{ VIRTUAL DELUSIONS | PHIGHTING & BLOCKTALES X READER | ONE SHOTS. }

"DONT CROSS WITHOUT ME" - COIL X READER ANGST

tags:
coil x reader, phighting!, character death, angst, emotional hurt, unhealthy coping, mental health decline, grief and loss, reader is a phighter, slow burn regret, self-blame, no happy ending, mourning, post-death narration, hurt/no comfort, soft memories, found family themes, trauma, au where reader dies, self-harm adjacent themes, friends to lovers vibes, heavy angst no fluff

warnings:
major character death, suicidal ideation (implied), mental instability, grief, depictions of death, mentions of blood, breakdowns, reckless behavior, hospitals and ambulances, reader dies via car accident, emotional trauma

(also reader/you are heavily implied to be like broken spawn kinda lelel)

summary:
You were always smiling. Always hiding it well. Coil never saw the signs—too busy Phighting, too wrapped up in the heat of rebellion and the sparks of laughter you shared. But the signs were there. And he was too late.

(I KNOW THIS ISNT AO3 SHHH LET ME DREAM)

⸻

There was always something electric about you.

Not just in the way you moved across the battlefield, reckless and fearless, matching Coil's energy beat for beat—but in how you carried yourself off it. You lit up a room, even on days when your eyes were rimmed red from lack of sleep. You cracked jokes with a croaky voice and bruises on your knees. You patched up your own wounds like they were nothing. Like you were nothing.

Coil thought you were invincible. A little chaotic, sure—some might even say unstable—but in a way that made matches more exciting. More dangerous. More fun.

But he didn't see what was underneath.

Not the way your hands shook when they weren't holding a weapon. Not how you stopped making jokes after matches and started going quiet. Not the way you stared just a little too long at the streets from the sidewalk, eyes foggy like you were somewhere else. Somewhere farther.

He only started noticing when it was already too late.

You'd been fighting like hell lately. Dropping like flies in every match only to respawn and immediately charge back in. Coil thought it was funny—how you died a hundred times, MVP'd anyway, and came back 'laughing' about it.

But you weren't laughing anymore.

Not today.

⸻

The last time he saw you, you told him you were going on a walk. Just a walk. He offered to go with you—half joking, half worried, but you turned him down with that trademark lopsided smile and a wave of your hand.

"Relax, Coil. I'm not a baby. I just need some air."

You didn't say goodbye.

You never say goodbye.

And then the sirens.

⸻

The city's always buzzing. Coil's used to it. Screaming civilians, reckless drivers, the occasional explosion. He didn't think much of it until Skateboard's voice cracked through the static in his comms.

"Hey, uh... you seen them?"

Coil blinked, pausing mid-tinker on one of his stolen gadgets. "Nah, they said they were out for a walk. Why?"

The silence that followed was too long. Too weighted.

"...Turn on the news."

He did.

And everything dropped out from under him.

The footage was grainy. Shaky. Someone's phone camera, recording the chaos from across the street. Medics pushing past a crowd. A stretch of road painted in flashing red and blue. And in the middle of it all—a form. Small. Still. Facedown.