinking at this point. All that mattered to you was the right words that had already been spewed out of his lips. They seemed to be booming among your skull, reverberating among the soft tissue and harsh bone. They began to take away every thought you had about the drugs in your system; instead shattering the identity that you once thought that you still had a tight hold on.

"One."

You let your eyes flutter close. The darkness you were met with was almost welcoming. It was far more easy to deal with than the agents that were in the room ― entranced by the process that the lead doctor was in the process of completing. Many of them had seen the process before, had watched the transformation that took place after your mind was scrambled like eggs. But they were repeatedly astounded by the process, almost like it was a strange fetish of theirs. Your muscles relaxed against your will, losing all the tension you had been holding on to.

"Freight car."

Your eyelids snapped open, eyes focusing on the black orbs in front of you. You recognized the glint in them, but you didn't acknowledge it. You had no reason to question the malice that the dark orbs held. 

You instead spoke, your tone matching his cold heart, "I am ready to comply."

The Ones You Save

Summary:

Your story begins in 1940; a beautiful baby born to two loving parents. 17 years later, your father’s involvement in the Howling Commandos comes back to bite you in the ass and you find yourself getting shoved off a cliff. When you wake up, you are in a strange facility with a man who wants to make you the second half of a volatile duo. You have no choice and become known as Ghost. Decades down the road, you help Winter Soldier escape and the consequences are horrendous. Can the newly rehabilitated Winter Soldier save you? Or is it your fate to stay in HYDRA’s clutches?

Chapters:

Prologue

Chapter One

Extra Scenes:

Inspired Works:

Heartbeat

Summary:

You've always been known as Flash's cousin - the hard-of-hearing person who's lived with him since she was seven. Everyone sees you as a kind, bubbly person who can keep Eugene Thompson in line. No one knows exactly why you have so much power over Flash and Peter becomes curious when you reach your junior year of high school. When you're thrown together for a school project, Peter promises himself that he's going to find out why you're so hesitant to reveal your home to him. A single assignment could lead to more than you two ever imagined.

Chapters:

Prologue

Extra Scenes:

Inspired Works:

Between The Perennial Bloom

Summary:

Bleeding and broken, Sergeant James Buchanan Barnes has finally escaped from the horrific grasp of HYDRA. While on the run, he finds himself stumbling into a small Canadian town - barely alive. He ends up stumbling on to your doorstep, going against everything he has been trained by begging you to help him. You barely accept before he passes out on your front porch. With a dangerous assassin in your house and a chaotic agency on the hunt for him, what will you do?

Chapters:

Prologue (coming soon)

Extra Scenes:

Inspired Works:

The Weight of The World

Summary:

You are special. You’ve always known this, it’s always been a fact. The first time you found that out you were six. You discovered during a grueling night at home that you could sense the present, past, or future physical and emotional states of other people. You are clairsentient. Yearning to use your power to its full potential, you become a doctor. You haven’t always had it easy and you seem to get a lot more on your plate when Tony Stark bursts through the ER doors late one night with his best friend on a stretcher behind him. Did you know that one man could suffer so greatly?

Chapters:

Prologue (coming soon)

Extra Scenes:

Inspired Works:

Talking To The Moon

Summary:

Fury decides to send Peter, Tony, and Steve on a mission to a HYDRA warehouse. In their attempts to retrieve requested files, Peter stumbles upon a nauseating sight. You have been strapped to a table, face down - and there are gaping wounds covering every part of your body. Steve and Tony soon join him; deciding that they cannot leave you here alone. They bring you back to the Avengers tower in hope that they can save you from the damage that HYDRA has inflicted.

Chapters:

Chapter 1 (coming soon)

Extra Scenes:

Inspired Works:

Ghost Of You

Summary:

Peter Parker, a high school junior, has done his best to manage his secret identity and school work. He had a healthy system set in place that somehow, miraculously, helped him manage everything in his life. At least he did until he runs into you one night while out prowling the streets for criminals. Your hands are buzzing with electricity, and the joy spread out across your face at the mere thought of helping make the streets safer is alluring. He vows to get to know you - to know everything about you. Something inside him is telling him that you’re the one person he knows he’s not afraid to unmask himself to. In his determination to learn everything about you, he ends up discovering a fatal secret that he’s not sure he can save you from.

Chapters:

Prologue

Extra Scenes:

Inspired Works:

Song Inspiration

anyway,,,