ｒｅｖｅｎａｎｔ －ｔｈｒｅｅ

ｒｅｖｅｎａｎｔ －ｅｉｇｈｔ

PART EIGHT OF 'REVENANT' SERIES Damon Salvatore x Winchester!Sister!Hunter!Reader  The Vampire Diaries x SupernaturalMini-Series Synopsis: Y/N Winchester was tired of living in her brothers' shadows; she needed to do something for herself for a change. When she heads to Mystic Falls, a town she was always warned to stay away from, she finds she may have taken on more than she can handle. Will she be able to eradicate the supernatural from the uncanny town? Or will she find herself tangled amongst it? WARNINGS: Descriptions of violence. Words: 3,351k Blog Masterlist / Series Masterlist <Previous Part | Next Part (Coming Soon) >

After three-quarters of an hour, the hairdryer was still running. Dean had been half-asleep when he registered the faint whirring sound from the bathroom and realised it had been going for far too long. He was still sitting hunched with his hands over his face, exactly as he had been when she left the room with a slam of a door; after he had spoken those dreaded words. 

‘He didn’t have a choice, I would’ve died then too…’  Y/N had muttered when he had asked how this could happen. He remembered her tears as she spoke, they had made her eyes look like glass.

‘Well, maybe he should have let you…’  

The words sent a chill through him; how could he have said that to her? But was he wrong? Would she not be better off?

His mind had briefly wandered back to the case — the ghouls, the bloodstains — but the moment stretched, and the realisation hit him. His pulse kicked up, sending a jolt through his body as his eyes snapped open.

Y/N was not in her bed. Y/N was not anywhere.

The grim image of her body upon the old wooden table, paired with the awful, rusty scent of her blood, made him flinch as if he had been struck.

He stood up fast, his heart lurching in his chest as his feet steadied on the cold and grimy motel floor. The room was quiet, too quiet. The only sound was the damn hair dryer still buzzing in the air.

He got up and moved toward the bathroom without thought, like a man possessed. The door was shut, and a sliver of light spilled out from under the threshold, illuminating the dusk-darkened room. 

He placed his hand on the doorknob and was met with no resistance; it was already unlocked. The hairdryer’s hum intensified through the now-open door as it oscillated on the edge of the sink.

But there was no sign of Y/N.

There was no beloved sister standing there, her back to him as she dried her hair in the mirror, as she had done a hundred times prior. He hesitated at the doorway, and then his heart stopped. The bathroom was empty.

Empty. She was missing, and in transition, how could he be so irresponsible? How could he let himself drift off? She was dangerous now; she could hurt someone. He counted the hours back in his head since he had last slept and was kicking himself with the realisation of just how long it had been; he had needed to be awake and alert for her, and he failed.

He moved quickly, tearing through the small space and flipping the shower curtain aside frantically — as if he did not already know she was not there. He stared at the moulded, derelict tile walls in dismay, noticing the scent of soap still lingering in the air.

His breath came faster. His brain was scrambling to catch up with what his eyes were telling him. He spotted her old, bloodied clothes sitting discarded on the porcelain of the toilet seat, they were the only possessions of hers that remained, the room was bare. A flash of movement at the edge of his vision made him snap his head up — the window. It was wide open.

‘Shit.' He muttered, noticing the high pitch of his panic. 

He spun on his heels, stumbling back into the room. His gaze darted to the bed, and for a second, he convinced himself that maybe…

No, she was not there; he knew this.

Her things were missing, her bed was made, and now he was left wondering how far away she had gotten. He flipped his phone open and dialled her number, his fingers moving nimbly as a reflex, yet still trembling horribly. He had called this number many times in the past few months, and like clockwork, each time, he would be met with her voicemail; tonight was no exception. He snapped the phone shut and threw it to her bed.

Dean’s stomach clenched and he leaned over placing his hands in his knees. No. No. He wasn’t going to let her go down this road. Not after everything they had been through. But what could he do? It was already too late for her. 

‘Sam!’ His voice was sharp, frantic, the kind of desperation that hit with the force of a freight train.

Sam had been standing behind him, getting up to follow Dean in his alarm, his face already clouded with worry before the scene of the bathroom had even registered before him.

‘She’s gone,’ Dean snapped, pacing the small room, his mind running in a hundred directions at once. ‘She’s—‘ He cut himself off, eyes locking on the open window through the door. ‘She’s gone, Sam. She—‘

Sam was already moving toward the door, his face drawn, filled with a dread that was becoming all too familiar. ‘Surely, she can’t be far. We need to find her…’

Dean shook his head, his frustration boiling over. That is not what he meant. He did not mean she was missing, he meant that she was gone. ‘What the hell, Sam? She’s not some lost puppy we’re gonna find wandering down the road! She’s a damn vampire, and she…’

He had already begun to mourn her; she had died in their arms. He had stared at her decrepit corpse for hours, refusing to accept the actuality before him. He remembered the way he had pleaded for it not to be true. Now, she walked again, but it was not the same; it could never be the same as it was. It seemed like a sick, twisted joke.

‘Dean, we don’t know that. She might not have done that yet—’ Sam interrupted him, avoiding the specifics, not only to placate Dean but because he could not stomach the idea himself; he did not want to see her that way, he did not want the image in his mind. 

His voice was softer but firm, pulling his brother’s focus back. He continued,

‘She’s our sister, Dean. We don’t know what she’s doing. She could be in danger.’ Sam shuddered,

She was not in danger herself now, but the one who is dangerous; Y/N was the threat now, and the notion made him sick.  

‘No, you don’t get it,’ Dean’s voice dropped low, dark. ‘She’s gone, Sam. We both know it.’ His eyes burned with a venomous anger; his hands balled into fists at his sides. As his bitter words flowed, he believed them more and more. He knew if they went looking for her, she would never be found. She does not exist on this plane anymore; the girl he loved, his sister, was lost perpetually. 

‘She’s lost to us. She’s a damn monster now, and it doesn’t matter what we say, or how many times we look at her like she’s still the girl we raised, the sister we loved. That’s not her anymore.’

‘She’s dead… She died — in our arms last night,’ Dean choked on his words as he desperately tried for air, why was it so hard to breathe? Why was the room spinning? 

‘It was my fault, I should have died… Not her.’ The words were barely spoken, coming out in a gasp, Sam could barely make them out, needing to follow the movement of his brother’s lips. 

‘That girl we saw today, that’s not her, it can’t be; she was a fake.’ Dean shook with vexation once more, with Y/N, with himself, Sam was not sure.

He froze, his heart skipping. He had not seen Dean this angry in a long time — swallowed whole by rage. Sam’s shoulders began to quake with his own agony; he registered a distant and inhuman cry, he did not have enough time to wonder where it was coming from before he realised they were his own sobs. Why did they sound so far away? Why was he so disconnected from his own body?

‘Dean…’ His voice faltered as he looked at his brother. It was not just anger that shook him. It was grief. Grief, mingled with guilt and a twisted, violent kind of regret. The kind that made you do things you would have never thought of in a hundred years.

Dean shook his head; the words tumbling out in a dangerous rush. 

‘I’m not going to save her, Sam. I’m not going to pretend she’s still the person we knew. ’ He turned sharply, pacing to the door. How had he found this resolve so suddenly? Had he not yearned to find her only moments earlier? Dean struggled to recall when she had become the stranger he pictured now, the monster. She had not looked like a monster when she awoke from her death, when they had realised what must have happened. 

‘She died last night, killed by those god-awful ghouls. She’s not the same. And if we don’t do something about it, people are going to get hurt. It’s time we finish this. Her case. And the supernatural problem that ruined her life. Our lives.’

Sam stepped toward him, with words already on his tongue. Surely, he could not mean that. He could not possibly be suggesting they hunt their own sister. But Dean was already halfway out the door.

‘You’re not—’ thinking straight,  Sam wanted to say, but Dean was already gone.

With a moment of hesitation and a breath of bitter air, Sam followed him out.

Dean's fingers tightened around the steering wheel, his knuckles tense and pale, as he drove toward the town. That awful, revolting, loathsome town. The anger — his blinding anger — throbbed through him, it thudded in his ears and pulsed within his veins. He could feel it in his gut, a gnawing beast that told him he had to finish what she had started. He had to rid the world of whatever vile supernatural force had taken his sister away from him. And if that meant tearing Mystic Falls apart, so be it. If that meant killing the vampire who had turned her... then that is what he was going to do.

Damon Salvatore.

The name felt like bile in his throat and burned like acid. The more he thought about ‘it’, that repulsive creature, the tighter his grip on the wheel became. He knew the bastard had to die. If not for him, Y/N would not have become the thing she was now; the abomination. She would not have disappeared into the night. She would not have lost herself andhe would not have lost her. It was Damon who was to blame. Damon was the cause of all this.

He had no sympathy. No understanding. Not when it came to hurting her.

And hurt her he had.

Deep down, hidden beneath layers of wrath and chagrin, Dean knew why he was acting this way. He knew that if Y/N had truly died, he would be doing absolutely everything in his power to bring her back, and he would not have rested until he was successful. He would have done anything. But now, he could never bring her back — save her from this fate. If that abhorrent vampire had left her alone, she would be salvageable, even if it meant Dean needed to die in her place. 

Dean’s jaw tightened, his gaze hardening with each passing mile. He barely registered Sam’s quiet words beside him. ‘Dean, stop. We have to think of this rationally —’

‘I’m not stopping, Sam,’ Dean cut him off sharply, his voice low, strained and cold. 

‘We’re going to Mystic Falls. And we’re finishing it.’ His eyes flickered to Sam briefly, and for a moment, the weight of what he was saying hung in the air as tears filled his eyes. ‘I’m done, Sam. I’m done— ’

Sam watched him quietly, trying to gauge if there was any part of the man he used to know in the eyes staring out the windshield, his brother. But it was hard to tell, the burning in his eyes showed a stranger. Dean was consumed — swallowed whole by something darker than grief. He was already lost, and Sam feared there would be no bringing him back.

‘Listen to me for a second, would you?’ Sam's voice was heated, raised for the first time all evening.  ‘She had vampire blood in her system, did you ever stop and think about what that means?’ Dean began to speak, but Sam raised his hand, silencing him with a scalding look that Dean saw in the corner of his vision. 

‘She said she would have died anyway, their blood heals people, that… vampire —’ The word made him cringe, ‘obviously, saved her life.’ 

Though, Sam did not understand; it did not make sense. Why would he save her? A hunter. Why was she with him in the first place? How could she bear being near him? Knowing what he is. But it did not matter, it did not change what he already knew.

Dean started again, but Sam cut him off.

‘She died on the ghoul case… with us, we killed her, we did it — not him.’ 

Sam gazed out through the windshield as tears clouded his vision, streetlights turned to indistinguishable dots of light as they loomed closer. This realisation stung and cut his throat like small blades as he expelled ragged breaths. But he continued away,

‘But she’s still here, Dean. She’s not gone — not yet, anyway,’ He gasped out, ‘She holds the same memories, the same personality, it’s her. And if we can get to her, we can help her.’

‘Dean, we don’t even know if she is in Mystic Falls, what if we’re leaving her behind?’

But his words fell on deaf ears; Dean stared forward as if he had said nothing at all, and Sam slumped back in his seat, defeated. Staring numbly at the dark silhouettes of trees as they flew past them. 

Y/N stood in front of the grand fireplace in the Salvatore boarding house, the warmth of the crackling fire barely reaching the chill that had settled deep within her. The flames danced in hypnotic patterns, casting flickering shadows on the stone walls, against her skin — yet all she could see before her were the faces of her brothers.

She let her fingers graze the mantle, her eyes tracing the cracks in the stone as if they might conceal the answers to the questions she could not bring herself to mutter. She could still hear Dean’s voice, sharp and angry, his words slicing through the distance between them like a blade. 

Well, maybe he should have let you…

His words had cut off, he knew he had gone too far, but she knew it was what he truly believed. He had thought she was better off dead. He would rather she was not here. 

She pondered that reality for a moment. Suppose she had died the night of the founder’s ball. Maybe it might have been easier. Maybe she would not have needed to feel all this grief for her brothers. But then she thought of Damon, and she realised, halfway content, that she was glad that did not happen, at least for him. She remembered the way he had cried over her, pleading with her to drink his blood. At least she was certain of this much; she could not leave Damon, she could not bear to hurt him. How could that dreaded night already seem a lifetime ago? It was only the night before the last. 

She had believed, once, for a very brief moment in time, that this affliction might only be temporary—that there was still some thread of humanity she could cling to. That her brothers would save her. Bearing witness to years of their escapades had her believing there was nothing that they could not do. And this was just another problem, another puzzle to be solved; but she knew that was selfish — to expect so much from them. 

But that did not matter now, and she had never truly believed it and the reality of what she had become quelled that fragile hope regardless. This was her reality now: vampires do not age; they never change. They did not get to go back to the lives they had before.

And she was no exception. 

She could almost feel their rejection, the weight of their disappointment hanging in the air, suffocating her with every harsh breath. Deans anger had been cold, unforgiving. It was the kind of rage that came with the loss of something precious. And Sam, sweet Sam—his conflicted, sorrowful gaze had been the worst of all. She could almost hear his voice, trembling with the desperate hope that maybe he could fix her. But she knew better now.

She was beyond saving. She had not even wanted to save herself, she had been wholly ready to die, to let Damon’s blood dwindle from her system, till her death caught up with her once more. 

A familiar ache of longing twisted in her chest as she thought of them. The brothers who had raised her, fought for her, loved her in ways that no one else ever had. The brothers who were now lost to her forever. How could she go back to them now, knowing the truth of what she was? How could she let them see her like this? They would hate me, she thought. They already do.

She imagined the look on Dean’s face as he looked at her—disgust. His words were harsher than the coldest winter she had known, biting at her soul. He would see the vampire she had become and reject the parts of his little sister that remained. 

Nothing, she thought. He would see nothing left of me.

And yet, she would miss them more than anything. She would miss the way Dean always teased her, even when he was angry. She would miss Sam’s soft smiles, the way he would always try to protect her, even when she did not need it. She would miss being family—the thing that had once meant everything to her. It had all slipped away, and in its place was this hollow, aching void.

But she knew deep down, past her surfaced dejections, there was no void. Her love for Damon had settled into every crevice of her being, and with all her regret came a guilty, unexpected sense of relief; she was glad she had forever, an eternity to love him. He was her family now, and she could not find it within herself to regret this.

Behind her was the sound of soft footsteps. The familiar, grounding presence of Damon. She did not need to turn around to know it was him; she had grown so used to the weight of his presence, the subtle way he filled the silence between them. When had this happened? It all felt so quick.

He did not speak. Instead, she felt his warmth press against her back, his arms sliding around her waist, pulling her against him. His head found its way into the space between her shoulder and neck, and she instinctively leaned into him, the comfort of his touch a stark contrast to the cold emptiness of her loss.

For a moment, she closed her eyes, letting herself absorb the silence, the feeling of being held. But the ache inside her did not fade. It only deepened. Her brothers were gone—the life she knew was gone—and all she had left was the man who had turned her into this being.

And she could not even bring herself to regret it. She loved Damon; she loved the way he made her feel, even when it terrified her.

She stood there, motionless, with Damon’s arms around her, staring ahead at nothing. She mourned the girl she had been, but when she thought of what she had gained—when she felt the weight of Damon’s arms around her—she knew she would not trade any of it.

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ｒｅｖｅｎａｎｔ - ｔｗｏ

PART TWO OF 'REVENANT' SERIES Damon Salvatore x Winchester!Sister!Hunter!Reader  The Vampire Diaries x Supernatural Mini-Series Synopsis: Y/N Winchester was tired of living in her brothers' shadows; she needed to do something for herself for a change. When she heads to Mystic Falls, a town she was always warned to stay away from, she finds she may have taken on more than she can handle. Will she be able to eradicate the supernatural from the uncanny town? Or will she find herself tangled amongst it? WARNINGS: Drinking, Descriptions of Violence. Words: 2,103k Series Masterlist <Previous Part | Next Part >

A month had passed, and Y/N still found herself in the preternatural town of Mystic Falls; with every passing moment, her case became more thorny and twisted. Though, there were two things of which she was certain.

Vampires in this town did not succumb to their usual prison of daylight; the only logical explanation for a lack of night prowlers was that they simply did not need to prowl at night.

Secondly, the reason Y/N could not get any information from the townspeople was because they genuinely did not know anything; she had the nagging feeling their minds were patched up with fake accounts of nefarious events that they were unfortunate enough to witness. Y/N shuddered to think that maybe her memories had been played with, too; after all, she would not know. Y/N took to writing down everything she uncovered; if she were right about the memory tampering, all of her evidence and theories would be there to rediscover.

Y/N begrudgingly gazed upon her tenuous evidence in the form of a journal. Countless farfetched “animal attacks,” both historical and recent, missing persons and hospital break-ins. She knew three blood bank robberies had occurred within a fortnight, and yet no action had been taken by order of the sheriff. It was redundant to attempt a case so premeditatedly shrouded by the authorities, whose ill-judged aims of keeping locals nescient only paved the way for more of these “animal attacks”. 

The stalemate the young Winchester found herself in was beyond frustrating; she could not deaden the voice calling for her brothers’ help in her head, though her stubbornness prevented her from doing so. The further this case progressed, the more impossible it became, its virulent tendrils unfurling in every which direction. 

But the vampire case was not the only thing that frustrated Y/N; she found herself becoming quite comfortable in the uncanny town. Remaining in the same place for a couple of months gave her a strange sense of stability she had never experienced before. She found herself building relationships, and as depressing as it was, for the first time in her life, she could confidently say she had friends. 

The renowned Mystic Grill played a pivotal part in this; every other night, the locals would flock to the establishment, blissfully ignorant of the wary pastimes of their councillors. It was the seemingly tight-knit nature of Mystic Falls that first attracted Y/N to the town, and although she had only resided there for a short while, she had already begun receiving invites to their extravagant founders' events. 

Of course, Y/N was wise as to what these seemingly inconspicuous gatherings really were, though she still found the fact she was already being invited heartening. 

Though friends and a sense of community were not all that was new, Y/N tried desperately to quell the feelings she had growing for the sardonic Damon Salvatore. Of course, she had had fleeting crushes before, but this time, she found herself infatuated. She was kicking herself for ever allowing it to happen. She would go out of her way to see him, convincing herself that she was only investigating the case, trying to get into the inner loop of the founders' council. Deep down, Y/N knew she was lying to herself. 

The sound of a knock on her motel door snapped Y/N from her thoughts. Hastily shoving her journal under her bed and tucking her wooden-bullet-filled revolver in the waistline of her jeans, she strode over and glanced through the glass peephole, finding Caroline, an overbearing but lovely girl Y/N had come to call a friend, standing on the other side clutching what looked like a flyer. With a sigh, Y/N heaved the faulty door open,

‘Hey Caroline, I wasn’t expecting you here; excuse the room, it’s a mess.’

‘I don’t know why you stay here; I keep telling you we have a spare bed.’ Caroline’s response was doubtful; she already knew what Y/N would say,

‘I’ll get my own place eventually; for the meantime, I’m happy staying here.’ 

Y/N liked the idea of staying in Mystic Falls, continuing the relationships she already held dear. She thought of her brothers and how long her anonymity here would last; how long did she have before they found her and forced her back?

‘Oh well, I didn’t come here to judge your living conditions; I came here to give you this.’ 

Caroline held out the piece of paper Y/N had thought was a flyer, though upon closer inspection, she could see it was an invitation to a ball.

‘Another event?’ Y/N’s words were incredulous,

‘I know, we always have them, but you need to come to this one.’

‘I’ve needed to attend the last few founders' events.’ Y/N’s fingers formed quotation marks as she spoke; Caroline ignored her jab,

‘Elena, Bonnie and I plan on heading into Richmond to find gowns; you’re welcome to join.’ 

Although Y/N acted as though she held herself aloof from these girly hangouts, between being an only daughter and living on the road, they had been something she had never experienced before, and she could not help the excitement and giddiness she felt every time she was invited. 

‘Okay, I’ll see if I can make it… Will Damon be there?’ Caroline’s eyes rolled so far back into her skull that Y/N was worried they would be stuck there. 

‘I’ve told you a million times, and I’ll tell you again. He. Is. Bad. News.’ She very carefully emphasised each word. It was Y/N’s turn to roll her eyes,

‘You know, I don’t understand why you’ve got such a big problem with him; you can tell me you know.’

‘Just trust me, okay? You don’t want to get mixed in with him; it doesn’t end well for anyone.’

Y/N wished she would heed Caroline’s advice; she could not afford to get mixed in with anyone, bad news or not; her lifestyle did not allow it. Though for a century and a half now, it seemed Mystic Falls was in constant danger from the Supernatural, would it be that unforgivable if she stayed and protected these people? Protected her friends? 

Y/N quickly learnt that Caroline was a fan of advice; if anything happened, she had an opinion about it. For the most part, Y/N found it endearing; she could tell it came from a place of care. So why was it that she was so vehemently against Damon? What was it about him that caused Caroline’s dismay? These questions riddled Y/N’s thoughts as she sat alone in the very spot she met the dark-haired man, knowing that it would not be long before he sat in the vacant space beside her. 

‘Why the long face?’ The satirical voice she had come to adore sounded from her left, and the face in question quickly shifted to a grin,

‘I knew you would be showing up soon; that’s enough to cause despair in anybody.’ Or at least Caroline, Y/N thought sardonically. Damon’s hand quickly covered his heart, his expression mocking offence.

‘You wound me.’ 

Damon pulled the stool next to the Winchester girl out from under the bench and lowered himself onto it with a hefty sigh, catching the eye of the young bartender,

‘House bourbon please…’ He glanced at the empty crystal glass clutched in her hand, ‘make that two,’ he added,

‘Thanks.’ She muttered, 

‘You know, I’ve noticed you never buy me drinks.’ He teased, eyes crinkling with his smile, Y/N scoffed, 

‘Nice try, Damon; I’ve seen your house. You don’t need me to buy you drinks.’ Her eyebrows furrowed,

‘What is it that you do for a living any way? How can you afford a house like that?’ Damon did not answer, instead, he waved his hand dismissively. He never answered personal questions; it was beyond frustrating. However, she understood she was being hypocritical; none of her new-found friends knew anything about her, nothing real anyway. She continued,

‘It doesn’t look like you have the time for a job; you spend all your time here.’ Y/N spoke with fake judgment; she spent a fair amount of her time here as well. She raised her eyebrows expectantly, hoping her statement would elicit some sort of answer, but to no avail; Damon simply took a sip from his glass and moved to another topic,

‘Did you get your invite to the ball? I heard the girls were going to get gowns. ’ His tone was teasing as he wiggled his eyebrows. Y/N rolled her eyes,

‘Yeah, I’ve also been invited to the shopping trip; I don’t know what I’m going to get; I've never been a dress person.’ 

‘Well, whatever you end up wearing, I’m sure you’ll look stunning; that’s something we have in common.’ Y/N's cheeks heated at his comment; she should be used to it by now; their whole relationship was built on cheap pick-up lines.

‘You flatter me.’ A chuckle escaped with her words, 

‘Speaking of the ball… Were you going with anyone?’ His words were hesitant but aired with confidence, 

‘You’re kidding, right? You’re just about the only person I know in town.’ Y/N was incredulous,

‘Well.. in that case… I suppose I better take you.’ 

Two days passed, and Y/N found herself in the back seat of Elena Gilbert's SUV, trying desperately to quell the feeling of giddiness settling in her stomach; the idea of a girls-day-out excited Y/N in a way she had not anticipated and although she had tried very hard to act aloof, she fears she had not been successful. 

Every time she complained about dresses, shoes and jewellery, Caroline, Elena, and Bonnie shared knowing looks. 

The day passed slowly, Y/N quickly learning to nod politely at the dresses she believed were only ordinary and gush over the ones she thought were stunning. By the end of their trip, Y/N knew that the girls would pass as goddesses at the ball, their embellished gowns complimenting each one of them wonderfully. Though she had not foreseen how difficult it would be to come to a decision herself, each dress she tried on never quite hugged or sat the way she wanted it. But when she glanced up at a mannequin she had yet to see, the dress she knew would be hers lied upon its shoulders. 

The burgundy gown adorned a tight-fitting velvet bodice, its sweetheart neckline drawing out to meet hanging chiffon off-shoulder sleeves. Y/N thought the skirt looked like deep gushing blood as it extended from the pointed waist of the bodice to the floor, its chiffon overlay flowing delicately to meet the rest of the dress on the ground. Complimenting the dress was a pair of long gloves made to match its ornate material and a necklace of warmly coloured pearls encrusted with a brilliant red jewel. It was utterly perfect. 

She drew closer to the gown, fingers stretching out to glide over the impossibly soft textile and called the saleswoman over, asking politely if she could have the dress and accessories to try on. As she held it up before her in the changing room, she was astonished to realise the material was even more stunning up close. 

She took timid steps from the changing room, treating the gown with utmost care. As she turned the corner, Y/N heard subtle gasps come from her entourage, her cheeks suddenly deepening to a pretty shade of vermillion. 

‘Oh my goodness, Y/N, you’re stunning’, Bonnie spoke earnestly, Elena nodding in agreement.

‘Hot and sexy are the words I’d use; whoever you’re bringing is a lucky guy’, Caroline added. Y/N was sure she suddenly looked culpable; Caroline’s eyes narrowed.

‘You know, you never mentioned who was taking you, only that somebody had asked.’ Caroline’s voice was suspicious, 

‘Well, um…’ Caroline raised her eyebrows as though she was already anticipating Y/N's answer, 

‘Damon may have asked me the other night.’ Caroline closed her eyes and sighed,

‘Y/N, he’s bad news; how many times do I have to tell you before the message sinks in?’ Her tone was frustrated,

‘You’ve never actually told me why he is “bad news.”’ Y/N’s fingers formed quotation marks around her last words. Bonnie, Elena and Caroline exchanged glances; they knew something they were unwilling to disclose to her, and Y/N would find out what it was. 

A/N: I wanted to add a reference for the dress Y/N found, though I could not find one that matched what I pictured, so I decided to draw what I was envisioning instead.

Here is a link to the image: https://i.pinimg.com/750x/60/af/61/60af61d9f9d20b5a4afa52cc71505831.jpg

ｒｅｖｅｎａｎｔ - ｏｎｅ

PART ONE OF 'REVENANT' SERIES Damon Salvatore x Winchester!Sister!Hunter!Reader  The Vampire Diaries x Supernatural Mini Series Synopsis: Y/N Winchester was tired of living in her brothers' shadows; she needed to do something for herself for a change. When she heads to Mystic Falls, a town she was always warned to stay away from, she finds she may have taken on more than she can handle. Will she be able to eradicate the supernatural from the uncanny town? Or will she find herself tangled amongst it? WARNINGS: Drinking, Descriptions of Violence. Words: 2,257k Blog Masterlist / Series Masterlist Next Part>

Y/N Winchester’s brothers always warned her to stay away from Mystic Falls; if a hunter crossed its border, they may as well have been signing their death certificate, but, of course, she did not listen. Y/N wanted to prove herself and show them that she was not second-rate. And besides, would it not be immoral to allow these killings to continue unchecked?

Y/N glanced down at the evidence she had gathered about the town; it was apparent that the area was plagued with vampires, and the authorities had an abominable habit of covering it up. Coroner reports were sprawled across the small motel table in front of her, all claiming the same thing: that its victim died of an animal attack. However, reports of punctured necks and bloodless corpses affirmed otherwise.

The vampires of Mystic Falls were careless yet evaded scrutiny effortlessly.

Speaking to the locals achieved little, and she always walked away empty-handed. They had no accounts of antisocial behaviour or people who only seemed to make appearances at night. When speaking to witnesses, they stood unsure and dubious, as though blank spaces riddled their memories. Something else was at play here, and Y/N would uncover it, no matter the cost.

Her phone's small screen flashed again, accompanied by its trilling ring for what seemed like the umpteenth time that day, vibrating and moving against the table it lay upon. The name ‘Dean’ was written in large letters across its display. Y/N sighed and lifted the device to her ear.

‘What do you want?’ She grilled in annoyance,

‘Oh, she finally answers,’ His voice heavy with the sarcasm the young Winchester had grown accustomed to over the years.

‘Yes, I finally answered, though that didn’t answer my question, what do you want?’ Y/N reprised

‘Y/N, you know exactly what Sam and I want. We haven’t seen you in weeks, and we have no idea where you are and if you’re safe; before you picked up the phone, we had no idea if you were even alive. You need to end this stupid kamikaze mission and come back to the bunker. It’s stupid to hunt alone; you could be killed; don’t pretend that’s not what you’re doing. We aren’t stupid.’ His lecture rolled off his tongue hot and fast, Y/N rolling her eyes in response, wishing for a moment that he was there to see it.

‘No need to worry about me, brother. I can handle myself, and you know it.’ She countered,

‘Y/N…’ But before he could continue, she hung up, putting her phone on silent and shoving it into her jacket pocket.

Only two seconds passed before it began to ring again, though she ignored it just as thoroughly as all his previous calls. Typically, Y/N’s brothers would have just tracked her down, though she was smart enough to disconnect all means of GPS location and give them and everyone they knew a wide berth. She even had precautions in place that prevented them from finding her by means of magic, reducing them to countless feeble attempts of merely asking her for her location, and she would never waver. 

If Y/N had a dollar for every time Sam or Dean rang or texted, she could stop all the credit card fraud she was committing and live the lavish life a hunter could only dream of.

Once again, she looked down towards her incongruous evidence; she had reason to believe the town council was an inner circle of people in Mystic Falls responsible for the lazy cover-ups and the nugatory upkeep of the town’s safety. The council consisted of members from a group called ‘The Founding Families’, and her research showed they had occupied the small Virginian town since its forming in the mid-1800s, and it seemed to her Mystic Falls has been having occasional run-ins with vampires ever since. Suddenly, both of her brothers' warnings began to make more sense.

Y/N sighed and wrapped an overcoat around her jacket. She could do with a drink; besides, it wouldn’t hurt to try and gather more information about this uncanny town.

The door of the grill whined as she pushed it open, the crowded chatter of the busy Friday night meeting her ears immediately. She forced her way through the traffic of the locale and straight to the bar, deciding to sit next to a dark-haired man clad in a leather jacket with his shoulders hunched over a glass of whiskey. She looked toward the young bartender cleaning out a crystal glass with a towel he had just pulled from his shoulder; the sound of her stool being dragged from under the bench brought his attention to her. 

‘I’ll have a double shot of Jameson, neat, please.’ She asked sweetly, hoping the boy would not ID her. She was already 21, though the nature of her pastimes meant she only had fake identification, and any excuse not to use it was excellent in her eyes. Much to her relief, the boy placed the glass in his hands before her and began to pour her drink. She pulled her phone from her pocket, a feeling of exasperation making itself known as she gazed upon the nine missed calls from Dean and the four from Sam. Answering the call earlier had only made them worse. She had barely brought the glass to her lips when the dark-haired stranger spoke up,

‘I can’t help but notice you’re a new face around these parts; what brings you to Mystic Falls?’ His accompanying smirk was flirtatious, and though only an idiot would overlook the apparent sublimity of his features, she was in no mood for mucking about. She returned the smile regardless, hoping to scour him for more information. 

‘What makes you think this is a new face?’ She asked, using the same sweet tone she used with the bartender.

‘Trust me, I’d recognise a face like yours if I’d seen it before.' She wanted to ignore the cheap pickup line, though she could sense a blush creeping onto her cheeks. Y/N could hardly believe that this man she had only just met could affect her so quickly, 

‘Well, I’m not exactly new; I’ve been visiting for around a month.’ Y/N didn’t want to say too much; she had not yet developed a backstory. He raised his eyebrows, waiting for her to continue,

‘I was thinking of moving here permanently, though, now I’m not so sure with all these killings… by animals, of course…’  

Y/N decided it was best to get straight to the case; she was not here to waste time. Average eyes would not have noticed how his eyes tightened ever so slightly when she mentioned the animal attacks.

‘And now, why would that concern you?’ He used a light tone, though traces of accusation lay beneath. This did not go unnoticed by her; was it possible he was one of them? Her chest clenched; she had just met the man, though the idea of him being a monster saddened her in a way she could not have anticipated. She smiled nonetheless and made sure it reached her eyes.

‘I’ve made a hobby of hiking, and I think it would be unfortunate to have my cortical artery torn from my throat, wouldn’t you say?’ She did not know what possessed her to speak these words; could she have been any more obvious? He leaned closer, his piercing blue eyes adhered to her. Her breathing halted.

‘Yes, very unfortunate…’ he leaned back again before chuckling and exclaiming loudly,

‘How rude of me; I just realised I never introduced myself. I’m Damon Salvatore.’

Suddenly, it all made sense; he hailed from one of the founding families she had read about, Salvatore. Y/N felt a peculiar sense of relief. He was not a vampire like she initially suspected but rather part of the secret council hellbent on eradicating them, albeit not successfully. He held his hand out expectantly, and when she connected her own with his, she noticed a very conspicuous lapis lazuli ring adorning his fingers. It resembled that of an ancient family heirloom.

‘I’m Y/N, Y/N Walker.’ She thought it was best not to use her real surname; her family had gathered quite the reputation within the supernatural community, and this was the name printed on her fake ID anyway.

‘I think you’re quite right not to hike in the woods, Y/N, but I hope that won’t deter you from remaining in this town; it would be sad to lose a pretty face like yours.’ Y/N could feel her heart beating; she was sure the whole room could hear it. Y/N quickly looked down when she felt another blush forming. Damon turned to the bartender and slid her empty tumbler back over the bench,

‘She’ll have another Jameson, this time on me.’ 

From then, the conversation moved on to trivial topics, and Y/N found it difficult to proceed in her inquiry, given she was posing as an oblivious newcomer. A little while later, a woman clad in a sheriff uniform approached the pair, donning a solemn expression.

‘Sheriff Forbes…’ Damon nodded in acknowledgement; this was another name Y/N recognised from her research of the town, another founder. Y/N studied her face; she looked unsettled and nervous, as though she wished to speak with Damon but refrained in case of eavesdroppers.

She sent a pointed glare towards Damon and nudged her head ever so slightly in Y/N’s direction. Damon took this as an opportunity for introduction,

‘Liz, this is Y/N, she’s new in town.’ Liz smiled and sent Y/N a small wave,

‘It’s nice to meet you, though; I’m sorry to barge in like this. Do you mind if I borrow your friend for a moment?’ She spoke kindly, though her nervousness was present in her voice.

‘No, not at all; I should probably be heading off soon anyway.’ Y/N smiled at the sheriff before pulling her phone from her pocket and trying to seem engrossed in something displayed on the small screen. Though her attention was drawn entirely to the whispered conversation between the two founders

‘There was another body found earlier, ruled as an animal attack again; of course, though, there is only so long before people begin questioning these reports.’ Y/N could feel Liz’s eyes glancing toward her spot on the barstool; Y/N was careful to continue scrolling through her phone aimlessly until the sheriff looked away.

‘Liz, you know I’m doing everything I can to find these culprits; soon enough, they’ll make a mistake, and we’ll be able to make our move against them.’ Damon also looked at Y/N from the corner of his eyes before very deliberately looking back to Liz. Was it possible they could be suspecting her? She was new in town, after all. For the first time, it occurred to Y/N that maybe Damon had been investigating the ‘animal killings’ this evening as well, and now Y/N found herself in the middle of it. She took this as her leave,

‘I should probably head off now; it was lovely meeting you both.’ Damon and Liz smiled in response, traces of their secret conversation disappearing behind amiable façades. 

Her brothers’ phone calls continued; Y/N was kicking herself for answering the previous day; she should have seen it would make them so much worse. Sam’s name illuminated the screen of the vexing device, and for a moment, she considered crushing it under her foot just to silence the inconsequential piece of plastic and metal. Though reason returned to her just as quickly as it left, and instead, she lifted the mobile to her ear,

‘Hello, Sam.’ She sighed into the phone. She knew the calls would not stop either way now; she may as well entertain them. She heard Sam give a subtle gasp as though the sound of his sister’s voice shocked him, and that was probably not far from the truth.

‘Y/N, hear me out before you hang up, okay?’ She stayed silent, waiting for him to continue,

‘Dean and I really need to know where you are; we’re supposed to look out for you, and before you give me that “I can look out for myself” crap, it’s irrelevant, we know you can look out for yourself, but you don’t need to, whatever hunt you’re on Dean and I can help you, we’ll do it together.’ Sam spoke sincerely, 

‘It’s a kind offer, Sam, but seriously, I know what I’m doing, and besides, inviting you and Dean on the first hunt I’m attempting by myself defeats the whole “I’m going off on my own for a little while” scenario, wouldn’t you say?’ 

‘Please, Y/N, just tell us where you are,’ Sam implored. Y/N could hear the low grumbling of the eldest Winchester in the background, pleading for the phone she imagined. 

‘I’m sorry, Sam, but I think I should do this alone’. She said, ‘I’m going to hang up now, okay?’

‘Wait! Y/N’ But before Sam could say anything more; she disconnected the call; Y/N closed her eyes and sighed. She hated going behind her brothers’ backs, but she was sick of her abilities being overlooked. 

Going on hunts with them meant staying behind in the motels, researching, while her brothers went out and got their hands dirty, returning triumphant from defeating the monsters Y/N had helped them discover. What good was all the combat training and exercise she did if she could never put it into action?

No, she would not invite her brothers; she would do this alone.

A/N: I designed my own page break for this series; what do you think? 

Next Part >

ｒｅｖｅｎａｎｔ － ｓｅｖｅｎ

PART SEVEN OF 'REVENANT' SERIES Damon Salvatore x Winchester!Sister!Hunter!Reader  The Vampire Diaries x SupernaturalMini-Series Synopsis: Y/N Winchester was tired of living in her brothers' shadows; she needed to do something for herself for a change. When she heads to Mystic Falls, a town she was always warned to stay away from, she finds she may have taken on more than she can handle. Will she be able to eradicate the supernatural from the uncanny town? Or will she find herself tangled amongst it? WARNINGS: Descriptions of violence. Words: 3,277k Blog Masterlist / Series Masterlist <Previous Part | Next Part >

The first thing Y/N registered when she woke up on an uncomfortable wooden table was an enigmatic lack of pain, there should have been pain. Memories of an excruciating white-hot agony from her back followed by a cascading stream of blood came back to her; she had been injured on the hunt. However, upon pulling down the back of her shirt and looking over her shoulder, no such wound could be found. Her skin was completely bare. She recalled memories of her brothers clutching onto her limp body, their tears mixing in with her blood. 

Everything had gone dark, and her body had fallen limp. 

She was dead. Or at least she had been. Y/N had already concluded that her brothers had done something inconceivably stupid, that maybe, one of them, had sold their souls. Y/N could feel tears welling up in her eyes, this had been her fault. If she had never begun the Mystic Falls case this would not be happening. The tears that had welled suddenly ran hot down her face. She could not lose either one of her brothers like this. Something had to be done. Though through her tears Y/N did not register the sound of a scuffle swiftly approaching her.

‘Y/N?…’ Her head whipped up to the sound of her name.

‘How… are you… alive…?’ Dean whispered as Sam’s eyes widened,

‘Oh please… god no… don’t say it…’ he winced, Dean looked up with furrowed eyebrows,

‘Don’t say what? Sammy?’

But Sam did not need to say anything, the realisation hit Y/N like a wave of paralysis. She had had vampire blood in her system. She counted the time back in her head. When she had died, it had been less than twenty-four hours since Damon had saved her the night before. Neither of her brothers had sold their souls and the relief she felt at the revelation was as sweet as sugar. However, this relief quickly turned to aghast and her stomach twisted unpleasantly.

There were only two options for her now.

Death.

Or an eternal life as a monster she had been raised to detest.

‘No, no, no… no, no… no’ She began to claw at the bare skin that should have been holding a fatal stab wound as she repeated her denial over and over. She then lifted her fingers to her scalp rubbing her temples as she began to rock back and forth. The lights and sounds of the motel’s run-down suite were suddenly too much for her and she shuddered when she realised why.

‘Y/N calm down, you’re scaring me, just minutes ago Sam and I refused to accept that we should be burying you… and now… how…’ Dean's voice was nervous and confused,

‘Dean… I think she had vampire blood in her system…’ Sam whimpered, Dean’s shocked gasp only worsened her state, she began sobbing openly,

‘Sam… How could you possibly know…?’ She thought of everything she had said about Mystic Falls since their reunion and she was confident she had never mentioned she knew a vampire personally. Sam winced, her question confirming his fears.

‘You seemed pretty evasive in the car when we were asking about Mystic Falls, but you mentioned there were vampires…’ Sam paused for a moment,

‘You were dead, Y/N. And now you’re not. There aren’t many things that could do that.’ Sam explained, his voice hollow.

‘Which blood-sucking freak did this to you?! Was it this Damon…?!’ Dean's booming voice made Y/N flinch,

‘He didn’t have a choice, I would’ve died then too…’ She muttered,

‘Well, maybe he should have let you.’ He said bitterly, Y/N could see the instantaneous regret on the eldest Winchester’s face, but that did not soften the blow of his cruel words.

‘Wait! I only meant that… if you had died then… we could have brought you back another way… as a human’

Though it seemed to Y/N that Dean had only added this to cover his outburst so without saying anything further, Y/N got up from the rickety table and swiftly made her way to the bathroom, grabbing her bags as she went.

‘Y/N… Wait!’ Sam called,

‘I need a shower’ She muttered as she slammed the door behind her. This was not a lie, however, she had no intention of staying afterwards. 

As the water turned warm she peeled the bloodied clothes from her skin and placed them on the toilet seat; deciding that Sam and Dean could deal with them later. The water ran red around her feet, it seemed like she had been scrubbing at her skin perpetually, grateful when the shower eventually turned clear. She put on the first things she could find in her bag, relieved to be in fresh clothes. 

Y/N understood it was not safe to be around her brothers at the moment, and besides, after what Dean had said, she did not wish to be. She studied the bathroom, looking for her best way out. The window was high above the bathtub and if she stood on the edge she could pull herself up and out. She plugged in the hairdryer, needing a loud sound to buffer hers. 

With utmost care, she tried her best to push the window open with little noise. She was convinced it had been years since it was opened, as it groaned and resisted the disturbance. She first put her bags through and then hauled herself up, landing with a soft thud.

Y/N made her way across the darkening street, and sighed, how long had she been ‘asleep’? Through glazed eyes, she scrolled through the names of her contacts and once finding the one she was after, she lifted the device to her ear.

‘Damon, where are you? We need to talk…’ Her voice broke.

Through clouded eyes, Y/N watched as Damon’s old blue Chevy pulled over, she had asked to meet him a few blocks down as she had been hiding, knowing full well her brothers would be looking for her by now. Her countless missed calls said so. She was quick to get in.

‘Please drive’ She muttered

‘Hey, are you okay?’ His eyebrows furrowed and he reached out to push the hair from her face, though when she flinched away from his touch, Damon quickly retracted his hand.

‘Y/N…?’

‘Just drive, please.’

Damon took his car out of park and pulled out onto the street. The hours that followed travelling back to Mystic Falls were filled with a taut silence, though Damon often made small glances in Y/N’s direction, every time he tried to speak up his attempt was dismissed, though it seemed he could not wait any longer,

‘Would you please tell me what’s wrong?’

Y/N considered whether it was appropriate to tell him in the car, though she quickly ridiculed this thought; her time was limited.

‘After I left town, my brothers and I went on a hunt…’ Damon did not like the idea of Y/N hunting, putting herself in unnecessary danger, but did not understand why this would leave her so dejected, he assumed she would have been looking forward to spending some time with them.

Damon felt a small, nagging frustration at her brothers, many things could have gone awry on a hunt, and he hated the idea of them putting her in harms way intentionally. However, as he examined her from head to toe, he realised she seemed physically fine. 

When he did not speak, Y/N elaborated.

‘I was injured, really badly…’ Y/N felt herself recoil, she did not want to think about the situation she was in and what she would have to do if she went through with it. Damon looked her over again,

‘What happened? I can’t see anything.’ His words were dubious, yet he still felt queasy at the idea she was hurt. She sighed and closed her eyes,

‘Damon… I died..’

The silence that hung in the air was palpable, Y/N swore she could have sliced it with a blade. A small gasp passed his lips so quiet she shivered; aware the soft sound could only be heard with her newly inhumane sense of hearing. Damon felt an all-consuming anger, how could they have let her die? How could they be so reckless? 

He felt nauseated, knowing how close he had been to never seeing her again. Imagining her cold and unresponsive figure sent tremors through his system.

‘Y/N… My blood…’ She could not hold back her tears anymore, everything that had been tormenting her since she fled from her brothers’ company consumed her. She vaguely noticed Damon pulling over his car and before she could say anything further, he had already sped around to her door and pulled her out; enveloping her in an unyielding embrace.

‘I’m so sorry, I know you would never have wanted this… ’ he choked out, seeing her suffering created his own. But he could not quell the selfish contentment he derived from this. Soon Y/N will be a vampire, she will be powerful; and immortal. She will be adept at protecting herself when he is not able. But more desirably, a life with her is within reach. She will not age, as he has not for a century and a half. He could have eternity with her. 

However, Y/N’s next words abruptly stifled this concept.

‘It’s okay, I would have died anyway, at least now I have the chance to say goodbye to everyone’ 

Y/N did not remember coming to this conclusion, but as the words flowed from her mouth she knew it was the right decision, though her thoughts halted when a realisation struck her; she had stormed out on her brothers and now she would probably never see them again, she must have been hours away from their motel by now. Damon drew back from their tight embrace, horrorstruck, again he pictured her cold and unresponsive; he felt those horrible tremors flood his being once more.

‘Y/N? What do you mean goodbye? Don’t tell me… you're planning on…’ Although he did not finish his sentence Y/N knew exactly what he was trying to say,

‘I can’t turn Damon, I’ve grown up hunting the very thing I will become, my brothers won’t be able to look me in the eye, hell, they may even want to kill me. My father would turn in his grave if he thought I was even considering it.’ Her words flowed hot and fast much like the tears streaming down her face, 

‘I can’t become a monster Damon, let’s just say I took on the Stefan diet or drank from blood bags, it would never last, have you ever heard of a vampire that’s never killed? They don’t exist. One day I’ll lose control and someone will lose their life because of it, I can’t, I won’t become a killer…’ 

Damon's buried rationality knew what she was saying was right, but he could not accept the fact she wanted to die. No, he would do everything in his power to get her to stay. He had lost too many people in his century and a half of existence, but nothing had hurt him like this would. 

‘Please Y/N, please don’t do this, mistakes happen and I can’t promise you anything, but you’re going to have so many people helping you, and I’m sure every one of us will do everything in our power to make sure no one is hurt because of this, Please… I can’t lose you…’ When his voice broke on the last words Y/N shut her eyes and sighed she hated hurting him like this,

‘Damon, I can’t… Please understand…’ she whimpered, Damon shaking his head in denial,

‘I need to call my brothers, I left without saying goodbye.’ 

Her body was riddled with guilt, how could she justify leaving them at a time like this? What had she been thinking? Y/N decided she would call them, it would be better than nothing. Though before she had the chance to ring them and make the broken ends meet, she realised hollowly that Damon was nowhere to be seen. She looked around the darkening street, she could see every last detail; a feat her eyes would not have been able to achieve a day ago. Damon had left her alone, his engine still running. 

She hated seeing him like this, she hated knowing that she was the reason he was hurting; and from what she had been told, Damon was not reasonable when he was hurt. How had they gotten to be this way? Hunter and vampire, trying to court each other.

She decided she should probably look for him, but before she could trek further down the lonesome street she was struggling against the pull of strong arms around her. Looking down she observed an ornate lapis lazuli ring, the very one Y/N knew Damon wore, what could he possibly be doing? Y/N had just been about to call out when she felt warm skin against her mouth, she assumed Damon had been preventing her from yelling when the taste of a warm metallic liquid met her lips. Damon was holding a stranger against her, pressing her wrist to her mouth. Y/N felt a sense of alarm growing in the back of her mind but before she could try and writhe from his iron grip the taste turned sweet; she stopped struggling, not able to remember why she wanted to escape in the first place, and clutched the wrist of the stranger closer still. She wanted this sensation to last forever, she had never tasted anything as delectable, but it all ended too soon when Damon pulled the girl from her arms.

‘Don’t worry, she’s not dead.’ Y/N watched in horror as the skin under his eyes formed inky black veins and newly formed fangs met his wrist, when Damon placed his bloodied skin to the mouth of the limp girl the weight of what had happened crushed her.

‘Damon… What did you do?…’ Y/N’s voice was low and dangerous, she turned away from his rueful grimace, a puddle on the street showing that her face now mirrored his. Awful black veins protruded beneath her eyes, she watched as the sclera of her eyes shifted back from red to white.

‘I know you may never forgive me, I understood that before I did it, but I couldn’t let you go through with it, I couldn’t let you die.’

Y/N felt a white-hot rage grow in her chest, 

‘THAT WASN’T YOUR DECISION TO MAKE!’ She pushed against his unyielding frame, her newfound strength still nothing to his century and a half. His lips formed a straight line and his eyes glassed over. 

‘I’m sorry Y/N, I’m so sorry…’ His words were whispered, she could hear his pain but she refused to pity him. 

‘Damon… I was meant to die…’ She trailed off, ‘My brothers…. They’ll want to kill me…’

‘No, no, this can’t happen…no.’ She began to pace the street, back and forth, rubbing her temples. She was ready to die, she would have been at peace; something now forever out of reach. She looked towards Damon, his tears were falling freely now, face contorted into a tortured expression. 

‘Damon… why…?’ Her voice was broken, she turned away.

Her anger dwindled, like sand through her fingers. Because despite everything he had done, she did not want to see him hurt. She wanted to hate him for what he did, to scream and shout, but she could not find it within herself to detest him. No, she could never hate him. 

Would she not commit the same, selfish act for the person she loved? Would she not have done it too, if the roles had been reversed? For a moment, she considered the awful concept of Damon’s death and all the abominable things she would do to prevent it. And if this dark imagining of hers occurred anyway, she knew she would go to great, grim lengths to reverse it. She realised Damon had only done exactly as she would do, he had only done what the Winchester siblings had already done; many times over. 

Y/N recalled the potent fear she felt, as she lay dying. She had thought she would never see Damon again and that pain had been more excruciating than her fatal wound. And here he was standing before her, his expression distorted to regretful woe because he had only wanted her to live. She once again pondered what it would mean to never see him again, she felt a distant echo of that earlier pain; maybe she had not been ready to die after all. 

At this moment, she was only angry with herself. Y/N knew that none of this would have occurred if she had not gone to Mystic Falls. But what surprised her the most, was that she also could not find it within herself to regret any of this. Everything Y/N had done, led her to meet him; and meeting Damon had been the greatest procurement of her life, or rather, exsistence. This realisation crushed her like an avalanche; exsistence. ‘Life’ no longer applied to her, she was immortal. Y/N would exist forever.

She began to consider what forever truly meant. A hundred years from now, Y/N would stand before her reflection, and she would look exactly as she does at this moment. The world would have changed to a vast extent, but she would remain unchanging.

Only yesterday she had yearned to wake up beside Damon every morning and spend all day by his side. Y/N had longed to listen to his stupid jokes and talk endlessly with him until night fell and they could begin over again. Eternity had made that possible. And in a hundred years when she looked into that mirror, she could now envision Damon by her side; as he was now. Her heart swelled with a palpable warmth. Maybe eternity was not so bad. 

Damon observed her deliberation, waiting for her to explode. She realised her demeanour must have changed completely during her sudden erudition, as she turned back she noticed Damon now donned an expression of dubiety. But she did not take the time to explain, instead rushing to envelop him in her embrace, leaning back far enough to connect her lips with his, she could taste his drying tears. 

Y/N had surprised him, but he melted into her kiss anyway. She could feel his tense trepidation flow out from beneath her fingertips, as he sighed, content. Damon could not comprehend her sudden tranquil composure, he knew he most certainly did not deserve it. He assumed what he had done would have driven her away for good, he had understood that when he acted. But Damon refused to live in a world where she did not exist, even if it meant she was not with him; it was enough to know she would be alive and well. Never would he have imagined she would accept this so willingly, what had changed in her few moments of quiet thought? 

Y/N finally pulled away and rested her forehead against his.

‘I hope you know you’re stuck with me now?’ Her voice was quiet,

Damon’s laugh was relieved, coming out in an exhaled breath; his voice still holding the faint hallmarks of someone with regret.

‘That’s all I’ve wanted.’

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The Day Before ✢ Damon Salvatore

Synopsis: The reader knows she is dying and to save Damon the pain of her death she makes an extremely difficult decision.

Damon Salvatore x Reader, female pronouns.

Warnings: Angst, Death. 

Masterlist

Notes: This is my first time writing for Damon Salvatore, hopefully, this is the first of many.

Words: 1,538

Y/N’s heart sunk as she glanced down at the beads of blood glistening on the tissue she clutched in her hand, she had received news the day before that her cancer had metastasised to her lungs, though she did not realise that her condition would worsen so swiftly. 

Y/N knew she would not be able to hide it for much longer, every day she became more crippled and with every passing moment her façade threatened to unveil. 

Her friends had experienced too much loss and the idea of adding to it made her stomach churn sickeningly. She would not allow them to grieve her; which is why she was leaving. 

Through clouded eyes she began bundling all of her possessions into a small suitcase, she did not pay much mind to what she grabbed, it would not need to last her very long. 

Though when she reached a small photo album sitting on her bedside table her heart jolted, with shaking hands she flipped open the small winsome book, and sure enough, smiling back at her were the faces of her beloved friends. 

She brushed her fingers over each and everyone of their grins, smiling through her tears as she recalled the moment she had taken it. Though her hand halted when she reached the last face, she could have sworn she felt her heart beating in her throat.

Damon.

It had not yet occurred to her that she would never see him again. The pain she felt at that realisation was crippling. She would never feel his gentle caress against her body or his lips on her cheek; Damon’s touch was lost on her forever. All that she had to carry her to her deathbed was his picture and her feeble memory, and that would never be enough.

Before she met him Y/N would not have believed a love so potent was possible, though she was very agreeably proved wrong. Even while living in Mystic Falls with all its theatrical and apprehensive infamousness, Y/N had never been happier. And that was entirely the work of Damon. 

Y/N knew her death would break him and she knew the kind of person Damon became when he was broken. If she left without an explanation he would eventually make his own assumptions and any assumption he made surely could not hurt him like the truth. 

She knew he would try and find her, she could only wish he was never successful. The decision she was making was far from easy, but it was easier than knowing he was mourning for her; hurting because of her.

Damon was always abundantly clear on the life he wanted for them, he yearned to turn her and live for eternity at each other's sides. Though Y/N was never sure what she wanted, she did not want to be rash and he respected that. Though now any chance of her accepting his vision was lost perpetually. She could never become like him, the possibility was lost the moment she was diagnosed with cancer; vampire blood could not fix her now.

Y/N was riddled with guilt and regret, she knew she should have said yes when he first told her what he wanted; because now in the face of death, she yearned for it too. For months the abstraction of the undying life she could have had with Damon had been eating away at her. She laughed humourlessly at the malevolent irony of her situation.

Y/N could not bear to spend another second thinking of the near future and what could have been, so to ease her mind she thought of the day before. The day that, albeit unknowingly, would become their final moments together. It was not a grand affair, they had simply spent the day in each other's company. 

They watched TV, had a nap and Damon had even offered to cook dinner, and even though he failed miserably it had still meant so much to her. She believes he noticed she was feeling unwell and was doing what he could to make her better.

But it was the final moment that had meant the most to her; when he wrapped her in his arms at the end of the day as he was leaving and whispered that he loved her. Tears ran hot down her cheeks at the realisation that it would be the last time she heard him say those words. 

A sudden feeling of lightheadedness had Y/N rushing to sit on the edge of her bed, she should not be stressing herself out like this, she knew it would only worsen her condition. Though she could not stop the unfathomable feeling of guilt stewing within her, It made her sick; she could not leave him without so much as a goodbye. 

Going against everything she had planned since her diagnosis she turned to the messily packed suitcase and began unravelling it. 

Another wave of sickness overcame her, though this time disparate. Y/N felt her body go slack, her possessions slipping from her weak grasp and falling back into their places in the case. Her body slipped downwards from the bed and found itself docile against the floorboards. 

She had started coughing up blood again when the realisation crushed her. This was it. Just as she decided to see Damon karma unfurled its caustic tendrils and enveloped her. She swore she could feel the life depleting from her body. Y/N felt akin to a spectre as darkness shrouded her being like a void, plunging her into nothingness. She was lost to the world. Her glassy, lifeless eyes stared above her; forever immortalised with the fear of never seeing him again.

Y/N had not been answering her phone and Damon knew the consternation he felt brewing because of it was completely irrational, but he found himself headed to her house regardless; he wanted to see her anyway.

When Y/N’s house met his line of sight the sound of a lack of life immediately registered with him, he could not hear her breathing nor the beating of her heart and there was certainly no sound of her usual bustle. 

He concluded that she must not have been home, though before he could turn around to leave he noticed with furrowed eyebrows that her car was still in the driveway. He picked up his pace as he closed the rest of the distance.

He pushed open the creaking old door and when the smell of her exposed blood met him immediately, his heart was sent into a panicked frenzy. Before a second had passed he used his speed to send him straight into her bedroom. But the macabre sight on the floor halted him. He discerned that her skin was the colour of death and the stillness of her frame was much the same. 

He repudiated this thought as he felt the veins grow black beneath his eyes, his fangs coming to meet his wrist. He sped to her limp body and placed his bloodied arm against her cold lips, they remained unmoving. 

‘No...’ he barely gasped out, ‘You need to drink this Y/N, it’ll help you.’ 

He shook her shoulders, her whole body moving with the disruption. Damon’s vision dimmed through the welling of his tears. He forced her taut jaw wider trying to force down his blood. He choked down his sobs as he continued to plead with her.

‘Please drink, you need to drink… Please.’ 

His weeps quaked in his chest, unwillingly observing her lack of heartbeat. He removed his wrist from her lips, replacing it with his mouth and breathing air into her empty lungs. He placed his hands on her chest and tried desperately to recall the steps of resuscitation, but his efforts were futile. 

With an all-consuming sense of despair, his hands fell slack from her inanimate frame and he acknowledged what he had known all along. 

She was dead.

The sobs that passed his lips were inhuman in sound, with shaking hands he used the pad of his fingers to gently pull the eyelids over her glassy eyes. Damon then pulled her torso up to his chest and rested his chin on the top of her head. 

For the first time since he had arrived the sight of a half-packed suitcase entered his concentration. He realised hollowly she had been trying to leave. She knew she was dying and was trying to leave anyway. He wanted to feel angry at her, but no emotion could supersede the severe sense of dejection he was under. 

Who knows how long he would have been living in blissful ignorance, thinking he resided in a sphere where she still existed, a world where she still lived. 

Damon knew he could not live in a world where she did not exist. This was a pain he could not overcome, a pain he would not overcome. Her death left his humanity in shreds, and Damon knew at once he could no longer function with it extant. His emotions left him like a flame getting put out, the enthralling love he had felt for her the day before all but a memory.

Here is the link to a second part if you're interested. I thought it would be interesting to write Damon with no humanity, Part two.

Every comment and piece of advice is welcomed and appreciated <3

Asphyxiated ✢ Bruce Wayne

Synopsis: Y/N’s once-adoring relationship with the charming Bruce Wayne begins to unravel as his nightly disappearances and distant demeanour create an insurmountable chasm between them. Unaware of his double life as the infamous Batman, Y/N is left to wonder where she went wrong, seeking solace in an old friend, Jonathan Crane.  Bruce Wayne x Reader, female pronouns. This piece is not plot-specific, so any iteration of Bruce will work. Though I wrote it with Christian Bale in mind. Warnings: Angst (there's a lot, sorry), canon typical violence (not overly descriptive). Masterlist

Note: This is my first time writing for Christian Bale's Batman, and I can definitely see myself writing for him a lot more; god, I love him. I would also love to thank my lovely friend @lettherebemorelight for helping me with this plot.

Disclaimer: I have since written a prequel to this piece, you by no means have to read it, but if you do, here is the link.

Words: 7,292k

She had once known warmth in his embrace. His open arms beckoned her with a promised safety, drew her in with steady reassurance.

But that warmth had long since dissipated. In its wake, it left behind an empty, desolate bed, cold sheets, and a gnawing uncertainty festering deep within her. Bruce Wayne was slipping through her fingers, their love was fraying at the edges, and try as she might, she could not halt its relentless unraveling. Y/N was at a loss; she could not make sense of it. 

The nights were the worst. Y/N would shift in their bed, reaching instinctively for the warmth that now so often evaded her, his warmth, only to find his side untouched, brisk against her moon-ridden skin. She would hear the ceaseless ticking of the clock, each of its hand's faint circuits mocking her with the unremitting absence of the man she adored. 

She would lie there, vacant eyes gazing above her, with the remnants of her dream shimmering at the edges of her vision and fading into her memory. The uncertain haze of her unconscious contrivance left a burning at the base of her throat as she fought against her tears. She would always dream of him, and though she was met with twisted caricatures of what their love had once been, she pined for sleep to drag her under its unrelenting grasp once more, simply to reunite with them. 

And then, come morning, he would finally show, always interminably long past the promised hour. His drawn movements weighed down with lassitude, and his words bare of any real explanation. 

‘Something came up.’ He would reach for her hand and whisper it haphazardly against her hair, in the muted light of dawn shining through their panoramic windows. His words were always nonchalant, as though late-night escapades did not stray far from convention. Bruce would then press a distracted kiss to her forehead before heading to the shower, leaving her alone on their bed, her arm falling slack to her side once more as he drifted away and out of her grasp. 

She wanted to believe him; she yearned for it. But there was something in the way his shoulders tensed under her timid caress, in his taut hesitation before offering any answer. It twisted at her stomach and made it coil with unease.

She had tried speaking to Alfred, desperate to understand. The older man, a perpetual fountain of wisdom and warmth, could only ever offer her a tight smile and a soft excuse.

‘Master Wayne has a great many responsibilities, Miss.’ 

He would always say the same thing, and it was not an answer, not truly. He was speaking without saying anything at all.

Y/N would not miss how his smile evaded his eyes, turning to pity. Alfred felt sorry for her, and her mind was reeling for the catalyst.

She used to tell herself it was better not to ask, that silence was safer. But that silence had since turned into distance, and that distance was unbearable.

When they had first started dating, she felt like the luckiest woman alive. Bruce Wayne, handsome, charming and kind, made her feel like the centre of the universe. But now, spiralling into her dejection, she felt like she was standing at the edges of a macrocosm she no longer belonged to, staring in and hammering at its unabating walls.

Bruce remained steeped in shadow, staring out into the murk that sheathed Gotham like an integument. The familiar weight of the suit clung to his body like a second skin; it was his mind that made it feel as though he was suffocating, a heaviness that seemed impossible to rid himself of. His gaze flickered to the clock on the cave wall, another night spent apart from her. Another night, he had failed her.

He could still discern her face clearly in his mind, how it had looked before all this. Her lips would curve into a dulcet smile when she saw him, a tenderness would reach her eyes when he held her close. It was not just love he felt when he gazed upon her; it was a need. She anchored him, gave him something to cling to in a city that constantly tried to drag him under, take him somewhere darker, twisted.

But now? There was nothing but distance between them, a chasm of unspoken words and apologies; it seemed nothing could bridge the gap.

Bruce clenched his fists, leaning his weight against the cool stone of the cave, head falling back against its concrete foundations. He wanted to tell her. He wanted to admit everything, every single detail; he wanted to make her understand why he could not be the man she deserved. 

But the words never came.

He could not let them.

He had convinced himself over and over again that this was for her own good. She need not know. He could not inflict her with the weight of his world. The dangers, the violence. The darkness and the murk. None of it.

He was not blind to the fact she was pulling away; he was making a stranger of her. Bruce did not miss how her eyes, in the gleam of dawn, would search his with that dreaded unspoken question, the one he could never answer.

It was imperative for her safety.

If she knew, if she understood what he did when the night fell and the city beckoned its protector, she would be at risk. If she knew he was the Batman, she would become a target. A pawn in a deadly game that he could not protect her from, a game he could not win. 

He had seen it happen before; too many people who cared for him had suffered. He would not let that happen to her. Not when it was within his power to keep her away from it, to suspend her above the reservoir that engulfed him.

But the guilt ate away at him regardless. The empty promises, the way he would brush her off with some vague excuse, knowing she would never get the truth, knowing she did not believe his lies. He hated it. God, he hated it.

But what other choice did he have? She was not just his lover; she was his heart; she was akin to the blood that flowed through his veins; she was life. If Y/N knew, if she saw the man he truly was, she would leave him. She would never forgive him.

He did not deserve her forgiveness. 

And the thought of losing her, of watching her walk away, was a torment worse than any form of hell, its torture paling in comparison. He could never survive it.

It was for her own good.

His mind repeated this mantra like a prayer, something to hold onto as he watched her slip further and further from his embrace. But no matter how hard he tried to convince himself that it was the right thing to do, the truth gnawed at him, unfurled like caustic tendrils within his abdomen. The expanse between them had become too wide to ignore.

If she knew, if she knew the truth…

He would never be able to keep her safe.

Bruce’s hand hovered over his phone, his fingers trembling with the desire to call her. To hear her voice, to hear her ask him where he had been, what he had done. She felt so close, yet so entirely out of reach.

The rational part of him, the Batman, told him it was better this way. She would be safer if she stayed in the dark, if she never knew the man he truly was. But somewhere deep inside, in a plane where Bruce Wayne still existed within him, he did not believe it; he knew this was not what she needed. 

The truth of it was that the Batman was the real him; Bruce Wayne was the façade, an image of the man he yearned to be, the likeness of the man Y/N deserved.

So, he kept her away. Ensured she remained in the dark, drowning in his guilt, persuading himself it was for her own good. Because if he told her, if she saw what he truly did when the sun went down, she would leave him. And that, in the end, was the one thing he could not survive. He was too selfish to allow it.

His eyes flickered to the suit, to the mask now gripped, with pale knuckles, in his unyielding hands, the mask that concealed his true identity. To the symbol of the man he had to be, to protect Gotham, and to protect her, by not telling her the truth.

But it did not feel like protection anymore. It felt akin to betrayal.

He pressed his eyes shut, the weight of it all crashing down upon him. He was not a hero. He was not even the man he had once hoped he could be.

He was a liar.

And she was slipping through his fingers; he was losing her.

It had started as small exchanges, polite words over coffee when their paths crossed amidst the twisting, serpentine alleys of Gotham City. Then, lunches at cafés, after that, afternoon walks through parks. It was the comfort of familiarity that had drawn her in, the sequestered ease of conversation with someone who had known her before her world became so complicated, so delicate.

Jonathan Crane listened when she spoke, his sharp mind quick to offer observations, to make her laugh when she had forgotten how. And she needed that, needed someone to remind her that she was not invisible, that she was not losing herself in the silence of an empty home, a chilling manor. 

Because it was not just the empty bed anymore.

Y/N found herself growing accustomed to the silence that followed Bruce’s ever-present absence. There were no longer any excuses, no more explanations to be had. She did not ask. She simply waited, quietly, biding her time, until he would return to her, distorted, in some fragmented form of himself, always just a little bit further out of her reach.

The coffee would grow cold. The breakfast table remained untouched as she piercingly stared at the empty seat opposite her, mind whirling. Bruce was always sleeping, analogous with a nocturnal creature. The shadows beneath his eyes seemed permanent now, etched into the crevices of his face; in this way, they were very much alike. She would stare dolefully at the toll he took within her complexion.

It was becoming too much to bear; the distance, the constant, unceasing unravelling of everything she had known and cherished. She would go on pretending, to herself and to others, that things were fine, that the silence was not loud enough to drown her, but she was gasping for air, trying in vain to ease her asphyxiation. 

She had tried everything, every little trick she could muster, to fill the void between them. She tried to meet him halfway, to carve out small moments that would make him feel like the man she once adored. But these futile endeavours were like stitching a wound that had long since festered.

And it was Jonathan Crane who made it easier.

Their meetings were innocent. Just old friends reconnecting. A simple chat over coffee, an afternoon stroll to catch up. Nothing more. But with each conversation, the air between them shifted. The rhythm of their exchanges became familiar, comfortable, safe, something she could almost rely on, like a steady pulse. Jonathan was there when she needed him. He listened. He did not push. He was not an enigma like Bruce, wrapped in layers of secrets she could never quite peel back. She felt like she could breathe again.

She noticed the slight curve of his lips when he smiled. The glint in his eyes when he found something interesting in her thoughts. There was a sharpness to him that kept her alert, something she could not quite place. But it did not alarm her; not yet.

And so, she allowed herself to lean into this unwavering presence, drawn to it like a moth to a flickering fire, not yet aware that the inferno would singe her just the same. She did not notice how the conversations between them shifted from casual, lighthearted exchanges to something more intimate. There was irresistible comfort in the way he seemed to understand her pain, her quiet, gnawing desperation. He did not push her for answers; he simply gave her the space to find them within herself. He quietly guided her toward the conclusion he had already been forming.

‘I know you’re not one to speak your mind often,’ he remarked one afternoon, as they sat in a secluded corner of a café, ‘but I can see it in your eyes, you know. You’re asking yourself all the wrong questions.’

Y/N looked up at him, eyebrows furrowing. ‘What do you mean?’

He smiled again, this time a little softer, a little more knowing. ‘You’re trying to find out what you did wrong, aren’t you? Why Bruce is pulling away.’

She hesitated, the words teetering on her tongue, but she couldn’t speak them aloud, not yet. Instead, she simply nodded, her finger faintly circling the rim of her coffee cup.

Jonathan continued, his voice measured, calm. ‘Sometimes, when people change… we forget that they’re changing for reasons beyond us. But what I think you’re failing to see, Y/N, is that you’re not the cause. You never were.’

This whole time, she had been asking herself what she had done wrong. Instead, should she have been asking what he was doing wrong?

It was the first time someone had told her that. Not Alfred, not even Bruce himself. His words settled into her chest, warmth chasing away the cold that had been so enduring.

But underneath that warmth, there was a hint of something else, a flicker of curiosity, or perhaps something darker, lingering just beneath the surface. What had he been keeping from her?

She did not see it. Not yet.

Bruce brooded in silence. The jealousy eroded him, made him bitter and cold, as he watched Y/N draw closer to Crane. He had seen them together more and more, like a slow, insidious shadow creeping closer to everything he was desperately trying to hold onto, enveloping her and stealing her from his sight. 

His suspicions flared, each casual encounter between the two of them fueling the fire within him. He would track their meetings, silent and calculating. How many times had they met this week? How long had they been talking before she left with a smile on her face? A smile that had not been directed at him for what seemed a lifetime, a smile he would do a great many things to receive once more. 

He had been foolish, had he not? Bruce could not decide which was worse, the slow, inevitable fall of his relationship with Y/N or the suffocating realisation that he was already too late.

There were nights when the bitterness was overwhelming. He would stare at the monitor in the Batcave, unable to concentrate, watching the movements of Gotham’s criminals as they spilled into the streets, oblivious to the wars they waged. All he could think about was the way Crane’s smile lingered in his mind, how it made his blood simmer and his chest tighten.

It was not just the jealousy. No. He was not stupid. He had seen enough of Crane’s work to know there was something wrong with him, something dark, lurking beneath the façade of a charming, polite man.

Everything she and Bruce had suffered was designed to keep her safe, though his efforts were in vain; he had pushed her away to safeguard her, but in her isolation, she turned to someone precarious. 

Crane was luring Y/N into the imperilment he had been tirelessly attempting to shield her from; the very notion of it was sickening. 

She was slipping away. She was beginning to look at Crane with something in her eyes, something that was not there before, a curiosity, an ease, a trust.

And Bruce could do nothing to halt it.

The suspicions were creeping in slowly for her, like soft inclinations in the rifts of her mind, barely perceptible at first. Of course, there were the large things: his sudden disappearances at night, his long sleeps during the day. 

But then, bruises would blossom on his arms, and he would rush to conceal them behind clothes, to hide them before she could distinguish them. There were the late-night phone calls that always seemed to be cut short when her presence became known to him. There was his perennial fixation on the news and his rush to leave every time an active emergency broke. 

She was not naïve. She saw the patterns. 

Y/N perceived the unsavoury connection between Gotham’s most elusive figure and the man she loved. But the idea that Bruce could be the Batman was still too far-fetched, too unbelievable to fully take root within her beliefs, to alter her reality. 

There were moments. Fleeting moments when she would see something in his eyes, in the way he moved, in the way his voice carried, moments that she could only describe as… 

Haunted.

She did not want to believe it. She did not want to acknowledge the possibility. The inclination that Bruce had been hiding something from her was almost too painful to entertain, but the evidence was mounting, smothering. Every time she questioned him, his answers became more distant, more rehearsed, more evasive.

Bruce had been trailing them for weeks now, his shadow lurking behind as they shared fleeting moments of companionship, the kind that burned with familiarity and ease, a type of connection he had once known. He knew it was wrong. He knew it was sick, perverted even. There were countless awful words that could describe his behaviour, but he rationalised it; he told himself he was only worried for her safety. And he was; this was not a deception. But Bruce could not deny the burning there, the acid that would sink down and simmer in the base of his throat every time he saw him touch her. 

He would watch, vision burning red, fists clenched, as Crane guided her through doors, hand rested on her lower back. Bruce would visibly cringe as Crane placed his slender hand on her shoulder as she made him laugh. Every time he saw them together, quiet conversations over coffee, casual strolls through parks, something dark inside him twisted. A ghastly sensation he could not name, a vulnerability he would never let anyone see, a jealousy he had, at this point, never known; it was foreign to him. 

Tonight, he could no longer bear it. The dreadful images plaguing his mind, of Y/N’s laughter in the company of another man, had piled up until they were an intolerable weight. He needed to see for himself. He needed to know if she was truly slipping away or if, perhaps, he could still save her from the seemingly ineluctable distance between them.

To save himself from the pain of her harrowing departure.

He followed them from a distance, keeping himself shrouded in shadow as they walked together, their movements eased and unburdened. He watched them as they reached the park, a secluded part of Gotham, where trees grew thick and branches cloaked them in gloom.

Bruce lingered in the shadow of a nearby building, hidden from their view, his eyes narrowed on Y/N’s form, her back to him as she walked a few steps ahead of Crane. His heart pounded in his chest, his breath shallow. Something inside him, perhaps the instinct of a man who had seen too much loss, who had felt too many betrayals, sensed it. This was more than simple companionship.

Then, it happened.

Jonathan Crane stepped closer to Y/N, and for a moment, everything seemed to freeze. Bruce watched with bated breath. The air was drawn taut with a tension; it could have been sliced with a blade, a strain that needed no words to be understood. And then, with a smooth, calculated motion, Crane cupped Y/N’s face and kissed her.

Time seemed to stretch in that moment; in the span of a single heartbeat, the world seemed to slow to a suffocating crawl. Bruce’s stomach turned, and his throat closed. He had watched it happen, watched the betrayal unfold before his very eyes, and in that moment, he could almost feel it. The fracture of everything he had once held dear, the very thing he had worked so hard to protect, had now slipped from his grasp.

He could not move. He could not breathe.

Y/N’s face had been tilted up towards Crane, her expression soft, vulnerable. But Bruce did not see her eyes in Crane’s approach; he did not take in the hesitation there. He failed to see the way her body stiffened, her hands pressing against his chest, urging him to step back. All he saw was the kiss. The final straw. The moment that would unravel everything.

He turned sharply, his heart pounding in his ears, and walked away.

He did not hear the faint sound of her voice, calling out Crane’s name, pleading.

Y/N did not know how long she stood there, still reeling from the kiss. It had caught her off guard, an intimacy she had not expected and one she had certainly not reciprocated. And for a split second, her mind faltered. But only for a split second. In the moment the weight of what had happened settled, she knew something was wrong.

She pushed away from Crane, her heart thumping in her chest; he let her go easily.

‘I can’t…’ She stepped back, her voice trembling, hands still raised, unsure of whether the words were for herself or for him. ‘This… this isn’t right.’

Crane did not say anything for a moment, simply watching her, his eyes calculating. His lips twitched, but it was not a smile. It was something darker. Something she had not seen before.

But she did not wait for his response. Nor did she want to.

Y/N turned quickly and stumbled away, not caring if he called out to her or how he took her sudden departure. Her feet carried her swiftly, her breath sharp in the night air. She could still feel the weight of his kiss; it prickled against her skin and lingered there. Though it had meant nothing, nothing at all.

It was not until she was far enough away that she stopped, her phone already in her hand. She needed to talk to Bruce. She needed to explain, to plead and beg for his understanding.

Her fingers hovered over the screen, anxiety eating at her consciousness. With shaking hands, she scrolled through her contacts, found Bruce’s name, and pressed the dial button.

It rang once. Twice. Three times.

The screen flickered as it went to voicemail.

Her stomach plummeted.

Once the dreaded high-pitched note sounded, indicating it was her time to speak and keeping true to his unrelenting distance, she rushed out a flurry of words; she needed him to understand, to know and believe how much she loved him. To know how little Jonathan meant to her, how much he paled in his comparison. 

She ended the voicemail, her hand trembling as she stared at the screen, as if hoping for it to light up with his name, hoping for him to reach out to her, to offer the words of comfort, of validation, she so wretchedly longed for.

But the screen remained blank.

Bruce’s fingers tightened around the steering wheel, his jaw clenched tight. He knew she had called, but he had left her to go to voicemail. He did not want her explanation, her excuse; he understood the words would feel like a knife twisting in his chest, offering no reprieve. He knew he could not face her; he knew he could not answer her call without breaking, without crumbling under his despair. 

He had seen what he had seen, and no explanation, no words from her, and no amount of time could erase that vile image from his mind, the way Crane’s lips had pressed against hers. The way he had held her, as if she belonged to him.

But she did not; Y/N was his. Or was she? He thought once more of the wedge he had driven between them, the walls he had established higher and higher until she was left standing on the other side, wondering if she could ever reach him again. He was not blind to the way she would observe him, sadness steeped within her eyes. Bruce clenched his fists, a deep ache forming in his chest. Had he pushed her away so far that she had to find comfort in the arms of another man? His own insecurities, his unspoken fears, had they created a chasm between them that was too wide to cross now? The thought of losing her, of her slipping through his fingers, falling into the grasp of another, was more than he could bear. Yet, deep down, he knew it was not Crane who had pulled her away. It was him.

Maybe he knew, deep down, that she had pulled away from Crane’s clutch. He knew she would not have wanted this. But this apprehension was futile now. The seed of doubt had already been sowed within his reality, and it had taken root in his heart like a venom.

His phone vibrated on his dash again, informing him of a voicemail left unheard. He could not bring himself to listen to it. The voice that had so recently been a source of comfort, of love, now felt like a weight. Her words would be a reminder of everything he was failing to give her, everything he could not be.

He drove off into the night, unable to find the courage to turn around.

Not yet.

Y/N’s mind raced as she roamed, and the city’s hum buzzed in the background. She was not ready to go back to the manor, not yet. Not until she could find a way to break through the walls he had built around himself, not before she could get through to him. She glanced at her phone once more; the silence radiating from it was somehow, completely illogically, deafening. The weight of what had happened hung over her, and despite everything, she could not bring herself to face him, for fear she might break.

How could she reach him when he refused to answer? Where was he? Her heart ached at the thought of him, so distant, so unreachable in his silent pain. She needed to fix things, needed to make him understand, before they lost each other completely. But the longer she wandered the streets, the more uncertain she became. What if there was no way back? What if they were already too far gone? She sighed and pushed the thought away as her footsteps quickened. The uncertainty settled deep in her chest as she realised she was not sure where she was going anymore. Y/N stumbled backward, her breath quickening as the dark figures loomed closer. She realised too late that she had backed into an alleyway, the weight of the situation settling heavy, like lead, in her chest. Her heart is pounding, her instincts screaming for her to run, to flee, but her nerves betray her. She glanced around herself frantically. She realised with a fear that felt like ice down her throat that there was no escape. One of them lurks closer, the flicker of the streetlamp catching the glint of a weapon in his hand. Her pulse thunders in her ears as she tries to steady her rattling breath. This was not supposed to happen. She was not supposed to be here. This was not supposed to be how it ended.

Her mind races, but it is too late. She knows it is too late. 

There is nowhere to hide. The heinous men are closing in around her, swallowing her up. She is trapped.

A wave of nausea hits her, a sharp, cold panic that twists her stomach into knots. Her thoughts are a blur, but one thing is clear: she has to reach him.

She closes her eyes and forces herself to calm down, focusing on the small silver ring Bruce had given her, her last hope. The same ring she thought was merely a gift, a meaningless yet sweet gesture. But now she understands. She remembers the way he had pressed it into her palm, his gaze full of a quiet intensity that she had not fully grasped at the time.

‘If you ever need me…' he had said, his voice low, tone heavy with something unspoken. 

‘This will help me find you.’

She recalled the confusion she had felt when he gifted it to her, though she had not dwelled on it at the time. But now, she was kicking herself; it all made sense. She had considered it before, but she was always careful to cut the notion short, halt it before it could fully form, before it became too real.

Bruce was the Batman and she had already known it; of course he was.

The late-night escapades, the sleep-riddled day times, the empty dinner tables, the cuts, the bruises and the urgent, poorly explained disappearances whenever something terrible had happened within the city.

Her hands trembled as she slipped the ring from her finger, the cool metal feeling foreign against her skin; it harboured hope. She placed it carefully between her fingertips and pressed just hard enough to activate the concealed mechanism inside.

The tiny, almost imperceptible whir of the system coming to life is the only sound she hears. And then, as she places it upon her finger once more, the faintest of beeps. A signal sent.

Her chest feels tight as she forces her sight upward, to look upon her soon-to-be attackers, forcing herself to maintain their stare. She is aware of their figures closing in again, of their eyes boring into her, hungry and cold. But her focus is on the single thought that keeps her grounded: He will come.

A sharp laugh echoes from one of the men. They are talking, but the words are unintelligible to her; she cannot hear them over the pounding in her ears. She makes no effort to answer. Her gaze shifts further upward, towards his signal illuminating the murk of Gotham’s night sky, and for a split second, she lets herself believe she can feel him out there—somewhere in the dark, coming to her.

She has to hold on. She has to hold on just a little longer.

Her vision starts to blur, the world becoming corroded at its edges, her body beginning to betray her, but she does not move. Makes no effort to run. She stays still, waiting. Waiting for him.

The night is too quiet, an empty expanse of soundless tension that suffocates with each breath. Bruce’s grip on the steering wheel is tight, his fingers stiff, trying to suppress the tremor that is slithering into his limbs. His chest feels hollow, a dull ache that has been consuming him since the moment he received her distress signal. The weight of it pressed down upon him, pushing the air from his lungs until he could not breathe at all.

The ring. The ring he had hidden a distress mechanism in. In this moment, it is all he has; it is what tells him she is still alive, that she is still fighting, though he can feel her slipping away with every second. He does not have time to think, does not have time to wrestle with the inevitability of what is coming. He pushes the Batmobile harder; the kiss, the betrayal, it is all but a faint memory; it no longer matters.

His heart ticked like a bomb, each beat augmenting the terror that wore at him. It’s too late. It’s already too late. He could not end the foul thought from hammering within his mind, a thought that burrowed deeper within him with every passing moment. But he pushed forward, went faster, even though every fibre of his being told him she was already lost.

He could not afford to think like this. She deserved better.

Bruce did not remember stopping the car. He did not remember climbing from its front seat. 

As he moved, he felt akin to a puppet held suspended by strings; he was not in control of himself. He did not know how he made it to her; the time between the last glimpse of the signal on his dash and the moment he knelt beside her, in her blood, was lost to the haze of adrenaline and dread.

But then, he is there.

Her body is crumpled, macabre, like a broken doll, her form so still it makes his heart skip a beat. Her attackers were nowhere in sight. The blood pooling beneath her seems to grow darker by the second, stark and seeping into the crevices of the pale, illuminated pavement. She is breathing, just barely. It is the kind of shallow, desperate breath that sends a jolt of panic straight through his spine.

For a moment, he does not move, hands suspended above her. The world feels frozen, a long, aching pause; like it is waiting for him to act. But he cannot, he is paralysed. The sight of her, broken like this, shatters everything inside him, destroys everything he is. He wants to scream, wants to rage against this fate, but all that fills his mouth is the taste of failure; it burns like acid; he chokes on it. 

‘Bruce…’

As soon as she speaks, a burning grief chases away the fear that had kept him still; he feels this morbid flame flow through his system and takes her into his arms. Her voice is a faint rasp, as if his name is all she can summon. Her eyes flutter open, and it is as though she is seeing him for the first time. Her gaze is distant, unfocused. Her fingers twitch, but they do not reach out for him; they do not have the strength. She is already too far gone.

But then, those eyes meet his, and something breaks in him, something deep and painful, something he has not allowed himself to feel in so long. She knows. And it is not anger or betrayal that he sees in her eyes. It is only sorrow, and love, and an ache that mirrors his own.

‘Take off the mask,’ she whispers, her words fragile like glass, much like her figure. She tries to lift her hand, but it trembles weakly, falling short as her body fights to stay alive, to keep breathing. ‘Let me see you... Please…'

Her plea hits him like a punch to the gut, and something inside him crumbles. Still supporting her, his fingers tremble as he reaches for the cowl. The motion is so slow it is almost torturous. Every inch of it feels like it is tearing him apart because once he does this, once he removes the mask, there is no going back. She will see the man beneath it, the broken man he has been hiding for so long. And it will be the last thing she sees; he knows it.

But she is asking, pleading. She wants to see him. And somehow, that small piece of her strength is enough to push him over the edge.

He takes it off.

The cool air brushed against his skin, and for the first time in years, he felt raw. Exposed. She does not flinch. Does not recoil. Not like he thought she would.

She smiles, a faint, fragile beam, as though nothing is wrong in the world; it is enough to break him completely, more than he already was. Her eyes are filled with a quiet recognition, and the corners of her lips twitch upward. ’I knew,’ she breathes, her voice shaky, but the words are certain, resolved. ‘I didn’t let myself believe it. But, I knew.’

His throat tightens and burns. He wants to tell her so many things, everything he never said, everything he kept locked away. But the words do not come. He opens his mouth, but the only thing that leaves it is a strangled sob.

Her body jerked in pain, her chest heaving. His hands let go and instead hover helplessly over her, shaking with the urge to do something, anything. His breath hitches, a desperate, choking sound that he cannot control. But there is nothing to do. Nothing. She was slipping through his fingers once more; only he could have never imagined it would be like this. 

‘It’s too late…’ she whispers again, her voice so soft it is almost lost in the wind. The words catch in his throat, and he feels them like prickles puncturing and twisting deep into his skin. The agony of hearing her speak, knowing what is coming next, is enough to shatter the fragile control he has kept over himself for so long, the control that was already extinct, not since he took in her crumpled form on the blood-stained concrete. 

‘I’m going to help you,’ he says, his voice cracked, a broken echo of a promise that he knows he cannot keep. He tells her over and over, as if saying it will make it true, but the words are hollow. They are not real. She is already gone; he cannot save her.

Her hand slides to his cheek, her fingers cold against his skin. She is so cold, so small, as if the life has already been drained from her completely. She looks at him with those same knowing eyes, her smile still lingering, even as the weight of the world presses down upon her chest, pushing her under.

Then she exhaled, a long, shuddering breath that shook him to his core, a breath she could not follow.

Her body goes still.

And in that moment, she is gone. Lost to the world. Empty eyes, gazing unseeingly past him and above her, facing, but not taking in the candescent signal shimmering in the ether.

And in the hollow of her absence, Bruce feels everything stop.

His world has fallen away. The darkness around him seems to stretch infinitely, suffocating him, pressing in on his chest.

Tears burn at the back of his eyes, but he refuses to let them fall. He holds her tighter, his body trembling with the weight of her loss, shaking them both. He does not let go. He cannot. He will not.

But soon enough, they come. And he quickly grasps for his cowl, tugging it over his head.

The tears finally fell. Slowly at first, then faster, until they are pouring down his face and mixing with her blood on the pavement; it is already cold, and the groan he makes at this perception is inhumane in sound. His shoulders tremble with it, a raw, guttural sob tearing through him. It is a sound of pure grief, pure, undiluted agony, the sound of a man who has nothing left but the wreckage he cradles.

He does not care anymore.

He does not care when the officers arrive. He does not care when they try to pull him away from her. He does not care about anything but the ever-growing coldness of her being, the weight of her death pressing down on him like nothing had before.

They cannot make him leave.

But eventually, they do. The silence that follows, the vacantness of his arms without her weight, is so absolute, so entirely harrowing. Alone in the manor, he stumbled to his phone, to the voicemail, the one she had left him earlier, after the call he ignored. The voicemail she had left when she was still alive, still reaching out to him with hope. Hope he did not deserve.

He pressed play.

Her voice fills the room, shaky, unsure. ‘Bruce, please, pick up,’ she had whispered under her breath, her voice shaking with anguish. ‘I… I don’t know what happened. I don’t know why it happened. But, please, I need you to understand. This… this wasn’t what I wanted. Jonathan… he kissed me, but I pulled away. I swear. I… I wasn’t trying to hurt you, Bruce. Please, just… just understand. Please. I need you. I love you.’

She paused for a moment, her end going silent. Bruce had thought it finished when her small voice spoke up once more, 

‘I love you,’ she had repeated, ‘God… I love you,’ she choked on her sob, trying desperately for air, ‘I love you so much, Bruce. Please, don’t shut me out. I need you. I love you…’

The static cuts through the air when the message ends. The words carved into him like scars that will never fade, worse than any real affliction. 

He collapsed into their bed, a broken shell of a man, his body wracking with silent sobs. His hands shake, his chest heaving with each breath, but he cannot stop it. He cannot cease his crying; it sputters out. 

And as the tears flowed, it felt like the world around him was disintegrating, leaving only an empty void where she used to be. He reached out, and the cold sheets of her side made him heave harder. Alfred is in the hall, trying to get through the door. He wants to take him in his unyielding embrace and tell him it was not his fault, but it is a lie. Alfred was attempting to suppress his own sobs, though Bruce could still hear them; they pierced his ears like needles. 

He can still feel the cold weight of her body in his arms, the way her breath slowed to nothing, the fragile, fleeting warmth that slipped through his fingers like sand. His mind replays the moment over and over, like a cruel loop he cannot escape, a perpetual torment.  

If only he had gone to her after the kiss. The thought is bitter, venomous. 

He had let his fear, his overwhelming need to protect her, to keep her safe, push him away, convincing himself it was better to stay distant, to be the Batman, rather than risk anything more. But now, he cannot help but see it for what it truly was, cowardice. She was his. She had always been his, and if he had just confronted her, talked to her, if he had given her the chance to explain that the kiss meant nothing, then maybe, just maybe, she would still be alive. She would have told him the truth, and they would have worked through it together. They would have gone home together. They would have been happy. 

But instead, he let her fade away, believing the lie that keeping his distance was the right thing to do. The guilt claws at him, a suffocating weight, each breath sharp and ragged. He was not there when she needed him most. He was not there when it mattered. And now she is gone.

And the words she said echo through him once more, louder than anything else:

‘I love you so much, Bruce. Please, don’t shut me out. I need you. I love you…’

But it is too late for those words now. It is too late for anything.

Here is the link to the prequel if you're interested.

Every comment and piece of advice is welcomed and appreciated <3

Tether ✢ Jason Todd

Synopsis: When a battered Jason stumbles into an alley and finds unexpected refuge in a stranger’s kindness, it sparks a fracture in the walls he’s built to survive. Trust was never a luxury he could afford, but as survival blurs into something more, Jason is forced to confront the most dangerous risk of all, love.

Jason Todd x Reader, female pronouns.

Warnings: Descriptions of injuries and scars. Hurt with comfort.

Masterlist

Notes: A couple of weeks ago, I posted a pair of headcanons, 'when he realised he loved you' and 'when he admitted he loved you'. A few people were interested in an extension of Jason's parts, and this is the result. So, if some moments sound familiar, that is why. It follows Jason as he meets, gets to know, and, eventually, falls in love with the reader.

Words: 5,992k

The air was thick with the acrid scent of oil and looming rain. The Gotham sky threatened a storm, as it always did, the kind that lurked but never quite arrived, it pressed down upon her shoulders; she huddled against it. Y/N did not intend to be outside long. It was just the rubbish, nothing more than a trip down two flights of stairs to the alley behind her apartment, a chore too mundane to warrant much forethought. But that is when she saw him.

At first, Y/N was not sure what she was looking at. Just a shadow, too still, too broken at the base of the brick wall. Then it moved, a sharp, pained shift, and the outline resolved itself into something unmistakably human. 

He was bleeding. Not in the way of scrapes and gashes; this was deeper, darker. New wounds layered atop old scars. She froze, bin bag clutched within her grasp, knuckles white. For a moment, neither of them spoke. He did not look at her. He was watching the mouth of the alley, just past the corner, breath coming fast and shallow. Voices echoed from somewhere beyond. Sharp. Searching.

‘Where the fuck did he go?’

‘Check the rooftops. Check the damn dumpsters. He couldn’t have gone far.’

His eyes flicked up, just barely, only enough to register her. His shoulders fell slack, ever so slightly. She was not a threat. Just a girl.

Jason Todd had been in more confrontations than anyone should survive. He had bled in them, broken in them, died in one. There was a pattern to this kind of moment, the hush before pain returned, the liminal space where adrenaline gave way to his collapse. He had learned to expect nothing from strangers. No mercy. No help. Just the turning away of eyes and the closure of doors. So when she stepped forward instead of flinching, when her voice did not falter or fill with fear, something within him stalled.

‘My place is just there,’ she said, nodding toward the fire escape tucked beside the alley’s edge. 

‘You can’t stay here. They’ll find you.’

He did not react, nor move; he simply watched her.

‘You need to get off the street,’ she added, lower now. ‘You won’t make it five minutes if they come back this way.’

Still, he hesitated. His whole body was coiled with his refusal. She could see it in the set of his jaw, the way his fingers hovered near his belt, ready to draw, to run, to die fighting. She dropped her gaze, it fell to rest on his boots.

‘I’m not trying to trap you,’ she said, voice quieter now, nothing more than a whisper. ‘I’m trying to help.’

That was the part he could not understand, would not let himself believe. Why would anyone help him? Especially like this, so suddenly, without demand, without recognition. She did not know who he was, not really. If she did, would she have still reached for him?

Another voice rang out nearby. Closer this time.

She stepped forward and reached for his arm without thinking. He flinched, not from pain, but reflex. The kind born of being mishandled too many times. But he did not pull away. She guided him to his feet, shocked by how heavily he leaned once upright, how much weight he was carrying in silence.

And he followed.

All the while, Jason could not make sense of it. A thousand voices in his head, Bruce’s warnings, Alfred’s caution, his own brutal sense of realism, all shouted at him to resist, to stay low, to get out. But this woman, this stranger, offered him nothing but quiet resolve. And something in him, something tired and long frayed, gave in.

Her apartment was small, neat, yet well-lived-in. Warm lights, blankets strewn unceremoniously over the couch, a kettle still warm upon the stove. He stood in the centre of her living room, stiff and vigilant, akin to a stray dog unsure if the hand reaching for it would offer food or a harsh blow.

He should not have come. He knew this was a mistake. He did not belong in spaces like this. Every breath of its domestic warmth grated against the sharp edges of his being, reminded him of everything he had lost and all he had ruined. And yet he stayed, frozen beneath the soft lighting, the aromatic scent of bergamot and quiet calm surrounding him like a haze.

‘You need a hospital,’ she muttered, though her tone already bore traces of defeat; she knew this sentiment would be futile.

He turned immediately, preparing to leave.

‘Or not,’ she amended quickly, voice grim, and stepped into his path. ‘You’re not going back out there like this. At least sit down.’

He halted. Only because the pain had lanced through his ribs like a warning. He hated this, the helplessness, the imbalance. But she did not look upon him as a burden, but simply as someone who needed help.

Reluctantly, he eased himself onto the edge of her worn armchair, its leather creaking beneath him. His mask remained on, armour still clinging to him; blood was now beginning to seep through the layers. He shifted his weight, conscious of ruining her chair.

She returned with a first aid kit, unassuming, but well-stocked. He did not stop her when she knelt beside him, did not flinch when she pulled back the material of his jacket and placed it aside, though his hands twitched at every passing sound beyond the apartment. When she reached for his armour, the woman hesitated, not wanting to overstep, though Jason understood and quickly pulled it back in parts, revealing only what was necessary.  

She did not ask questions. Not the ones he had expected when he followed her here. She was not probing for his name or what he had done to deserve this, what had happened for him to pursue it. She just worked, focused and calm. Her touch was gentle, but not tentative. She bore a steadiness he had not expected, not from someone who should have recoiled, who should have been scared.

Jason found himself watching her, not with suspicion, but with something near disbelief. Why? Why was she doing this? Did she think she was helping some misguided hero? Did she see something redeemable within the blood and ruin of him?

Did she not care who he was? Did she not care about what he does?

These thoughts gnawed at him more than anything else. It bothered him that this kindness may not be the fallacy of a skewed perception, but rather a simple resolve to help, despite everything he was.

When she finished, she offered him water. He took it, fingers brushing hers. It grounded him more than he cared to admit.

‘There’s a spare bed in the study,’ she said. ‘You can rest there tonight.’

He did not answer. But he followed again as she walked away, grabbing his clothes that lay discarded on her floor. Something about her voice, soft, steady and undemanding, made resistance feel pointless.

Then she opened a door. It was a small room, books lined the shelves, and a narrow bed was tucked into the corner, with clean sheets and a folded quilt.

‘There’s a lock,’ she said, gesturing to the inside of the door. ‘If you need it. You can take your mask off. I won't be able to open it from the outside.’

He looked at her then. Truly looked. Not for weakness. Not for a motive. But for the truth. And what he saw left him stunned, not simply because it was unfamiliar, but because it was real. There was no pity within her unrelenting gaze. No awe. Just, quiet offering.

He did not say thank you. He could not. Jason could feel the words billow on the edge of his tongue; he yearned for her to understand his gratitude, and though he could not utter them, she nodded as though she had heard them anyway. His relief was palpable. 

Then he stepped inside as she hovered in the doorway. For the first time, he spoke up,

‘What’s your name?’ He wanted his voice to come across as gentle, but there was a gruffness he could not quite quell. She did not seem fazed by it.

‘Y/N.’ She murmured, and when it became clear to her that this conversation would not expand beyond this simple query, she closed the door.

He remained there for a moment longer, staring where she had just been, before shifting the latch of the lock. Jason peeled back the remaining layers of his ensemble until he was left in nothing but his boxers. It was not ideal, but he could not bear the notion of crawling beneath her covers in his grimy, blood-uncrusted getup. The bed was small yet inviting, his frame hardly fit, though he could not recall the last time he had been this comfortable. He was not sure if it was the sleeping arrangement or the soft snores of the girl across the hall that acted as a reminder of someone who had been so unusually kind. Regardless of the catalyst, he fell into a quick slumber as a foreign warmth bloomed within his chest.

By morning, the door was open.

Not just unlocked, but wide and unoccupied. The bed was made, the quilt folded precisely. The only trace of him was a faint indentation left upon the pillow; if she had not known better, if she had not just thrown away his bloodied gauze, she could easily believe he was never there. 

She stood in the doorway for a prolonged moment, unsure if she was relieved or disappointed. The quiet lingered around her, louder now, and she caught herself wondering if he would ever come to fill it once more.

Jason should have known better.

The notion built upon him slowly, like bruises forming beneath his skin, invisible at first, until the ache settled and colour bloomed. The morning he slipped from her apartment, he had told himself it was nothing more than a fleeting refuge. He left nothing behind. He would not burden her with the aftermath of last night’s choices. But it was not until he had cleared the block, boots light, breath even, body stitched back into shape, that the thought hit him like a bat to the ribs.

He led them to her.

Not intentionally. Never that. But reckless all the same. The alley had been a haven born of desperation, not strategy. He had not known where he was going, he only knew that he had needed to get away. And when she opened that door to him, he walked through it without so much as a second thought. Without calculating the risks.

And now the calculation was catching up with him. This kind samaritan was in danger because of him.

He returned that night. However, Jason did not allow himself to venture too close. He perched three rooftops down, crouched low in the shadows, eyes locked on the slow hum of the street outside her building. The fire escape remained still. Lights flickered softly inside.

She was fine.

But that did not soothe him.

He stayed longer than he meant to. Hours passed. Long enough that the shadows stretched and yawned, long enough that his body reminded him it had not properly healed. Still, he waited. Not for her. Not really. That is what he told himself, at the very least. He was not watching her. He would never do that. He never allowed his gaze to touch her window. He was not here for her.

He was here for them.

The ones who had chased him. The ones still searching. If they had half the sense he wielded, they would retrace his escape route. They would check for kindness. They would look for open doors and cracked windows and people foolish enough to help. He hated how plausible it was.

And so he came back again the next night.

And the one after.

It became routine, though he refused to admit that to himself. This was a stakeout. A surveillance effort. He was not lingering. He was not tethered. He certainly was not attached.

But even in the silence, even with his gaze anchored on the street, he could sense her behind that wall; he pictured her reading in that chair, sipping from the chipped mug he could envision near the sink. She did not know he was out here. She could not. He would never be that careless.

Yet, somehow, it still felt like he was trespassing, even though he had not so much as looked at her in all this time. That strange warmth she had offered him, freely, like it had cost her nothing, haunted him more than pain ever had.

He told himself he would stop. Every night, he told himself it would be the last. 

He was so very close to relenting when he laid eyes on her for the first time since that night, she was not in the hazy warmth of the apartment, but under the jarring clarity of daylight. Mid-morning. A street corner in Park Row. She had a velvet bag slung over her shoulder, a paperback in one hand and half a pastry in the other. Casual and effortless.

He nearly walked past her.

Jason knew he should have.

But the moment he registered her, truly saw her, without the fog of blood loss and alleyway silence, something happened. Something ridiculous. His stomach flipped. Not in fear, but... something worse. Something more dangerous. Something soft. A breathless kind of jolt that made his chest feel too tight.

Butterflies.

He scoffed aloud at the word.

Ridiculous. Juvenile. Weak.

But they were there, fluttering behind his bruises, beating against ribs that had withstood so much worse. And the worst part? He did not hate the sensation.

Though he certainly did not trust it.

She did not recognise him. How could she? They were meeting in a new context. She stood before a different version of him. No mask, no blood, no warning in his eyes. Just a hoodie, dark jeans, hair still mussed from too little sleep. He looked... normal. That was the trick of it. That was the danger.

He could speak to her now, and it would not be an invasion. This was not some rooftop vigil. It was not surveillance steeped in adrenaline and exhaustion. This was his chance.

A chance he should not take. Though Jason felt the butterflies once more and spoke anyway.

‘Hey,’ he uttered, too rough, the word catching against a throat unused to casual conversation.

She turned. Eyed him.

No recognition.

‘Sorry, this is probably strange,’ he added quickly, stuffing his hands into his pockets, as though that could hide the nervous itch crawling under his skin. ‘You just looked like you could use a second cup of coffee. Or company. Or both.’

She blinked. Then, a slow, small smile.

‘Is that your way of asking me out?’

He froze. Not because she was wrong. But because she was direct. Unflinching. Just as she had been before. Could it really be that easy?

He laughed. A low, surprised sound that felt foreign against his tongue.

‘Yeah. I guess it is.’

She studied him for a breath longer, then nodded, easy as anything.

‘Alright. But I’ll take a tea.’

He wanted to ask her name again. Wanted to tell her his.

But instead, he fell into step beside her, quiet, casual. Just another face on the street, a casual trip to a café. He felt a blush creep onto his skin, and he turned away from her, fidgeting hands buried deep in his pockets.

It was not love at first sight. Jason did not believe in things like that, not anymore.

If anything, it was suspicion at the first conversation. Interest at second. Uncertainty for the next dozen or so. She had no idea who he was, and he preferred it that way. There was a freedom in this anonymity, in being seen without history clawing at his heels. She did not look at him like she was waiting for something to fall apart. She did not glance at his hands like she expected them to be bloodied. She saw him for who he truly was, it felt like the rarest thing of all.

And so he kept showing up.

Cafés became a habit. A tether. Once a week, then twice. Never planned, always on a whim, or so they liked to pretend. They visited bookstores and late-night markets. Together, they would walk past the same food trucks where Y/N would consistently order the wrong thing as though it were a rule, never complaining. Though she would smile sheepishly when Jason offered his much more appetising selection. 

Y/N would ask him about books. Music. The kinds of questions he had not been asked in years. He did not always answer. Sometimes he just watched her talk, let the cadence of her voice steady the parts of him that threatened to fray.

She had looked different in the daylight.

Less shadowed. Still sharp, still grounded, but without the weight of the tension that had hung between them that night. She had laughed once, and the sound had startled him. It was unguarded. Open. He had not heard anything that unafraid directed at him for a long time.

He had to stop himself from reaching for it.

Jason tried to keep it casual, whatever this was. Whatever they were circling. He made sure never to cross certain lines. He would not stay too long. He would not text first. He would not touch her unless she touched him. There was an instance where she had brushed her fingers over his knuckles on the edge of a café table, he had stared down at the spot as though it had caught fire.

She did not comment. Just went back to sipping her tea, Earl Grey. He could smell the bergamot wafting from it, as he had in her apartment that first night. 

He could not define when it changed. When the space between them stopped feeling like distance and started feeling like an invitation. Maybe it was the first time she made him laugh, not a small chuckle, not one of those scoffs of disbelief, but a genuine, gut-twisting kind of laugh that left him breathless. She had just looked at him with raised brows, like she was not sure whether to be proud or concerned.

Maybe it was the night she found him again, bleeding, no more than that first time. A busted lip, bruised jaw; he had already changed into his regular clothes and considered turning around. He should not allow her to see him like this. But before he could bring himself to move, she opened the door and ushered him inside without question. 

Did not so much as blink. Just helped him again, only her touch was familiar and welcome now. Still careful, still steady.

And when she looked at him, saw past the blood and the scowl and the silence, she reached up and brushed his hair back from his face, her thumb resting at the corner of his temple. Nothing more. How could she accept him so willingly, without question? How could she not demand the catalyst of his newly mangled face and bloodied knuckles?

Jason had kissed her then. He had not planned it. It was simple instinct, or rather an impulse, or some failing of his exhausted restraint. But she did not flinch. Did not push away. She just leaned in, met him halfway, soft and certain.

After that, there was no use pretending.

It was not some grand explosion, not as books had made him believe. There were no bold declarations, no breathless confessions. Jason did not see romance the way others did. He did not show up with flowers. He did not call just to say he missed her. He barely knew how to say what he felt, let alone trust that it would not crumble in his grasp.

But she understood him in a language he had not known he was speaking. When he disappeared for three days and came back with split knuckles and a haunted look, she did not demand an explanation. Just held his gaze for a moment too long and set a cup of tea on the table beside him.

He would never deserve her. He knew that. This concept was stitched into every part of his being, the sense of ruin, of fracture, of being too far gone to love or be loved back. But she never asked him to deserve her. She just asked him to show up. And over time, he did. More than he thought he could.

Eventually, she saw through him.

Not all at once. But in pieces. The subtle way he scanned every room before they entered it. The half-second delay before he ever turned his back. The scars he never explained, the exhaustion he carried within his shoulders.

He realised he could not lose her, the very thought of it left him asphyxiated, left him gasping and sputtering for air. It terrified him more than anything ever had. It was worse than the crowbar, worse than the vestige of the green glow left shimmering behind closed eyelids. He remembers how he had met her, how she had helped him so unflinchingly, how he had been bewildered by her lack of fear. And he realised this actuality left him horror-struck. What if she helped someone in this manner once more? What if they were not so kind? 

This is how he justified his need to remain in her orbit: that his vigilance was the only way to keep her safe from all lingering dangers, but even as the words circled his mind, a deep, gnawing doubt took root. Was he truly only here to protect her? Jason knew better, a heinous selfishness had been sown, and he stayed because he could not bear the notion of parting with her. Could he ever atone for how these mistakes had already placed her in harm’s way? The weight of that guilt threatened to crush him, but he could not walk away now; he was in too deep.

It happened with a shift of fabric. A flash of his skin. A scar.

They were in her kitchen. She had been making him breakfast. Jason, barefoot and groggy, was pretending not to enjoy the way she fussed over the frying pans. He had reached for something on the top shelf, muttering under his breath about her terrible organisational choices. Y/N had laughed and leant against the counter, trying not to watch the way the muscles in his back shifted beneath the thin cotton of his shirt.

Then the hem lifted.

Just a little. A second, maybe less. But time had a strange way of stretching in moments like this, in moments that mattered.

The scar was thin and brutal, a memory carved into his flesh. Indented above the waistband of his jeans, angled on his side. She remembered it too well. The jagged line. The way this shiny white mark had gleamed underneath blood-soaked skin, beneath dour body armour…

Her breath caught.

She did not mean to gasp. It was soft. Barely audible. But it was enough.

Jason froze.

Then, akin to a fiend caught suspended within a spotlight, his hand dropped from the shelf and yanked the shirt down with quiet, desperate precision. He met her gaze.

But it was too late.

She had seen it. And more than that, she recognised it; he could discern familiarity as it flooded her perception. 

He moved toward her, slow and measured, but stopped over a metre short. He already knew what was written across her face, he had no choice but to meet it head-on.

Their eyes locked, though neither of them shifted.

Silence bloomed between them, vast, tense and electric. Though not empty. It was full of all the acts and secrets he had not disclosed to her. Visions of the alleyway, of blood and heavy breaths, the weight of him leaning against her to stay upright, and her hands pressing gauze against the cuts that circled that familiar scar.

‘You remember.’ He spoke quietly.

It was not framed as a question, it was a statement, an observation. 

She swallowed, mouth suddenly dry. ‘That night,’ she whispered. ‘The one in the alley.’

He nodded once. Just once. Nothing theatrical. Nothing dramatic. But it felt like the earth beneath them had shifted.

Red Hood.

It all slotted into place, the bruises, the silence, the way he would flinch ever so slightly when she would reach for a part of him he did not want seen. She had known he carried secrets. Had made peace with the fact that some parts of him were locked behind years of pain and choices she might never fully comprehend.

But this… this was different.

‘You should’ve told me,’ she murmured, not out of anger, but the truth felt heavy against her tongue. Like it had waited too long to be spoken aloud.

Jason’s jaw flexed, a muscle twitching in his cheek. ‘I didn’t want to lose this.’ He motioned around them, motioned towards her.

‘This?’ she echoed, almost hollow.

He looked upon her as though she were deserving of reverence, as though he could scarcely believe she was his to hold, yet, even now, his manner was crumpled with wretched trepidation. Jason awaited her outburst, anticipating the command to leave; he could not bear the weight of her silence.

‘You. This place. The quiet. The version of me that you know.’ He added. 

She stared at him, truly stared, and realised something terrifying: she had known. Maybe not consciously, not in the way of facts, names and alter-egos, but within her bones. In the way he moved. The way he disappeared. In the weight he bore like a shroud, constricting him with every breath.

And she had loved him anyway.

The hood, the violence, the vigilante beneath her kitchen light, none of it overwrote the man who made her tea when she could not sleep. The man who listened to her gush about books and could recall her favourite lines. Who kissed her like she was something he did not think he deserved, and treated her like she was the only real thing in a world full of spectres; Y/N was sure this was what he told himself. 

Her voice was soft when she finally spoke again.

‘You didn’t have to be someone else to be wanted, I hope you know that.’

He closed his eyes, and she watched as something in him fractured, not like breaking glass, but like old tension unravelling; she could see his apprehension flow out from beneath his skin.

‘I know,’ he said, barely above a whisper. ‘But I didn’t know how to be him… and still be this.’

She stepped forward. One pace. Two. Slow. Careful. As if approaching something transient.

Jason flinched, not quite pulling away, not quite reaching out. A lifetime of rejection was hardwired into his muscle memory. Though he caught himself before he could move away, standing rigid as she closed the space between them.

Her hand found his, warm and steady. He looked down at their entwined fingers. Jason could not believe that something so simple could feel so profound.

‘You’re simply you, boyfriend by day and regrettably, vigilante by night. Knowing this won’t change how I think of you,’ she affirmed. Then she tilted her head, thoughtful, and spoke once more.

‘Though… it may just heighten my anxiety levels. Knowing you’re out there.’

And for the first time since that fateful night in the alley, Jason let himself believe that maybe this could work. 

Jason felt it before he understood it, like the first rays of sun on his back after a winter that had lasted far too long. A warmth he had not asked for. Had not expected. It crept into his system uninvited, compelling and unfamiliar, thawing places he had long since numbed for survival.

It struck him suddenly, not like a realisation, but like a tempest. He thought he had not wanted it. He did not trust it. But it was there all the same, pressing against his ribs, blooming beneath his skin.

Love.

It was not loud. It was not cinematic. It was not even convenient. It arrived in the middle of a quiet evening, while she was brushing her teeth, half-asleep, one of his old shirts covering her frame, bare legs beneath the hem, humming something tuneless under her breath. A song he did not recognise.

The bathroom door was ajar. Lamp light filtered in behind her, soft and pale, painting the air gold. She was swaying gently where she stood, oblivious to the weight of his stare. And Jason, standing there in the threshold, rooted to the spot, watched her like she was something too precious for this world. As though she might flicker and vanish if he exhaled too harshly.

And in that moment, watching her in that domestic stillness, he could believe, even just for a breath, that the world was not a place of carnage. That outside the window, it was not broken. That pain was not inevitable. That this could last.

But the thought brought with it a sharp, biting panic.

It was in this moment that he knew he loved her.

His body tensed, his mind retreating into old reflexes. Not to run, not literally. He could never leave her. But something within him tried to pull away, to armour up, to prepare for the moment when this would inevitably be ripped from him.

Because that is what always happened. Moments like this, soft, perfect, undeserved, were fleeting in his world. They were the eye of the storm, not the end of it.

He did not deserve this. And even if he did, the world had a cruel way of taking beautiful things and turning them to ash.

She caught his reflection in the mirror, stilled, and turned toward him. Her eyes met his. Sleepy, soft, utterly unguarded. A small smear of toothpaste clung to the corner of her lip, and yet she looked at him like she could see through him. Not with fear or judgment, just mild concern and a gentle curiosity.

‘You okay?’ she asked, voice thick with sleep, amused by the way he loomed in the doorway like he had stumbled into a scene too fragile to touch.

It disarmed him. Utterly.

Jason swallowed hard. After everything he had seen, everything he had survived, the Lazarus Pit, the alleys, the gunfire and betrayal, he was not sure he had ever been less okay. And yet, standing there in her bathroom doorway, heart thundering like he had just survived a firefight, all he could do was step forward.

He did not speak, not at first. He just reached for her and kissed her temple, soft and fleeting, like the moment itself. It was not meant to answer her question. It was not meant to fix the chaos unravelling inside his chest. It was just the only thing he could offer that was not ruin.

‘Yeah,’ he said quietly. ‘Just tired.’

But it was a lie.

He was not tired, he was reeling.

That night, he did not sleep. Not because he was unable, but because he would not. He lay in her bed, curled beside her, her breath slow and even against his collarbone. One of her arms was draped across his ribs, anchoring him with a kind of warmth he did not dare disturb.

He memorised it. Every part of her.

The cadence of her breath. The shape that her hand made against his chest. The way she murmured in her sleep. He memorised her like a man convinced the morning would seize her from his grasp. Like this was all a dream and he would wake back in Gotham’s dirt-streaked alleys, alone, masked, and untouched by her grace.

But she was real.

And for now, it was enough.

Y/N was stitching him up again, hands steady, breath shallow, a routine so familiar it hurt. Nothing fatal. Nothing new. His form was half-draped in shadow, his skin cold under her touch. She sat cross-legged before him, knees meeting his.

‘You’ve got to stop doing this,’ Y/N murmured. It was not the first time she had said this, and it would certainly not be the last. Her sorrow clung to her like a second skin; he would never stop hurting himself and, by extension, hurting her. Her fingers twitched, and she forced them steady. 

Jason did not answer her. What would he tell her? Definitely, not the truth; she would not want to hear it. Every stitched-up wound felt like proof that she cared; he could not resist the temptation. It was how they had met, it was why he had allowed himself to grow close to her. Jason did not believe she could love a man like him, but when he felt her gentle fingers work over his skin, he let himself consider it; he let himself yearn.  

‘I’d die for you, you know?’ he muttered. Off-handed. As though it were the most obvious thing, as though it were as easy as breathing.

A frown turned her face. ‘That’s not comforting, Jason.’  

And then, something unspooled. It was akin to a thread that had been pulled taut for too long, it snapped under the tension. Jason sighed.  

‘What I was trying to say… What I meant was… I love you…’ He looked into her eyes, gaze piercing, willing her to see the truth of it.  

The words had flooded out like a barrage breaking open. 

‘That’s all I’m trying to say. I’d die for you because… I can’t picture a world without you in it. I wouldn’t want to.’ He shivered at this, at the concept of a sphere she did not grace; the very notion made him ill.  

She stilled. Hands held suspended above him, pausing their work. He was not looking for a response, only a release; he had needed this off his chest. But she gave him one anyway.  

‘I love you, too.’ She had uttered it so softly, had Jason not already been watching her lips, he might have missed it. His breath caught, not in fear, but in awe, as though his lungs had momentarily forgotten their most natural function.  

Her words felt like electricity brimming beneath his skin, like every nerve had been awoken at once. A new fullness bloomed within his chest, as though the ribs could no longer host his heart; as if it had suddenly grown too large to contain.  

He spoke up again, softer this time, ‘I’ll try to live for you too. That part’s harder. But believe me when I say I want it. More than anything.’ He gave her one of his rare smiles, and her heart jolted.  

She silently placed the first aid materials to the side and leaned in, placing her head against his shoulder. After a short while, she shifted, leaving scattered kisses across his fading scars, lingering on each for a moment. He felt that same electricity once more, humming under her touch. 

Her hands ghosted over him like he were something precious, as though the ruin of him was worth loving, and that was the message she was trying to convey, what she was trying to have him understand.  

Once again, Jason did not sleep at night. Not out of pain or panic, but because he was afraid it had been a dream. That peace, for someone like him, was more fragile, more fleeting than any reverie; and he could not stand the idea of waking up.

We saw small glimpses of domestic Jason here. Why is it everything I want in life? Every comment and piece of advice is welcomed and appreciated <3

TAGLIST: @aidansloth

I normally post my writing here, though I thought some of you guys might (hopefully) like to see my artwork too. Anywho, here is a portrait of my beloved, Jason Todd <3 Let me know if you guys would be interested in seeing more.

ｒｅｖｅｎａｎｔ －ｓｉｘ

PART SIX OF 'REVENANT' SERIES Damon Salvatore x Winchester!Sister!Hunter!Reader  The Vampire Diaries x SupernaturalMini-Series Synopsis: Y/N Winchester was tired of living in her brothers' shadows; she needed to do something for herself for a change. When she heads to Mystic Falls, a town she was always warned to stay away from, she finds she may have taken on more than she can handle. Will she be able to eradicate the supernatural from the uncanny town? Or will she find herself tangled amongst it? WARNINGS: Descriptions of violence. Words: 4,266k Blog Masterlist / Series Masterlist <Previous Part | Next Part >

Damon Salvatore loved her. She was certain of it. She felt his love in the way he held her as she lay dying, Y/N heard it in his desolating sobs and saw it in the way he looked at her as he pleaded with her to drink his blood; as he pleaded with her to live. Y/N Winchester was a hunter and Damon, newly beknownst to her, was, to her horror, a vampire. And somehow, despite all this, they loved one another. She thought the world must have been knocked out of orbit, how else could everything be so backward? So unbelievably, preposterously anomalous?

Her love for Damon filled her heart until no room was left, and Y/N found herself confused and overwhelmed by it. Part of her wanted nearly nothing more than to be back in the company of her brothers, saving people and hunting things. But there was something, or rather someone, she wanted more desperately; she wanted him. She yearned to wake up beside Damon every morning and spend all day by his side. She longed to listen to his stupid jokes and talk endlessly with him until night fell and they could begin all over again. And this terrified her. Where was her respect for everything her father had taught her? How had it become so unreservedly obsolete?

Which is why the young Winchester found herself packing as soon as first light had made itself known. Leaving Damon was the last thing Y/N wanted, but she knew it was what she needed. She needed to be back with her brothers, at least for a little while, to live in her normal routine. She sighed when she beheld the disordered motel room before her. This place had become a home to Y/N in a way she could never foresee, it broke her heart to be packing it all away. 

Y/N stalked over to her fridge, scattered unceremoniously by magnets across the white stainless steel, were pictures of people she had come to care deeply for. She studied each of their faces in dismay.

She now knew most of them were monsters.

Though this thought left a bad taste in her mouth, they were good people; she was sure of it. With a lump in her throat and tears sitting dormant in her eyes, she picked out a picture with everyone and shoved it into her back pocket for safekeeping. From her other pocket, she pulled out a small sliver phone and looked through her speed dial, guilt rose in her stomach when she realised how far she had to scroll; it had been a while since she had heard from this number. She lifted the device to her ear and listened to a rushed scuffle from the other end. 

‘Hey Sammy…’ Y/N spoke this quietly, but she was sure he could hear her. 

‘Y/N… What… How are you?’ She could tell he did not know what to say, his words came out in a gasp. Y/N flinched slightly when she heard the grumbling tone of the eldest Winchester in the background, asking for the phone she presumed. Sam had always been easier to talk to. 

‘I know this call is probably a shock, but I wanted to know if you could come and get me…?’ She closed her eyes when she said this, what was she doing?

‘Um… Of course Y/N… That’s all we’ve wanted since…’ She cut him off, 

‘I’ll send you my address, okay?’ She did not want this phone call to drag on any longer, she was sure they would have a lot to say when they got here. She hung up and opened her text messages sending her address off before she could change her mind, she closed her eyes once more; it was too late to turn back now. 

Two hours had passed since the phone call when she discerned the sound of a car pulling into the car park in front of her room, the young hunter pulled back her blinds, half expecting the familiar black impala. Her stomach turned when she instead spied Damon’s blue Camaro; she was hoping she would not have to see him before she left. For a fleeting moment, she considered jumping out the bathroom window, but quickly quelled this thought; she was just being stupid.

She trailed tentatively to the door after hearing his rhythmic rap and opened it. Her expression quickly turned abashed when she took in his content smile. Though, he walked quickly past her, over the threshold with no invitation, his face now perplexed. 

‘Where are your things?’ She had now finished packing and he examined the starkly bare room in alarm, eyes halting when they met her luggage. He turned to her, apprehensive, 

‘You’re not leaving, are you?… If it’s about last night with Klaus, I promise you don’t have to worry, I won’t let him hurt you.’ He sputtered over his words, and grabbed both her shoulders,

‘Please Y/N… Don’t leave… I can only protect you if you’re with me.’ His words were pleading, and Y/N’s responding smile was gentle,

‘It’s not about Klaus, it’s about the fact that you’re a vampire and I’m a hunter…’ She started,

‘Y/N… We can… I…’ She was not used to him stumbling like this, he was usually so confident and conceited, she lifted her hand to his cheek, stopping his flow of stunted words.

‘I don’t plan on disappearing forever Damon, I just need time to think.’ She tried to sound reassuring, though she feared she failed when the sound of another car made itself known, Y/N winced; she was hoping it would not come to this. She looked at Damon intensely and took both his cheeks this time,

‘Please Damon, my brothers can’t know you’re a vampire.’ Y/N pleaded, hoping it was enough. She shuddered when she envisioned Dean finding out about him. No, that could not happen. She moved upward to place a sweet and short kiss on his lips, 

‘Your brothers?’ He muttered. She felt culpable, he did not know anything about her. 

‘Please…’ She whispered once more, maintaining stern eye contact, she needed him to realise how serious she was about this. She turned to grab her bags, relieved when he let her escape from his grasp and headed out the door to meet her brothers, Damon following suit. 

Sam and Dean had just come out of the old black car when she passed over the front door. She had expected to immediately receive a chastising lecture, though that seemed silly now as she watched them. Of course, they were just relieved to see her. The brothers swiftly made their way over to her and she had to drop her bags to meet their embrace, nearly crying when the familiar scent of gunpowder and whiskey made itself known; she knew she had missed them, but only now in their arms did she realise how much. She pulled in closer. 

‘Please don’t try this again…’ Sam whispered into her hair, before shifting his chin to sit on her head.

‘I could just about wring your neck in, kid.’ Dean's words were harsh but his tone hinted at playfulness, he too held her in a tight embrace. Their reunion had not been as tense as she had presumed, all her built dread and proliferation for nothing. They all pulled apart too soon.

‘Who’s this?’ Sam looked over her shoulder at Damon. He had been hovering in the background.

‘Ah… This is my friend…’ Y/N tried to sound casual, but her voice was strained, she only hoped they did not notice. Dean’s eyes tightened ever so slightly when he looked him over, as though he were inspecting him. Damon stepped forward hand outstretched,

‘Damon Salvatore, you are?’ Dean met his hand,

‘Dean Winchester, this is Sam’ Dean's voice was sceptical and rigid, she wondered if it was because he was a stranger or a man who dared be in her presence; likely both. Damon exhaled a small breath,

‘Winchester…? Hm…’ Once more Y/N experienced guilt, he had still thought her surname was Walker; she had been just as secretive as him. A charged silence followed and after a few fraught moments, Damon spoke again. 

‘Well, I was just heading off…’ She could tell Damon did not want to leave her, but she had not given him much choice. She found it unusual that he was conferring so much liberty, according to her friends he had never been serene with his loved ones’ unwelcome decisions; she had thought essentially running away would most certainly be unwelcome. Maybe, he too, needed some time to think away from her. After all, she had been equally as unforthcoming. He walked a few steps forward and replaced her brothers in an embrace, 

‘Don’t be gone long… Please.’ He whispered, only for her ears. He then shifted his face to place a lingering kiss on her forehead and tightened his hold. He was irrefutably overdoing this farewell for the audience of her brothers, yet she could not find it within herself to pull away; so much for him just being a friend. She felt heat flood her cheeks in embarrassment as Damon eventually pulled away, his warmth following suit. She yearned to be in his arms again; it shocked her how easily she could forget what he was. 

However, her longing thoughts were quickly stunted by Dean’s fuming expression and she thanked her lucky stars that her brother did not know about Damon’s unsavoury pastime. Sam merely looked confused, albeit slightly concerned. 

‘Dean… Sam…Lovely to meet you.’ He nodded to both of them in turn, before facing Y/N. 

‘Well, I guess I’ll be seeing you soon enough’ And without giving her a chance to respond, he moved to take a seat in his Camaro and drove away.

‘Your friend Y/N… Really?’ Dean's rolled his eyes, voice critical,

‘It’s hardly your business.’ Their bickering was like normal, as though she had never left them, it made her smile,

‘I’ve missed you guys.’  She said sincerely, they scoffed,

‘Four months, Y/N, you’ve been gone for four months… And all you have for us is ‘I’ve missed you’’ Dean’s fingers formed quotation marks over his last words. 

‘Did you want a written apology?’ Her response was sardonic.

‘Look, Dean’ She continued, ‘If I were sorry, I’d say so. These last few months have been good for me. You may not understand that, but I’m not looking for your agreement anyway’ Dean was not impressed with her response, but he shrugged it off easily enough. Sam watched the entire exchange astounded.

‘Smart arse’ Dean said, smiling now, ‘Get in the car’

‘Who is Mister tall, dark and handsome anyway?’ She could tell Dean had been stewing on this, his nose scrunched ever so slightly; thinking of Damon made him uneasy.

By now the Winchester siblings had driven a couple of hours out of Mystic Falls, they had already begun a hunt when she had rung them. Y/N's brothers knew why she had left and it was clear to her that they were trying to rectify it all by bringing her along; to say she was excited would be an understatement. She watched as a blur of green foliage passed her by from the backseat window, it had been forever since she had left town. She looked to Dean,

‘Well, he’s not that tall, to be honest…’ Y/N stated matter of fact. Through the rearview mirror, she watched his eyes roll.

‘You’re deflecting.’

‘I believe he already introduced himself, his name is Damon.’ 

When he realised she was not going to give him anymore his expression shifted to disapproval, changing topics,

‘Mystic Falls Y/N? What the hell were you doing in Mystic Falls? Sam and I never thought to look there because we thought you could never be that stupid. I guess we gave you too much credit.’ 

It was Y/N's turn to roll her eyes,

‘I’m alive and well, aren’t I?’

‘That’s beside the point, did you listen to a single word Dad said? That place is supposed to be a hunter's nightmare.’ He paused,

‘What were you doing all that time anyway?’ Dean demanded,

‘The town is built upon monsters. Vampires, witches, werewolves… Even ghosts. You’d have an easier time listing monsters that aren’t there. It wasn’t something I could solve overnight, let alone at all… Apparently.’

She felt uneasy telling them this, as though she were betraying the trust of all her friends in the infamous town. Both brothers cringed in unease,

‘Most of the vampires walk around in broad daylight, living like everyday citizens. Well… at least it seems that way to me.’

She again thought of her friends, they all had her fooled. She opened her mouth to speak more of them, but quickly stopped herself; Sam eyed her dubiously for a moment.

‘Why didn’t you call us Y/N? It could have ended really badly…’ Sam asked softly, she felt apologetic now,

‘If I were ever in any real trouble, I probably would have’ 

But that was not true.

She thought back to Klaus and his impromptu murder attempt, and how quickly she could have become yet another dire statistic on Mystic Falls’  already dire record. She wondered how long it would have taken for her brothers to figure it out; to work out she had died. She felt reproachable once more, though she did not have long to torment herself as they had arrived at their motel.

Y/N watched as the flickering neon light of a gaunt and rundown building grew closer as the Impala slowed down; she felt right at home looking at the place. 

‘We already have a room. We came from here to pick you up.’ Dean tossed her a key, her recent admission still left him tense but she could tell he was, at the very least, attempting to be amicable,

‘We’re dealing with ghouls, grave robberies, missing people. So on and so forth.’ Dean's voice was casual, apathetic,

‘You’re compassion for human life never fails to awe me’ Y/N's voice was dripping with sarcasm and the eldest brother rolled his eyes.

‘Lucky for you, all the research is done, we just need to go in and kill the sons of a bitches’ Y/N made a wide smile, research was all she was usually allowed to do,

‘When are we going?’ She asked enthusiastically,

‘As soon as you’re ready’

The ghouls had taken over the residency of their victims, mother, father and teenage daughter; the perfect nuclear family it seemed. When the young Winchester gazed upon the house, completed with its white picket fence; she felt uneasy. These people had lived the life she had always yearned for, and now they had fallen victim to monsters just the same; at least she was not dead. Y/N did not want to go in there and see the smiling faces from their pictures, imagining how they now lay defiled and rotting who knows where. But she knew she must, she must avenge their memory. 

They had deliberately left before nightfall, they wanted the element of surprise and daytime hunting was certainly not common. The home was completely isolated, she assumed this decision was intentional by the ghouls; no suspicious neighbours. However, this ended up being convenient as it had allowed the Winchesters a wide berth, no one to watch and report their seemingly antisocial behaviour to authorities. 

‘Sam and I will come in from the back door, we can easily get past that fence from around the corner.’ Dean pointed to their point of entry from their hidden parking spot, the fence had fallen slack, so it would be easy to move aside.

‘Follow behind us and come through the front door after you hear the commotion from our attack. I mean it, kid, only after you hear us. I want their attention on Sam and I, not you.’ She rolled her eyes but nodded,

‘After I hear you. Got it.’ They got out of the car,

Dean, followed closely by Sam and Y/N, made his way to the car’s boot, opening up to a vast collection of weapons and gadgets. Y/N thought the sight would have made Alaric Saltzman cry tears of joy. This time Sam spoke,

‘You kill them by destructing their heads, you can bash them in or decapitate them, but headshots are always going to be easier.’ As Sam talked, Dean handed her a machete, a handgun and a hunting knife. Of course, she knew all this already, but she listened intently anyway; she knew it would make them feel better. She grabbed the weapons from his outstretched arms and tucked the gun and knife into her belt. He then handed her two little metal instruments,

‘This is a lock pick, in case you need it for the door.’ 

‘I don’t think there is anything else to say.’ Dean continued, grabbing one of her shoulders, ‘Stay here until you can’t see us behind the house anymore, then make your way over… And I’m serious Y/N, be careful.’ 

He patted her on the back and with one last look at the house Sam and Dean began stalking over, holding the broken fence up for each other as they cautiously made their way past. Once they disappeared from her sight, she crept forward careful not to be seen from any of the lit windows. Once close enough to hear any sign of trouble, she concealed herself beside the white panel foundation within some bushes. Each minute drew into the next as she waited impatiently, biding her time. Y/n was uneasy; surely they would have made some noise by now? She looked down at her watch. Five minutes… Then ten. Finally, a crash sounded from within the home and she quickly jumped to her feet.

Still careful not to bring any attention onto herself she tip-toed to the front door and fiddled with the lock pick until she heard a quiet click. Y/N pushed the door forward, cringing when it creaked. The smell of decay engulfed her as she passed the threshold and she was not sure what it was that made her feel sick, the stench, or the fact it meant the bodies of their victims were still within the house. She edged forward, concerned, she had not heard much since the initial crash. When she began considering that she had gone too early, she noticed low murmurs coming from a room to her left, with the door already open. The young hunter hesitantly made her way over and peeked around the corner. The sight halted her. Sam and Dean had been tied to either side of a radiator; how had the ghouls jumped them so effortlessly? Before them, stood the ghoul that had taken on the father’s appearance. It seemed to Y/N that he was watching her brothers, making sure they caused no trouble, she presumed. She knew she had to make quick work of him before the others returned. By now her brothers had seen her, but they were careful to look anywhere but her direction; at least they could do that right.

She stalked forward and grabbed the ghoul's shoulders, smothering its mouth. She brought her arm around his struggling frame and embedded her knife into an eye, praying it was only the brain that needed to be destroyed. Her relief was palpable when his body gave way, she would not have been able to hold him much longer; the ambush was her only advantage. She soundlessly guided his weight to the floor, circumventing the attention of the others and rushed to her brothers cutting both of their bonds.

‘There’s more than the three we anticipated, they have friends.’ Sam told her urgently,

‘I took down one earlier and along with daddy dearest, that makes two. I think there’s three more’ Dean continued, 

The brothers retrieved their weapons from across the room as Y/N dragged the body away from the open doorway, it would not do for the others to see him dead. She looked back to her brothers, they were now huddled over whispering.

‘I think we need to split up, I’ll search the rooms around the front, and you head towards the back.’ Sam said,

‘I’ll take Y/N.’ Dean added, Sam nodding in response.

Sam made his way out first and snuck into the room adjacent. Dean then motioned for them to walk further down the hallway, stopping in front of the end door. She took a deep breath when she noticed the hushed voices from behind; this was it. Dean took two steps back, her cue to get out of his way, and kicked the door down with all his force. Two ghouls froze, stunned, though if they were worried they did not show it. Dean burst over the threshold and raised his gun, the two shots he fired missed his targets marginally. His lapse gave the ghouls enough time to jump him and tackle him to the ground. Y/N began to run over in aid when a third ghoul, who had taken the appearance of a teenage girl, jumped onto her back. She had not seen her when Dean kicked down the door.

Y/N’s heart lept to her throat when she spied Dean being held down. During the tackle, his gun had fallen to the floor a metre to his left and the second ghoul wasted no time to retrieve it. 

With every bit of strength in her body, she shrugged the girl off of her shoulders and made aim at the armed monster's head. The ghoul she had been fighting crashed into an end table and despite being stunned she was quickly regaining her step. Y/N felt uneasy knowing she was now exposed, but she could not leave her brother undefended. As she pulled the trigger a shocking, horrible pain made itself known in her back, and she realised hollowly that her knife was missing from her belt. 

Her knees buckled and she fell to the floor, the impact knocking the air from her lungs. Blood gushed out and stained her lips as she struggled for each breath. She was grateful to see the bullet she shot still hit its target. Her relief was almost as apparent as her pain when she saw Dean finally push the ghoul off of him, swiftly decapitating it. 

‘Oh god… Y/N…’ Sam whimpered, his voice coming from behind her in the doorway. A loud bang sounded, followed by a gruesome splatter of blood overhead and she knew the ghoul who had stabbed her was no more. 

Sam rushed to his sister’s side and lifted her head to support it in his lap. Dean’s expression paled when he took in the macabre state of his sister; she had been hurt protecting him. He quickly shifted her on her side and placed pressure on the wound.

‘Y/N…Why did you do that? I could have handled myself..’ His voice was shrouded with guilt. She wanted to tell him that he would have died, but she could not form the words; her lungs had been damaged. Instead, with her quickly depleting strength, she lifted her hand to rest on his cheek. He knew what she meant by it, closing his eyes as a sob quaked in his chest. 

‘You’re going to be okay…’ He cried. Sam had been silent through all of this, but her head shook as, he too, sobbed. Their reactions conveyed the opposite of Dean’s words. She was not going to be okay. She was going to die. 

Y/N thought of Damon, the vampire who she had somehow come to love and her promise to return to him. When he inevitably tries to contact her, will he assume she is ignoring him? Would he think she ran away? Fear settled in her stomach, she would never see him again. Unbeknownst to either of them; their last moment had already elapsed. She wept in despair, and her brothers cringed, believing it to be her pain. But no physical affliction could equal the mental anguish she faced now; she would never see Damon again. She felt light-headed and her body washed over with a tingling cold, as though she had developed a fever; she knew this was the end. Y/N looked at her brother's faces each in turn, drinking them in for the last time, she wished, at this moment, they could have been happier; she did not want to remember them like this.

Y/N felt a strange heaviness, as though the earth itself was pulling her down into the depths of its crust. Her thoughts began to slow, each one taking longer to form as if wading through a thick, dark sludge. The pain and torment that had just gripped her so fiercely began to ebb away like a receding fog; a euphoric numbness now standing in its place. This profound sense of release was like nothing she had ever experienced.

Darkness began to set in from the edges of her vision, like a gentle, encroaching tide. Her already stunted breaths grew shallow, each one more laboured than the last, until they stopped altogether. Her figure was now a caricature of the person she once was, Y/N was empty; as though she had never existed at all.

A/N: The reader had a rough couple of days, sorry guys.

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DC ✢ When he realised he loved you

Characters: Bruce, Dick, Jason, Tim, Damian and Clark.

B R U C E⠀W A Y N E

The moment had been a quiet revelation, in a silence so profound it frightened him. The kind of silence that followed the first crack of thunder, one moment loud and undeniable, the next building with tension, waiting for it to strike again. 

You were sitting in the library of the manor, an arcane book resting open upon your lap, the fire crackling softly behind you. He had just returned from patrol — broken, bloodied, and defeated.

You looked up, eyes wide, alarmed at his state and asked, ‘Bruce?’ You had spoken as if he were not the Batman, not an emblem of vengeance and grit, but a man, just a man, whose hurt mattered.

Something in him gave out. Not in an ostentatious, cinematic collapse, but in the subtle yielding of defences too long held taut. His mind, a fortress of rationale and boundaries, fell silent.

She sees me, for all I am, it whispered. And yet she stays.

He had not believed in unconditional love since the alleyway. But in that moment, with the stench of blood from his suit and the leaden weight of the city upon his back, he saw love for what it was — not a sanctuary, but a quiet understanding, and a choosing. And she had chosen him.

It terrified him. Because now he had yet another thing to lose, to protect, something that was not abstract. It had a name. A voice. A laugh. It sat in his home and softened his world.

He had never been the same since.

D I C K⠀G R A Y S O N

It crept up on him — not a wave, but rather a tide. Quiet and constant and utterly irreversible.

You had fallen asleep in his bed, still holding a game controller, your brow furrowed even in your unconsciousness. He watched you in the blue glow of the screen and thought, God, I’d die for her.

And then came the laugh — low, bitter, surprised. Because of course he would. He was always ready to die for someone.

But this felt different. This was not a compulsion, a sense of duty. It was not about legacy or guilt. It was about you. And the way your presence grounded the part of him that had always been just suspended above the world, half-grieving, half-trying.

He remembered kissing your forehead before leaving for patrol that night. Slow. Lingering. The kind of kiss that was not about want, but reverence.

That was when he knew.

Love was not a thrill. It was a weight. And he had never wanted anything to anchor him, to tether him to this sphere, more than you.

The realisation made him smile. And then it made him ache.

J A S O N⠀T O D D

Jason felt it like the first rays of sun upon his back after a piercing winter, it flooded his system, warm and compelling. It struck him all of a sudden — new, unfamiliar, and… unwelcome. He did not want it. He had not asked for it.

You were brushing your teeth, half-asleep, wearing one of his old shirts, humming a song under your breath as though nothing was wrong in the world, as though it were not in a state of disrepair just beyond the window. And while watching you, he could believe it for a moment too.

Jason stood in the doorway, paralysed. Because he had seen too much tragedy, too much carnage. He could hardly believe that a quiet instant of peace, like this, could even exist, let alone in his reality.

His first instinct was to run. Not literally — he could never leave you. But to emotionally retreat, to steel himself for the moment this fleeting softness was stolen from him.

But you looked at him. Just looked — toothpaste foam and all — with a kind of amused concern, and asked, ‘You okay?’

After everything he had been through. He was not sure he had ever been less okay.

He loved you. He loved you with a passion that made him feel unworthy, as if he had tainted something holy.

A voice in him protested — said it was weakness. Said this would end in catastrophe. But he ignored it, just this once. He stepped forward and kissed your temple.

‘Yeah,’ he said. ‘Just tired.’ But he was not. This was a lie. His mind was reeling.

He did not sleep that night. He lay awake memorising your breathing.

T I M⠀D R A K E

It was a question you asked that did it. Something ordinary, like, ‘Did you eat today?’

Tim wanted to laugh because it was such a cliché, wasn’t it? But clichés exist because they are true. No one ever asked him that, not like you had, not like it genuinely mattered. 

Then you brought him a coffee, one of those orders so tailored it was essentially an identity. You did not need to ask what he wanted. You simply knew.

He blinked down at the cup, then at you, and suddenly the task he was completing meant nothing.

He felt the world tilt. Quietly. Like the axis of his orbit had shifted. And it had.

Love, to Tim, had always been a puzzle he did not have time to solve. A thing for normal people, with normal lives, for people who lacked the responsibility he had garnered.

But there it was — simple, unassuming and irreversible.

He did not tell you. Not for a long time.

But he began cataloguing what made you smile. The way your face changed after a laugh, crinkled and carefree. He noticed the way your eyes sparkled just a little brighter when you spoke of things that made you passionate, and how the corners of your lips turned up when you were lost in a quiet thought.

This love became his sustenance, it was the first time in years he feared forgetting something.

D A M I A N⠀W A Y N E (Aged up as Batman)

It had infuriated him. The sheer idiocy of it.

Love was chemical, juvenile, a distraction. Or so he had been taught. So he had believed.

And yet there he stood — across from you in the garden, where you were speaking to a stray dog as if it were royalty, and something in his chest pulled.

At first, he mistook it for contempt — annoyance at your softness in a moment where he was attempting to be serious. But then you looked up, grinned, and said, ‘I think she likes me.’

And the words caught in his throat. Not because he did not believe them, but because he liked you. Against every grain of his upbringing.

He wanted to scold you, retreat, build walls. But instead, he asked the cat’s name.

That was the beginning. The fracture.

He loved you. In an old, mythic sense. In the way poets spoke of their love — fierce, unyielding, as though it could bend the very fabric of time. 

And that it did, time slowed every time you entered his concentration.

He began to dream of futures — a concept once as foreign to him as mercy.

He has not told you. But he will. In his own time. For now, he will continue to relish in it, and continue in this alluring descent. 

C L A R K⠀K E N T

He did not realise. Not at first. Because what he felt for you was too immense, too intrinsic, to label with as small as a word as love.

It was not until you fell asleep in his arms, mumbling about a stressful day, completely unaware of the god you were held by, that it hit him.

You did not see him as Superman. You saw him as Clark Kent. You simply saw him. The man. His hope. His grief.

And he realised then — you are his tether.

He thought of Krypton. Of its loss. Of the gaping emptiness it had left as soon as he had learnt of it. And for the first time in years, he did not feel hollow. He felt… full. He realised, that the planet could never have been home to him like she was. 

You snored softly. He laughed. Then cried.

Love, he realised, was not loud. It was simply your hand over his heart. It was your laughter in the next room. It was your body next to his.

He had not fallen in love. He had found it, unexpected and irrevocable, and for all the power he had been bestowed, this force had left him helpless to resist.

And now he guards it with everything he is. Because you are not just his world.

You are his home.

If you're interested, I've since posted a follow-up called 'When he admitted he loved you' linked, here. Every comment and piece of advice is welcomed and appreciated <3