(Blinky x Reader)

Sometimes there was a darkness that swept over the library. This was no ordinary darkness that humans could feel, nor was it something that most people could understand. Sometime's you didn't yourself. This darkness tended to flow into your love without rhyme or reason, and you would never admit how much it scared you when Blinky got into one of these moods.

Endless nights were spent in the library with candles so low run that the wax began to drip over the edges of the candelabras and onto the desk and papers spread across the wood. There were nights when you would go down and see him sitting there, staring at a paper and not moving at all, just staring at papers. You learned that touching him was always a bad idea when he was like this. He got snappy, angry, and annoyed with you and anyone else who bothered him.

That made you feel better, it wasn't just you that he got upset with.

This time when you went to the library to check on him, well... You didn't speak a word. As much as you cared about Team Trollhunter, Blinky was the one that you cared about the most, seeing as they had just returned from the Darklands without you, you wondered what had thrown Blinky into this fit of studying.

Except he wasn't studying.

He was sitting by the fire with a set look of determination on his face, his jaw pressed tightly together and the fire glowing in his six eyes. For a moment, you just watched. You watched as his hands nimbly ran across a few of his beloved history books, pick one up, run his fingers over each page as he held them, and gripped the top corner of the last page and rip it out.

The sound grated against your ears.

"Wait!! Stop!!" You cried out, rushing down the stairs and stumbling into the large table trying to reach him. Your hip crashed against the hard wood of the table and you grit your teeth, holding back a cry of pain. 

Blinky looked up with fury in his eyes, "Be gone with you! Go! You have no business being here!!"

You dashed towards him, nearly slamming into him, grasping for the book in his hands. Blinky jerked the leather-bound pages away from you, shoving you away with one hand and tossing the book into the fire with another. You couldn't help but cry out, "What are you doing?!"

He shoved you away again, causing you to stumble back and your head to spin. This wasn't how he acted when he was in one of his studying moods. He never got violent with anyone on the team, he would snap and he would yell, but he had never put his hands on anyone before. Or at least, before now.

You braced your hands against one of the bookshelves, expecting your fingers to brush some of the covers, but when you looked there was nothing there. They were all either burning or next to Blinky.

"Go home, (y/n)," Blinky snapped in a near-monotone voice ", This does not concern you-"

You shook your head, confused, of all the things he fussed over most, books were one of them. It wasn't right to see I'm there, burning the books that his brother had written and edited when he honored him so highly. Hours on hours, Blinky had spoken of his older brother, longing for survival that had never happened. He held those books in such high regard.

"This is your HISTORY, Blinky!" You cried out, taking a step forward ", You are destroying centuries of history and hard work! You are destroying Dictatious legacy!!"

"A LEGACY OF A LIAR AND A FRAUD WHO DOES NOT DESERVE IT!" His voice bellowed through the library, vibrating off the walls and through your skull. You felt your breaths becoming rapid and hollowed as you tried to take in air. 

Blinky scowled at you, his face torn between anger and regret before turning back to the fire and reaching for another book and opening the pages, scanning them. You stood there, watching, not sure what to do. Too scared to reach for another book to try and save it, too panicked to move from your place by the bookshelf.

The six-eyes troll continued his work, ripping page after page of the book and tossing them into the fire before his shoulders started shaking. Hiccuping breaths escaped the bookwormish troll as he tossed the empty cover into the fire. A set of his arms wrapped around his frame and the other lifted to his face as quiet sobs began to wrack his body. You'd only seen Blinky cry once when AAARRRGGGH!!! had been turned to stone by Angor and his Suncreeper blade, and that was something that you had cried over too.

Then Jim disappeared into the Darklands for weeks and they all went to save him, leaving you and Draal at Killahead.

And they had been in there for a long time.

Blinky and AAARRRGGGH!!! Didn't talk a lot about what had happened in there.

You took a hesitant step towards the shaking troll, reaching your hand out and resting it on his shoulder. He flinched away from your touch, shielding his face from your view and reaching for another book. You knelt behind him, wrapping your arms around his frame and hugging him tightly, your chin resting on his shoulder.

Blinky relaxed slightly in your tight embrace, raising a hand and setting it on your arm before dropping the book he had in his grasp. You closed your eyes and held him tighter, keeping hold as sobs wracked his body once more. You clung to him- the only safe place- as his inner battle for his soul and sanity raged. And then it seemed to be over, he hiccuped as he moved a hand to wipe his eyes.

"I- I'm alright now..." His voice came out shaky and unsure of himself ", You- you can let go now..."

You loosened your grip but did not let go of him, he didn't complain. The two of you sat there, you keeping ahold of the troll as he wiped his eyes and his nose. His body arched forward, forcing your grip around him to break and causing you to slump to the floor, hands sliding down his back.

"I'm sorry..." You whisper to him, resting your forehead against his back, fingers lightly tracing the carvings and glowing marks that faintly light in the firelight.

"I am the one who should be apologizing to you..." He muttered toward the fire ", It was cruel of me to yell, to shove you away the way I did. For that I am sorry..."

"That's not what I mean..." You respond, crawling from your place behind him to an empty spot next to him, a spot that might have once been stocked with books. You tip your head towards him, concern was written across your face. His eyes looked red in the firelight, the crying, and his anger. You brushed a hand over his and firmly place your palm against his, twinning your fingers with his.

"I'm saying I'm sorry for whatever happened in the Darklands... Something happened... And I'm obviously the last to know, but I'm sorry anyway, especially if it's hurt you this much."

Blinky sucked in a quick and choking breath, his eyes averted from you as tears started to form again, pushing and trying to move from the confines of his body. You leaned against his arm, keeping his hand in yours even when he tried to shift away from you.

"He's alive..." Blinky finally whispered, barely audible even in the quiet space ", My brother... He was in the Darklands... And he... He... He chose the side of Gunmar..."

Your face twitched in sympathy when he told you that piece of news.

It was not what you had been expecting, but was shocking nonetheless, you could only imagine how Blinky felt. You tightened your grip on his hand and shook your head against his arm, nothing you could say could help him right now.

So you sat in silence for what felt like hours, and soon enough you were grabbing books too, ripping the pages and tossing them into the fire. Something that was hard for you to do with just one hand, seeing as you did not release his hand, and he did not take it back either. You glanced at him from time to time and couldn't help but blush when you caught him looking at you.

"Why are you being so kind to me?" He finally asked after a few rounds of book burning ", After I have scared you? Yelled at you? Hurt you?"

You glanced at him again, keeping your eyes on him before glancing back at the fire ", Hurt people, hurt people. And I care about you... Seeing you hurt and angry isn't something I ever want to see..."

You kept your gaze on the fire and tossed another crumpled page into the fire.

"I like seeing you smile and laugh, seeing you upset or in one of your study moods... I just want to help you through it... I want to help you through this if you'll let me."

Blinky let out a small sigh and you felt him squeeze your own hand. The smell of burning paper had filled the room far before this point, and whisps of smoke curled around Blinky's horns. You glanced up at him once more, seeing that he was watching the fire in front of him.

"I'm grateful to you... This had to be the darkest form of torture that I have ever experienced in my lifetime..." He whispered, releasing your hand and snaking an arm around your shoulders, and tugging you close to his side ", I think I would have burned every book in this library if you hadn't come down. Not that I haven't burned many at this point already... So much history... I don't know what to trust of it and what not to."

You nodded slightly, "Well... We still have time to put all the rest of the books back. We can cross-reference everything with Vendel or other books, you can rewrite them, make them better."

You looked up at Blinky, only to find his hesitantly smiling at you with his arm still around you. He pulled you closer and leaned his head against yours, you closed your eyes and leaned into him.

"I think you are fairly good for me..." He muttered into your hair and you let a small smile cross your lips.

Even as the fire died down, neither of you moved to feed it, moved away from the other. Soon enough, you both drifted into a lull of sleep, leaning against each other into the night.