#worm writes

Today was different. Where he’d usually open the window to you laying in bed, scrolling on your phone, he saw an empty bed, sheets rumbled, empty of you or your two cats.

“Princess?”

If he hadn’t had the extra edge to his senses, both the one crafted by the bat and by the pit, he wouldn’t have heard the soft hiccup that came from the bathroom, or  the soft sobs that preceded it. 

Quickly his gear was dropped in a haphazard pile on the floor and he was knocking on the bathroom door.

“Sweetheart?” His voice was soft as he tried to calm his quickly rising heart.

“I-I’m alright Jay.” Your voice sounded heavy, your throat sore. He could still hear sniffles. 

“It’s just some bad cramps, I’ll be out soon.” 

He didn’t believe that for a second, and before he could think about it, he had roughly shoved the door open. The building's old lock stood no chance against him when you were hurting.

When Jason opened the door, he saw you, curled up on the ground next to the bathtub, face flushed and eyes stung red with tears. You were holding your knees so tightly he could see the strain on your knuckles and wrists. He quickly bent down and swept you into his arms, and despite your earlier words, you immediately crumpled into him. You buried your face in his neck, desperate for any comfort. One hand quickly went to hold your head, the other to your back, both stroking softly.

“Shh, sweetheart, it’s okay. I’ve got you,” he murmured alongside other soft words of comfort. 

After a minute or two, he carefully rearranged the two of you, setting you on his lap so that you didn’t bruise yourself on the hard bathroom tile. Carefully, Jason coaxed you out of his neck, hand gently cupping your face and wiping your tears away. 

“What’s wrong? What can I do?” You quickly just began shaking your head, mouth opening a few times, unable to form words.

“It- It’s nothing” You said quickly, but with a soft and meaningful look from Jason, you stuttered for a few moments before finally speaking. 

“I can’t- I don’t want to talk about it. I don’t want to think about it, about…” you made another soft sob sound, and your eyes glazed over, unseeing of your lover in front of you, seeing something, -someone else.

“...him”

Immediately, Jason understood. Of course he understood. He wasn’t the only one with villains in his past; memories he’d rather avoid. Long before the Joker had picked up that crowbar in Ethiopia, Jason knew of villains like yours. 

Your villain didn’t need to paint his face or employ goons to commit his evils, he just needed to say the right words, smile at the right moments. He didn’t need a weapon to destroy and violate you, he just needed to say a few choice words at choice moments. He only needed to ignore a few choice words from you.

Jason wasn’t good with handling emotional situations like these, he was still learning, improving his emotional intelligence after being raised by the most emotionally constipated man in Gotham. He never knew what to do or say, but you always insisted he does the right things, so he holds your face in his hand, pressing a gentle kiss to your forehead and tries his best to push all the love and care he feels for you into it.

“Everything is alright my love, you’re okay. I’ve got you,” he cooed, arms wrapped impossibly tighter around you. As he holds you, whispering soft reassurances, it takes all of his will power to not to hunt down the man who did this to you years ago, to not tear him limb from limb. The strongest restraint comes from him knowing that you deserve to be the one to do that, not him. 

Eventually he picks you up and carries you out to the kitchen, setting you down on a stool and quickly leaving to grab a blanket from the couch. On his way to wrap you up in it, he gives a look to your cat, Moose.

“Go comfort her, hairball,” he whispers, pointing at your slouched figure. The petulant cat, usually indifferent to Jason, agrees, jumping on the counter and licking your face in earnest, while Jason begins fixing some tea.

“I’m sorry…” you breathe out, finally having stopped shaking. Jason puts your favorite mug, filled with some comforting Earl Grey, in front of you.

“You have nothing to be sorry for sweetheart” He reaches his hand out, palm up.

“No, I know how hard some nights are for you. I don’t like adding to it.”

“Hey, nuh uh, what is it you always tell me when I’m in a bad place?” Your eyes meet and he sees you are back to yourself, although still clearly shaken.

“.. we take care of each other,” you eventually let out, meeting his outstretched hand with your own. Your other arm is wrapped around the cat now curled up in front of you, practically on your chest. “Still...” you let out a small sigh 

“How was patrol?”

“The usual. Stopped some muggings, beat up some of Black Mask’s guys." Then a grin appears on his face, “Saw Tim get his BatBurger stolen by a crow.” he adds with a laugh, his eyes gleaming with gentle light. 

“I think the most rewarding part, though, was when I comforted this sweet girl on 22nd street. I wasn’t really sure what to do, but I think I got through to her.” He waited with a baited breath to see if you’d follow the bit.

“...I bet you did, you’re better at comforting people than you think you are. I bet she feels a lot better now that she knows the big bad Red Hood is always going to protect her.” A small smile starts at the corner of your lips.

“I hope so. She was real pretty too, the kind of girl that makes me speechless, I think if I see her again I may just ask her out.”

“She may just say yes.” You finally smile fully, a small and muted smile, but Jason sees it as a victory nevertheless. “Maybe you should just come kiss her right now?”

Jason needs no more invitation. He quickly rounds the kitchen island and meets his lips to yours as the butterflies that seem to have lived in his stomach ever since he met you flutter their wings once more. His fingers hold your face. It’s not a heated kiss, it's sweet and soft. A comfort for you both to feel your pieces meet each other in perfect harmony. The darkness and hurt behind each of your ribs blending into one, a burden carried equally between the two of you.

“Meooooow,” the cat between you two protests. You two separate with a small laugh, both your hearts a little lighter.

“Sorry baby” you coo at your cat, scratching his favorite spot under his chin, and Jason pouts.

“What about me? I’m the one losing kisses here!” He whines, and you playfully roll your eyes and give him a peck. 

“Thank you, Jay,” you say as Jason puts the now empty mugs of tea in the dishwasher. 

“I.. I would have had a hard time pulling myself out of that place alone.” 

“Always, princess. Now why don’t you pick out a movie while I shower real quick?” He wanders off to clean up, leaving you to sit with the cat. 

You smile, and later, after you’ve fallen asleep on his lap while watching a Ghibli film, Jason will carry you to bed. When he’s sure you are both settled for the night, with the apartment locked up, phones charging on your nightstands, he’ll press a kiss to your temple, and repeat his words.

Dread was the friend you were embarrassed to be seen with when you ran into someone whose company you really enjoyed, the friend you knew you’d get asked about later and have no good excuses to offer up for their presence. The friend you gave too many chances and always lied through your teeth promising you’d let go. They were crass, they were rude, and they got into your head too easily and spun you around without pointing you in the direction you were meant to be going after. They never paid back the money they borrowed and always lost the things they asked if they could use. Which was to say it was an emotion Jimmy knew didn’t serve him but always too readily gave in to anyway, comfortable sinking because he was too scared to learn how to swim. 

Dread festered like a rotten apple in Jimmy’s stomach, food poisoning churning his insides like spoiled cream into curdled butter, his guts preparing to toss everything vital overboard, empty their coffers, and abandon ship. It sat on his neck like too tight a collar, not quite choking him but providing just enough pressure that every swallow threatened return and every brush of fabric made him brace to expel. It hadn’t come on and it hadn’t given warning, Jimmy had woken up and it was there—and what was worse was he wasn’t surprised. He was barely upset. He just was and the dread was with him. 

Jimmy had the strangest urge to go to the woods. 

Something—someone—clung to him under the sole threadbare blanket their bed and their humble homestead could afford them. After Jimmy had been staring at the ceiling—coming to terms with the feeling of dread crowding him out of his own bed—for who knows how long, the person next to him sighed a sigh too wistful for the morning he was about to wake up into, and stretched like a cat—slowly, one extremity at a time—from sleep into consciousness. His face mashed into Jimmy’s bicep and his arm tugged softly at the squishy part of Jimmy’s side, and Jimmy, for all intents and purposes, kept on staring at the ceiling and settling into his discomfort—awake for longer but somehow still not in charge of his limbs and his being and his existence. 

With a wet sound that said he’d been dead asleep just before, mouth unmoving for hours, Tango said, “Mornin’ early bird,” his voice somehow both rough and smooth at the same time. He rubbed his face more purposefully into Jimmy’s arm. “I like it when I wake up and you’re still here.”

“Do you have anything to do in the woods today?” It didn’t function at all as a response to what had come before it, and Jimmy hadn’t known it was going to come out of his mouth until it had already happened, leaving his brow to furrow and his mouth to tighten into a frown—the first movement he’d been able to perform since becoming aware that he’d been awake. Why hadn’t he gotten up to feed the chickens, the goats, the cows? Gone to the well to pump water for the day? Collected the eggs and started on breakfast? 

Tango opened his mouth and closed it again—not in the way of being about to say something and changing his mind or finding his cue cards blank, but in the way of readjusting to wakefulness, or readjusting before falling under the spell of sleep once more. Anxiety pricked at Jimmy like a needle he kept missing the fabric with, stabbing into the meat of his own thumb more times than he could count, drops of blood staining the corners of the shirt he’d had to mend after one of their cows took a bite right out of it. Don’t fall back asleep. He said, “Tango,” too loud, too urgent, too fast. 

Jimmy counted the seconds until he replied. 

“Mmm, don’t think so.” Tango mumbled until it turned into a yawn. 

Jimmy’s eyes were almost unbearably dry, still staring at the ceiling like he’d forgotten he was allowed to look anywhere else. It took him a moment to remember that he could blink, and then it took him another to remember how, and a comically long third to force his eyelids to shut and open again after. 

“So you won’t be going in them, then?” 

Still not awake enough to really be thinking about what Jimmy was saying any further than providing an answer, Tango offered, “‘spose not,” without understanding the gravity of the situation. 

And the gravity was this: Jimmy woke up and dread woke up with him. He wasn’t anxious, he wasn’t upset, and he wasn’t angry. He had simply come to with a great and mounting sense of apprehension—not a fear but a surety that it was going to provide them nothing but grief—and a strange but unavoidably persistent feeling that he should be in the woods. 

Jimmy swallowed before he spoke again. Threw a glance to the side and tightened the screw of his lips—unsure if he was trying not to cry or trying to convey that his next request was totally normal. “Promise?” 

It was said in the sort of voice you said something when you wanted it to seem lighter than it was, giving away instead every kind of emotional weight you’d placed upon it in one terribly anxious bouquet. Tango’s arm unlatched from Jimmy’s side and slowly pulled all the way across Jimmy’s stomach, until he could flop over onto his back, the two of them lying side by side, overlapping only the slightest from where their arms had been buried beneath Tango a minute before. He sighed. 

Jimmy closed his eyes, then opened them and blinked rapidly a few times. He took a deep breath and told himself he felt fine and it was all in his head until he was sure the contents of both his stomach and his tear ducts alike would stay where they belonged. 

“Sure,” Tango placated. “Whatever you want.” 

Dread was the mistake you pointed out that everyone ignored until it was too late. The place on the stair your foot landed that you knew was about to make you lose your balance and fall. The moment your health reached one heart and you dropped your shield just so that it would be over. It was thinking that something was wrong and only speaking up after the fact; knowing that something bad was going to happen and that you had to let it happen anyway. 

The bed creaked and Tango sat up. He threw his arms over his head until one of his elbows made a noise that popped, and then sighed one final time and looked down at Jimmy, in the same position he’d been in when he woke up some minutes-to-hours ago. “Up and attem—woke up late, better start on those chores.” 

He threw a leg over Jimmy with a small groan, and then did it again and ended with his second leg on the floor, but before he could stand and vacate Jimmy’s space, Jimmy made the very hard and very brave move of latching onto Tango’s arm with both of his hands. He didn’t tug, he just held on. Nearly every inch of Tango’s forearm was covered by Jimmy’s hand or Jimmy’s palm or Jimmy’s fingers. 

Tango turned back to look at him, and for a moment, Jimmy thought he got it. Tango’s eyes looked from Jimmy’s too frantic to be casual grasp to his too peaked to be affectionate stare, and for just a beat, his brow furrowed and his eyes formed a question. And then by the next, it was gone. Tango huffed, Tango smiled, and Tango leaned over Jimmy to ruffle his hair with his unrestrained hand. “Come on, loverboy, gotta go feed the cows.” 

He pulled out of Jimmy’s hands like they’d never been wrapped around him. Too casual, too unconcerned, and too easily. Jimmy watched Tango go, he counted to three, and he moved to get dressed only when he was sure he wouldn’t immediately puke upon the fresh clothes he was about to put on. 

In this one, Link is on a mission to pursue and defeat Cia. He gets separated from the other soldiers and at some point in the fight, she curses him and he turns into a small noodle dragon (think Dinraal but like. golden retriever size)

He's able to escape and finds Rowan. He's a cottage witch in this one. He can make potions and magic pastries and stuff, and the land surrounding his home is pretty magical and warded against evil. Link is suspicious at first and hides under the porch, though the area feels safe. He's eventually lured out with pastries and the call of a warm fire in the cottage.

The war with Cia and Ganon is at a bit of a standstill in the background, since the hero has gone missing. About a year passes, as Link tries to figure out how to turn back without putting himself and Rowan in danger, since he worries that if he leaves the safety of the wards, Cia will be able to find him.

Eventually, she does anyway, at around the same time the other LU Links arrive. Link sees them use the master sword to turn Twilight back from his wolf form. He tries and fails to steal the master sword. They Links end up visiting Rowan's cottage and Rowan realizes that dragon link seems fixated on the sword, and ends up following the Links after they leave to steal it. When he gets back to the cottage, Cia and her forces are attacking, trying to grab dragon Link.