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cosmicjoke · 3 years

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Ah, and now onto one of the most depressing chapters in all of SnK, chapter 132.

You know, if anyone ever needed a reason to despise Floch any more, how about the fact that he’s literally the reason Hange died? If this bitch ass ho hadn’t shot the fuel tank of the plane full of holes, Hange wouldn’t have had to engage with the Titans to buy time for them to fix it, and they wouldn’t have died. So, fuck you Floch. I wish you’d suffered more before Mikasa finally ended your ass.

Well, anyway, what can I say about this chapter that hasn’t already been discussed? Probably nothing, but I’ll try my best to give my observations anyway.

This really is Hange’s chapter, and Levi’s, in terms of putting a spot light on the importance of their relationship to one another.

Hange’s sacrifice in this chapter is heartbreaking, it truly is, and such a major blow to everyone. But to Levi most of all, and for so many reasons.

First of all, what stands out to me is the exchange between them, after Pieck tells Hange to stop being “gross”. What I want to talk about here is when Hange asks Levi if he thinks their dead comrades are watching, and if he thinks they’ll be proud of what they do here today. Levi tells Hange to stop talking like “him”, meaning of course Erwin. This scene is just heart-wrenching, and part of that is, I think, because of Levi’s reaction to what Hange is saying. He has, once again, such a weary, resigned looked on his face, and it’s because, I think, of the parallels he sees with Erwin. I think Levi already knows, at this point, that Hange is going to die, in some way. He recognizes the same, fatalistic bent to Hange’s mindset as he saw in Erwin, that day in Shinganshina, the same burden of guilt. Just as Erwin began to bow and break under the weight of all the lives that had been lost under his command, Hange too is beginning to break, overcome by despair and hopelessness at what they perceive to be their failures. Hange expresses this outright in the scene with Yelena, when Yelena tries forcing everyone to admit that Zeke was right, and Hange just resignedly agrees, saying that it was because of their failure to come up with a plan, because of their loss of hope, that Eren’s done what he has. Of course, this isn’t true, just like Erwin blaming himself for the deaths of all those soldiers wasn’t based in any kind of truth. But the sense of guilt is the same. Hange blames themselves for what’s happening now, and they say this in front of everyone, including Levi. And then Hange says what they do to Levi, about their dead comrades, and I think this must have been like the worst kind of deja vu to Levi, this kind of guilt driving Hange towards despair and hopelessness. He tells Hange “Don’t you start talking like him, too...” because he can’t bear it. He can’t bear to see his last, true friend succumb to the same fate as Erwin.

And then the Rumbling shows up, and Hange refuses for anyone else to engage with the Titans but themselves. They tell everyone “I’m the one who led us here. I pressed on, even at the cost of so many lives. Time to face the music.”, and it’s Hange willingly taking on the role of martyr, the same one Levi had to help Erwin to accept for himself, in order to give their comrades a chance at victory. Hange’s selflessness here is the definition of heroic. True, unwavering conviction to what they believe is right.

But once again, similarly to Levi’s final push to help Erwin become the commander everyone believed him to be, Levi recognizes for Hange, in their final moment together, what it is they need. He doesn’t try to stop Hange, doesn’t try to convince them against their chosen course of action, doesn’t cry out after them. The same way Levi recognized in Erwin the way he was being crushed under the weight of his guilt, and understood how it would be a mercy and a salvation to make for him the decision to let go of his dream and die, Levi also recognizes in Hange that same burden and suffocating sense of guilt, and knows this is a decision Hange has made for themselves, their final absolution and ownership of their past choices, and that this is the thing Hange needs to relieve them of their burden. A way for them to bear the burden of their past choices without regret. Hange implores Levi to let them walk away and do this, and Levi does, because he understands, the same as he understood with Erwin.

But we finally see in full view the consequences for Levi in making these decisions, in letting his two, closest friends go to their deaths for the sake of their cause. Levi’s expression in the following three panels is one of such unfathomable heartbreak. He looks like a man utterly resigned to losing every good thing in his life, conscious and accepting of life’s bitter injustice and the grief of loss, but no less affected by it. Levi is in so much obvious pain here. Not physical (though obviously there’s that), but emotional and mental. Hange is it for him. They’re his last, real connection, his last, true friend, his last person. And he has to let them go here. Both for the sake of humanity, and for Hange’s own sake as well. It truly is the bitterest pill to swallow. And once again, it is a desperately heartbreaking display of Levi’s own selflessness, that he lets Hange go, that he lets Hange do this thing that needs to be done, without complaint, without protest, without influence from his own feelings, sacrificing once more what would be best for him for the sake of everyone else. Levi looks devastated as he lays his fist against Hange’s chest and tells them “dedicate your heart”. This final acceptance of his own, tragic loss, and Hange’s own choice to sacrifice their life.

And it continues when Hange flies away, at last, and we see Levi standing with the rest of their group. Everyone around Levi has expressions of shock, dismay, and disbelief. They haven’t yet accepted that this is happening, that Hange is flying to their death to buy them the time they need. They look astonished and horrified. But Levi is the lone exception. He doesn’t look shocked, or disbelieving, but only continues to carry that same expression of weary, despairing resignation and acceptance. And I think what we see in Levi, in this final arc is, in many ways, the culmination of a lifetime of loss and grief. Levi’s lost more than probably any other character in SnK. He’s experienced the most extreme forms of poverty and depravation from the time he was born, and with the death of Hange, has now lost every, single person that he ever formed any kind of close bond with. With Hange’s death, Levi is left finally, completely alone. And the look of defeat on Levi’s face throughout this entire arc is, I think, reflective of the affirmation he must feel, of the cruelty and injustice of life’s indifference to the suffering of everyone. Every experience in Levi’s life has driven home to him the lesson, again and again, of the unfairness and cruelty of existing in this world.�� And the events of this final arc, Eren’s betrayal, Zeke’s manipulations and cruelties, the deaths of so many comrades, the Rumbling, violence and destruction and allies turning against one another, and finally, Hange’s death, can only solidify for him the hopeless cynicism he’s fought against all his life, the awful comprehension of life’s brutality. With Hange’s death, Levi is made to face once more what he’s always, deep down, known, which is that to exist in this world is to suffer with no purpose.

And yet, still, Levi fights on. He accepts Hange’s death with all the pain the loss crushes him down with. He tells Hange goodbye, and asks them to “Just watch us.”. Because even with the affirmation of all of Levi’s greatest despairs, he still finds a reason to make the fight worth it. To realize the dream they all fought for, the salvation and future of humanity, and through the realization of that dream, to give meaning and importance to the lives of all those who have died in that dreams name, and meaning and importance to the lives of those yet still there. Levi refuses, still, to give up, refuses to accept the futility and insignificance of people’s lives, even as he’s so ruthlessly reminded again and again of it. And it’s in Hange, I think, that Levi finds that strength. Because Hange also refused to give up. Like they told Floch as he bled out, “We still can’t give up. Even if we fail here, now, maybe someday...” Maybe someday, life really will get better. Maybe someday, people won’t have to suffer so much. Maybe someday, there really will be a point to all of it. Even in the face of total despair, Hange and Levi both found reasons to keep fighting.

Also, just some smaller observations about Levi’s physical state, and what it also says about his determination to not give up, but also about his perception of himself.

Levi is doing BAD here. I didn’t notice this on my first read through, but when they’re all gearing up with their ODM gear, Levi is the only one sitting down on a crate, while everyone else is standing. We see earlier in the chapter, when he leaves his room on the boat, he can’t even stand without the support of a handrail on the upper deck, or Armin’s arm around his shoulders. And then when we see him testing his grip on the handle of his ODM’s blade, his hand is visibly shaking. Levi’s physically too weak to stand on his own at this point, too weak to even hold his blades steady. He must be in absolutely horrific pain. Probably dizzy and lightheaded, probably nauseas even. He’s FAILING physically. On the verge, it seems, of collapse. The fact that he’s even up and making the effort to move is something of a miracle, let alone that he’s prepared to engage in intense, physical combat, which just a short time later, he DOES. That’s remarkable, and such a testament to Levi’s incredible will and unwavering conviction to fight for humanity. He’s dying. I think literally, he’s extremely close to death, genuinely frail. But he still is ready and willing to give his all. I think, over the course of the few chapters before this one, it must have been horrifically hard for Levi to sit by and watch as everyone else risked their lives to fight. This isn’t something Levi is used to, being helpless and unable to fight for others. He isn’t used to letting others take the risk while he stays back. When Levi comes out of his cabin and Armin tries to convince him to go back to bed, Levi snaps with impatience that if he keeps resting, they’re all going to forget he even exists. This reveals a lot about Levi’s perception of himself as someone who needs to make himself useful in order to matter. As a tool to utilize. He feels useless and like dead weight if he isn’t able to fight, and so, even on deaths door, he pushes himself to do just that, to become a weapon to be used in the coming battle. It’s heartbreaking, to see Levi regard himself this way, even as it proves his incredible devotion and heart. Once again, his own well being takes a backseat to the cause of others. His health is secondary, in his mind. For someone who always shows so much compassion and kindness and understanding for others, it makes it doubly heartbreaking, to see that Levi can’t manage the same compassion for himself, can’t give himself a break, or a pass for his weakness. That he can’t allow himself that vulnerability, or for others to fight for him, even as all his life, he’s done nothing but fight for others.

#attack on titan #shingeki no kyojin #Levi Ackerman #hange zöe #snk 132 #meta #thoughts

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ibijau · 3 years

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It is @veraverorum ‘s birthday today! So they get a birthday fanfic, because I love them!!

(also on AO3)

It hadn’t been Nie Huaisang’s plan to visit Lan Xichen in seclusion.

But that was the issue, of course. Lan Xichen always interfered with his plans, willingly or not. That stupid man, with his too forgiving heart and his big eyes, his strong shoulders… Nie Huaisang’s entire life would have been much easier if that idiot of a man had been even just a little less handsome.

Not just because of the effect it had on him, Nie Huaisang told himself every time he became angry about it. He was not the only one who had put up with Lan Xichen longer than necessary just because he happened to be handsome when he smiled. Surely the Lans would have realised what a fool their sect leader was, if they hadn’t been blinded by his good looks and his undeserved air of wisdom. And Jin Guangyao either hadn’t been immune, or else he would have gotten rid of the man who forced him to continue pretending he was a paragon of virtue.

Lan Xichen had one great skill, and it was to be so handsome people became as stupid as he was just to get one smile from him.

It wasn’t a bad skill. It certainly was one Nie Huaisang envied on occasions. His own life would have been much easier if he’d had such a talent… but instead, that beauty had been wasted on a man who thought people were mostly good and deserving of second chances.

What a joke.

Nie Huaisang had opened a bottle of Emperor’s Smile when he’d heard that Lan Xichen had entered seclusion, and privately celebrated what he’d thought to be the man’s first wise decision in a lifetime. He’d also celebrated the fact that, now that he was safe from the effect of those kind eyes and strong shoulders, he would regain some degree of control over his traitorous desires.

Perhaps Nie Huaisang too was a fool sometimes. The effect Lan Xichen had on people couldn’t be countered by mere absence, he soon learned. And after only a few months, he found himself missing Lan Xichen’s company.

It was only because of old habits, he told himself at first. After a decade of constant contact through letters and visits, of course he’d grown used to Lan Xichen’s frequent presence, useless as that had been. It would pass with time.

Time passed indeed, but the gnawing coldness in his heart did not, and Nie Huaisang instead found himself longing for Lan Xichen with increasing frequency. Everything reminded him of that man, be it his birds (Lan Xichen had more than once complimented how well trained they were), his favourite painting brush (a present from Lan Xichen. He should have burned it and gotten another, but it was a very good brush), a set of robes (Lan Xichen owned one that matched it), or even the damn sunset (it had been a very pretty one though, and Lan Xichen had a fondness for those).

It took Nie Huaisang a while to understand why his thoughts always returned to Lan Xichen. Partly because he had little time to spare for that problem, busy as he was preparing the return of his sect’s former glory. Then, one evening, in the company of some passable wine and a frankly pathetic novel, Nie Huaisang was hit by a realisation: if he couldn’t stop thinking about Lan Xichen, it might have been because he was in love with the man.

The idea was ridiculous. Repulsive, almost.

Whatever else others might have thought of him, Nie Huaisang knew his own value. He had proven himself to be smarter and more cunning than anyone else in his generation. His appearance was also above average, even if he’d looked rather awkward before puberty worked its magic, meaning he’d been left out when that stupid list of bachelors had been created. His cultivation was on the lower side, but only compared to some of his most talented peers. In fact, Wei Wuxian in his current body had a much worse level than him, and would remain that way until Lan Wangji had fucked a golden core into him. Then, there was the matter of Nie Huaisang’s other accomplishments, which were many: he had perfect mastery of the six arts, he’d learned to be politically astute, his taste was excellent in all things.

Almost all things.

Apparently, when it came to men, his tastes were shit. After all Lan Xichen had nothing to commend himself except a pretty face, a pleasing body, and a charming smile. Certainly he had also once been a very accomplished young man, but the burden of leading Gusu Lan had not left him a lot of time to continue improving his mind, and he wasn’t quite as interesting a person to chat with as he’d been.

Lan Xichen was a man one might have taken a fancy to, a man perfectly fine to fantasise about, perhaps even to fuck once or twice for the novelty of it if he could be convinced, but that was it. Only a fool would have fallen in love with such a person, and Nie Huaisang wasn’t a fool.

He refused to be one.

So he took that unpleasant realisation and set out to destroy any unnecessary emotions. He tried, at first, to simply stop thinking about Lan Xichen. A vain effort, he soon realised: the more he wanted to avoid that topic, the more his mind lingered back onto it. Nie Huaisang thus decided another approach was necessary, and started working on a detailed list of all of Lan Xichen’s faults.

The list was lengthy enough. Lan Xichen was a fool, he was blind to the fault of others (a kind heart), lacked judgement (trusting), had horrible taste in friends (Nie Huaisang was hardly better), he was weak willed (but only on personal matters), too forgiving (and yet he had killed Jin Guangyao in the end)...

The list was a mistake. It did nothing to reduce Nie Huaisang’s feelings, and only ended up highlighting those qualities of Lan Xichen he disliked thinking about, since they ruined his comforting image of the man as a complete idiot.

Briefly, Nie Huaisang considered looking for a different lover. For a wife even, if it came to that. The idea was dismissed as quickly as it came to him. He didn’t feel ready to get married, not until his sect was back to its proper place as a great one, and he certainly felt no inclination toward the concept of having children. He’d rather pass the title of sect leader to some talented cousin or even a no-name disciple who would have proved their value, rather than some brat whose only accomplishment was to have been born and who would feel entitled to power for that reason, regardless of talent.

And as for merely taking a lover… searching for a replacement was too much of a hassle. He’d have to find someone handsome, reliable, trustworthy, capable of putting up with his personality… and at that point, it’d be easier to just seduce Lan Xichen than find another person with those exact same qualities.

Having reached that conclusion, Nie Huaisang accepted the inescapable and started planning a visit to the Cloud Recesses.

It couldn’t be good for Lan Xichen to remain isolated, anyway.

It was surprisingly easy to get into the Cloud Recesses. It helped, of course, that Nie Huaisang had timed his visit carefully, so that Lan Wangji and his too-suspicious husband were away on a Night Hunt when he happened to come by. Those two would have interfered with his plans, while Lan Qiren, even though now aware of his true personality, had some lingering affection for Nie Huaisang. He’d been the old teacher’s worst student for three years in a row after all. That sort of thing created bonds.

Besides, Wei Wuxian’s mild dislike of Nie Huaisang could only serve as a recommendation.

So Lan Qiren welcomed Nie Huaisang with all the honours due to a sect leader. They had tea together and played weiqi while discussing the different problems Nie Huaisang had invented to come there. He had, he realised, missed the Cloud Recesses. The place had an air of careful elegance, an ethereal look to it that contrasted sharply with his own home in the Unclean Realm. Luckily, he would get to enjoy it for more than that single afternoon. In spite of his and Lan Qiren’s efforts, they were not able to solve everything that Nie Huaisang had needed to discuss, so he was invited to stay the night. Nie Huaisang tried to protest, and pretended he couldn’t possibly impose himself that way, when already his visit had been unplanned, but Lan Qiren would hear none of it and had a guest room prepared for him.

Dinner was a pleasant enough affair. The food was plain, and there could be no conversation because of Lan rules, but silence was not an unpleasant thing, and Nie Huaisang had a fondness for Gusu Lan’s tasteless cooking.

After eating, Lan Qiren and him chatted some more. They talked about events of their youth, and about how promising the new generation was. They talked about mistakes they’d rather have avoided, and those they would repeat in a heartbeat. Lan Qiren had always been pleasant to chat with, and that only became more true as Nie Huaisang became older. Then, at last, Lan Qiren had to send his guest to his room, and bid him goodnight. Nie Huaisang answered in kind.

Alone in his guest room, Nie Huaisang sat on the bed and waited. He waited, first, for the bell signaling bedtime. Then for the second one which announced that the curfew had started. After this he waited a little more, just for safety, and left his room.

To make himself as silent as possible, and to give the illusion that he was merely sleeping, should someone enter the room, Nie Huaisang left his boots behind. The gravel of various paths was uncomfortable under his feet, but he’d dealt with more painful things before, and he didn’t stay very long on the path anyway. Having come to this place for so long as a youth, having returned to it so often as an adult, Nie Huaisang prided himself in knowing every shortcut to every part of the Cloud Recesses. It was easy, then, to make his way to the isolated little house where Lan Qiren had mentioned that his nephew had chosen to live for the duration of his seclusion.

There was a light inside the house, the flickering flame of a candle that weakly offered a beacon into the night. Nie Huaisang smiled at the sight, both because his plan would be easier if he didn’t have to wake Lan Xichen, and because being still up was a blatant violation of Lan rules. Having broken one rule, Lan Xichen had to be in a mindset where breaking more might be considered. Encouraged by this, Nie Huaisang knocked on the door.

For a moment there was only silence coming from inside. Then the faint sound of ruffling fabrics, of light steps on a wooden floor, and the door opened to reveal Lan Xichen.

Lan Xichen looked much more put together than Nie Huaisang would have expected. It worried him briefly, as a Lan Xichen in full possession of his senses would be harder to seduce. But there was still a certain air to the other man, something in the way his robes were slightly too creased, his hair not tied quite as tight as usual… Lan Xichen wasn’t at his worst (good, Nie Huaisang had no interest in a pity party) but he wasn’t quite at his best either, and that was all that mattered.

So Nie Huaisang put on his silliest smile, and prepared himself for a little game.

“Er-ge! I was here for business and I just thought it’d be nice to say hi!’ he chirped. “I hope you don’t mind? I know you’re in seclusion, but…”

“Stop,” Lan Xichen cut him, his face turning pale.

Nie Huaisang tilted his head and blinked innocently, even going so far as allowing himself a slight pout

“Er-ge? Are you angry that I came? I just thought…”

“If you’re going to play a comedy, then leave,” Lan Xichen said. “I’ve had enough of being lied to.”

Instantly, Nie Huaisang dropped his smile. “Then if I’m honest, will you let me in?”

Lan Xichen hesitated, which once more marked him as a fool to Nie Huaisang. A clever man would have realised nothing good could come of a conversation between them. A clever man would have wondered why Nie Huaisang had felt the need to come to that house in secret at night instead of requesting a meeting through more official channels.

Lan Xichen wasn’t a clever man. He stepped aside and gestured for Nie Huaisang to come inside that little house.

The place wasn’t anything impressive. Furniture was sparse even by Lan standards, though the bed did have a few more blankets than was usual, making it looking almost obscenely comfortable by contrast. There were also many books, some of which were currently being read if bookmarks were to be trusted. No musical instruments though, and no sign of Shuoyue either.

“I can try to make some tea if you’d like,” Lan Xichen offered, inviting Nie Huaisang to sit at his little table. That was where most of the books had been left, as well as writing implements. It appeared Lan Xichen had been taking notes on something, which he now had to put away. “I hope you will forgive me for the mess. I do not get a lot of visitors, and those I do get don’t usually come in.”

“And yet you make an exception for me,” Nie Huaisang replied with a smirk. “Er-ge, how kind of you. But don’t worry about the mess, we both know I’m worse than that.”

“Do I know that?” Lan Xichen sighed as he finished cleaning the table. “I once thought I knew you, I’m not so sure anymore. How much of everything was a lie, Huaisang?”

“Enough of it. But not all. It’s difficult to always lie. Even San-ge must have been honest sometimes, I suppose, though probably not with either of us.”

At the mention of the man he’d killed, Lan Xichen startled and gave Nie Huaisang a pleading look. Pain was a good look on him, Nie Huaisang decided, though he’d probably look even better panting in pleasure.

“I’m sorry, am I not supposed to talk about him?” Nie Huaisang asked with a smile. “But he’s been such a great part of both our lives, I can’t help it.”

“Huaisang, please…”

“You must miss him so much,” Nie Huaisang remarked. “He was your very dear friend, your confidant… though what sort of a confidant, I must now wonder. People have started throwing the word around about Wangji and Wuxian, did you know? So of course it got me thinking…”

“It wasn’t like that,” Lan Xichen objected, hands clenched into fists as he finally sat down opposite his unwanted guest, forgetting all about the tea he’d offered to make. “San-di and I were only…”

“Oh, so it’s San-di now. No more A-Yao?”

Lan Xichen glared. Nie Huaisang smirked.

“Why are you here, Huaisang?” Lan Xichen asked, sounding so tired and old that Nie Huaisang’s heart, if he’d had one, would have ached for him.

“Why do you think I’m here, Er-ge?”

Lan Xichen fell silent, his gaze falling to the table between them.

“I think you want to finish your revenge,” he said at last, meeting Nie Huaisang’s eyes again. “I think you blame me for your brother’s death. I suppose I understand your line of thinking. I gave San-di the means, I pushed for Da-ge to tolerate him much longer than he ever would have… How could you not blame me for what I’ve done?”

“He’d have done it without you,” Nie Huaisang retorted with some amusement. “And if you’d tried to oppose him in any way, he’d have started hating you just as fiercely as he hated Da-ge. He might even have killed you, and wouldn’t that have been a loss? No, believe it or not, I don’t blame you.”

“How low I must have fallen in your esteem, then, if I am not even worthy of blame.”

Without thinking, Nie Huaisang nodded. Lan Xichen was nothing but a pathetic idiot, unworthy of every advantage given to him, of the goodwill the entire world insisted on extending to him, and yet…

And yet Nie Huaisang couldn’t tear his eyes away, and found himself impossibly endeared by this fool of a man who dared to think he was important enough to deserve his hatred, when he was already unworthy of his love.

“Why are you here?” Lan Xichen insisted. “If it isn’t to torture me with guilt or to kill me…”

“You wouldn’t believe me if I told you,” Nie Huaisang retorted. “A more interesting question, I think, is why did you let me in if you thought I might wish to kill you?”

Distress flashed across Lan Xichen’s perfect face. Nie Huaisang was still only getting used to causing fear in others, and usually enjoyed it. To his surprise, he found Lan Xichen’s terror less pleasant.

“I’ve… missed you,” Lan Xichen confessed, averting his eyes. “Even if there was a chance you had come with ill intentions, I’ve missed talking to you and it felt worth the risk.”

Something warm and sharp exploded inside Nie Huaisang’s chest, delicious and painful all at once. He’d never thought Lan Xichen more stupid than he did in that moment. He’d never been more delighted by that stupidity, either. After everything that had come to pass, after every lie, and deception, Lan Xichen could still miss him.

How pathetic.

How wonderful.

“Er-ge, I am starting to think you have a type,” Nie Huaisang teased, just barely resisting the impulse to reach for the other man’s hair and steal a forceful kiss from him. Just a moment more, just to see how low Lan Xichen might fall before being granted what they clearly both wanted. “I do suppose I have a lot in common with San-ge, hm?”

“I miss him too,” Lan Xichen agreed. It felt like a slap to the face. Nie Huaisang would have struck him, if he hadn’t already known he’d be the more hurt of the two. But before Nie Huaisang’s anger could fester, Lan Xichen continued. “I haven’t missed the two of you in the same way, though. I… was always more fond of you than I ought to have been. I used to think you felt the same. What a fool I was.”

“Indeed you are,” Nie Huaisang said, leaning over the table without thinking. He was glad, suddenly, that Lan Xichen hadn’t gotten around to making tea, because he suddenly decided that he intended to bend that man over the table and fuck him until he begged for mercy.

Fools, after all, needed to be punished so they might learn better, and Nie Huaisang would be more than happy to dole out that punishment, to show Lan Xichen his true place in the world. And then, when Lan Xichen would be at his lowest, filthy and abused and beautiful, Nie Huaisang would show that he could be kind too, when the mood struck him.

“Er-ge, my dear Er-ge… you certainly like being lied to, don’t you?” Nie Huaisang chuckled. “I suppose I could continue lying to you, if it’d make you feel better. Is that something you’d wish for? For sweet, stupid little Huaisang to fawn over you again and get stuttery every time he meets your eyes? I could do it again, quite easily.”

“Huaisang, don’t. I’m ashamed enough to have thought it was real.”

“I’ve told you earlier: it’s impossible to constantly lie, Er-ge. Some of it had to be real.”

Lan Xichen glared at him, eyes shining as if he might cry, hurt and furious at once. Nie Huaisang only smirked at him, and watched as the other man slowly processed what he’d said, and what the context for it had been. Lan Xichen’s glare softened into a frown which shifted into fear before settling on something fragile and hopeful.

It was amazing, Nie Huaisang thought, that any person with Lan Xichen’s life experience could still so easily trust others. He almost envied it. It must have been so easy to go through life like that, refusing to accept that people, as a whole, were nothing but a bunch of selfish assholes. It also made him furious that Lan Xichen had learned so little, that he was so determined to let himself be abused again by whoever his stupid little heart would settle on.

But Nie Huaisang would reward that stupidity well, and take full advantage of a trust he knew he didn’t deserve.

That beautiful imbecile was his now, Nie Huaisang thought as he finally grabbed Lan Xichen by the collar to pull him into a kiss, and what a beautiful reward it was for every crime Nie Huaisang had committed.

#xisang #nie huaisang #lan xichen #mo dao zu shi #mdzs #jau writes

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peachcitt · 3 years

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I've seen a lot of people saying that rot was BAD, what is your opinion?

OH IM SO GLAD YOU ASKED

like most people (im sure) after finishing rise of the titans, after wiping up my tears i went to the rot tag to see maybe some gifs or something. you know, make myself cry a little more. instead, i found a bunch of people saying how much they hated the ending, how it was as terrible as some of the worst big finale bombs (endgame, game of thrones, etc) and uh. im not saying the ending is perfect, but it is DEFINITELY not as disastrous as what people are making it out to be, in my opinion. i thoroughly enjoyed the movie, actually, and i thought it was an effective way to end the tales of arcadia.

warning: rise of the titans spoilers, as well as general tales of arcadia spoilers

were there some things i didn't like? yeah!

the major things i didn't like align with a lot of what i see other people saying:

the weird mpreg plotline with steve. it just felt so strange and out of place, and it was used as a tactic to remove eli and steve from the major action, which i don't like.

and the 'ninth configuration' thing that, once again, excluded eli and steve. i didn't see a reason why they shouldn't have been there, seeing as they have contributed to trollhunting since nearly the start of all of the tales of arcadia. multiples of three are clean and smooth, i get it, but at the expense of two characters that were so lovingly developed in trollhunters and 3below?? yikes

with that being said, though, i don't agree with what a lot of people are saying about the time travel at the end. obviously, they bring up some good points - by changing the timeline so drastically, there's no way for jim to ensure that they'll be able to succeed or if the arcane order will even act in the same way. it's a big 'if' and it is worth thinking about

but people have been saying that the ending is out of jim's character and negates his arc, and i have to say. that's not true.

if you've been following my blog since july 1st, you'll know that ive spent the past twenty one days rewatching the entire tales of arcadia series at a steady pace, and within that time, i've paid a whole lot of attention to jim's arc as a character and how the finale of trollhunters left me feeling as if something just wasn't clicking right. his arc wasn't finished.

because all throughout trollhunters, jim is constantly having to prove his worth - and most of the time, the way he's proving his worth is by sacrificing himself. he takes all the blame when anything goes wrong, and on some level, jim never truly learns the lesson from season one of trollhunters that he's enough as a hero because he has his friends to back him up. like, yeah, he relies on them a bit more after that, but in the end, he still stands in the bathroom alone, separated from all his allies, and shoulders the burden of turning into a troll alone. and he leaves arcadia, the city he was fighting so hard to protect, and he leaves his best friend, the one that has been with him since the beginning.

then we get wizards, where jim lets himself be corrupted to save his friends. and then, because of that sacrifice, he ends up hurting all of them. i believe this fact - that he willingly corrupted himself, separated himself from his allies, and ended up hurting the people he loved - shook jim's foundation as a hero, which is why he can't believe he's the trollhunter without the amulet. the amulet was the physical manifestation of what it meant to be a hero to him, but it was destroyed when he was corrupted - it was destroyed when he hurt his friends.

that's how we see him in rise of the titans; he's still struggling with his identity as a hero because he doesn't have the amulet or the unshakable foundation he previously had of his heroism. literally everyone is looking for him to be the leader and make the huge, world-saving-or-destroying decisions, but he can't shoulder that huge burden knowing he could hurt everyone. and then, just to add fuel to the fire, it's his plan that causes people to die or be permanently separated from the group. and he can't even get the sword out of the stone! why? because he himself doesn't see himself as worthy - how can you think of yourself as worthy when you just got two of your allies killed and two more gone, presumably for forever?

but this is the moment it finally clicks for jim. he looks around at his allies, and he sees them reflected in the amulet. he's not alone, he doesn't have to be worthy just by himself, he has an entire group of people who have fought by his side time and time again that, even despite all the mistakes and missteps he's made, are still by his side.

and what makes the amulet work, in the final fight, is his firm determination to see this fight through, no matter if he has the armor or not. he's terrified, he's probably going to die - but it's that bravery despite the fear that makes him a hero, a trollhunter, amulet or not. and he knows that now - he's had to face it before, in the unbecoming episode, but it's different now. in the unbecoming episode, he was truly alone when he decided to face the fight. and he's alone here in rise of the titans - but not for long! because almost immediately after jim comes to terms with his place as a hero again, toby comes along, and he doesn't finish this fight alone!! he finishes this fight with another trollhunter, who doesn't have an amulet!!

jim deciding to rewind time to back before the events of trollhunters is a bold choice, but it tracks with a theme in wizards - merlin told douxie that what set him apart as a master wizard was his belief that every life was valuable and worthy of being saved. this theme is repeated in the new amulet in rise of the guardians; it's for the glory of all, not just for one person.

and jim deciding to have toby become the trollhunter finally marks the completion of jim's arc. instead of shouldering the burden alone, which is inevitably what would've happened if jim had rewound time, kept all of his memories, and accepted the amulet again, jim is choosing to accept allies into his life sooner. instead of being the trollhunter, jim is letting himself be a trollhunter, alongside all the other trollhunters.

of course, there's some things in this alternate timeline i don't like; mainly that no one stepped in to stop steve from bullying eli. that, to me, was the most out of character, and i can only assume jim didn't step in because he's leaving room for that fight to be toby's; competing against steve was a large jumpstart to jim feeling like he could be strong enough to bear the mantle, and maybe jim was just trying leave it up to toby to establish that on his own. still, i didn't like it.

and, of course, there are people lamenting the fact that none of the heroes of arcadia know each other or that they might not have the same relationships, but i immediately thought of the time loop episode in 3below. in that episode, the trollhunters team and the gang from 3below meet and become friends and ultimately lose the memory of that friendship from that day. however, in that episode, blinky says that true friendship would last against the test of time; if they were meant to be together, then they would be. and guess what? even though none of them remember that happening, they all still became friends. it was meant to be.

i think a lot of anxieties about the changed timeline are because people loved the events of trollhunters so much that they a) don't want to see anything changed and/or b) are trying to project the events of trollhunters onto the new timeline and are upset when they don't fit. toby won't be the same kind of hero that jim is, though - he never has been. inevitably, the story will be different, and that's scary. that was the risk jim took, though, and jim has always trusted in toby, so why shouldn't we?

to me, tales of arcadia has never been about clean endings that make you feel entirely good. they've always left me with a tang of bitter along with the sweet, and i think that's the point. tales of arcadia has always battled with hard questions and difficult endings, and i don't see rise of the titans being any different from that.

like i said before, i don't think rise of the titans is perfect. but you can hate it as much as you want; i still really think it did a good job with the story it was trying to tell. i mean, ending with the idea that all lives are important and worth saving, no matter the risk? that heroism inherently means being part of a collective that you trust and believe in? that through time and space, you will always be able to find and connect with the people you love? that's powerful.

im climbing off my soapbox now, but basically tl;dr: rise of the titans was a good finale, despite it's imperfections, and i think that's all i can ask for.

also if you don't like toby as the trollhunter just because you don't like him breaking out of the 'funny sidekick' archetype you can die by my blade

#anon #ask #rise of the titans #rot #rot spoilers #jim lake jr #rott #rott spoilers #what im trying to say is media does not have to be perfect in order for you to enjoy it #and not only did i enjoy rot i also just. thought it was good? it didn't invalidate any of the rest of toa to me at all #the story we witnessed was still valuable; that was why we were shown this version #i won't get philosophical but like. i am.#all that being said it should've been jim telling the story in the beginning #WBKEBKEWKW I JUST REALIZED THERE WAS NO DOUXIE WITH HIS SICK ASS GUITAR. so that too

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teawithkpop · 4 years

Text

[M] - PhysCom - Pt 6

pt 1 - pt 2 - pt 3 - bc 1 - pt 4 - pt 5 - pt 6

Pairing: BTS - OT7 x Reader

Rating: Mature [18+]

Length: 6.0k words

Genre: PhysCom AU - smut with dashes of angst, and a shitload of romance and complicated feelings,, uhuhu (porn with plot??)

Warnings: swearing, sex with ulterior motives, dirty talk, dom!yoongi, oral sex (male and female receiving), throat fucking, spanking, clothed sex, unprotected sex, ripping clothes, degradation, throat holding (not to the degree of choking), licking, cum play, it’s nasty it’s just nASTY

I hope you don’t all hate me after this ahahahahahaha love you guys <3

☕💕 If you enjoy this work, please consider supporting me and my writing on KoFi ^^ ☕💕

-------

We must build a brighter future for PhysComs. They are people, just like you and me, and they are severely undervalued in our society. We employ them, we rely on them, and yet, they are ignored at best, and abused at worst, with punishment and persecution waiting should they dare to speak out about the horrific injustices through which they suffer. We cannot live in this double standard. I refuse to accept it, and I urge you to open your hearts and imagine what it would feel like to be needed but shamed. To be relied upon, but to never receive recognition for your efforts. They are people, just like us. They live among us, yet they are treated like ghosts. As of now, Physical Companions are employed by most entertainment companies, but are given no benefits and no job security. They have only the protection of their own agencies and any underground communication they might have between each other. These people should be respected. They should not be forced to live in the shadows. It’s time that we acknowledge and thank these tireless workers, and provide them with some support in return for all of the support that they provide this industry.

You read over the words again and again until they become a continuous stream of overlapping thoughts, filling you with utter confusion.

What the fuck does this mean?

You look away from your ComGear and pull up the document on Namjoon’s computer again. “Jungkook!” You call out to him, your heart hammering, and the door opens enough for him to poke his head through, his eyes widened expectantly.

“Yeah?”

You hastily gesture for him to come in, your eyes glued to the screen. “Come read this. Out loud.”

He seems confused, but comes up beside you and looks over the document, murmuring as he reads. “We must build a brighter future for PhysComs…"

As he confirms by reading back to you what you’ve seen with your own eyes, your confusion heightens to a fever pitch, and you almost want to laugh at the absurdity of it all. Is this… an essay? About PhysComs?

“Wow,” Jungkook says softly, his eyes scanning the words in fascination. But when he turns to look at you, you can see that it isn’t fascination at all. His eyes contain something that stirs worry in your gut. “I, uh… I didn’t realize things were so bad for you.”

Pity.

No. No, this is bad. This can’t be happening.

Your brief feeling of ease at finally getting some answers vanishes in an instant as your mind becomes a whirlwind, spiraling down, down, down… You can see, clear as day, what will happen if Namjoon shows this essay to the other boys.

You’ll become someone they pity.

Pity is bad, pity isn’t hot, pity isn’t sexy, pity isn’t fuckable, pity means they’ll feel bad when you do your job, pity means they’ll use other sluts to lessen your burden, pity means they give you more fucking vacation time, pity means they’ll never look at you the same way again, pity means-

You don’t realize you’re short of breath until you’re gasping, hyperventilating, your knuckles white against the dark armrests of the chair.

Jungkook is beside you. He’s saying something but all you can hear is a high pitched whine and the thunder of your own pulse as it crashes in your ears, reminding you with every thump of your beating heart that you’re a failure.

You’ve failed.

You stand up, probably a little too fast, as your vision grows dark in the corners. Jungkook immediately goes to help you when you stumble, but you fend him off.

"I'm fine." You put a hand to your head, trying to force it to stop throbbing. "I don't need your help."

He seems hesitant to reply.

“Where is Namjoon? I-I need to-” Your voice trails off as stars swim in your vision. “Fuck…”

The room becomes blurry, and you feel weightless as you sink to the floor, the distant echo of Jungkook’s frantic voice fading into nothingness.

-------

“Some clients may become… misguided.” Madame paces in front of the class, checking everyone’s form and breathing as they lay on their backs at their stations, legs propped and parted as fucking machines train you all for stamina.

This is a relaxing class, despite the nature of it. After a while, you barely even notice the dildo sliding in and out of you, the whir of the machines becomes background noise. It’s a good chance to focus and meditate.

“They may come to hold… pity for you.” Madame bites on the word as she lowers her ever present riding crop, gently coaxing one girl’s legs further apart.

“They’ll think, aww, the poor little sluts are forced to be used. They’re being objectified. They don’t get a say.” You can barely see Madame’s arm from your position as she drags the riding crop along the girl’s thigh, and the girl shivers in pleasure.

“Pity is useless, girls. This is your job. You don’t pity the mailman for having to be out in the weather. Safety is key, and rules are in place for a reason. That’s why people never hire just one Physical Companion.”

The class snickers at this. The idea is preposterous. PhysComs are always hired in sets, proportional to the amount of clients they’ll be serving.

“You are never forced to serve your client. You are independent contractors. Anything you do for them, you do willingly. This is why we train. To broaden our capabilities, and make ourselves-” Here, she adjusts the setting on one girl’s machine. The dildo moves faster, causing the girl to let out a breathy moan. “-as flexible as possible for our perspective clients.”

You inhale steadily as Madame examines you, her eye keen enough to pick up every detail of your posture, every twitch of your muscles. She clicks a setting on your machine and you feel the dildo expand slightly in girth, stretching you out further.

You smile and sigh at the stretch, proud to beat your previous record for time needed to move up a size. Madame’s expression gives away no approval, but you can tell from the twitch in her lip that she finds you to be a promising pupil.

She moves on, examining the next girl in line. “Our job is to assure them. To remind our clients why we are here. When we are with our clients, we are purely sexual beings.”

The girl beside you has her hands clapped to her mouth, trying desperately to conceal her noises. You can see her legs quivering and feel a twist of pride at being one of the few people eligible for an orgasm suppressant. Until you get your Opticon implanted, it’s an excellent advantage for stamina training.

Madame returns to her post at the front of the class, her sharp gaze sweeping over each of you as she continues her lecture. “If you are pitied by your client, then you have failed to make them see you as useful. Useless toys are thrown away.”

-------

Regaining consciousness is like being pulled up from the depths.

You vaguely register the softness of a bed beneath you. You blearily open your eyes, and see someone sitting at your side, their face swimming in your vision.

“Jagiya,” Taehyung pets your cheek, his large hands warm against your clammy skin, his voice is gentle. “Are you with me?”

You squeeze your eyes shut, suppressing a groan as you shove yourself onto your elbows.

“Woah, woah,” He stops you, guiding you to lay back down. “Easy there. How are you feeling?”

You feel like shit, honestly. Your head is still pounding and there’s a ringing in your ears, though the dizziness has faded significantly.

“I’m fine,” you croak, surprised at how weak your voice sounds. You wish you had the strength to shove him off, but your hands are braced uselessly on his arms.

A quick glance at your surroundings tells you that you’re back in your bedroom. How did you get here? The memories of what you discovered begin to come back to you, and with them, your sense of urgency returns. You try to push him off again. “N-need to see Namjoon...”

Taehyung shakes his head with an air of duty. “Namjoon isn’t home yet, but he said to keep you company and make sure you don’t overexert yourself.” He rearranges your arms and tucks the blanket up around your shoulders, then reaches for something on the night table and gently coaxes a straw to your lips. “Here, have some water.”

You reluctantly take a sip. You hadn't realized your throat was so dry.

He seems satisfied, and gives a nod before setting the drink down.

"What happened?” You ask with a looming sense of dread.

“You fainted,” he replies somberly.

You squint at him. “Yeah, I meant after that.”

His face brightens in understanding. “Oh! Well, Jungkook said he tried to call Namjoon as soon as you collapsed, but he didn't answer right away so he had to leave a voicemail. Then he brought you back here to your room instead. Carried you the whole way.”

There’s amusement in his eyes, though you can’t imagine what he finds funny about the situation. “It was perfect timing, so I said I’d look after you until you woke up.” He smiles warmly. “And now you’re awake.”

“What do you mean perfect timing?”

His smile falters for a moment. “Because... I just got home from shopping. See?” He says brightly, gesturing to some shopping bags sitting by your door with big name brands on them.

You also notice that your door handle is broken clean off.

“What… happened to my door?” You gape at the sight.

“Oh, I guess it must have been locked when Jungkook brought you home.” Taehyung chuckles. “I don’t think an elephant could have stopped him. You had him really worried.”

Something inside you feels warm at the notion that Jungkook would care so much.

And that warmth is immediately doused by frigid guilt.

Fuck, what are you thinking?

You’ve let them get too close, you’ve let them see your struggles, you’ve let them see you as a human being, as someone to worry about, instead of a mindless toy. Namjoon has written an entire persuasive essay about the supposed plight through which he believes you’re suffering.

You’ve become too relaxed around them. Fuck, you’re sitting here letting Taehyung fuss over you, when you should be offering him your body, sucking him dry, and letting him fuck your brains out.

That document puts things back into perspective. Letting this… tentative emotional connection that you've started with them go any further could be career ruining. Not just for you, but for the rest of their PhysComs. The dozens of Secondaries they employ could be at risk for losing their jobs too, if your clients suddenly feel guilty for using your services.

And then what? The members’ sexual drives will get out of hand. They won’t be regulated, they might stick their dick into a lucky fan and end up with a pregnancy scandal to cover up, or they’ll become tired, sluggish, and distracted due to unregulated sexual maintenance, which could affect their performance.

You are a necessary piece of their daily routine, their health, their jobs.

Vacation be damned, you are not about to let Namjoon’s blind optimism put himself, the other boys, or your own career at risk. It's for his own good.

You should have deleted the damn document when you had the chance. But it would have been too late anyway. Once they see you in that light, once they start pitying you, then that flicker of doubt will linger in their minds no matter how much you try to extinguish it.

You need to remind them of your place.

Jungkook and Namjoon are lost causes, they’ve both been exposed to the document’s propaganda. But there's still that mysterious vote they’ll be having by the end of the week, presumably about your future. That means you still have a chance. If you can convince a majority of them to view you once more as a purely sexual being…

You try to clear your head, mustering your strength to serve, but before you can ask Taehyung how he wants to use your body, he speaks.

“You do so much for us, jagiya.” Taehyung keeps his hands braced on your arms, his thumb rubbing gently against your skin. “You’re always there for us. Always giving.”

Your whole body tenses. You don’t like where this is going. He’s starting to sound an awful lot like Namjoon.

Taehyung seems to sense your discomfort, because he leans closer and bestows a fleeting kiss to your forehead. “Now it’s time for you to receive.” His eyes are warm as he stares down at you, and he holds a glimmer of something secretive in his smile, like he just told a private joke.

Your confusion grows. “Taehyung… what are you talking about?”

“He’ll be here any minute,” he says by way of an answer, and gives your shoulder a squeeze. “Just relax, jagiya. You deserve this.”

“What do you-?”

But before you can question what he means and why he’s acting so strangely, your door swings open, and Min Yoongi enters.

“Here to take over,” he says, his mouth and nose still covered by the same black mask from earlier.

Taehyung looks surprised, almost shocked. “Where’s Jimin? He was supposed to-”

“Asked me to come instead.” Yoongi lifts one shoulder in a shrug. “Said something about not feeling right.”

You look between the two of them. Taehyung’s mouth flaps like a fish and Yoongi sighs, coming over to take his place. “Come on, you’ve been up here for hours.”

Hours? What time is it? You reach for your ComGear and find that it’s not in your utility belt.

“No, but Jimin is supposed to-”

Oh, there it is. Plugged in, resting on your night table. Maybe Jungkook saw that the battery was low. That boy is way too considerate.

“Why don’t you go check on him, then?” Yoongi doesn’t give Taehyung any room for argument, staring him down. “I think he went to the practice room.”

Why is it on the settings screen? Shouldn’t it still be in your emails from earlier…? Weird.

Taehyung reluctantly stands up and takes a few steps towards the door, shifting his weight with uncertainty. He looks to you, then back at Yoongi. “But she was about to ask me something.”

You put aside your ComGear, pushing away any prior thoughts to focus on your mission. “It’s okay, we’ll talk later,” you assure him with a nod, your mind whirring into action.

You have to remind five men of your place as their personal sex slave, if all goes well. The order in which you remind them of this is inconsequential. Plus it might be more effective to go for Taehyung later. He may be less eager to fuck you after nursing you back to health.

But Yoongi… you haven’t seen him since earlier in the day. Yoongi doesn't have feelings for you. Yoongi’s only ever known you as a slut, which makes him an easy target.

Taehyung doesn’t look happy about leaving, but he nods, retrieves his shopping bags from the floor, and gives both of you a final glance before shutting the door.

You wait just long enough to know Taehyung is out of earshot. Yoongi walks over to your vanity, takes off the jacket he’d been wearing and drapes it over the back of the chair, leaving himself in a plain black t-shirt and black sweatpants.

While he isn’t looking, you carefully sit up and shed your oversized hoodie, leaving you topless. Time to get back to business.

You take a deep breath and slip into your persona. It feels good to wear it again, you feel less dizzy, more focused. Ready to fuck.

“Did you miss me, Master Min?”

Yoongi freezes, his back to you. You suppress a laugh. You know you’ve caught him off-guard.

“I’m sorry?” He tugs down his face mask and turns around, only to see you in nothing but a pair of leggings, perched prettily on the edge of your bed. His eyes widen only marginally, but it’s a big reaction, coming from him. "What are you doing?"

You tilt your head to the side and cover your breasts with your hands, groping and squeezing them together. “What do you think I’m doing, Master?” You bite your lower lip, keeping eye contact with him while you feel yourself, rolling a nipple between your fingers. “You always tell me to show off my pretty body.”

Yoongi looks off to the side, averting his eyes to your actions, but the tent forming in his pants tells you he didn’t look away soon enough. “Stop fucking around. You're suspended.” He says, echoing your words from earlier in the day.

You hum in agreement, a pout forming on your lips. “Mm, but I don’t want to be.” You let out a desperate, breathy sigh. “I want to be filled with your cock, Master. I need it.”

You watch his adam’s apple bob. His weight shifts. His lips press together. Every movement you analyze for signs of weakness. It’s like playing chess.

“I know you want me, Master,” you purr, sprawling back onto the bed. You bring one hand down to your core, massaging your mound through the stretchy material. “I’m yours for the taking. No one has to know.”

"Is that what you really want?" He asks with a distinct note of skepticism.

You bristle, but try to hide your irritation. Here they go again with their fucking consent.

“Yes, of course, Master.” You mold your face into submissive desire. “It's my dream to be a good little slut for you. Being stuffed with your thick cock, pounded into the mattress, and pumped full of your seed,” you whine, grinding against your hand for effect. It feels good, better than usual, and you come to find that you mean what you said.

Sex actually sounds good right now, if you’re being honest. A good fucking might be just what you need to forget your worries, so it’s really a win-win.

You sense Yoongi’s hesitance, and you try to think of a way to convince him that you’re serious. The only off-the-clock sex you’ve had so far was with Hoseok, and that had been… far too intimate. But maybe some of the same principles could apply here. Hoseok had wanted you to want it. He’d asked you to use his name.

“Yoongi,” you breathe his name, dropping your character for just a moment. His eyes snap to yours. “I want you.”

He stares at you for a second. Two. Then he’s hovering over you, hands planted on either side of your shoulders.

“You want me?” His breath is warm and heavy, and you can see the way his pupils dilate when he looks at you.

Your heart skips a beat at his unexpected intensity. You nod, your lips slightly parted as he holds his body only inches away from you.

He seems at war with himself, his jaw working as his eyes roam down to your chest, then travel slowly back up, settling on your widened eyes, your pink bitten lips.

"Fuck it," he mutters, and surges down to crush his lips to yours.

It's unexpected. He's never shown any interest in kissing you, he's always preferred shoving his fingers in your mouth.

But you're grateful for that, because if he'd ever tried to kiss you before, you don't think you would've been able to keep your composure.

Yoongi is like fire. His lips are searing with passion, his tongue flickers and licks into your mouth. It's a stark contrast to his icy fingers as they brush against your ribs.

He's full of contradictions. His kiss is greedy but controlled. He grinds his thigh between your legs, causing you to moan, but his hands are feather light as they caress your breasts. He's fire and ice.

You feel yourself getting hotter by the minute, and all too soon, he breaks away from the kiss, leaving you gasping as he trails his mouth down your neck, biting a bruise there.

"Ah! Yoongi…" Your fingers twine through his hair of their own accord, and you're appalled at how easily you've given in to your desires. But it's all for the cause. You're saving careers.

He groans, his voice low and tempting as he kisses and licks your skin. "You really want me, princess?"

Your chest heaves as you catch your breath. "Yes. Fuck, yes, please…"

"You want me to fuck that greedy cunt of yours? Fill you to the brim?"

His words light a fire in you, and you writhe beneath him. "I want it so much, Master. Please fuck me…"

He grabs your jaw. "You're my slut."

He says it more like a question than a statement. You nod as much as he'll allow.

He drags his thumb across your cheek and dips it into your mouth. "You're mine. I can use you however I want…"

You didn't think he'd be so easy to convince. Well, mission accomplished, you suppose. One down, four to go.

You suck greedily on his thumb in answer, widening your eyes to draw him in. He hums, pressing down on your tongue and making you gag around the digit.

"Good girl." His eyes are half lidded as he looks at you. Then something changes, a sharp glint appearing in his gaze as he removes his thumb and squeezes your jaw, forcing your mouth open.

He licks past your lips in a kiss of complete dominance. Despite his control, he's gentle, savoring your taste, praising you for it between breaths.

While your mouth is occupied, his other hand snakes down to cup your heat, palming you through your frustratingly thin leggings. His dexterous fingers find your clit faster than you would expect, and he circles the pads of his fingers there intently, nothing but the thin material separating him from your skin.

You buck into his hand, though you hope he doesn't keep you there for too long. You know the ache between your thighs will only get worse with no release.

"So fucking wet…" he mutters, pulling back from exploring your mouth to lick a possessive stripe up your cheek. "Tell me how much you want me, slut. Beg for it."

"Please!" You whine, falling into the familiar routine. "Please, Master, all I want is your cock inside me! I need it, I want it so badly…"

Yoongi exhales through his nose, and soon he's up and off of you. "All fours."

This is what you're used to. The familiarity of being told what to do, knowing what's going to happen next, it makes you relax. You get in the position he asks, wiggling your ass towards him.

But Yoongi needs no encouragement. He spanks you hard, rubbing his hands all over the smooth material covering your ass. "Fuck, so juicy…"

He's silent for a moment, and his hands still. You're about to say something to provoke him when there's the distinct noise of ripping fabric behind you. Your hips jerk towards him as he tears the seam of the leggings right down your core, exposing you.

"Yoongi!"

But he's already digging in, dragging his tongue along your folds and sucking at your dripping cunt. His hands grip your ass, spreading you apart for him, and you quiver, his tongue igniting sparks as it plunges within you.

You try not to let it get to you, but the lack of constant sex must have made you extra sensetive. Every thrust and flicker of his tongue has you breathless, squirming, needing more. It was never like this before, you have to pull yourself together. Keep control.

But Yoongi seems to like your enthusiasm. He hums, and the vibrations buzz at your clit, sending tingles straight up your spine. You let out a shriek of surprise as he sucks on the overly sensitive bud and you feel yourself throb.

Fuck, he's too good at this. How did he get so good at this? Your arms give out, and you fall onto the bed, your face buried in the duvet as Yoongi fucks you expertly with his tongue.

"S-stop…" you plead weakly, trying to avoid the inevitable disappointment that will soon follow if he keeps this up.

"What? I didn't hear you use your safeword, slut." He growls, landing a warning spank on your rear ashe rises onto the bed behind you. A shuffle of fabric as he pulls down his sweatpants. "You like this, don't you? You like being exposed. Being treated like a pornstar? Dirty girl."

You do. Fuck, you do. Especially when Min Yoongi happens to be the actor starring with you.

You feel him tap the head of his cock against your ass, slide the thick length along your center. "Look at how fucking wet you are already. So desperate... pathetic."

You feel a flash of heat at his assessment. Yoongi's always enjoyed a little degradation, but his choice of words hits a little too close to home in this particular scenario for you to fully embrace it.

You cover your embarrassment with a thicker cloud of pretend. "Of course I'm dripping, Master. I'm your fuck doll. I live to service your cock..."

"Damn right, you do." He shoves into you without warning, and you gasp for real. Fuck, you've been denied dick for less than twenty-four hours, and you're already off your game? Come on, shake it off. Get in the rhythm of it.

But Yoongi sets such a relentless pace, it's impossible for you to keep up. It's as if he's got something to prove. He fucks into you so hard it hurts. You moan and try to relax, try to cling to the familiarity, but you feel a weird pressure building in your chest. It makes it hard to breathe, hard to focus.

He takes your moans and gasps as a sign to go harder, and he leans over you, pressing his chest to your back. His hand slips around your neck, holding you in place while he growls against you, his nose digging into your cheek. "Gonna fuck the living shit outta you… yeah? That's what you want? Gonna make you see stars and beg for my cock, over and over until I say so."

You moan in gratitude. You're grateful he's so easy to convince. You're his slut, and he knows it. This is where you belong. You feel happy. Safe. You smile, closing your eyes as Min Yoongi fucks into you like a freight train, and you finally get a moment’s peace from the past day’s turmoil.

He suddenly grunts, lifting himself off of you. "This cock belongs in your filthy mouth." He pulls out of you and takes you firmly by the shoulder. You hastily follow his implications to sit up.

He grabs his cock at the base and guides it to your face, nudging your cheek and spreading the coated wetness across your skin. You get a glimpse of his length - rock hard, nearly purple, and leaking - before he stuffs it down your throat. You relax, humming and taking all of him and gagging obediently upon request, just like always.

"Such a good whore, yeah… just like that," he moans, bracing his hand behind your head, grabbing a fistful of your hair. "This is how it should be, yeah?"

You hum around him in confirmation, glad that you're both on the same page.

"You're our slut. Nothing will ever fucking change that… " he starts rutting into your mouth, and you obediently let him fuck your throat.

He huffs, his voice dropping lower, “No use pretending you can be anything else.”

The change in his tone of voice is so stark, it gives you pause. You almost lose your concentration. He sounds almost... sad? Why would he be sad? Are you doing something wrong?

You redouble your efforts to please him.

"Look at you. So filthy." He praises you softly as you gurgle around him, drool starting to leak from your mouth. His roughness starts to return at the sight of you, and you beam with pride as he resumes his filthy dialogue. "This is what you want, isn't it? To choke on our dicks all day, huh? This what you signed up for?"

He pulls out to let you gasp in a breath, then shoves right back down. He does this a few more times, letting the blowjob get sloppy. You nod desperately between thrusts, assuring him of your devotion. You graze your hands over his clothed thighs, caressing him while he fucks your throat.

“Nothing else matters.” Yoongi huffs, and as his face swims back in forth in your vision, he looks resolute.

You surge forward to hold his length down your throat, swallowing around him, your nose touching his abdomen.

He groans, pulling your hair taut and holding you in place. "Yeah, that's it…. You were built for this, weren't you?"

He finally lets you come back for air, but no sooner do you take a messy gasp than he pushes you backwards onto the bed and crawls on top of you.

"Say it." He grabs you by the jaw again, and his voice is low and soft, his eyes like hot coals. "Tell me what you want."

You sputter and gasp, still reclaiming your breath, but obediently say what he wants to hear. "I want you, Yoongi. I want your cock..."

He let go of your face and hoists your legs up, bending you in half. "You're gonna get it, too," he mutters, grabbing your calves, keeping them up and out of the way as he shoves his thick cock into you again.

You moan compliantly, gasping and staring up at him. This is all going according to plan, you just have to hang on and not let your throbbing pussy distract you from the goal.

"You want to be a whore, huh?" He asks, maintaining a gravitational sort of eye contact as he slowly slides in and out of you, torturing you. "Cum for me. Cum around my cock."

You shiver and within a few moments, clench around him convincingly, letting your eyes roll back as you moan in delight.

"Cumming on command, within seconds... look at that." He braces your legs with one arm and starts rubbing your clit with his other hand as he picks up the pace. You feel a jolt as his thumb circles the little bundle of nerves, and you actually flinch.

"So sensitive." He growls, reading your mind. "What a needy cunt."

You can't form any words, the way he's kneading your clit has your head thrown back, your breath coming in gasps. It’s never felt like this.

Yoongi picks up on your arousal, and quickly gains speed, fucking you relentlessly, with little grunts of his own as he keeps you spread wide open for him, watching as your pussy takes his cock over and over again.

After endless minutes of stimulation, your core is swollen and aching, but still somehow desperate for more.

Yoongi's hips buck and stutter, and without warning, he leaves you painfully empty, clenching around nothing. His cock in his fist, he pumps himself to completion, letting his seed cover your puffy, aching pussy.

"Yeah, yeah, that's it…" he grunts, using his cock head to smear his release along your folds.

You start to relax, trying to overcome the disappointment your body feels at getting frustratingly uselessly stimulated.

But before you know it, Yoongi is lining himself up with your entrance again. "You thought we were done?" He chuckles darkly, using his cock to collect cum around your entrance, then he sheathes himself to the hilt with a low groan.

It feels so fucking good, you can't think straight. You cry out, your body desperate and screaming for more but knowing it's not enough, and it'll never be enough.

"Yeah, you want it deep inside you, don't you, you little cum slut?" He mutters, shoving his fingers into your mouth, and you're grateful that he's muffling your embarrassing noises.

"Gonna fuck you like the worthless little whore you are," he barks, ruthlessly slamming into you, and you moan with every thrust.

You would have said something if you still had an ounce of coherent thought in your brain, but the sensations are quickly taking over. Your whole body is wound up, desperate for something. His fingers reach down to rub hastily at your swollen clit and your vision blurs, your pulse pounds in your ears - are you going to faint again?

No.

You peak.

A scream catches in your throat, broken and gutterel as pleasure takes over your entire body, coursing through you in waves, lifting your body off the bed, convulsing, throbbing through you, inside and out.

It feels so good it hurts. You want to stay in this moment, extend it for as long as possible, but you know there's something wrong. Your mind is so addled, you're scared, terrified, before you even remember why.

You shouldn’t be capable of climax. Something’s wrong.

Yoongi keeps fucking you, grunting as you clench around his cock, but you're clawing at him, begging him to stop, tears leaking down your cheeks. Something’s wrong.

He realizes you aren't moaning anymore, but wailing. Sobbing. Something's wrong. He pulls out of you, shouting to be heard above your panic. He looks scared. Guilty.

Just then your door bursts open, and Jimin enters the room with a shout, quickly followed by Taehyung.

“I’m sorry! It’s my fault-” Jimin’s eyes fall to your compromising position, Yoongi’s dick still out, your leaking core exposed, and claps a hand over his mouth. He looks like he might cry. “Oh no...”

Taehyung’s mouth falls open, and he appears too alarmed to speak, apart from a very small, “Fuck.”

“What the fuck are you talking about? What’s your fault?” Yoongi’s shouts at Jimin and Taehyung are drowned out by the rush of blood in your ears as your shoulders shake from dry sobs. Your eyes flash between the two younger members, their guilty expressions, and you remember your private conversation with Jimin just yesterday.

"There is a way to turn it off, in case of emergency side effects. But I can't just turn it off for fun. You have to understand that.” You rest your hand on his shoulder again, hoping he now comprehends the reason for your earlier outburst. “It's a part of my job."

"I understand. Sorry,” he says, giving you a small nod. He twists his mouth to the side, chewing over the revelations. "That must really suck. Not being able to cum."

He’s the only one you’ve ever told.

“I’m sorry! It’s my fault-”

Your ComGear. The settings.

You're too shocked, too betrayed, too sore to get up on your own. You feel some of Yoongi’s release drip down your leg, and a robotic voice fills your mind, drilled into you from the hours of safety lectures you’d had to sit through during training.

… If at any point the user experiences orgasmic sensations before, during, or after sexual activities, then this may be a sign of malfunction in the Opticon Miracle Implant, rendering the user susceptible to sexually transmitted disease and/or pregnancy. Side effects of a malfunctioning Opticon Miracle Implant could become severe, or in some cases life-threatening, if left untreated. Please consult your local physician and refrain from any sexual activity until the Opticon Miracle Implant may be examined by a specialist.

They’re all shouting now, and you feel your throat constrict in horror at the implications of what just happened. The words get caught in your chest, bubbling up with your mounting fear, and finally fall from your lips in a raw cry for help.

"Someone call an ambulance!"

#bts #bts smut #bts x reader smut #bts ot7 smut #bts smut fic #bts x reader #bts fanfiction #bts ot7 #bts fanfic #bts ot7 x reader #bts fic rec #yoongi smut #yoongi x reader #jungkook x reader #taehyung x reader #jimin x reader #thank you all for enjoying physcom! <3

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10-porgs-in-a-trenchcoat · 3 years

Text

Only Memories

Pairing: Foxiyo

Premise: I had a sad angsty thought about Riyo post-Order 66 having to reconcile learning about the inhibitor chips with what happened to Fox

Word count: ~1.2k

Other notes: canon divergent AU

AO3

----------

The sun was out, shining its bright warm light on the world outside her window, but it did nothing to lift her spirits. Riyo sat still on the window seat, her eyes fixed in an unfocused gaze on a speck on the windowpane. Even though she was physically on Alderaan, her mind and her heart were back on Coruscant.

She thought she had moved past it, learned to live with her grief and guilt. But then Rex came back with the news; it was like a dam burst, and all the emotions and memories came flooding back.

A quiet night at home, just her and Fox, interrupted when he received a call to execute Order 66. Almost instantaneously, the warm and caring man sitting with her grew rigid and stoic, and he left her apartment to carry out his orders. She was left behind, staring at the door in a dumbfounded confusion.

The following day after Palpatine’s address to the Senate, she saw him again. He wouldn’t answer her questions, he coldly addressed her as “Senator,” and although he escorted her back to her office he refused to go in with her. Riyo didn’t understand what happened to him, what had changed to make him so cold and distant, and worst of all he wouldn’t tell her.

The last time she saw Fox was the day she fled Coruscant with her retinue. He and a few other men of the Coruscant Guard were waiting outside their ship on the landing pad. Tears streamed down her face as she begged him to remember their love and to run away with her. He responded by raising a blaster to her head and accusing her of treason against the Empire. The details of how she and her group escaped were hazy, clouded by the storm of emotions she felt at the time … all she could think about was how she lost the man she loved and there was no getting him back.

Just weeks before, Fox had her in his arms, secure and warm. With her head resting on his chest, she could hear his heartbeat. “I love you so much,” he had said, “for the rest of my life I’m going to love you.”

Someone knocked on the door to her room and Riyo wiped away the tears pooling in her eyes. “Come in,” she called.

The door opened to reveal Rex, the former Captain of the 501st. Judging by the dark circles that framed his eyes, the streaks of blond stubble that marked the beginnings of a beard, and the wrinkles in his shirt, he looked like he hadn’t slept a wink since he returned from his mission.

“Ahsoka said I could find you in here,” he explained as he entered the room, closing the door behind him.

Riyo didn’t respond. It was a small kindness of the universe, she thought, that he and Ahsoka still had each other after they both lost everything to the end of the war.

“I’m sorry I couldn’t save him,” he continued, his voice weighted with remorse and exhaustion.

“It’s not your fault,” she told him. “You can’t save everyone. But you did find two of your brothers, they’ll need you.” She gestured to the unoccupied space on the window seat opposite of her.

“I know,” said Rex as he sat down, “and I also know Fox was important to you.”

She nodded, and she felt tears coming again.

“I thought I was important to him too." Her voice began to break. "But he- he changed suddenly, and – I don’t –"

Riyo lowered her head and covered her face with her hand as she cried. The man sitting across from her had his own grief to contend with, she didn’t need to burden him with hers as well.

“It was the order we were given, all us clones,” Rex explained, his voice soft but heavy. Riyo looked up at him.

“We, uh, we were all engineered to have these chips in our brains –" He pointed to the scar on the side of his head – “And these chips compel us to follow orders.”

“Order 66,” Riyo murmured. That must have been what happened to Fox, she realized.

“Yeah ….” Rex clenched his jaw and bowed his head, as if he was trying to banish away some of his own painful memories. After a moment of silence went by, he looked back up at Riyo.

“It’s like being trapped in a cage inside of your own mind, when the chip takes over. You’re aware of what’s going on, but you’re not in control of your own body. Doesn’t matter how much you struggle, there’s no beating it. All you can do is watch … helplessly ….” His voice trailed off, and he punctuated his sentence with a hard swallow.

Riyo mulled over what he told her. She couldn’t begin to imagine what it would be like to lose control of her own body like all the clones did. To be powerless to stop themselves from gunning down their Jedi, or to stop themselves from pointing their weapons at their lovers … that was no way to live. Maybe death was a mercy. She wouldn’t say that out loud though, especially not in front of Rex.

“Fox and I may not have been on the best terms, but he was a good soldier. He was loyal and caring. Anything he did after the order was called, he wouldn’t have done willingly.”

She knew he meant well, but what he said didn’t make her feel better.

“Thank you, Captain,” she said, “for telling me. And for trying. I- I would like to be alone now.”

Rex got up and gently placed a hand on her shoulder. “All right … if you ever want to talk, I’m all ears.”

She nodded, then watched as he quietly left the room. She then turned back to the window, and she watched as the branches of a tree outside swayed in the breeze.

Fox was lost long before he died. That was something she knew, deep in her mind, after she fled Coruscant for the shelter that Bail Organa offered her on Alderaan. But then Ahsoka and Rex came into the fold, and Rex offered to look for Fox while he was away on a mission to rescue his fellow clones from the Empire. She couldn’t refuse his offer, not if there was a chance. The darkest, angriest parts of her mind wanted to blame him for giving her hope that she could get Fox back, or find anyone else to blame for the fact that she couldn’t quite accept that he was gone. Yet she was a fool for holding out hope, and there was no one to blame for that but herself.

There were no details about his death. Not even information about what happened to his body. No chance for closure, or for saying good-bye. She didn’t even have any pictures. All that was left of Fox were memories. She closed her eyes and conjured up mental images of him: the streaks of gray in his hair, the way his eyes lit up when he smiled at her, how radiantly beautiful he was in the golden sunlight of the late afternoon, how her hands fit perfectly in his. That was all gone, stolen away and locked into some metaphorical cage of the mind and then snuffed out.

“For the rest of my life I’m going to love you.”

Maybe that was the truth. Maybe no matter what, deep down, Fox kept that promise to her. Regardless, the thought brought her no comfort, and it didn't make losing him hurt any less.

#foxiyo #riyo chuchi #commander fox #captain rex #my writing #made myself sad writing this

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actress4him · 3 years

Text

Whumptober 2020 - Day 31

This is it! The very last post of Whumptober, and the long-awaited sequel to Day 8! If you're brand new to this whump party and haven't read it yet, you'll want to go back and do so before diving into this monstrosity. And when I say monstrosity I mean, it's looooooong. I wanted to do it justice and give you guys the ending you deserve, which...I'm hoping I pulled off. I'm not used to posting stuff so soon after writing it, without re-reading and editing over a period of time! Anyway, it wasn't one that I could easily just say, oh and they rescued him and put him in a pod and they lived happily ever after, because there was a whole bunch of emotional stuff everyone had to deal with, too. Thus the length, and the postponing of this post so I could actually finish it.

That said, this is actually more angst than it is whump, but hopefully there's enough whump to satisfy and hopefully it's a satisfying way to end the month. Enjoy!

Read on AO3

Read on FFN

Day 31 (No. 29 and Alt. 7) - Reluctant Bedrest/Found Family

Fandom: Voltron: Legendary Defender

Warnings: fantastic racism, self-hatred, death mention, blood, referenced animal attack, fever, infection, hallucinations, needles, panic attacks, suicide ideation

It had been nearly a week since they abandoned Keith. Discarded him, like garbage. Dropped him off on some deserted planet like some people back on Earth used to drop off animals that they didn’t want to have to take care of.

Shiro had always hated those people. Now he was one of them.

Except worse, because this wasn’t a puppy they had dumped on the side of the road, this was a hu-...okay, well only partly a human being, but a person, nonetheless. The person that he had seen as the little brother he never had for the past several years that he had known him. The person that he had sworn, even if only internally, to look after, always.

And sure, it wasn’t like it was his idea, but he had still let it happen. Yeah, if he had tried to fight it, Allura probably would have locked him in his room and done it without him. But he should have fought anyway. He should have let them drag him away like they had Keith that day they found out he was part Galra. Maybe they would have thrown him in a cell, too. Maybe then he’d actually be able to look at himself in the mirror now.

They wouldn’t have, though. He was human. He was trustworthy.

So trustworthy that he had turned his back on his brother, all for the sake of Voltron and the universe.

That was the lie he had been telling himself, the one thing that had kept him from jumping in his Lion and going after Keith for days. The universe needed Voltron. Therefore, the universe needed him. He was the leader of Voltron, he couldn’t just abandon the rest of the team and disobey the Princess’ orders for the sake of one man. Being a defender of the universe meant having to make sacrifices and hard choices.

And maybe all of that was actually true, but it was only half the story. Keith needed him. As the leader of Voltron, he should be setting an example for the rest of the team to follow, and should be able to make decisions for the good of every team member without being threatened and overruled by the Princess. Being a decent person who could live with his own choices meant not going against his own promises and ideals.

He knew all of that. But both sides seemed true, and which side seemed more important changed by the second.

To top it all off, the team had practically fallen apart since leaving Borulmyte. Not only were they down a Paladin, unable to form Voltron, but hardly anyone was speaking to each other unless forced. Allura was sulking because her father’s Lion wouldn’t accept her. Hunk, who had never seemed all that happy with the idea of kicking Keith out, seemed depressed. Pidge had pretty much locked herself in her room, he assumed furiously searching for any sign of her family. Lance was, as always, hard to get a read on, but he was noticeably quiet and stoic whenever he happened to appear. Coran had barely spoken a word the whole week.

And Shiro? He couldn’t stand to be around any of them. They were the ones who had done this to Keith. Sure, a couple had made weak arguments on his behalf at the beginning, but in the end they had all caved to Allura’s wishes and turned on him. He blamed them just as much as he blamed himself for sitting here in the comfort of the Castle while Keith...who even knew? At the very least he was alone and probably scared, even though he’d never admit that. At the worst, he could be struggling to survive, dying at that very moment, and none of them would ever know.

Whichever it was, he didn’t deserve it.

Coran had called a meeting on the bridge for something he said was urgent. It was probably another distress call, though the last one - the only mission they had attempted that week - had gone so terribly that Shiro wasn’t sure if they should even bother trying again. Running a smooth, successful mission is awfully difficult when no one wants to speak to each other, much less work in sync.

Usually he was the first one to arrive for meetings like this. Well, except for maybe Keith, but that wasn’t a thought he wanted to dwell on right then. This time, when he finally dragged himself to the bridge, the others were all already there, though none of them looked happy about it. Unlike in the past, when he always tried to keep up everyone’s morale by being focused and enthusiastic himself, no matter how he actually felt, now he didn’t bother. Crossing his arms, he let his face rest in exactly the scowl he was feeling.

“What is this about, Coran?”

“Yes, I would like to know as well.” Allura’s brow was furrowed, clearly not happy at being left out of the loop.

The orange-haired adviser wrung his hands, staring down at the floor. “Well, it’s...this is difficult to say. But…” Drawing in a deep breath that puffed out his chest, he finally looked up, catching each of their gazes. “I’ve been keeping something from you. It’s about Number F-...Keith. It’s about Keith.”

Keith’s name had practically become forbidden, so of course it automatically caught everyone’s attention. Shiro unfolded his arms and stepped forward. “What about Keith?” he demanded.

Coran’s eyes darted back to the floor. “He gave us messages to pass on to each of you. Before we left Borulmyte.”

“Coran!” Allura hissed.

“No, Princess.” The response took everyone in the room by surprise, including Allura if the expression on her face was any indication. None of them had ever heard Coran speak that way to her, especially not to tell her no. He took another breath and seemed to steel himself. “You know that I have always served the royal family willingly, and that I see you like a daughter. I would follow you anywhere. However...you are still young. A great burden has been placed on your shoulders, and you have done extraordinarily well with it. But sometimes you make mistakes, and this, my dear...this has been a grave mistake.”

She narrowed her eyes. “What are you saying?”

“I’m saying that we never should have left the boy behind. Galra or not, he has never proven himself anything but the most loyal of paladins, and yet we have punished him for a crime he did not commit.”

Shiro was torn between feeling relief that someone besides him was saying it, and anger that it hadn’t been said sooner. “Why didn’t you speak up when I was trying to convince them all of this same thing days ago?”

Coran flashed him a guilty expression. “Because I was too much of a coward. I didn’t want to speak against my Princess, even though I knew what she was doing was wrong.” Squaring his shoulders, he looked around at the other paladins again. “But regardless of what anyone else thinks or decides, I can do this. I can fulfill the boys’ last request before he was left behind.”

Something in Shiro’s gut twisted at that statement, and he could see some shuffling of feet and shifting of positions around him that pointed to the others feeling the same way. No one liked to be reminded of what they had done.

“Fine,” Allura finally spat. “Do what you must to clear your conscience.” She crossed her arms and leaned back against the console with a huff.

“First to Number Two...Hunk.” Coran gave the Yellow Paladin a gentle smile. “He wanted you to know that he would miss your cooking, especially the brownies you made for him.”

That was all it took for Hunk to start crying, though he said nothing in reply.

“Lance, he said to tell you that he never hated you, that you annoyed him sometimes but were a good friend, too.”

If Shiro hadn’t been intently watching, he might have missed the way Lance’s eyes widened before he ducked his head and scuffed his sneaker into the floor.

“Pidge, your message was that he really, really hopes you find your family. And that he kept meaning to tell you he thinks you’re doing great with your bayard.”

Her eyebrows pulled in tight at the first part, but at the second she blinked as if surprised and looked away.

“And besides his message to the Red Lion that he would miss her, and to us, thanking us for the opportunity to fly her…” He turned to stare at Allura for that, and she couldn’t hold his gaze, either… “That leaves you, Shiro.”

The other messages had already left him ripped open, so he wasn’t really sure how he was supposed to handle one meant just for him.

Coran lips pursed into a sad smile. “‘Just tell him I love him.’”

He felt as if all the walls came crashing down on him all at once. He loved him. Of course he did, he knew he did, they had always treated each other like brothers. But he had never said it. And now he had, and it was after Shiro had allowed him to be kicked out of the place they had all come to see as a home.

Spinning on his heel, he marched toward the door without a word.

“Shiro, wait, where are you going?”

If it had been any of the others, he might have just ignored them. But it was Hunk, so he at least threw the answer over his shoulder. “I’m going to get Keith.”

“Shiro -!”

“No!” This time he whirled around, sending all of his fury in a glare toward Allura. “I’m done letting you tell me how I should treat my little brother! I am going to get Keith, not the Galra, but our friend, the Red Paladin, the strongest and bravest and most loyal person I know, and no one is going to stop me! If you don’t want us back here, fine. I don’t care. Find yourself new Red and Black Paladins. But I won’t leave him down there a second longer.”

It was unclear whether Allura even knew what to say to that, but before she had the chance Hunk piped up again. “I’m coming with you! Erm, if...that’s okay.”

Shiro spared him a small smile. “Of course it is.”

No one said anything as they left the room. Hunk jogged a little to catch up to Shiro’s long, quick strides before matching his pace.

“I was a coward, too, like Coran said. Which, you know, isn’t really anything new, just...me being a coward isn’t usually at the expense of one of my friends. I was scared, to start with. Of him being, you know. Galra. But that’s stupid, really. Galra Keith is still Keith.”

“Yeah. He is.” He just hoped he was still Keith, still whole and well and not irrevocably changed, when they got to him. “I was just as much of a coward as anyone else, or more. I let the duty I felt to Voltron and the universe get in the way of the way I actually wanted to act. I should have gone after him right away.”

Hunk hummed in understanding. “Well, at least you actually stood up for him.”

They stopped off in their rooms to change into armor, then headed for Black and Yellow’s hangars. The long way, since they didn’t want to risk going back to the bridge and running into everyone else. Shiro had debated whether or not he should take Black, or just a pod, but decided that even if Allura wouldn’t let them stay, returning Black would give everyone a good chance to see Keith again and really make sure they wouldn’t change their minds.

“Since we don’t have a wormhole, it’s gonna take us a while to get there,” he told Hunk over the comms once they were situated in their Lions and starting to take off.

“I don’t mind. Just...how are we gonna find him once we’re there? I mean, he could have traveled a ways from where we...you know, left him.”

“I can track his quintessence.” The new voice took him by surprise, but not nearly as much as spinning around to find Green and Blue hovering over the Castle. “But I’ll have to be pretty close to him first. So we’ll still have to fly around for a while to try to catch a signal, then we’ll be able to narrow it down to a smaller area.”

Shiro was too shocked by their appearance to come up with a reasonable response, so he just ended up echoing, “We?”

Lance’s solemn face popped up on a video screen in front of him, followed by another with Pidge’s. “Yeah, we,” he said, mouth set in a firm line. “We’ve been stupid, and we wanna fix it. If...if we can.”

Clenching his jaw, Shiro sighed. “That’ll be up to Keith, I suppose. What kind of shape he’s in, and...whether he’ll forgive us.”

“We don’t really deserve it,” Pidge mumbled.

“No, we don’t. But let’s go ask for it anyway.”

They talked a little as they flew. It was quiet, and a bit awkward, but it was more than they had talked all week. Lance admitted that he had been having doubts ever since they left, memories of time spent with Keith haunting his thoughts. The message had just sealed the deal.

Pidge shrugged when asked about her change of heart, and quietly conceded that she didn’t think she had ever really believed he was a bad guy. She was just hurting, and he had been the perfect target to take it out on. Her desperation to find her family had blinded her.

They were several hours into a trip that Hunk calculated would take a few days when a wormhole appeared in front of them, seemingly out of nowhere. Every Lion pulled up short, exclamations of surprise echoing across the comms.

Shiro jerked his Lion around to find the Castle looming behind them. His immediate thought was that Coran had somehow taken over and caught up with them, but Coran couldn’t make wormholes.

“...Allura?”

Her voice over the comms was more tentative than he thought he had ever heard it. “I have not yet decided to trust him. But I...I have seen how passionate all of you are about this, and I am...willing to reconsider my original stance.”

It wasn’t what he wanted to hear, but it was more than he had expected. He’d take it.

“Alright guys. Let’s go bring our boy home.”

The sight of the planet Borulmyte made Shiro’s stomach turn a flip. This was it. This was the place where Keith had been living for the past week. He couldn’t even imagine what it had been like for him. Allura and Pidge had done extensive research on multiple planets before deciding that this was the best one, and they had had plenty of “reassuring” things to say about it. He had always wondered, though, what they weren’t saying. Or what their research hadn’t turned up. There was no way that they could have known everything there was to know about a planet just from reading about it. “Livable conditions” didn’t mean enjoyable conditions.

“Coran and I will stay here with the Castle. Keep us updated.”

Shiro gave a nod. “Pidge, how close do you need to be to pick up Keith’s quintessence?”

“Within a few miles.”

“Alright. We’ll start at the drop off point. I’m gonna guess he would have headed east, into the forest, to find shelter.” That was the one reassurance he had about the whole situation, knowing that Keith was trained in survival skills. “We’ll head there first, and take it mile by mile.”

It took them the rest of the day. Only a fraction of that time had passed when Shiro started to run every possible horrible scenario through his mind of why they weren’t finding it, even though he knew that they probably just hadn’t hit the right spot yet.

“There!” Pidge shouted. “I’ve got it!”

Relief flooded Shiro down to his toes. “Alright. Mark this location. We’ll have to go land in the desert and fly back in the Green Lion. She’s the only one small enough to fit in that little clearing over there.

The little clearing, as it turned out, was around a creek that seemed to be clear and safe. His relief grew just a little more. If Keith had managed to end up this close to a water source, then maybe he was doing okay.

“Okay, Pidge. Lead the way.”

Hiking through the woods took almost another full day. A day in which the sun never actually rose. He hadn’t paid attention to start with, when they were still flying, because constant darkness outside had become the new norm, but now that they were on solid ground it was painfully obvious that they had yet to see light this entire time. And the temperature gauge on his helmet display was much lower than he wanted it to be. Livable? Yes. Comfortable without armor? No. He wanted to interrogate Allura and Pidge on whether they knew about this when they had chosen to send Keith to this planet, but it wasn’t the time. He had to focus on finding Keith, nothing else.

After hours and hours of walking by only the flashlights built into their helmets, during which time no one, not even Lance, dared to complain, there was finally a spike on Pidge’s quintessence tracker.

“Over here!” she shouted, taking off at a sprint through the underbrush.

The others followed, swatting branches and bushes out of their way. Any second, Shiro expected to run into Keith. Maybe sitting in whatever hideout he had found, or out hunting for food in the never-ending darkness, his eyebrows flying up in surprise when he saw them all rushing in.

Instead, when he stumbled to a halt beside Pidge, she was staring at the ground, and there was no Keith in sight.

“Pidge? What is it?”

Lifting a shaky finger, she pointed. Even before he looked, Shiro could feel his chest tightening with anxiety. And for good reason, too. The stain that was illuminated on the dirt and leaves was dried, at least a couple of days old, but it was undeniably blood. It was also concerningly large, and with the quintessence tracker crackling louder than they had heard it so far, there was no getting around the fact that it belonged to Keith.

Hunk immediately began babbling his worries, but Shiro’s heart was pounding too loudly in his ears for him to comprehend what he was actually saying. For a long moment he just stared at the bloodstain. It wasn’t until Lance stepped in closer to speak that he was broken out of his trance.

“Shiro? Do you think he’s…”

“No.” Yes. He didn’t know. It was a lot of blood. But he wouldn’t allow himself to believe that Keith was anything but okay until he saw him with his own eyes. “Pidge, is there a trail?”

She tore her eyes away to look at the screen, pacing back and forth a bit before nodding wordlessly and taking off through the bush. If her steps were a bit quicker now, no one blamed her. They just picked up their pace, too, solemn and silent other than Lance quietly updating Allura and Coran on what they had found.

Every once in a while, a small patch of dark red on a leaf or tree trunk would catch Shiro’s eye. He tried to take it as a good sign. If Keith had been able to pick himself up from whatever had happened and trek through the woods, then maybe he wasn’t too bad off. At the time. Two or more days later? It was impossible to say.

The walk from there only took a few minutes, but it felt like an eternity. Finally, finally, he spotted a small cave over the top of Pidge’s head, just as the tracker grew in volume and Pidge broke into a run.

“Keith? Keith!”

He was right on her heels, barreling through the opening, terrified of what he would find. And what he did see was almost exactly what he had feared - Keith, his skin far too pale under their flashlights, lying completely still on the ground next to the cold, charred remains of a campfire. There were rough slashes in his t-shirt, through which bloody scabs could be seen, and his right leg was almost entirely wrapped in large blue leaves tied off with what looked like dried grass. It didn’t take much guesswork to figure out that the sporadic dark stains on the leaves were blood.

“Keith.” Shiro was by his side without really knowing how he got there, sliding down onto his knees next to the unmoving figure. “No, no, no, no, Keith, come on, don’t do this to me.” He carded his hand through the messy black hair. “Keith, please.”

Pale lips parted, and a groan spilled out. Shiro nearly fell over with relief. Somewhere behind him, Lance was exclaiming his own relief in Spanish, while Hunk hovered just over his shoulder. Keith’s forehead, which he now noticed was coated in a sheen of sweat, furrowed, and he turned his head slightly to face Shiro before squinting his eyes open.

“Go ‘way,” he rasped, taking all of them by surprise. “‘re not real.”

“Yeah, yeah we are, buddy.” He stroked his hair again, then yanked off his glove so he could lay his flesh hand against his cheek, trying not to wince at the heat that met his touch. A fever. Whatever that wound was on his leg, it had probably gotten infected. No wonder he didn’t think they were real. “Doesn’t this feel real?”

Keith seemed to consider this, his brain probably having to work twice as hard as usual to process anything. Finally there was what seemed to be acceptance in those glazed eyes, but instead of seeming happy or confused or surprised or any of the emotions that they might have expected, he simply let his head roll back to the side and closed his eyes. “Come to...finish me off?”

“What? Keith, no, why would you think that?” Hunk exclaimed, dropping down right next to Shiro. “We came to take you home.”

“We’ve, uh...we were really terrible to you. It was really, really wrong,” Lance joined in.

Pidge shuffled her feet awkwardly. “Yeah. We, um. We want you to come back.”

“Even Allura is willing to reconsider, but whatever she decides, we're getting you out of here.” Shiro took one of Keith’s hands in his own and squeezed. “I never should have let her dictate how you were treated to start with.”

Silence fell for a moment. Keith cut his eyes up toward Shiro, not moving his head. “Knew you weren’t real.”

Pidge gave an exasperated grunt. “Keith -”

“Don’t worry about it right now.” Sliding his glove back on, Shiro straightened and got ready to pick Keith up bridal style. “He’s burning up with an infection. We’ll have to talk to him later, once he can actually comprehend what’s going on. For now let’s just get him back to the Castle and into a pod.”

Shiro scooped Keith up gently into his arms, causing him to cry out when his leg was jostled. “I’m sorry, bud,” he whispered. “You’re gonna be okay.” He didn’t at all like how light he felt, nor how gaunt his face looked. It had only been a week, but it didn’t seem like he had eaten much in that time.

Now that they knew where they were going, the walk back to the Green Lion went by quickly. Pidge flew them back to their own Lions, with Hunk and Lance towing Black to the Castle so that Shiro could stay in Green’s cargo hold with Keith. He didn’t want to let him go, couldn’t even keep his eyes off of him. He was too afraid that if he looked away, he would be gone, would succumb to his infection or perhaps just vanish into thin air. In the better lighting of the Lion, Keith looked all the more pale and feverish, his breaths coming shallow as he mumbled unintelligible words and occasionally whimpered with pain.

“What kind of injuries are we dealing with here, Number One?”

Shiro barely remembered arriving at the Castle and exiting the Green Lion, but there he was, standing next to Coran and a stretcher. Tenderly, he settled Keith down onto the padded surface. “Not sure. Maybe an animal attack of some kind? I haven’t been able to get a look at his wounds yet. He’s got a fever for sure, though, so they’re probably infected.”

Coran’s face turned grim. “That’s unfortunate. We won’t be able to put him into cryosleep until his temperature is back to normal.”

Gritting his teeth, Shiro found Keith’s hand and held it as they walked toward the infirmary. Poor kid just couldn’t catch a break. He didn’t deserve any of this. And now it sounded like when he was back to himself, they were going to have to go back through a whole three years’ worth of self-esteem boosting...maybe even more. He let out a long sigh. It seemed like he had just finally convinced Keith that he was worth loving, that he was important, that not everyone in his life was going to abandon him.

Then he sat back and let everyone in his life abandon him.

Coran sucked in a loud breath through his teeth as he peeled back the crude leaf bandages. “Yes, this is most certainly infected. And I would say that your animal attack hypothesis is correct. These look mostly like tooth marks. Quite deep.”

It looked mostly like a mangled, bloody mess to Shiro. His stomach turned, not just from the smell of the infection, and he was glad that Hunk wasn’t there at the moment. “What do we need to do?”

“Well, I’ll need to clean these. You might want to hold him down for that part.”

Keith bucked and writhed under Shiro’s hands as Coran poured antiseptic over his leg, screaming in agony. Shiro was pretty sure his heart was permanently residing in his throat now. He whispered reassurances, hardly knowing what he was saying, well aware that Keith probably couldn’t hear or comprehend any of it.

After a thorough cleaning, Coran wrapped the leg in clean bandages and pulled a thin sheet up over his waist. Shiro sank into the bedside chair, relieved beyond words that the worst part was over. They spoke very little as they went about the rest of the work that needed to be done, Coran handing Shiro the antiseptic and a clean cloth so that he could work on the claw marks across Keith’s chest, then focusing himself on preparing an IV bag of antibiotics and nutrients. Shiro gently smoothed adhesive bandages over the cuts when he was done. When he looked up, Coran was sliding the IV into place in the back of Keith’s hand.

“That should do it for now. I’m going to get a cool, wet cloth to help bring his fever down, but he should recover just fine.”

It was only then that Shiro finally allowed himself to dissolve into tears, like he had been wanting to ever since finding Keith in that cave. Burying his face in his hands, he let the tears soak his cheeks and the sobs wrack his body, uncaring for once that someone was there to see him fall apart.

A sturdy hand landed on his back, rubbing soothing circles. “There, there, lad. I know it’s been a rough few quintants, but it’ll be alright.”

“Will it?” Shiro scrubbed at his face with his flesh hand. “You should have seen him, Coran. I don’t know if he’ll ever be able to trust any of us again.”

The adviser heaved a sigh. “I don’t know, either. I’m not sure if I would be able to trust us, if the roles were reversed. But perhaps, with time, we’ll be able to prove to him that we do, indeed, care for him.”

Once Shiro had cried himself out, Coran convinced him to go change out of his armor and possibly get something to eat. He was surprised to find all three of the other paladins sprawled out on the floor just outside the infirmary, remnants of snacks scattered around them and expectant looks on their faces.

“Well? Is he...okay?” Pidge asked tentatively.

Shiro sighed and rubbed the back of his neck. “Physically, it seems so. He’s stable for now, at least, and Coran thinks he’ll be fine. We just have to make sure his fever doesn’t get too high.”

They all nodded slowly, seeming lost in thought. He imagined they were all thinking about the “other than physically” part that he had failed to comment on.

Hunk cleared his throat. “Is he awake?”

He shook his head. “He’s been in and out, but he’s resting pretty peacefully for now.”

“We didn’t want to, you know, be in the way,” Lance supplied. “But you can let us know when it’s okay for us to see him. Or we can take turns watching out for him.”

“Alright. I’ll let you know.” Right now he couldn’t imagine leaving his side, not for longer than he was doing right now. As he started down the hall again toward his quarters, he met another unexpected presence - Allura, lurking just around the corner from where the paladins sat, looking abnormally anxious. He stopped abruptly, not sure he was ready to see her again yet.

“I heard your update,” she stated after a moment of awkward silence. When Shiro said nothing in return, she pursed her lips. “I suppose we have some more discussions ahead of us now.”

“No. We don’t.” Allura’s eyebrows flew up in surprise, but he didn’t give her time to respond. “There’s nothing to discuss. Either you accept Keith back as the Red Paladin...and treat him just as well as the other paladins, or he and I leave. Whether or not the others stay is up to them.”

Allura’s brow furrowed, and she dropped her gaze to the floor with nothing else to say. Pushing past her, Shiro continued to his room, hurrying through changing so he could be back with Keith.

.o.0.O.0.o.

They would tell Keith later that he had been out of it for around two days before the fever broke. All he knew was that he woke up in the infirmary of the Castle with no memory of how he had gotten there, and assumed he must have been hallucinating again. He was actually a bit surprised that the wounds from that death beast hadn’t killed him yet...or maybe they had. Maybe this was some sort of purgatory or something, though the infirmary seemed like a strange choice.

It made a bit more sense when he turned his head to the right and saw Coran sitting there studying him. Seemed maybe he was going to have to face people he had failed in life before he could move on to whatever came next.

“Are you with us this time, my boy?”

Wrinkling his eyebrows at the strange question, Keith licked his dry lips with an equally dry tongue and tried to come up with something to say, but all that came out was a raspy, “What?”

Immediately Coran went into action, producing a hydration pack from somewhere nearby and holding the straw up to Keith’s lips. The cool liquid hit his throat like a slice of heaven, and he gulped greedily.

“Not too fast, now. Don’t want you making yourself sick.”

Keith nearly whined when the straw was pulled away, but he could already feel the liquid sloshing around inside of him, so it was probably for the best. Clearing his throat, he decided he could try talking again. “What am I doing here?”

“You were in pretty bad shape when the others found you. Something had torn your leg all up, and it had gotten infected. We couldn’t put you in a cryopod until your fever went down, which it seems it now has.”

His eyes darted around the cavernous white room. “So...this is real?”

The corner of Coran’s mouth tilted up. “Yes. It’s real.”

He had kinda suspected after the water. But that left one major question…“Why?”

Before Coran could respond, the door slid open, and Keith turned his head to see Shiro enter the room. The sight of his surrogate brother had him torn between happiness and a strange sense of dread, leaving him to clench the sheets in his fists and wait for some kind of reaction to come. Half of him expected it to be disgust, or anger, or maybe just an apathetic announcement of what his new punishment for existing was to be.

Instead, Shiro’s face lit up with a happy, almost hopeful expression. “Keith?”

“Wait, is Keith awake?” another voice called from the hallway behind him. Lance’s head poked through the doorway, making Keith’s stomach clench, before he turned and yelled back down the hall. “Hey guys, Keith’s awake!”

All at once the infirmary was filled with almost all the people who hated him, all crowding around his bed and staring down at him with faces he couldn’t read. They were going to hurt him. He knew they would, why else would they have brought him back here? Obviously they had changed their minds and decided they had been too lenient. What were they going to do to him? How much pain would he be in now?

He couldn’t breathe. Suddenly it felt like that beast was sitting on top of him again, crushing his chest, and he struggled to draw in air through an open mouth while tears stung his eyes. His hands shook where they were still gripping the sheets. People were talking, but it sounded as if his ears were stuffed full of cotton and he couldn’t make out any of the words.

He almost didn’t notice when the crowd above him dispersed, but it did help his breaths start to come a little easier. Only there was still Shiro, and he still didn’t know where Shiro stood on any of this. The Black Paladin sat down next to the bed and tried to grasp his hand. Keith yanked it away.

“Don’t...don’t.”

“Okay. I won’t touch you. Do you know where you are?”

Of course he knew, that was the whole problem. “Yes.”

“Okay. You’re safe now, Keith.”

Safe. Yeah, right. There was no such thing as safe, not anymore. He had thought the Castle was safe, that these people were safe, but he had been wrong. “Why?”

Shiro looked at him in mild confusion before choosing what to say. “We made a mistake, leaving you there. We -”

Keith rolled away, tucking his hands up next to his chest, cringing at the pain that still radiated through his leg. He didn’t want to hear it explained, how they wanted to punish him further. Yet at the same time, he needed to know what was coming.

“Keith…”

“Now?”

It had been a long time since Shiro had needed to interpret his one word sentences, but luckily it seemed he was still good at it. “Now you keep resting and getting better until we can put you in a pod for your leg.”

“Why?”

That one seemed to give him pause. “So...you’ll be well.”

Were they really going to prolong the torture like this? Make him get well before they did away with him? He curled up tighter. “Just...kill. Now.”

“Kill? Keith -”

“Please.”

The chair scraped across the floor, and Keith flinched. Footsteps came around the bed. He tensed, waiting for the blow. The air in front of his face stirred, and Shiro’s voice came from very close.

“Keith, can you look at me, please?” When he didn’t comply, Shiro put a hand on his fists and pulled them down so that they were face to face. “No one is going to kill you. No one is going to hurt you. You’re back on the Castle because we were wrong. They were wrong about you being untrustworthy, and I was wrong about my duty to Voltron being more important than my duty to you. I’m so, so sorry that I let them kick you out, and that I didn’t come after you sooner. You will always be more important to me than the rest of the universe. You’re my brother. I love you.”

Tears welled up in Keith’s eyes despite his reluctance to believe any of it. Tugging his hands out from under Shiro’s, he covered his face again, unable to respond.

Shiro let out a long, quiet sigh. “The others want to apologize, too, at some point. But for now you should try to get some more rest. You’re still recovering from the infection.”

He didn’t want to sleep. He didn’t trust that he wouldn’t be messed with while he was asleep. But his body decided for him that it was ready, drifting off without his permission.

.o.0.O.0.o.

Keith hadn’t really improved by the next couple of days. He slept some, he ate some, and his color and temperature seemed to be returning to normal. But he regarded everyone who came into the room with the wary stare of a cornered wild animal, and he still wasn’t speaking more than one or two words at a time, if that. Just as Shiro had feared, he had reverted back to the year that they had met, except worse.

He tried to spend as much time in the infirmary with him as he could, hoping that the company would eventually coax him into relaxing. The other paladins still hadn’t gotten their chance to talk to him. Everyone, including Shiro, was afraid their presence would trigger another panic attack. He had already nearly gone into one when Hunk had delivered his breakfast that morning, and had been extra jumpy around Coran, too.

Shiro was eating his own breakfast, trying not to focus too much on the fact that Keith’s was just sitting there untouched, when he heard a telltale sniffle. Keith was sitting up, propped on some pillows against the wall, but his head was turned away from Shiro, as was pretty common. Even so, he could see the shimmer of a tear as it streaked down his face. Setting aside his bowl, he rounded the bed and settled down on the edge, expecting the flinch that followed but still hating it.

“Talk to me, Keith.”

He didn’t expect a response at all, and especially not a long one. But Keith angrily dashed the tears away, forever hating himself for ever crying, and spoke in a hoarse whisper. “Why didn’t you just leave me there?”

Shiro’s eyes widened. “What? Why?”

“I was almost dead. It would have all been over. You should have just left me there.”

Heart aching, he scooted in closer, though Keith leaned even further back away from him. “Keith, no. We don’t want you dead. We want you here, alive and well, with us. If you died, I...I thought you were dead, when I first saw you. And it was like...it was like my heart was being ripped out of my chest. I don’t know if I could survive it.”

Keith’s face, passive up until then, creased with a look of emotional pain that Shiro could hardly stand. “But why should I live? I’m...I’m Galra, Shiro. I’m one of them. But not even really Galra, just some cross-breed freak of nature. I never should have existed. Maybe that’s why my mother walked out on me, she knew I was a freak and she couldn’t stand to -”

“Stop it. Keith, stop.” He grabbed his shoulder and shook it, not caring at the moment whether it startled him. “Don’t talk about yourself like that. You are not defined by who your parents or grandparents or anyone else were. You are you. You are Keith Kogane, Red Paladin of Voltron, best pilot at the Galaxy Garrison. You’re a survivor. You’re a fighter. Not because you have Galra blood, but because the universe has thrown every hard thing that it could think of at you and you’re still standing strong.”

“I’m not standing strong, don’t you see me?” Keith met his eyes finally, a tiny bit of his old spark of anger visible. “I’m pathetic. Maybe I was the Red Paladin, maybe I was a survivor and a fighter, but right now I don’t think I can be any of those things. I don’t want to fight anymore, Shiro. I’m tired of surviving. I just want…” He broke down into tears again, covering his face with his hands.

Moving over closer, Shiro wrapped his arms around his brother and pulled him in tight. “You want what?”

Keith’s shoulders shuddered beneath him. “I don’t want to be here. I don’t trust any of them. I can’t trust any of them.”

“I know.”

For a long time, they sat together like that, Keith’s face buried in Shiro’s chest while he cried out all his tears. Shiro ran his fingers through his hair, trying desperately to come with anything he could say to comfort him.

“Do you think you could listen to them, if they come and talk to you? Just one at a time, not everyone at once. I know they’re really anxious to speak to you, and I think it might do you some good, too.” Or at least he hoped.

It took him a minute to answer. “I don’t know.”

“Okay. Well, it doesn’t have to be now. But I’d like you to consider it.”

Keith just nodded.

.o.0.O.0.o.

He had been in bed for days. The infection was all but gone, there was no longer any danger in putting him in a pod, and doing so had been brought up a couple of times. But Shiro and Coran must have noticed how he shrank into himself every time it was mentioned, because they dropped the subject and just continued to let him stay there.

He didn’t want to go in a pod. Being forced unconscious for who knew how many hours or days was just too vulnerable, and he already felt that way far too much, anyway. After all, he was stuck in bed in the middle of a ship full of people who hated him. He was pretty confident that Shiro would try his best to protect him, and Coran might, too. The Altean had taken the time to sit down and apologize to him for his role in the whole mess, and based on the way he had been treating him Keith was fairly sure he could be trusted.

But that left four others, all who had weapons, one of whom had some kind of weird magic and was literally connected to the Castle. He didn’t feel safe, and he hated it. There hadn’t been many places in his life that he had been able to truly let down his guard and feel safe. A foster home or two, though later on he had become so jaded that even the good ones didn’t feel like they would last. The Garrison to some extent, at least as long as Shiro was there.

And the Castle. Yeah, there was always the chance of an attack, and there had been the couple of times that someone had snuck on board without them knowing. But in all of those situations he had known that there were people around who had his back, people that he could count on. It was the most at home he had felt since Shiro had left for Kerberos.

Now it was those very same people that he was afraid of, as stupid and weak as that made him. The thought was almost laughable. Him? Afraid of Lance, Hunk, and Pidge? But he couldn’t get the hatred he had seen in some of their eyes out of his head. Couldn’t forget the venom in their voices. Couldn’t erase all the times he had watched them, hallucinations or not, show up in that cave with insults on their lips and weapons in their hands, ready to make him pay for the crime of being part Galra.

He didn’t want to talk to them. But he knew that Shiro really wanted him to, and that meant he would have to do it sooner or later. Maybe if he went ahead and got it over with, they’d leave him alone more, and then when his leg was healed enough that he could actually walk it’d be easier to leave. He hadn’t figured out where he was going - definitely not back to Borulmyte - or how he’d get there, but leaving was the best option for everybody.

“Will you...stay? If I let them…”

Once again, Shiro knew exactly what he was talking about, despite the question being out of the blue. “Of course. I’ll be right here with you the whole time.”

Sinking back into the pillows, Keith hugged himself. “Okay.”

Shiro smiled softly. “Okay. I’ll send them a message and let them know you’re ready.”

Hunk was the first to come in. He burst into tears pretty much as soon as he walked through the door and saw Keith, and cried so much the whole time that his many, many apologies could barely be understood. It made Keith uncomfortable, if he was honest. He had never known how to deal with tears, his own or anyone else’s. But Hunk was so obviously genuine and straightforward, and he had always had a hard time believing that there was any part of such a loving person that could have held such malice.

“I get it.” It took everything in him to force multiple words out, but he knew he had to this time. “It’s hard to...stand up. When...everyone else...disagrees. It’s okay.”

“No, it’s not okay, it’s so not okay!” Hunk blubbered. “I don’t know if it would have done any good for me to say anything or not, but I still should have done it.”

Keith nodded. “Okay. You’re right. It wasn’t okay. But…” He took a deep breath. “I forgive you.”

The way Hunk’s face lit up was totally worth the difficulty of saying the words. “Really, man? Thank you. Like, really, thank you, you don’t know how happy that makes me. I know we’ve never been, like, the best of friends, but I’ve always really wanted to get to know you better, I mean if you’d be okay with that, it’s totally up to you, but maybe sometime when you’re feeling better we can like, hang out? Also I know you haven’t been eating much right now but I am definitely making you brownies when you feel up to eating them. Like, a ton of brownies. All the brownies I can possibly make. Hey, maybe you could help me make the brownies! Cooking is such a good way to bond, I can’t believe I haven’t thought of it before! What do you think, does that sound okay? Or I mean, if you really don’t want to hang out with me at all, I totally understand that, too, I just -”

“Hunk.” Keith’s lips twitched upward slightly as the breathless Yellow Paladin finally screeched to a halt. “Yeah. Sounds good.”

Hunk beamed. “Great! Okay, I’m gonna like, go, and let somebody else come in here, ‘cause, yeah. Feel better, Keith!”

When the room was empty again, Shiro leaned over and squeezed his hand. “How do you feel?”

“Good.” He was surprised to find it was actually pretty true. A small burden had been lifted from his chest.

“Good. You ready for Lance or Pidge?”

Keith’s heart started beating double time again. “Lance.” Even though he had been more active in the process of his condemnation, Pidge’s response had hurt the worst.

The boy that came into the infirmary wasn’t the Lance that Keith knew. He couldn’t seem to keep his eyes off the floor, or his hands, or anything but Keith and Shiro, and when he spoke his voice was so soft it was barely audible.

“I don’t know why I did it.” He picked at a loose thread on his jeans. “I just get...so emotional, so caught up in the moment sometimes...I’m really just as much of a hothead as you are.”

If his demeanor and apology hadn’t caught Keith’s attention, that statement did. Lance, admitting he was as bad as Keith at something? “Thought that was because...I’m Galra.”

Lance’s face pinched. “Yeah. I said some pretty stupid things. I mean…” He shrugged. “Who knows, maybe it is because you’re Galra. But still, it’s...you’re just you. And that’s okay. Maybe we don’t always get along, but I don’t really think you’re evil. I mean, I guess I kinda thought you could be. It was stupid, though. I’m an idiot, that’s what I’m getting at. There’s no real explanation, just...I’m sorry, like I said.”

Part of Keith wanted to accept that. Part of him didn’t think he could. “I...thanks. For apologizing. I think...maybe I can forgive you...soon? Maybe not yet. But, yeah. Soon.”

Lance nodded. “That’s fair. I didn’t really expect you to, like, at all, so…” He finally flicked his eyes up to meet Keith’s. “I think you and I could use to work on some things, anyway. Like, you know, not acting like we hate each other. Because I don’t. Hate you, that is. And I’m...pretty sure based on what Coran said that you don’t hate me, either.”

“No. I don’t. And yeah, that...that sounds good.”

“Okay. Good.” A brief smile flashed over his face, then he nodded again and excused himself.

“You still doing okay?”

Keith pressed his lips together. “Think so. I’m nervous, though. About Pidge.”

Shiro smiled sympathetically. “I know. Just give her a chance, ‘kay?”

Pidge shuffled into the room in a very similar fashion to Lance, eyes on the floor. She perched on the very edge of the chair that each paladin had occupied, kicking her feet back and forth since they didn’t quite touch the floor. In a low voice, she said her apology and explained that she had let her hurt over her family get the best of her, but insisted that it didn’t excuse her blaming him.

It took a moment longer than the others for him to find his words. “I remember what it was like...missing somebody. Believing that they were still out there, but not knowing for sure. I mean, it wasn’t my actual family...unless you count my mom, which...at least I knew she chose to leave. So, she’s...probably fine.” Just didn’t want him. “But Shiro is the closest thing I’ve had to family since...since my Pops. And it’s hard. I mean, I kinda went ballistic, broke into a commanding officer’s office, punched a bunch of other officers, and got kicked out of the Garrison.”

“You what?” Shiro broke in, sitting forward, then realized his interruption and sat back, waving a hand. “Never mind. Sorry. We’ll talk later.”

Pidge snickered a little, and Keith took that as encouragement to continue. “But, yeah. I know how hard it is, and I would never, never wish that on someone else.”

Her head popped up, eyes wide and wet behind her glasses. “I know you wouldn’t. I know...I know you didn’t have anything to do with it, I never should have said something like that. You...you’re right, you understand probably more than anyone else, and I…” She trailed off, ducking her head as tears spilled down her cheeks.

Once again, there was someone crying in front of him, and he didn’t know what to do. But he was pretty sure what any of the other paladins would have offered in this situation, so… “Do you, um...need a...hug?”

The next thing he knew he had an armful of Pidge, curled up on the bed next to him and leaving tears and snot all over his shirt. He patted her back awkwardly. “You’ll find them. I know you will.”

“Why are you comforting me? I’m supposed to be in here helping you to feel better, this is not how this is supposed to work!”

Keith frowned. “Um...sorry?”

Pidge glared at him, not at all intimidating with her sopping wet face. “No, don’t apologize, that’s my job, too!”

“Sorry!”

She punched him in the ribs. “You’re a good hugger. Why are you such a good hugger.”

Keith was just getting more confused the longer this conversation went on. “I...don’t know? It certainly isn’t from practice.”

Tilting her head back, she narrowed her eyes at him as if she could see into his mind. “Do you not like hugs?”

“No, I...do.”

“Then I’m gonna hug you. Every day. From now on.”

“Aw, can I get Keith hugs every day, too?”

Keith startled a little bit when he realized that Hunk and Lance had returned to the room, but forced himself to relax. This was okay. They weren’t going to hurt him. They had all been very open with him, and even though it was going to take some time, he thought he could learn to trust them again.

“I...guess?”

“Yay!” Hunk settled onto the end of the bed, and Lance took the now empty chair, folding his long legs up into it. Shiro scooted forward again to be in Keith’s line of vision.

“How are you feeling now? Think maybe you can keep surviving a little longer?”

He felt Pidge tense in his arms, and Hunk’s face froze while Lance’s went carefully blank. Keith swallowed. “Yeah. I think...maybe I’m ready for that pod now. So I can finally get out of this bed and...I don’t know, kinda figure this out all over again.”

Shiro ruffled his hair fondly. “I’m glad. We’ll all be there with you for every step, okay?”

There was one more question, though. “What about Allura?”

Shiro’s face darkened slightly. “I’ve already told her she can either treat you the same as everyone else, or we’re leaving.”

“Nah, we won’t leave,” Pidge piped up. “There’s more of us than there are of her now. We’ll just stage a mutiny.”

Keith laughed awkwardly. “Somehow I don’t think that’ll be necessary.”

“I don’t think so, either, because I think she’ll come around,” Lance said. “But the point is, Mullet...we’re gonna support you.”

“You’re part of the Space Family now, dude!” Hunk cheered.

“Exactly,” Shiro smiled. “And Space Family has to stick together.”

The others kept chattering quietly, someone throwing in something about “ohana” in a weird voice, which triggered a whole conversation about some movie that he didn’t care about keeping up with. Closing his eyes, Keith let his body truly relax for the first time since before going to the Blade.

And he felt safe.

-----------------------------------------------------------

Thanks so much to everyone who joined me this month!!! This was my first ever Tumblr writing challenge, and it was a blast. You guys are what made it so much fun, with all the comments and likes and reblogs! Thank you!

If you want more Keith whump from me sometime in the future, you can follow me on here, on FFN, or follow the series "In which I whump Keith" on AO3...and if you haven't read Abyss yet (my first Keith whump fic!), you should check it out!

Happy Halloween and Happy Whumping!

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seyaryminamoto · 3 years

Note

What is something Sokka only ever did and does with and for Azula? I'm not talking about his love but an act. The hairdoing question was because I like the first time he does Azulas hair lots It is a particular thing and the imagination him only doing Azulas hair is individual. I did not ask because of jealousy rather of particularity. I can't find anything he only did does for with Azula

... Right. So, in about 200 chapters worth of story, you haven’t seen anything Sokka has exclusively done for Azula? I... do advise you read more closely. But if you don’t want to...

Represents her as her personal fighter, at first because of their deal, after their relationship blooms he does it because he’s 100% devoted to her in every way that counts. To him, their bond is one of a kind and he does his best to grow stronger so he can continue to fight with and for her, so she may be granted all the respect she deserves. He outright rejects being sponsored by anyone but her, and even when they had no choice but to have Zuko sponsoring him (chapter 56), Sokka said it wasn’t the same because he wanted HER. So her role as her sponsor is one of a kind for him, and he absolutely would never have that kind of bond with anyone else.

Protects her with his body whenever they’re falling off places, something Azula has remarked on more than once. He takes the worst of the impact every time, shielding her however he can. To this day, I’m pretty sure he hasn’t done that with anyone else? (chapter 38, chapter 77).

He opened up to her when he was troubled (chapter 50), sharing some of his innermost turmoil and suffering, letting her help him when he usually would rather not burden anyone else with what plagues him. Further proof of how deeply he trusts her, enough to start putting aside his bad habit of bottling up his troubles for her.

Refused an opportunity to go home AND reconnect with the first person he truly felt comfortable with in the FIre Nation (Piandao), choosing to stay by Azula’s side instead and protect her from people who would most likely harm her (chapter 54).

Nearly killed two gladiators whose sponsors were attempting to marry Azula against her will (chapter 70, chapter 169).

Put aside every shred of his dignity and accepted all punishments Azula forced on him, enduring everything because he thought he deserved it for wronging her (the ENTIRE Rough Rhinos arc).

Gave her the better portions of food during their accidental trip through the forest (again, Rough Rhinos arc) AND saves food for her (chapter 124), meaning, prioritizing her needs over his own. We all KNOW how much Sokka loves food, Azula more than anyone, and the implications of him not eating so she could have more were pretty clear regarding how much she means to him, as far as I can tell.

Cooked for her, sometimes to catastrophic results, but he still tried :’D (chapter 131, chapter 151 to a fault).

Writes haiku for her, and it’s SPECIFICALLY STATED that he only manages to complete proper poems whenever he’s writing about her, as everything else he writes he leaves incomplete or adds too many syllables (chapter 38, chapter 104).

Controls his strongest impulses very often when it comes to physical affection throughout Part 1 (namely in Ember Island and Giving In arcs), always privileging her needs above his own. He’s willing to stop before outright penetrative sex in chapter 97, for Azula’s benefit, and only goes for it when she directly asks him to. Her comfort and happiness are the priority, not his own.

Embarrasses himself willingly just to make her laugh (I’m sure there are many possible examples of this, but right now I can’t find them, but I found one instance of it in chapter 130, at least).

Challenged a nobleman (Kuan) for behaving disrespectfully towards Azula, by dismissing her interests and choices, yet Sokka restrained himself when Azula demanded it of him (chapter 36) and accepted the punishment Kuan forced on him without further protest or causing any more trouble for Azula.

Looked after her when she was sick, no matter if she was really mad at him at the time (White Lotus Attack arc).

Cheered her up after the first ball in the Festivals, after listening to her personal plight with Admiral Zhao (chapter 94)

Offered to teach basic swordsmanship to a kid so that the kid’s father would be on good terms with Azula, helping her craft stronger political allies (chapter 133).

Defends Azula constantly before anyone who may try to undermine or insult her (outright punched Zuko for saying thoughtless things about his sister in chapter 64, lashed out at Iroh for talking shit about her in chapter 95, attacked Rhone as soon as he spoke against Azula in 114 and threatened him in 160).

Comforts her often whenever she’s troubled, especially in matters pertaining her parents and the unpleasant strife they’ve caused her, both in the past and in current times (Ember Island arc, The Fire Nation Festivals arc, The Fire Lord’s Shadow arc). He’s also not judgmental, doesn’t tell her what to think, he mainly listens and helps her deal with her conflicted feelings.

Gladly agrees to change their original deal so he can stay with Azula for good instead of returning to his family, as he intended (chapter 107, Whaletail Island arc).

CRAFTED A BETROTHAL NECKLACE FOR HER??? :’) (chapter 131)

MARRIED HER. TWICE (Return to Shu Jing arc). I mean... really. The very logic of marriage says it’s something absolutely special you don’t do with just ANYONE? And they certainly live by that logic, completely. That something so obviously unique to his relationship with her happened so recently and yet you still sent this ask is... weird to me. Very weird.

In a slightly more intimate note: Sokka has never slept through the night with anyone but Azula. He has never woken up with someone beside him other than Azula. She’s literally the only one he’s ever done that with, and the only one he ever wants to do it with. Started in chapter 64, has happened many, many times since.

Endeavors to become a better painter because she inspired him to keep trying. They’ll start making collaborative art together starting in chapter 201 :’) and in 221 they will make a veeeery special artwork that’s basically their masterpiece.

Climbed a volcano to find a flower to give to her as a token of everlasting love? (chapter 125) :’D

Nearly died at the hands of Jeong Jeong’s schemes all be it to stay loyal to Azula (also chapter 125).

Got her a Fire Lily in the Festivals, something no one else had ever done for her, cultural connotations of it demand I single this out because it’s a big deal in the Fire Nation, he’s never done that for anyone else and never will (chapter 146).

Constantly asks for her lychee wine, her favorite drink, whenever they go places. The fact that Azula’s heart seems to grow twenty sizes every time he goes out of his way to find her perfect drink should be pretty telling...?

Overworked himself to make her dragon’s perfect armor as a birthday gift for her (Azula’s birthday arc), then still managed to win a fight for her sake despite his body was in bad shape.

Told her being without her feels like sleepwalking through life, waiting until she’s around again so he can wake up and feel like himself once more (chapter 86).

Offered his services and support in helping in the fulfillment Azula’s dream of offering women in the Fire Nation bigger opportunities and roles to make a difference in the world, by training the Enforcers in swordsmanship (Whaletail Island arc).

Accompanied Azula throughout her investigation in The Fire Lord’s Shadow arc, offering her all the support he could in that endeavor, day and night if need be, no matter how dangerous things got he was always there with her.

Trusted Azula so much he allowed her to BEND THROUGH HIM :’) I can guarantee that there’s no way anyone else can do that with Sokka other than Azula.

Sneaks out of his house, or his cabin, to spend nights with her whenever they can afford to, seen all throughout Part 2.

Changed his entire worldview to understand hers, just as she changed hers to understand his. Developed genuine empathy with someone who should have been his enemy, and saw through her to understand her humanity, something NO ONE BUT HIM had done before, and something he’s certainly not willing to do for many people he started out hating, or that he hated at any point in time (literally seen all through the story).

So... 33 items not enough yet, I wonder? Then stick around. The last arcs of Part 2 pack more than a few punches and many unique Sokkla interactions and situations that MIGHT just serve for you to finally see that their bond is actually one of a kind? Despite I’m pretty sure the story that already has been published proves it completely already... but I guess you may have gone too long witthout reading it in full detail? Eh, whatever the reason may be, you can see for yourself there’s a ton of unique things Sokka and Azula have only done with each other.

#anon #long post #sorry #gladiator #just #*tosses this into the void*#and I'm dead sure #I forgot a ton of things #just by nature their bond is one of a kind #so excuse me if I'm too harsh #but #I can't see how this question is necessary at all

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chickensarentcheap · 3 years

Text

Best Part of Me -Chapter 90

Warnings: none

Tagging @c-a-v-a-l-r-y, @innerpaperexpertcloud, @tragiclyhip, @alievans007

“I have a serious bone to pick with you,” Riley scolds, thousands of miles away in her dorm room at Colorado State. Clad in a black and green plaid hunting jacket that’s miles too big on her petite frame, vibrant red hair tucked up into a ‘trucker style’ ball cap. “Why did I have to find out about this from Douchey McDouche Face?”

Despite there being a near fourteen year age difference between them and no blood ties whatsoever, their relationship has always been strong; even with the familial drama and the miles that have continuously kept them separated. Esme can vividly remember meeting her for the first time; a then three year old gazing up at her -all of seventeen- with pure adoration and idolization. That cute little ginger with her massive green eyes and her already fiery personality; drawn to Esme and her then tomboyish style and her penchant -despite her own small stature- for full contact sports. She can even recall how good it had felt; having someone that DID look at her that way.

For years she'd been practically invisible; the last child between her mother and father, treated as if there’d been simply no love left to bestow on her after piling it on five boys. Her father had been her only source of real affection; the only person who’d ever showed pride in her achievements and never dragged her down for her choices or belittled her passions and interests. When he died, everything went to shit. While her mother’s toxicity increased and she kicked the emotional abuse up several notches, her brothers had all tried -in their obnoxious and overbearing ways- to step up and take their father’s place in her life. They’d all failed, causing her to become uncharacteristically sullen and withdrawn; prone to cutting when the depressions and feelings of inadequacy hit especially hard and her mother no longer hide her rapidly growing hatred for her only daughter. Life had been pretty dark; many moments where she thought the world would be a better place without her in it and she’d actually been in possession of handfuls of pills and had the desire -and the chance- to end the suffering.

Then ‘The Sarge’ had come along. Filling that fatherly role without expecting or demanding it; letting her call the shots and make the moves when it came to accepting him into her life. And he’d ‘shown up’ in ways her mother and brothers never bothered; quietly and lovingly, showing interest in her life and valuing her opinions and thoughts and getting involved in the things she enjoyed. She was no longer the only one on the wrestling squad or the lacrosse team or at swim meets without someone there to support her. Sarge would always be there; sitting in the front row, enthusiastically cheering her on and nudging other parents with his elbow while proudly declaring “that’s MY girl!”.

And just when she thought things couldn’t possibly get better, they did. Sarge was granted full custody of his only child; her mother choosing her career over that adorable redhead. Despite their age difference, she and Riley had become inseparable. Happily and willingly taking the little girl to the movies or the mall; listening to preschool gossip while out for dinner at McDonalds, letting the little girl climb into bed with her during thunderstorms or after a bad dream. Over the years they’d both been branded as the ‘black sheep’; ostracized for their ‘lifestyle choices’ and how ‘wayward and lost’ they’d managed to become.

Nothing brings two people together like shared alienation and pure hatred and spite for their ‘enemies’.

“I didn’t want to bother you,” Esme attempts to reason, as she conducts the video chat in one of the ICU’s private family meeting rooms. “I know finals are coming up. And you’ve been busy with placement. I didn’t want to add THIS to your plate.”

She’d left Tyler in extremely compassionate hands: a quiet and gentle Andy, who’d been standing over his sleeping friend and in the midst of a traditional Aboriginal blessing and prayer for healing. She’d had to leave; the purity and the beauty of both Andy’s heart and the moment too profound for her already fragile emotions to handle. Instead she spends the time with both her sister and Addie; the infant cuddled close to her chest, a receiving blanket emblazoned with images of Baby Dumbo covering her as she nurses. She had terribly missed even the simplicity and familiarity of such a common occurrence; the light weight of her daughter’s tiny body against hers, those tiny hands that gently knead at her breast or grab at her necklace and reach for her hair.

“THIS is my brother in law,” Riley says. “You know how much I love the guy. How much he’s the cat’s ass and I totally approve of how he treats you like a queen.”

“You’re one of the few people in my life who do. Love him.”

“Well NOT everyone can have exceptional taste. They’re just bitter and jealous. You got out of that shit hole and away from their crap. They’re all still stuck in and thriving on it; too chicken shit to ever think on their own, in fear of pissing off Mommy Dearest. Tyler’s the best thing that came along to that family in...well...forever. They’re just pissed they can’t control him; that he gives zero fucks about any of them and doesn't shy away from letting them know.”

“Mommy Dearest still insists he’s the WORST thing to ever happen. That I’ve somehow been forced into this life and he’s somehow brainwashed me and has some strong and powerful hold over me that keeps me around.”

Riley gives a derisive snort.

“I mean even in her condition, she still managed to send me an email asking me when I was going to get my shit together and realize ‘that man’ is nothing but poison and bad news. She didn’t even remember the twins’ birthdays or Millie’s. Or she did and just didn’t give a shit. She’s always treated those kids differently from the rest. All because she has this stupid, imaginary axe to grind against Tyler.”

“Fuck her,” Riley snarls. “You’re way too good for her. For that whole damn family. You always have been. And he is DEFINITELY way too good for them. Probably why none of your brothers like him; he makes them feel inferior and most definitely puts their masculinity into doubt. They’re probably pissed off their wives think of him when they’re flicking the bean.”

Esme frowns. “Riley!”

“Please tell me you’re still not bringing your bullshit; the whole insecurity crap. Who cares if other women lust after your husband? Or if they get themselves off thinking about him? Who is the one HE is getting off in person? Who gets to have THAT going down on her whenever she damn well wants? Cut your shit; he only has eyes for you.”

“It’s not him I don’t trust.”

“He knows how to say no. I’m sure he has, many times. No one else exists in his eyes. There’s not one woman in this world that would make that man unfaithful. So stop. Let other women...and probably more than a handful of men...fantasize about him. You get the real thing. I mean, he is so hot, he almost turned ME straight. Almost.”

Esme laughs at that.

“And that last picture you sent? The family one you guys did before Christmas? Whoa! Dude is looking thick and buff as fuck! What are you feeding him?”

“His favourite meal. Remember what he told you THAT was?”

“I sure as shit do! It’s the same as mine. Atta boy. The man from down under likes to spend a lot of time down under. That’s the spirit! And speaking of my favorite Aussie, what the fuck Tyler? What kind of god awful shitty mess did you get yourself caught up in?”

“Godawful shitty mess does not even begin to accurately describe what happened, believe me.”

“I called your place because I wanted to come down and visit for a couple of weeks next month. Finally see Australia! Bring the new girl for you all the meet. Cuddle my nieces and nephews and spoil the shit out of them with presents and candy. And what do I find out? What does Fire Chief Dick for Brains tell me?”

“I’m sorry, Ry. I should have called you. I just didn’t want to burden you. I know you have a lot going on with school and placement and your social life and…”

“Fuck all of that. None of that matters. You’re my sister. That’s my brother in law. The father of my nieces and nephews. You’re my family. All that matters to me is you guys.”

“Please don’t take it personally. It’s just a huge mess and my brain is not functioning at a hundred percent right now. All I’ve been concentrating on is him. He’s my number one priority right now; helping him heal and getting him out of here and sent to a hospital back home. I didn’t purposefully leave you out.”

“Do you need me to come? Just say the word MeMe. I’ll get on the next flight.”

Esme smiles at the nickname; a little something a then four year old Riley had come up with because she couldn’t properly pronounce her new step sister’s name. “I missed that,” she says. “Hearing you call me that.”

“You’ll always be MeMe to me. Do you need me there? Do you WANT me there? Because I will put everything aside and get to you. You know I will.”

“As much I’d love to see you and have you here, I don’t want you to do that. I want you to concentrate on school and your placement and your new love. And Tyler would want all that, too. He would not expect you to drop everything for him. He’d give you shit for it, you know he would.”

“He is such a stubborn fuck, I swear. Love the guy, but he does my head in. And this isn’t about expecting it from me; it’s about me wanting to be there for you. I want to be there for you. Let me be there for you.”

“Ry, I love you and appreciate you so much. And I miss you. Terribly. But this isn’t the place for you. You need to stay where you are and concentrate on school and just get on with things.”

“How am I supposed to do that when Tyler is messed up like his? How am I supposed to concentrate on things when you’re going through this?”

“Because that’s what we BOTH want you to do. There is no reason for you to put your life on hold to come here. Everything is so up in the air right now. There’s no timetable for his recovery; we have no idea how long it’s going to be until he can be sent home. And even then he’s going to be admitted to a hospital there. It’ll be awhile until he’s home, home.”

“This is just such bullshit,” Riley sighs heavily. “I am so sorry. MeMe. That you’re going through this. I know how much you love him. I can’t even begin to imagine what it’s like; seeing him so torn up. It was bad, wasn’t it. What was done to him?”

“It was pretty damn bad. He was in really rough shape when he was brought in.”

“How rough?”

“The roughest. Worse than seven years ago. Way worse. He told me that he didn’t want to die, but he was expecting it.”

“Jesus…” Riley breathes. “...for a guy like Tyler to come right out and admit that…”

“It was horrible; seeing him like that. I will never forget that as long as I live. I thought what I saw on the bridge...had to do on the bridge...was awful. But seeing him? After the surgeries and all the wounds so new and fresh? I can’t even begin to describe it. How it made me feel.”

“I am so sorry, I am so goddamn sorry.”

“I mean, that’s the love of my life. The father of my kids. The strongest person I’ve ever known. And to see him like that…like this…” she takes a deep, shaky breath and releases it slowly. “...it hurts. So much. That’s my whole heart, Riley. HE’S my whole heart.”

“I’m going to come there. To Dhaka. I don’t want you going through this alone. I don’t…”

“I’m fine,” Esme assures her. “I really am. I’m not alone either; a lot of friends are here to help out and watch over me. And now I’ve got this little muffin…” she lifts the edge of the blanket and glances down at Addie; those huge brown eyes staring up at her, then crinkling when the infant smiles. “...it’s better now that she’s here. Or at least that one of them is here.”

“Do you want me to go to Australia? I can stay at your place, help with the kids. As much as I hate Fire Chief Dick for Brains, I’ll put up with him. Just for you.”

“The kids are fine, I promise. I just miss them. A lot. Once he’s transferred home, it’ll be a whole new ballgame.”

“Any remote idea on what that’s going to be?”

“Two weeks. Three at the most.”

“Shit…” Riley shakes her head. “...oh Tyler, what the hell bruh…”

“It could have been worse. It could have been a lot worse. There could have been five kids with no daddy.”

“I don’t even want to think about that. How is he now? How is he doing?”

“He’s being weaned off of sedation. He has wakeful moments; periods where he’s pretty lucid. His memory is shit; he asks the same questions at least six times an hour. That’s just the meds though. They said once the sedation is totally out of him, his brain will go back to normal.”

“Whatever normal is for Tyler,” Riley chides.

“He’s able to stay up for quite a while. He can carry on a conversation, but he gets confused really easily. And then he gets frustrated and embarrassed and he starts shutting down. And his emotions are all over the place; joking and somewhat happy one minute, a weepy mess the next.”

“How’s the PTSD been?”

“Now that he’s more coherent? It’s been a mess. When he wakes up he’s very disoriented and if he’s alone or there’s people in the room he doesn’t know…”

“Freaks out?”

“He loses it. His fight or flight kicks in. And you know Tyler…”

“Always picks fight.”

Esme nods. “And he doesn’t know what he’s doing or saying when he’s like that and he’s freaking out because he thinks I’m dead and no one can convince him otherwise. A PSW came in; while I was out. Woke him. To wash his hair and trim his beard.”

“Oh no…”

“He fucking lost it, Ry. Which I knew would happen and is why I told them NOT to send someone in. He just went off. It took four people to hold him down, and that was AFTER they gave him sedation. You would have thought nothing was wrong with him; that’s how hard he fought. This is a man who can’t even walk right now. And he still scared the shit out of the PSW. Threatened to break his neck with his bare hands and told him how he’s done it before. Many times. Then told him he’d rip his head off and shove it up his ass.”

“So what’s the difference in him after all this? That sounds like Tyler on a good day.”

Esme can’t help but laugh. “I think he made the PSW piss his pants.”

“Serves him right if he can’t follow instructions. Is it in his chart? That no one is supposed to come in?”

Esme nods.

“Well fuck him then. Read the patient’s chart. It’s not that hard. Is it wrong that I’d give my right arm to see him rip someone’s head off and shove it up their ass? I bet he could do it too. I bet he’s done shit that defies logic.”

“Well he did once kill two people with a garden rake.”

“How fitting. A Rake, using a rake. Perfection. What’s his injuries like? Kyle says they’re pretty gnarly.”

“Why do you sound so pleased at the thought?”

“I’m in nursing school. This shit excites me. I can’t help it.”

“Gunshot wound to the back, lots of stitches, a torn MCL and ACL, open fracture of the right femur…”

“Do you have pictures of it?”

“Of what?”

“His femur.”

“Hell no, I don’t. Why would I want pictures of that?”

“Because that would be fucking amazing to see. Was it a true open fracture? Bone protruding and everything?”

“I guess. His friend said the bone was showing.”

“That is wild. I would have loved pictures; before AND after.”

Esme grimaces. “You’re disturbed.”

“Did they give him an ilizarov?”

“They said it would be on for a least three months. He is NOT happy.”

“Can you take pictures of that? And the gunshot wound?”

“Riley…”

“For scientific reasons, I swear. I just want to see them. I could even show my one prof and Tyler could be a case study.”

“I’d rather my husband NOT be one, thank you. He’s not your show and tell project.”

“Just go and take a couple pictures. Please? Pretty please? With whipped cream and sprinkles and a cherry on top?”

“He’s sleeping. I am not going in there and waking him up because you're a freak.”

“Best time to do it; when he’s sleeping.”

“I would never do that to him. There’s this thing called consent. I don’t know if you’ve ever heard of it…”

“When he wakes up, ask him if you can take pictures. If you tell them they’re for Red, he’ll be good with it. I know he will. He loves me.”

“He does, actually.”

“I can’t wait to see you guys. I’ll come down; once he’s in a hospital there. Sound good?”

“Sounds good.”

“I talked to Mildred by the way…”

“I don’t know how many times I have to tell you, Millie is NOT short for Mildred.”

“Actually, it is.”

“Her name is not Mildred, though.”

“She LOVES when I call her that. Loves it. Anyway, how grown up is she sounding all of a sudden? It’s like she’s six going on sixteen! What is up with that kid?”

“She’s her father. What more do I have to say?”

“She even sounds like him! The way she says certain words and little sayings she has. I couldn’t believe it; it was like talking to a mini, girl version of him. Freaky! She’s pretty pissed, huh? At you?”

Esme sighs. “Unfortunately.”

“I told her to smarten up. That she’s got a great mom and she needs to appreciate it AND you. I told her to get her shit together and respect you. That if her dad finds out what she’s up to, it won’t be pretty. I said that he’ll stick up for her mom no matter WHO is disrespecting her. I think that scared her.”

“There’s nothing she hates more than the thought of her daddy being mad at her. That’s her WORST fear, I swear.”

“Well she needs to cut the attitude. I don’t tolerate that shit. I don’t think I’m the favorite Aunt anymore, by the way.”

“You’re her only Aunt.”

“I guess I’m excommunicated then. And speaking of being an aunt, let me see my little poop face.”

Esme removes the blanket covering Addie, then holds her onto the arms and places her in line with the camera.

“Oh my God…” Riley gives an excited squeal. “...look at Auntie Ry Ry’s little poop face! You’re getting so big!”

“You’re kidding, right?” Esme laughs. “She just got into the newborn clothes. She’ll be four months.”

“She’s still grown a lot since the last time I saw her. Look at you, Addie! Look how beautiful you are. Look at how much you look like your mommy! You’re the lucky one, huh? Getting your momma’s looks? She’s smiling, MeMe. That smile is everything! She has Tyler’s smile.”

“It’s the one thing they all inherited. And she also got his appetite. I really need to get back to feeding her and I know it’s not the most pleasant thing to see while trying to have a conversation.”

“I don’t know, MeMe. I’ve had to look at worse things. You’ve got really nice boobs, actually. Tell him I said he’s lucky.”

“You’re too much. But I miss you. I can’t wait to see you.”

“As soon as you guys get home, I’ll be on my way,” Riley promises. “And if you need anything, and I mean anything, you call me. Right away, hear me?”

“Loud and clear.”

“Chin up, okay? He’s got this. He’s a tough shit. He’ll be alright.”

“I know he will,” Esme says confidently, then blows her step sister a kiss in farewell before killing the video feed.

****

She pokes her head into the room when she returns, smiling when she finds him awake and sitting up in bed; the angle of the mattress slowly increasing with each hour, giving his back used to being in different positions and not allowing the muscles to settle and stiffen.

“Hey,” she greets. “You’re awake.”

“I am.”

“What are you doing?”

“I’m texting you. Just taking me forever; hands won’t stop shaking.”

“I’m here, you might as well just tell me what you want to say.”

“I’m gonna send it anyway…” a grin tugs at the corners of his mouth. “...I’m almost done. Be patient.”

“That’s more your thing; being patient.”

“You’ve been plenty patient the last couple of days. There...all done...sent.”

Her phone vibrates within the pocket of her hoodie, and she pulls it out to check the message; smiling at the simple -yet honest and heartfelt- words. “You’re cute,” she gushes. “I’m going to send you one back.” She steps out into the hall; composing her own text. Just a short and sweet: I love you too. Accompanied by a selfie of her puckering her lips for a kiss. “Well…” she pokes her head back into the room. “...did you get it?”

“Yep.” A broad smile spreads across his face. “Want me to send something back? A dick pic?”

“Not when there’s a tube in it, I don’t. I do have a separate file for them though; where I put all the dick pics you send me when you’re away from home.”

“You’re dirty.”

“You’re the one who sends them! Where’s Andy?”

“He went downstairs to get something to eat. I told him I’d be fine by myself.”

“Pretty awesome, huh? That he can all this way to see you?”

“Yeah, it is. He’s a good guy; I’m glad I sucked it up and talked to him that day at the school. Why are you poking your head in like that? Why don’t you just come in?”

“I have a surprise for you.”

“Are you naked?”

“You wish.”

“Is it a blowjob?”

Esme frowns. “What is wrong with you?”

“A lot. I probably couldn’t get it up anyway. Not with a tube sticking out of it and all the meds I’m on. What’s the surprise? Want me to close my eyes? Will it make it better?”

“This is going to be an awesome surprise no matter what. But go ahead.”

“You ARE naked, aren’t you. Baby, as much I appreciate your willingness and your effort to make me feel better at all costs, that part of me is not gonna work right now.”

“I am definitely NOT naked. It’s going to be a while before you get to see me with no clothes on. You are nowhere close to being ready for that.”

“You’re underestimating me.”

“That’s one thing I never do, trust me. You want the surprise or not? I promise you, this is an amazing one.”

“Even better than when the kids make me breakfast in bed and cupcakes for my birthday?”

“Even better,” she says, and then waits for him to close his eyes; carrying Addie into the room. “Don’t open them until I tell you to. I brought you a little visitor.”

“One of those hospital therapy dogs? Like a corgi or some shit?”

“Way better and way cuter.”

“I don’t know, wife. Those are pretty damn cute.”

“Trust me, this is much better and will cheer you up a hundred times more than any dog ever could.” She stands on the right side of the bed; easier to transfer Addie onto his good arm. And she removes the receiving blanket draped over her daughter as she leans over the railing; a smile already curving the baby’s lips and her tiny hands reaching for her father. “No sudden movements, alright? You don’t want to accidentally hurt the surprise. Open your eyes.”

He does as he’s told. A brief moment of confusion etched on his face as he looks down at the baby in his wife’s arms, then up at her. “Are you serious?”

“Andy brought her. She’s been missing you just as much as you’ve been missing her. Look at her; she’s already smiling at you. She’s so happy to see you. There’s no one she loves the way she loves her daddy. Wait until you see her little outfit.”

“I thought she wasn’t coming until tomorrow. That Ovi was bringing her.” His eyes narrow. “How long was I asleep??”

“There was a change of plans; a little something Andy and Ovi came up with together. Here…” she gently lays Addie along his left forearm; settling the baby’s head in the crook of his elbow. “...look at her little shirt? Isn’t it perfect? Daddy’s little peanut. Andy made it for her.”

“It is perfect. SHE’S perfect.”

“Look at her looking at you...look at that smile..all she sees is her daddy. Not what happened to him. Feels good, right? To have her here? To have her in your arms like this?”

“Yeah…” emotion chokes at him, and he leans down to press a kiss to Addie’s forehead, lightly chuckling when those tiny hands grab at his hair and his nose. “...feels amazing, actually.”

Esme leans into him, draping an arm across his shoulders. “I’m pretty sure she feels the same way. She definitely missed you.”

“I missed her,” he says, and kisses the tip of Addie’s nose. “Daddy missed you so much, baby girl. So much.” The tears come now; a mixture of relief and happiness combined with the anger and frustration at being laid up and unable to perform even the simplest tasks for himself.

“Hey…” Esme places a kiss to his temple and rubs and squeezes his shoulder. “...it’s okay. All uphill from here, remember? You’re doing amazing; don’t doubt that. Please don’t doubt that.”

“I didn’t think I’d get this chance again; to see her, hold her. I was pretty damn sure I wouldn’t.”

“Well you’re a tough cookie, Tyler Rake. If there’s anyone on this earth that can survive THAT and do this well, it’s you. I know how much you love proving people wrong. And you’re doing that. I also know how much you want to get out of Dhaka. I know that’s your main driving force for trying as hard as you are.”

“I just want to go home. Even if it is to a hospital there. I just want to be home.”

“Soon,” she promises. “And if you keep doing as well as you are, it will be even sooner than any of us thought. I don’t want you to hurt yourself though, okay? I know sometimes you try to do to much, too soon. And I don’t want you doing that. I don’t want you busting your ass to the point it sets you back. I know you don’t want that either.”

“I just want to feel my legs. It’s driving me crazy that I can’t. It freaks me out. I wake up and I forget it’s only temporary and I fucking lose it. You know that’s one of the worst things possible in my eyes; not being able to do things, not being able to have the life I had.”

“There’s no reason to worry about that. In a couple days, you’ll get the feeling back. This too shall pass. It won’t be a while until you’re back to being the old you, but you WILL get there. I promise. And you can’t tell me this won’t help. Having Addie here. That it won’t lift your spirits a bit.”

“She already has. She’s lifted them a lot, actually. I didn’t think I’d ever get to do this again. See you, see her.”

“Well, you DID get to do it. We’re here. We’re BOTH here.” She moves her hand to the nape of his neck, massaging gently. “Are you okay with her? She seems pretty happy where she is; I don’t think she’s going to want you to put her down anytime soon.”

“I’m good. I’m not giving her up. They’d have to pry her out of my cold, dead hands. She’s getting bigger, huh?”

“I thought the same thing when I first saw her. Feels like we’ve been away from her for a lot longer than we have. She’s still super tiny though.”

“She is. Just a wee little thing. Like her momma,” he presses another kiss to Addie’s brow. “Beautiful like your momma too.”

“In case you haven’t noticed by now, daddy is extremely biased when it comes to mommy,” Esme addresses the infant. “He always has been.”

“It’s not being biased when it’s the truth. It still feels weird; how light she is. Even Tanner with all his issues was never this small. She’s definitely all you. Now I’ll have two people small enough to pick up and put in my pocket.”

She combs her fingers through his hair and pecks his cheek. “You sure have your cute moments.”

“You seem to bring that side of me out.”

“Well it’s a very nice side. But I like all your sides, so…”

Smiling, he tips his head up towards her, and she leans down and places a soft, lingering kiss on his lips.

“I know you didn’t agree with it,” she says, when he turns his attention back to Addie. “Her coming here.”

She notices the wince that briefly takes hold of his face; the simple action of using his right hand to tug the baby’s socks back up causing pain in the injured shoulder.

“I was just worried. About her being here if things went to shit again. I know we think they’re all gone; Asif’s people. But I didn’t want to take that chance. Especially with her.”

“There hasn’t been any movement. Not even a whisper of trouble. And you know Anil; he’s got all kinds of ears to the ground. I think it’s really over this time. I think we’re finally going to be able to put this place behind us. It’s time; to leave Dhaka behind.”

“I definitely don’t plan on coming back for a visit, that’s for sure. So if you have Dhaka on that ‘places like you’d like to vacation’ list, you can go ahead and erase it right now.”

“I have had enough of Dhaka to last me a lifetime, believe me. You know, you have this real habit of choosing extremely dramatic and painful ways to get out of taking me anywhere.”

Tyler grins. “Neither of the times I bailed on you were intentional, I swear.”

“I think we should stop planning ahead when it comes to going away. It’s like we jinx it somehow; talking about it too soon. How about next time, we just decide on the spur of the moment to go somewhere? That way we shock the universe with our spontaneity and it doesn’t have time to recover until we’re BACK from our trip.”

“Sounds good to me. And we’re going to need one; a trip. When all this is over. I know it’s going to be a while, but we are definitely going to need a vacation.”

“Well tell your pocketbook to expect Bora Bora or The Maldives. I’m getting my suite on the water.”

“I will get you whatever you want, baby. Whatever your little heart desires. You just tell me what it is and I’ll do it. I’ll get it for you.”

“You healthy and back on your feet. That’s all I want.”

“I’m working on it.”

“I know you are,” she kisses his temple. “And you’re doing amazing. I’m so proud of you, Tyler. So fucking proud of you.”

“You’re going to make me cry. Again.”

“I can’t help that you’re so beautiful when you cry. And it would be happy tears, right?”

“Very happy tears.” He lays his palm on Addie’s stomach, all of her fingers wrapping around one of his. “She’s tiny, but she’s strong. Has a hell of a grip.”

“She’s like her daddy. Tough as nails.”

“I don’t know,” he smiles up at her. “I think her momma has me beat in the toughness department.”

“I think…” she places a kiss to his brow, then the bridge of his nose. “...you totally underestimate yourself. He does, doesn’t he, Addie? Underestimate himself. Tell daddy he’s tough as hell and the strongest, bravest person you know. Tell him how the sun shines out of his ass and he poops glitter and pisses rainbows. That’s how you look at him, might as well tell him too. Because his ego isn’t quite big enough, yet.”

He smirks. “My ego took a hell of a beating.”

“Well tell your ego to shut the fuck up,” she affectionately tousles his hair. “There was nothing you could have done, Tyler. You didn’t know this going to happen; that things were going to go this bad. There was nothing to suggest that he who shall not be mentioned was capable of something like that.”

“We both knew he was sketchy as fuck.”

“Being sketchy and being psychotic are two totally different things. You did everything right; you got Neysa and Aarev out, you went back to get him out. There’s no way you could have known what he was going to do.”

“Should have listened to Koen and left his ass there.”

“Koen said that?”

He nods.

“You remember that? Him saying that?”

“I can remember things that happened BEFORE it all went down. Things that I said, that other people said. I can remember getting Neysa and Aarev out and going back in to get N...him. But after that, it’s pretty muddled.”

“But you do remember things?”

“I THINK I’m remembering them. I THINK it’s things that happened. I’m not sure though; if they’re real or my brain is just making shit up. I DO remember...vividly...him shooting me in the back. Everything else? I don’t know what’s real and what I’m imagining. And honestly, babe? I don’t think I want to remember.”

“But you might. And that could get pretty scary for you; things coming back to you.”

“I know.”

“Once we’re home, we’ll get you some help okay? Some therapy. For the mental stuff.”

“Alright.”

“I know you hate that side; seeing therapists and talking to strangers and having to take meds. But you know what I hate? Seeing your brain torturing you like it does. I hate that you have to go to war every damn day with your own mind. I just want you to be okay. You know that, right?”

“I do know that. I’ve never doubted that. Not once in the last seven years.”

“Even the toughest need help, sometimes. And I’ll get you that help. I promise. I’ve got you. Always. You’re my ride or die, remember?”

“Yeah…” he chuckles. “...you’re mine too.”

“You’re going to be okay,” she assures him. “Inside AND out. You’re already on your way. And I’m not going anywhere. I'll be here, right beside you, every step of the way.”

“What about after? When I AM better? You still going to stick around? The whole pain meds thing?”

“We talked about that. You know where I stand; about you needing to deal with that. That’s a deal breaker, Tyler. Because I can’t live like that. And I won’t let our kids live like that either. I love you. More than you could possibly ever comprehend. But that? I can’t do THAT.”

“I’ll do whatever I have to. I don’t want to lose you. Or my kids. Whatever I need to do...whatever YOU need me to do...I’ll do it. No hesitations. Whatever it is.”

“We’ll cross that bridge when we come to it, okay? Let’s concentrate on what we’re going through right now. One thing at a time. I don’t want you to worry about anything else, alright?”

He nods. “I love you. I always have. I always will.”

“I love you,” she says, and leans down to press a kiss to his lips. “We’re going to get through this. Our track record for getting through tough shit is at one hundred percent. I want to keep it that way.”

“Yeah…” he closes his eyes as she rests her forehead against his. “...so do I.”

#Tyler Rake #Tyler Rake fan fiction #Tyler Rake fan fic

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hgb94 · 4 years

Text

I’ve got a lot of emotions about Zolf, clearly. This got...a little long. So, here are all the things I love about Zolf, and all the things about him that break my heart. Really, all the things I love about him end up breaking my heart. I’m definitely not projecting at all in here. This is 100% well thought out.

Zolf is The Protector. It’s one of the first and most obvious of his characteristics that I noticed. He constantly tries to protect the lives of people around him, even if he barely knows them, even if he doesn’t particularly like them. It was heartwarming to see how deeply he cared for people he’d known such a short time. He knew Sasha for about 10 seconds before stepping in between her and Barret’s men. “Didn’t seem very fair odds.” He’d known Hamid for two or three days before offering to wear Barret’s ring for him. “Mr Barret, as their employer, you are dealing with me.” He didn’t even like Wilde, but he categorically refused to hand him over to Gourmand’s men in exchange for his own (and the group’s) safety. He grew to despise Bertie, but still did his best to keep him safe. And when he finally becomes enraged by Bertie and is ready to kill him, his central reason is: “I have had it with his constant endangering of the people that I like and love!” The only thing that gets him to stand down is Sasha reminding him that Bertie’s death would upset Hamid. He’s generally the one advocating for the more sensible course of action. He gets angry with Hamid for engaging in reckless heroics and yells at him for a solid 5 minutes before admitting that he feels responsible for him and he doesn’t want him to die. Sasha wants to ride the gyrocopters, and he’s citing a newspaper article about recent crashes. It was endearing and heartwarming, but by the time he left in Prague, it was heartbreaking, for three reasons.

He blames himself when the people he cares for get hurt, and when he can’t protect them, he feels useless. After the catacombs and Mr. Ceiling, he can’t walk, he can’t fight, and he doesn’t even have a weapon. Everything he did to protect them during that arc, at significant risk to himself, wasn’t enough. “I’ve been so useless.” Sasha died. Hamid got hurt. He had to sit at the top of the stairs, unable to do anything, listening to Hamid scream as he was burned by the fire elemental. One of the only things he really has left to protect them after the catacombs is his ability to heal, which is probably why it hurts so much when Hamid refuses his healing, choosing to use a potion instead. (To my knowledge, Hamid has never willingly accepted healing from Zolf since learning that Zolf’s healing powers were connected to the whole Poseidon drowning sacrifice thing.) There in the Arc, without his legs, without a weapon or armor, healing is the only thing he feels like he can offer. And Hamid won’t let him. The world collapsed and not only can he not fix it, he blames himself for it. “I don’t think I’m powerful, I think I’m powerless! I can’t do anything about this, I can’t fix the mistakes that I’ve made. I can’t walk, I can’t get out and heal people because I need help to get down the stairs.”

He’ll do anything to protect others, but he hates asking for help himself. Honestly, although I didn’t realize it until later, this starts becoming evident at Dover. The only thing Zolf can do during his imprisonment and court-martial is provide Hamid with information to formulate a defense. He has to sit and wait and rely on his new friends to get him out of it. He was powerless. And afterward, Hamid had to push him to accept a temporary loan of 500 gold to pay off his debt to the navy. Later, when Mme. Rose asks them about their most embarrassing memory, Zolf’s is being court-martialed. When he’s lectured at the Temple of Poseidon and sent to cross the channel on a tiny boat in a terrible storm, he doesn’t ask anyone to come with him. He makes it perfectly clear how dangerous this will be, assures them that he’s the only one who needs to do this and won’t blame anyone for taking the train instead, and then waits for them to choose. In the catacombs, with his ruined leg, he focuses on Hamid. He buries the fact that he’s now effectively legless. Box that up and deal with it later, because Hamid and Sasha need him to stay calm. And on the way out of the Arc, it doesn’t matter how much he’s done for the group, he feels the need to apologize to Sasha for her having to carry him around when he’s legless. “You investigate, I’ll watch up here. Don’t want to be a burden.” When she stretches out her back at the hotel after putting him down, he apologizes again, like it’s his fault.

The only life Zolf willingly risks is his own. When Sasha goes overboard crossing the channel, he only pauses long enough to try and make sure Hamid is safe before throwing himself after her, while offering Poseidon his life for hers. As Mr. Ceiling forms a massive robot to attack the group, he’s in a wheelchair, legless, without armor or weapons, and he hides the three of them from its sight and puts himself between it and them. When Earhart puts a gun to Sasha’s head, he shakes off his airsickness and draws her attention. “If you expect me to fear death, you’re going to be sorely disappointed.” I don’t think that was false bravado. It’s true. He doesn’t fear his death. He’s never been afraid for himself. He fears the deaths of people he loves. I would argue that is his greatest fear.

I also love Zolf’s passion for romance novels. It’s freaking adorable at first. He’s locked in a jail cell and falls in love with a series of romance novels. “Jennifer, no!” “Richard is not the right one for you!” From the description, they’re simple, melodramatic, and predictable, and I’ve definitely read a few books of that exact genre. He loves them and they’re a wonderful escape for him. When he reacts so violently to Bertie endangering the author, Harrison Campbell, it seems a little excessive at first. And ultimately perhaps that was just the straw that broke the camel’s back, the last in a long string of incidents that caused him to snap. But I get it. I have that thing. The thing that you go to on the bad days. When your mind won’t stop spinning out of control with worst-case scenarios.When you have to get out of your own head for a few hours. When you’re numb and struggling to feel anything at all. It becomes a lifeline that you hold onto when you’re drowning, and to have someone tell you that it’s trash, to mock it, to try and destroy your connection to it…I’d have tried to toss Bertie overboard too. Okay, so maybe I am projecting a little. Zolf’s self-confidence and faith. At the start, Zolf projects a lot of confidence. He’s the leader, he guides the group, makes decisions, and he seems to know who he is, Zolf Smith, Cleric of Poseidon. He believes that he knows what his god wants, and he’s devoted to those beliefs. His confidence balances his caution and allows him to lead the group through dangerous situations while keeping a clear head. After visiting the Temple of Poseidon, he does his best to alter course to his new perception of Poseidon’s desires, but there’s a little crack, a hairline fracture in his understanding of his god and himself. And then Mr Ceiling takes a chisel and hammer to the cracks and shatters Zolf’s faith. “I saw a robot casually decide, ‘maybe I should be a god’, and do you know what, I think it could have done it, because, our gods, right, they’re like us. They’re as stupid and as fallible as us, and they screw up. If something can casually decide, ‘maybe I’ll be a god’, and I have no way of saying that it couldn’t become a god, what’s Poseidon?” He’s faced with the fallout of their choices in Paris, and he doesn’t know if they did the right thing. The economy of Paris has collapsed, chaos, riots, violence, how many people have died? Is this really better? “I don’t know what I’m doing most of the time, I can’t see into the future, but usually my decisions don’t affect millions of people!” And after his dreams from Poseidon, Zolf is filled with more questions than answers. “I don’t know why he’s…stupid dreams and symbolism and rubbish like that and not anything...just…I just want to have a conversation.” Poseidon gives him new legs, but legs aren’t answers. “I just don’t feel like I deserve them. I don’t know why I have them. I don’t know why he’s given them to me. I just don’t know.” They make their way out of Paris and see a Meritocrat destroy Eiffel’s Folly to control the rioting. He learns that his family were part of the Harlequins. Has he been working for the wrong people? And then he nearly kills Bertie and he kills any faith he had left in his ability to lead this group without putting them in danger.

In the end, all of this leads to Prague. He’s lost his faith, he’s doubting his god, he’s doubting the Meritocrats, he’s doubting his choices. “I am the weak link.” “You might believe in me, I don’t anymore.” He’s afraid he’ll crack, make choices that put them at risk, and if he can’t trust himself to protect them, why is he still here? He has to leave. Partly to sort himself out, to deal with his own issues, but also for them. He can’t stay in command when he can’t trust his own choices. “I don’t trust myself, and I don’t trust myself around you.” If someone gets killed, that’s on him. “I know that if something happens again and I crack…I might not be able to do anything to save you.” At the end of the day, he’s still trying to protect them. He just believes that the best protection he can offer is his absence.

And...a little Sasha heartbreak as frosting on this pain cake. Zolf promised to help with her degenerative magical disease. He promised that he wouldn’t let her die. As long as she was with him, he’d be able to slow it down. They’d go do research and look into it and find someone else well-versed in magic and diseases who could cure her. He promised. And then he left. And sure, she could have done it on her own. She could have pushed “cure my disease so I don’t die” to the top of their priority list. She could have told Hamid what was happening, immediately sought out the Aphrodite lot as the cleric of Artemis suggested. She could have done that alone. But this is Sasha we’re talking about, and the only person Sasha ever trusted enough to willingly ask for help was Zolf. And she sits there, listening to him in Prague, listening to all the reasons that he feels he needs to leave. She never brings up her sickness as a reason for him to stay, never even hints at it. She listens to everything he says, and she tells him he should be free to leave. “If you’re choosing to go, then...you should have the choice. That should be allowed.”

#rqg #rqg spoilers #zolf smith #meta #I love him a lot

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nethwan · 4 years

Text

Souvenir II

Note: Before someone complains: for this AU, they have the appareance of young people. She seems to be 15/16 and he is like around 18.

Nationverse / Hurt-comfort

https://archiveofourown.org/works/23601940

https://www.fanfiction.net/s/13549679/1/Souvenir-II

_____________________________

Taiwan took the lead as the Netherlands struggled to keep up, yawning and feeling sick. The previous afternoon, he had come back from a business trip and he had no time to rest. Now they were on their way to look for that blue little bird that she took care. However, as they were moving forward, he wasn’t worried about his exhaustion, but his regret about what happened that afternoon.

Back on the island, Taiwan received him willingly and of her own free will, but he was tired and had a headache. So when she told him a lot of things at the same time and reproach him his delay, he didn’t have any tact to reply.

“You know very well that I have better things to do than wasting my time here with you” he said with such boredom, looking at her as if she were an insignificant being.

The girl was silent, looked away and bit her lip to keep from cry.

“You'd better not have returned” she murmured, leaving him alone.

That night, Taiwan went to sleep early, without talking to him. Those words hurt. They hurt even more than the first time they heard them, but in those years none of them cared, it was enough to ignore each other. Now it was different, things between them had changed. The Netherlands got a lump in his throat, remembering her disappointed face and how her smile disappeared, but he wasn’t ready to face her, he knew she wouldn’t listen.

The next morning, Taiwan was shocked, realizing that the bird had flown away and was no longer returning despite having a wounded leg. The Netherlands offered to help her find it. Taiwan hesitated for a moment, but ended up accepting without giving it much thought, she wanted to show him that she didn't care what he did either.

As soon as they got going, she decided to go ahead so as not to have to see him and perhaps lead him down the worst paths, deliberately, hoping that he would fall. He observed her, in silence. Part of his fatigue was also because of how much he had been wondering why he had acted that way and how he should apologize, but he felt his words wouldn’t be enough.

They spent the whole morning searching and going through every possible place, without success. They walked in silence for a while, until they arrived to a point very inside the woods. Then they decided to rest. Taiwan seemed frustrated, but resigned, as if she already knew she wouldn’t see that bird again. The Netherlands wanted to comfort her, but he didn’t know what to say.

“I’m hungry, I think I’ll eat near the river, besides, I need to wash my hands” she said, taking her portion of food.

“Wait, it's dangerous for you to go alone”

“I can do it without help. Besides you are very slow, you would be a burden” she replied quietly, without seeing him.

He didn’t stop her and let her go, while he hid from the sun at the shade of a tree, feeling even more miserable. To be honest, he hadn’t stop thinking about her since the very first moment he had to go; obviously those words were a lie. For some time now, he started developing feelings for her, it was something he wasn’t expecting and he couldn’t avoid it. Taiwan had the appearance of a teenage girl, small and delicate; she had long chestnut hair, tanned skin, and beautiful brown eyes, and in spite of her impetuous and defiant nature, she completely captivated him.

What they had felt different from his relationship with other nations. She was the only one who had been able to get close, as she was not afraid of him and could look him in the eye. If only he could be honest and tell her all what his heart kept, he thought, while he observed the necklace he got for her in that trip. He sighed and put the gift in his pocket. He laid there and closed his eyes, enjoying the fresh breeze and the relaxing sounds of the woods, recalling the smile on her pretty face and finally he fell asleep.

Taiwan didn’t go far; she wanted to hide from him. After having spent much of the morning as if nothing, she felt even more hurt, realizing he didn’t care at all. Then when it was time to take a break, she couldn’t help and started crying, and that’s why she couldn’t see him in the eye. She hated to feel like that. She had so many mixed feelings about him at the time that it was difficult for her to say for sure what she really felt. Now with what he had told her it was clear that it was not mutual.

After venting enough, Taiwan decided to return. She was about to tell him that it was time to go back home, but she found him completely asleep, exhausted from the journey, work and that walk to the woods. At that moment she thought of playing a practical joke on him. She took some insects and decided to put them on his face. He smiled at the thought of how much it would make him pay for all that grief. Everything was going well, she was ready to making him suffer, but when she got closer to him and saw him, she didn't feel like bothering him anymore.

She knelt down next to him and observed him carefully, analyzing every detail of him. She suppressed a smile, thinking that in spite of his hundreds of years, he still looked and behaved like a young boy. She noticed he was thinner and baggy-eyed, and she worried because maybe he endured hungry. She moved away a leaf he had on his hair and she caressed it softly, even though his hair was in a spiky style it was still soft. Its clear color caught her attention when it was illuminated by the sun. The scar on his forehead gave him an intimidating air, but the expression he had in his sleep was serene. His skin was more tanned than when she met him and it looked burnt by the sun, and his hands were rough for all that hard work.

Then she realized that she didn't hate him one bit, not even if she tried to convince herself otherwise. And when she saw his lips, an idea crossed her mind that terrified her, but she knew that if she didn’t dare maybe she wouldn’t have any other chance. She approached him slowly, as if a force were attracting her and she swallowed saliva without believing what she was about to do. She held her breath and finally kissed him. It wasn’t a passionate kiss, she only touched his lips with hers, hoping to confess even if he didn’t notice it.

However, he wasn’t asleep. At first he slept a few minutes, but when he heard her approaching, he didn’t want to move, he guessed she was planning something and whatever it was, he was willing to put up with it as long as she got her revenge. But that didn’t happen, she stayed there next to him and he had to pretend he was sleeping to no scare her, and then it happened what he never imagined. At that moment, time stopped, he could only feel the warm and soft contact of those sweet lips and the smell of the grass mixed with her scent. Then he opened his eyes and grabbed her by the wrists so that she would not run, while she tried to get away with all her strength.

“No! Let me go! You’re hurting me, idiot” she screamed.

“Then why you did that?” he asked in the softest tone he could.

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry… I don’t know why I did it…” she sobbed, scared, repentant for the first time of her impulses.

The Netherlands looked at her and then pulled her to himself by wrapping his arms around her. Taiwan tried to get away, hitting his chest with her fists, but when she realized he wasn’t trying to hurt her but to embrace her, she slowly calmed down. It was such a clumsy hug, typical of someone who was not used to receiving affection and much less giving it. She could hear his heart beating fast and sense his restlessness. They were like this for a moment that felt eternal. Not even he could explain that reaction to himself, he simply wanted to do it, and he wanted to have her close to him even for an instant.

“Forgive me for what I told you yesterday… actually I missed you so much, from the very moment I left. You were in my thoughts day and night… and I didn’t know how to tell you…” he whispered.

Taiwan was silent. She wasn’t able to move yet, but suddenly she started sobbing again while he let his heart talking, telling her about his desperation for understand that yearning to be by her side. And like her, he was crying too.

Several seconds later, he let go of her slowly, hoping she'd run away, but she didn't. Instead, she stood there, kneeling in front of him, looking at him. Then she cupped his face with her hands, wiped his tears away, got closer to him and kissed him again. He kissed her back with confidence, but still with that clumsy tenderness disguised of shyness. There wasn’t passion in that kiss, only sincere love. When it was over, the two of them hugged again.

No matter how long it took them to meet again, the memory of that afternoon remained forever in their memories.

#nedtai #aph netherlands #aph taiwan #hws netherlands #hws taiwan #aph nedtai #hws nedtai #fanfic

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ssnakey-b · 5 years

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FF8 English-French Translarison, part 21: Mother Trabia

Wooo! Vacation! Well, I actually already have a lot planned, but at least I have a little bit of time to write now. So, as promised last time, today, we are moving on to Trabia for fun times with Selphie’s destroyed school and dead friends.

To open things up, we have a small difference in tone as when asked where Selphoe is, French Squall says she went ahead, whereas English Squall says “I let her go ahead” which I like a little better as it makes it sound like he willingly let her go because he knew she needed to know how her friends were doing.

Next, we have one of my favourite bits here, Selphie’s friend, as it gives us a little insight in Selphie’s past life. We also have an example of misunderstanding in the French version, as Selphie’s friend asks if Squall is looking FOR Selphie. I found this very strange as a kid as Selphie is right there and Squall’s positive respond doesn’t match it, until I realized that in English, she asks if Squall has been looking AFTER Selphie and there clearly was some confusion on the translator’s part.

Mistake aside, it’s a bit weird as it seems to imply this is based on the English text, when most of the differences suggest the French localisation is based on the original Japanese. Maybe there’s a similar issue in Japanese where the two terms are easy to confuse.

And speaking of confusion, the English version has some too! You see, in the version of the game I’m playing for this, the Steam port, much like in all French versions, Squall can answer either “No” or “Play along”. But in the English-language PlayStation version, including the PSN port, which is how I first played the English version, both answers are replaced with... *sigh*... “whatever”. And I don’t even remember if the girls replied anything.

This is one of the main moments that really turned me against the English translation overall, as this to me really exemplified its poor choices, as a genuinely sweet and fun character moment, regardless of answer, is removed entirely and replaced with another case of “lol running gags!”.

Now to be fair, like I said, they changed it for the Steam version, so it seems it was a genuine mistake, but the fact that it was ever there still leave a bad taste in my mouth.

But let’s move on. Here’s another strange difference as if you talk to this sleepy NPC, in the English version, he talks about Tonberry King in his sleep, which seems to be a hint about him (although it doesn’t really say much on how to get him). But in French, he instead mentions a Yodux. And no, that’s not what Tonberry King, or anything else in the game for that matter, is called in French. The guy does still mention it being a GF.

I really like little mentions like that, where it brings up stuff we don’t actually get to see as it helps making the game’s world feel more alive by showing that there is other stuff going on outside of the story we follow... but it did frustrate me a bit as a kid, because it made me wonder if it implied that there WAS a GF named Yodux I could get that I missed.

This one is more of a personal thing, but I wanted to mention it. In the French version, the kids don’t specify that Selphie gave them a teddy bear, so for a little while, I thought she gave them an actual bear, or at least a cub, and the poor thing either died (since they mention they couldn’t “save” it) or disappeared during the missile attack. It eventually dawned on me that they were probably talking about a stuffed toy, but I think it speaks volume about Selphie that the thought of her capturing a live bear and giving it to children as a pet seemed like something she’d do.

Moving on to the stage, in the English version, after the girl says she was hoping for more support form the=faculty, she wonders out loud how they expect students to deal with this situation. In French, however, she says “then again, maybe the teachers also expected more from the students committee. Dude, harsh. Your school was bombed, I think it’s kind of everybody’s concern.

In the same screen, a grown-up student discusses the basketball tournament that got cancelled on account of the school getting blown up and while most of the names are the same in both versions, for some reason, the “MogMog Moogles” became the “Kikkou Maniacs” in French. Also, the grown-up doesn’t mispronounce “Mach Chocobos” as “Chocabos”, making the kid’s remark about him having a weird accent seem rather odd.

At last, we get to the basketball court. Following the trend of Squall coming across a little bit nicer in the French version, instead of wonder “What are you getting at? If someone could come up something, it’d be great...” when Linoa asks if they really have to fight, he thinks “You’re right... war is the worst of solutions”. The rest of his quote goes similarly to the English one, although interestingly, instead of using a general “they” when saying “They criticize others, but in the end, they can’t do anything, either”, French Squall gets a bit political, saying “Each government criticizes the others but, in the end, it doesn’t do any better”.

The next line goes very differently too. In English, he asks himself “Rinoa, why all this, all of a sudden? What do you expect from me? I grew up in Garden. I’m a SeeD. Do you understand?”. In French, he thinks “You’re probably asking for the impossible, Linoa... I'd like to help you, but...”

Generally speaking, this dialogue is full of small, but tonally meaningful differences. Behold:

English

Rinoa: Squall? You have to voice your feelings, or else I won’t understand.

Squall: You were... part of a resistance movement in Timber, right? Unlike others who were all talk, you took to your weapons and fought... And now you’re saying all this? What happened to you?

French

Linoa: Squall? Talk to me, express your feelings, or we will never understand each-other.

Squall: You were part of a resistance movement in Timber... Instead of quibbling like everyone else, you took arms... But now, you refuse to fight?

I love this scene in both versions, as not only is it probably the most open he’s been so far (and note that he’s doing it while talking with Linoa, showing he’s more comfortable with it when she’s around), but it also gets Linoa to admit and face her own fears, showing she feels more confident around Squall, and also that he can motivate her.

Once again, I do prefer the French take on this dialogue, though. The reason for that being that with the way it’s worded, I think it feels more personal between them, with Linoa saying they won’t understand each-other, instead of just that she won’t understand him, and Squall’s reply being not just more brief, but also more direct. It gives me the feeling he really wants it to go straight to her heart and make her understand that this is what she’s been working towards, and that he’s willing to help her with that. In that regard, I especially love that last line “But now, you refuse to fight?”. It’s very striking and I imagine it would be very effective on Linoa.

In both versions, I also love how Squall is once again emphasizing his respect for people with a strong drive, who are willing to take charge and get shit done, which is obviously why he liked Linoa from the beginning (well, the first reason was the short dress, but you know... once he found out she was a resistant) and why he eventually falls in love with her. As I’ve said before, stuff like this is why I do think it’s in character for Squall to accept Selphie’s invitation to join the Festival Committee.

Another thing I really like is how it also emphasizes how disappointing he finds it when he sees people he admires lose their drive and become less secure about their goals, which I think is the main thing that pissed him off when Quistis tried to get him to comfort her in the secret area. He always viewed her as a strong-willed person whose sheer determination got her to blow past everyone else and achieve incredible things years before most students even get to take the field exam. And here she was, suddenly showing what, at the time, Squall considered to be weakness (thinking about it, you could make an interesting treatise on that and how it mirrors how some writers can’t accept a “strong, independent female character” ever showing flaws or insecurities).

Interesting deviation when it comes to Linoa’s response. In the English version, she mentions how during combat, everyone else starts to pick up and she gets left behind, and once she catches up, she wonders if everyone’s OK and if they’ll still welcome her.

In the French version, she says that during combat, “everyone goes back to their own world” and she clams up; that she feels like she’s no longer part of the group. She also mentions how once they all “reunite”, she gets terrified at the thought of losing any of them and that everything may have gone well so far (though I think Squall’s impaled shoulder and his newfound fear of electricity may beg to differ), one day, someone might get wounded or killed.

Again, I really love that speech in both versions. What’s especially interesting is that they each seem to focus on a different aspect of Linoa’s thoughts here. In English, it really drives home the point that, being the only civilian in a group of trained soldiers, everyone else is way ahead of her in terms of fighting ability, making her fear they might start viewing her as a burden.

Meanwhile, the French version highlights how in these situations, she loses all confidence and even tends to freeze, which has been shown when she was unable to fend off the Iguions while she was all alone, whereas she never had any such issue when fighting alongside the group (and again, seems to show that Squall gives her a boost of confidence).

Either way, I really like how it showcases an aspect of Linoa’s state of mind, how battles make her insecurities rise to the surface.

Alright, time to get to the big twist! And we start with a surprising similarity: in both versions , Selphie calls Irvine “Irvy”. Nicknames like that are usually different or missing entirely in French, so it’s surprising it’s the exact same here.

Here’s an odd one that I had completely forgotten. In French, Quistis bizarrely refers to the orphanage as a castle, which is the only time it’s referred to as. Seeing as in English, she calls it “an old stone house”, perhaps it’s another confusion from the Japanese text as form what I understand, a lot of Japanese words are made by combining various concepts, so i can imagine how old + stone + house could become “castle”. Plus I guess it could have been a castle near a lighthouse.

I’ve mentioned it before, but I feel the need to bring it up again, but in French, the characters, including Squall, do not refer to Ellone as “Sis”, making the implied twist less obvious. Instead, Child!Squall has a hard time pronouncing her name and calls her “Lellone”. The kid versions of the characters also don’t speak in toddler talk like they do in English, so no extra “aaawwww”‘s for you, although their lines are written to sound a bit more naive. For example, instead of saying “Matwyn! Sis isn’t there! Where’s sis”, Child!Squall says “Miss Matron*, Lellone isn’t here! Where is Lellone?”.

*he actually uses the word “Gouvernante”, which would translate more literally to “housekeeper” but doesn’t really have a direct translation. It basically refers to a female domestic worker who handles all sorts of menial tasks; cleaning, cooking, taking care of the children, etc... it’s basically a cross between a maid and a nanny. Although in this context, it clearly refers to her being the head of the orphanage and taking care of all the children.

The twist is also preserved more with the next line, as in English, Squall says ”Sis... Where’d’yoo go? Yoo don’t like me anymore?”. But in French, he says “Where did you go, Lellone? You don’t want to be my friend any more?”. So not only does he not call her “Sis”, he also refers to her specifically as a friend, making it seem like there’s no family bond between them. Also...

On a more serious note, there is also a very interesting difference in Adult!Squall’s reaction to his child self here. You see, in English, he thinks “What a shameful sight” but in French, he instead thinks “That wasn’t nice of me...”

That’s one where I really love the French version’s interpretation of it, and one more thing that makes Squall come off a bit softer in French, as it shows that he does have some regrets on how he’s treated other people before, and also might hint at him starting to realize that he isn’t the only one to suffer from loss, and that maybe he shouldn’t drive people away when they want nothing more than to help him.

Next, we have a smaller one. In English, Quistis mentions how the group got into big trouble because of Zell telling on them for setting off fireworks. In French, she instead says that “We were really terrible...”

And here is the official establishment of Child!Squall misnaming Ellone in the French version, as he says “Lellone is Ellone. Of course! I couldn’t pronounce her name right.”

Granted, it seems a bit silly that Adult Squall wouldn’t have realized that earlier, but again, it makes the implied twist a lot more subtle than in English, where he says “Elle... Ellone. So, Ellone was ‘Sis’.” Jee, I wonder why he would have ever picked that nickname!

Although to be fair, even in French, he then says “she was a bit like my big sister...” although again, it’s much easier to buy it just being a mark of affection here then when he’s basically saying “Sister Ellone who is my sister is like a sister to me, which is why I call her sis” constantly. In fact, in the English version, it kind of comes off as an awkward cover-up when he claims they all called her Sis because she was older than the rest of them (especially when at the beginning of the flashback, we actually see a couple older kids run by).

Putting an English-language screenshot here because that line is completely absent from the French version, which is a bit of a shame as it says a lot about how Squall thinks of himself. Man, how sad is it to believe that an adorable kid couldn’t find an adoptive family because of the way they were?

There’s another difference during Quistis’ speech about her having to separate Squall and Seifer. In the end, in the English version, she says that Squall would justify taking Seifer’s challenges by saying “I gotta do my best by myself. Or else I won’t be able to see Sis’.”

In French, she is more vague, saying “I think Squall was doing all that to impress Ellone...”.

I find it rather weird either way, because the way she puts it, it makes it sound like that happened in Balamb Garden after she joined, which implies they remembered their orphanage past at this point, but other elements of the story they tell suggest they didn’t, and it would make a lot more sense if they forgot everything the moment they left the orphanage (especially since it seems pretty obvious to me Cid had the GFs intentionally wipe their memories so they would have no hang-ups about fighting Edea).

Also, if they did remember during their early days at Balamb Garden and mentioned their orphanage days, you’d think other students would have brought it up later, too.

Here’s another very interesting one. In both versions, Quistis says she thinks she wanted to take Ellone’s place after she left, but in the French version, Quistis straight-up says she thinks she was a bit jealous of Ellone. She even theorizes that perhaps her situation with Ellone was similar to Seifer and Squall’s rivalry. Pretty sure it wasn’t that bad, I don’t think they tried to murder each-other, but hey.

One thing I’m not fond of in the French version as well, is that instead of saying that even after becoming an instructor, she couldn’t stop thinking about Squall, here she says that her trying to impress Squall is probably why she became an instructor. It really seems to weaken her character to say that; of course, it could be an awkward way of saying her trying to be a big sis role-model to him is what pushed her to work hard and achieve a lot, which in turn lead to her becoming an instructor.

A much better French line with her is when she wonders if she is “unable to love” instead of wondering “A misunderstood love”.

Moving forward a bit, there’s a small one when Irvine mentions he hasn’t junctioned GFs until recently. In French, he instead says he hasn’t junctioned any “in a long time”, implying he did do it a while ago.

Big difference here, when Squall says they can’t stop Guardian Forces. Again, it’s mostly in tone, as English Squall, as ever, sounds more virulent about it:

English

Quistis: It must be the GF’s fault. ... What should we do?

Squall: What should we do? ...Nothing.

Zell: What do you mean nothing!?

Squall: So what do you want to do? You wanna stop using GF now? As long as we continue fighting, we’re indebted to the powers of the GF. If there’s a price I have to pay for that, I’ll gladly pay it.

French

Quistis: That’s the issue with G-Forces, we lose our memories by using them.

Squall: It’s unavoidable.

Zell: Can’t we do anything about it?

Squall: Sure: stop using G-Forces, but I doubt we can do without them... I have quite a few bad memories... If I lose them by using my G-Force, well, good.

Here’s a funny one, especially since it shows French Squall being meaner than his English counterpart for once. After they figure out Edea is their matron, English Squall thinks “You’re probably right” but in French, he thinks “For once, you’re right”. Ouch, Squall! What did Irvine ever do to you?

Then, we have another big difference in Irvine’s speech after he says he gets what Linoa means but he’ll keep fighting, which barely has anything to do with the English version:

English

I want to stay true to everything I’ve stood for. That’s why I thought it’s be best if everyone knew we would have to face Matron. You’ve all heard this before. How life has infinite possibilities. I don’t believe that one bit. There weren’t many paths for me to choose. Sometimes, there would only be one. From the limited possibilities I faced, the choices I made have brought me this far.

That’s why I value the path I chose... I want to hold true to the path that HAD to be taken. I know our opponent is Matron, whom we all love very much. We might lose something very important on account of the GF. But I don’t mind.

It’s not like I drifted here on the tides of fate. I’m here because I chose to be here. And more importantly... We all grew up together. But due to various circumstances, we were all separated. As a kid, you couldn’t really go out on your own... There were no other paths to take... All I did was just cry. But...

French

I’ll follow my principles. That’s how everybody here thinks, right? We must face Edea. Matron taught us how to live. By letting Edea act the way she does, we’re going to destroy all of our principles. In memory of our matron, we must eliminate what she became. It would be easier had our G-Forces wiped our memory entirely.

Our memories mustn’t prevent us from doing what’s right. We have to be brave... Think of the horrible threat that Edea represents... It would be selfish to condemn thousands of people, in the name of a few good memories. That’s what it means to be a SeeD, right?

It’s gonna sound corny, but... I believe in destiny. We were separated, and... Circumstances made it so we’d be back together. This is surely not a random coincidence... Er, I don’t know if I’m being clear...

Weird that it’d be so different and I have to say, in this case I think I like the English version a little better. I especially like his point that you have to choose between a set number of paths, and only sometimes do you get to do that. I’m not sure I 100% agree with that, but it is a very interesting point of view, as while it means things aren’t written in advance and you aren’t just going where fate guides you, you are sometimes faced with important choices to make, and you have to commit to those choices and deal with the consequences, but it’s also why those choices are so important. There may be a destiny, but it’s up to you to heed its call or not

And I can’t deny that very rarely in life do you get to carve out your own path, and it’s never easy. But either way, the worst decision to make is to not choose and stay stagnant. And of course, this speech is perfect for their situation as it explains why they need to make that choice. They’ve committed to it, they’ve worked towards it, they’re about to reach their goal, they can’t abandon it now and expect some random person to show up and save them from the responsibility of seeing it through.

That said, I also really like how the French version emphasizes the importance of staying true to one’s principles (which does fit the notion of committing to your choices), even if it means fighting people you once admired. Far too often do people stay blindly loyal to one person, betraying their own ideals in the process and destroying what they’ve been working towards. And yeah, considering I love stories about people having to make the very hard decision to turn on their former allies in order to do what they consider right, to fight the person they’ve become in remembrance of the person they once were, because right and wrong isn’t a matter of side, but a matter of personal values, which is a very important theme in this game, it’s no wonder FF8 remains my favourite to this day.

And that does it for today. I did go back in after the big scene to talk to the NPCs, but couldn’t find any significant difference. Feel free to drop me an ask or comment if you’re curious about specific NPCs or something, or anything else about the differences between the two localisations, really.

I’ve already said a lot about this scene, and there’s a lot more I could say, but we’d stray way off-topic for the Translarison and I’ve already gone on enough tangents today. Maybe I’ll do a specific post about it. I just want to say that while I agree with critics saying the twist comes out a bit suddenly and the GF stuff should have been foreshadowed a bit more (although then it would have been hard to avoid telegraphing it), I really don’t think that makes it a bad reveal, especially since the idea of trading your own identity for power is a very powerful one, and done way more meaningfully than in most works that attempt it, in my opinion.

Next time, we’ll wrap up the sidequests that are available for now. We’ll visit the Centra ruins, and since as far as I recall, there isn’t much dialogue there, we’ll probably stop by modern-day Winhill as well. See y’all there! Have a nice day!

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onihanas · 6 years

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STUDY : ZAKURO . tagged by the lovely @lotusword thank you !!

— BASICS.

▸ IS YOUR MUSE TALL / SHORT / AVERAGE ? Average ! Zakuro is 5′2″ which is a fairly normal height for a Japanese woman.

▸ ARE THEY OKAY WITH THEIR HEIGHT ? She really doesn’t think about it much. It doesn’t hinder her in combat due to her ability to leap to great heights but she does notice it when she’s around someone who is much taller than her. She certainly doesn’t like feeling small so she is a bit more irritable around people of above average height.

▸ WHAT’S THEIR HAIR LIKE ? It’s a very deep violet that is usually perceived as black in lowlight. As for the length it varies depending on Zakuro’s form. When she ascends to her divine state her hair seems to grow instantaneously, reaching her upper thighs, but usually it rests at her mid-back. Typically she wears it up in twin tails tied with bows but when she is concealing her ears on a mission she either wears it in one large ponytail or two buns. Wearing it down is a rarity so don’t hold your breath she really only does so when she’s going to sleep.

▸ DO THEY SPEND A LOT OF TIME ON THEIR HAIR / GROOMING ? A fair amount of time but it’s never excessive. Zakuro takes baths frequently, as for her daily routine she doesn’t typically wear makeup so really she only spends a bit of time tying up her hair. This process takes a bit longer if she is trying to pass as human and needs to comb her hair over her ears and then tie them down.

▸ DOES YOUR MUSE CARE ABOUT THEIR APPEARANCE / WHAT OTHERS THINK ? Hanyou do not frequently interact with people outside of the Ministry of Spiritual Affairs. That being said there really is no need for Zakuro to fuss about her appearance. Even so, Zakuro seems to gravitate towards more traditional clothing despite being given the option to dress herself in a more Western style. On special occasions she does clean up well, this is due to the fact that she is a youkai so blending into a crowd is beneficial for her safety and being underdressed only draws more unwanted attention.

— PREFERENCES.

▸ INDOORS OR OUTDOORS ? outdoors, either in the forest or a garden. ▸ RAIN OR SUNSHINE ? rain. ▸ FOREST OR BEACH ? forest. ▸ PRECIOUS METALS OR GEMS ? precious metals. ▸ FLOWERS OR PERFUMES ? flowers. ▸ PERSONALITY OR APPEARANCE ? personality. ▸ BEING ALONE OR BEING IN A CROWD ? being alone. ▸ ORDER OR ANARCHY ? order. ▸ PAINFUL TRUTHS OR WHITE LIES ? painful truths. ▸ SCIENCE OR MAGIC ? magic. ▸ PEACE OR CONFLICT ? peace. ▸ NIGHT OR DAY ? night. ▸ DUSK OR DAWN ? dusk. ▸ WARMTH OR COLD ? warmth. ▸ MANY ACQUAINTANCES OR A FEW CLOSE FRIENDS ? few close friends. ▸ READING OR PLAYING A GAME ? playing a game.

— QUESTIONNAIRE.

▸ WHAT ARE SOME OF YOUR MUSE’S BAD HABITS ? She has a short-fuse and can be quick to judge at times. Ultimately, Zakuro has a lot of pent up anger between her abandonment as a child and her isolated upbringing. She did not have a real family till she was brought the ministry and even then she felt like an outsider due to her unexplained powers. She is getting better at trusting others but it’s still difficult for her to let go of her past.

▸ HAS YOUR MUSE LOST ANYONE CLOSE TO THEM ? HOW HAS IT AFFECTED THEM ? Yes, Zakuro actually believed herself to be abandoned by both her mother and father at a young age which is customary where half-spirits are concerned. Most families abandon their children immediately after they are born but Zakuro actually was raised by her mother for a few years before her final disappearance. This instilled a deep-set fear of abandonment within her as well as a constant need to feel accepted by others. As a child she was unwanted and unloved so in a way she is constantly seeking validation whether it be in her abilities as a fighter or helping other girls who were spirited away as well. Of course, later on Zakuro finds out her mother never abandoned her willingly and she was actually a divine oracle from a far-off village. Zakuro being the illegitimate child of her and human man was a child who was never supposed to be born. This realization comes with a whole other set of issues but MOVING ON.

▸ WHAT ARE SOME FOND MEMORIES YOUR MUSE HAS ? The few short years she spent with her mother she cherishes the most but her life after she was brought to the ministry held a great deal of happiness for her as well. While Zakuro still felt isolated from the human world growing up alongside Suskihotaru, Bonbori and Hozuki made her feel less alone as the three girls are all orphaned youjin. Time spent with her guardian, Kushimatsu also are dear memories to her despite how harsh the older fox spirit could be to her. Overall Zakuro has known great unkindness in her life but she can now share that same burden with those that have led similar lives which makes the pain of the past more bearable.

▸ IS IT EASY FOR YOUR MUSE TO KILL ? Yes and no. Zakuro’s job at the ministry revolves around slaying evil spirits and demons which she does without a second thought. When killing humans she might show some hesitation but if their intentions are unsavory she will not stop herself from striking them down.

▸ WHAT’S IT LIKE WHEN YOUR MUSE BREAKS DOWN ? The anger usually hits first. Whether it is anger at someone, something, or most likely herself. She really likes to keep it together, to seem strong and put together but sometimes she cannot keep it all in. She’ will cry, she will yell but when things are more severe the tears flow without end and she needs to ground herself. It can be the touch of a hand or an embrace but when she is in that head space she needs to know she is not alone. Real true turmoil results in ascending to her divine form. Zakuro has no control over that part of herself which is why she can only slip into this state after undergoing a tragedy or something equally as emotionally taxing. In this heightened state she completely shuts down. She is emotionless and the only way she returns to normal is after the power flowing through her runs its course. Although, there is some suspicion that if Zakuro spends too much time in her divine form she will lose all her mortal memories and emotions, completely leaving behind her former self.

▸ IS YOUR MUSE CAPABLE OF TRUSTING SOMEONE WITH THEIR LIFE ? It is possible but it takes time and A LOT of effort. Zakuro is natural suspicious of other peoples’ intentions with her thus it makes it difficult for her to trust much less put her life in someone’s hands. She is not someone that is easy to get to know simply because she is so used to humans wanting nothing to do with her so she automatically assumes the worst. That being said if you do stay by her side long enough Zakuro proves to be an incredible loyal friend. She has a caring nature that is unexpected but truly limitless when it comes to those that she loves.

▸ WHAT’S YOUR MUSE LIKE WHEN THEY’RE IN LOVE ? Oh boy, basically she is a mess ? At least in the beginning stages she is when the feelings are new and she is not really sure what is happening. I don’t think she gets any less snappy around the person she loves if anything they get the full force of her sass because she knows they can take it and dish it back. On the more tender side of things Zakuro is someone who will fight for her lover whether it be on or off the battlefield. She is an extremely passionate person and that aspect of her personality bleeds into her relationships. Despite this she rather her relationships be on the more private side. While there may be a few lingering glances and handholding in public Zakuro prefers to be more intimate when she’s alone with her partner. So in the end not much changes when in love but she is EXTREMELY protective of her significant other regardless of how strong they may be on their own. Her fear of abandonment only heightens when she’s in a relationship so you’ve been warned.

TAGGING: @calamitycutlass , @tigurijiayo , @spacefell , and whoever else wants to !

#❁ / ; HEADCANONS .#never give me the option to go off about zakuro again #long post

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ladytp · 6 years

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Merry Post-Christmas to all - especially @lenny9987 !

Here is the 2nd chapter of my gift to her in the Outlander Secret Santa 2017, “In the Quiet of the Night, Candour”. (First chapter here, both chapters now also posted in AO3).

Chapter 2 – Things Needed To Be Said

There was no question about getting any sleep, at least not for Lord John. The pain in his ankle had changed from a raw jolt to a dull but insistent throbbing, and he was cold, so cold. Jamie had been right; staying alone without the ability to move about freely to stave off the cold would have been his undoing. Even now, lying side by side so that their bodies touched at length so that he could feel warmth emanating from Jamie, John was shivering. He tried to subdue it as to not disturb his companion, but there was only so much he has control over his body.

“Ye rattle and shake like a wee rabbit in a fox hole. Are ye very cold?” A low voice so close to his ear startled John and he drew in an involuntary breath.

“I’ll live,” he muttered.

“Would it help if we laid closer, maybe on our sides?” The suggestion was tempting; spooning would increase the touch points of their bodies and preserve the precious body heat even more effectively than the soggy layers of cloth on top them. But how? John couldn’t imagine Jamie turning his back on him, but equally how would he feel pressing against John’s back?

Without waiting for an answer Jamie turned, his chest towards John.

“Aye?”

Submitting to his fate – and only slightly disturbed by the notion - John rolled on his side and felt Jamie pressing against his back.

And sensed the moment when Jamie’s whole body became rigid, hardly suppressed tension of his every muscle vibrating through the thin layers of cloth between them. His breathing changed too; withheld breath, air through his nostrils, then another moment of stillness. Without seeing his face John could imagine it; clenched jaw, furrowed brow.

Jamie’s left arm was draped on top of John’s shoulder, and it trembled slightly.

The relief of his warmth was immediate, but was soon replaced by discomfort. Why Jamie was doing this for himself when it was clear that his whole being was repulsed by it, John wondered, getting annoyed. Whatever was at the root of Jamie’s anxiety had nothing to do with him – why should he feel guilty about it?

Without stopping to think John blurted out his irritation.

“Really Jamie, if you believe that in this situation, our lives hanging on by the thread, I could think of anything else but survival, you are simply flattering yourself.”

Jamie stiffened.

“I canna help it. It’s nought to do it with ye,” he murmured, and immediately shame and regret flushed over John. It was abundantly clear that Jamie has suffered something so traumatic that even his iron will couldn’t overcome it, and he felt ashamed of challenging him on it.

Again, without consciously planning to, the question that had been lurking at the back of his mind for a long time dropped from the tip of his tongue.

“What happened to you? Who made you react this way?”

Long silence ensued and another wave of regret for John. It was not for him to be privy of Jamie’s personal tragedies; why would he imagine being entitled to them and cross the boundaries they had set on the limits of their friendship already a long time ago?

As John was trying to find words to take his question back, Jamie inhaled loudly.

“A redcoat. Captain of His Majesty's Eighth Dragoons in the army of King George I.” His voice raised hardly above whisper, his words low, cold, menacing. “Captain Jonathan Wolverton Randall, Esq.”

It was Johns turn to stiffen. It was one thing to suspect something, another to have it confirmed.

A redcoat. No wonder his reactions towards Lord John had been so visceral, especially at times when he had been still carrying his uniform, proudly.

That Jamie knew the name implied that it had not been a random attack, not like his own experience all those years ago. The memory of it still came back to him every now and then, but John had made his peace with the incident long time ago including a conclusion that it was probably for the best that he had never learned the identity of his assailant.

He regretted bringing the matter up – the last thing he wanted was to bring Jamie’s nightmares from the past back – especially in this time and place. Hoping to close the matter swiftly he faltered to find the words.

“I do apologise sincerely for asking - I shouldn’t have done it. It is not for me to know your private matters.”

A slight relaxation in Jamie’s posture, a huff of warm air past his ear.

“And…I am sorry. So sorry,” John added, quieter.

“Dinna fash. Maybe ye should know, should have known earlier. To see why it was so hard for me to accept ye as ye were. Are. Although I ken that ye are nothing like him.”

“This man…he took you against your will?” Since it appeared that the door had been opened and Jamie was not in a hurry to bang it shut again, John was curious to know more. A captain of Dragoons – must have been at the time of the Rising. After Culloden, perhaps, before Ardsmuir?

“In a way, aye, and in a way, no. I was to be hangit in the morning and he had Claire too in his grip. He threatened to…” Jamie swallowed, the motion of his throat against the back of Johns head, “…so I told him that if he lets her go, I wasna going to resist. And I dinna. Even though he made me do things…” Rest of the sentence was inaudible and John was glad of it.

God’s grief! To be forcibly coerced was one thing, but at least one had the comfort of knowing that one wasn’t playing any part in one’s own humiliation. But to be forced to act? To willingly submit oneself to machinations of a madman?

“But you were not hanged after all?” What a foolish question it was, of course he hadn’t been! John winced. But how long had he been…

“Aye. Claire came back to me that morning – with my kinsmen and a herd of Highland kine. They took me out of there and I lived.” Once again Jamie’s voice lowered almost to a whisper. “I dinna want to, at first. But Claire dinna let me go. She can be stubborn like that.” A hint of smile creeped into his voice. Lord John could imagine; if Jamie was unremitting with his love for his wife, Claire Fraser was his equal. Neither of them would let the other one go, not without a fight.

Momentarily Lord John wondered if he would ever know a love like that.

“And that one night did the damage? To your soul, to your whole self?”

“It wasna just that night. That demon had been after me for years. He was the one who did my back – over hundred lashes, two times, hardly a few days in between. And then he had the gall to admire his handiwork when he had me at my word.” The hate and venom dripping at every word Jamie spoke was unnerving and despite his shivering having subsided Lord John felt a cold chill at the back of his spine.

“What happened to him?”

“I killed him. At Culloden.’

Jamie spoke matter-of-factly and if John had felt a chill before, now he realised that he had been much closer to death than he could have ever imagined that day in Ardsmuir, all those years ago at a game of chess.

“I am glad you did. I am so sorry it happened to you.” There was not much else he could say, nothing would change what had been done to Jamie and what scars he had been carrying in his soul ever since.

“The worst thing was that I reacted to it.“ Now that Jamie had started talking it seemed he wanted to get it all out. John recognised it for what it is; the burden of holding something buried deep inside one’s chest for years, then finally letting it go. It could sweep a man on its path, so irresistible was its pull.

“He conjured my wife into that cell with us, and I was being delirious of the pain of my hand – he had broken my fingers with a hammer and driven a nail through my palm,” Jamie offered as nonchalantly as if he had spoken about a casual meeting over a tables of cards. “And he touched me and I… I reacted.’

Oh. John had heard of that shame. Men having been forced to have sex blaming themselves for the way their bodies had reacted as if it meant that they had been willing in the act. The life of men like him was not without its darker side and without the protection of law, bad things happened.

“You know it was not you, do you? It was just your flesh reacting. The same as if you stick your fingers down your throat and vomit – it is just a reaction that has nothing to do whether you feel nauseous or not.” If he could provide this little bit of comfort to Jamie, even after all these years, he wanted to do his best.

“A flesh reacting? But isn’t mind the master of one’s flesh?”

“Not always. Like now; if my mind could tell me not to shiver I would stop doing it. But it can’t, and I shan’t.”

“Hmmm.” An added Scottish noise at the back of his throat suggested that Jamie was not prone to take John’s word for it. “How would ye ken such a thing?”

“In my social circles I hear things,” John said dryly. “Take it from me, you are not the only one.”

“You too?” A tone of surprise.

In the face of Jamie’s confession John had no option but to be totally honest.

“Once. Years ago. I was young, newly joined the army. It was nothing like what happened to you; just a quick fumble in the dark, by force - I never knew who it was. From thereon I went nowhere without a dagger.”

“You dinna like it then?”

Dear Gods! Sometimes thickness of men made John want to weep. Even Jamie, as educated and sophisticated man as he was, could be such a dullard at times.

“Would you like it if a woman would take you by force, submit you to her desires and under her power, and there was nothing you could do about it? If the autonomy of your body would be stripped away from you and you had no bargaining power, no choice - not whatsoever?” A flash of anger spiced his words with harshness he had not intended, but – really?!

John knew that there had been something sinister behind Willies conception. He had never had an impression that it would have been an act of true love, or that Jamie would have taken advantage of Geneva and seduced her by his own free will. Some kind of coercion must have had taken place, and knowing Geneva John had no doubts where it had originated. Yet she couldn’t have taken him by force – so whatever it had been, it couldn’t have been an experience tinged with forced submission and utter sense of powerlessness.

Still huffing his righteous indignation John felt more than heard Jamie’s act of contrition; a swift squeeze on his shoulder, a muttered apology.

“Nay, I canna say I would enjoy it. I havena. That wasna verra kind thing to say, I am sorry.”

John’s irritation left him as soon as it had arrived and his mind returned back to Jamie’s confession. A captain in His Majesty’s army, clearly prone to sadism and manipulation, pursuing a Scottish laird for his own nefarious purposes – and Jamie being forced to give his word to submit to him. “…he made me do things…,” Jamie had said and suddenly John felt bile rising at the back of his throat.

He was as familiar as any with the dark underbelly of the world he and his kind inhabited, and how the rejection by the civilised society encouraged dark men and dark deeds, fully aware how their wickedness could often lead to no repercussions because of the stigma of shame and lawlessness. And Jamie, still surprisingly naïve about the ways of human reactions…

“Surely your wife told you that you can’t blame yourself for any of it?”

“Aye she did. But she wasna there, in that cell. She didna have to…”

“I am sorry but I beg to differ - she is a very wise woman and a healer and I am convinced her knowledge is superior to yours about how human body works. And for what it’s worth, I am telling you the same thing. And I know some things she may not.” John tried to deliver his words as convincingly as he could, knowing how self-doubt and self-hate could eat even the strongest man from the inside. He himself hadn’t been immune to their effects either – if not exactly on the same matter, there had been enough mornings when he had looked at himself in the mirror and hated everything he saw.

Jamie had finally seemed to let go some of his tension; the long limbs pressing against him might not have been exactly fully relaxed, but some of the earlier rigidity was gone. John didn’t dare to move, afraid to break the precious moment. He tried not to think of the shape of Jamie’s thighs or the swell of his shoulders, both much too close to him in a way that could not be described as anything else but intimate. He tried not to think of things that he had schooled himself over the many years to shut out of his mind. Yet every shift and every slight movement steered his thoughts to those forbidden paths, edged him closer to the precipice – and he welcomed it, and he hated himself for it.

What kind of a sick mind can do such a thing, after hearing that?

Silence followed but somehow John didn’t think the conversation was over yet. The restlessness of the man behind him was palpable, the tossing and turning in their confined conditions. He didn’t press on it though – sometimes things took their time and words were hard to come by. If Jamie still had something to say, he would do it in his own, good time.

“Ye ken, I could never understand what is it in ye that makes ye wanna… ye ken?” There was no accusation in Jamie’s voice, only genuine puzzlement. Yet the fact that he seemed to be willing to discuss the matter John knew to be an anathema to his faith and disgust him in a way that went deeper than the ordinary kind of revulsion common with other people, touched him.

John remembered the argument they had once had about the nature of the Sacred Band of Thebes – a band of Greek warriors consisting of pairs of male lovers – and the revulsion Jamie had shown then towards the whole notion that such relationships could be anything more but feeble indecency of cowardly men to relieve their lust.

“I don’t know either – all I know is that I can’t help it. It is not a choice – I wish it was, as surely I would have chosen differently to make my life easier.” John chose his words carefully, tiptoeing around the subject as if walking on a field of shards of glass.

“Hmmph,” was Jamie’s eloquent response.

Well, at least it was better than a tirade how only men who lacked the ability to possess a woman or were cowards who feared them, or an outright denial of John’s true self.

John had accepted a long time ago that his feelings for Jamie were always going to be one-sided and in an odd way had still gained comfort from the simple existence of them – better to have loved and not loved back than not to have loved at all, and all that. He had accepted that the most he could expect from the object of his affections was friendship and respect and turning of a blind eye to his failures as a human being – and on most days that was more than enough and he was happy to have it.

And yet every now and then he found himself wishing he would someday get more; an open-eyed acceptance of himself as he truly was, warts and all. Suddenly an urgent need pushed itself forward and compelled by it to act John turned slightly to face Jamie.

“It is who I am. It is who I have always been – and I dare say, will be until the day I die. I am sorry if it doesn’t suit your views of the world or the teachings of your God, but I can’t lie to you. Oh, I know, I have lied most of my life; to my family, my friends, my comrades in arms, everyone. I must, as otherwise I will be doomed.”

Jaime stared at him, his eyes narrowed. Moonlight illuminating the landscape was just enough to outline his features and a glint of his eyes.

“But I refuse to lie to you,” John finished, sucking his cheeks in defiantly. Part of him felt a bit ridiculous – maybe not the best idea to lay down ultimatums in such a gregarious situation.

Jamie didn’t let go his scrutiny, his eyes sweeping over John’s face. They trapped him – those slanted eyes, dark pools in the feeble light.

“Aye, there is honesty between us and I’ll not want to see it change.” Jamie finally said, slowly. “I see you, I hear you. I canna say I understand any of it – but there are other things in this world I canna work out and I accept them all the same.”

“I being what I am does not mean that I would be like some other men – like that captain from your past. I hope you give me the courtesy of believing that.” John’s moment of defiance was draining in the face of cold and hunger and throbbing pain and most of all, Jamie’s silent acknowledgment of its righteousness, and suddenly he felt tired, so very tired.

“I ken. I ken that well. I am sorry if I have ever given you to believe otherwise.” Jamie lifted his hand and squeezed John’s shoulder, a cumbersome move but sincere.

“I am sorry too. And now that I know what is behind it – not that I wouldn’t have figured out that it must have been something horrid – I am twice as sorry for ever putting you through it.”

John rolled back on his side, staring ahead at the edge of their crudely constructed resting place, broken roots of plants sticking out of bare earth in front of his face. Jamie scooted a little closer, pressing his whole body flush against his. John felt warm, he felt protected, he felt all kinds of ridiculous things a man of his age and stature should have left behind to his youthful years.

“Try to sleep, a charaid. Time goes faster that way.” With that muffled expression against John’s neck Jamie sighed deeply and relaxed – this time genuinely.

Charaid. Friend.

Lord John didn’t find sleep for a long time, too busy cradling the small expanse of unbearable tenderness and contentment inside his chest. It ebbed and flowed at Jamie’s every breath against his neck, and those of his own, taking on the same rhythm. Yet eventually his eyes grew heavy and he slipped into a deep sleep.

And that was how Claire found them in the morning, still in the same position, only parts of their faces peering under the garments that had frozen stiff.

#Outlander #Jamie Fraser #Claire Fraser #Lord John Grey #the love that dare not speak its name #Outlander Secret Santa 2017 #lenny9987 #moghraidhjamie #my fic #In The Quiet of the Night - Candour

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