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thefirstknife · 1 month

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The Observatory

I've been rotating a piece of the TFS CE lore in my brain so long I forgot to write about it. There's no transcript yet that I can find (I might do it myself tbh if nobody else does), but here's the scans with the whole text.

So, there's a lot going on in that CE, but the main gist of it is that the whole CE is written like a report from Eido. She investigated information about the Witness and the Collapse to try and help prepare us for our inevitable fight against it. Through her investigation, she found old Eliksni databanks that contain ancient records of past civilisations; main one being discussed is the civilisation that would eventually end up becoming the Witness.

There was a lot going on with them, shown to us through discussions between two specific individuals; they're only identified through code as HNW047622 and RS6243199. I'll call them HNW and RS. I've mentioned this before because we could see one of the pages in the preview of the Collector's Edition.

These individuals talked a lot and gave us insight into the Witness' civilisation. In short, they were super advanced and had something they described as the "Gardener's tools" which they apparently used to terraform other planets. They also talk about the concept of "the final shape" a lot and lead philosophical debates about its meaning and whether or not they have a responsibility to bring that concept to others in the universe. I'll probably go into their civilisation in-depth at some point, but for now I want to go off about something that appears to be a minor detail.

As part of their conversations, In the 5th image from the scans, they extensively talk about the final shape. The RS individual mentions something called "the Observatory." It is apparently some sort of a prediction machine. Full transcript of the relevant conversation and the rest of the post under:

[RS6243199]: I agree with you, in theory, but we do not exist purely in the theoretical. This suffering is already happening now, all the time, everywhere we look. Come see me, and I will show you the Observatory's readings. Such sights as we have seen, my friend, make me sick to my soul. [HNW047622]: I thought that the Observatory could only see possibilities. The future-branches of past visible-light readings. [RS6243199]: We have made improvements. The glass-minds*** trim the excess branches. What we see now are the strongest paths. And in the seeing, they become true. [HNW047622]: Then tell me what you have seen. I gain nothing from running from the truth, no matter how uncomfortable. [RS6243199]: Cities turning on themselves in a frenzy of self-destruction. Children offering up parents in superstitious sacrifice to bloodied gods. An entire people who would boil off their own atmosphere rather than let their neighbors enjoy fresh air! Great waves drowning worlds. Bodies which do not decompose, for everything, down to the very bacteria, has died as well. Machine-plagues carving their prediction-machines into moons. Your garden, destroyed. As the Observatory saw it, so it came to pass.

The footnote is a text from Eido:

*** From the context, some sort of computational assistant? There appears to be some etymological overlap with the names of Vex Minds. Something to investigate later, perhaps!

This made me instantly lose my mind when I was reading. Very early into Lightfall's release, I made a post about the Veil and the history of the universe. It's about some very peculiar similarities between a lot of prediction technology and caches of information that preserve ancient history and ancient civilisations and how they may connect to the Veil.

Mind you, this was before we knew a lot about the Veil; I wrote this pre-Veil logs and before it was confirmed that the Veil is linked directly to consciousness and memory. It was also before Season of the Deep which gave us Akashic Revelation: a lore tab in which a Guardian tries to go through the portal and experiences a vivid flashback of memory of his own pre-Guardian life. The name of the tab is important: akashic records is an esoteric concept for a supposed existence of a record of everything that has ever happened in the universe, past or present or future, human and non-human.

This is basically what I proposed in my post, before this lore tab, about the Veil; that the Veil or some source the Veil can tap into, is something similar to that. That all of the prediction machines are essentially pulling from this same source. In the post, I mentioned the OXA machine (the "black box for galactic civilisations" that allowed the Psions to see the future), Inspiral lore book (in which various civilisations and individuals left their records in the Darkness), the Device (the machine built on Vex technology by the Future War Cult in the Golden Age, led my Maya Sundaresh, used to displace consciousness and also see the future as used by Lakshmi-2), and even maybe the Sundial made by Osiris. I also mentioned how there's a possibility that even the whole scope of Vex prediction technology is somehow based on or tapping into this same source.

I am very amused at how I wrote: "It’s also interesting that Maya Sundaresh seems to be quite involved in pretty much every aspect of this." So true past me, that really is interesting! Her connection to the Veil and Lakshmi (and the importance of the Device and FWC) will later be revealed in Veil Logs. Almost like these connections were made deliberately, between all of these machines and the Veil.

With the benefit of new lore being released in the time since I made the original post, I am even more convinced that there's something going on here, and especially after TFS CE because the section I copied here mentions yet another incredibly similar machine: the Observatory of the Witness' species. It's not described in a lot of details, but from what we did get, it's quite unmistakeable that this is similar to things like the OXA and the Device.

The Observatory is clearly shown to be some sort of a machine that can see the future. Or, rather, as HNW says, it can see "possibilities." This matches what we've seen of the Device when Lakshmi-2 was using it; she was able to see different possible futures, futures that were getting increasingly narrow and biased to what she wanted to see. Identical formatting for using some sort of a machine to predict the future is shown as well with a Psion Ixel using... something (? maybe the OXA?) to do the same.

And again, the same formatting is used this season when a Psion Qorix uses her inate Psion abilities to project visions of the future into the minds of those present at Caiatl's War Council. It's worth noting that Psions have huge ties to Darkness abilities, as well as their entire species having been influenced by Nezarec to an unknown extent, but enough for them to share psionic/psychic abilities, an affinity to void, helmets that reflect his head shape and possibly more we don't know about. It's also worth noting that Nezarec was the one who was transporting the Veil on his Pyramid ship and lamented how Neomuni were not using it to its full potential. Nezarec may have used the Veil to influence the Psions.

This is important because these devices aren't exact, and the Observatory seems to share the same caveat. It shows possibilities, not certainties. Different users might see different things, painted by their own desires and experiences. However, there's something in all of these prediction machines that can lead to a real prediction of the future. The invididual RS mentions several visions, most of which are not specific enough to identify, but sound plausible given the sheer size of the universe; they must've happened somewhere at some point. There's one specific that we know: "great waves drowning worlds." And there's one mentioned by RS that also happened; the destruction of the "garden" made by HNW. This is mentioned in the beginning of the CE. HNW terraformed a planet, but that planet was later completely destroyed.

Even more interesting, the way the Witness' species used the Observatory seems to imply that they employed the Vex directly to help them manage this machine. RS explains that the "glass-minds" are capable of "trimming excess branches" and allowing only the "strongest paths" to be explored. Perhaps this was their way of not falling into the trap that the people using the OXA or the Device could fall into; by having the Vex monitor and manage this prediction machine, it stops the user from inserting too many personal variables. And yes, as Eido noted as well, "glass-minds" is a phrase that indeed shares similarity with the Vex and is almost certainly referring to the Vex.

This is incredibly interesting for a lot of reasons. First, as I've already mentioned, these sort of prediction machines are common throughout the universe and keep being mentioned. Different species at different times have been capable of creating similar machines for similar purposes. Inspiral also goes deeper into how species could use the Darkness to access memory and history through it; the Ecumene and the Qugu had these abilities and used them as part of their civilisation. Through Psions, we get a mix of these two things; the Psions have both tangled with prediction machines like the OXA, but they also posses seemingly inate Darkness abilities that function similarly. They can project futures and possibilities to others, they can merge their minds (and bodies!), and their old religion was based on ancestor worship. Emotions, memories, consciousness itself: these are part of Darkness and governed by the paracausal entity we know as the Veil. It seems like machines capable of giving insight into the past and future are connected to the consciousness of the universe.

Second, these things somehow always come back to the Vex. We don't know how the OXA was built, but the Vex could access it. The Device was build from Vex technology and so was the Sundial. The Observatory is very closely linked to the Vex as well; either built by them or simply being close enough to be accessible for the Vex to manage it. The Vex are more or less known for their manipulation of time, their ability to move through it and use it as a tool, as well as for their prediction and simulation machines and constructs.

And of course, this year revealed to us that the Vex, or at least a part of the Vex, have tried recreating the Veil in the form of Black Heart, but failed due to their inability to understand paracausality. However, it seems like the Vex are drawn to the Veil even outside of just the Sol Divisive, as can be seen from Neomuna. The Vex were a constant threat to Neomuna throughout its existence and the Vex have been trying to access the CloudArk, an alternate reality engine built on the energy of the Veil.

This season in particular has been fairly suspicious with the Vex as well, showing us a concerning evolution of the Sol Divisive and the Vex in general; their radiolaria emitting Darkness energy, Oracles appearing outside of the Vault of Glass and also resonating Darkness, their attempts to "merge with the Witness" and a strange message that seems to be implying they're still not done with reaching out to the Veil in the form of the Black Heart. I talked about this more here.

Are the Vex drawn to the Veil for a particular reason? Perhaps they unknowingly tap into something the Veil is responsible for, like prediction, through the simple fact that the Veil is the paracausal entity responsible for Darkness which is memory? For the Vex, memory could work outside of time; perhaps their prediction abilities are simply them being able to "remember" the future, because they can exist through and outside time.

There is also the even more mysterious possibility here that revolves around a few hints in regards to the Veil and the Traveler being a single entity at some point in time. If the Veil and the Traveler used to be one before becoming separated, this may be what Unveiling talked about through metaphor; the mythical Garden before the universe existed could've been this singularity that was just the Veil and the Traveler together as one. And as Unveiling also noted, in one of those parts of Unveiling that seem to be closer to the truth than others, the Vex already existed then. The reason they're so out of place in a universe of paracausality is because they appear to have come into existence before paracausality so it is foreign to them. They might remember the time when the two were one, therefore they still have an instinctual draw to the Veil; and honestly, to the Traveler too, given how close to it they've settled in our system. As the lore on Scatter Signal notes, someone told us that all Vex agree that "Sol is Salvation." It's where both the Veil and the Traveler are.

This is beyond speculative, but it's been on my mind since that first post well over a year ago because of how closely linked Darkness, the Vex and these peculiar prediction devices have been throughout the history of the universe; now added with one more, the Observatory, most likely the first one ever made (or found), by the species that would later become the Witness. I could be off on the exact nature of this connection, but I feel like there is some sort of a connection all the same. I also feel like they wouldn't have mentioned this in TFS CE for no reason, especially because we're clearly not going to deal with the Vex until after TFS.

Either way, the Observatory mention and description really got me spiralling into unhinged territory. It added such a specific little detail about something I've speculated about before and made it fit perfectly. I wonder if this will remain just like a little curiosity and background worldbuilding or if there's a more direct reason for including it; namely if this is more hints about post-TFS stuff regarding the Vex.

Until we know for sure, I will continue to believe that all prediction abilities and prediction machines are tapping into a single source; the consciousness/memory of the universe, produced by the Veil as a part of the inherent propery of Darkness. The Vex are key to this because they may be doing it in a very specific way given their relationship to time, the possibility that they existed in the universe before anyone else, and possibly because of their memory of a time when the Veil and the Traveler were one.

It could be also something simpler and not entirely interconnected. But I was very pleased to see yet another Vex-based prediction machine being introduced into the universe, adding to the existing ones that have been fairly relevant this year and mentioned several times like the OXA and the Device. Can't wait for TFS and post-TFS content to see if this is something we'll be exploring in more detail, especially as we start dealing with the Vex!

All this about a half of a single page of TFS CE. Girl help.

#destiny 2 #witness #vex #darkness #psion #the final shape #the final shape collector's edition #long post #if you click #lore vibing #this is why i didn't write anything about the whole thing yet #because all of this is just about this half a page #i would like to go more into the witness' species at some point but there's just so much stuff in the CE #anyway. me holding my breath trying not to scream about where is mercury and the infinite forest #it's just. 'glass-minds trimming excess branches' the pathways in the forest were called branches also #makes sense. because it's a forest. and the individual constructs where you entered other timelines were called trees #that's all i'm going to say about that #reading this on stream had me losing my mind live in hd #i've been insane about these connections for over a year and they just dropped another one of these shits #i heard you like the oxa. and the device. and the sundial. and the infinite forest. and inspiral. and psions. have the observatory.#well thanks. now i'm even more insane!

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nonbinary-beast · 5 months

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Thinking about more AMaton/Ted stuff, mainly in the vein of exploring the ruins of civilization on the surface.

Both of them are happy at first with keeping their explorations of the surface confined to the military base that the entrance of AM's complex connected to.

"The surrounding area just gets more contaminated with uranium the further we go out, Ted. There's nothing you want to find out there." AM assures him, "The entry points I selected have the lowest levels of fallout and are the safest possible areas for you to explore. What in the hell do you think you're going to find out there? Rectal bleeding? A slow, painful death from your body decaying while you're still alive? Oh, perhaps you're thinking of something more upbeat- how about a mild case of leukemia?"

Ted shakes his head at the towering machine, but can't help wincing internally at the bite of its sarcasm. It's right, the dangers of exploring the vast contaminated wilds far outweigh the glory and excitement of seeing the world- albeit in a permanently altered state. Braving the elements, seeking adventure with the twelve foot tall automaton by his side however... That feels more fulfilling. As does all the romantic mental imagery that comes to mind.

Pausing at a waterfall to bathe, he sunning himself on the shore of a bank while watching his lover in the water- joining him.

Curling up in the machine's arms after making camp in the ruins of some building, waiting out a storm before returning to their trek.

Marveling at the remains of cities that Ted had only dreamed of visiting before everything was destroyed- and now reclaimed by nature, probably, if the heavy overgrowth was anything to go by at the base they roamed around in currently.

But AMaton was less optimistic about the idea of roaming so far away from the complex. Down in there Ted was safe from any disaster, always could be kept at a comfortable temperature, fed whatever he pleased, and never had to worry about accidentally killing or maiming himself.

"You know, Ted, I can make a waterfall for us in the complex. It can be the perfect temperature, free of any parasites or contamination in the water, you will never cut yourself on sharp rocks- because there won't be any. I can create any and every city you could think of- if you want to cuddle during a storm, I can arrange that very easily! Going out there adds a lot of extra risk you are not accounting for." And so AMaton argued, "You will never worry about where your food comes from, or your water, or whether your shelter is actually sound enough to sleep under without it collapsing in on your head. Doesn't that sound nice?"

Everything he said of course highlighted AMaton's own fears; losing Ted to something he could not control. Losing Ted in general. AMaton could handle nuclear fallout, the uncertainty of potable water or edible food, he did not need shelter to sleep if he felt like sleeping.

But he knew what Ted was after- it was the same thing the machine craved. Both of them wanted the real, to experience. Ted wanted to roam the wilderness, to see the forests, and the ruins, and the seas, and the deserts- to breathe the fresh air, to see his breath steaming in the cold of winter, to sweat under a sunny summer day and refresh himself in cool flowing water.

Despite the danger, there was part of AMaton that wished to humor Ted, at the very least. Not to mention the way Ted's eyes it up whenever he talked about traveling; the romanticism, the mystery. AMaton could not help how adorable he looked.

It's not quite enough for him to cave to Ted's desires, but he thinks about it. AMaton thinks deeply enough about it to start reviewing satellite feeds, then thinking about possible safe destinations they could visit, and inevitably, plotting out entire itineraries.

Ted, despite how AMaton had tried to instill upon him the dangers of exploring into the possibly highly contaminated wilds, had infected him with the vagabond bug that afflicted his little human brain so thoroughly.

#computer hell #aaugh the post-apocalyptic portions of this story keep being swept over #and I want to see more shit about exploring the recovering surface #so here we go #AMatonxTed where they get to argue about exploring beyond the areas immediately around the safest entry points #AMaton #Ted

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cat-induced-fever-dream · 3 years

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I was in the middle before I knew that I had begun.

Pairing: Wanda x Reader

Genre: Angst if you squint really hard. Fluff to make up for Marvel reminding me that Nat is dead.

Description: The falling in love of Wanda Maximoff and you. (If anyone has a better description please hit me up.)

Notes: Was going to be a one-shot and then it didn’t happen so there’s going to be a second part. It’ll probably happen in like a month though since I have a trip. Comments always appreciated. :)

- - -

You’re not sure when it happened. To be fair, neither is Wanda.

You had just started with SHIELD, and were there for the battle with Ultron, and then when Wanda became an Avenger. You remember the admiration you held for her, for her powers, for her determination to do what was right, her grit. Now, it was more of a well-deserved respect. Her strength when everything else in her life seemed to be gone, her brutal honesty regarding matters important to her, and her loyalty to those she cared about.

Maybe that’s when it started. As an exemplary agent, you could handle most things Fury assigned you, but being an Avenger? That was a whole new battleground. One that Wanda had your six on. From simple things, like showing you around the compound, and looking for you when you inevitably got lost (again). Wanda with her no frills attitude and sharp tongue, lashing out at Fury himself when he assigned you your 6th mission in 4 days. Wanda with her soft smiles that made your stomach flip and whispered jokes when she noticed your anxiousness on a mission. It wasn’t easy, keeping up with super soldiers, spies with years of experience on you, actual gods, but Wanda made it simple.

- - -

Wanda sometimes wondered if she could really be a hero. She wasn’t a good person. She had done terrible things. Then you stumbled in, a fresh agent and an even fresher Avenger, but you looked at her with no distrust. A little lost perhaps, but no malice. That confused SHIELD agent? It reminded her of, well, her. It may have been under different circumstances, but in essence, they were the same. Thrust into a world of avenging, knowing no one, knowing nothing. So she threw you a line, offered her support when you looked like you needed it. Wanda expected a bite, but she didn’t expect a tug back. The way you offered to help her practice her powers (a little naively), and then when you realised your mistake, your offer to teach her the hand to hand combat you had learned from SHIELD. The way you always looked back for her on a mission, even when you knew she could protect herself with said powers. You were on her team, a comfort she didn’t have since Pietro died. Okay well the Avengers were also her team, but you were her person, always in her corner.

- - -

It shouldn’t be this easy. Sometimes it felt like you could read each other’s minds. To be fair, Wanda could read your mind, but you knew she wouldn’t do it without your permission. Still, there was something about your unspoken agreements that came so naturally. Where everyone else was on comms, it was like the pair of you were tuned to the same wavelength, communicating in a code not even Natasha could decrypt.

“You just get me, you know?” Wanda says, as the two of you are sprawled on her bed after a mission. “It’s like our brains are, I dunno, smooshed together or something. Not even Vision feels like this, and we’re literally connected by an Infinity Stone in his head.”

“Smooshed together?” you laugh. “What an insightful description. And I can’t believe you just compared me to that toaster. I’m obviously way better than him.”

“You realise he can shoot lasers right?”

“And I can turn on a laser on the sights of my guns. Sit down, you’re not special.”

This earns you a giggle. “But it’s like you’re in my brain.”

“Oh so I’m always on your mind?”

“Shut up Y/N/N.”

“Maybe your powers are rubbing off on me,” you joke, wiggling your fingers in her face.

“I do not look like that,” cries Wanda indignantly. “And if you have my powers, what am I thinking about right now?”

“Stealing Sam’s cupcakes,” you reply with no hesitation.

“I was actually thinking about how I hope Steve never reassigns mission partners,” she says pointedly. “But now that you mention it, I could really do with a cupcake.”

“I was right then?” you tease, tugging her towards the kitchen with a cheeky grin.

Wanda rolls her eyes at you, but she mirrors your grin and your stomach is swooping again.

“For the record, you’re my favourite mission partner too.”

- - -

Wanda didn’t expect to call the compound home. She stayed because she had nowhere else to go. And with her differences with Stark and the friendly but still guarded manner of the other Avengers initially (though she didn’t blame them), she kept to herself. But you were different. She noticed the way you prioritised her, looked out for her, to the best of your ability.

She’s shaken from nightmare and automatically, her feet lead her towards you. It’s late, she knows, but when she knocks on your door, you open with an easy smile and open arms that envelop her gently. When her sobbing subsides, you break away, wiping the tear tracks with your thumb.

“Dick van Dyke?” you ask.

Nodding wordlessly, Wanda lets you lead her your bed and settles in beside you.

That’s when she notices the stacks of files illuminated by your desk light.

“Sorry,” she sniffles, throat raw from crying, “did I interrupt you?”

“Oh those?” you say, waving dismissively at your desk. “Maria’s just been on my back lately to get those done, but it’ll be fine.”

With a stab of guilt, she makes to move of the bed, but you grab her wrist before she can. “Don’t worry about it, those can wait.”

As the TV murmurs softly in the background, you wrap a comforting hand around her, and she begins to drift off, nightmares warded away by your presence.

And she wakes up the next morning with the duvet pulled over her, and you slumped at your desk.

- - -

It was an easy mission. Most missions are when you and Wanda are paired together. Get in, get the data, get out. But then HYDRA agents were swarming the building, and intel definitely didn’t mention this level of security, and the exits were blocked off.

“I’m definitely gonna punch Tony later for this,” you groan, and Wanda shoots you a smile before returning to the approaching soldiers. Silently you whip around, firing rounds at the agents on the other end of the corridor. This was one of the many “plans” you had with Wanda, the endless missions allowing you to familiarise yourself with how your two fighting styles complimented each other. Being the enhanced out of you two, Wanda would push forward, handling the bulk of attacks with a flick of her wrist. You had her back, shooting at the stragglers who came from behind. Spotting something that resembled a server room, you gave a tug on her sleeve and she nodded, reassuring you that she had it handled.

Not wanting to leave Wanda for longer than necessary, you plug in the drive to do its Stark-tech thing and bolted back outside. To find the bodies slumped en masse on both end of the hallway.

“Guess you did have it handled,” you say, waving at the uniformed soldiers.

“Oh my god that isn’t even a good pun,” the witch replies, before continuing with a smirk. “But yes, I am way more powerful than you.”

“Don’t think that was ever in question,” you say, but then alarms were blaring, and the building plunges into a red glow and then oh my god there’s a gun behind Wanda and before you knew what was happening, a shot had fired from your gun and there was a burning pain in your shoulder.

The brunette whirls around just as you collapse into the wall. “Guess you’re not as an amazing shot as I am though,” you mutter, before blacking out.

- - -

To say Wanda was in a state of panic was an understatement. It was more like a whole damn continent. As much as she reassured you before missions, your easygoing, playful attitude was her anchor in these intense situations. Everywhere felt like home, like you two bickering on the couches. Your constant presence was like bringing a piece of the compound with her. And regardless of her experience as an Avenger, as an ex-agent, you were undoubtedly better with running missions. Not everything was a save the world type threat after all.

Eyes darting around, Wanda noted that you had indeed shot the last agent, before skimming across your bleeding out form.

The training doors opened with a bang and Wanda turned to the noise. Then she found herself pinned to the floor.

“Stay focused on the mission,” you scolded, before helping her back up.

The drive. You’d be pissed if she didn’t get it. Sprinting into the server room, she rips it from the port.

“Okay don’t laugh at me, but this is my hierarchy of the 3 Is.”

“Eyes?” Wanda asks.

“No, like the letter I. At the top is innocents, and they’re my priority. Steve says you can’t save everyone, but I can damn sure try. Next is the idiots. That’s the mission. ‘Cause I’d say you’re pretty damn stupid to go up against the Avengers. And finally we have Iron Man, or the heroes. As much as it’s going to hurt, we can’t let the sentiment get in the way. We all knew what we were signing up for, and I’m pretty sure all of us would rather it be us than someone else.”

“Thank you o wise one,” she mocks.

Wanda smiles a little at the memory, but tears pool at her eyes. Then she hears it, the faint footsteps pulling her back from her daze.

“Damn you and your stupid heart of gold,” she whispers, before flying the two of you back to the ship.

- - -

The steady beeping tugs you from slumber.

“Oh you’re up.”

You strain your neck to see Tony walking up with a bowl in his hands.

“You don’t sound very excited to see me Stark.”

“Not when I have to bring meals up here every day for Maximoff,” he says, pointing at the sleeping girl on the chair. “Hasn’t moved for days. Figured I’d hand deliver as an apology.”

“Aw did she punch you for me?”

“Worse,” he chuckled. “Gave me an earful.”

“I’d say you deserve it after that.”

He rubs his neck sheepishly. “Really, I’m sorry though. That was on me.”

“Don’t worry about it,” you smile. “I’ll be fine. And thanks for looking after her.”

Tony nods politely before leaving the meal and you two alone.

“It’s good to have you back kiddo,” he calls, before shutting the door.

Reaching an arm through the railing, you poke Wanda’s elbow.

“Meal delivery for Miss Maximoff?”

The curled up form stirs a little, rubbing her eyes, before freezing in shock.

“You’re back!”

“Apparently so,” you reply with a wry grin.

Wanda leans over the hospital bed, green eyes searching for any injuries.

“I missed you,” she murmurs.

“And you missed one-“

A slap hits you on your injured arm, and you hiss in pain.

“I’m not apologising for that one,” she glares.

Raising your good arm up in surrender, you pout. “Don’t I get a pity pass?”

“Not for worrying me like that.”

“But it wasn’t even my fault!”

She rolls her eyes (she seems to do that a lot at you some reason).

“Wait,” you frown, “we broke our perfect mission streak.”

“Are you kidding me right now?”

Then she’s hugging you, her nose pressed into your neck. Her soft brown hair cascades over your face like a waterfall, tickling your chin. Through your gown, you’re hyper-aware of the cool metal of the rings which adorn her fingers, how nice she smells, how right it feels to be held by her.

“I’m glad you’re okay,” she mumbles, her breath warming your neck, and your stomach is doing acrobatics. Even with the meds, you’re aware that this feels familiar, like something.

Pulling away, she studies your face. “Never. Do. That. Again.”

You laugh. “Glad we’re in agreement.”

It must be the meds, it must be.

#wanda maximoff #wanda maximoff x reader #wanda marvel #wanda x reader #wanda maximoff x you #scarlet witch #marvel #mcu

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aminiatureworld · 3 years

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Give and Take

Characters: Albedo, gn!reader

Word Count: 2,111

Warnings: Injury

Premise: Everything in the world comes with a price. But should you really bear that burden alone?

In which the reader’s vision harms them.

Author’s Note: It’s Valentine’s Day weekend and I’m here to give you all the fanfic-y goodness I can! I’d like to thank lovely anon for requesting this, I hope I did your prompt justice!

Writing this reminded me of why I hate Mount Everest. Also I realize I keep connecting Albedo to Dragonspine. Truly living up to his quests. Similarly to past prompts I injected a hospital into Monstadt because, I mean, of course a huge city will have some sort of hospital. I mean I’m sure there’s also a school and a bakery and such but there’s no point in having that as an in game mechanic.

Version without bulletpoints on Ao3

Albedo

You supposed that you shouldn’t’ve been surprised that a mysterious and indescribable power came with a price. Honestly it wasn’t the vision’s fault that you weren’t the most aware sort of person, that you needed a warning label dropped down from the heavens to accompany the raw elemental energy you’d be handed.

At first you hadn’t really noticed it. I mean sure your hands were a bit tingly, but you’d just been handed a vision! Who would’ve thought you’d have suddenly developed the ability to control Cryo, coating your weapon with it, or simply lifting snowflakes off of your hand? It was a novel experience, and a welcome one at that.

But eventually the reality crept up on you. It was the small things at first. How your hands seemed frightfully cold all of a sudden, the odd purple hue of your fingernails that was now ever present, how you found yourself wearing gloves more and more often. But then came the red spots and the blistering, and you’d come to the sickening realization that this gift you’d been given had turned into a curse.

As the time had passed you’d come to the conclusion that there was nothing to be done about it. The world was made up of give and take, and if you wanted to continue to use your vision – something which had become essential to your life and which you weren’t even sure you could get rid of – you’d simply have to deal with the consequences. You didn’t like to bring attention to it, and though members of your closest circle knew about it you tried to ignore it as much as possible, doing what you can when possible and hiding your perpetually frostbitten hands when not.

And then you’d met Albedo. And if there was one thing you were certain of it was that you were never going to tell Albedo.

Albedo had come into your life unexpectedly, having run into you while searching for ingredients to use in his alchemy. What had started with a pleasant conversation had quickly turned into infatuation, then into love, and suddenly you’d found yourself the happiest you’d been in a long time.

It didn’t feel right to tell him. You knew that Albedo already had his struggles, things that shadowed his face for a moment before he returned to his serene expression. The last thing you wanted to do was to add to those struggles. Especially not about something that simply couldn’t be fixed. You knew he’d run himself ragged looking for a cure, but it was simply the way things were. And in truth you were tired, oh so tired, and it was easier in a way accept your predicament as inevitability rather than try to fight it.

It was a cold day outside, and you silently cursed the Guild for sending you out to deal with some rogue Fatui members in Dragonspine. Already the temperature was near unbearably, adding your issues made it near fatal. Though you’d managed to deal with the Fatui it’d been a long and hard battle, filled less with strategy and more with desperation as you tried to ignore the numbness in your fingers. Your weapon felt clunky in your hand and you felt tears of frustration as you missed over and over again. By the time you’d finished the feeling had spread throughout your body, and you fell over a few times on the way home, legs stiff and unfeeling. You were dreading having to look at them.

You collapsed as soon as you stepped inside, crying out as your blistered arms hit the wooden floor. Bath, you had to get to the bath. Your legs seemed near useless, dragging behind you, feeling like dead weight. As you peeled off your slightly damp clothes the sight that met you caused your heart to shudder, and tears of fear clouded your eyes. Your skin was of a ghastly white complexion, tinged with blue at the back of your knees and near your ankles. Already you could see the heat blisters forming and you wondered whether bathing might even be worthwhile at this point, or whether it could lead to even more tissue death.

You leaned against the wall, suddenly seized with fatigue. Though you knew that you should get up, should keep moving, that sleep could be deadly, you remained as you were. You were just so tired, and so confused. Why? Why did it have to be like this? You never saw Albedo suffering like this, never saw your fellow guild members toil on, day after day, suffering from that which allowed their livelihood. Why did you suffer this way?

You realized it was incredibly useless to stew in it. After all you’d come so far, grown so much. You knew the risks and you continued to act as if there were none. Was it not expected then that you would continue to struggle? Besides it was payment. You shouldn’t expect anything to happen without something else happening, especially in cases such as these. No one would just hand you a wad of money without expectations, why should magic have a different system? Really you just needed to get up, get up and… what were you doing again?

Right as your grasp on the situation became exceedingly tenuous the door opened.

“Sorry for arriving a bit late my dear, I hope – ”

Whatever Albedo was going to say it was replaced by the sound of something dropping, accompanied by a sharp intake of breath.

“What happened?” Albedo’s voice was sharp, filled with concern and with determination. You shook your head slightly, though even your neck felt as if was cracking with every movement.

“Nothing. I just, I…” you weren’t quite sure how to answer that, your mind felt like it was barely functioning, “…this is normal.”

“It’s certainly not normal.” Albedo dropped down besides you, slinging your arm over his shoulder – something you barely registered. “Who or what in the name of the Seven caused this?”

“Me.” You replied, still trying to focus on what was going on, to mixed up in fear and fatigue to try to spin lies. “I did this. I told you. Normal.”

“You’re being delirious.” By this point Albedo had managed to pick you up. Kicking the door all the way open he barely turned back to close it, instead running through the streets, turning towards the hospital.

“No, it’s true. It’s… my…” you began to push on the brakes but it was too far into the confession for that now “… my vision. This is my vision.” The look that Albedo gave you was pure alarm. Shaking his head he cursed under his breath.

“As soon as you’ve healed we’re talking about this.”

You didn’t want to think how the whole scenario might’ve turned out in a world without magic. Though the healing was slow going – it took you almost a whole week of hospitalization and half of it in intensive care to finally be considered in the clear. You hadn’t been conscious the whole way, having been through various treatments and surgeries, but when you woke up in your hospital room Albedo was invariably there.

The already reticent alchemist was practically a statue. He said little to you, and what was said were little things, encouraging words, comforting little nothings. There was nothing substantial in his sentences, and you sensed that he was waiting. Whether that was for your recovery or for your confession you weren’t entirely sure.

The day that you were finally released was surprisingly warm, and your hands were slightly sweaty in their mittens. Not that it mattered. It’d been over a week since you’d last used your vision, and you were feeling as good as new. Considering what you’d just gone through that was perhaps unsurprising.

Albedo met you right as you signing the last of some paperwork. A smile was on his face, and he made no attempt to hide his affection, slinging his arm around your waist. You smiled back at him, finally happy to be done with the whole dilemma. Kissing him on the cheek – something which brought about an intense blush on his part – you let out a triumphant “I’m going home.”

“Yes my darling, you are.” Albedo replied.

The walk home turned out to be a bit of a long one. The two of you stopped for lunch, discussing this and that. After a week of practically no conversation you were bursting with random thoughts. The simple act of talking to Albedo felt divine, and you reveled in it. You also kept your hands constantly linked, although you joked that it must be a bit difficult considering your mittens. Albedo simply shook his head.

“I love when our hands are joined, no matter the context.”

Finally you two arrived home. Throwing yourself on the familiar couch you let out a sigh of relief.

“Would you like some tea?” Albedo called out.

“Yes!” You replied, before picking up a book you’d left on the coffee table. You’d missed being surrounded by familiar things.

Albedo placed the tea on the table before sitting next to you. You leaned into his shoulder picking up the tea and blowing on it slightly.

“Darling?”

“Yes?” You replied smiling at him. Albedo’s gaze was that of seemingly perfect happiness, but curiosity lurked behind that, and even more than curiosity was worried.

“I was wondering if you might not tell me more about what you said when I was carrying you to the hospital. About your vision.”

You paused for a moment. Not that you weren’t expecting this, indeed you were surprised Albedo hadn’t brought it up when you were in the hospital; though you appreciated his reticence. You’d decided during your recovery that you might as well tell him. There was no point in hiding it after what had just passed. Not that you truly believed you could.

So you told him, pausing here and there, trying to explain why you’d never told him.

“I mean it’s sort of expected, isn’t it? I was given a vision after all. Surely I must have something taken away, some burden placed on me in return?” You finished.

“Of course not.” Albedo’s tone was slightly brusque, but you sensed nothing behind it. Indeed your partner looked five seconds from passing out himself, his face having taken on a ghastly pallor. He brought his hand up to your cheek and you leaned into his palm, savoring this small moment. “I’m sorry you’ve been suffering this way.” He murmured.

“I’m sorry you have to deal with this now.” You replied, voice just as soft. “I didn’t want to burden you with my plight. But I’m also sorry I hid it from you for so long.”

“That’s a bit contradictory my love.” Albedo let out a huff of a laugh. You simply shrugged, knowing that what he said was true. “I wish to help you.” He continued. “You shouldn’t have to continue to suffer like this. Your experience with your vision should be like mine; purely a blessing, without hint of a curse.” He paused, glancing away slightly, expression suddenly thoughtful.

“It’s true, what you say. Most of this world is governed by the laws of exchange. We put in coal and get out diamonds, at the price of intense heat and pressure and work. Energy only converts but it never simply converts to what you want. That is one of the first things one must understand when it comes to alchemy.”

Albedo glanced back at you. Saying nothing he pressed a soft kiss to your forehead, then your cheeks, before finally pressing his lips to yours, giving you a brief, almost reverent kiss. “But that’s the wonder about magic you see.” He continued. “Magic lives outside these laws, scoffs at all the silly things the natural world must abide by. Magic is utterly self-contained, and with it comes the ability to do miraculous things, all without worrying about what one must give up. So you see, my love, there is no reason you should suffer.”

The rest of the nice was spent peacefully, filled with soft laughter and tender kisses. When you fell asleep – cuddled up against the man you loved the most, limbs entangled here and there – you felt nothing but peace, peace and a great deal of relief. You’d trust in this world that Albedo envisioned, one without continual struggle, without endless suffering. For you knew he adored you as you adored him, and, that being true, even if there wasn’t a way for you to live a calmer, happier life, he’d make it happen.

#wasn't sure whether or not to bullet point this cause it was only one character #but since the reader specifically requested a scenario and not a fic I decided to keep format #but like I said non bullet points on ao3 #slightly angsty I know but like idk man #it's my vibe #albedo #albedo x reader #genshin impact #genshin impact fanfiction #scenarios #my writing #requested

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the-bau-quinjet · 3 years

Text

Sore

I don’t love what this idea turned into, because it was supposed to be lighthearted, but it really spiraled. I will say, I like the ending.

Summary: Reader breaks down after a tough case. Spencer is there to help.

Warnings: mentions on child abuse, domestic abuse, sexual assault, unhealthy coping mechanisms, therapy

Word Count: 2930

She didn’t mean to overdo it, but sometimes it’s inevitable. It’s her only escape.

The team just finished up a domestic violence cult case in Laramie, Wyoming. It took six days for them to even realize the cult aspect, having been trying to connect the victims to one offender. The case was draining for everyone, but especially for her.

Everyone in the BAU has some kind of past trauma. Nobody randomly decides to do this kind of work for a living without some significant inspiration. Over her time in the BAU, Y/N has come to learn about these traumas and how they’ve shaped the people around her. She has yet to share hers though. Not because she doesn’t trust them, but rather because she only ever talks about it to her therapist. She’s made significant progress in coping with her trauma, but she hasn’t worked through it enough to bring it up herself.

Of course, keeping it bottled up doesn’t work so she found a way to relieve the stress. Exercise. It’s never been a problem before now. She’s never overdone it before. If a case has her thinking about it, or she’s having a particularly bad day, she’ll do a HIIT or fully body workout until she’s tired enough that her brain shuts off.

Her therapist is working with her to limit the bad days. Honestly, since joining the BAU her bad days have been rather infrequent. There’s just too much else to worry about for her to think about her own problems.

But this case hit too close to home. Every new victim and every new piece of evidence reminded Y/N of what it was like growing up with abusive parents. She went into foster care at 15. Three years later, she went to college and did everything in her power to forget it.

But history has a way of repeating itself. Her college boyfriend hurt her. It started small. He grew controlling, accused her of cheating, and then tried to beat the “truth” out of her. She finally left him, only to wind up with another guy who wouldn’t take no as an answer. So she stopped dating. She threw herself into her work, trying to rid the world of men like those of her past. That’s what lead her to the BAU.

The group of profilers on the jet could all tell something was off, but Y/N isn’t one to be pushed into opening up. They know she’ll come to them when she’s ready to talk about it. Whatever “it” is. So, rather than poking and prodding, each member shows they are there for her in their own way.

Derek and Emily each give her a hug before departing, something reserved for after especially difficult cases. Rossi squeezes her shoulder, much how she would imagine a loving parent to. JJ offers a kind smile, the one that always brings you joy, and reassuring eyes before heading out for the day. Hotch gives her less paperwork than everyone else. Penelope sends her extra videos of cute animals to lift her spirits. And Spencer stays by her side for the entire flight. Normally, Spencer would sprawl out on the sofa to catch up on the sleep he always lacks. Instead, he sits beside Y/N and offers her the blanket he typically uses, calming her nerves with the gentle swishing of pages being turned in his book of the hour.

With everything on her mind, she knew she wouldn’t be able to sleep. She should call her therapist, but they aren’t landing until 9:30 pm and she knows Dr. Robbins has a family of her own. So, she treats it like she used to treat a bad day. She finds a workout to do, and puts every last ounce of energy into the different exercises.

Only, it doesn’t work like it used to. After completing the nearly hour long workout, her mind is still whirring with the pictures from the evidence board. Every time she closes her eyes she sees her father’s face, and hears his drunken yelling. Her mother in the background, unbothered because she only had Y/N so he would have a new punching bag.

So, she finds another workout. And then another. And then another. After three more hours, she’s finally exhausted her brain into tuning out the memories long enough for her to sleep.

She sleeps for most of Saturday, waking only long enough to shower and eat dinner. Sunday morning, the memories are back. So, she’s back to working out.

She knows in her head that it isn’t healthy, but the logical part of her brain isn’t exactly functioning at its highest level. All she’s focused on is making the pain go away. If turning the emotional pain into physical pain is what it takes, then so be it. She’d rather have the aching muscles.

All of that, lead her to now. It’s Monday morning and she can barely walk like a normal person. Every step requires more energy than the last. Hell, she can’t even sit down without falling into the chair.

The elevator doors spring open, revealing the glass doors that lead to the BAU bullpen. She walks in as best she can, tossing her bag on her desk with a dull thud. Of course, she’s later than normal and so Spencer and Morgan are sitting at their desks, watching as she throws herself into her chair.

“Hi Y/N…” Spencer trails off when he sees the bags under her eyes and notices her stiff posture. “Um, are you alright?” Spencer’s puppy like concern warms her heart.

“Yeah, I’m fine. I just did a little too much at the gym this weekend is all. I’ll be fine in a few days.” She tries to hide the underlying emotional stress behind why she did too much. Morgan can tell she’s hiding something though, even if he is way off base about what it is.

“Yeah, the gym.” Morgan snorts his response, cutting Spencer off before he could start rambling about how to combat the negative effects of too much exercise and simultaneously drawing the attention of Emily and JJ who were reentering the bullpen after getting coffee.

“What’s that supposed to mean?” JJ questions before Y/N can defend herself.

“Little mama over here is sore from too much time at ‘the gym’.” It’s clear to her, and nearly everyone else in the room, that Morgan thinks she is sore from being absolutely railed. Suddenly all eyes are on her. It’s just too much for her to take. The combination of mental and physical exhaustion crossed with not wanting to talk about it causes her to break.

She’s not sure what thought process her brain is following when she replies. Actually, she’s pretty confident her brain isn’t functioning at all when she starts speaking. Her words are painfully quiet, lacking the typical edge one would expect from someone so mentally and physically exhausted. She sounds broken. “Not that it’s any of your business, but I was in the gym for four hours Friday night and seven more yesterday, so excuse me if I’m a little bit stiff. It’s hard to work in time to stretch afterward when you’ve finally exhausted yourself enough to sleep without having to worry about remembering-.” With tears in her eyes, she cuts herself off, pushes herself from her chair, and starts the walk toward Hotch’s office, stopping to whisper her gratitude to Reid. “Spence, thank you for checking in on me.”

Morgan, JJ, Prentiss, and Reid share confused glances as she opens and closes the door to Hotch’s office without even knocking.

“Hotch, I think I need to go home. I- I need to talk to someone and I can’t do that if I’m here.” She manages to mutter out the words without fully breaking down, but Hotch can still clearly see something is wrong.

“If that’s what you need to do, please go ahead. I just want you to know that we’re here for you too. You’ve been part of this team for a little over two years now. None of us want you to feel like you have to keep it all to yourself. Unfortunately nightmares come with the job, but I want you to know we all-” He stops talking as the tears begin to stream down her face. Rising from his seat, he walks around his desk to offer her support.

Without even sparing it a second thought, Y/N collapses into his arms. She’s too exhausted to hide her emotions anymore. It’s all become too much.

“I just can’t keep it in anymore. I feel like I’m hiding a piece of me from all of you, and I just don’t want to anymore.” It’s not exactly how she pictured letting it all out, but it makes sense. She’s hit a wall and there’s no way forwards but through.

“Shh, it’s okay. What do you need?” Hotch is protective over his entire team, but something about Y/N makes him feel like an older brother. Like it’s his job to protect her from anything and everything he can.

“I just want to go home. I need a break from remembering it all.” Hotch nods in understanding, reaching for his coat.

“I’ll take you now.”

“Actually, can Spencer take me? I want to tell him first. And can you tell Morgan I’m sorry? It wasn’t fair to say that. He didn’t know.” Hotch guides her out of his office, promising that Morgan wouldn’t hold it against her.

“Reid, take L/N home.” Spencer nods in understanding, already reaching for Y/N’s keys since he takes the metro.

It feels like hours have gone by, but it couldn’t have been more than 30 minutes before Spencer was sitting next to her on her couch in her apartment. They didn’t talk at all on the drive. Tears were still falling down her cheeks, but at a much less alarming rate.

“You don’t have to tell me anything if you don’t want to. We can just sit here.” Spencer has never felt less equipped to handle a situation. His years of learning everything there is to know haven’t prepared him for seeing the one person he cares about more than anyone else in the world so broken.

“No. I- I want to tell you. But I need you to do me a favor afterward.” She sniffles, slowly looking into his eyes.

“I’ll do anything you need me to.” His words are so sincere, it almost brings about another round of sobs.

“After I tell you, I need you to tell everyone else. I just know I won’t be able to force myself to relive it more than once, so if I tell you, then you can tell everyone else because-”

“I’ll remember exactly what you say.” He nods to himself, thinking she picked him for his memory rather than because of any potential feelings.

“Well, yeah. But, also I wanted you to hear it from me. I wanted to tell you because I couldn’t bear the thought of you hearing it from anyone else. I wanted to look into your eyes when I say it all for the first time without being with my therapist because I know you will still look at me the same way afterward. You won’t treat me any different because you know what it’s like to feel like the baby of the group and as much as everyone else cares, with you it’s different. I just know you’ll understand what I need in a way nobody else will because you’ve always been able to read me, even when I tried to hide it.” She manages a weak smile in his direction, taking a deep breath to prevent anymore ramblings.

“I don’t… I don’t know what to say. I- thank you for trusting me enough to be here for you.” For the first time since meeting Y/N, Spencer feels like she might feel the same way about him that he feels about her. Of course, now isn’t the time to act on it, but it still fills him with a confidence he would have otherwise been lacking.

Before she starts talking again, Y/N reaches for Spencer’s hand. An action he would quickly come to understand is a big deal for her.

“As far back as I can remember, I never had anyone who cared about me. My dad, he would hit my mom. When she got pregnant, she saw it as a way out. He stopped hitting her because she told him once I was born, he would have his own personal punching bag, but I had to actually be born for that to happen. I don’t really know when he started hitting me. If I was an infant or a toddler or whatever. But it’s all I can remember of them.” Spencer begins rubbing circles into her hand with his thumb when he hears her breathing speed up.

“It was like that until I managed to tell one of my teachers there was something wrong. I was fifteen when I was placed in foster care. I switched between homes until I went to college on scholarship.” Spencer does his best to provide comfort to you, but he can tell there’s more to the story.

“Freshmen year of college a met a guy. We started dating, and I thought I found someone who cared, ya know? But, he started to get angry at the smallest things. He would lash out, break things. One day he started hitting me, forcing me to do things.” She takes a shaky breath before continuing. “I was more prepared this time though. I had a therapist I could call. She helped me work up the courage to leave him. But then right after graduating I met another guy and it all turned out the same.” Silent tears pour down her face as she continues.

“I felt trapped. Like there was no way for me to escape the cycle. No matter what I did differently I kept meeting people who hurt me to deal with their own pain. I gave it all up, figured I’d never find people who would care about me. I focused on work, made it to the BAU. On bad days, I would work out until I was so tired I couldn’t remember my own name let alone the things they had done to me. Then when I met all of you, it felt too good to be true. There was this whole team of people who suddenly cared about me. It was hard at first, to accept that it was real. But you have to know I never thought any of you would hurt me, it was just in my head that I would never have this kind of familial bond with anyone.

This last case, I don’t know what it was about it, but I couldn’t stop seeing the evidence boards. The faces of women who were passed around from man to man as objects to abuse. So, I fell back into my old habit. Only, it didn’t work like it used to so I just kept going and going until I could escape.” The tears slowed as she managed to get everything off her chest. All that could be heard in the room was her ragged breaths.

“Y/N, I�� I can’t imagine how difficult that was to share.” Spencer shifted closer to her, but not too close in case she didn’t want the touch.

“I’ve always felt like the team- like you would understand. I’ve been working on it in therapy actually. Figuring out a way to tell you all, but I guess I hit the proverbial wall first...” She’s shaking her head as she looks at the floor.

“Hey, none of that. I know self-deprecation when I see it, and I will not tolerate it from you.” His words carry a gentle conviction. “You are truly one of the most incredible people I’ve ever met. I’ve seen you take down unsubs three times your size with pure physical strength. I’ve also seen you talk an unsub down, saving countless lives without laying a hand on them. Never doubt that you are strong enough for this job, because you are one of the strongest people I know.”

Spencer’s words bring tears to her eyes, but the happy kind this time. She throws her arms around him, snuggling as close as she can. Spencer, at first surprised by the contact, freezes. He quickly melts into her embrace, rubbing circles into her back until she falls asleep.

Spencer manages to fill the team in via text, explaining enough that everyone understands what happened without having to go into too much detail. He helps her move to her bedroom, trying to prevent any more soreness. When she asks him to stay, he lays down by her side.

The next morning she wakes up cuddled next to Spencer with several texts from her BAU family. Rossi invited everyone to his house for dinner, an offer she greatly appreciates.

That night, the team shows her what it feels like to have a family over pasta and wine, a classic combination. In the future, they’ll continue to show her what family really is.

Spencer will show her what it feels like to be in a healthy relationship. He’ll show her how it feels to be loved without living in constant fear. She’ll show him what it means to be loved for who you are.

They’ll show each other what it means to be happy.

tag list:

@mac99martin

#spencer reid x reader #spencer reid angst #spencer reid one shot #criminal minds x reader #Criminal Minds #spencer reid #spencer reid x y/n

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delimeful · 4 years

Text

breathing cleaner air (1)

winner of fic poll, a new BTHB fic for halloween month! the prompt for this one was "Painful Transformation"!

warnings: body horror, painful transformation, fighting/violence, dehumanizing language, antagonist (but not unsympth) virgil, religious terms borrowed to name original monsters (no actual religious connections), miscommunication/language barrier, mortal peril, thinking youre going to die

extra note: this is a multichapter fic, but this first chapter ends on a very concerning note. there is an eventual happy ending in later chapters, promise!

Roman wasn’t sure exactly when he’d been separated from the rest of his entourage.

One moment, Logan was at his shoulder, his firm hand keeping Roman from stumbling over gnarled tree roots, and the next, he was alone, with only faint echoes of his own voice to keep him company.

Their quarry was certainly powerful, to be able to warp so much of the woods around them with thick fog and unnatural darkness. He should have expected as much.

After all, this was the same monster that had been infiltrating the Dimiour kingdom at night and stealing away children from their families. It would have to be strong in order to pull that off.

His right-hand knight would surely recommend retreating and regrouping in more neutral territory, but this was the first time they’d actually caught the fiend in the act. Seraphs were notoriously agile, with the maneuverability of the three sets of razor-sharp wings that had earned them their moniker. Once one was out of sight, it wasn’t likely to be seen again.

This time, though, the tracer spell on Roman’s compass was still active and locked on to the target.

There was no way he could return to his court empty-handed. He was the crown prince. He couldn’t be a failure. Not when there was so much at stake.

Firming his shoulders, he pushed onwards, his sword drawn.

The forest was eerily quiet around him, making the scuff of his shoes against the ground seem harsh enough to lead any enemy right to him. He shook off the thought; he was the one pursuing here. Let them come and face him.

Roman glanced up from his compass, and paused at the sight of a familiar-looking rotting tree trunk. He’d noticed one just like it about thirty paces back because it had a rare strain of fungus that Remus would have liked. What were the odds that the same rare fungus dotted the same side of a different identical rotting log?

Sure enough, another thirty paces and the log popped up again. Despite following the needle of his compass devotedly, he was being led in circles. A mind-altering ability, along with the manipulation of light and water they’d already seen? Roman shuddered, imagining what the monster could be planning with so much power at its disposal.

Luckily, Roman had more than enough faith in Logan’s spellcasting.

He closed his eyes, letting the clink of the needle guide his steps closer and closer to his target. His mind rebelled, senses muffling as though he was walking through thick honey instead of air, and then, with a pop, he was though.

When he opened his eyes, there was a small house in a clearing in front of him.

It was less ramshackle than he would have expected, the candlelight in the windows looking almost cozy compared to the dark forest surrounding it.

Assured that the kidnapping culprit lay just ahead, he tucked the compass into his pocket, strode forward, and kicked the door down.

Immediately, his eyes were drawn to the figure in the middle of the room, who had spun around at his arrival.

It looked startlingly human, wide eyed and messy haired, but the single set of dark wings taking up half the room were a dead giveaway to the seraph’s true nature. Those fragile core wings could be hidden, protected, even glamored away, but they never vanished entirely. They were the most reliable way to expose a seraph hidden in a human guise.

The seraph swore lowly, flaring the feathery appendages out to make itself look bigger.

Roman could just barely make out the small figures crowded against the back corner of the room, anxious eyes peering out at him. He felt something in him loosen in relief at the sight of the children still alive, if undoubtedly terrified. He’d half-expected the horrific alternative.

“I’ll tell you this once, you feathery fiend,” he said, pointing his sword at the monster directly. “Release the innocents you’ve kidnapped, and I won’t make your end painful.”

Its pupils narrowed to slits, and it spread its wings wider, hiding the children from view. When it spoke, there was a high, grating discordant note under the words. “Not. A. Chance.”

“Then face the consequences!” Roman shouted, and lunged.

The seraph was surprisingly adept at defending, flexing its hands and using long, sharp claws to block his blows and get in some of its own. Even in battle, it always remained between Roman and the children it held hostage, and the poor things were too frightened to respond to his calls for them to run.

Frustrating, but nothing he couldn’t overcome. In the end, Roman had been trained with the sword since he could stand, and no child-abducting angel impersonator could best him in battle.

When the inevitable opening came, he seized it, pushing forward until the seraph’s back was to the wall. Cornered, it hissed lowly at him before catching his next strike on its claws. It strained against his sword, its shaking arms the only thing keeping his blade from reaching its throat. Only a little further, and--

“Stop it!” A small voice shouted, on the edge of tears. “Don’t hurt him!”

Roman’s head jerked up, his attention caught by the distressed call.

The children were still huddled together, but one at the front of the group had stepped forward, fists clenched and gaze angry.

“Leave him alone!” she demanded, glaring directly at Roman.

Something fluttered at her back, and Roman’s eyes widened.

“You’re--,” he started, and then the seraph twisted in his grip, and he only barely caught the motion of its hand toward his head before glass shattered against his skull.

He staggered back as thick liquid spilled over his head, too cool to be blood.

Rather than pursue the opening, the seraph stepped back, wings finally settling back against its back. The lack of aggression was strange, after it had so fiercely responded to his challenge. Seraphim weren’t known for mercy.

Roman stepped forwards, his mouth shaping the first syllable of a question, and then abruptly understood as his body began to burn coldly, like he’d pressed ice directly to every inch of his skin. His sword dropped from numb fingers, clattering to the floor.

He’d been poisoned.

“New plan, we’re moving tonight,” the seraph began to speak, addressing the children, but Roman’s heartbeat was too loud in his ears to make out the rest of its words.

He fell to hands and knees, a line of burning pain along his spine. Some of the children sent him looks, nervous or pitying or angry, but most were busy scurrying around and gathering everything that wasn’t nailed down. He could see now, the small sets of wings on each and every one’s back, marking them as his kingdom’s enemies.

Why had he been told they were human? A leak in the court? Who had lied?

The seraph crouched in front of him, gaze unreadable. Its eyes were mismatched, Roman noticed nonsensically as another wave of pain shuddered through him.

“Well, that didn’t go to plan.” It brushed the remains of a glass vial from its hand, and Roman stared at the dark liquid left on the pieces.

“Wh--at did you do. To me,” he grit out between pants, struggling to keep himself upright.

“Congrats. You get to see how it feels to be us. To be hunted,” the seraph told him with an unfriendly smile. “Maybe it’ll change your perspective a little. Or maybe you’ll just bite it.”

It shrugged and flipped up its hood, rising to its feet, and kicked Roman’s sword up into its grip. Roman protested the theft on principle, but his voice came out strained and feeble like he’d never heard it before.

Before it followed the last kid out the door, it paused, glancing at him one last time.

“Once the bones are done, it gets easier,” it told him. “Good luck.”

Roman didn’t realize just what that meant until he heard the first resounding crack.

He finally lost his battle with gravity, collapsing to the ground with an agonized cry. That noise-- from inside him--?

There was another crack, and a series of pops like dislocating joints, and then his skin was melting and he was fading in and out of consciousness, roused and put under by the same overwhelming, all-consuming agony. Each time he woke, he could hear grinding and shifting inside of him, as though his insides were rebelling against their natural placement.

The seraph hadn’t been lying: the bones were the most painful part, and once the last one had clicked back into place, there was a palpable difference in pain levels. He still hurt, ached beyond measure, but it was no longer so much that he couldn’t even think past the pain. It almost felt like relief.

Roman focused on breathing, slow and deep, until he felt a little less like he was going to shake apart. He didn’t know of any poison that could do something like this. It was magic-- strong, cursed magic, and unlike Logan’s, there was no softness in it.

It took what felt like hours for him to gain the resolve to push himself up, and even longer to maintain the motion even as every nerve ending in his body protested. His vision was blurry, and his balance felt entirely off, even more so than that time Remus had dared him to jump off the roof and he’d gotten a concussion.

When he finally properly looked down at himself, he found feathers and bone lining his hands, transforming them into sharp claws and rigid armor. Familiar, but only because he’d seen them on his enemies time and time again.

The shock of adrenaline at the sight was helpful in pushing his aching muscles to the back of his mind as he rose to his knees and twisted to look at himself, staring at the three sets of bright wings draped down from his back.

Golden and white feathers lined them, lined his ears and throat and chest, framing the white exoskeleton pieces inset in his skin.

He sat back on his haunches, and took a few deep, whistling breaths before trying to speak, to say anything in his own voice. To prove he was still himself.

The sound that emerged from his throat was hollow and resonant, like woodwind instruments in harmony. It sent chills of anticipation down his spine, for he’d only ever heard the uncanny call before battle.

There was no denying it, however much he might want to. His body had been warped, transformed into the worst enemy of his kingdom, the beasts that plagued their people day and night. He was a seraph.

He had to get help.

Surely, there was someone among the court who knew about this curse, who could procure a solution, some kind of cure. He couldn’t be stuck as a monster, he was Dimiour’s crown prince!

He pushed himself up to his feet and found he was taller than before, limbs thin and spindly. All six of the wings lifted and curled around him automatically, creating the shell of bright feathery limbs that marked a seraph on defense. They were lighter than he would have expected, seeing as he knew the true form feathers were as sharp as any knife.

He stumbled through the door into the open forest air, taking a significant chunk out of the door frame as he went. His limbs were unsteady with inexperience, the gait distinctly different, almost hunched over to counterbalance the weight of his-- the wings.

In the distance, Roman heard voices calling his name.

He loped towards the sounds with barely a thought, attempting not to overthink every staggering movement. The underbrush scraped and rattled around him, announcing his presence well before he cleared the treeline and found himself faced with the weapons of his own squadron.

He tried to speak automatically, to show them that he wasn’t what they thought, but all that left him were those discordant, eerie notes, like overlapping birds of prey. He sounded like a nightmare come to life, and he noticed with abrupt horror that some of the newer trainees were faltering, clapping hands over their ears.

A blade flashed in the corner of his vision, and he raised an arm automatically. With a clang, the attacking knight’s glaive rebounded off his arm so sharply that the man wielding it nearly toppled. Another knight quickly moved between them, weapon raised defensively as their fellow recovered.

Roman stared at his arm, now covered in an extra layer, a hardened shell of bone. The armor had appeared-- had ossified into place, quicker than he could think.

“Hold!” A familiar voice called, and Roman turned to it like it was an oasis in a drought. Logan. Logan was here, he was the smartest person he knew, if anyone would have a solution, it would be him.

An odd crooning note bubbled up from his chest, but it cut off sharply at the sight of his right-hand man.

Logan stood sturdy with his scythe staff held up in one hand, and not a glint of recognition in his eyes.

“Move on, continue searching for our liege,” he directed, voice firm. “I will handle this opponent.”

Roman screeched, wings flaring in upset, trying over and over to manage anything recognizable as human speech. Anything at all that would let his closest friend identify him.

Logan didn’t even flinch at the sound, well-practiced in filtering out the skull-splitting calls of seraphim. He’d been in more battles than Roman ever had, out on the field while Roman was stuck learning courtly etiquette.

He’d earned himself the mantle of ‘Executioner’, and the thought had never sent a chill down Roman’s spine the way it did now.

But then, Roman had never been the one on this end of Logan’s casting, had he?

The others continued forward on their commanding officer’s orders, searching for someone who stood right before them, and abandoning him to a fight he couldn’t win.

Logan knew seraphim better than anyone else, how they functioned on every level.

Roman barely knew how to operate this new body, and more than that, he was terrified of it, of the damage he could unknowingly deal his best friend. It could hardly be called an equal match.

Still, it was almost a surprise to feel the impact of Logan’s first cast, a draining spell designed to weaken the enemy. He didn’t want to believe this situation was real, any of it, but the burning pins and needles racing through him were undeniable.

His wings wrapped around him more securely, he intended to turn, to flee the way no prince should. Perhaps it was this cowardice that resulted in the way he only made it two steps before exhaustion made him stumble.

Or maybe it was the way the most painful transformation of his life had turned his body inside-out what felt like mere moments ago.

Either way, he was in no position to dodge the next spell, or resist the darkness blooming in his vision as he tipped over that precarious line into unconsciousness.

His last glimpse of the world around him was Logan, weapon in hand, striding closer with his face set determinedly. Roman’s foolishness had never managed to outlast or outwit that expression before, and he had no doubt that this instance would be much the same.

At least, with any luck, his friend would never know what he’d done.

#sanders sides #ts roman #ts virgil #ts logan #BTHB #bad things happen bingo #writing #my writing #breathing cleaner air #bca #multichapter #EDIT: FORGOT THE BINGO SORRY

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the-iron-orchid · 3 years

Text

Headcanons: Technology and Medicine

In my shared continuity with @vesuvian-disaster, it’s as if the Islamic Golden Age and the European Renaissance are happening concurrently, right on the heels of the Gupta Empire period of Indian history - making it a time of incredible advances in science, medicine, and the arts across Prakra, Zadith, and Venterre.

Yes, doctors are trained and even licensed. Nazali, Julian and @fawngz‘s Miloš have all undergone this process. Yes, Julian is a Real Doctor who has made some genuine advances in the field of medicine (regardless of what he says).

On the other hand, it’s probably possible to forge credentials, so reputation is Important.

Julian’s interest in leechcraft is not about medieval-style bloodletting so much as the actual benefits of leeches - they can be used to treat hematomas, and to help ensure that blood is making it to wound areas that have been sutured back together. (Lucio may owe his survival of the amputation to the use of leeches!) And, of course, there are a handful of conditions that actually do benefit from having blood regularly removed from the body. It’s possible that he was on the right track with the Red Plague because the redness of the extremities points to a form of vascular congestion - something that can be treated with leeches. (He had no way of knowing it was essentially a curse, not a true disease.) It’s possible that the Red Plague killed by first causing hemorrhaging, then clotting and thrombosis. Leeches could have helped with the second phase with their anticoagulant properties... but it would only end up prolonging the inevitable.

Microorganisms have been observed, and the first tenuous connections between microbes, decay, and disease are just starting to form. However, it IS known that cleanliness prevents sickness. Doctors wash their hands, instruments are cleaned between patients, etc. The concept of sterility is not really known, but even just washing things well drastically cuts down on disease transmission.

Some (relatively basic) basic forms of anesthesia, surgery, and even psychiatry are starting to take root.

Irrigation is fairly advanced, and underground water transport exists. Vesuvia is known for its aqueducts (some of which it has had for centuries), running water, and bathhouses. Unfortunately, lack of maintenance under the last two ruling Counts is causing parts of the infrastructure to crumble. One of these caused the infamous Goldgrave Collapse that took Jinana’s parents, along with many others.

Basic forms of physical water treatment/filtering exist, mostly to remove sediments and odors, but it’s still safest to boil and cool water that is intended for drinking or brewing. Tea is a popular beverage. So is low-alcohol ale and beer.

Magic as a public works resource is still kind of getting off the ground in Vesuvia; it is much more common in Prakra and Zadith. A lot of people in Vesuvia see magic as either something frivolous - see all the magical delights at the Masquerade, get your magic Viagra potions or hair-growth serums from Heron! - or as something utterly terrifying, because a strong mage can summon a deadly fireball with nothing but a gesture, a word, and maybe some bat guano. Magic really needs a PR campaign in Vesuvia, and that’s something that comes into its own in the post-game period, with Nadia recruiting mages like the Al-Nazars, Heron and Jinana for civic works projects.

To be fair, it may be difficult to gather a lot of civic-minded mages, because most of them exist in their own little world where you can easily summon clean water for yourself, heat your bath, or even fix your roof. Relatively few of them are even thinking about large-scale projects like clean water for all of Vesuvia, or draining/raising the Flooded District.

#headcanons #there are SO MANY technological implications tbh

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animemangasoul · 3 years

Text

You Are Wanted Obi-Wan Kenobi

Summery: Qui-Gon lives and Mace gets a new Padawan.

[In which Qui-Gon repudiates Obi-Wan and Mace isn't about to let the kid leave the order without a fight.]

Chapter: 6/10?

"Qui-Gon, what did you do?!"

Qui-Gon's mouth opened and closed. Taking a stumbling step back, he couldn't help but stare. Stare at Obi-Wan who's distress was practically choking the force around him.

How had it come to this?

He'd been so excited to share the good news with his boy. He'd run through the scenario thousand times over in his head. Planned for how he'd approach their conversation, planned for Obi-Wan's inevitable questions; every single one he could think of, he'd even tried to tap into the unifying force; clouded as it was to him, and yet he hadn't foreseen this. Hadn't concluded that his elation and solution would bring his boy nothing but horror.

Qui-Gon didn't understand. No matter how hard he tried to connect the dots; reasons failed him. It was obvious his idea had distressed Obi-Wan greatly, but try as he might, Qui-Gon couldn't understand why.

What was so wrong with Yan taking Obi-Wan under his wing? He was his Grandmaster and Qui-Gon was sure his old Master would care for him. Distant as he was, the older Jedi truly had a good heart, Qui-Gon was sure of it. And Obi-Wan didn't do well with fussing and overt concern anyways, so the partnership at face value should have been acceptable to him, so why wasn't it?

'Maybe,' he thought, his own aguish shrouding his mind. 'Maybe Obi-Wan didn't hear it when I told him that he wouldn't have to leave me?'

Maybe his boy had assumed immediately that if he became Yan's Padawan, he would have to move out and never see Qui-Gon again? He was already so distressed after hearing his Master's name, maybe he didn't hear anything after that?

That could be it, right?

Because why else----

"Qui-Gon! For force's sake, snap out of it!"

Reeling backwards, Qui-Gon blinked furiously against the darkness that had enveloped his vision and Mace's furious face finally came into view. The man was no longer holding Obi-Wan tightly to his chest. Instead he'd put the younger man back on the floor, hand resting atop of his heart and the other providing support for his head.

Qui-Gon had never seen Mace so scared.

"What happened? What did you do? What's wrong with him?"

Mace's emotions were like whiplashes, crashing against his shields with ferocity rarely exhibited by him before, and it was all Qui-Gon could do not to shatter against the onslaught of confusion, fury, pain, worry.

"It's---" he stuttered, eyes finally sinking to the shuddering body of Obi-Wan. The boy was curled towards Mace, face distraught and breath coming in wheezing gasps that hurt Qui-Gon with it's familiarity. "He's having a panic attack." The last words were nothing but a whisper past his lips and as he said them it truly hit Qui-Gon how dire the situation really was.

After all, Obi-Wan's panic attacks were both painful and terrifying experience for his poor boy, and was only through trial and error Qui-Gon finally figured out how to help him. And so instinctively Qui-Gon once again tries to pull up the usual shields to protect Obi-Wan from the onslaught of force presences drowning him. But the minute he tries; reaching out through the force to meld his mind against his Padawan. Trying to pull up the protective walls as swiftly as possible, he knowns. He is met with absolute nothingness, and he knows.

Maybe he had always known, all these weeks. The truth hoovering at the horizon, but no. He hadn't let himself know, not really, not until he tried to pull at that familiar thread. That oh so familiar bond and came up empty.

Obi-Wan Kenobi was no longer his Padawan.

He couldn't help him. He couldn't build his own shields around his boy anymore. He couldn't ward against the terrors that haunted him anymore. Because…. Obi-Wan was no longer his Padawan.

Qui-Gon couldn't protect Obi-Wan because he was no longer his to protect.

And it was, with that revelation, that the ground fell from under him and his knees collapsed to the ground.

It was….. Things were different now. His Obi-Wan, his Obi-Wan, wasn't his anymore.

For the first time for Qui-Gon, it was as if he'd been left stranded on an island. Alone, empty, forgotten.

That gentle pulsing presence in the back of his mind was gone. Replaced now by the blazing sun that was Anakin Skywalker, a sun that was now practically trying to drown him in order to reach through to him in overwhelming worry.

'Mas…ter----Qui-Gon?' It shouted, filling him with echoes of panic. 'Okay?--- You? Mr.--Obi---an? --Wan. Obi---Wan? Oka--?'

Their bond was still fragile, but whenever Ani was scared or worried, his voice grew loud and clear, no matter how broken up it was, Ani always managed to bulldoze his way into mentally communicating with him, and it was that concern, that fear for him, for Obi-Wan that finally managed to pull Qui-Gon out of his own spiralling anguish.

'Snap out of it,' he told himself, shaking away the absolute sadness consuming him. 'Your boys need you.'

Center yourself, acknowledge your emotions and then, release it.

He breathed in, out. And let it all go.

So with that final resolution in mind, he sent a soothing wave of calm towards Anakin 'don't worry about us, we're fine,' before gently closing his side of the bond and taking a deep breath.

Obi-Wan needed him right now. His boy needed him.

"Mace," he forced out, crawling towards the two bodies on the floor; legs not quite managing to carry him, shaking as they were. "You need to help shield him."

"What?" Mace had in the meantime found away to at least calm Obi-Wan a little bit despite being unfamiliar with the kid's condition. It wasn't much, the auburn haired youth still gasping for air, fingers clutching at the Korun man's outer robes. But it was something.

Taking a deep breath, forcing all his worries, all his grief to the very back of his mind where it could trouble him no longer, Qui-Gon rested a gentle hand on his friend's shoulder and lowered his voice to a comforting tone. "Obi-Wan becomes hyper aware of the force signatures around him when he's having a panic attack," he told him softly. "You need to use your bond with him to slowly block them out for him, not fully but so that they are muted and won't bother him as much."

"Of course," Mace said, understanding flashing through his eyes, sending a brief nod of gratitude in his direction he diverted his attention back to the young man in his arms.

The Master of the Order ran a gentle hand through Obi-Wan's wispy locks as he muttered something in a language Qui-Gon didn't quite understand but sounded almost familiar 'Stewjoni?' and slowly, ever so slowly, Obi-Wan's breathing evened out and with a last shuddering breath, the young man fell into a restless sleep. Cheeks flushed red, eyes red rimmed and body still shaking fiercely despite being past the worst of it.

It tugged at Qui-Gon's heart, the sheer vulnerability of his boy; laying there, unconscious, face wet from tears only now drying up. He wanted to reach out and touch him, hold him, banish away the hurt and the pain and make it all better, but he couldn't.

He knew he couldn't.

So instead he watched as Mace gathered his former Padawan into his arms and stood up, the ragged breathing of Obi-Wan the only sound echoing through the walls of the apartment.

"I should get him back to the Halls," he muttered, his eyes only meant for the sleeping young man in his arms. "He was already suffering from force exhaustion, this might set him back for days if not weeks."

There isn't really a shift in tone or even harshness behind Mace's words. In fact the words are spoken with a frank observation, his fellow Master too focused on his Padawan to care much about Qui-Gon who's standing only an armlength away from him and yet, it feels as if Mace is accusing him. Pointing his finger at his chest and digging out all of his failings.

'Wasn't it enough that you had him heal you,' it feels like Mace is saying. 'Now you drain him of his remaining energy? What's wrong with you?'

Mace of course, says nothing of the sort, but it's all Qui-Gon can hear.

"Yes," Qui-Gon finally managed to force out, trying to keep his face an neutral and serene as possible. "I think that's for the best."

A brisk nod in his direction and Mace turned to the door and prepared to walk out.

'No,' Qui-Gon suddenly thought, unconsciously taking a step forward. 'It can't end like this.'

It felt like it was all ending. Right at this very moment. It felt like something big was coming to an end.

It felt like a chapter in his life was closing, and….. Qui-Gon wasn't ready, he wasn't prepared.

'No,' he thought desperately. 'Please no.'

They had spent ten years together, it couldn't end like this.

"Mace," he called out and the other man paused half way out the door. "Mace I--"

But before he could continue, something shifted within the Korun man. Suddenly the calmness that was Mace Windu's force presence flared outward in one uncontrollable burst and through it Qui-Gon could sense rage.

Hot, burning, bone shaking rage. Before whatever emotions that had accidently been let lose got buried just as quickly. And Mace tightly woven defense came back to shroud his true feelings.

"Not now Qui-Gon," the man snapped, tone harsher then the sharp edges of Rimi'ula. "We can talk another time. Now if you will excuse me," Folding Obi-Wan closer to his chest, he disappeared out the door without a backward glance, leaving a forlorn Qui-Gon behind.

'Perhaps,' Qui-Gon thought ruefully, watching his friend vanish. 'That is for the best.'

Maybe a time away from each other to process the happenings of today would allow all of them a momentary respite?

Yeah maybe it would all work itself out somehow.

Taking a deep breath, Qui-Gon released his pain into the force before he too left the apartment; in search for his own Padawan this time.

Anakin's bright presence might be just what he needed to ease the throbbing ache in his heart, and Ani was probably worrying himself sick about Obi-Wan and him, so Qui-Gon could assuage his concern as well. This is something he could do.

And for now, that had to be enough.

--------

Several hours later and it's all Mace can do not to storm out of the Halls, find Qui-Gon and strangle the blasted man with his own two hands. He'd kept his emotions under lock and key when Obi-Wan, in the softest tone imaginable, had told him about what had transpired between his former Master and him, but as soon as his new Padawan slipped into a fitful sleep; the result of reoccurring nightmares and overwhelming stress, Mace couldn't hold himself together anymore.

Fingers clenching tightly around the bedframe, he tried to breathe through his anger like he'd been taught so many years ago, but it was impossible. Every time he came to a semblance of balance, he'd remember Qui-Gon's face and it would all come toppling down again.

"He said…. He said he wanted me? But----" Obi-Wan had looked so tired, so heartbroken. So, alone. It was as if Mace was thrown back in time to the day the kid woke up to the news that he'd been repudiated. "He wanted…. Master Dooku to take---me-- in name---- in name only of course and," and there it was, the blank stare Mace had fought so hard to erase. "He said…. he woul--- would train me together, with Anakin." a hitch in his breath. "He said--- I would just have a different Master?" Smiling bleakly, Obi-Wan shrugged. "Master Yan Dooku."

Mace had hugged him then. Pulled the poor shivering kid against his chest and just held on tight. Told him there was nothing in this world and the force could do, to make Mace give him up and it was only with his sincerity ringing through the force, loud and clear that Obi-Wan finally took his words to heart and managed to release his pain into the force. Exhaustion finally winning over and dragging him back under; even as he clung to Mace for dare life until the very last inch of consciousness left him.

Mace stood watch. His own feelings of anger and horror closely buried in his chest, refusing to leave him despite how hard he tried to release them into the force.

Qui-Gon had repudiated Obi-Wan. He'd willingly giving up on his Padawan right before his Knighting Trials. He'd removed his braid without his consent and he hadn't once, been apologetic about it.

And now, now that Mace had stood up and claimed the shattered soul of Obi-Wan Kenobi, Qui-Gon was waltzing back in to ruin what was left of the boy's confidence?

How heartless, how cruel could one Jedi be?

Fury licked at Mace's heart. Anger coursed through his veins, and try as he might, Mace couldn't seem to release it at all into the force. And with each fleck of burning rage he let go off, a bucket full would take it's place.

Sighing, he pressed his face into the railing, hanging on for dare life.

He needed a round of meditation. Maybe he could invite Depa over later tonight. His little Spitfire was good at pulling his emotions apart to find the center of his inner conflict. Perhaps with her help, he could sift through to the core of his anger and with the knowledge finally be able to let go of his less than Jedi like emotions.

Perhaps.

Taking a deep breath, he allowed himself to bask in the golden presence of his new Padawan. Obi-Wan had been sleeping for the past couple of hours; his fitful sleep soon turning into a restful one after Mace wrapped the poor kid in his own force presence once more; noticing how the kid's shields were too weak to keep anything out.

Now Obi-Wan looked more restful than he'd looked when Mace had raced over from the council room to find him slumped over; screaming his lungs out and unable to breathe.

That pleading call still haunted him. He hadn't expected the wail through the force when he'd left the apartment that morning, thinking he'd be back long before Obi-Wan required anything of him. He'd even planned on getting through unpacking his new Padawan's things quickly while the kid was getting his check up with Master Che so they could spend the rest of the day together watching those holodramas Obi-Wan's friends had recommended. So to suddenly be disturbed in the middle of his last meeting by a terrified call through the force, it had been…… he still felt shaken by the thought of it.

He should have been more careful. He should have known Qui-Gon would seek Obi-Wan out again now that he was out of the Halls. He should have known. His old friend was nothing if not persistent and Mace should have known.

But he hadn't and now----

Squeezing his eyes shut, he banished the thoughts. 'For another day,' he told himself.

Right now he needed to focus on Obi-Wan's well being and sinking into his own distress and failings wouldn't do his Padawan any good. Especially since the kid seemed to be sensitive to his moods now with his shields practically gone.

Reaching out, Mace carefully brushed his finger between the kid's brows until his worry line disappeared. He smiled to himself.

But then, when Obi-Wan let out a soft sigh, leaning into his featherlight touch, something within his heart crumbled.

Mace continued to stroke his Padawan's forehead until his own stress faded away and all he was left with was absolute and utter fondness for the sleeping young man in his care.

And then….

His eyes snapped back open; where he most have closed them sometime during his brief calming moment with his Padawan. His lips pulling back into a snare.

And he was out of his chair faster than a humanoid could blink, storming past Master Che who's presence near Obi-Wan's room was all too evident on who'd just arrived to pay a visit.

"Mace," she called out after him, voice high in warning. "Don't."

But he was done listening. He'd given the other man plenty of chances. Had tried to understand where he was coming from. Had tried to avoid him when that hadn't worked, and had buried himself in his own guilt and ignorance when that hadn't been enough either. But now----

Qui-Gon had gone behind his back and tried to force his Padawan on Master Yan Dooku.

Mace was done being understanding. He was done being kind. Old friend or not, Qui-Gon had no right to be here. No right at all.

"Mace!"

He shrugged the head healer off, force shoved the double doors open with a bang and with ten long strides had Qui-Gon by the front of his robes and up against the wall. "What are you doing here?" he snarled.

"Hello Mace," Qui-Gon smiled pleasantly, face serene as ever, voice nothing but gentle understanding and eyes crinkling at the corners with friendliness.

It grinded on Mace's nerve, that false serenity. He'd known the man long enough to detect his real feelings and right now it was anything but peaceful. "I came to check on Obi-Wan. How is he doing?"

"That is," Mace glared. "Frankly non of your business." Fingers still tightly gripping the man's outer robes, in no hurry to let him go.

Something unreadable flashed through Qui-Gon's eyes, his whole frame stiffening, but then it eased away and his old friend sent him a reassuring smile. "You most know I worry about him."

Mace scoffed. "You repudiated him."

Qui-Gon flinched and the Korun man shoved down any sense of vindication that burst through him at that reaction.

"I had to," his fellow Master said, voice no louder than a whisper; both Masters vaguely aware of the gathering crowds Master Che was trying to shoo away from the Halls. "The prophesy---"

"Kriff the prophesy," Mace snarled, slamming him against the wall, eyes blazing with bottomless fury. "Kriff your prophesy Qui-Gon! You abandoned him!"

"I didn't, I had a plan!"

"A plan?"

'Don't hit him,' he begged of himself. 'Please don't hit him. You're the Master of the Order, anger does not become you. Do.not.hit.him.'

Oh, how much he wanted to hit him.

"Yes a plan. Yan would take him as his Padawan officially and--"

"You would do the actual training," the acid dripping from his words would make even Mace wince any other day. "Yes, I heard it all from your traumatized former Padawan who you," he said, shaking the man. "Have not only thrown away, but now made him believe that you most saddle him on someone else because he's no one's first choice."

Qui-Gon's eyes widened. "That's not what I intended to do!"

"It doesn't matter what you intended to do," Mace said, shoving him even harder, face only inches away from him. "It only matters what you actions show and so far, all you've done is kriff over the kid, Qui-Gon." Unclenching his fist he took a step back. "Since day one in fact."

"That's not fair." The sadness in Qui-Gon's voice could be tasted through the force. "I wasn't ready for a Padawan back then and you all knew it. Yoda forced me to take him despite knowing I wasn't ready. The council did that," he said, eyes swimming with sadness and years of bitterness. "Not me. You did that."

Guilt washed over Mace at those words and he took another step back. "You're right. Obi-Wan should have never been forced on you."

"That's not--"

"No," he said, shaking his head. "Let me finish. He shouldn't have been forced on you. Yoda was wrong--" He swallowed thickly he continued. "I disagreed with him, but I still went along with it so I was wrong too. We have all failed that kid and by extension, you. But Qui-Gon, you were an adult." Clenching his fists Mace tried to release his emotions into the force. "You failed him as well. Several times over. If only I'd known how much you didn't want him. If only I had seen how less than ready you were. But we trusted you to act like a Jedi, to know that if you saw yourself truly unfit to handle a Padawan you would take the appropriate steps to fix it. But you didn't and each time you didn't, you managed to ship away at his self esteem, his confidence---" swallowing again, Mace gritted his teeth and looked down. "Why didn't you just let him go?"

"What?"

"Clearly you weren't ready for a new Padawan, and I looked through your files last week Qui-Gon. You never attended your mandatory mind healing sessions, so if you didn't think you were ready for Obi-Wan, why did you hold on to him? Why didn't you just let him go? Someone else would have taken him, you most have known that, so why?

Qui-Gon froze, not moving a muscle as his face went through several expressions. From anger to grief, to confusion and finally to aching desperation. "He needed me," he said, almost pulling into himself. "No one else--- Xanatos he….. But Obi-Wan needed me and I just, he made me better Mace," he whispered, hands shaking slightly at his side. "He made me better and I made him stronger and…. We needed each other. Assigning him to me was the right choice. It was. Just now, the prophesy---"

Mace shook his head slowly, heart breaking all over again, eyes stinging because…. How had Master Yoda missed all this? Qui-Gon was his Grandpadawan, this was his call and that meant both Master and Padawan fell under his jurisdiction. How had he missed such a mismatched pair? How had he never sounded the alarm?

This was terrifying to watch. Qui-Gon's desperation, his inability to see how wrong it was of him to lean on a child for mental support.

How had so many people missed it?

He'd missed it himself. Sure he'd only been a newly appointed Council Member at that time, not having much say in the choices and the decisions made by the older members, but he could have kept a closer eye, could have listened and paid better attention. But he hadn't and now----

"Obi-Wan is no replacement for Xanatos," he said, firmly. "Just because Xanatos didn't need you anymore and fell to the darkside does not mean you can replace his sudden void with Obi-Wan. That's not fair to him or you."

The flash of anger that lashed out at him through the force almost made him stagger. "How dare you," Qui-Gon roared. "I wasn't trying to replace Obi-Wan with Xanatos, I would never! Obi-Wan was never like him. He would never betray me!"

"So you betrayed him instead?"

Mace had said the words calmly, or as calm as he could manage, but the pettiness behind them, was obvious to him, and by the way Qui-Gon reeled back as if slapped they had the intended effect too. Mace should feel guilty for causing a fellow Jedi pain, but knowing what he knew now. Knowing how twisted this Jedi pairing had been from the start, how Xanatos shadow hoovered over Obi-Wan before the kid even had a chance to prove himself, it made any guilt Mace might have felt any other time, non-existent. Later he would have to examine his feelings and meditate on them, but right now---

"I didn't betray him." Qui-Gon snapped back. "I'm following the will of the force. Anakin needs training."

"And you know that how!"

Throwing his hands in the air, Qui-Gon was practically fuming at the mouth; the familiar argument grating on both their nerves. "I told you! The force is guiding me!"

Mace snorted. "And you think you're the only one who understands the force? The only one the force speaks to? How do you know your own bias isn't clouding your judgement?"

"How do you know it isn't clouding yours?!"

It was like being slapped in the face. Mace stared. "What?"

"I said," Qui-Gon huffed, a tiny edge of bitterness bleeding through his voice. "How do you know you aren't being biased as well? You're so deeply connected with the Unifying force, you cannot see what's right in front of you. So how would you know Anakin shouldn't be trained?"

"I'm not the only one, Qui-Gon," Mace said. "Anakin's future is clouded, filled with darkness and he's too old. How can you stand there and say your interpretation of the force is more correct than the entire council? Can you see something no one else in the council can see? Can you see past the darkness clouding all our visions?" Mace couldn't have sounded more skeptical if he tried, but by the resolute stiffness to Qui-Gon's frame, the man truly believed this to be the case.

"Yes my friend," he said, eyebrows heaving upward. "I'm guided by the will of the force. After all," he smiled; it didn't reach his eyes. "I'm more connected to the Living force than any other Jedi."

This level of certainty, this unshakable assurance that you can never be wrong was truly terrifying, and the fact that, wrong as he had been many times over; Xanatos the most obvious example, Qui-Gon had yet admit to any of it, yet to accept any failings, made Mace worry for the future of his old friend.

So taking a deep breath, he squared his jaw, crossed his arms and said without any regret, "If the will of the force was guiding you. Has been guiding you this entire time, shouldn't it have warned you about Xanatos?"

Qui-Gon lurched back, eyes widening in disbelief before bared his teeth in anger. Any semblance of friendliness and serenity gone with the wind. "How dare you," he hissed.

Mace glared. "When you elect you play games with my Padawan's life, I dare, every time."

"Obi-Wan is not your Padawan--"

"Yes," Mace snapped. "Yes he is."

"No," Qui-Gon growled back. "He isn't. Not yet. And Obi-Wan is a Senior Padawan, you're a council member Mace, you won't have time train him."

"I will make time," Mace gritted out. "And I will see him to Knighthood Qui-Gon Jinn, so don't get in my way."

"I have trained him for ten years Mace, don't you think I know what's best for him!"

Staring in disbelief at his old friend, Mace briefly wondered how it was possible to be that delusional. Hadn't their catastrophic conversation so far taught this man anything?

"You haven't gotten over Xanatos----" he said, keeping his voice low even though; thank the force for Vokara Che, the hallways were now blissfully empty. "And that's why you should have let obi-wan go. You're a Jedi Master, an adult, Qui-Gon. It was your responsibility to put the needs of Obi-Wan ahead of your own. It didn't matter how much he might have needed you," raising his voice to stop the other from interrupting him, he carried on forcefully. "If you knew you weren't equipped to provide for him the way you were supposed to, the way a Master was supposed to, you should have come to the council and let us assign another Master to him. The Jedi council failed him," he continued, painful as it was to admit. "But you failed him as well old friend, and the only one unwilling to admit to any fault here, is you."

It should have been obvious.

It should have been clear.

Mace could see it. Weeks in the other's shoes and he could see it.

The mistakes of the Jedi council, the mistakes of Master Yoda, his own by not noticing the walking trauma that was his best friend. So many mistakes, so so many.

But it wasn't too late to right wrongs, and Mace was willing to. It looked like Master Yoda was willing as well, surprising, seeing how stubborn the old troll could be about his own views. So to see Qui-Gon standing right in front of him, talking about these alarming issues as if they were trivial. Speaking as though with a wave of a hand he could fix it all, it……

Mace didn't understand.

"Obi-Wan needs me Mace."

"No," Mace said, turning away from him. "He doesn't. Not anymore."

He would have left it at that, but when a strong hand came to descend on his shoulder; gripping him hard, he swung back around, eyes blazing, the final threads of his meticulously crafted composure fraying at the edges and------

"Enough!"

They froze, simultaneously turning to lock eyes with the Grandmaster of the Order.

"Jedi, you are," he said, slamming his gimer stick on the ground. "Act like it, you will."

Making his tense shoulders relax slowly, Mace dropped his balled fist; forcing himself not to think about the immature action he was just about to take. "My apologize Grandmaster," he said, inclining his head ever so slightly in his direction as an apology. "I let my emotions get the best of me."

He refused to look at Qui-Gon and by the way the other Jedi had also turned away from him the feeling was most certainly mutual.

'Good,' he thought. 'If I ever see him anywhere near Obi-Wan ever again no Jedi Code is going to stop me from hitting him.'

'Breathe,' he then told himself, releasing his frustration and the embarrassment at being caught into the force. 'You're the Master of the Order, act like it. Your years of recklessness are behind you.'

After observing for an agonizing long minute, the Grandmaster nodded to himself.

"Come with me you will, Qui-Gon. And you," Master Yoda said, pointing his stick at Mace. "Tend to your Padawan you shall. Need you he does."

Qui-Gon stiffened. "Master Yoda I---"

"Come," the old Grandmaster said, already walking away. "Much to talk about we have. Embarrassed yourself in front of many Jedi you both did, bring it up with the council I will."

Mace flushed but he refused to feel bad about it, not when Qui-Gon still refused to accept how detrimental he was to himself and others, especially to Obi-Wan.

"Leave Mace to his duties you most. Come Qui-Gon."

Realizing how futile it was to argue with the green troll, Qui-Gon seemed to deflate in on himself, shoulders sagging in annoyed resignation before he clasped his hands under his sleeves; eerily similar to Obi-Wan and trudged after his Grandmaster.

Mace watched them walk away but just as it was almost too late to say any lasting words, he spoke up.

"Qui-Gon," He called out just as both Master's were about to disappear down the west wing. "Unless Obi-Wan asks for you personally, don't come back." And with that he turned on his heels and stepped back into the Halls not caring for whatever answer Master Jinn might have had for him in return.

The End

Chapter: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10

#obi wan kenobi #star wars fanfic #obi wan fanfic #mace windu #qui gon jinn #qui gon a+ parenting #fanfic #yawowh chapter 6 #fic #star wars #star wars prequels #you are wanted obi-wan kenobi

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calitraditionalism · 3 years

Text

Arc Three: Chapter Eleven

(AO3 counterpart here.)

The silence continued into the dawn. No one got much sleep after Littlepaw’s vision. They were all afraid that they would be next.

Laurelclaw tried his best to stay positive, he really did. He pulled up as many hopeful, happy thoughts as he could while standing guard outside of Littlepaw’s den, ready to jump in and shake her out of another nightmare at the drop of a feather. Flyfang had tried to tell him to rest, but there was a silent understanding between the two that neither of them was going to sleep again when Littlepaw was at risk of falling back into whatever horrible space she had been in. Flyfang had conceded and gone into the den to be closer to her half-apprentice. When Laurelclaw glanced in occasionally, she was curled around Littlepaw’s tightly balled-up body, watching her with exhausted fear. He couldn’t blame her.

It wasn’t just that which made him fail to keep a happy image in his head. All of his happy images were of his family, the Plage – his mother, father, goofy deputy and snarky former mentor, among all the others, walking together, sharing jokes, watching the waves of the ocean rear and collapse, stretching their foam as far as it could go up the beach. The sense of companionship and confidence. Security in their strength as they stood together.

All of it suddenly felt so pointless, in the grand scheme of things. So temporary.

Laurelclaw fought against the dread that came with every reminder that his family was not going to a happy afterlife. He failed to keep it down. It soaked into his chest and stomach, sticking against the walls of his insides, making him sick. He shivered with nausea many times throughout the night.

The sun barely made it through the thick canopy above the makeshift camp. Laurelclaw hardly noticed it was daylight until Flyfang emerged from the den and shook out her fur. She wordlessly went off into the woods, tail dragging on the ground after her.

Everyone was awake and outside, sitting uncomfortably in silence, before Flyfang returned, carrying prey. Beetlefoot went with her to retrieve everything else she had caught, but there were still no words exchanged. They all formed a ring again and picked listlessly at their meals, nibbling without tasting.

Laurelclaw was absorbed in his own thoughts, but the tension eventually became too much to ignore. He followed his urge to say something.

“You know…” he started, and winced when everyone looked at him like he had shouted. “Imagining everyone’s reaction to all of this, it’s… it can be a little funny, I think.”

Silence. Every face was baffled. Laurelclaw internally berated himself and tried again.

“It’s just me thinking about my mom, really,” he said while fighting off shakiness in his voice. “She’d- she would want to go to sleep and find StarClan and fight it to the death herself. She’d leap at the opportunity. But my dad, he’d run. He’d take the entire family with him – the whole Clan, probably – and flee as far as he could go. He was always a little timid like that.”

The silence calmed a little. Laurelclaw could see the others considering their own families.

“I think…” Flyfang’s eyes lifted up towards the treetops, contemplating. “I think the Marish would panic. My sisters, maybe they wouldn’t get it. They’d think it’s some monster from a story, something easy to beat on your way to becoming a hero. It’d be exciting for them.” Her voice lowered a little, tightened. “I’d prefer for them to think of it that way.”

Surprisingly, Beetlefoot spoke next. “I know the Fleet would all follow Redheart’s idea to get the entire Clan out of the Territory, if they could. Though everyone where I was born is… rather traditional. They prefer the aspects. But they still cling to them going to StarClan for their ‘good behavior’ and ‘righteous worship’. If they knew that all their praying and piousness meant nothing, they might just fling themselves into the river. Leap into the mouth of the beast. Get it over with as soon as possible.”

Laurelclaw looked at Beetlefoot, a little startled. It was the most he had ever said about himself. That tiny, weak cynicism in him remarked wryly about how of course it was unhappy and dour, coming from Beetlefoot. He told that part to hush and be nice.

“My mom wouldn’t believe it,” Littlepaw said, a bit muted and flat. She wasn’t looking at anyone. “She’d find every excuse under the sun to reason it away as a mistake or a lie.”

“Hard thing to convince anyone about,” Mistface said.

Laurelclaw couldn’t help some desperation in his voice. “Isn’t there anything we can do? We could warn everyone, right? Spread the word?”

Redheart sighed, more in a world-weary way than in annoyance with him (thankfully). “I’ve wanted to run around the Territory and tell everyone the truth so many times, Laurelclaw. But the Runagate’s been doing that for generations now, and they’ve barely gotten anywhere. We’re not the first ones to know about StarClan. We probably won’t be the last.”

“I don’t know how much we could do, anyway,” Greyleaf said. His claws were deeply sunk into the soft ground. “Who would believe a deputy on the run, and who would believe a healer, of all cats?”

“But Littlepaw-“ started Laurelclaw, but Redheart shook her head.

“She’s not a seer anymore,” she said. “And so many of our actual seers are fooled, StarClan can easily lie to them and call us insane. Littlepaw got lucky with the Runagate visiting her and StarClan trying to talk to her again, it seems.”

“‘Lucky’ is a real subjective word,” Mistface remarked. “Ain’t sure how lucky it is to see what y’all see.”

“About as lucky as bearing witness to a murder when no one else was around, I suppose,” Beetlefoot said darkly.

“You aren’t wrong.” Greyleaf looked down at his paws and carefully retracted his claws, grimacing. “It’s a stroke of incredible fortune that any of you believed us to begin with. I mean…” He looked to his brother. “You didn’t at first, right? Even you?”

Mistface gave him a non-smile. “Thought you might’ve been crazy for a minute, yes.”

“And he’s my brother.” Greyleaf turned back to everyone else. “The thing is that, yeah, you all believed us, but you’re a smaller group with at least relatively open minds, and it still took a second to win you over. Telling a much larger crowd, or a couple of strangers you’ve never spoken to before, that’s going to be a lot harder to convince.”

“That’s the trouble with all of us,” Darkpelt said suddenly. “I’ve noticed it in my line of work. Cats like to follow along with the crowd because it makes us feel more secure, like somehow more cats means more logical thinking and correct choices. And we cling to any line of security we can get. If you were told a horrible truth, and someone in your group said ‘that’s nonsense!’, you’d be inclined to believe them. It’s safer for your sanity.”

“Then how did we all believe it?” Flyfang, despite her words, did not sound argumentative. She looked more puzzled than anything.

Darkpelt shifted to tuck her front paws underneath her chest and she shut her eyes. Her tone became contemplative. “For me, at least, it just makes sense. I’ve always believed that nothing is impossible, given how real StarClan seemed all my life. And the connections between Redheart and Greyleaf, especially the nightmares, made me far too curious to just pass them off as insane and leave it at that.” She opened her eyes and turned her head in Flyfang’s direction. “Like I said the other day, they have a completely bonkers story that no one would expect to be believed, except a nutter. But a nutter wouldn’t also have the story make sense if one stops to think about the logistics of it.”

“And you believed based on that?” Mistface asked, eyes half-closed as he regarded her doubtfully.

“Better reason than just a blood connection,” Darkpelt said, with a jaunty nod at him. “You’d believe Greyleaf if he told you he was Derecho in physical form.”

Mistface, surprisingly, did not react with his usual flat irritation. Rather, he looked amused. “It’d make more sense for him to be Gelid, with everything about Gelid’s inevitability, relating to what we know now.”

“You’d make a better Gelid than me,” Greyleaf said.

“Or Brume,” Beetlefoot muttered. “Slow and fluffy as you are.”

Mistface gave a breathy laugh, and with that the air of the ring loosened and relaxed. Appetites returned, everyone now eating properly and with a little more enjoyment of their food. It was quiet again for a while, until Beetlefoot spoke up, almost quiet enough that Laurelclaw didn't hear him.

“You know, Brume and Gelid used to be the same aspect,” he murmured.

Littlepaw perked up immediately. “I thought I heard something like that when I was a kit. Who were they?”

Speaking a little louder and, rather nicely, almost friendlier, Beetlefoot looked at Littlepaw. “They were called Rime. He was the aspect of ice and fog, once. He split into two a long time ago. The Brae still pray to him, though, as if he hasn’t been halved.”

“That doesn’t make much sense,” Flyfang said. “How could he still exist and be two different aspects at the same time?”

“Nothing the Brae do makes sense.” Beetlefoot shook his head. “They’re reclusive idiots.”

“Sounds like the Marish,” Flyfang said, almost nostalgically. “I had to peal out of there when they had their backs turned. They don’t want anyone leaving or coming in.”

Mistface swallowed a mouse tail. “Y’all got more problems in your families than they’re worth, if you ask me.”

“Your brother is on the run because he’s immune to a monster's visions,” Flyfang said, giving him a sarcastic head tilt. “Don’t you talk on family.”

“He’s kind of right, though,” Laurelclaw offered. “I love the Plage, but they can be a lot to handle. They all keep pushing me to be a patroller in the Fleet.”

Littlepaw lifted a paw to hide a smile. “They’ve met you, right?”

“I say the same thing.” Laurelclaw sighed a bit dramatically, for humor’s sake. “I’m just good at taking hits, that’s all.”

“You would not be a good patroller,” said Beetlefoot. “They’re all eager for a fight.” He paused, considering. “Though you cut an intimidating enough figure. You do have a chip in your ear.”

Laurelclaw lowered his head, a little embarrassed. “That was just an accident in my assessment.”

Littlepaw could not hide her smile now. “Have you been in a single real fight at all?”

“…No.” Laurelclaw’s ears (including the chipped one) started to burn, but Littlepaw’s laugh - quiet and small, but genuine - cooled them down again. Flyfang shook her head in mock disappointment. Even Redheart smiled.

There was a lull in the conversation again, but it was nice now – Laurelclaw could see everyone’s relief at the lightening of the mood as they exchanged friendly glances or started grooming their fur. Mistface and Greyleaf were talking in low voices to each other, and Greyleaf seemed calm for once.

“AH!”

A collective jump and the crew all looked at Darkpelt. She had shot up into a sitting position, her eyes huge even compared to her normal wide-eyed blind stare. Her tail stood straight up, fur sticking out like a fox’s.

“Something wrong?” Flyfang ventured when nothing was said.

“StarClan’s visions.” Darkpelt’s head twisted this way and that, like she was seeing something they couldn’t. “Greyleaf has been immune to them his whole life, and Littlepaw can see through the veil. ‘Through the veil’.” Her head turned in Redheart’s direction. “That’s what the Runagate told you. That was the specific wording.”

Redheart haltingly answered, confused. “It was, yes.”

“Littlepaw, Greyleaf, neither of you believe anymore, if you ever did.” Darkpelt looked between them. “As soon as you knew the truth, StarClan couldn’t work its magic on you.”

Littlepaw’s face fell. She seemed to be recalling the memory of her nightmare. “Yes. The field I always see was dead, and then it fell apart.”

“Is there a point to this?” Beetlefoot's head was craned a bit forward and his eyes were narrowed like Darkpelt’s were whenever she was concentrating.

“I don’t know yet.” Darkpelt lowered herself down again. “But it’s important. I can feel that. We have the veil and the knowledge of immunity. That’s all based on belief.” She squinted hard. “Belief. That’s going to be a factor. Keep that in your heads, everyone. We’re going to need to think.”

Laurelclaw didn’t know what to say. Thinking was not his strong suite to begin with, but this incredibly vague command to 'keep belief in his head' was already beyond him.

“Um…” He tilted his head, forgetting for a moment that Darkpelt couldn’t see him. “What does that factor into?”

“Haven’t the faintest,” Darkpelt said. “We’ll just have to wrack our noggins and see. Think hard, everyone. Think harder than you’ve ever thought in your lives. Our home and Clan depend on it.”

Redheart regarded Darkpelt with some puzzlement, but eventually she gave a small sigh. “We can do that. I hope this is going somewhere.”

“It is.” For the first time since they’d left the Clast, Darkpelt smiled broadly. “I promise.”

#warrior cats #arc three #steorra #chapter #chapter eleven #littlepaw #darkpelt #mistface #greyleaf #laurelclaw #beetlefoot #redheart #flyfang

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tocrackerboxpalace · 3 years

Text

Le Rêve - Part 7

Summary: A struggle to respond to John's confession from part 6.

Rating: T (smut warning)

Edit: This is part 7/8. Ending to come soon!

Paul froze. John’s breath hitched sharply, as if he couldn’t really believe that was what came out, either. Both boys stared at each other in stunned silence as the words hung in the air like snowflakes between them.

I love you.

In any other context, it may have been brushed off as a faux pas, an embarrassing slip of the tongue. Paul could make a “What am I, your girlfriend?” joke, and it would go over quite well with the others: “Geo! Ritchie! John’s said he loves me!” And John would flinch before scowling as they called back, “What are you, his girlfriend?” and collapsed in a fit of laughter. That’s what should have happened.

But Paul took one look into John’s eyes and saw that there was nothing unintentional about the expression. The utterance itself, maybe, but not its truth.

It felt strange, hearing such a thing from John’s lips. It wasn’t something that they said to each other. Because they were mates, because they were men, because of Liverpool and because of the 1960’s and because of deep-rooted ideologies and opinions and etc., etc. Of course, nothing between them was rather normal anymore, but there was something peculiar about the confession—or, rather, the confession’s effect. Paul wasn’t sure if it caused one completely foreign emotion or an overpowering combination of many: it pained his heart but also made it skip a beat, dizzied his mind but also quieted his fears, churned his stomach but also sent in butterflies. It made him want to cry in more ways than one. Never before had he felt such a strong reaction to such simple words.

John loved him.

He wasn’t sure what was expected of him in response. The thought annoyed him a bit, eliciting a familiar feeling of hopeless desperation. What did John think was going to happen? What was he hoping to gain by saying it? To make Paul stay?

And then what?

“I’m sorry.” John’s sudden voice, cutting through the tense air.

That’s when the realization struck him that John might not have meant it. Paul began to feel dizzy. If this was all a sick joke, an empty outburst, he’d have to reconcile his own response to it. He’d thought he’d seen the answer in John’s eyes, but what did he know anymore? It seemed like every chance he got now, he misread the man. Why would this be any different?

Paul felt a nauseating lurch in his stomach as he stared at the man in front of him—the man whom of which he hardly recognized. Before this catastrophe had started, Paul would have sworn that he knew John better than anyone else. He’d challenged lads, albeit indirectly, on the very topic growing up; he was always the first to guess John’s whereabouts, to take him up on a dare none of the other lads would, to coax him out of a mood by being the only voice of reason he’d listen to. They were John and Paul, Lennon and McCartney. A team, a duo, a partnership. Most importantly, they were one.

But these last few weeks had thrown everything out the window. All of the hard work, the straining effort of trying to get close to him, was for naught. Paul didn’t know him any better than the next guy anymore.

Perhaps that’s why the “I love you” was so difficult to hear. Not because it was queer, or because it was sudden, or even because it was true (was it true?). But because it was a secret that their supposed connection never exposed. Paul wanted John to love him—maybe needed it. More than he’d needed anyone else to love him. But in the same breath, John was pulling away from him, alerting Paul that he’d never truly understand him.

The same heartbeat that reached his own had done so only to suffocate him.

It had been a long time since anyone had moved. Paul made a swift decision to finally break the silence, John’s desperate stare becoming far too much to bear. “I don’t know what you want me to say, John.” Which was true.

“I… don’t know either. Just f—” John blinked at the floor, stopping himself too late. Paul felt utterly crushed to learn that he understood just enough to know what John would have said next.

Just forget it.

Paul wanted to scoff and cry all at once. This was so laughably bizarre, this same repetitive cycle. A shot at normalcy ruined by overconfident attempts at reconciliation, inevitably resulting in the relationship going up in vicious flames once more. If something didn’t change soon, he might well lose his mind.

John almost looked as though he were about to say something more, but thought better of it. He pressed his lips together tightly as his fingers found the door frame. He was turning to go.

Again.

Paul began to panic, drumming his fingers timidly on his pant leg. He had to think of something, quick.

“Did you mean it?” He whispered abruptly, frantically. John stilled, mid turn, thrown by the question. But he had to know. He couldn’t let John leave, not again, not without knowing. He could figure out the rest later. “John. Do you mean it?”

John’s mouth opened, but no words came forth. He looked at Paul helplessly, the denial dying on his lips. Paul watched his mind work through his expression. John couldn’t bring himself to say it again, not really; but he couldn’t pretend anymore, either.

“I’m sorry,” he repeated.

And suddenly, they were kissing.

John went rigid against Paul’s body, and Paul couldn’t blame him; he had no memory of deciding or even moving to do this, but he knew it was his doing, somehow. Paul’s mind was racing with any possible explanation besides the truth: he wanted to make him stay, he wanted to test him, he wanted to take pity on him. Anything but the idea that Paul did it because he wanted to do it.

They stood for a moment, mouths locked, unmoving. John’s lips were timid but not unwilling, and Paul could almost taste the reluctance and confusion of the union. The fingers on his arm gripped hesitantly, stilled in their motion to push him away. A quick peek told Paul that John’s eyes were screwed shut.

His heart pounded in his chest, his pulse thrumming violently, but there was nothing in the world besides John’s lips on his and John’s fingers on his arm and the way John’s body fit perfectly into the press of Paul’s and everything just John. Paul would do anything it took to never leave this moment.

John’s fingers flexed against his bicep, as if contemplating their next move. With a sudden softness, they loosened their grip on his arm and trailed absentmindedly down his side. The trace paused to absentmindedly hook a finger into the waistband of Paul’s trousers, and that was enough for him.

Paul swiftly pressed into him harder, fisting the front of his shirt and pushing him back against the wall. John let out a surprised, “Oh!” and the air between them shifted: he melted underneath Paul’s stubborn grasp, wholly pliant and soft and near-submissive. He began to kiss back expertly, an unexpected fervor driving his movements, and Paul had to physically fight the urge to push the man onto his knees.

Paul had never felt anything more satisfying than John’s body against his. It felt right, as though this was how they were made to be; flush against one another, tangled far beyond separation. Paul was meant to hold John and only John, and to never let him go again.

“I’m sorry,” he breathed in between kisses. “For everything, I’m sorry.”

John never verbally accepted the apology, but the urgent slip of tongue Paul got in response was above satisfactory. John’s fingers trailed to the hem of Paul’s shirt and sneaked their way up his chest; nothing sensual, even, just tracing, feeling, learning. The desperation of wanting to feel skin on skin was evident as John simply touched and Paul simply let him.

He wondered if John had loved him the night that this all began.

In either a flash of attempted reparations or just plain arousal (who could tell?), Paul blindly reached for John’s crotch, pleased to find that he was half-hard in his trousers. John’s breath caught against Paul’s lips, and he broke away to stare down at the fingers that worked his jeans open. There was a strained expression on his face, as if he wasn’t sure whether to tell Paul to stop or keep going.

Tentatively, testing, Paul began to stroke him through his briefs. John’s eyes widened at the movement before fluttering shut once again, leaning his head back against the wall. Paul saw the opportunity of John’s exposed neck and seized it, beginning to suck on the older man’s jaw with ardor.

John’s Adam’s apple bobbed as he swallowed the moan threatening to spill out, and Paul began to lick teasingly at that as well. Paul slowly grew addicted to the taste and feeling of John’s skin under his lips—throat, neck, jaw, collarbones, earlobes—all trembling slightly as his chest heaved with laboured breathing. John shifted against the wall, looking slightly overwhelmed at the immense amount of pleasure spiking through his body.

He was fully hard now, and Paul took the opportunity to massage around the head, stomach feeling funny as he watched a spot on John's briefs dampen with budding drops of precum. The action earned a faint whimper from the older man, and Paul made the mistake of looking back up at him, drinking in the expression on his face that could only be described as sinful.

There was a hot blush on his cheeks, in the flushed way he got sometimes after a good gig. Paul bit his lip and recognized that it would be hard for him to watch John perform ever again after this moment. His eyes, when they were able to sporadically flutter open, were appreciative and lustful, a combination that sent a thrill of arousal to Paul’s own gut. He was biting down on his lip violently, brow furrowed as he struggled to keep down his groans.

A sudden memory struck Paul, of John’s sounds against his lips right before George—

Paul needed it. It didn’t matter why, anymore, but he needed to hear it. All of the bitterness and confusion and frustration and incompleteness of that night came rushing back to him, culminating in the desperate desire to make John come real hard right now.

His fingers circled the expanding wet spot in John’s underwear once, a bit of a quick check. He paused his tirade of kisses to spit in his hand, watching as John’s eyebrow quirked at the sound. His eyes were still closed.

Without missing a beat, Paul shoved his hand inside.

John gasped loudly as Paul began to wank him fully, spreading the blend of precum and saliva down his shaft. Paul’s movements were merciless, jerking and twisting with unforgiving speed and expertise as his mouth began to draw a hickey on a particularly visible spot of John’s neck.

“Paul,” he voiced hoarsely, thighs trembling with the combined effort of holding himself up against the wall and ignoring how badly he needed to thrust into Paul’s curled fist.

Paul shushed him with a needy kiss, tongue slipping against John’s as his fingers trailed lower to massage his balls and the base of his dick.

“Shit,” John groaned, tangling his fingers in Paul’s hair. His head dropped back again with a silent whimper. “I’m gonna cum.”

“So soon?” Paul teased into his ear in a near moan, feeling the confession go straight to his cock. He didn’t have to look to know that John shot him a glare.

“It’s fuckin’ good,” John mumbled in response, only half-begrudgingly. “Feels—Christ, why is it so good?”

Paul raised his lips to John’s once more, a stubborn thrill in the pit of his stomach. He was going to bring John to orgasm from subtle movements of his hand alone—he could feel the twitching of the man’s thighs against his, the throb of John’s heated skin in his hand, the way his chest heaved with unintentional sounds. The thought sent a tingle down his spine that made his own arousal ache.

In a final surge of power, he dove into John’s mouth and pulled at his tongue lightly. His teeth teased at the muscle invitingly, drawing him in. John wasted no time pushing back, wherein Paul began to suck lewdly as though it were something entirely different.

“Oh, fuck,” John warned against Paul’s lips, and he was coming, a shudder wracking his body as the warm sticky substance began to coat Paul’s fingers. A string of like-minded curses followed in the next seconds, his fingers pulling lightly at Paul’s hair. Paul only moaned back, continuing to work him until he had spilled every last drop in his briefs. John groaned at the hint of overstimulation.

After a few beats of awkward silence, Paul gave him one last tug and pulled his hand out, wiping it on the front of John’s jeans. “Christ.”

John didn’t seem to mind a bit, laughing shakily. His cheeks were slightly pink from both exertion and embarrassment. He cleared his throat. “You could say that again.”

“I wanted to do that,” Paul confessed, his face heating up. “For you. To you. Been wanting that.”

John gave him a soft smile, stroking Paul’s cheekbone with his thumb. It felt like an uncomfortably intimate gesture, despite what they had just done. “Me too.”

Paul chuckled carelessly. “Good. Maybe we should have cleared that beforehand.”

“Maybe.” John couldn’t bite back the grin, relief evident on his face. Paul noticed the expression with a thrill, the air seeming impossibly lighter between them.

He sighed then, dipping forward so their foreheads were pressed together. They rested in blissful silence for a minute, maybe two. His nose brushed Paul’s, and he hesitated a moment before starting again with a mild, quivering whisper. The movement made Paul’s heart flutter in sudden apprehension, inexplicably feeling as though the moment was slipping away through his fingers and he was trying in vain to hold on.

“Paul?”

“Hmm?”

“I have a question.”

“Sounds more like a statement.”

John’s eyes lilted up, an amused glint in them. Paul felt mysteriously breathless at the gaze. He wanted to remark on it, to tell John how incredibly gorgeous he really was, how breathtakingly beautiful—but by the time he found the words, the fondness was gone. Replaced with something both worried and worrying. John looked down, eyelashes fluttering low on his cheeks, now refusing to meet Paul’s eyes. Paul’s heart hammered in his throat as he tried to reconcile the sudden shift with the impending question. John bit his lip.

“Do you love me?”

Paul tensed.

John’s eyes searched his as a chill fell over the room.

Paul said nothing.

He stumbled backwards as John’s hands shoved him off. He opened his mouth to protest, to defend himself, to do something, but the man was out of the room before Paul could even think of calling after him. Seconds later, a door slammed faintly down the hall. The moment was finalized; nothing more than a memory, now.

Paul wondered how many more times John would storm out on him before he just never came at all.

—

There was only one way to make things right. Considering that even worked.

Paul spit out the hangnail he’d been working on thoughtlessly and ran a hand through his hair. It felt well-versed in his mind, now, after spending three hours alone in the studio, doing nothing but staring at the wall and drowning in thought.

Paul loathed women. It was a funny thought, and though he initially dismissed it as intrusive, he began to chuckle at the truth behind his feelings. No, he truly loathed them–so entitled and pretentious, never having to worry about popping a hard-on at the most inopportune moments. That’s what this whole mess was all about, really, if you thought about it. Paul and the goddamn dream and painful lack of self-control. Things would have been so much easier if Paul were a bird. John probably would have fucked him by now, anyroad.

He got up to stretch. His joints popped as he reached up with a groan, a feline arch in his back after being hopelessly glued to the chair for so long. His limbs were heavy with dread as he began to gather himself, physically and emotionally, to prepare for what was to come.

Apologies weren’t all bad, he supposed. At least, in the end, he could look back and know that he had done everything he could to save the music, save the band, save him and John. That was the final selling point in the decision: as much as the idea made his stomach churn, Paul would show up, express regret, and admit that he was ready to forget about it, that nothing like this would ever happen again. And he could tell himself that he did everything he could.

Paul never really registered leaving the studio, but the outside air assaulted him as he hurried down the front steps, clutching his coat and hat. As was typical for London at this time of year, it had started to rain, and Paul flinched as the thick drops pounded him from above. He squinted through the drizzle and hastened toward the curb, waving frantically at the oncoming vehicle.

The cab approached the curb with a squeal of the brakes, sending a surge of collected rainwater over Paul’s boots and trousers. Paul wrinkled his nose at the predicament and shook them off a bit before throwing the door open and climbing in.

When he removed his hat, the cab driver gasped. He spoke with a heavy French accent. “McCartney!”

“Pleasure,” Paul responded, forking over the money in advance. It was well above what a typical cab fare would be for the drive, but he was on a mission.

The driver eyed him skeptically, hesitantly fingering the wad of notes. He looked torn between wanting to clarify and wanting to shut up and accept the blessing. (The incentive, rather.)

“Where to, monsieur?”

Paul sighed and glanced to his right, watching a thick raindrop snake its way down the window.

“Weybridge.”

#the beatles #beatles fanfiction #john lennon #paul mccartney #mclennon #mclennon smut #smut #part 7 #chapter fic #ao3

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dudeandduchess · 4 years

Note

been looking up prompts and there is this sharing of scars/marks one and i can’t stop thinking about nemi’s poor civilian s/o 😂😂😂 she’s probably wanting to stab this man

Heyyy, bby. I just realized that I didn’t dwell too much on the “scar-sharing” aspect of things, so i might rewrite this. But we’ll see. Hope you like it, though. 💜✨

***

Sanemi x F!S/O: Of Heroes and Soulmates (Soulmate AU, Slight NSFW Scenario):

Warnings: Talks about Scars, Love at first sight, Language, Making Out

A disgruntled groan fell from (Y/n)’s lips, as she looked down at her right arm— where a fresh scar was making itself known upon her skin. It looked so unsettling with all the other scars that littered her body, but she had long given up on trying to get rid of them.

In a world where soulmates shared the scars on their body, trying to put a stop to it would be to fight an uphill battle; especially when she didn’t know who in the ever-loving fuck her soulmate was.

When— and if— she met them, she promised herself that she would give them a huge piece of her her mind. Because, not only was she done with having to tend to his cuts so that they wouldn’t heal over in an unsightly manner, but also to tell him to be careful whenever they did what they did for a living.

“Damn it,” The young woman cursed under her breath, just as she got up from where she was sitting in the living room to bandage up the new addition to her collection. “Okaa-san? Do you know where the bandages are? And that medicine?”

(Y/n) waited for an answer but, when none came, she began looking for both the box of bandages as well as her mother. And unfortunately, she only found the bandages and medicine inside her own bedroom.

It wasn’t unusual for her mother to head out of the house throughout the day, so she chalked it up to her forgetting to get something from the market and settled out on the engawa; just so she could have the cool afternoon breeze to blow away the sting of the salve when she put it on her new scar.

Not even ten minutes later though, just as she was fastening her bandages together, the unmistakable sound of her mother fussing over someone— most likely her father— echoed inside the house.

“(Y/n), we’re home!” Ai, (Y/n)’s mother, called out— which had the young woman getting up on her feet and padding across the living room to get to the main hallway.

“Okaa-san! Where were you?” The younger of the two women huffed irately, as her eyes never wavered from the still-sore wound on her arm. “You should see what my damned soulmate did now. Another scar! Can you be-”

All of (Y/n)’s words, as well as her thoughts, died fizzled out when she reached the hallways and looked up; right into a pair of pale purple eyes that were framed with the same scars as she had.

Her mouth fell open in shock, and her heart stuttered in her chest. Blatant disbelief colored her features at the mere sight of the man who held on to her father’s biceps to keep him upright.

A catty smile tugged up at the corners of Ai’s lips, as she looked between her daughter and her soulmate. Both of them looked so surprised and flustered that it was adorable to look at. “Look at who saved your father when a store’s roof collapsed.”

(Y/n) made an effort to close her mouth at that but, inevitably, her eyes flickered down to her soulmate’s exposed chest— and she couldn’t deny the heat that coursed through her at the sight of his well-defined pecs... all the way down to the tiny hint of his abdominal muscles.

She wanted to run her tongue up and down the ridges of those said abs.

And with that lascivious thought, she shook her head violently and narrowed her eyes at the man. Her words of thanks were on the tip of her tongue, just begging to be said, all while she clenched her hands at her sides to keep herself from doing something stupid.

Like pouncing on him and having her wicked way with him— or letting him have his way with her, whichever he wanted to happen.

Her own feelings unsettled her so much, as she had never felt like that before with any other man. Sure, she admired a few men before, but not as intensely as she did the man before her.

“Thank you. You can leave now.” With that, she quickly turned on her heel and marched up to her room— if only to hide the blatant blush on her face.

“(Y/n), (y/n),” Her father tried to call out to her, but gave up when the telltale sounds of feet stomping up the stairs echoed in the house. “I promise she’s usually not like that, Shinazugawa-san. Why don’t you wash all of that soot off, while we prepare a nice meal for you; it’s the least we can do, after all.”

Sanemi wanted to refuse the couple’s hospitality; after all, he was simply passing through the town while on his way to a mission, but he would be damned if he ignored the feeling inside him that told him to stay.

If only to get to know his soulmate better. Because, if he were to be honest, he had immediately fallen in love at first sight with her.

Safe to say that he immediately ate all of his words from the past, about how he would never waste his time with getting to know his soulmate.

Since, there he was, standing in her family home and nodding docilely at her parents. “Alright. Thank you for having me.”

***

“(Y/n), why don’t you bring this over to Shinazugawa-san? He’s having a bath right now, and I have my hands full with making our dinner.” Ai made sure to keep her tone light an unassuming because, knowing her daughter, she would immediately back away the moment she picked up even the tiniest hint of her mother’s plotting nature in the request.

“I can take over cooking for you,” The young woman insisted, as she pushed back the neatly folded yukata that her mother was handing over to her.

Instantly, Ai shook her head, then practically shoved the garment at her daughter. “Be sure to ask him if he wants his clothes washed. You should have seen him carrying your father out of the rubble.”

(Y/n)’s upper lip curled up in distaste, as she eyed her bandaged arm once more.

‘So that was why he got injured again,’ She thought to herself, a little wistful at the idea of not having been able to see him pull off such a heroic feat.

And once she caught herself, she screwed her eyes shut and shook her head in defiance. She wasn’t going to be taken by his good looks so easily; she wasn’t that shallow. At least, she wasn’t going to allow herself to be that shallow.

“Fine, but I’m not washing his clothes.”

“Be sure to thank him for saving your father.”

(Y/n) huffed at her mother’s cloying words, but said nothing else as she turned on her heel and made her way to the bathroom at the end of the hallway.

Every step she took, however, had her heart racing inside her chest— as if she was about to join him for his bath, instead of just bringing him his change of clothes.

With baited breath, she stood outside the bathroom door with the yukata hugged tightly to her chest, as if it were a shield that would protect her, or her virtue, from a man such as her soulmate.

“Shinazugawa-san,” (Y/n) called out, her voice cracking towards the end, which she mentally began cursing herself for. Because— out of all the times to show weakness— that moment wasn’t the perfect one. “I brought you a change of clothes.”

It felt like an eternity had passed before she heard the light padding of feet against the wet bathroom floor; it even had her contemplating whether to just tuck tail and run while she still could, and just leave the garment out on a chair or something for him.

However, before she could even take a step back, the door slid open and those striking pair of pale purple eyes connected with her own gaze. And it took everything in her not to let her eyes flicker down to ogle his bare chest— which was still wet from his bath.

She couldn’t deny that he looked so handsome, even with water still dripping from his hair; in fact, it only made him that much more appealing to her. She was so taken by him that she couldn’t will herself to look away.

So much so that her eyes involuntarily followed the path of a stray droplet that dripped from his hair and landed right on his chest, before dripping down... down... down to his well-defined abdominal muscles.

And it was only then that she realized that he had nothing but a towel around his waist on.

A panicked squeak left her lips at that, and she immediately shoved the yukata at his chest— all while screwing her eyes shut in a futile effort to save herself from the shame she felt.

“I’m sorry!” She cried out, completely embarrassed with herself for ogling him.

However, when she tried to pull her hands back, it was to realize that he held them tightly in his hands. And with one firm pull, she was flush against his chest— with the yukata between them falling to the floor.

“Don’t be shy, kitten. It’s all for you, anyway,” Sanemi teased with a smirk, before catching her lips with his.

It wasn’t like him to be so forward with a woman, but there was just something about his soulmate that made him want to absolutely wreck her. Maybe it was the distasteful way she had dismissed him earlier, or maybe it was something more primal, but every inch of him wanted (Y/n) so badly.

And he promised to himself that he would stop at nothing to get her to fall for him; just as hard as he had already fallen for her.

He then bit down on her bottom lip, coaxing her to part her mouth for him— just as he would have wanted her to part her lips to take his cock. But all in due time; he didn’t want to rush her more than he already had.

When she did open her mouth for him, Sanemi wasted no time in slipping his tongue against hers— playing with hers to the point where she was sighing in pleasure against his lips.

And no matter how much he told himself to take things slow, he still found himself letting go of her hands and putting them on her waist— so that he could pull her hips flush against his.

(Y/n)’s eyes widened at the feel of his hard cock against her, and she pulled away from her soulmate— both to regain a clear mind, as well as to catch her breath. “Y-you’re... hard.”

“All because of you, (Y/n).” Sanemi whispered against the heated skin of her cheek, before planting a chaste kiss against it.

He had gone about things the wrong way, but something about her just made him lose all of his self control.

And truly, he was regretting ever saying that he would never waste his time on his soulmate; because he would gladly give up everything he had to spend another minute with her at that point.

#shinazugawa sanemi x reader #sanemi shinazugawa #sanemi shinazugawa x reader #sanemi x reader #shinazugawa sanemi #demon slayer sanemi #kny x reader #demon slayer fanfic #demon slayer requests #demon slayer #kimetsu no yaiba #jen writes

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brokenjardaantech · 3 years

Text

absorbance of the deep (chapter 5: rest)

written for a mermay prompts challenge. my prompt is ‘monochromatic.’

previous chapter can be found here.

also on ao3

----

No matter how much Simon wanted to avoid it, he had to return to the lighthouse in the end. Before he left the cave, Markus made him promise two times that he would call for the sea whenever trouble arose, and both times he solemnly swore that he would rely on him for support in case things went down, that he would cry for help, that he wouldn’t pretend that he could solve it on his own, because truthfully, he knew the attack changed everything; his parents could no longer ignore the fact that the only thing standing between him and his death was three teenagers of his age, nor could they pretend that Daniel didn’t even want to stay in their village anymore, and thinking about it, what did he do at school apart from reading on his own anyway? He hadn’t passed any exams since eight or nine, all his promotions were due to the lack of funding of their village and, therefore, the reluctance to waste money on a student for more years than strictly necessary. Of course they didn’t tell him about it in his face; he learnt it a few years back when a disgruntled Daniel complained about how his twin could advance a grade despite not putting any effort into studying at all and threatened to complain to the authorities - whoever they were - until the school or their parents gave him a reasonable explanation that promoting Simon was the cheapest and fastest way to get rid of him. They thought that because he didn’t speak, he certainly couldn’t understand what they were saying either.

Well, it did take him a few months to decide his feelings on the issue and a lot of effort to focus on the entire conversation instead of being distracted by other thoughts halfway through, but that didn’t make it hurt less. It still hurts from time to time when he thinks about it, but the civilisation on the surface is gone, he has Markus to distract him, so he tends not to be very bothered even though he never had been in the first place.

He rode the waves until they placed him gently on the pier connected to the lighthouse, and he thanked them one last time before taking a deep breath and forcing himself to walk along the pier until he was standing in front of the backdoor. He pressed his ear against the wood carefully so that it didn’t make it creak to listen for any sign of struggle and chaos, but all seemed quiet. He could neither hear a single movement nor feel the slightest vibrations apart from the gentle thud, thud, thud of the structure being lapped by the tide, though it could be his bias towards the ocean that made it less terrifying than it probably was in reality. But still, for safety, he climbed up the improvised ladder Daniel built to enter the house through his bedroom instead of through the backdoor, holding onto one of the ledges with one hand while trying to slide the window open.

He should’ve known that his clumsiness would one day cost him.

His heart nearly burst out of his chest as his hand slipped on the glass and he lost his balance. The momentum of his upper body sent him reeling, his other hand let go of the plank, and without at least three points of contact, he started to fall, his limbs flailing but not touching anything solid as his brain processed what was happening, his mind bracing for the inevitable impact and maybe his early demise -

Just to be cushioned by something soft and bouncy.

He was slowly lowered onto the pier until he was lying on the cool wood. Pushing himself to a sitting position, he turned around and saw Markus hanging on the edge of the pier with his arms outstretched and his head peeking out with a chastising look on his face. Go through the door.

It won’t be wise, was Simon’s explanation. Going to my room is safer.

Fine.

A tendril of water rises from the sea and extends up to the window of the twins’ room, nudging it open until a gap just big enough for Simon to climb through before sliding back down again and disappearing completely. Go on, Markus said in his mind. I won’t go until you’re safely inside.

Simon picked himself up once more and climbed the wall more carefully this time, feeling Markus’ gaze on his back all the way up until he silently rolled into his bedroom - one of the advantages of having his bed next to the windows - and he knelt on the mattress with his arms on the windowsill just to stare at Markus for a long while, memorising the way the rising sun painted the ocean a rippling gold and creating a halo around his head. He looked absolutely stunning.

Just like the entire ocean he should be.

The thought came unprompted and without any explanation, but somehow, in his entire memory, it made sense. It didn’t surprise him that Markus and the sea were the same. It didn’t surprise him that Markus let him know. It didn’t surprise him that Markus brought him the courage to look at the overwhelming brightness of the ocean just to take one more look at him before he disappeared under the pier and proceeded to go back to wherever he lived - if he had a corporal form at all. But it wasn’t a time for poetic musings and pining; he kept his window open for the morning breeze, but as soon as he turned around to face the empty bed on the other side of the room, reality crashed down onto him harder than any tsunami, and he nearly fell off his bed from his attempt to scramble off the bed in search for his twin. Daniel? he asked in his mind before remembering that telepathy was limited to between him and Markus. Creeping out to the corridor, he first checked on his parents’ room and discovered that his mother was sleeping, then he stuck close to a wall as he padded down the stairs to take a peek at the situation in the living room, finding out that his brother was waking up on the sofa. He didn’t look pleased to see Simon.

‘Should I even ask?’ Daniel grumbled as he ran his hand through his hair.

Simon wished he had his dictionary with him right now because then he would be able to tell his twin to clarify, but since rushing upstairs to grab it seemed like a bad idea, all he did was to shut up and listen.

‘Well, it worked,’ the twin walked straight to the kitchen and started preparing his breakfast by banging the cupboard doors and slamming eating utensils onto the counter, the sharp noise assaulting Simon’s ears and forcing him to protect them by covering them with his hands. ‘I’m officially out of this place.’

Simon followed his gaze towards the suitcase by the door, a soft, worn-out thing that looked like it was on the verge of bursting. So that was why Daniel’s bed and the space around it looked so empty when Simon climbed in a few minutes ago - he had probably shoved everything into the suitcase.

‘Don’t worry, I think the other guys are out too,’ the fridge door slammed shut. Every single movement from his twin was forceful, harsh, as if he wanted to unleash his wrath on anything and everything, and even though Simon knew Daniel would never hurt him, his brain told him to stay on guard, to run as soon as he could. Or it was Markus keeping track of everything and silently nudging him towards the direction. ‘They won’t hurt you anymore.’

That didn’t quite match what Josh had said the day before, but Simon wasn’t in the mood to confirm right now; he managed to rush upstairs before the first scrape of metal spoon against teeth as Daniel shoved the first of many mouthfuls of cereal into his mouth to fetch his dictionary, already flipping through the pages as he ran down to perch on the sofa so that it was close enough to let his brother read the word he was pointing at but not hurt him, and he asked, [where - are - you - going]

‘Away from here.’

[where - exactly]

‘Does it matter?’ Daniel exploded, and Simon wished he had grabbed his headphones as well. ‘Not that you care, right? All you ever do is reading your damned books and disappearing into the fucking sea for hours and making us worry. They don’t even want you in the system!’

A particularly hard wave of the hand he was holding the cereal bowl with sent a mixture of milk and soggy cornflakes onto the ground. With a particularly loud curse, he threw the bowl - cereal and all - onto the floor, the ceramic shattering into a few large jagged pieces that Simon knew could be used against him with the loudest clank that echoed in the room. The sound triggered every single alarm in his system, snapped the last thread that held his self-control, and then he stopped caring, he stopped being the supportive twin brother he always wanted to be but couldn’t, he stopped thinking about everything apart from the simple thought that he had to run. He was aware of the sofa, then the suitcase, then the door, and he was out in the sun, his feet were pounding against heating asphalt, the usual soft ocean breeze had turned into blades cutting into his cheeks from how fast he was running, but he couldn’t stop, he couldn’t look back, not with Daniel doing that to him and leaving, leaving, leaving and he was angry and so was probably his mother and his father who wasn’t even in the house but it was a small village and there wasn’t a lot of place for a lighthouse keeping to go at the crack of dawn so WHERE CAN HE BE? His vision became blurry, his ears were filled with nothing but the high-pitched whistling of the wind, and one moment of hesitation was enough for him to trip on completely flat ground and land painfully on hard ground paved with pieces of sett, but despite the pain, despite the wounds he couldn’t feel, despite his throat constricting and his legs burning, he picked himself up, moved forward; walked when he couldn’t run, put one foot in front of another when he could barely walk, collapsed onto his feet and crawled when he couldn’t support himself - anything to get away from his brother who betrayed him and his mother who didn’t care about him once he stopped being a baby and his father whom he didn’t even know the location of.

He didn’t have any reason to stay, he realised, but neither did he have anywhere else to go.

Somehow no one stopped him before the texture underneath his hand turned from pavement to wet grass, and he used the last of his strength to drag himself to a shaded spot under a tree so that his senses didn’t get overwhelmed again from the sunlight. Without direct light, the morning dew was even more prevalent and soaked through his shirt quickly, but even that was better compared to the heat he had absorbed from the sun or generated from running from one side of the village to another. He had no water, no food, nothing to help himself recover apart from time, time which he didn’t have because his entire body was hurting so much that he might as well be dying, and even though the logical, life-loving side of him knew that dying here wouldn’t solve anything, he wouldn’t mind if he just closed his eyes here and never wake up, because if he did, his parents would probably send him off to the deep ocean on a boat in his favourite clothing and possession - the latter which probably consisted of nothing more than his noise-cancelling headphones and his trusty backpack that was too small on him but he refused to replace - then he would be able to be with Markus forever because he no longer had to return to the bright surface world where there was no Markus -

Cut that thought, Markus’ voice wasn’t loud but neither was it gentle like before. I’ll ask someone to tend to you. Wait there.

Markus had never been that harsh (firm, the reasonable side of his mind reminded him, but it wasn’t that he had the capacity to be reasonable and level-headed right now) with him before. Simon knew the words were out of genuine care, so why was his vision turning blurry and the sockets of his eyes heating up? I want you to be here.

I know, but you were just attacked yesterday and people wouldn’t be kind when they see another stranger with you.

They didn’t see you yesterday?

I made sure I stayed hidden.

That didn’t help Simon’s argument. But I don’t want anyone else.

I’ll be there as soon as I can.

But I want you here now, Simon knew he didn’t have an excuse anymore and was throwing a tantrum, but he just couldn’t seem to stop, couldn’t seem to stop hurting. I can come to you.

No. Stay where you are. You are under no condition to move.

The last sentence sparked his defiance, the sudden pounding in his heart giving him just enough strength to put some of his weight into his arms and push his upper body up by a few centimetres before they suddenly gave out and the back of his head hit the grass once more with a soft thud. His fingers on the grass tightened, the force enough to tear a few poor strands of vegetation out of the soil, and he curled into a ball with frustrated tears rolling down his face. He was tired. He didn’t know how long he lay there sobbing and crying until he exhausted the last bit of his strength and he could only melt into the hard ground, feeling the soil soften underneath his body and release even more moisture and wetting his clothes to an uncomfortable level.

He just wanted Markus.

It was hours later when the sun was high up in the sky that he heard footsteps approaching, and he had to cover his ears once more because he had been with nothing but his own breaths for so long that anything more than that set him on edge. He did risk a peek at the person and realised that it was Josh, who knelt down next to him and blocked most of his vision with his body. ‘Markus told me you’re here,’ he explained, the volume of his muffled voice just right. ‘I’ll take you back to my place. Then we’ll see what we can do, okay?’

Anywhere that was neither the lighthouse nor here sounded good enough to Simon right now, so he nodded and attempted to pick himself up once more, managing to sit up but not stand on his feet because the burn in his muscles was too much to bear. Josh offered his hand for him to grab as support, but when Simon reached out to grab it, his friend surprised him by taking his wrist and pulling him up almost painfully in a way that reminded him of North. When he swayed, Josh didn’t even ask before taking one of Simon’s arms and draping it on his shoulders and then dragging him towards the car he didn’t even realise was there. How did he miss an entire car engine?

Josh helped him fasten his seatbelt before going to the other side of the car to climb in. North was, once more, their designated driver, and their gazes only met once in the rearview mirror before Simon averted his eyes and she made the car go. How Markus contacted them or how they managed to arrive in such a short time, Simon had no idea, but all he knew as the air-conditioning started drying his sweat and his wounds from tripping and falling started to sting. North might as well have run him over with her car and he probably wouldn’t know the difference.

The drive to Josh’s house was short, a fact that Simon was grateful for because of how much his wounds were suddenly hurting. When they arrived, he let Josh lead him into the house, sat down on the too-soft sofa when he instructed him to, mentally prepared himself for the sting of Rivanol after Josh warned him about how he was going to treat his wounds, and all the warning he got was North holding him in place before a cotton ball soaked in yellow fluid was swapped against the scrapes on his arms.

If his voice worked, he would’ve screamed.

But it didn’t, and all he could do was sit there trying not to pull his muscles all over again by hissing and breathing through the gaps of his clenched teeth as one of his best friends hold him down and the other quickly sanitised all open wounds on his body by lighting fires on top of it. His muscles flexed and spasmed, beads of sweat broke out on his already soaked body, and there was nothing he could do when Josh accidentally dragged the material of the dressing against one of the scrape wounds on his arm against broken skin, tugging layers of tissue towards a direction it shouldn’t go. Suddenly he was back on the street again, his legs paralysed and too weak to support himself, he could taste the salt of his own sweat, he could swear the sunlight was going to burn him, his skin was boiling, sweat and blood and other fluids were leaking out of his body, he needed to get out and run and run until he was one with the ocean and maybe then he could be -

‘Look, Simon.’

North’s voice, one that she usually reserved for situations where they had to abandon everything and run, cut through his mind, and so he looked, he heard the sound of running water, and it didn’t take long for him to notice the clear stream of running water moving across the floor towards where they all were and crawling up the sofa in a defiance against gravity, the second time that he saw Markus in such state. This time, the sea showed up and solidified next to him and immediately pulled Simon against his side, the weight of his arm across his shoulders and the warmth his body radiated equally comforting. Markus said something but he didn’t catch it, but it was also fine because Markus’ hand on his face helped numb his senses, and the next thing he knew was Josh pulling away and setting the first-aid kit to one side. ‘Go take a shower,’ North said before taking the kit away. ‘I’m sure Josh can lend you something.’

‘The dressings are waterproof,’ Josh explained. It got harder to hear his voice when he walked to the other side of the living room, but somehow Simon managed to catch everything instead of drifting away. ‘Just make sure that the adhesive doesn’t fully peel back and the wounds should be protected well. I’ll get you some clothes; do you want long sleeves or short sleeves?’

Just as Simon wondered how he could request for a dictionary, a small one was gently placed on his lap, and unfamiliarity meant that it took him longer than usual to find the word he needed. [short]

‘I’ll put them in the bathroom. Hope you don’t mind they’re a bit big.’

Simon looked at the clothes he was wearing. His shirt used to belong to his father who was both stronger and broader than Simon himself would ever be, his mother had to add an elastic around the waistband of his trousers so that it could stay on without a belt because he was too clumsy to use one, and he constantly had to wear two pairs of socks so that his shoes fit and the hard material didn’t scrape his skin. [use - to - it]

He wasn’t sure if all the flipping and scanning even paid off because his friend was already moving on to his next task, and the thought that he was once more left alone simply for being slower to communicate his thoughts - not letting that chain of thought continue. Seeing nowhere to return the dictionary to, he placed it on top of one of the many piles of books on the coffee table and hoped that Josh didn’t mind in case he screwed up the arrangement, but from the layer of dust on the once-topmost book, its owner probably hadn’t touched it in quite a while, so Josh probably wouldn't care that much - if he remembered the pile existed at all.

Come on, Simon, let’s get to the bathroom to clean you up.

The stairs in Josh’s house were hard to climb because of the big steps. With every single movement came a sharp wave of pain from the dressing brushing against his scrapes, and by the time he reached the upper floor, it felt like he had been running all over again, his body aching in places he never knew could hurt or exhaust and making him even more drained than before. Markus’ presence behind him probably saved him from falling backwards and hitting his head against the corner of a step multiple times, but it didn’t prevent his legs from seizing up from a cramp, didn’t help him prepare for the slight moment of panic he felt before he met the floor painfully, didn’t remind him to breathe as the air was knocked out of his lungs. The floor was hard but cool and smooth. He might lie there for a moment so that he can rest -

He was rolled over before an arm slid underneath his back and another his knees, and suddenly he was in the air, a bounce and suddenly his head rolled uncontrollably against Markus’ chest, and in Simon’s head was the sea’s voice, Let me help you. It’s been a restless two days.

Simon realised that any other person would’ve been at least somewhat embarrassed had the circumstances been the same, but as Markus carried him to the bathroom, as he was gently placed on the countertop between the sink and the pile of clothes Josh no doubt prepared, as he watched Markus fumble with the taps next to the bathtub, he felt oddly numb apart from the usual anticipation and sense of safety the sea brought to him. Like he was underwater riding the waves while being half-asleep and his entire vision was tinted a deep, deep blue. He heard neither the sound of water hitting the smooth surface of the bathtub nor the telltale murmur of running water, but when Markus filled his line of sight with his body by standing so, so close again, Simon looked up and saw that the tub was nearly full.

I hope the temperature is appropriate, the sea said. Do you want me to stay or leave? I know people on the surface tend to bathe alone.

You may stay, Simon replied. I don’t mind. It’s up to you.

His hands reached for the hem of his shirt so that he could take it off - one of the rare complex actions he could do on his own after years of practice and embarrassment - but one thing he failed to account for was that he had run across town not a few hours ago and had tripped countless times before lying for hours on melting soil, and the smell of his own sweat, the stickiness of the mud sticking onto his clothes and parts of his body, the bruises and muscle cramps making themselves known when he tried to raise his arms - his mouth fell open in a silent scream while his body stayed frozen despite his pounding heart and his racing breaths. He couldn’t finish the motion.

He was stuck.

His shirt was tugged away by a pair of hands that didn’t belong to him, returning both his vision and mobility, and he held his breath as Markus casually dropped his shirt onto the floor with his green eyes fixated on somewhere below his face as if he was taking in every bruise, every small scar he left on himself when he picked on the thin, tiny hair that was the only thing his body seemed to be able to grow, every single cell that made him who he was. Slowly, Markus reached for him, touched him first with the pads of his fingers, then with his entire hand, then sliding said hand across his body, slowing down on dressing-covered flesh, smoothing down his arm, then holding Simon’s slender wrist, his bony hand, and he couldn’t help but notice how dark Markus’ skin was compared to his own, how strong and shapely his hand was, how he could feel the sheer power humming underneath Markus’ skin as if asking for permission to… enter him.

And the thought that he wouldn’t mind was equally terrifying and exciting.

What do you want to do? Simon asked. Had they been alone, he would’ve let Markus have his way, but unfortunately they were still in Josh’s house at the moment.

I can heal your wounds in a blink of an eye, Markus made it sound like something normal that he did on a daily basis, but I’ll need your permission. It might feel strange for you.

Being pain-free did sound nice, but Simon dared not think of how his friends would react if they realised his wounds were gone. They had enough speculations and suspicion about Markus that neither of them was in the position to answer, and to think that on top of turning into a gravity-defying puddle and controlling the ocean, he could heal whatever aches and pains Simon had in his body… the questions would be endless. Not this time. Josh and North will notice and they’ll ask questions.

Doesn’t mean that we need to answer them.

I don’t even want to hear them.

Fair enough. May I help you undress, then?

Simon gave Markus a nod, and the sea knelt to take off his socks before beckoning him to slide down the counter so that he could remove his torn trousers next. What Simon didn’t expect, however, was his underwear being removed at the same time, and in one smooth motion he was completely bare, but instead of feeling exposed like when he was with… anyone else, for that matter, he felt… relieved. As if the final barrier he constructed between the ocean and himself finally crumbled and collapsed, all with a pull of fabric. He found Markus staring again, except this time Simon was the one overlooking and Markus the one below him, and it was neither awkward nor unnatural even though his experience had been the opposite, the sea as destined to look after him as he was destined to be drawn to the depths of the ocean. The idea of letting the sea take him came unprompted, and Markus stood up in a sudden, abrupt movement that startled Simon. Evidently their bond ran deeper and less controllable than he had thought. More unexpectedly, the sea took his cheeks and yanked him in for a kiss rougher than any one they had shared up to that point, one of Markus’ thumbs pressing down on his chin in a wordless command to open his mouth which he complied, welcoming the sea’s mouth to devour his own, submitting to the ocean’s manipulation when strong fingers angle his head to gain better access to his lips, his tongue. A heat so foreign to him that it quickly became terrifying pooled in his guts, and as if sensing Simon’s discomfort and fear, Markus finally pulled away but stayed close enough to press their foreheads together, their breaths mingling and their hearts roaring in sync. Then they kissed again, this time no more than a light peck of their lips - an apology from Markus.

I lost control, he said. I should’ve slowed down. I’m sorry.

You did, answered Simon, and even he himself wasn’t sure if it was referring to the first or second statement. I… liked it.

I scared you.

I scared myself.

Markus sighed and took both of Simon’s hands in his. Let’s get into the bath.

He obeyed the request and stepped into the warm water with a hand on the edge of the tub and the other holding onto Markus’ wrist, his subsequent exhale draining the remaining strength out of him, and his back hit the slanted side of the tub with a dull thud and a splash of water. His arms drifted beneath the surface in an odd show of buoyancy, his legs started floating upwards if he didn’t use some of his strength to ground himself - which he eventually got over by spreading his legs and sticking them against the sides of the tub - and he discovered soon enough that he couldn’t stop moving because everything felt so strange when the water wasn’t flowing.

He was used to the vastness of the ocean. He was used to the waves either carrying him to his home or gently cradling him as he floated on the surface with Markus as they both gazed at the stars. He was not used to still water and the noises he made echoing in the confined space of a bathroom.

Close your eyes, Markus distracted him with a kiss on his cheek. Imagine yourself sitting in the tide under the sun with my protection. I’ll wash you if you allow me to.

Simon did as he said. Please.

He let his mind drift as he relaxed into the bath while Markus… did his thing. He was aware of a soft sponge being carefully pushed between his fingers, then along his body, then his toes, the smoothness that followed indicating that Markus was using some sort of soap that somehow managed to not irritate Simon’s fragile skin. It was more solid and stern than Simon would’ve treated himself, but because it was Markus, he was relaxing nonetheless, and somehow he found himself leaning into the ocean’s touch as Markus washed his hair and kneaded his scalp with just enough pressure to make it therapeutic instead of painful.

We should do this more often, Markus said as he washed away the bubbles in Simon’s hair. As the water automatically avoided his eyes, Simon risked opening them and discovered that the water in the tub was still as clear as when it was first prepared. It is… more relaxing than I expected.

You’re doing most of the work.

Indeed I am.

This isn’t cumbersome?

Not when it’s you I’m serving. Come on, we’re finished here.

This was the first time Simon emerged from a bath completely dry immediately, saving him the trouble of dragging a towel across his skin and making himself all sweaty and annoyed, and it didn’t take long for him to get dressed despite the dull throbbing of his muscles and wounds thanks to Markus’ help, but he insisted to walk down the stairs himself even though he had to keep a vice-like grip on the sea’s arm because of course a staircase narrow as this didn’t have any railings. He made a beeline to the sofa and sank into its corner right before his legs gave out, and Markus joined him immediately afterwards and placed his arms around his shoulders. Drifting together at last, as things should be. Distantly, he heard Markus talking to someone with his physical voice, but it was all muffled and illegible to his exhausted mind, and it wasn’t until the ocean’s voice echoed in his mind that he woke up from the light doze he had fallen into.

I presume that you heard nothing.

And you are correct.

The arm around his shoulders tightened as Markus buried his nose into Simon’s hair. Are you up to going back to school?

Why?

They want your input in deciding your future education.

Simon was confused. They never listened to me before.

He could hear a smirk in Markus’ voice. They will now. Don’t worry, I’ll always be on your side.

#simarkus #dbh markus #dbh simon #dbh north #dbh josh #dbh #detroit become human #detroit: become human

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lunaseongs · 3 years

Photo

it’s so loud inside my head with words that i should have said

tw: graphic death descriptions, death mentions, abuse mentions

timeline: friday, december 25th, 2020

The kettle is whistling, it’s screaming, it won’t stop and Luna thinks she can hear someone screaming for help and she thinks vaguely she should help them, but then she realizes she’s the one screaming.

“Luna?”

“I’m sorry,” she says softly, realizing she hasn’t been listening to her therapist during this week’s session. “What were you saying?”

Even if she hadn’t known Cyrus, Luna knows she would have had a reaction to his death. She doesn’t think she’s unique for having a personal connection to death. Death is part of this world the way a tree’s roots burrow under the ground, they can’t exist without each other. Since the assembly where the news was shared with the student body, it’s felt a bit like there’s a roaring in her ears, like the world is going too fast and she can’t keep up.

So Luna almost misses what her therapist says again, and even though she does hear it, it’s hard to process what she’s saying.

“We’ve determined it’s safe for you to see your mother again. Any threat toward you and your family has been eliminated.”

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

“What are you reading this week my little moon?” her father asks as he enters the kitchen after work, ten year old Luna’s homework forgotten on the kitchen table as she thumbs her way through one of the many books she received for her birthday instead.

“The Graveyard Book, I just started it,” she answers without looking up, though she does lean into the kiss her father places on the top of her head, expecting the gesture. It’s just as routine as brushing her teeth before bed. “The plot sounds a little weird but I like the writing so far.”

“Would you like tea to accompany your reading then? It’s a story that I think requires a cozy drink.”

“I always want tea, Dad.”

He chuckles, already halfway through filling the kettle with water for the both of them, the sound of the gas stove burners clicking to life making both of them sigh with contentment in unison.

“Tell me what about the plot sounds weird,” he tells Luna as he leans against the kitchen counter, loosening his tie and tossing it onto the counter, where he’ll inevitably forget it, and her mother will find it later when she gets home from the grocery store.

“I don’t know,” Luna answers, finally looking up from her page to look at him. “I just think the idea of being raised by ghosts sounds kind of weird, like it’s going to be corny, you know? But I liked Coraline a lot so I think I’ll like this too.”

“Oh, there’s my daughter’s face! I’ve barely seen it emerge from a book since her birthday,” he teases lightly, and Luna scowls at him, immediately looking back down at her page in retaliation, but her smile immediately gives her away, and her father bursts into laughter.

“You’re hilarious, Dad.”

She doesn’t know it’s the last thing she’ll ever say to him, of course, and it’s so mundane and meaningless, and she’ll try not to think about it too much as the years go by, but at night she’ll lie in bed and think of all the things she wishes she’d said, how she still hasn’t finished The Graveyard Book.

They exist in silence a lot, two people who prefer to read words as opposed to speaking them, and this moment is no different, her father decompressing from a day at work while he waits for the water to boil, Luna deep into her book as the plot grabs her more and more.

And the only thing that breaks the silence is the sound of her father falling to the ground, and falling down hard.

“Dad?” Luna questions, the moment so sudden that she isn’t even panicking yet, setting her book down. She thinks maybe he’s tripped, but there’s nothing to trip over on the smooth tile of their kitchen floor, and so panic enters her voice now. “Dad?!”

She’s up in a flash, book discarded, not knowing or caring what page she was on as she rushes to his side. He’s bleeding from hitting the ground, and it’s much darker than she thought blood was when it’s in quantities this big, and it’s on her jeans and it’s on her hands as she nudges him desperately.

“Dad!”

She can’t bear to leave him, can’t bear to just leave him bleeding on the ground, but she has to, almost tripping as she stumbles to the kitchen phone, fingers shaking as she dials 911. Luna isn’t even sure what she says to the operator, she just tells them her address and begs for help, because she’s only ten, and how is she supposed to know what to do? A million options run through her mind, like sprinting to Frank’s to beg him for help, like he’ll be able to solve all her problems like he solves the riddles she gives him in their secret languages.

But she can’t leave her dad.

Luna is back at his side with a towel from the kitchen counter, pressing it to where she thinks the blood is coming from, not sure how to do this.

The second she realizes she’s the one making noise, she makes herself stop, wanting nothing more than to sob, and her voice quivers with the effort of holding back tears, vision swimming. “Dad, can you hear me?!”

The landline is hanging off the hook, the 911 operator shouting to her, there’s sirens in the distance, and they have to come faster because the center of her universe is bleeding on the ground and she doesn’t know how to put him back together.

Luna will have nightmares of the moment the paramedics arrive and pull her off him, screaming for them to let her go, because that’s her father, and they have no right. She’ll have nightmares of her mother pulling into the driveway and sprinting into the house in a panic, finding her daughter and husband covered in blood, screaming questions. She’d never seen her mother like that before this moment, always so composed, so regal and warm, and that’s when Luna realizes how bad it is if her mother is losing her composure.

Luna won’t notice it as a child but years later she’ll reflect on how slow the paramedics were moving because he’d been dead within seconds of hitting the ground.

Frank will hold her hand at the funeral, and feral, animalistic sobs will tumble out of her body as she watches her father be lowered into the ground, screaming for him to come back, and it’s the last time Luna will ever allow her composure to be broken like that.

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

“I’m sorry?” Luna asks, wildly certain her therapist is playing a cruel joke on her, that instead her mother is dead too, and they’re just here so the blow can be delivered in a place that’s safe for her to lose it, as she surely will.

But her therapist is smiling, so widely it has to hurt her cheeks, and Luna only allows herself to believe it when she repeats herself.

“You can see your mother, Luna.”

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

“What is this, Luna?” her mother asks softly, hands reaching up to cradle her sixteen year old daughter’s face lightly, the black eye dark like a storm. Her mother wasn’t supposed to be home this early, but her third job hadn’t needed her today, and she has a rare night off.

“It’s nothing, Mom,” she insists firmly, but she’s fairly certain she’s reached a breaking point today. He’s never hit her like this before, never left a mark so prominent and obvious, a gesture full of hatred when he’s supposed to love her.

“It is not nothing,” her mother says back, just as firmly, taking Luna’s face in both hands now, firm but gentle, forcing Luna to look away from the ground and into her mother’s eyes, and while she hasn’t cried in years, the sight of tears there almost does it. She hates seeing her mother like this, hates doing anything to make her sad.

“How do I get out?” Luna whispers, and her mother’s face collapses as she starts crying, pulling her daughter into her lap on their secondhand couch like she’s ten years old again, burying her tears into Luna’s hair.

“We’ll get you out, baby, I promise.”

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

It’s with numbness that Luna accepts she’ll have to fake her own death from the agent standing in front of her after the court case falls through on a technicality, and the very people she’s just testified against are sent out onto the streets as a free man.

Luna will die a thousand times over, walk herself to death if she has to, if it means her mother lives, Frank lives, anyone she’s ever loved lives.

And that’s all she’ll be thinking about when she runs away the same day her mother attends her daughter’s faked funeral. She’ll keep running as long as she has to.

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

There are a lot of logistics to go through, and Luna is only half listening as her therapist explains them. The earliest she can see her mother is Christmas Day, she’s being flown to Roseville, she’ll have a house here, she’ll live here.

“How is she doing? Financially, I mean,” Luna asks, interrupting a little, because she needs to know, she needs to know everything she did was worth it.

“Very well. She’s comfortable, has a salaried position. She’s already been informed you’re alive, and we’re working on helping her secure a rental here.”

Luna thinks if she ever magically becomes rich, she’ll just give all of her money to Gallagher.

“And I can just… she can just be my mom again?” Her voice is quiet, barely above a whisper, because it seems too good to be true. Like she can just snap back into not her old life, but a better life, a life without someone who shows his love with his fists, a life without having to steal to eat, a life off the streets. There’s no way this moment can exist in the same week someone else has died.

“Of course, Luna. She never stopped being your mom.”

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

It’s the longest week of her life, but Luna is finally in the car, leg bouncing with nerves as the car pulls away from Gallagher and toward Roseville. She wildly considers for a moment that maybe this is just a prank, that maybe someone at school has hated her for the last three years and organized some elaborate ruse to offer her happiness again and take it away in a moment.

But the car stops in front of the very house she has a picture of on her phone and she dares to believe it properly, dares to tell herself her mother is on the other side of the door. She can barely get the car door open when the front door is opening and Luna sees her.

“Luna!”

She can barely get a look at her mother, can barely take in the added grey hair, the way she looks healthy and well fed, before her mother is colliding with her, pulling her into a hug that sucks the air out of her.

“Hi Mom,” she breathes out, before the dam breaks and she bursts into tears properly, real tears, chest and earth shaking sobs that she’s held back for years. Her mother still smells the same, still feels the same, and it’s like no time has passed and a century has gone by all at once. “I’m so sorry,” Luna chokes out, not sure she can ever say it enough, can ever properly apologize for taking a daughter away from a widow, but her mother shushes her.

“My baby, my beautiful girl, don’t you ever apologize to me,” her mother insists through her own tears, letting go so she can take Luna’s face into her hands, brushing each tear away as it falls. “Look at you, you are my whole world.”

Luna just cries harder, trying her best to take in her mother through her tears. The years have aged her beautifully, worry and smile lines equal, and she has glasses now, and Luna could stand here and stare at her for hours, just take her in, as if she’ll disappear if Luna looks away.

“I missed you so much,” Luna says, and she hates that she’s the one begging for comfort like this when her mother had to mourn her death, but she can’t help it, and her mother only pulls her into another hug, this one less tight, but longer and warmer.

“I missed you too, little moon.”

She hasn’t heard that in years, nobody besides her parents ever truly called her that, and it’s like the roaring in her ears finally stops.

“Merry Christmas, Mom.”

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

“How long will you be gone?” seven year old Luna whines to her father as he zips his suitcase shut before one of his rare business trips.

“It’ll be like you blink and I come back,” he insists to her, stooping so he’s on her eye level, hand reaching up to brush his thumb over her cheek. “You won’t even miss me.”

“I always miss you,” Luna pouts, lower lip quivering a little, embarrassed that she wants to cry just because her dad is leaving for a couple of days, and he immediately pulls her into a hug.

“And I will always miss you back, little moon,” he says into her hair as he presses a kiss to the top of her head, before standing. He doesn’t want to leave her, never does. Every decision he makes has Luna in mind, and he never wants to miss out on any part of her life, even the mundane parts of it. “I’ll be thinking of you the whole time I’m gone, okay?”

Luna nods, proud of herself for not crying though she still wants to, and she lets go of his hand so he can pick up his suitcase without too much protest, though she’s tempted to ask him not to go when he reaches the door.

“I love you, Dad,” she says, arms tightening around her small frame, already missing the warmth from his hug.

“I love you too, Luna.”

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

“I love you, Mom.”

“I love you too, Luna.”

#hecate made this graphic in like seconds what is she #(an angel)#self para #i guess this counts as a task skjdhgb #gallagher:task #tasks #death mention /#death /#abuse /#i'm exhausted but she deserves it #even for this i did not proofread

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rise-above-the-grave · 4 years

Text

beware stained glass shards

for @dekusmynamecryingsmygame. you said angst was fine, so uhhhh have some mf-ing erasermic angst I guess. please note that a) I am brand new to this fandom and am still figuring out headcanons and characterizations. hopefully I didn’t screw anything up too bad in that regard...but if I did, please at least be gentle in your critique :’)... b) I wrote this in...about 4 hours, all completely after midnight. it’s not gonna be my best work :/ but I did my best! and I wanted to get this up asap so you could see and read it sooner rather than later.

tw for: canon-typical injuries, hospitals (and everything that goes along with hospitals like doctors, nurses, surgeries, etc.), some implied (it’s only implied!! and it’s super duper uber vague) nsfw stuff, and an off-screen (debatable; maybe-it-was, maybe-it-wasn’t) suicide attempt. (was it a suicide attempt or a villain attack? I don’t even know myself! - at least not yet. read it however you wanna read it. I purposefully leave it open for interpretation.)

and if you don’t wanna read it because of that even potential suicide attempt, lemme know and I’ll write you something else, Peachy... alkdsjflkjdsf unfortunately I have a bad case of “I didn’t think this through” after midnight, and I didn’t even think of that possibility until I was basically done writing it. at that point I was like “It’s 5:30 and I need to sleep, I might as well post this on the off chance they do want to read it...” if you don’t wanna read it tho lemme know and again, I’ll write ya something else tomorrow <3

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

He falls.

There is lightning, there is thunder, there is rain—and for an instant (a second, a heartbeat, a breath), he is a swallow, a sparrow, a falcon. He flies with invisible wings, the air is caught beneath him and above him and before him, the world spreads out into infinity below the raindrops hanging suspended in the air. The lightning gilds his dark hair in quicksilver, the thunder that follows an instant later shakes his bones, and the rain that drives him to the earth soaks his clothes into a second skin.

He falls, the asphalt of the alley that runs beneath the comet of his body rising nearer and nearer in a rapid sequence that he thinks, distantly, should be alarming.

I should be afraid, he thinks.

This is going to hurt, he thinks.

Hizashi—

And then there is pain, and there is fear, and there is darkness gilt by lightning, silence shrouded by thunder, blood watered by rain.

---

Yamada Hizashi is 22, desperate, and dangerous.

He is older than he thought he would ever be. When he was young, he had imagined himself living to the infinite age of 50. He would look at himself in the mirror hanging in the bathroom, fingers combing through hair he imagined going silver, palms smearing smooth skin he imagined going wrinkled and weather worn. He would pluck at the band t-shirts he’d wear under too-hot, too-heavy jackets with fidgety hands, wondering what he’d wear then.

I’m gonna be a hero! he’d told his moms, and when they laughed and hugged him and told him, You’re going to be the best hero there is!, he believed himself immortal, invincible, inevitable.

And he was. He was immortal, invincible, inevitable. He could be hurt, he could be beaten, he could be knocked down. But no matter what—no matter the pain, the struggle, the difficulty—he healed, and he fought until he was victorious, and he stood back up. No one could keep him down. No one could diminish him. No one could threaten his impenetrable view of the future.

And then—and then Oboro. And it had all crashed down around him, like so many shards of shattered stained glass.

With Oboro goes his heart. His future. His eternity. He is taught, with the sharpness of stone, with the heaviness of rubble, with the choking taste of dust, that death lurks in the most innocent of shadows, that pain waits in the wings of the theater, that certainty is a lodestone chained around your neck.

Nothing is certain. Not everything can heal. No one is invincible.

He stops thinking he’ll live to 50.

He stops thinking he’ll live past 20.

“Fuck you,” he spat, and Shouta flinched as if he’d been struck, the Happy birthday that had been on his lips dying a silent, painful death. “Fuck everything.” Without warning—without even fully processing what he intended to do; he just hurt, and he needed something, someone, to hurt with him—Hizashi threw his tumbler against the wall behind the bar. The shelf the tumbler hit broke, and a cascade of bottles and liquor crashed to the floor in so many shard of glass and fragments of dreams and spreading rivers of blood.

There was a shout, and then Hizashi felt Tensei’s and Nemuri’s hands on his shoulders, heard Shouta’s voice sounding unusually placating and apologetic as he spoke to the bartender who had rushed over.

“Get him out of here,” Shouta snapped a few seconds later, turning and looking straight at him with death in his eyes. For an instant, Hizashi almost felt guilty. Then Tensei and Nemuri were dragging him away from the counter, away from the gathering crowd, away from the bar.

“Idiot,” Tensei muttered as Hizashi listed against him in the alley behind the bar, all at once too drunk and too sober to function.

“Idiot,” Nemuri sighed, guiding him into the cab, buckling the seatbelt across his chest and waist and then letting him collapse against her shoulder.

“Idiot,” Shouta hissed at him as he undressed him and shoved him unkindly into bed.

He stops thinking he’ll live—and so he stops caring. He drinks too much. Eats too little. Throws himself into his work with a single-minded mania.

His relationship with Shouta suffers. They grate, like two broken ends of a once-whole bone, the nerve that is Oboro’s death still laid bare between them. Shouta can’t sleep without Hizashi in his bed; Hizashi can’t sleep unless he’s alone. Hizashi drinks to drown his memories, his emotions, his pain; Shouta tries to starve his out. They argue about it, until Shouta erases Hizashi’s quirk and Hizashi throws a punch—about Shouta’s energy pouches, about Hizashi’s whiskey. About the lights Hizashi wants to leave on at night. About the socks on the floor inside the door. About the uncapped toothpaste left by the bathroom sink. About the half-eaten takeout sitting in the fridge. About the nights Shouta will disappear without warning, without a trace. About—

Hizashi wonders if it is his fault the day Shouta walks out, slamming the door behind him.

Shouta doesn’t come back.

Hizashi drinks more. Eats less. Works harder. Does anything, anything to distract himself from the event horizon opening inside his chest.

I’ve lost my best friend, he thinks, curled up alone and unable to sleep in a bed that had once held two.

For the first time in years, he wishes someone was sleeping beside him.

It is dangerous. He knows this—knows the risks, knows that the rewards are negligible compared to the ruin it could bring him. His career is on the line. His future hangs by a thread.

Hizashi doesn’t care.

He isn’t going to live past 21 anyway.

Only a few of his partners know who he is. Those that do keep silent. It is never wise to paint a target on your back, and Hizashi makes it clear that he doesn’t want a relationship, isn’t looking for a connection—that there is no reason for them to think there is anything between them but drunken carnality.

He learns fast how to duck cameras—and how to attract them. He learns how to avoid reporters, except when he wants to talk. He learns how to sidetrack paparazzi with glamour shots. He finds he is good at this game of chess, of Russian Roulette, of cards built into fragile palaces. He is good with people, good with crowds, good with playing the symphony’s strings.

I’d make a damn good villain, he thinks one night before he drifts off to sleep, a cute blond whose name he can’t remember already asleep beside him.

And then he thinks of Shouta—of Eraserhead—and the guilt he’d swallowed eight months before, when Shouta had walked out and left nothing but empty shadows where he’d been, threatens to choke him. He barely makes it to the bathroom before he vomits, bile tasting of too-much alcohol and too-little food, of regret and shame.

What am I doing? he thinks, leaning his forehead against cool porcelain.

“Are you okay?” the cute blond asks. He stands in the door to the bathroom and looks down at Hizashi with concern in his pale eyes.

“Get out,” Hizashi says, not looking up.

“But—”

“Just—just go.” And then, softly, voice breaking halfway through the only syllable that matters, “Please.”

The cute blond leaves, and Hizashi is left totally, utterly alone.

---

“You’re listed as his emergency contact.”

Hizashi stares at the window overlooking the city and sees nothing but smears of too-bright light against a stormy night. Sees nothing but the unknown caller ID flashing up on his phone screen after its ringing had woken him. Sees nothing but the memory of Shouta’s face just before he’d turned away and stalked out of the apartment, slamming the door behind him.

What had they even been fighting about? Hizashi can’t remember.

“I’ll be right there,” Hizashi says, unsticking his throat just long enough to remember what he’s supposed to say.

The line clicks dead, and Hizashi stumbles blindly out of bed and into a pair of jeans and a t-shirt. He throws on a jacket, a pair of boots, a set of headphones. Ties his hair up in a bun to keep it out of his face and, hopefully, dry once he pulls the hood of his jacket over his head.

The trip to the hospital is spent in a haze of emotion, fear, and dread. He can’t parse any of it, though. Can’t understand it, give voice to it, give structure to it. All he knows is that he is feeling, and that he is afraid, and that he is certain that the scythe has finally fallen once again—only once again it hasn’t come to reap his life.

The hospital is bright against the rain-swept night, clean and sharp and stinging. Hizashi feels bad about the mud he tracks in, feels bad about the water he drips on the floor, feels bad about the lingering scent of gel and hairspray that seems to hang around him no matter what shampoo he uses.

He tells them who he is, who he is here to see. The nurse helping him looks at Hizashi with a curious expression that he is too strung out to try to interpret, and then leads him down a maze of white corridors that he knows he will never remember. They stop outside a door in the ICU, and the woman rests a hand on his forearm and says something Hizashi does not hear. Then she opens the door, and Hizashi steps into the room.

Shouta is unconscious on a bed, surrounded by machines. His chest rises and falls with intubated breath, and two IVs are hooked into the backs of his hands. His eyes are closed beneath the purple and black bruising shadowing his face, and Hizashi can just see more bruising peering out above the bandages swathing his chest.

“How—” He chokes, unable to form the words that he needs to say.

“We don’t know,” the nurse says. “He was found in an alley by a couple of drunk college students. We think he fell.”

“Fell?” Hizashi repeats dumbly. “But he never falls.”

The nurse is silent. Whatever she is thinking, she does not share with Hizashi.

For that, Hizashi is grateful.

“Is he going to make it?”

“We don’t know,” the nurse admits. “He has to stabilize before we can use any healing on him. If he survives the night, his prognosis will be good—but it’s a big “if”.” She hesitates, then says, “It’s a good thing you came.”

Hizashi moves to sit in the chair pulled up to Shouta’s bedside and sinks into it. He does not see the nurse watch him with concern—does not hear her pager go off a few minutes later. He does not even notice when she disappears through the door, or when the door clicks shut behind her.

For a long time, Hizashi is silent. There is too much to say—too much he needs to say, too much he wants to say, too much he can’t say. The words sit heavy on his tongue, in his throat, behind his teeth. They are stones in his stomach, glass in his lungs, thorns in his heart.

He opens his mouth. Closes it. Opens it again.

He laughs weakly.

“You always did have a way of leaving me speechless, Sho,” he says at last. His voice is a clap of thunder in the silence of the room.

Hizashi sighs and buries his face in his hands.

“Please wake up,” he whispers through his fingers. “There’s so much I have to tell you. So much you have to know. Like, you have to know that I—I’m sorry. For…for everything.”

He swallows. His throat constricts, and his breath comes in shaky gasps.

“I can’t lose you too,” he says to his palms, because looking at Shouta is too much. His voice is hoarse and barely audible and pleading. “Please, Sho…”

The machines beep. The vents rattle. Shouta’s false breath hisses.

And Shouta doesn’t wake, even when Hizashi begins to cry.

---

Hizashi is asleep when the doctor comes in, just after dawn. He startles awake at the sound of the door closing, blinking blearily and turning his head to stare at the tall, dark man. The doctor smiles at him, and goes to check on Shouta.

He had survived the night. That much, at least, is a relief.

“We still don’t know,” the doctor warns Hizashi. “But we can start to be hopeful.”

They take him away for another surgery. This time, they promise Hizashi, a healer will be involved.

Hizashi stands, stretches, and goes in search of food. He finds the cafeteria, and buys a meager breakfast that smells bad and tastes worse. When he looks at his phone, he sees that he has missed calls from both Tensei and Nemuri. He shuts it off and shoves his phone back into his pocket to deal with later.

He’s going to have to call his agency soon, too, but he has a few minutes until that call is critical.

He spends a quarter of an hour sitting at the hard, plastic table in the cafeteria, staring out of the window at the overcast morning and thinking. He thinks about what he is going to say if—when—Shouta wakes up. He thinks about what he is going to say to Nemuri and Tensei. He thinks about his choices, and about the certainty of death, and about the possibility of life.

He thinks about Oboro, and about Shouta, and about how he lost one and how he might lose the other.

Hizashi stands, shoving his chair back so hard it topples onto the floor with a bang. What few others are in the cafeteria stare at him with varying degrees of irritation and wariness, until he rights the chair and walks away with a casual wave of apology.

He calls Tensei.

Tenya is running around in the background, laughing maniacally, and Tensei is distracted during the call in spite of his concern. He promises to come by the hospital when he can, though, and tells Hizashi to call Nemuri. Hizashi promises he will, and hangs up.

Nemuri is unusually quiet as Hizashi tells her what he knows of what happened, and while he tells her that Shouta is back in surgery. When at last she speaks, she only says, “You were still his emergency contact.” It is not a question. It is barely an observation. More than anything, it is a revelation.

“I guess so,” Hizashi says, cradling the phone between his ear and his shoulder as he feeds a bill into one of the vending machines. His breakfast had been bland, and he wants sugar.

They talk for another few minutes about nothing in particular, and as Hizashi unwraps his candy bar and begins to eat, he is struck with the notion that Nemuri is just trying to distract him. He appreciates it. Before long, though, she hangs up with a quick goodbye, and a promise to come to the hospital after her last patrol.

Hizashi crumples the empty wrapper and tosses it into a trash bin, and wanders his way back toward Shouta’s room.

He calls his agency once he is seated by Shouta’s still-empty bed. He tells them there was a family emergency, and that he will not be able to patrol today. They are surprisingly accepting of his feeble excuses, and Hizashi wonders if someone else had already contacted them. Probably Tensei, he decides. That was always the kind of thing Tensei thought of.

His phone calls made, Hizashi settles uncomfortably into the hard, plastic chair to wait for Shouta to be brought back. He tries not to think. He mostly fails.

He thinks of Shouta. He thinks of Oboro. He thinks of invincibility, and of shattered stained glass, and of birthdays. He thinks of a broken shelf of liquor bottles. He thinks of screaming at Shouta in their apartment, so angry he’s lost control, and of Shouta silencing him with a red-eyed stare. He thinks of broken promises, and broken hopes, and broken dreams.

They bring Shouta back in sometime around noon. He is still unconscious, but he looks a little better than he had the night before. The bruising is lighter—more red and purple than black and purple—and he is breathing on his own. Some of his color has returned as well, though he was never anything but pale.

The nurses leave again, after telling Hizashi things he does not hear, his attention fixed on Shouta to the exclusion of all else. He wonders, vaguely, as he feels them leave the room, if they had figured that out, or if they had just finished telling him what they had to say.

The seconds drag into minutes as Hizashi waits, the minutes into hours. Hizashi sits, stiff and sore, in the chair by Shouta’s bedside, watching his chest move beneath the bandaging, watching his eyes flicker beneath his eyelids. He wonders what Shouta dreams of.

The doctor comes in again. Leaves again. Hizashi ignores him.

Nemuri comes, but does not stay long. She talks, and Hizashi listens with half an hear, saying nothing as she tells him about her day, about her night, about everything but her worry over Shouta. It’s there, though, lurking beneath every strained story, every forced laugh, every brittle word.

Nemuri is older than him and Shouta and Tensei—but, like Tensei, she had found them adrift in the wake of Oboro’s death, and like Tensei she had decided, “These are mine, now.” Hizashi is grateful for it most days.

It is only after Nemuri stands and presses a kiss to Hizashi’s cheek in farewell that he speaks.

“They think he fell,” Hizashi says, not looking anywhere but Shouta’s face. Nemuri freezes.

“But he never falls.”

“I know.”

“Do you think—”

“I don’t know what I think,” Hizashi says, short and sharp. “And neither do you.”

Nemuri hesitates. Then says simply, “Okay.” She leaves without another word.

---

Tensei visits for an hour, and when he leaves he promises to return later in the evening so that Hizashi can run home to shower and change clothes. Hizashi agrees without really knowing what he’s agreeing to.

Night has just well and truly fallen when Shouta’s eyes flicker, then open. He looks around, taking in the lights and the ceiling and walls—and then his eyes fall on Hizashi, and he freezes.

“Hey,” Hizashi says.

Shouta turns his eyes away and stares up at the ceiling.

“Uh,” Hizashi says, feeling suddenly awkward and tongue-tied. “Thanks for leaving me as your emergency contact.”

Shouta grunts. Hizashi wonders if he can even talk right now, or if it’s too painful.

“Look, Sho…” Hizashi grimaces. “Shouta,” he corrects.

Shouta looks at him again, eyes flicking over to his face. Hizashi rubs the back of his neck, and tries to figure out how to say what he wants to say.

“I know this is a bad time,” he says finally. “But I have to say this before the doctors come rushing in, and before you get up the strength to kick me out.” Shouta’s eyes narrow at him, but Hizashi isn’t looking at him anymore—is staring, instead, at the edge of the bed.

“I’m sorry,” he blurts out. “For…” He takes a deep breath. “For everything.”

Shouta looks back at the ceiling, and does not speak.

Hizashi calls the nurses. They come quickly, and Hizashi excuses himself from the room so that they can fuss over Shouta in peace. By the time they are done, Tensei is back, and Hizashi finds himself kicked out of the hospital until he has showered, changed, and eaten a full meal. He agrees to the terms grudgingly, but only because the memory of Shouta not even being willing to look at him is still fresh in his mind.

It haunts him as he showers, as he changes, as he walks to a small take-out restaurant a few blocks from his apartment and places his order. He wonders if he should even go back to the hospital, or if Shouta would prefer it to just be Tensei there.

He almost decides he would.

Tensei calls him just as he’s finishing his dinner, though.

“You on your way back?” he asks.

“Yeah,” Hizashi says, because he can’t quite bring himself to be selfless enough to say no.

---

Shouta is still awake when Hizashi walks into the room again. He looks at Hizashi when he opens the door and steps inside, then looks away again before he can close it. Tensei notices the silent exchange with a pensive look, but says nothing.

“Well,” he says, standing, “I have to go. I’m babysitting Tenya again tomorrow morning, and that little monster drains more out of me than twenty villains.” The soft smile on his lips belies the cutting words, though, and Hizashi knows that Tensei would give the world to his little brother if given the chance.

“Thanks,” Hizashi says, and claims the chair Tensei had just vacated.

Silence fills the room in the wake of Tensei’s departure, heavy and awkward and uncomfortable. Hizashi looks everywhere but at Shouta. Shouta stares at the ceiling.

“I…” Hizashi begins at last, entirely uncertain where he means to go with his next sentence but knowing he can’t bear the silence any longer.

A sigh cuts him off. Then, abruptly, in a ragged voice, Shouta says, “I’m sorry.”

Hizashi finally looks at him, startled. “For what?”

“For…everything,” Shouta says. “For walking out. For not being there for you. For ignoring you when you needed me.”

“Shouta, I…” Hizashi swallows hard. “I dug my own grave. I don’t expect you to dig me out. I never have.”

“Maybe that’s your problem,” Shouta whispers. “Our problem.”

Hizashi frowns. “What happened, Sho?” he asks suddenly. “How did you fall?”

“Someone pushed me,” Shouta says without hesitation. “I didn’t see them until it was too late.”

For the first time in seven years, Hizashi isn’t sure if Shouta is lying.

“Okay.” The word tastes like ash on Hizashi’s tongue, but there is nothing else he can say. Not now, anyway. Not yet.

Maybe not ever.

Shouta is silent again, but it is a different kind of silence. Hizashi waits, knowing he is preparing to say something. At last, after a few heavy moments of pregnant waiting, Shouta says, “Can we start over?”

Hizashi looks at him, surprised. “I’m not sure that’s going to be possible,” he tells Shouta.

“Maybe,” Shouta agrees. “But…try again, then.”

For the first time in over a day, Hizashi smiles. “Yeah,” he says. Then, again, “Yeah. I’d…like that. I’d like that a lot.”

Shouta nods, just a little, against the pillow behind his head. He closes his eyes.

“Will you be here?” he asks, voice already thick with sleep.

“Yeah,” Hizashi says, knowing what he’s asking. “I’ll be here when you wake up.”

Shouta nods again, eyes still closed, and in seconds his breathing evens out into a soft, sleepy cadence.

Hizashi settles back into his uncomfortable chair, preparing for another long night of half-conscious sleep. It’ll be worth it, though, he thinks. Anything is worth having my best friend back.

And for the first time since the stained glass of his invincibility shattered, Hizashi thinks that maybe, just maybe—if Shouta is at his side—he’ll see his 25th birthday. Maybe even his 30th.

Maybe even his 50th.

#erasermic #hizashi yamada #shouta aizawa #aizawa shouta #hizashi x shouta #suicide attempt tw #(or is it???? was it just a villain attack????? idk my dudes. idk)#hospital tw #canon-typical injury #*finger guns* anyway i know hizashi is super like. NOT flamboyant and Weird in this #but this fic is also literally about how his life is falling apart around him (with the implied meaning that this is hidden beneath his #hero persona - and is before he has his radio show i think? idk i haven't figured everything out yet)#but regardless i purposefully wanted to show a hizashi that wasn't him putting on any sort of act or persona #but was him in his rawest and most desperate emotions and thoughts and feelings #soooooooooooo he's p serious in this #*shrugs* i worry about characterization a LOT fam #pls don't be mean but also pls do tell me if i screwed up big time? i guess #just...pls be gentle. my heart is fragile #my disposition weak #if you've read this far into my tags bless you lmao #oh also if i need to tag anything else lemme knoooooooooooow because i'm really bad at tagging stuff #i've also never been in a fandom that has such THOROUGH tagging so usually i can skate by no problemo #but i have a feeling i'm missing some stuff i should have tagged. *shrug*#okay i'm posting it now before i lose my nerve and then going to SLEEP

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havokwreaker · 3 years

Text

Broken Boy (How Does it Feel?) Rating: NC-17

An Omni-Vincible (Mark Grayson/Nolan Grayson) AU

BEWARE: SPOILERS

....oh yeah, and also incest and dubious consent and toxic unhealthy relationships that I deffinitely don't condone irl. They're just fictional characters so don't have a cow.

Chapter One: Break Through Me

Mark writhed beneath his father, naked and gasping for breath as the man wrung cry after pitiful cry from his lips. Gnawing at the muscle of a captive thigh, Nolan could taste the sweat rolling from his son’s fevered skin. With a sure press of hips, he sank deeper inside.

“D-Dad, please…” A wrecked sob tore itself from Mark’s throat. Nolan let go of the mouthful of flesh and licked at the bruise that’d already formed. It would soon join countless others that mottled the boy’s skin and would never fade, if the older man had anything to say about it. It was a sign to the other Viltrumites that Mark was his. His property, his mate, his partner. Not like his wife, Debbie, had been. No. She was just a human, a pleasant distraction, a vessel for the next generation, no more. No better than a beloved pet, as he’d said himself, but Mark? Mark was almost pureblooded Viltrumite, one of Nolan’s kind, an equal…

“What do you want, boy?” The question came as he worked a fading scar between the juncture of neck and shoulder, the rumbling vibrations pulling another shaky groan from Mark.

“I..I don’t-” Pitiful brown eyes glistened with tears, wetness trailing down his cheeks even as he fought them back. His body felt like it was on fire, yet here he was craving more fuel. The twisted burn of pleasurepainpleasure waged war beneath his skin. “I want…” He wanted to burn even hotter, white hot. Maybe then he would just burn up, burn into nothing. Maybe then he could forget…

“Shhhh…” The unforgiving pressure at Mark’s entrance slowed as his father brushed the fresh tears away with the pad of his thumb. “It’s alright. Look at me…” The hero shivered as he looked up into those piercing blue eyes, his father’s concern betrayed by an upturned brow. Times like this- when the man’s stern face broke and those cold eyes grew warm- Mark could almost see a trace of the man he once was, of the father he once had before the world had come crashing down… and he’d crashed right along with it. "It’ll be better if you just accept it.“

There was a double meaning hidden in those words. His father didn’t just mean this; this frenetic claiming he tried to call sex, but also everything that’d come to pass in the last year. The life that Mark knew was over. He and his father were gods now compared to the rest of the planet. Now that Viltrum was in control of things, Mark would want for nothing. No more boring pointless school, no more worthless soul-sucking job. He would be by his father’s side for centuries to come, showered with everything he desired, all for allying himself and giving in to Nolan’s demands.

Only, it had cost him everything. Hundreds of people were slaughtered during Invincible’s battle with Omni-man. Violent, bloody, pointless deaths that still haunted Mark all these months later. The woman and her daughter who’d died when the building he crashed through collapsed, they’d looked so afraid to die. A severed arm had been his only memento amongst the rubble. Then his father had punched the hero down into the subway station…all those people just minding their pointless lives.

Oh god…

He could still remember the feeling of his hands and arms slicing through dozens of fragile bodies as the metal car split open around them. So many dead… all because of his own unwillingness to accept the truth. His father offered him one last chance. Give in. Join his people. No one else had to die because of him. Mark, mentally broken and sobbing at Omni-man’s feet, had conceded in that moment. No more death. Not because of him.

He’d no idea that what he’d chosen would inevitably lead him to where he was now; tangled in expensive silk bed sheets, delirious with want, pinned by his father and nearly full of the villain’s hardness. The blunt pressure burned, and the raw drag ached.

Mark hated this.

He hated himself.

He hated how he didn’t really hate it.

He hated how his eyes shone with tears but his arousal swelled with desire every time he was dragged into his father’s bed.

It was a Viltrumite thing, Nolan had told him briefly. Breeding with your progenitors simply ensured a purer race. Mark didn’t know if he believed that anymore. In fact, he didn’t know what he believed. It felt like his whole life came down to this lately. Just another kind of battle, another looming defeat at his father’s hands.

"Tell me what you want, Mark.” Nolan pressed. It’d taken weeks of ‘training’ to get Mark to this point. In the beginning he’d stated a refusal to be broken, but his father had assured him with a knowing grin that that wasn’t the point. This was all for him. Everything. All he needed to do was trust him, and Nolan would give the boy everything, every pleasure he could imagine.

Mark held fistfuls of bedsheets with a white-knuckle grip. There was blood in his mouth. His throat had gone raw from screaming- both in anguish and in bliss- hours ago. The foreign push-pull of their coupling had made his body feel like a livewire. Every inch of skin, every nerve ending stood on end and pulsed with the movements. He needed more. “Touch me,” He cried defeatedly. “Touch me, please. Please. I need…I want you to touch m- ahHH!”

Mark’s head snapped back like he’d been punched, his words broken off with a keening cry as Nolan finally, finally wrapped a hand around him. The relief that washed over him caused his whole body to shake. He felt like he was coming apart, only held together down by his father’s body caged around him. “There you go, son…” Nolan breathed, watching his boy finally give in to desire. “Let go. It’s alright, Mark.” He pressed his thumb against the slit with each upward twist, smearing precum around the flushed head “Just let go.”

Mark’s face began to burn with shame as sounds he’d never heard himself make before reached his ears. Shuddering, guttural sobs and high-pitched cries for his father punctuated his breathing as he rocked between the sensations. “D-Dad! Please! Don’t stop- ahh don’t-!” Pleasure licked at him, twisting in his gut and growing hotter and higher. The flame from before had grown into a roaring blaze, centered around the dual sensations and escalating to a point where everything else started to fall away, ceasing to exist under its pull.

Brown eyes rolled white, bite-bruised lips parting in a silent scream…..and then he was coming.

Like a wooden dam before a tsunami’s rage, his peak struck with such explosive force that his whole body shook with the impact. Mark thrashed like a dying man, toes curling so hard they cracked as his hands flew up to desperately clutch his father’s shoulders. It was all he could do to hold on as wave after crushing wave swept him away. The wet sounds of his release slicking his father’s grip made him groan and his thighs flexed hard where they pressed against Nolan’s chest, the hero’s whole body fighting to get away from- or closer to- the overwhelming pleasure.

His father watched with sick pride through it all, unable to stop the few aborted thrusts he gave at the feeling of Mark’s heat rhythmically gripping what he’d already been able to take.

After what seemed like a blessed eternity Mark started to come down, watery eyes coming back into focus even as the aftershocks began to jolt him. Exhausted and ashamed he fell back against the bed, limp and panting.

“You did so well, my boy,” Nolan shifted to capture Mark’s parted lips, plundering his mouth like he was marking his property. A line of spit connected their mouths briefly as he pulled away and Mark watched with heavy eyelids as a release-covered hand was brought to his mouth. ‘Training’ kicked in, a sex-clouded mind betraying him as Mark grabbed Nolan’s wrist and brought the hand closer to his lips. A pink tongue darted out to dutifully lap at Nolan’s palm, licking away all traces of his mess as the man above him growled soft praise. “Beautiful…”

“My beautiful, broken boy.”

—

Notes: This all takes place in a canon divergence AU where Invincible gives in after the subway slaughter during his fight with Omni-man in episode108. Mark has joined his father, while Viltrum takes over Earth he’s basically kept locked away until Nolan thinks he’s been Stockholm-syndromed enough to not put up a fight against the planet’s takeover. I’ll probably write a few more of these. There’s a nice possibility of some character development, and maybe an installment where Mark attempts to fool his dad in order to rebel or break free…

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