#why is she so detailed & yet not detailed enough for a temporary event character? | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

patt-writes-stuff · 3 years

Text

Violetgrass (Xiao x f!reader)

Pairing: Yan!Xiao x f!reader

Word count: 6.7K+

Warnings: not the most canon complaint cuz the timeline for the archon War is a little blurry? Angst with no happy ending, major and repeated character death, semi-detailed descriptions of blood, injuries, and violence. Unhealthy and toxic relationships, yandere themes, mentions of stalking, controlling behavior, mentions of kid-napping, forced captivity. Unhealthy mindsets and generally xiao’s kinda slowly losing his sanity. Some delusions. Allusions of starvation/dehydration (it’s like one sentence). Pleas do not read this if any of the previously mentioned topics trigger you in any way.

Genre: Angst and Yandere

Tags/Aus: Mythology Au, Reincarnation Au

Summary: You and Xiao were lovers during the Archon War. You were his paradise, his bliss, and, unfortunately, a fragile mortal who was taken away far too soon. However Celestina was kind enough, or perhaps cruel enough, to bring you back to Xiao, only to rip you out of his loving embrace once more. This happens again and again, each time far more painfully than the last. Even an Adeptus such as Xiao can only take so much before he snaps though. This time, he’s gonna make sure that no one, not even you, can take his bliss away.

A/N: This is my piece for the Attack on Academia Mythology Au Collab!! Be sure to check the rest of them, they’re all super awesome and made by amazing writers!

You’ve heard the myth about the Vigilant Yaksha and the violetgrass maiden, haven’t you?

It’s said that the two are eternally intertwined, destined to love each other, only to be ripped apart by both her mortality and the cruelty of the gods. The tale itself goes like this…

The first time the Adeptus and his mortal lover met was back when the Archon War was still roaring. The smell of blood and misery filled the air and Rex Lapis had yet to claim his title as the Geo Archon. Despite this, some managed to find joy and serenity in these troubling periods.

The maiden was one of those people. She found joy in frolicking through the fields and climbing the highest mountains to collect qingxin flowers and, her personal favorite, violetgrass, whenever she had the time. Though climbing up the steep mountains and jagged peaks of Liyue was indeed dangerous, the damsel had become quite skilled at climbing, her hold rarely ever slipping, no falls or cuts of any sort.

Until one day, the maiden was climbing up a particular mountain. It was a troublesome one, for there were no proper footholds or protruding stones to grab on to. Still, the pretty violetgrass that was just a foot or two away from her, swaying gently with the wind, was far too tempting to not collect. It would look so lovely in a flower crown, or maybe a vase, perhaps she could flatten it out to make a bookmark or-

A piercing shriek escaped the mortal. Whilst her thoughts had been elsewhere, she’d stopped on a small ledge that was far too fragile to support her weight, the rock beneath the maiden gave away to nothing before she could react.

She shut their eyes tightly, bracing herself for an impact that would surely leave her battered and bruised, if not dead.

However, it never came.

Instead, she was caught mid-air by a pair of strong arms that secured their hold under the mortal woman’s knees and neck. She didn’t open her eyes right away, for fear that she would still fall, choosing instead to catch their breath. Once her savior landed safely on the ground, something she was able to detect due to the thud of shoes against the earth, she slowly opened her eyes.

Upon opening them, her eyes met with the piercing amber eyes of a young man with dark hair (the color of the ocean at night, she thought dreamily) with pretty teal bangs framing his even prettier face. His brows were furrowed slightly, thin lips twisted into what seemed to be a permanent frown. In her still dazed state, she couldn’t help but think that he was far too handsome to look so dreadfully serious.

After an intense moment of eye contact, perhaps too intense for two strangers that had met only seconds prior, he let her go in a rather unceremonious manner, causing her to squawk in surprise, knees buckling under the unexpected weight. She had not yet had a chance to gather her bearings after such a terrifying event.

Instead of asking if she was alright, the young man simply said, in a rather crude and callous manner, “You should be more careful, mortal. If I hadn’t been there to catch you, you would’ve surely broken your neck.”

She gawked at him. Mortal? Why would he refer to her in such an… odd way?

The maiden looked at him up and down, as if trying to understand just what was wrong with this poor man. Suddenly, it struck her. She’d been an absolute idiot to not have noticed sooner. From the tattoo that adorned his right arm to the way he held himself, it had been so obvious.

Her savior was an Adeptus.

He wasn’t just an Adeptus, no. He was much more than that. He was one of the Adepti who served under Rex Lapis. He was one of the five Yakshas who kept her and the people of Liyue safe if the mask tied to his belt was any indication. And instead of killing demons or evil gods, he’d taken the time to save her.

Before she could muster an adequate thank you, he, who she’d now realized was Adeptus Xiao, was already leaving, uttering a quick “Please be careful,” on his way.

Quickly, and without really thinking, she grabbed onto his wrist, blabbering out the words, “Wait, don’t go! You must allow me to repay you for your generous actions!”

The amber-eyed Adeptus opened his mouth, ready to declare that it was unnecessary, but before he could, the damsel spoke up, “I could cook you something in return. How about almond tofu?” with a small giggle she added, “I assure you it’s sweeter than those dreams you eat.”

To both of their surprises, Xiao uttered a quiet, almost shy, “Yes.”

The Adeptus didn’t know what had come over him. All he knew is that there was something about the way her eyes sparkled and her lips moved, her soothing, melodious voice. It made his heart pound in a way it never had before.

And so, she cooked him some almond tofu, and they- well, she- talked as he ate the mouthwatering sweet.

He came back the day after that one and the one after that, followed on by the one after that, and so on. Xiao hadn’t meant to, really he hadn’t. But there was something about the maiden that just brought him a peace he had never experienced before. Her warm embrace and soft, gentle words were all he needed to keep fighting, to keep living, even. She was his paradise, his bliss. It wasn’t long until they were mutually infatuated with one another, deeply in love.

Every time he would visit her home, he would always bring her the flowers she so adored. Glaze lilies, silk flowers, and of course, violetgrass. Xiao had even gifted her a small broach, one made of the finest noctilucous jade, shaped like the downturned purple flower.

Unfortunately, everything is temporary for those punished with immortality.

The first time Xiao lost his maiden was, as he remembers, a rainy day. Despite the dreary weather, she had decided to go violetgrass picking since they’re always best picked after the rain.

But, dear Archons, what a dreadful idea that had been.

While the purple flower is indeed best picked after it rains, it is also the time when rocks are most… slippery.

So, as the maiden was climbing up the steep mountains of Juyen Karst, her right hand’s hold on the rock slipped, causing her palm to be cut open by a particularly jagged piece of stone. She hissed in, watching as blood began to ooze out. Panic started to seep in, there was no ledge for her to tend to her wound, and the cut was far too big for her to continue to climb up or down.

Dread began to fill her to her very core, she felt burning hot with unchecked anxiety, fear begging to settle into her gut in the most uncomfortable of manners. She should have waited for Xiao as he had asked of her. Ever since they had first met, a year ago to the day, he’d been so adamant on wanting to go with her to ensure her safety. She’d only wanted to surprise him with some when he returned home. The maiden was so sure it would’ve been a romantic anniversary gift, seeing as they were the cause of their meeting…

She’d been such a fool.

The violetgrass maiden attempted to climb down but Celestia seemed to laugh at her feeble attempts. She stretched her leg, trying to find the foothold she had used previously. However, her foot slipped and before she knew it, she was falling, just as she had been a year ago.

Horror filled her lungs, making it hard for her to breathe, her life flashed before her eyes, and then suddenly she remembered some words her lover had uttered to her one night under the glow of the moonlight when it was but the two of them in each other’s arms:

“If you awake to a knife at your throat, if monsters dig their claws into you, if death comes knocking at your door, call out my name, Adeptus Xiao. I will be here when you call.”

And so she called, at the top of her lungs, as loud as she could muster. The seconds seemed to turn to hours as she shut her eyes and waited to feel the strong arms of her lover, to hear the safety of his heartbeat.

But it never came.

Or rather, it came too late.

By the time Xiao had finished up the demonic creatures that threatening Liyue, by the time he’d answered her call, he was already too late.

Upon manifesting in the air out of nothing, he was greeted by the side of his love’s pitiful, mortal body. Her garments were bloody, the basket she carried her flowers in laid a few feet away from her body,her neck bent in a painfully awkward way.

Xiao felt so helpless. He was so helpless.

He could do no more than hold back the tears stinging his eyes and attempting to shake her awake.

The second time Xiao met the maiden was no more than a century after the first time. The Archon War was not yet over and sickness plagued every nook and cranny, taking the lives of hundreds upon thousands.

The two star-crossed lovers were reunited one clear summer night when the maiden was wandering aimlessly through the fields of Lingju Pass. She knew it was dangerous during these times, especially with how ill she had been feeling as of late. Yet, she couldn’t bring herself to care. She’d already spent hours tossing and turning in her bed. Sleep, however, refused to come. Instead, she felt the overwhelming urge to leave the safety of her bed and go there. It was as if someone had tied a rope around her waist and was tugging at it persistently, insisting she follows.

And so she followed.

Upon reaching a clearing, she froze. In front of her very eyes was a sitting Stonehide Lawachurl, the type even the fiercest warriors in your village struggled with. The maiden quickly started backing away, praying to the Lord of Geo that it wouldn’t sense her presence. Her prayers were in vain, however, for as soon as the thought escaped her, she stepped on a twig, making it snap and effectively alerting the fearsome monster of her presence.

She shook in terror as parts of the Lawachurl’s rocky exterior began to glow with geo elemental energy. She hadn’t expected anything of the sort to happen so she hadn’t brought her sword, meaning she couldn’t exactly fight it, definitely not without a vision at least. Running wasn’t much of an option considering her body’s weak and ill state. She could try to outrun it, sure, but it wouldn’t be long before she was driven to a coughing fit because of it.

Before life had a chance to flash before her eyes, a masked young man appeared. Distantly, she recognized him as one of the adepti and watched him easily defeat the Stonehide Lawachurl with a series of short, consecutive plunges. She couldn’t help but watch him, mouth agape in an expression of pure, unadulterated awe. The Adeptus didn’t even need a claymore to break through the creature’s thick, hard exterior. As bad as she felt for not assisting him, she knew she weren’t exactly in any position to lend a hand. Not that she needed to, though, for soon enough the monster crumbled into nothing but red and black smoke.

After a second of panting over the remains of what was left of the creature, polearm in hand, Xiao turned to her and felt his blood run cold.

It was her.

How could it be her? She had died long ago. He knew she had, he’d cradled her cold body as tears streamed down his face. He’d taken her lifeless body back to her family. He’d left flowers at her grave.

This had to be some sort of sick joke, he thought, perhaps the karmic debt was finally getting to him, just like it had his fellow Yakshas.

Suddenly, his amber eyes zeroed in on a broach she had pinned to her dress. A Violetgrass broach, to be exact. Made of noctilucous jade, just like the one he had given her. The one he’d made for her with his own hands. There was no denying it was the very one. Only, how could that be? He had ensured it had been buried with you…

But it was an indisputable fact. That broach was the one he had made for his love and the woman before him was her. It was her from her wide eyes, fixated on him with the same wonder they had always had when they looked at him. Her hair was the same color and texture, and it framed her face in the same way. It was her.

The beginnings of tears stung at his eyes. Perhaps Celestia had brought you back? Perhaps they’d finally realized, just as he had always known, that her death was cruel and unfair. That it wasn’t meant to be. That she was meant to be in his arms, happy and safe.

“Uhm- excuse me, Adeptus Xiao, are you alright?” She inquired worriedly, eyes solely on him, filled to the brim with concern.

‘Oh Archons’, he couldn’t help but think distantly, ‘I’ve missed her voice.’

Instead of running up to her and crushing him in his loving embrace, he stayed where he was, took off his mask, nodded briskly, swallowing as if to avoid the tightness in his throat. She didn’t seem to remember him yet, so there was no use in frightening her.

Before he could muster up the courage to speak to her, his love began to cough furiously, though she attempted to cover it up. She didn’t want to be rude to her savior, after all.

“Ha, pardon me, sir, I’ve just been feeling a bit under the weather is all,” she told him feebly.

He nodded brusquely, before uttering, “I shall return you home safely.”

“Oh no, I assure you, you’ve done more than enough for me. I can’t ask that of you,” she fumbled hurriedly, though his words were more of a statement than a question.

Xiao had never been one for unnecessary- or at least what he thought were unnecessary- words, so instead of saying anything, the Adeptus simply grabbed her by the waist and teleported you home, after asking where home was, of course.

The next day, the Yaksha visited the maiden’s home, a bushel of violetgrass flowers in hand. She’d been understandably surprised, yet thrilled that the dark-haired man was visiting her. She hadn’t expected someone as busy as him to make time for a regular person such as herself, especially not during these times.

“These are my favorite flowers, y’know? They’re just so beautiful,” the maiden exclaimed gleefully.

He did know. That had been one of the reasons he had brought them to her. The second reason was because of what happened last time, in her previous life, he supposed. Celestia had been kind enough to gift him a second chance with his love, and he was going to ensure that it did not go to waste.

And so, every day he would visit her. Some days he would bring silk flowers, or glaze lilies, while other days he would bring her loach pearls and core lapis. Not a day went by where he would not appear in front of the damsel’s house, a gift in hand, ready to hear her ramble about whatever that beautiful brain of hers desired to prattle on about.

“You’re simply too generous Xiao,” she’d told him playfully while she laid in her bed, as she was still unwell, the Adeptus seated in a plush chair next to it. “There has to be something I can give you in return for everything. I won’t take no for an answer.”

He thought for a moment, before asking, tentatively, “Do you know how to make almond tofu?”

He’d never forget her dazzling smile that day, as she shakily got out of her bed, latching onto the support he offered while she gathered her bearings, and marched to her kitchen, enthusiastically preparing the sweet treat as she talked about a book she’d been reading, one that’d been gifted to her by a friend, titled Moonlit Bamboo Forest.

The lovers did this every day for months. Xiao brought her some medicinal tea that Rex Lapis himself said could cure her ailments. They did indeed begin to see improvement in her health and Xiao couldn’t help but feel immense relief. This time, he wouldn’t lose her for certain.

Until the plagues reached her village.

She’d been one of the first to catch it since the village doctor came to check on her so often, he’d spread it to her. The plague, coupled with her previous illness, weakened her body in a manner of days. One day, Xiao went to get some medicine his fellow adepti had guaranteed would help the maiden feel better.

When he returned later that day, however, he found her body in the bed, cold and without a pulse, the stench of death and sickness thick in the air.

That was the second time he had lost her.

The third time the star-crossed lovers met was long after the archon war. Liyue was now its own nation with its own name, the great center of wealth and commerce. The Yakshas were now a thing of the past, having succumbed to their karmic debt. Eventually, they all fell in one way or another.

All but Xiao, who remained a constant throughout it all.

Over the past decade or so, Xiao had taken to staying at the Wangshu Inn when he wasn’t slaying monsters. The people were nice enough, though he had long given up on attempting to form emotional connections with others. It would only lead to grief, just like it had when he’d lost his love or his fellow Yakshas, and there was only so much grief anyone, mortal or not, could take before their thread of sanity snapped in half. And with his Karmic Debt being as bad as it was…

As Xiao sat at the edge of the balcony of the Wangshu Inn, legs dangling below, he couldn’t help but think of her, his maiden. He wondered if, perhaps, Celestia would give him a third chance and bring her back to him. Honestly, the Adeptus wasn’t sure he wanted a third chance with her. While he did miss the sound of her heartbeat and the sweet words she’d utter to him and only him, he doubted he could bear the pain of having her ripped away from him once again.

It’s as if Celestia was taunting Xiao. As if the Archons above were bored and found some sick amusement in his pain as if his emotions were nothing but a game to them. What other explanations were there for what happened next?

“Um- excuse me, do you mind if I sit here?” An angelic voice he knew far too well, missed far too much, spoke.

Xiao looked up and lo and behold, it was her. Same hair, same eyes, same violetgrass broach.

She stood behind him clutching a plate of something, though the angle wouldn’t allow him to make up what it was. Her face adorned that same anxious smile of hers and he could feel himself falling in love with the maiden all over again. He knew he should say no. He shouldn’t allow her back in, not when he’s already lost her so many times before, not when they’d both suffered so much just by being together.

He nodded before looking away.

He shouldn’t but he would.

“I hope you don’t mind me intruding on your quiet time,” she said softly once she had settled beside him. When he made no indication of answering, she continued, “To be honest, you just seemed so… sad, melancholic even. Something about it, even if I don’t really know you, doesn’t sit right with me. It makes my heart feel heavy.”

The violetgrass maiden received no response, except for a soft grunt of acknowledgment, so small she wasn’t sure she hadn’t imagined it. Still, it was all she needed to perk up and stretch her arms out, offering him the plate she’d been holding.

“Here, I got this for you,” she told him, “word around the streets is you’ve got quite an appetite for it! Though this is my first time staying at the Inn, so I’m not sure if it’s any good here.”

Xiao looked at her, amber eyes filled with love. He was glad to know that, despite living through many lives now, she was still the girl he’d met back then, as sweet as he’d remembered her, just as caring.

He shouldn’t have but he took the plate from her hands and began to eat.

Instead of saying anything, she simply watched him as he ate, a silly little smile making its way to her face. The look on his lady’s face had him growing hot and turning beet red

“So,” he coughed out, embarrassed, “where’d you get a broach like that?”

“Oh, this one?” She inquired, pointing at the shiny violetgrass broach, “I found it lying on the ground one day when I was out picking lotus heads for dinner. I asked just about everyone in Liyue Harbor if it was theirs, but no luck. I eventually decided to just keep it for myself. It is a shame though, whoever lost it must truly be upset over losing such a beautiful piece of jewelry. I’ve never seen anything quite like it.”

He nodded along, thinking that, well, the broach actually was with its owner.

“It’s as if it were fate though,” she prattled on happily, watching the stars as she talked, “Violeygrass is my very favorite, always has been really. Though, I’ve always been too scared to climb up for them myself. You see, ever since I was little, I’ve had this recurring nightmare where I fell to my death while collecting some.”

The Adeptus stilled for a second, tense. She hadn’t ever brought up dreams about her past life. Maybe this time was different, maybe she’d remember what he did!

“Oh my Archons,” she exclaimed, face warm with embarrassment, scratching the back of her head sheepishly, “I’ve been going on and on! I’m so sorry, something about you feels so familiar. It makes me feel like I can tell you just about everything. Is that weird?”

His heart was racing like it hadn’t in years, decades even.

“You can tell me whatever you want,” he answered shortly, “I don’t mind listening. You have a nice voice.”

The maiden covered her hands with her face, flustered, and Xiao let out a rare smile, soft and gentle. This time would be different. He’d make sure of it.

After that day, the maiden began to visit the Wangshu Inn often, whenever she could spare time away from her job. Unbeknownst to her, however, Xiao followed at a distance when she wasn’t visiting him, to ensure her safety. He knew it wasn’t right, truly, but he had no other choice. He had to, or else he’d risk losing her to an accident such as last time, fall ill again, attacked by monsters or, Celestia forbid, be kidnapped by a group of treasure hoarders.

He’d have to get rid of any and all threats.

So, Xiao continued to follow his maiden from a distance, he made sure she was in tip-top shape, and ruthlessly slaughtering all enemies that he deemed a threat to her, until he was certain nothing would take her away from him again.

Except for one threat. Himself.

The third time he’d lost her was on a beautiful night, not that Xiao could remember it well. His love had insisted on the two of them taking a walk. She’d reasoned that the cool night air would help him regain control. His karmic debt had been weighing on him an awful lot recently and she simply couldn’t bear to see him in such excruciating pain.

The walk had started off rather pleasantly, as far as Xiao could remember. He could remember nudging his hand against hers, wanting to hold it but being far too shy to do so. With a laugh and a teasing remark, the maiden interlaced their fingers, bringing up their hands to place a gentle kiss on his, making the tips of his ears redden in bashfulness. They’d walked a little further until they encountered a group of hilichurls accompanied by a pyro abyss mage. Without skipping a beat, Xiao stepped in front of his lover, polearm appearing in his hand.

And then…

Everything went dark. Xiao’s mind was nothing but a void, pain exploded in every inch of his body as his karmic debt returned in full force to punish him for the slaughtering he’d committed.

When he came to, his mind was hazy, unsure of what had occurred. The Yaksha sat up, ignoring the way his muscles protested against it, and looked around, trying to make sense of what had happened and where he was.

Xiao froze when his eyes locked onto her pitiful body laying a few feet ahead of him in the grass surrounded by arrowheads and broken hilichurl masks, blood turning ice-cold. If he ignored the gashes across her body, the ones that were unmistakably made by the bloody spear he was clutching and not some hilichurl club or bow and arrow, and the blood that stained her pretty garments, he could almost fool himself into thinking she was asleep.

This had been his doing.

After a few beats of stunned silence, the dark-haired Adeptus lurched forward grabbing onto her cold body and shaking ruthlessly, calling out her name frantically, as if it would make his love wake up, make her cradle his face lovingly and ask why he’d been crying.

Xiao looked up onto the sky scornfully, looking up at Celestia with nothing short of pure, unadulterated loathing. He was willing to bet they were all mocking him right now, laughing at how weak and pathetic he was, at how time after time, he’d failed to love her enough, to keep her alive. They did this on purpose he was sure of it, those bastards. Well, if they could play dirty like this, so could he. He’d get her back, he’d keep her alive by his side.

And just like that, Xiao’s thread of sanity snapped.

“You can’t take her away from me anymore,” he spoke to the sky nonsensically, “I won’t let you. I don’t care what I have to do, who I have to kill, you won’t take my bliss away from me again.”

“That story was quite depressing,” Chongyun stated, ceasing his footsteps to look to his friend, Xingqiu.

“Ah yes, it is indeed, my liege,” the navy blue-haired gentleman agreed, “However, I’m glad this book included the whole myth, instead of making me wait for the next volume like the last one.”

The light blue-haired boy rolled his eyes before saying, “As much as I appreciated you reading the book aloud, I don’t see how this aids us in our search for (Y/N).”

The reason the boys had been searching across all of Liyue, was because their aforementioned friend had mysteriously gone missing. Everything had been as it normally was until one day, (Y/N) didn’t show up at her job in the Wangsheng Funeral Parlor, something that was incredibly unusual of her, especially without a warning to her boss or coworkers. This led Hu Tao, with the insistence of Zhongli, to ask Chongyun and Xingqiu, two of (Y/N)’s friends, for help in the search for her. They had also contacted the milelith, but they had told them that she’d not been missing for long enough to warrant a search party. The two had, of course, been quick to help, though Xingqiu had been rather enraptured in a book of Liyue Myths, simply insisting he’d have to take it with him so he could read while he searched for her.

“But my liege,” Xingqiu exclaimed playfully, golden eyes shining with mirth, “this story is of utmost importance in our search for our beloved friend. Why, for all we know, (Y/N) might’ve been kidnapped by the Vigilant Yaksha himself! She has always had a habit of climbing mountains to pick violetgrass like the maiden in the book”

“Do not be so ridiculous,” Chongyun said, rolling his eyes, “I doubt an Adeptus such as himself would ever commit such an atrocity of that degree against a citizen of Liyue. Besides, that myth is incredibly old and there’s very little evidence that proves its validity. It’s more likely that (Y/N) was taken by a demon. That is why I asked you to accompany me to Wuwang Hill.”

“I was simply joking Chongyun,” he said with a laugh before turning solemn, “However, regretfully I feel as though it is time for the two of us to return to Liyue Harbor for the day. You’ve just about run out of popsicles and with this heat, I have no doubt you’ll overheat if we keep going.”

“I’m afraid you’re right,�� The blue-eyed boy admitted. “I hope (Y/N) is alright wherever she is.”

“I do as well,” Xingqiu agreed, “Perhaps Hu Tao and Zhongli have had more luck.”

Chongyun nodded, “Xiangling also said she’d ask her customers if they’d seen her.”

With that, the two boys made their way back to Lihue Harbor, oblivious to just how true Xingqiu’s joke had been.

Xiao sighed as he climbed up the stairs of Wangshu Inn up to his room. Of course, he did not need sleep, it was a mortal need in and of itself, or a room for that matter but Verr Goldet had insisted that he should have his own space, somewhere he could rest after long days of slaughtering demons such as this one.

The Adeptus turned the door handle, opening the door of an empty, pristine room. While the room had all of the furniture the other Inn rooms had, it still felt unnervingly empty, without any clothes or trinkets laying around. The only personal object of Xiao’s in the room was an orange teapot that rested on the nightstand.

Quickly, Xiao opened the tea pot’s lid, and within seconds he was standing in front of a Liyue style mansion, surrounded by mountains that he crafted to look like the ones from when the two of you had met all those centuries ago. Eager to see you, Xiao ignored Tubby’s greetings and opened the front door, making quick work of taking off his shoes before climbing the stairs to the second floor, where your room was.

He opened the door to find you sat atop your bed, alert and glaring at him fiercely. The Adeptus rolled his amber eyes, it seemed you were still trying to act out and be defiant. Looking around your room, mostly to make sure you hadn’t tried to smash the windows with the desk chair like last time (you seemed to not comprehend the fact that there was no escaping the serenetea pot, since it was a world Xiao himself had created), his eyes settled on the plate of bamboo shoot soup he’d left for you this morning, along with a still filled to the brim cup of water. He narrowed his eyes at that. It simply wouldn’t do. You’d been here for about a week now and you still refused to eat or drink anything he brought you, except for a few nibbles and sips he’d managed to threaten coax out of you. Xiao, admittedly, didn’t know very much about humans, but he did know they needed to eat and drink to stay alive. He’d learned that the hard way on his last few tries.

“Why aren’t you eating?” Xiao inquired before adding, “If you don’t like this food you should come out and say it. I can ask Smiley Yanxiao for something that suits your taste more.”

You let out a poorly suppressed scoff. This nut-job didn’t seem to get that out of all the things wrong in this situation, the last thing you were concerned about was the food. Dear Archons, just what is wrong with this man? First, he had the gall of taking you captive one evening when you were going home from work and now he had the audacity to expect you to act like a complacent little toy and go along with this insanity?

And to think that when you’d first met him whilst accompanying the Traveler and Paimon, who had been commissioned by Director Hu Tao to gather some cor lapis for a client’s ceremony, you’d been absolutely smitten with the awkward and stoic Adeptus. Everything from his pretty black hair to his captivating bright eyes had your knees weak. So much so that you’d ignored all of the red flags, like how he’d stare at you in such an intense manner, with eyes fixated on you and only you, how he seemed to distrust Aether, a trusted friend of his, when it came to him accompanying you, or how as soon as you’d met you had the horrible sensation of being watched at all times of the day. Just thinking back to all the warning signs you’d missed made your skin crawl. Perhaps if you hadn’t been such a lovesick idiot you’d be at home right now or eating dinner with Chongyun and Xingqiu, trying out one of Xianglings crazy concoctions containing slime condensate or whopper flower nectar.

Instead, you were trapped in an artificial world, in a room that looked horrifyingly similar to your own back home.

You were snapped out of your reverie by Xiao moving closer to your bed.

“Let me go home,” you said, hating how your voice cracked at the end. You felt so pathetic, you always prided yourself on being a headstrong independent person, and here you were, cowering at his closeness and avoiding all eye contact, as if looking at his pain filled eyes would ruin you.

“You are home,” he retorted, his voice bordering on delusion, “This is your home. This is where you're safe. Where you stay alive and I get to keep you forever.”

Xiao stretched out his arm, as if to cradle your cheek in his hand but before he got to you flinched away, backing away from him as far as you could, back hitting the headboard. You looked away, trying to ignore how guilty the pain that flashed through his eyes made you feel. You shouldn’t be the one feeling guilty. He should be. He’s the one that stole you away from your home. He’s the one that ruined your life.

You look down at the violetgrass broach clasped onto your blouse in nothing short of complete and utter loathing. You’d been so captivated by it when you’d first found it at the antique shop while window shopping with Mr. Zhongli.

It had been exactly six months since you’d moved away from your home in the sleepy Qingce Village in exchange for a job at the Wangsheng Funeral Parlor and a quaint apparently in the bustling city of Liyue Harbor. To celebrate, your coworker (and the person you had been shadowing in order to learn the ropes of the funeral business) Mr. Zhongli had insisted on going to Third-Round Knockout for some dinner. You’d been a bit hesitant at first, mostly because you knew well of the elegant gentleman’s habit of forgetting his wallet, but you enjoyed hearing his stories far too much to say no. Something about his retellings of stories about the Adepti just enraptured you.

Afterward, the two of you had decided to walk around the city and look at the displays in shops, since you had decided that your hard work warranted splurging a little as a reward of sorts. You had of course asked Mr. Zhongli to join you since he had such exquisite taste and an eye for the authentic, you valued his opinion greatly.

That’s how the two of you ended up at Xigu Antiques, browsing the display case. All of a sudden, your eyes zeroed in on a broach that resembles a little violetgrass plant, its downturned leaves made up of what you could only guess was noctilucous jade. It was, for lack of a better word, stunning.

“Mr. Zhongli,” you exclaimed, tugging at his sleeve to call his attention away from a porcelain teapot with gold little geo symbols as decoration, “what do you think of this one? It’s quite beautiful isn’t it?”

The dark-haired man looked at the broach you were pointing at before going tense, a small gasp escaping him as his beautiful amber eyes widened slightly. You looked at him in concern, you’d never seen the man come this close to losing his composure.

“Oh,” he said, clearing his throat, “is this the one you’re thinking of purchasing? I’d advise against it. Even by just a mere glance, I can tell it is not made of real noctilucous jade.”

Strangely, you felt as though he wasn’t being truthful with you.

“Well, that’s alright. I don’t really care about the authenticity and it’s pretty cheap. If it is a fake, I don’t really have much to lose. Plus, I’ve always loved violetgrass. This broach could be like a little homage to that!” You answered, letting out a little giggle.

“You’ve heard of the Vigilant Yaksha and the violetgrass maiden, am I correct?” He asked.

“Oh, yes I have! My Gran used to tell it to me and the rest of the village children back when I was young. It always made me so sad, how they can never be together. It was pretty silly now that I think about it, but I would bawl my eyes out every time. The rest of the kids would tease me a bit but I just couldn’t control it,” you reminisced.

“I- well, yes in any case, they say that anyone who possesses that broach will be cursed to meet the same fate,” Zhongli added, trying his best to dissuade you from buying the old broach, dread creeping into his stomach as he thought of what might happen to you- to the both of you.

“Of course you’d believe old supersticiones, Mr. Zhongli,” you said, letting out a lighthearted laugh that could make any heart, even one of stone, melt, “it’s very on brand! However, I’m sure there’s no need to be worried, after all, it’s nothing but an old myth! And even if it is real, you yourself said that it’s not made of the real stuff.”

Before Zhongli could figure a way to change the unchangeable, you had already purchased the broach. As you kept on leading the funeral consultant around the streets of Liyue Harbor, bag in hand, prattling on about anything and everything, he couldn’t help but feel his heart sink. A single thought, the same one you would later have, crossed his mind.

If only you hadn’t bought that goddamned broach.

In a fit of anger and desperation, you ripped the detested broach off of your shirt, throwing it at Xiao. You hoped it would somehow break into millions of tiny pieces.

After a beat of silence, Xiao spoke, “Eat.”

“No,” you yelled, before breaking down into a fit of angry sob, “I hate you!”

As soon as the words left your mouth, Xiao lurched forward so close your noses were almost touching, and for a second you think he’s gonna hit you but instead, he simply rests his forehead on yours and closes his eyes. When he pulls away, your sobs have waned into hiccups. Without saying so much as a word Xiao clasps the violetgrass broach onto your shirt, where it belongs.

“Eat,” is all he says, placing the now lukewarm soup into your hands.

Scared, tired, and sad, you do as he said, taking small sips of the admittedly tasty dish. He does nothing more than stare at her with those intense amber eyes of his for a few minutes before turning around and heading towards the door.

Before he leaves he turns his head back to look at her and says, “I don’t care if you don’t like me. Hate me for all I care. As long as you stay alive I don’t care.”

#Xiao x reader #xiao x you #xiao x y/n #genshin impact Xiao x reader #yan! Xiao x reader #genshin impact fanfic #genshin impact fanfiction #Xiao #genshin impact #tw: yandere #flavor: xiao #patt’s creations

203 notes · View notes

bokunoheroanalysisforthefuture · 3 years

Text

And the aftermath of the first battle. Featuring more OFA talk!

[No. 34 - Victory or Defeat]

The cover art for this chapter is actually pretty gorgeous. Like, wow, that HAIR. It looks so damn soft I can’t even.

Getting into the chapter itself, we get just shy of a page of flashback to Shinsou’s middle school. Several students are talking about how cool Shinsou’s quirk is, how they’ve never heard of a quirk like it, how jealous they are. One student comments on how he could make all kinds of trouble with it, while another adds on that it’d be without getting his hands dirty. She then asks Shinsou not to go around controlling them.

Past Shinsou just laughs it off and notes how everyone says that, with his internal narrative thinking about how he’d also expect bad things from someone with his ability. That person would probably turn into a criminal - a villain, even. So he’s used to everyone implying that about him. That’s just how the world works.

Back in the present, we see Shinsou gritting his teeth, while Izuku is standing over him, a bit bloody and beaten, but still victorious. Present Mic again confirms Izuku is going to the second round. Up in the stands, Kaminari nudges Katsuki’s shoulder with his own, noting how Izuku had also gotten him with that shoulder toss. Katsuki looks a bit put out, I guess? Or just distracted. He calls Kaminari dunce face, which gets a fantastic face out of Kaminari.

Artwork.

There’s a bit here about Izuku using a baiting tactic that I’m not sure whether is from Katsuki or Aizawa, since Aizawa’s thought process continues in the next panel. In either case, I am certain it’s Aizawa noting how Izuku was concentrating his quirk in just his finger, like the strength test and the throw in battle training. Izuku’s been learning from those experiences - or rather, said experiences have forced him to adapt.

As Shinsou and Izuku bow (or at least Izuku does), Present Mic comments on how the event is off to an uneventful start, before encouraging the crowds to put their hands together for their fierce competitors. As the crowds do so, Izuku is thinking about Shinsou’s words, being ‘naturally blessed’ and ‘getting to follow his dreams.’ Eventually, Izuku asks why Shinsou wants to be a hero. Shinsou turns away to start leaving the platform while replying that ‘we don’t get to choose the things we naturally admire.’

Izuku vibes deeply with this, thinking about how those feelings are just like how Izuku was before he got One For All. But as he is now, what does he say to that?

Shinsou gets his own surprise, however, when his classmates start shouting their praises from the stands above the entryway. One says how awesome Shinsou had been out there, another on how he’d had them on the edge of their seats, a third on Shinsou being the shining star of the general studies guys, and a fourth on how he’d done just as well as the guy who’d gotten third in the obstacle course (Katsuki). Shinsou looks like he has no idea how to process this. And if that’s not enough, the heroes in the crowds are also talking about him and his quirk with no small amount of admiration.

...oh man, wait, do I spy Miss Joke there with the crowds?

Why, yes it is! I don’t know if her character was fully planned or background developed at this point, but I suppose Hori must have elevated hr to more than a one-off appearance at some point. Perhaps liked her relatively simple design?

But yeah, we shift back to Shinsou and the other gen ed students as the latter point it out, and repeat how awesome he is. Shinsou says nothing for a moment, hesitating at the entrance, before speaking to Izuku. UA will consider transfers to the hero course depending on the results here. Remember that. Maybe he failed here, but he’s not giving up. He’ll show UA he’s got what it takes to make the hero course, and he’ll become a greater hero than all of the other students.

Izuku accepts this driven challenge, only to get caught in Shinsou’s quirk again. Izuku’s confused, because the match is already over. Shinsou comments on how people who respond to him tend to stiffen up like that, and how it’d be easy to mess everything up for Izuku just now. But instead he just demands a promise as he lets Izuku loose from his quirk - don’t lose in a sorry way out there. Izuku agrees again, only to again be temporarily caught in Shinsou’s quirk.

Also, it's a teeny thing here, but I know there's been people (not necessarily in here, but in general) who've questioned how shinsou's quirk works, and from here in the sports festival, what I can at least determine is this:

-his quirk can affect multiple people at once

-people don't remember what they were doing under the quirk's effect (barring Izuku for Reasons)

-his quirk takes effect when he chooses after someone responds verbally to him (sign language or writing don't work)

-it can be a statement or question someone responds to!

-general non-word noises, or non-directed sounds (ie izuku's growls of exertion) don't work as targets for shinsou's quirk

Anywho, with that, we transfer over to Recovery Girl’s temporary office, where Izuku is getting himself healed up while Toshinori hovers nearby nervously. Izuku admits that he couldn’t smile at all, and Toshinori considers that and figures this must have been a tough battle for him, given what Shinsou was saying. Izuku replies that that doesn’t make it okay for him to lose; when you’re aiming for the top, that’s just how it is, right?

Recovery Girl is not impressed with the ‘life lessons’ Toshinori is passing on to Izuku, spinning around to wallop Toshinori on his non-injury side. Toshinori tries to reply that it’s all necessary, only to be interrupted by said wallop and yelp in pain. While Toshinori is nursing his poor abused ribs, Izuku brings up the vision he had.

He saw eight or nine shadows - not sure on that - when his mind was lulled from the brainwashing, the vision appeared and snapped him out of it. In that instant, he was just barely able to move his fingertip. One of them had Toshinori’s hairstyle… so could it have been the souls of the people who have inherited One For All?

Now, a few things I have to say to this:

First off, holy SHIT did Izuku already pretty much hit the nail on the head for what’s happening here. We obviously don’t really get more about this for, what, a hundred and fifty or so chapters? I dunno when the JTA is in the manga exactly, so I’m probably off, but even before then, there’s only a few hints here and there about the whole ‘ghost’ thing happening - and yet, Izuku already is kinda sus of what’s happening after just one vision.

Secondly, while it’s way more likely that it’s Izuku being scared and confused that has him questioning the number of shadows he saw there, I also really love how it’s a perfect set-up for something Fishy if Hori so wants, while also allowing an out if he doesn’t want. It’s like, does the number mean something, or is it just a scared schoolkid struggling to remember details he only glimpsed for a moment?

In any case, we move on to Toshinori’s response to this strange vision. Mostly in that he finds it kinda scary. Izuku is confused, because he was sure Toshinori would know. Toshinori admits that he did see them once when he was young, and that it’s a clear sign Izuku is getting used to One For All.

At Izuku’s visible confusion, Toshinori continues - the shadows are traces of the quirk’s past bearers. But whatever they are, they can’t directly interfere or influence Izuku. Nor can Izuku affect them. In other words, that vision wasn’t what undid the brainwashing. Rather, it was Izuku’s protagonist powers strong will that allowed him to see those faces - and as far as Shinsou’s brainwashing, Izuku overcame it! Just for an instant! He managed to move that fingertip all on his own.

Izuku isn’t convinced, but Toshinori chastises him, telling him not to dwell on it, and shouldn’t he be worrying about his next opponent instead? Izuku agrees, and thanks both him and Recovery Girl before heading out. Only once Izuku is gone does Recovery Girl note that Toshinori’s shadow had been there too. Toshinori replies how that’s not a bad thing.

My take on this whole scene?

But yeah, it definitely is interesting how early Hori outright told us what was happening with One For All, only for it to be dismissed by Toshinori and a good chunk of the audience. I mean, I don’t know if Hori was planning everything with the vestiges and the other quirks at this point, but he sure laid the groundwork here, and I kind of love it.

Anywho, moving on from that, we shift over to Shouto making his way towards the arena for his own fight, only to run into the last person he wants to see - Endeavor. Shouto tells Endeavor to get out of his way, but Endeavor ignores him, instead calling Shouto a disgrace to him. He harps on about how Shouto could have crushed the obstacle course and the cavalry battle if he’d used his left side. Shouto says nothing as he marches himself past his father.

Endeavor tells Shouto to grow up, and stop rebelling like some petulant child. His duty is to surpass All Might. He’s different from his siblings - Endeavor’s greatest creation! Shouto asks if that’s all Endeavor has to say, then states how he’ll win this with his mom’s power alone. He’ll never use Endeavor’s power in battle. Endeavor states how that might be good enough while he’s a schoolkid, but he’ll reach his limit soon enough.

Shouto is… not in a good headspace. As we’ll see momentarily.

Izuku joins Ochako and Tenya in the stands while Present Mic starts to announce the participants of the next match. Sero Hanta, the cream of the crop, and yet somehow still as plain as they come! Versus Todoroki Shouto, the best of the best, strongest of the strong!

The match starts as Sero finishes stretching himself out, stating how he doesn’t really feel much like winning. His arms then snap forward, the tape rushing out to wrap around Shouto. Sero tugs back, yoinking Shouto into position to be swung out of the arena. Present Mic hypes up the surprise attack maneuver, and how it’s probably the best strategy for him, overall complementing how Sero’s giving it his all. Shouto, still somewhat mad-eyed, apologizes, and then-

...yikes. How Sero (or any audience members in the way) didn’t die here is a show of Shouto’s astounding control here, even if it doesn’t seem like it. The entire stadium is dead silent as Sero calls the move a bit overkill. Midnight, half-frozen as well, tentatively asks Sero if he can move. Sero asks if she’s kidding, before the frostbite starts getting to him and he starts biting back pained hisses. Midnight announces Sero’s loss, and the crowds are… pretty sympathetic, calling out good tries to him.

Shouto steps forward to start defrosting Sero, apologizing for overdoing it, stating that he’d just been annoyed. Up in the stands, Izuku watches on, with his future narration noting that, lost amid the cheers that arose from the audience, he saw Shouto defrost his own frozen self with his left hand. And to Izuku… something about Shouto seemed really sad.

Shouto is announced to be moving on to the second round, and the chapter closes.

Holy shit. This chapter is actually really something, and not just because of One For All. But still, it really is fascinating to see what groundwork laid early on in the series ended up being used way down the line by Hori as he got more comfortable with the direction he wanted his story to go in.

Anywho, see you next time for the last chapter of volume four! Which means the next bonus material post is upcoming. And I can just say there’s some interesting stuff in that as well…

#chapter 34 #sports festival arc #readthrough #boku no hero academia #my hero academia #midoriya izuku #shinsou hitoshi #recovery girl #yagi toshinori #todoroki shouto #todoroki enji #Sero Hanta #izuku: so i think our quirk is haunted #toshinori: nah you're just the main character #izuku: bet #(150 chapters later)#izuku: quirk's haunted bitch!#toshinori: :|

12 notes · View notes

wyofabdoms · 3 years

Text

Undercover I Do - Chapter 5

Characters: Javier Peña x female reader

Summary: While on an undercover assignment posing as a married couple, you are attacked and nearly assaulted. Upon waking, all you remember about Javier Peña is what you remembering seeing from two photographs of the two of you posing as the happily married couple. As you struggle to regain your memories, Javi struggles with his own feelings for you.

Rating: Mature (Eventual smut)

Warnings: fake/pretend relationship, married and undercover trope, temporary amnesia, hospitalization, blood and injury, swearing, awkward Javi, unrequited feels, mentions of sex toys, feelings, pining,

Word Count: 3132

Notes: You're released from the hospital, and Javi sets up house. While doing so, he stumbles across a couple of things that make him feel all kinds of ways!

Read on Ao3

You were released from the hospital two days later under the stipulation that you were to rest and were not to return to any kind of active field duty until fully cleared by the doctor and his medical team. Over the course of those two days, some of your memories had seeped back in, like figures appearing through thick fog and slowly taking form and shape. But, it seemed to you, not any of the really important ones were returning. You remembered now some specific events from the last two years of your time as an agent: big busts you had made, critical incidents that had ended badly for your agency, colleagues that had been lost in the line of duty. You had been able to recall many details of your work against the worst of the drug cartels in Colombia from the last two years and even further back...but most memories of things from the past three or four weeks were still a grey void with nothing in them, not even shadows to hint at memories waiting there in the fog.

You were rarely alone at the hospital: if Dixon was not sitting at your bedside, then Javi was there in her place. Between the two of them, you had managed to scrape together some large pieces that were missing about your relationships: you had worked with Dixon earlier in your career in San Diego and when she had risen in ranks and earned a seat down here in the thick of things, she had brought you along with her. You had the feeling that she viewed you as a bit of a protege and you felt confident that the memories you had of her support and backing of you were true. Memories about your relationship with Javi proved to be a bit more difficult to get confirmation on. While both Dixon and Javi were very willing to discuss and confirm anything you asked about your mentor, when you inquired or asked for clarification on your history with your husband, both agents seemed to hesitate for a moment before answering you. Dixon was more guarded than Javi and the older woman would often change the subject as quickly as she could when you asked her about your husband. You got a distinct sense that she did not approve of your marriage to the man you had been partnered with during your time here.

You remembered that was how you had met Javi; you had been assigned as his partner. You remembered the earliest days of working with him: how he had flirted with you and you had rebuffed him, how there had been moments when your partnership had skated the line of something more. But it was only the older memories that seemed to come clearly to you...the closer to present day you came, the emptier your memories became. You had tried to remember when exactly your relationship with Javi had made the jump from work partner to life partner. When and how had the two of you told each other how you felt? And you had zero memories of a proposal, a wedding....no memories at all of how it felt to touch and be touched by the handsome man who spent hours sitting in comfortable silence next to your bed. You couldn’t bring yourself to ask him questions about those things...not yet.

Surprisingly, Dixon was the one who escorted you when you were released. After the older woman saw you carefully buckled into the passenger seat of the car, you inquired as to why Javi wasn’t the one driving you home. Dixon’s eye flickered behind her dark sunglasses, and she mumbled something about him getting your apartment ready for you. She assured you that he would be waiting at your home when you got there.

Your home. For a moment, your stomach sank, thinking about how you would be going back to a place that was foreign to you but was supposed to be a safe haven, a refuge, the home you shared with a husband you were supposed to be in love with. Would you remember any of it? Would anything that you found there help jog anything loose in your memory?

You could only hope.

***

“Fuck!”

Javi growled as he struggled to keep a box from teetering off the pile of other boxes that it was precariously stacked on. His hands were full of his clothes on hangers, halfway between the box he had just removed them from and the clothing pole in the closet. He had been struggling most of the morning with lugging half of his possessions down the two flights of stairs of their shared apartment building and trying to make it appear as though he had lived in this apartment for longer than a few hours. Both he and Dixon had agreed it would be best for her to return to familiar surroundings...but they still needed to keep up the premise that the two of you shared a life together.

Javi had never given much thought to domesticity. The closest he had ever come was Lorraine...and the brief moment of introspection he had had when he had seen her those several years ago at that wedding. Thoughts had crossed his mind then: what would it be like to have a wife, to wear a ring on his finger, to have promised himself to someone forever? To have a future that was shared with another person? To make important decisions with another person and not just on your own? To have 2.5 kids and a house? But he hadn’t spent too much time dwelling on it simply because none of that was really who Javi was, was completely unimaginable to him. He had never once really thought that sort of life would ever be one he would want, much less be able to live. And, quite honestly, he wasn’t all that sure that that kind of life was one that he deserved.

Now, it seemed, life was playing a little gag on him: turns out maybe there WAS a way for him to see if married life was for him...although he did hate the fact that his partner had had to be injured in the process.

One thing he was certain of at the moment, though: if getting married and divvying up and combining possessions was as big a pain in the ass for real as it was for this farce?...Well, that was a strike against matrimony in his opinion.

At first he had merely grabbed a small duffle bag full of items; things he thought he might leave at a woman’s house if he was spending the night or a weekend: a change of clothes, toiletries, firearm. But when he had let himself into her apartment two floors below his in their building, it had struck him that that wasn’t going to be good enough.

Her apartment was lived in. Unlike his own, which he realized now seemed a little sterile and cold, her’s was warm and (though not a word he often used in his vocabulary) cozy. She had artwork on the walls, shelves full of books from all different genres...even a few board games and some well-worn records on the record player stand. He spotted a rolled up yoga mat under a bench beneath the window and a couple of handwritten recipes and smiling photos tucked under bright magnets on the refrigerator. Her bedroom smelled of lavender and soft vanilla; the bed was neatly made (again, unlike his own) and dirty clothes resided in a hamper rather than tossed carelessly into a corner. The spare room that served as an office housed neatly organized work related content and photo albums of people from home, holiday decorations stashed under the guest bed; her closet had her clothes neatly organized (by color, who knew!?). He had quickly come to the conclusion that he might need to put a bit more effort into this charade.

So he had proceeded to spend the next several hours being swept into a whirlwind of imagining what a shared space would look like if the two of them were actually married. He had started with the few books he had in his own apartment; a few biographies, some car magazines and a ratty copy of “The Art of War” and “The Hobbit”. He had jammed them onto the neat bookshelves in her living room before returning quickly with some of his own records: some Cumbia records and an Eagles album, which he shuffled in with her own Steely Dan, Creedence Clearwater and Three Dog Night.

He didn’t have much to contribute to the kitchen besides a few bottles of whiskey and a bottle of tequila next to her own bottles of red wine. He had pulled a photo taken when he graduated from high school from his wallet and placed it on the fridge next to one of her with her huge family. He paused a moment to assess the contrast in the two pictures: her in the midst of her five older brothers and parents, all wearing matching Christmas sweaters...him standing bashfully and stiffly next to his dad, who grinned proudly at the camera, one arm awkwardly slung over a teenage Javi’s shoulder. The bathroom didn’t take long, either. He added his razor, a bottle of Old Spice, and his toothbrush and comb; he glanced into the medicine cabinet as he placed his deodorant there and eyed what looked suspiciously like a package of prescription birth control...his mind started to wander and he slammed the cabinet door shut, heading back upstairs to his apartment for another load.

He had strong-armed his clothes still on the hangers into some file boxes to make them easier to carry down the stairs, then had hauled shoes, underthings, suits, jeans, and (what he had not really realized until this moment) a ridiculous amount of the same style shirt in different colors downstairs and was now trying to wedge them into one half of her closet, trying to make it look like they had been there for a while and doing his best to not become buried by the haphazardly stacked boxes. Once the last set of shoes was stuffed into the closet next to a pair of sky high red heels he had never seen her wear before, (he was CERTAIN he would have remembered those) he opened the dresser to shove his socks and underwear into a drawer and gulped. Staring back at him was a drawer full of his partner’s bras and panties.

For a moment he felt like a creep pawing through her underwear drawer, but he steeled himself and carefully nudged the sensible pieces of cotton material to one side of the drawer. As the material shifted, he spotted a brief flash of red lace and something that could be black and leather, but he refused to investigate any further; he could feel his face flushing and his heart pounding harder. He dumped his own underwear into the drawer and shoved it closed, sighing with relief and opening the next one; socks wouldn’t cause his mind to wander into dangerous territory nearly as badly! He carefully shoved the rolls of clothing to the side to make room for his own once again and felt his hand hit something. His breath hitched as he uncovered what was very obviously a vibrator. Next to it was a tube of lube and a small box about the size of a deck of cards. Try as he might, he could not stop himself from carefully tilting open the lid of the box...Javi was quite educated when it came to knowing his way around a woman, but he was clueless as to the purpose or use of the two small colored balls nestled into the velvet inside of the box...although he was pretty sure he at least knew where they were supposed to go.

His mind clouded with images of his partner stretched out on the bed behind him, bringing herself to orgasm using these items and he felt himself harden in his jeans. He let out a puff of air and carefully nudged the items to the other side of the drawer, reburying them beneath the socks as they had been before. He piled in his own footwear, then shakily closed the drawer, still trying to blink away the images playing out in his mind. He wondered what her face would look like as she came apart. What did she sound like? Did she cry out when she reached her peak? What would his name sound like tumbling from her lips in the middle of her climax, what would she taste like…?

He stormed out of the bedroom, furious at himself for going down that path. He felt like a pervert, getting so turned on after snooping through her personal effects. He was angry at Dixon for insisting that they do this; but he was frustrated at himself, more. He shouldn’t be going through her things like this. He splashed some cold water on his face from the kitchen sink and trudged back up to his own apartment, pacing for a while once he got there, trying to both ease his erection as well as determine what else he should bring with him back to her apartment. His eyes settled on the shoulder case that had been retrieved from the house that had been used in the undercover operation. He pulled out the two framed photographs that had been next to “their” bed; the photos that she had referenced when she had first woken up. He stared at them, thinking that if he hadn’t been present at the time they had been taken, he would have believed they were real, too...that they were actual photographs of two people madly in love with each other.

Maybe…

No. He stuck both pictures under his arms, grabbed another box filled with work files, tossed his favorite ashtray and lighter in the box along with one or two small tchotkes, a couple of coasters and a small plastic plant from the window sill, and made one more trip down the stairs. He dispersed the items randomly throughout her apartment, thinking to himself that it at least gave a more unified image of two different people existing within the same space.

He hauled the box of paperwork into her second bedroom converted into an office space and plopped it down on the desk, taking one or two folders and strewing them about the top of the desk, again in stark contrast to her own organized, neat piles. It started to reflect their separate desks at work now, which he found convincing. He sat in the desk chair for a minute and quickly shuffled through the small desk drawers, double checking for anything glaring that might be difficult to explain. As he opened the bottom drawer, his eye caught a blue leather bound notebook. Flipping through it, he saw pages and pages of writing in his partner’s familiar handwriting. As he thumbed through, he was startled to spot his name on one page. He carefully flipped back, scanning the writing and was surprised to find that it actually appeared quite often. He turned a page and began reading from the beginning:

“Everything sometimes feels so incredibly heavy here. The job, the humidity, the pressure of being a woman in this man’s arena. I hate it! I hate that I have to be strong all the damn time. I hate that it feels like I can’t seek the same comforts as other women...even if I have insisted that it be this way. I’m so grateful and proud of myself...most of the time...like 95.5% of the time. The other times, I just wish I could let myself cry when something heartbreaking happens. When someone says something scathing that hurts my feelings at work. When I watch Javi go off to sleep with yet another woman.

Javi. That feels so heavy all of the time, too. I can’t seem to ever level myself out when it comes to him. Some days he drives me absolutely insane and I want nothing more than to bash his face in with a paperweight. Other days, I just want him to put his arms around me and hold me. Not do anything or say anything, just hold me tight…because he is, truthfully, the only single person that I trust.

And yet, am I fooling myself in saying that...in saying that I trust him? Because do I really? If I really trusted him, why don’t I just go to him? He only lives two floors up. Why can’t I knock on his door and fling myself into his arms and kiss him and feel what it’s like to press my body against his? Why can’t I bring myself to do that? Well...probably because I don’t really ACTUALLY trust him...not with that part of myself. Javi is the man I want having my back in a shootout...but is he the man I want to be next to me every night when I fall asleep and every morning when I wake up? I dream about him sometimes...about him being in my bed with me, but we’re usually not sleeping...we’re doing everything but. I dream about it and then I wake up feeling empty because he’s not there, because it wasn’t real. The emptiness is heavy, too...”

Javi clapped the journal shut, feeling his stomach churn. He shouldn’t have read that and guilt thrummed through him. These were her private thoughts; never meant for anyone else but her to read. Once again he felt like an intruder and he loathed himself...Dixon...that asshole Ortiz...for putting both of them in this situation. He dragged a hand over his face, growling low in his throat. He looked down at the box at his feet, still open with a few files and the two photographs staring back up at him. He reached in and took out one framed picture, sitting it upright on the desk: the “engagement” photo. He took the “wedding” picture out and then tossed the journal into the box, carrying both items from the home office. He carefully set up the photo on a bookshelf in the living room, then put the lid back on the box and headed back up the stairs to drop the box off in his apartment and lock up. Before he left, though, he made sure to slip the freshly cleaned gold band onto his left ring finger.

His wife would be coming home any minute now.

Chapter 1, Chapter 2, Chapter 3, Chapter 4, Chapter 6, Chapter 7, Chapter 8, Chapter 9, Chapter 10, Chapter 11, Chapter 12, Chapter 13

#javier peña x reader #javier pena x female reader #narcos #javi #pedro pascal fanfiction #fake marriage #undercover marriage

31 notes · View notes

just-like-playing-tag · 3 years

Text

Me???? Still not over that Apollo Ray AU in 2021?????? It's more likely than you think.

I jumped into the water and now I need to keep swimming

If you're new to the AU, you can check out this post where it's explained where the name comes from and this other post on what Apollo Ray differs from Minerva Norman.

Tonight, I'd like to expand the plotline that Apollo Ray would choose to imprison Emma and Norman to prevent them from getting in his way to demons' eradication. I know y'all might cringe at this but you have to understand, he's REALLY convinced it's for their best.

This is how I can imagine things to go: Ray kinda tricks them and traps them somewhere inside of the Paradise Hideout. Not really a prison, he'd probably just lock them in a room and be like “you just got back from a long, dangerous journey, why don't you take some rest? In the meantime, I've got some stuff to do at, let's say, the Royal Capital :)”

Sounds familiar?

Like mother like son

Very relevant detail is that the room MUST be without locks. Make it an electronic key or a biometric iris recognition lock or whatever. Ray knows Norman well enough and he's not falling to the magical hairpin trick lmao.

Now, I like to think Gilda would take sides with Ray. I've always thought about Ray and Gilda having a lot in common (often seeing the glass half empty, loving Emma unconditionally; furthermore, they were the only ones who agreed that escaping from Grace Field with everyone was unequivocally impossible). At some point, paralleling how Norman asked to talk with Gilda and Don, Ray asks for Gilda only to come into his study. They have a long talk, during which he persuades her to join him. On Ray's end, he needs somebody he trusts to stay in the Hideout while him and his squad go to their fun trip to the Royal Capital, to keep an eye on Emma and Norman and make sure they won't escape or try and go to the Seven Walls. Now, Gilda probably wouldn't look like his first choice, for she is endlessly loyal to Emma; however, Ray plans of making that very factor, her love and dedication for her friend, his trump card. By talking to Gilda and calmly describing their situation, he makes her understand how hopeless is the mission Emma is so desperate to fulfill; that no one ever came back from the Seven Walls, and they're most likely to die there. Moreover, Ray persuades Gilda to believe that his plan of demon eradication is without doubts the most certain route, that will surely lead to the safest future for her friends - even though they can't understand it yet. However, their safeness and happiness is above anything else, even their own temporary freedom- isn't it? They will understand, once everything is over, that him and Gilda were only acting for their best.

Although initially hesitant, as never in her life she had gone against Emma, Gilda ends up firmly accepting, for she's determined to do anything to save Emma's (and Norman's) life- including betraying her.

I don't think it shouldn't be too surprising to have Gilda accept Ray's plottings; already in the manga, she's shown as being maybe the most condescending to Norman's plan, since she believed it was the less dangerous route to secure Emma's safety- and, to her eyes, consequential happiness.

In this AU, Ray's using the very feelings of affection that build Gilda's loyalty to Emma to bring her to his side; he's persuading her that the mission Emma and Norman are trying to carry out is a suicidal one, and that if they let them go they will lose them forever- which is something he knows Gilda would do anything to not let happen.

I know it may seem like he's manipulating her to get what he wants, but I want to underline I don't think that'd be the case: by saying he's worried Emma and Norman are going to lose their lives going after the Seven Walls, he's putting genuine sentiments on the line, and he's as determined to prevent it from happening as Gilda is. In comparison, Norman has been way more dishonest when he spoke to Gilda and Don- as Gilda would have later learnt, he was never intentioned to spare Musica (thus having plainly lied to them).

On the contrary, Ray's intentions of simply wanting to protect Emma and Norman were sincere, and he was way more honest with Gilda with his plan, fully entrusting her with it.

On the other side, Don would obviously take sides Emma, which would eventually lead to a very cool conflict between Gilda and Don?? I'm certain Don would support Emma because he grew up to be very similar to her. Brings back to my mind this old old post I once made, which considers the events of chapters 138 and 139: Don shares Emma's point of view on many matters, so I'm confident he would be ready to support her. When you think about it, he was the fastest to take sides with her in canon too, probably second to Ray only; and when Ray's choice was likely driven by his undying loyalty to Emma, chances are that Don was supporting Emma not only because he believed in her, but also because he was the first one to truly believe in her ideals as well, the first to believe they would have really been able to find a solution that would have brought happiness for everyone.

Now Don openly supporting Emma would inevitably lead to him and Gilda clashing which I find being the absolute COOLEST thing. I mean I love them, and I love how they love each other; still the thought of them being compelled by the circumstances to collide intrigues me so much!!!! I think they'd have this extremely angsty confrontation that will eventually end with Don convincing Gilda that trusting Emma has took them so far, and that the best thing to do is give up and help him to free Emma and Norman (maybe Ray had entrusted her with the keys / password to open the room Emma and Norman were locked in?? Dunnot)

Besides, I think it would make a lot of sense taking the whole tpn plotline?? It would end up paralleling Gilda and Don's chapters in Grace Field in so many different ways. First of all, I have to say it would be very nice to have a new spotlight on Gilda: her role in the first arc was relevant indeed, with her and Don being the key to the success of the escape; however, she didn't really got to have enough space for character development. The moment when the trio revealed them the truth was more about Don, while Gilda had never doubted of their words in the first place; moreover, the space she had as a possible spy was mostly used to deceive the attention from the true spy, and the revelation that she was never intentioned to betray them was more of character development for Emma, who consolidated her will to trust and protect her family, than a growth of Gilda herself.

But now, for Gilda to take sides against her dear Emma, the person she's more loyal and devoted to, what a great potential for character development that has!!!!!!! I can imagine her, once she finally accepts to help Emma, to echo the words Emma once told her at Grace Field: “I'm sorry- to protect you, I was prepared to be hated by you; yet, I wasn't ready to believe in you!”

To sum up: the Apollo Ray AU is still my jam and Gilda and Don deserve way more space than what they were given in the manga. Also stan Gilda.

#tpn #the promised neverland #It's all fun and games to talk about Apollo Ray #But I tremble thinking of the inevitable consequence of Goldy Pond Norman #Boy would have died just after having to speed run after Yuugo #No kidding chances are that Emma would have brought Don with her instead of Norman??#It would have been more logical to leave Norman at the shelter #I mean he can't even fire with a gun???? And I suppose riffles are even harder to handle????#Wait does that mean #GOLDY POND DON LET'S GOOOO #tpn ray #tpn gilda #When talking to Gilda Ray would be like #“Gilda. I need to talk with you. From m/m to w/w.” lmao #tpn don #tpn manga spoilers #apollo ray #mine #This AU makes me happy :')#Feel free to shoot me some questions about it I love talking about it!!!#q.#Queueing posts because I'm too coward to press the post button

53 notes · View notes

forgedroyalseal · 4 years

Text

You can’t outrun Death

Warning: Major Character Death

Will has lived a dangerous life, that is irrefutable. He has cheated death countless times over. But Death always finds a way to catch up. And after so many times of Will slipping away from it, Death seems to have come after Will at full force.

Too bad Will wasn’t quick enough this time.

It started innocently enough. When the headaches began, he chalked it up to the stress he was under. Crowley had been putting more and more assignments on Will, and while he truly enjoyed his work, there was no denying the fact that he was starting to feel burnt out. Which is why he didn’t even notice the growing fatigue. He was able to work though the fatigue and headaches, but then the pins and needles started in his hands, making it more difficult for him to keep a firm grip on his bow. When he was hit with a strong wave of nausea and dizziness that caused him to completely miss his target while practicing one day, he realized that it was time to be seen by a physician.

The man didn’t have an answer for Will. “The body is still a mystery.” He recommended some herbs that did nothing to alleviate Will’s symptoms.

After that everything seemed to rapidly go down hill. He was vomiting frequently, eventually not able to keep anything but bread and broth down. His memory became hazy and struggled to remember details of events that transpired the day prior.

Crowley had to remove him from all of his Ranger duties and Alyss stopped going on assignments in order to stay with her ever weakening husband. Will fought her on this, he didn’t want to be a burden, didn’t want to interfere with her job. But one morning while she was out visiting Pauline to go over another courier’s recent assignment, he lost his balance while making coffee and badly burned his forearm. After that Alyss and Halt decided that someone should stay with Will at all times, taking shifts being with him. Halt had also asked Crowley to put a temporary hold on any Ranger assignments for him. He didn’t want to be far from Will.

The months went on without Will showing any sign of improvement. In fact, he getting worse by the day. Halt had sent for Malcolm, but when he saw the condition Will was in he pulled Halt aside.

“It’s not good Halt.” The healer said. “I’ve only seen something like this a handful of times and never once has the patient made it though. There isn’t anything that I can do to cure him.” Malcolm’s face was grim, broken hearted that a man as lively and active as Will was has become so reliant on the help of other people, not even able to feed himself at this point.

“Are you telling me that we should just give up!” Halt snapped harshly.

Malcolm didn’t take Halt’s anger personally, telling a parent that their child was dying would always be the hardest part of his job. “I’m saying that we want to make Will as comfortable as we can. I have some herbs that may help with the pain, but they won’t extend his life. Only make it a little easier for the time he has left.”

Halt was at a loss for words. This was Will they were talking about. His Will. His boy. He has always been able to save him from whatever danger he got himself into. How could he just sit back and accept what was going to happen?

“How long?” Halt said roughly holding back tears.

“No one can really know. But based on what I’ve seen before, it could be a month. But it could also be a week.” Now Malcolm had tears rolling down his cheeks. This was the bitter reality of Will’s condition.

“We need,” Halt’s voice broke and he took a moment to try to pull himself together. There was so much that had to be done, he couldn’t fall apart. Not yet.

He started again, “We need to tell Alyss. Horace and Cassandra too. They have to be here. Crowley and the other Rangers as well. And, and someone needs to try to talk to Will about all of this. He needs to know what’s going to happen.”

“I can do whatever you need me to do. I’m not going anywhere.” Malcolm placed a hand on Halts shoulder.

After that everything happens in a blur. Alyss seems to be numb, not acknowledging anyone, just sitting by Will’s bed, holding his hand and whispering soft, comforting words. For his part, Will didn’t really seem to understand what was happening. Halt had tried to explain it to him, but after a couple hours, he had forgotten everything Halt had said. They stopped trying to explain it after the third time.

“He doesn’t need this.” Halt had sighed. “He can’t remember anything we tell him and it’s just making him upset.”

Horace and Cassandra had arrived as soon as the could, and not a moment too soon. Two days after they came to Redmont, Will took a turn for the worse. He was no longer able to drink anything without it immediately coming back up and couldn’t stay awake for more than a few minutes at a time.

It was a gray November morning when it happened. Cassandra had made Alyss go with her to get some food in town. She hadn’t left the cabin in days and Cassandra thought some fresh air would do Alyss some good. So it was just Halt sitting stoically on the edge of Will’s bed. Will groaned and his eyes fluttered open.

“Hey kiddo, how are you holding up?” Halt asked, putting a gentle hand on the young mans check.

“I’m going to be alright.” Will’s words were slurred and sluggish.

Tears weld up in Halt’s eyes. Will’s response just proved how little he understood about his own situation.

“Yeah, you are. You’ve been through worse than this.” Halt paused and took a deep breath. Something deep inside him urged him to tell Will how much he meant to him.

“I love you Will, you know that right?”

Will nodded slightly, eyes already drooping.

“You are the best son a man could ever ask for. You have saved my life more times than I can count. I wouldn’t be here if it weren’t’ for you. I need you to know how much I love you Will. I never thought that I could care about someone as much as I do for you. You have made my life worth living.”

“I love you too dad.” Will whispered. It was so soft that Halt almost didn’t catch it. But the word “dad” made his breath catch.

“Rest easy my son.” Halt pressed a kiss onto Will’s forehead.

Then Will’s eyes closed for the last time.

#ranger's apprentice #rangers apprentice #will treaty #ranger’s apprentice fanfiction #please write more ra fanfiction #fanfiction friday

37 notes · View notes

jackidy · 3 years

Text

To Star Lake - Chapter 1

Rating: T Pairings: Todoroki Shouto/Sero Hanta Characters: Various Universe: Howls Moving Castle Au

Summary: A day of impossibilities starts with a mystery man, with mismatched eyes and cold hands, rescuing him in a dark alleyway as he attempted to go about his business and the pet name sweetheart being said a little too tenderly. It ends with another stranger cursing him in his own store after telling them to leave.

Things like this don’t happen to people like Sero Hanta.

AO3 Next Chapter

---

One stitch, two stitch, three stitch, more.

To most people, his life would be considered mundane, the continuous monotony of sewing embellishments to hats, fingers long since calloused from accidental stabs, his only freedom from his work the small window in his side studio where the view was often blocked by the smoke from the steam trains as they thundered past. Most people would complain but not him, within the predictable nature of his job he found comfort, a sense of tranquillity that kept him grounded.

Sero pauses his sewing as another train thunders past, hand automatically reaching for the small tray of beads before they clattered to the floor. He’d made that mistake before, he wouldn’t be making it again in a hurry if he could help it, unable to forget the months he spent finding small glass beads stuck between floorboards, still not fully convinced he’d managed to collect them all even now.

One stitch, two stitch, three stitch, more.

“Work hours are over now, Sero, why don’t you leave with us today?” Sero looks up at the voice, eyes blinking rapidly in an attempt to make them focus, finally focusing at Urakaka before smiling fondly at her. Always diligent on keeping him included, bringing him tea and lunch whenever he forgot to pause with his work, she worked harder than she needed to. He can’t help but adore the woman.

“Sorry, I want to finish the details on this one before I go.” Sero smiled apologetically, knowing he wouldn’t rest as easily if he didn’t at least finish the detailing on the leaf tonight. Urakaka would understand, she always did even if she would frown at his constant need to work over hours. He took pride in his work, never growing tired of the way his customers eyes would light up upon finding the perfect fit, it was worth every minute of overworking himself. “If you could put the door on the latch and change the sign to closed for me though, I might pick you something up from the bakery.”

He teases, grin growing at the look on his manager’s face, watching her retreat into the main work room as he set about working again, humming to himself as the post work chatter began. Two more leaves and then he’d done and can visit Kaminari at the bakery, hear the typical lecture on how he needs to get out more and meet people all the while oblivious to the attention they were getting from patrons.

One stitch, two stitch, three stitch, more.

It’s easy to ignore the clamour of feet and voices, Sero barely catching the name Shouto, eyes flicking from green felted wool to the window, squinting at the shape in the distant wilds ambling along the horizon and into the ever-present mist. “Must be nice,” Sero sighs to himself, to be able to walk through the wilds, without responsibilities to friends and family weighing you down.

“Stop distracting yourself” He mutters to himself, the voices of his co-workers steadily getting quieter as they left the work room, talking excitedly of a half-frozen wizard who stole the hearts of those deemed beautiful to fix his. He’d entertained the fantasy once, of being swept off his feet by an impossibly handsome wizard and stolen away into the night but he’d quickly abandoned the thought of it.

Shouto stole the hearts of those considered gorgeous, Sero having heard enough rumours to know that gorgeous was an adjective nobody would use for him. Plain, boring, safe. Never the first choice and he’s half sure he wasn’t the second either, with his too wide smile and eyes just short of being too beady, he’s well too aware of his flaws.

One stitch, two stitch, three stitch, knot.

Checking over the knot repeatedly, Sero gently tugs the last leaf, satisfied by the resistance and lack of movement, the hat finds its temporary home on the hat stand. He should start another one, maybe, hand reaching for the straw hat meant for Miss Shiozaki before bringing his arms up to stretch. Urakaka will know he worked overtime and Kaminari, despite any claims otherwise, will be nothing short of annoyed if he was late for meeting up with the other.

A crack and pull of taut muscles, he winces at the noise, taking a mental note to take more breaks to stretch as well as improve his posture whilst working. He’d both seen and heard how years of sitting hunched had ruined his mother’s back, Sero didn’t mean to repeat her mistake if he could help it. Shaking stiff legs, he stands, fingers looping into the set of keys before reaching for both his hat and bag behind the door.

Lock the door. Meet with Kaminari. Buy something for the staff for tomorrow. Come home before nightfall. It was a simple plan, Sero running it through his head at least once more, pausing at the shop mirror to adjust his hat, grinning wider at his reflection before the insecurity crashed like a wave into him, smile faltering before pulling the brim down. Don’t be ridiculous, he thinks a little bitterly, nobody is going to look at you, heading for the door with a sigh.

A click of the lock and a rush for the stop that was completely unneeded. The bus was late. The bus was crowded. He’s not sure why he expected any different, the post work crowd mixed with the summer heat souring his mood considerably, half hanging out of the door in a bid to stay cool, relaxing at the cool breeze from the river only to tense again when he heard the trumpets and the cheering crowd.

It was the parade today, how could he have forgotten that? No wonder the store had been busier than usual this past week. Departing from the bus, he weaves through the crowd, hating it more and more by the second until he found himself in the alleyways, letting out the breath he didn’t know he was holding.

Maybe he should have called ahead and stated he wouldn’t be coming. The bakery would be full, there’s no way that Kaminari would have the time to be able to slip away for their usual chat by the kitchens whilst the blonde was on break. No, Kaminari would make time for him, the blonde fool always did, Sero would just make the visit shorter than planned. It would be a decent compromise between the argument currently echoing in his head, sighing in relief as the inner argument finally quietened.

Only to pick up again at the sound of footsteps. They’re just trying to get through the crowds, he tells himself, ignoring the way his pace quickens, feeling the heat more than ever when the footsteps still follow despite several ways they could have turned. Of all the times to be finally noticed by someone, why did it have to be in a dark alleyway where nobody would hear him shout for help should he need it?

Just keep walking, just keep walking, he mentally repeats, stalking forward with such determination that he failed to notice the new arrival until a cold, why was it so cold, hand touched his waist, Sero pausing at the calming voice that spoke a little too loudly and clearly for it to just be Sero to hear. “There you are, sweetheart, I’ve been looking everywhere for you.”

Sweet…what?

Sero finally looks up from the pavement, finding a man not too much taller than himself but all too unfairly handsome. White hair, mismatched eyes and a scar that would be memorable to anyone who had seen it before, if only Sero had seen it before. Opening his mouth to ask what was happening, Sero barely gets chance to open his mouth before the other speaks again, eyes focused on something behind them more than on Sero. “Where are you headed to?”

“The Bakery?” Why did he reply with a question? Sero hoping the mystery man hadn’t noticed only to catch the small, amused smile at he looked forward again and began walking, cold hand still on his waist, directing him where to go. Why was this happening to him? Things like this didn’t happen to him, Kaminari? Sure, that was believable but not to Sero.

Handsome strangers didn’t save him from potential muggers and hold his waist like a lover might, handsome strangers didn’t spare him a second glance if they had even given him one to begin with. The grip on his waist tightens slightly, Sero biting back an undignified noise as the hand seems to grow colder, their walking pace increasing before his rescuer finally states his apologies. “I’m sorry.”

“Why are you apoloGISING?!” His voice raises a few octaves as the stranger takes the hand closest to him, rising into the air after a forceful step from his mysterious companion, eyes glancing down at the rising heat and light of blue flames. Oh…Oh god, what…what was that?! First time any attractive pays attention to him and this happens, he’s going to die. He’s going to either burn or fall to his demise in the arms of a man who had no business holding Sero this close in his arms.

“Relax your legs and start walking.” He’s instructed firmly, grip on his waist and hand relaxing slightly as Sero attempts not to panic, the series of events that lead to this moment playing in his head clearly and rapidly as he made a foolish bid to make sense of it all. He was being followed, a handsome man saved him, someone had thrown fire at them, he was now floating in the air in the arms of the handsome man. “Focus for me, legs stretched and walking. You can do it.”

He can do it. He can do it, Sero not one hundred percent sure he should feel this elated to hear so much confidence in him from a stranger, attractive or otherwise, in something as seemingly impossible as walking in the sky. Yet, today had been a day of impossibilities becoming possible. Extending his legs, he hits solid ground where he expects nothing, the fear of falling replaced all too quickly with the sheer elation of the breeze in his hair, seeing the crows beneath him that seemed unaware of the pair above them, the ice hand on his wait and the inferno holding his left hand.

Things like this don’t happen to Sero Hanta.

A firm chest presses against his back, breath on his ear as whispers “See, you’re a natural.” Is this supposed to be romantic? He doesn’t have enough experience to know, cheeks burning so brightly he doesn’t even bother to try and convince himself that the other hadn’t noticed, the hat maker simply nodding in response to the compliment not trusting himself to speak and not make a fool of himself.

It’s over all too soon, too soon for Sero’s liking at least, the upstairs balcony of the bakery coming into view and ever closer, Seron already missing the feel of ice on his waist as he’s safely deposited on the balcony, handsome stranger crouching on the railing still holding his hand. “I’ll draw them off, so stay here a little while before heading out just to be sure.”

“I will.” He replies perhaps a little too confidently, feeling the scrutiny of mismatched eyes before lips press against his knuckles, Sero standing frozen as the rosy hue of his cheeks bloomed a deep crimson. This had to be some joke, right? A cruel joke that would have the culprit appear at any moment to laugh at him, to loudly proclaim that they had gotten him. Things like this didn’t happen to him, didn’t happen to someone with a face as plain as his, random men don’t just sweep him off his feet, quite literally in dark alley-

“That’s my Hanta.”

What.

His hand is released then, Sero watching dumbfounded as the man strands straight and falls backwards off the balcony, Sero running to the railing in a flustered panic only to find nothing out of the ordinary. No body of a man, only tables filled with young families and couples, no screams of horror just the cheers of a happy crowd and those excited over the slow progressing military parade.

How…How did he know his name?

---

“Hey! Are you listening to me Hanta?”

The air beside the kitchens is warm but not unbearable, the air sweet with cakes and pastries accompanied by the sour undertones of the yeast from all the unbaked dough, it would make him hungry if his thoughts weren’t too occupied by something, no, someone else. Just who was the man? How did he know his name? Should he not be more crept out by the previous events of the past half an hour than at ease? The sensation of butterflies in his stomach having not yet passed.

“Huh?” He meets the concerned yet annoyed look on Kaminari’s face, blinking slowly, earning himself a frustrated sigh, the blonde’s legs swinging back to kick the crate they were sat on, feet meeting wood with a dull thud. “What were you saying, Denki?”

“You’re hopeless,” Kaminari sighs, fiddling with his thumbs as he fixed Sero with a stare that was a little too intense for his usually care free friend. “I know he saved you but you really need to be more careful, what if it was Shouto? You’d be heartless and I’d be down one best friend.”

Sero snorts at the other mans over dramatics, running a hand through his black hair, scratching the back of his head with uncertainty. Sure, Kaminari had a point, but the chances of Shouto, seducer of the beautiful and eater of hearts, ever looking at him was so slim that the fact Kaminari had even entertained the idea made him laugh. “He only does that to pretty people, Denks, I’m hardly gonna attract the attention of the mailman never mind a supposedly handsome wizard.”

“Did you or did you not just get saved by a handsome wizard who floated you onto my work balcony, kiss your knuckles and then refer to you by your first name, without you telling him it.” He hates it when Kaminari makes a point, hates the smug little look on his face when he not only knows he’s right but that Sero knows he’s right. He hates the fact he gains a little confident boost from it. Whoever the wizard was, Sero was going to be living on this high a little longer than he probably should. “Yeah, that’s what I thought.”

They fill the rest of the time with idle chatter, the sound of Kaminari rambling about his latest exploits seemingly not distraction enough to keep thoughts of the white haired wizard away but enough to quieten them to a dull thrum in the back of his mind. His new neighbours cat that keeps breaking into his flat, the upcoming changes in menu, the tired yet fond news he’d recently become an uncle. The subject of conversation never last too long in one area and Sero is thankful, Kaminari’s rapid fire topic changes require near all attention in order to follow cohesively.

“Your order is done, Sero.” A soft voice halts the conversation, both looking to the kitchen doorway to find Koda stood holding a box, perfectly presented and held shut with a violet bow. As quiet and as perpetually shy the baker seemed to be, he had a way with packaging, Sero standing and receiving the box of tartlets with a brilliant smile and a thanks.

Watching him retreat back into the kitchen, Sero turns to Kaminari, only to find him frowning at him for whatever reason. “I should really get going, before your boss gets mad.” The mystery man had told him to wait a while before leaving but surely forty-five minutes had already surpassed that time limit, doubting whoever had pursued them would remember Sero’s face, if they had even seen it to begin with.

“Be careful,” Kaminari’s hand grips his forearm, firmly but not too tight, from still present on his features but now underlined with worry. It’s strange, almost out of character, remembering several moments from when they were younger when the blonde could have been more concerned about their well being but had never been. “Soldiers in the bakery keep talking about the cremation wizard and you’ve had a weird day and-“

Sero cuts him off with a flick to the nose, laughing at the way the other’s face screws up into annoyance, eyes trying and failing to focus on the end of his nose. “Meeting two wizards in one day? I doubt it” Sero snorts before sighing at the still present worry in the other’s face. “But I’ll be careful, don’t worry Denki.”

---

The sun has finally sent by the time he arrives back at the hat shop, balancing the box of tarts in one hand as he locked the door, the tension he didn’t know he was carrying instantly draining away as he placed the box on the counter along with his keys, about to turn the light out when the bell above the door jingles. Hadn’t he just locked that? Sero blinking with confusion as the man just stares at him with something akin to bemused amusement.

“Sorry, sir, we’re currently closed. We’ll be open again tomorrow morning at nine if you’d like to return then.” He’s tired but not too tired to not be civil, not yet at least, simply hoping this stranger would be like every other strange man he’d met today: polite and entirely helpful. He might not work out front often but both his mother and Mina had made sure he could at least navigate the social norms of customer service without aggravating every customer that walked through the door.

The man ignores him, turning on the hell of his foot with a low whistle as he takes in the state of the store, the hats ranging from the everyday casual to occasions of grandeur before finally landing on Sero. “You sure know how to pick them, kid.” Why was he smirking at him? Who the hell was kid because Sero could just tell the other man wasn’t talking about him.

It’s a mixture of this and the events of the day that urge him forwards, stalking past the latest mystery man to enter his life today to open the door a little too roughly, the bell clanging as opposed to ringing. “The door is over here, sir. We are closed.” He barely makes the effort to keep his voice calm, annoyance seeping into his voice with a curt tone as his fixes the man with a firm glare.

Just leave already, he thinks waiting for a response beyond faux, over dramatic surprise, the man straightening up and Sero feels something change, the air hot and stifling like it had been in the alleyway hours ago. “You’re either incredibly brave or incredibly stupid to say that to me, brat.” It’s the only warning he gets, Sero only allowed a moment of fear ridden confusion before that same blue fire from before engulfs him.

#sero hanta #todoroki shoto #bnha howls moving castle au #rating: T #todosero #seroroki #bnha #mha #boku no hero academia #bnha fic

10 notes · View notes

spaceskam · 4 years

Text

there’s no use trying, it’s like denying the sun

ao3

warning for temporary character death, blood/gore all over the place, being drugged, guns, invasion of someone’s mind, and vague mentions of The Event in 2x06 (ps this isn’t intended to be anti-maria or anything, I did my best to be fair to her, but she isn’t portrayed in the BEST light. I like to think it was more of a human-error in the context of this fic, but also just a warning)

“Closing time.”

Maria smiled as she looked up at Michael who strolled a bit closer to her, locking the front door with his mind. She would forever find that impressive and yet she didn’t have the right words to express that. So, instead, she rolled her eyes.

“So, what’s the plan?” he asked. She took a deep and cocked her head to the side.

“Well, you could wipe down tables for me.”

“I got you,” he said boldly.

And it should’ve just been that, but Maria gasped and her mind warped. Suddenly, she wasn’t in her bar. She was somewhere else entirely. She didn’t know where, but she was there.

In front of her, Michael was on his knees and holding someone while he cried.

“I got you,” Michael said, sniffling harshly as he rocked that person back and forth, “I got you. It’s okay, I got you.”

Maria hesitantly moved closer, curious to see who he was holding. She was suddenly in front of him now and it was plain as day as he cradled Alex in his arms in a pool of blood. His hand was pressed over Alex’s chest, but it didn’t seem to stop the bleeding. Alex wasn’t conscious anymore, he wasn’t breathing. The sight was horrific.

“It’s gonna work, I promise,” Michael said, voice breaking as he sobbed and pressed down a little harder on Alex's chest, “Any second now, I’m gonna fix it. I’m gonna heal you, just gotta hold on ‘til then. I got you.”

Maria’s entire body ached and she didn’t know how to tell him that Alex was dead. There was no healing. He was too late. He wasn’t strong enough to heal, much less a full blown resurrection.

But then she was back in the Wild Pony, bracing herself against the bar as she tried to breathe. Michael was staring at her, worry etched on his face.

“What just happened?” he asked, “Did you see you something?”

Maria steadied her breath and stared at him, more than a little lost. Should she tell him? Would that make it worse? Kyle’s thing was different and so were the few other bad things she’d seen. She saw signs, she knew where they were. Alex, though... She had no fucking idea how they’d get in that situation. She couldn’t just tell him that Alex was going to die in his arms when she couldn’t prevent it.

She shook her head, swallowing hard and trying to manage a smile.

“Yeah, it was just, uh, it was just Alex getting a package,” she lied. Michael furrowed his eyebrows and pursed his lips.

“That’s it?”

“Yeah.”

“Well, like, was it a bomb or something? Don’t you usually see bad stuff?”

Maria scoffed, trying her best to act normal, “I don’t always have to see bad stuff.”

“I mean, okay, but maybe you should text him to be careful just in case,” Michael said.

Maria forced a laugh and nodded. Now what?

“Liz. Liz, I did something bad.”

Liz looked up from where she stood behind the counter at the Crashdown. Maria hadn’t been able to sleep the entire night before, tossing and turning beside Michael as she tried to rationalize the lie that she couldn’t go back on. If she told him, he’d hate her.

“What happened?” Liz asked softly. Maria just looked at her as urgently as possible, chewing on her thumb nail like she hadn’t done since she was a kid. Liz seemed to notice and she quickly flagged down the other waitress, telling her she’d be right back before she led Maria to the back of the house and then into the stairwell that led to the apartment. Once they got there, Maria couldn’t hold back her tears anymore.

“I had another vision when I was with Michael last night and I lied about it and I shouldn’t have lied because something bad is gonna happen and I know and I can’t stop it and I don’t know what to do,” she rambled. Liz instantly moved in, grabbing her arms to steady her. Maria latched on.

“Well, what was it? I can fix it, just tell me,” Liz said. Maria shook her head. The words were too horrible to say. “I can’t help if you don’t tell me.”

“It’s Alex,” Maria whispered, bowing her head as she thought about it. Liz clutched her a little tighter.

“What about Alex?” Maria whimpered softly, shaking her head. “Maria, you’re scaring me. What’s going to happen to Alex?”

“I should’ve just told him, he’s going to hate me,” she said, gasping for a breath through her tears, “I just got him to myself.”

“Maria, forget about him, what did you see happen to Alex?” Liz said, chasing Maria’s gaze.

Maria put her hand to her mouth as she choked on a sob, shaking her head.

“Someone’s going to kill him.”

“Alex!”

Alex turned to the sound of his name, seeing Liz running towards him still in uniform. He gave a confused smile and gave her his full attention as she ran up to him.

“To what do I owe the pleasure?” he asked playfully. Except, as she came to a stop in front of him, he realized she wasn’t playful at all. In fact, she looked terrified. “What happened?”

“What are you planning on doing in the next two days?” she asked. He tilted his head.

“Um... Nothing? Why?”

“What do you mean nothing? Like, details on nothing,” Liz told him. Alex just stared at her like she’d lost it. “Just humor me.”

“I don’t know, Liz. Work, home, work, home. That’s it, same old, same old. Research in the middle probably. Why?” he said. She let out a big sigh, her shoulders dropping.

“You don’t happen to have any plans to go anywhere alone with Michael, do you?” Liz asked.

Alex felt discomfort brew in his stomach at the man’s name. He hadn’t seen him in nearly three weeks, both of them avoiding each other like the plague as they tried to move past everything. However, it was definitely hard to move past when every time he slept, he got a new, better version of that stupid night. His subconscious seemed determined to erase Maria from the equation and, honestly, he found it hard to try to fight that.

“No, why would I?” Alex asked, trying not to show how uncomfortable he felt at the mention of him. Last night’s version included him getting stabbed and Michael immediately appearing and punching the guy in the face before carrying Alex off, patching him up in a way that was straight out of a raunchy erotica. Definitely hard to feel comfortable with that on the brain.

“No reason,” she said, shifting as she clearly debated something in her mind, “Just, um, stay away from him for awhile, okay?”

“Have been,” Alex said, feeling more confused by the second, “What’s going on, Liz? Is something wrong?”

She stared at him, eyes betraying her guilt. Worry slowly but surely started to fill his entire system. Was he hurt?

“No,” she said, “Just... stay away from him, please?”

“Okay,” Alex agreed. She stared at him for a few seconds longer before coming close and hugging him. He froze for a moment before slowly hugging her back. “Are you sure everything’s okay?”

“Yeah,” she promised, slowly letting him go, “I’ll see you later?”

“Yeah, of course,” he promised. Liz nodded and slowly backed away.

The whole thing was weird and, by the time he made it to his truck, his worry had sky rocketed. Had something happened to Michael and they didn’t want him to know? Did something happen between him and Maria and they were saving Alex from the heartbreak? That was unlikely.

As he turned the key, Alex decided that stopping by the junkyard couldn’t hurt. He could make up a lie about his truck and just see for himself that Michael was okay. He just... he needed to make sure.

Sure enough, as Alex pulled up, Michael was leaned over an engine and talking on the phone. He looked fine. That gave him a little bit of solace, but Alex couldn't help himself. He just needed to be sure that he was okay. And maybe on an embarrassing level, he just wanted to hear his voice again.

Alex got out of the truck and slowly made his way to him, reciting his excuse in his mind while Michael seemed to get increasingly irritated with whoever was on the other end of the line. He did his best not to eavesdrop, but, well, he was talking loud.

“No, I haven’t been practicing... Who the hell would I practice on? Do you know someone who likes to get hurt repeatedly for my own personal power trip?... No, Maria, I’m not mad at you, but–... Okay, fine, I’ll try to work on it, Jesus, you don’t have to lecture me.... Not mad!... Sorry, fuck, I’m working... Yeah, bye,” Michael sighed. Was it petty of Alex to find joy in his irritation?

“Hey,” Alex called. Michael looked over at him, back straightening as they locked eyes.

“Hey,” Michael said, voice uncharacteristically kind, “Um, how are you?”

Alex furrowed his eyebrows and he gave a soft laugh, overwhelmed with confusion at Michael’s body language and tone. He didn’t act like that literally ever. It seemed like Alex’s renewed presence had drained him of all his cocky behavior.

“Uh, fine,” Alex said awkwardly, “How are you?”

Michael looked him over and licked his lips, seeming like he was trying to find his words. Which was, again, uncharacteristic. What the hell had happened since he saw him last?

“I’ve missed you,” Michael admitted bluntly. Alex blinked and his eyes went wide, feeling thrown even further off course. Was he in the wrong universe? Was this why Liz didn’t want him to go anywhere near him? “I kinda got used to you being around–platonically, of course–and I didn’t realize how much I would miss you when you weren’t bothering me every day. I’m sorry I fucked things up so badly. Again.”

“I think that was a compliment and an apology?” Alex said, laughing slightly as he shifted. This was weird. What exactly did Liz give him? “Um, are you okay? You’re being weirdly honest.”

“I just... You ever feel like something bad is gonna happen and you have no basis for why you feel that way, but it doesn’t stop you from feeling like it? Because I keep feeling like something bad is gonna happen to you with no basis and it’s really fucking annoying and then you just showed up, so it felt like a sign,” he rambled. Alex gave a soft smile as it clicked that Liz didn’t give him anything. This was him just being human for once.

“Anxiety,” Alex filled in. Michael licked his lips and shrugged.

“I guess...” he said. He shook off the weirdness. “Anyway, what brings you ‘round here if it’s not life threatening?”

“Um,” Alex started, considering using the excuse he’d concocted on the way here, but decided against it. Michael was being honest, why shouldn’t he? “Anxiety, too, I guess. Liz told me to leave you alone and I was worried.”

Michael’s eyebrows pulled together in confusion, genuinely taken aback by that statement.

“She told you to leave me alone? What the fuck?” he asked. Alex shrugged. “Man, first Maria’s acting weird, now Liz.”

“And you,” Alex teased. Michael rolled his eyes. “I don’t know, maybe the planets are aligned in some type of way.” Michael huffed a laugh.

“I don’t know, just seems weird.”

“Yeah,” Alex sighed, looking around and trying to find an excuse to stay. Liz said to leave him alone, but if it was just because he was feeling anxious, then he wasn’t about to do that. He missed him too. “So, I heard you need someone to practice healing on.” Michael tilted his head.

“You eavesdropping now, Private?” Michael asked. Alex shrugged and took a step closer, shoving his hands in his pockets.

“I’ve got nothing better to do,” Alex said, “Why not help a friend? Platonically, of course.”

Michael’s face split into a smile. “Okay.”

Which is how Alex found himself sitting outside the airstream and cutting open his palm with a sterilized knife like he was in Supernatural and planning to activate some kind of sigil. Michael looked at him hesitantly as he scooted closer, taking Alex’s hand between his.

“Have you ever done this before?” Alex asked.

“Uh,” he laughed awkwardly, “No. So, sorry if this takes a minute.”

“Take your time, I’ll be fine, just focus,” Alex encouraged. He nodded and licked his lips, his eyes closing as he focused really hard.

In fact, it might’ve been too hard because his face was going red instead of his hands.

“Are you breathing?” Alex asked, trying not to laugh. Michael groaned and separated their hands for a second, wiping his bloody and sweaty ones on his jeans. Alex didn’t do that if only because his hand was still bleeding. “Breathe and focus. Just imagine it healing.”

“I am.”

“Don’t imagine your hands glowing,” Alex told him, not having to even get confirmation that’s what he was doing. He knew Michael well enough for that. “Imagine my skin coming together.”

“Right,” Michael said, nodding and grasping Alex’s hand between his own again. They sat there, palm to palm, and waited. After a couple minutes, Michael sighed. “You’re still bleeding and it’s not working, let me get a–“

“Hey,” Alex said, mindlessly reaching out to touch his chin gently with his non-bloody hand. He wasn’t quite sure why he did that, but he would blame it on the fact that they’d been holding hand for ten minutes. But he still immediately dropped it when it effectively got Michael’s attention. “I’m okay, it’s not gushing blood or anything. You can heal it, you just need to focus.”

Michael stared at him in the eyes like he’d just told him the most confusing thing in the world. There had to be something going on because this was weird. Alex loved it, but it was weird. Michael didn’t just look at him like that for no reason.

“Hey, are you okay? For real, like, is something going on?” he asked.

“I mean, no,” Michael laughed weakly, “Just... you sound like you believe I can actually do it.”

“I do believe that,” Alex said.

“Why?”

“Because you’re literally biologically capable of it,” Alex stated simply, “You just need a little bit of positive reinforcement.”

“Positive reinforcement?”

“Yes,” Alex confirmed, layering his other hand on top of Michael’s, “You can do this. I believe in you.”

Michael huffed a laugh, shaking his head as he turned his focus onto their hands. “Gonna make a man melt, Manes.”

Alex smiled easily, shaking his head. Sometimes he wished he could know exactly what he was thinking. This was one of those times. He didn’t exactly know how to read what he was saying or the way he was acting. Yes, he was being uncharacteristically nice, but how long would that last? Was this simply self-sabotage? Was this just another way for Alex to get his hopes up before Michael went back to Maria?

But, more importantly, how much more touching did Michael want to green-light before that happened?

They sat there for awhile, Alex trying to hype him up while Michael tried his best to focus. Eventually, though, the sun went down and the blood was starting to dry and their palms were sticking together in a way that burned a little bit. Alex hissed slightly when Michael pulled away a little and it stung.

“Let’s take a break,” Alex suggested and Michael nodded easily. He pursed his lips as he checked Alex’s cut, holding his hand closer to his eyes. “What are you doing?”

“Realized I didn’t wash my hands after handling that engine, making sure there’s no dirt or oil in your cut. Don’t want it getting infected if I can’t heal it,” he mumbled more to himself than than to Alex. He eventually dropped his hand though. “Want a beer?”

“Sure,” Alex agreed, watching him in an almost mesmerized fashion as he got up and went into the airstream. What the hell had happened over the last three weeks that made him so nice? Is that really what Maria was doing for him? Maybe she was good for him. The idea hurt him a lot more than he was willing to admit.

But Michael came back with two beers, a small flask, and a wet rag. Alex watched as he plopped down in the old chair and pulled his hand back into his grasp. Then he opened the flask and poured it directly onto Alex’s wound.

“Oh my g–What the fuck, Guerin?!” Alex snapped, yanking his hand away as it started burning.

“Vodka,” Michael said, flashing a teasing little grin, “To sterilize it. Give me your hand, here’s your beer.”

“You don’t use vodka to sterilize someone’s hand,” Alex scolded, but he still gave him his hand back. Michael started carefully wiping away the dried blood with the rag.

“Didn’t have any rubbing alcohol.”

“Everclear’s close enough, I guess,” Alex said dryly. Michael flashed a smile and popped the caps off the beers with a simple nod of his head. Alex laughed and reached for one. “Alright, show-off, we get it, you’re cool.”

Michael looked up at him through his eyelashes. “You think I’m cool?”

“I mean, you’re a telekinetic alien, that’s a given,” Alex told him before taking a sip. Michael smiled and continued cleaning his hand. “So... you and Maria.”

“What about it?” Michael asked. Alex licked his lips. This wasn’t exactly his favorite topic, but he was trying to figure out where he stood. He’d missed him for three weeks and now suddenly he’d gone to see him and it was basically something out of a dream. Something had to have changed.

“You seem... happy,” Alex noted, “Together.”

“I guess,” Michael said, shrugging as he gave Alex’s hand one last look before letting him take it for himself, “We’re not really together though.”

“What do you mean?” Alex asked, his eyebrows furrowed. Michael sighed and took a sip of his own beer.

“We’re not dating, not her boyfriend or anything.” That didn’t confuse Alex any less. If that was the case, then what the hell had been going on? Why did he choose Maria if they weren’t even going to date? “I’m doing my best, though, to be a good whatever. I’m looking through files to try to help her and her mom, try to communicate, try to fix all my stupid mistakes I’ve made.”

Alex nodded, swallowing even though his mouth was dry. He knew it made sense and he was happy that Michael was aware of his mistakes and was trying to fix them, but he couldn’t help but feel a little burned by that. Wasn’t it cliche for a woman to swoop in a fix all the damage?

“Well, I’m glad she’s good to you,” Alex said. Michael shrugged, picking at the label of the beer.

“Can I be honest?” Michael asked softly, “And you not take it personally?”

“Yeah, of course,” Alex agreed, shifting in his seat.

“Sometimes I think she feels like this is as good as I get. Like, no matter what I do, the bar is so low for me that she expects nothing of me and so I always meet it. Which, which is cool, I like not being pressured and stuff, but... I don’t know, I kinda like the way you always thought I could be cool and smart. Miss the way you challenge me,” Michael admitted, huffing a laugh, “I feel more useful than I’ve felt in weeks and I didn’t even fucking heal you.”

“Ah, so you missed my Drill Sargent mouth, not me,” Alex teased. Michael laughed, shaking his head.

“Nah, I missed you,” he said sincerely. Alex smiled a little sadly and nodded. Why couldn’t they admit that when they still had a chance?

“I missed you too.”

“Hey, uh, you got a package lately?” Michael asked. Alex’s eyebrows met in the middle.

“What? Why?”

“Nothing,” Michael said, putting the beer to his lips. Alex stared at him in confusion for awhile, but slowly let it go.

They sat there for awhile in silence, just drinking and enjoying each other’s company. It was easy to slip back into this despite all the bullshit from before. Because, at the end of the day, spending so much time away from someone you love while knowing they were right there was harder than it seemed. Alex wasn’t quite sure where Michael stood, but he liked to think the feeling was mutual still. Why else would they be sitting here like this?

“You still feel anxious?” Alex asked after awhile, using his good leg to reach out and kick him. Michael scrunched up his nose, shrugging his shoulders.

“I got eyes on you, so it’s easier to remind myself you’re not gonna die,” Michael said with a soft laugh. Alex smiled at him and nodded.

“I feel that.”

Easy silence came back over them and Alex knew, logically, he’d have to leave soon. He couldn’t stay all night even wanted to. They couldn’t fall back into old habits now matter how appealing it was. However, he could make excuses to stay longer.

“Wanna try to heal me again?” Alex asked as he finished his second beer, holding out his hand and wiggling his fingers. Michael smiled and nodded, scooting to the edge of the seat.

“You know, if this works, you’re gonna have a hand print on you, right?” Michael said.

“I’ve got gloves.”

“No, I mean... You’ll be able to feel my feelings and I’ll be able to feel yours,” Michael said, glancing at him hesitantly, “And I’ve never done it before so I don’t know if I’ll be able to, like, respect your privacy.”

“Michael,” Alex said, “I know. I don’t mind.”

“You don’t?” he clarified.

“No. I mean, you already know everything about me. Maybe it’ll actually click how I feel about you too,” Alex said. He meant it to be a little teasing and it was definitely influenced by the lighter feeling the alcohol gave him, but Michael just stared at him with a blank expression for a concerningly long time. “Scared?”

“No,” Michael said. He almost sounded like a determined little boy and, for a moment, Alex got nervous that he would react badly to feeling the way he felt. But Alex had already hit rock bottom when it came to Michael Guerin, he’d already ripped himself open for this man over and over, so, honestly, he wasn’t scared to get a little clarification on his end. Maybe Guerin was right, he needed to really make it feel over. “No, I can do it.”

“Mhm,” Alex said, holding out the hand with the cut. Michael took it into his own carefully, grazing his fingertips over his sore skin before pressing his palm against his again. It was warm and still stung a little, but Alex didn’t flinch.

Alex wasn’t sure what changed from the first dozen times they’d tried that afternoon. He wasn’t sure if it was the alcohol or the fact that it wasn’t bleeding anymore or the fact that the sun had gone down or maybe it was just that Alex had assured him that he didn’t mind the mental invasion, but that low glow started to emit from his hand as it shook with concentration.

Alex opened his mouth to praise him for it, but was immediately just hit with a wave of pleasure. His jaw dropped even more than intended and he clutched the stupid lawn chair with his free hand so tight he knew it would be sore later. His breathing got heavier and his eyes closed, a strained moan vibrating low in his throat without warning as that euphoric feeling only seemed to get stronger and reach every inch of his mind and body.

But then everything went black.

“He’s not answering his phone.”

“Neither is Alex.”

“Fuck.”

Maria found herself crying all over again, guilt pooling in her stomach. She should’ve just warned them. Even if it meant losing Michael, she should’ve just been honest. This was karma at its finest.

“Maria,” Liz instructed sternly, grabbing her arms again, “Calm down. I’m gonna call Max and Isobel and Kyle and we’re gonna find them.”

“Alex is going to die and it’s my fault,” Maria said, bowing her head as she cried harder. It was hard to just calm down when her not-quite-boyfriend and her best friend were in danger. It didn’t seem to matter that Alex had stayed away from Michael, maybe this was supposed to happen all along and she just didn’t know.

God, why was she so stupid?

“Maria, stop,” Liz said, “We’re going to find them and it’s going to be okay, but we can’t do that if you don’t keep it together. You’re the only one who has seen the building they were in, even if it was only for a second, we need you.”

Maria sniffled, swallowing harshly as she nodded. She took a few grounding breaths and raised her head. She needed to focus and remember. She refused to let Alex die.

“Alex, hey, wake up.”

Alex groaned, his head throbbing. A pair of hands were on his shoulders and shaking him awake, not letting him sleep even though he wanted to. When he reluctantly opened his eyes, Michael was above him with wild, panicked eyes. Alex looked around the small room.

“Where are we?” he asked, pushing himself up onto his elbows. Michael helped him sit up. He stayed ridiculously close, his hands never leaving his arms.

“I don’t know,” Michael whispered like he was scared someone was listening. They might’ve been. “Last thing I remember was I was healing you and then something hit me and I woke up here. Didn’t even get to finish and you’re still all hurt.”

Alex lethargically looked down to his hand to see the cut was indeed still there, but he could feel Michael more than he normally could and it made it clear that he’d gotten at least partially done. He didn’t know they could actually do half-way things like that. Still, he didn’t have time to dwell on that, so he looked around to try and figure out where they were.

“Whoever they are, they know who we are,” Alex noted, his hand going up to rub the back of his head. The room was small and didn’t seem to have a door, just four walls Michael could probably reach across both ways if he laid down and stretched. It was empty except for them. “They waited until we were distracted and then they knocked me out first so I couldn’t fight.”

“Oh,” Michael breathed. He scooted a little closer even though he was already nearly on top of him, reaching out to feel the back of his head. “Are you okay? There’s a knot, but it’s pretty small. Are you nauseous? Dizzy? Your responses are a little delayed, but I can’t tell if that’s because you just woke up or because you have a concussion.”

“I don’t have a concussion.”

“Irritability is a symptom of a concussion, are you–“

“Michael,” Alex said, putting a hand over his and looking at him with a gaze that seemed to fix him in place, “I’m fine. I don’t have a concussion. Do you?”

“No, but I knew something shitty was going to happen. I knew it and I let my guard down and now you’re in pain,” he said. Alex shook his head, grabbing his wrist gently.

“Not your fault. But we gotta get out of here, so I need you to stay calm and use that brain of yours, okay?” Alex instructed softly.

The hand print, as dull as it was, still had him feeling all that secondhand anxiety that seemed to be filling Michael to the brim. He wondered if they were just feeding off of each other’s negative emotions and making shit worse. He pushed his bad feelings down as far as he could just in case, sending all the supportive ones through the connection instead.

“Do your powers still work or are they dulled?”

Michael looked around for something to fuck with as a test, but considering there was nothing to move, he focused on Alex. With a little clever wiggle of the nose, Alex’s hair smoothed itself out in a very detailed manner. He smiled and squeezed his hand.

“Thank you, you’re incredible,” Alex said, knowing that the extra little compliment would help them out in the long run. For the first time, though, he could feel how Michael took that little word to heart and cherished it. He gave a small smile to make it that much more meaningful.

“I can feel you,” Michael told him, eyes still wide and a voice hardly making a noise at all. He almost looked like he did when he got a little too high and that worried Alex, but he decided not to question if they’d been drugged on top of kidnapped.

If he was on drugs and still ached the way he did, well, he had bigger problems.

Michael leaned closer, his nose pressing into Alex’s cheek before he slowly rubbed against his face like kitten. “You’re in so much pain, I hate it. You think about pain too much. Pain and math, too much pain and math.”

Well. At least he knew for sure that Michael had definitely been drugged.

“Alex’s truck is at the junkyard.”

“What?” Maria asked, more than a little horrified at the information Kyle was giving them. “Liz, I thought you told Alex not to go to him.”

“You act like that wouldn’t make Alex immediately go to check on him,” Kyle scoffed from the other side of the phone. Both women pressed their hands into their face, stressed to hell over this ridiculous revelation. What the hell were they going to do? “Listen, Isobel is on her way. When she gets there, try and see if you can stir up any triggers that’ll tell us where they might be.”

“Okay,” Liz agreed, looking over to Maria who nodded in agreement.

“If you think of anything, call me. Max and I are gonna scope the place out, see if there’s any clues. Stay safe.”

“You too.”

The call ended too quickly and they sat in silence for a moment. Maria had a billion thoughts running through her mind, but the main one that stood out was Michael sobbing as he tried to heal a lifeless Alex. It was horrible and she was terrified that it was going to come true if they didn’t find them fast enough.

“Who would take them?” Liz scoffed, shaking her head, “I don’t understand.”

“Alex’s dad, maybe?” Maria suggested, “He’s all evil and stuff, right?”

“Yeah, but this feels weird even for him. Why would he specifically try to get just Michael and Alex out of the picture, not the rest of the aliens?” Liz asked. Maria shrugged.

In that moment, Isobel strutted in like she was in a TV show that no one else had been informed of. She took off her sunglasses with a dramatic flare and set her sight on the two women.

“Alright, DeLuca, let’s find my brother.”

Before Maria could even agree, she was warped into her mindscape.

“You remember how you said you thought it was gonna be us?”

Alex sighed, stroking Michael’s hair as he laid against his chest. It became very clear that whatever was in his bloodstream had made him weirdly touchy for the time being and Alex just had to ride it out with him. Besides, Alex had already scoped every inch of the room over and over and couldn’t figure out where a door might even be. For right now, there was nothing he could do but try to make sure they’d both be aware enough whenever they got the chance to escape.

“Yeah, I remember,” Alex said, trying not to get too accustomed to the way Michael was rubbing his chest. As soon as they were out of this situation, things would go back to normal. That meant no more I miss you’s and no more cuddling.

“I’m still kinda scared it’s not,” he whispered. Alex sighed, his head still aching. This felt extremely unfair. Not only was Michael drugged and he wasn’t, but now he had to listen to him talk about them as if it was an option. And, while Alex could feel that he still loved him, he could also feel the complete fear Michael had when it came to them. Alex didn’t know if he could ever be with him in good conscious knowing that.

“It’s probably not,” Alex admitted, “But that’s okay. You and Maria are good together.” Michael made a wounded noise and pressed into him even more. It made his back ache, but Alex didn’t say anything. Michael just pushed his head into his chest more, the movement more akin to an angry cat than a human being. “Hey now, you’re the one who fully admitted to being more mature and communicating more. That’s good.”

“It’s easy to be honest when you don’t care what they think about you. I care what you think,” he grumbled, the heel of his palm pressing down as his hand slid down. Alex stopped it before it got too low, sighing.

“You’re not in your right mind,” Alex told him, using his other hand to comb through his hair in a veiled attempted to soothe him a bit more. Michael just gave another whiny, sad noise. “Once we get out of here, we’re gonna go back to the way we have been which is okay.”

“No.” Michael moved in closer, his leg moving on top of Alex’s and his knee wedging between his thighs. Alex sighed as he let him invade his space completely and kissed his head. Yeah, this had to be a very specific brand of torture.

“What did they even give you?” he whispered against his hair, eyes scanning the room again.

Not only were there no signs of a door, there wasn’t really any sign of a camera either. However, there had to be something. It didn’t feel like they were losing oxygen, so it wasn’t sealed, and whoever put them there must’ve been watching them. What other benefit would they get from shoving Alex in a room with a drugged Michael? That’s when that very specific brand of torture sounded less like a joke and more like reality.

“Someone’s targeting me,” Alex noted, furrowing his eyebrows as he sat up a bit straight. Michael whined in protest, but Alex just kept his hand on the back of his head to keep him in place as he thought hard.

Whoever had done this had to have known Alex would only let his guard down enough to be captured when he was with Michael. Not only that, but they had to wait until he was in the middle of healing to do so. Then they chose to drug Michael, but not Alex. It left Alex feeling all of his pain, but also let him taking care of an emotional alien. What the fuck?

“Ow,” Michael whined, nearly kneeing Alex in the dick as he scrunched his whole body up, “You’re thinking too loud.”

“I’m thinking too–They amplified your powers,” Alex said. The fact that he could feel Alex more than Alex could feel him, him being able to do something as specific as flatten his hair in all different directions without even straining, him being able to hear his thoughts. He pulled Michael’s head away from his chest and looked into his eyes. His pupils were still blown. “Why the fuck would they amplify your powers? Wouldn’t they want to make you less of a threat?”

Michael stared at him instead of answering. It was very similar to the look he’d given him back in the junkyard, but far more open and admirable. He slowly started leaning forward, going in for a kiss that Alex dodged at the last second.

“I don’t understand,” Alex murmured as he held Michael’s head against his shoulder again, keeping him from doing anything stupid, “Why would they make you more powerful?”

“Maybe it’s a test,” Michael whispered against his neck, soft enough that even if the room was mic-ed they wouldn’t hear it, “Seeing what it takes to break you. Maybe they expected me to be mean.”

Alex’s jaw set as that seemed even more plausible than ever. It had him wondering what kind of drug they could’ve concocted that was intended to make Michael angry but instead made him emotional and clingy while still boosting his powers. The first thing that came to mind was a weird alien hormone that he’d been given an extra dose of. As dumb as that sounded, Alex couldn’t rule anything out. He took a deep breath to prepare himself.

“Thank you for that big brain of yours,” he said and kissed the side of Michael’s head for good measure. Michael gave a happy little hum and nuzzled closer. As much as Alex wanted him to keep holding him, though, he realized he needed to get on his feet so he wouldn’t be caught off guard. “I need to stand up.”

“Why?” Michael whined.

“I just do,” he repeated more firmly.

It took a moment, but he eventually got Michael to get up and to help him to his feet. He was a little unsteady for a moment from both not standing for long and also having his prosthetic on for so long. The moment he got stable, Michael looked over him and checked the bump on the back of his head, still gazing at him with a look that was far too overwhelming.

“How are you feeling?” Alex asked. Michael shrugged his shoulders.

A few seconds later, an alarm sounded one of the walls in it’s entirety started moving. Alex’s eyes widened in confusion and Michael placed himself firmly in front of him. This was the first time that Alex actually trusted him to be there. He was powerful right now, Alex could feel that, and he was protective. He knew damn well whoever was behind this couldn’t have predicted that.

A man slowly walked into view, so distinctly not his father that it actually shocked Alex. What the hell was going on?

“Hello, Captain,” he said.

“What do you want?” Alex demanded. The man grinned and took a step closer. Michael held his hand out in front him, locking the man in place. He still smirked.

“Come closer to him and I’ll kill you,” he said. Alex gently touched his hip and moved to stand to his side and a step closer to the man.

“Play nice for a minute,” he whispered. Michael’s jaw clenched, but he let the man go. His smirk got wider and he continued to saunter closer, not seeming phased by Michael’s power. What the fuck? “What do you want?”

“Where to start?” he asked, “Ah, I know where. I talked to your father. He said you had a peculiar attachment to a specific extraterrestrial. Who would I be if I didn’t quickly get you both to be apart of the experiment?”

“Experiment?” Alex repeated. He could feel the waves of irritation waft off of Michael. His switch from caring to angry had flipped so quick, Alex felt more sure than ever that it was hormones.

“We’ve had a very, very small group to work with when it comes to imprinting over the years. Four pairs in total, to be exact, and all have resulted in the same conclusions. It’s better than biological weaponry, I swear. The bond between one of these creatures and their masters can be incredible. You two, however, have one noticeable difference to the other sets we’ve tested on. Usually, they only have a few months, maybe a year, to form that bond and it’s already strong enough where the creature will just fold to their master’s will. But you two... over a decade. Incredible.”

“Is he saying I’m, like, your fucking Pokémon or something?” Michael asked softly.

“I don’t know,” Alex answered, stepping a little bit more in front of Michael.

“I can already tell this will be fun with the way you both act. I’ve never seen it look so organic before,” he stated, looking genuinely proud of the discovery. Alex didn’t share the sentiment. “He handled the pheromone dose well, I see.”

Pheromone dose. So they weren’t trying to make him angry, they were trying to make him love him more. Well, it fucking worked. And, honestly, Alex wouldn’t be surprised if they’d manage to give him a dose before he even made it to the junkyard earlier. What else could explain how eager he was to talk to him and admit that he missed him? Alex tilted his head and couldn’t help the grim look that overcame his face. They were so fucked.

“I’m excited to see if you’ll both survive. First time for everything, you know?” the man said, seeming to be genuinely giddy about the whole thing.

Things moved far too fast and he was gone, leaving them in what looked like a tiny arena. Slots opened in the walls and four mechanical arms slowly exited out of them. For a moment, Alex had hope that maybe they’d survive this and it was really just a dumb test. But then he realized they all had real weapons, throwing knives and guns. Three men, fully decked out in protective gear, walked in as well with their own deadly weapons. It was the fucking Tento di Cruciamentum.

“Alex,” Michael said warily. Alex licked his lips and firmly planted himself in between Michael and the things designed to kill them.

“Do you trust me?” Alex asked, reaching behind him to grab Michael’s hand. He squeezed it when it overlapped the dull hand print, feeling a rush of determination and loyalty.

“Yes,” Michael said. Alex brought Michael’s hand up and placed it on his shoulder with his palm facing outward. It was their own little weapon. They had to just play along.

“Then do as I say, alright?” he whispered, taking a deep breath as a buzzer sounded as if to signify the beginning of this sick test, “Keep the weapons off me and I’ll handle the hand-to-hand.”

Michael did as he said immediately, all four mechanical arms imploding on themselves enough to startle the men into trying to hide their own guns. Alex smiled in sheer pride.

“That’s my boy.”

“You’re such a bitch.”

“Heard it before, try something new.”

Maria glared at Isobel as they stood in the foggy mindscape that laid somewhere between them. Together, they had gotten better at the whole psychic thing. They were two very different kinds of psychic and it helped amplify each other in ways neither of them had thought possible. However, she still needed to fucking ask before she did that.

“I know you want to find your brother, but you can’t just invade my mind without asking,” Maria said. Isobel wasn’t amused, just giving her a tight smile.

“He’s been gone for hours and you haven’t done anything to help, so help.”

“I don’t know how. I only got a glimpse and it was just–“

“Show me.”

Maria frowned as she looked at her. The last thing she wanted to do was watch Alex die again, but she couldn’t think of a good reason to say no. Isobel had the power to replay the scene perfectly and that was the only way they could even kind of grasp the location.

“We need to help them, chop chop,” Isobel said.

As angry as Maria wanted to be, she knew it would just make things take longer and that was putting Alex’s life at risk. So, instead, she focused as hard as she could on that vision. Isobel grabbed her arm, giving her that extra little power boost to make it happen.

She knew she was there when she heard Michael’s sobbing.

Maria couldn’t help but look at the scene, holding back tears as she listening to Michael cry and promise to bring him back.

“Stop look at them, it makes it harder, focus on the room,” Isobel instructed. Maria reluctantly look away so she could take in the room, trying to ignore the sobbing.

There were three men laying unconscious on the ground, most of them seeming alive except for one who’s head was nearly on backward. On the wall, there were four open holes with destroyed, smoking machines in them. The walls were all covered in metal and the floor was dirt, but, when she looked up, the ceiling was high and wooden. It looked like someone had too much time on their hands.

“Is it a renovated barn?” Isobel said out loud.

“I think so,” Maria said, quickly looking around to try and see if there were any windows so she could see where it might be. Except the vision ended, warping back into the default mindscape. “Shit.”

“Do it again,” Isobel instructed. Maria looked at her a little helplessly. “We need to see more, that wasn’t enough information.”

“Can you really stand to hear Michael cry like that again?” Maria asked. Isobel looked at her with a hardened gaze.

“If it means saving his life, I’ll listen to it a thousand times.”

And they sadly did have to listen to it five more times, trying to look for an outside view. By the time they did find an outside view, Maria felt nearly desensitized to the sound.

“Are we good?” she asked as they got a good look of the farm space they’d been at. It looked like an old, abandoned farm. Maria didn’t know what to do with that information personally, but she assumed Max might know. It was apart of his job to know where she was in Roswell.

“I think so,” Isobel said. It was clear listening to Michael be so distressed actually had impacted her, but she kept it to herself. “Let’s go save them.”

“Finally.”

Michael hated this.

He knew Alex was a fighter and he knew it was strong and, had this not been a life-or-death situation, it might’ve been really hot to see him fight three men and use their protective gear against them. Right now, though, Michael felt like his skin was going to burn off. He wanted to get the fuck out of here and just tuck Alex up in his arms and keep him safe. That was the fucking goal, but god forbid these assholes let that happen.

When he had nightmares about being an experiment, this just wasn’t what he had in mind.

“Guerin!” Alex yelled. Michael responded by throwing the guy who’d managed to get in a cut on Alex’s arm across the room, slamming him so hard into the wall that it knocked him out.

He was trying his damnedest to get them all to fuck off, but they were trained fighters and he wasn’t used to anything more than a sloppy bar fight which mean he just had to stay back and use his brain. Which would be fine, but he could already feel his power dwindling. He needed acetone and a break soon or they were fucked.

He realized that, if he just put in the effort to knock the remaining to out, maybe they could get the fuck away. He watched as Alex dodged a punch and then landed another one, but it only did so much when they had protective gear. One of the men grabbed Alex’s arms and Alex used that as a brace to shove his prosthetic straight into the other guy’s face. It had him stumbling back and sent both Alex and the guy holding him to the floor. Anger pooled in Michael’s stomach and he used it to throw the guy who got the metal leg to the face like he’d thrown the first one, watching him fall too the floor and not move.

Then he focused on Alex and the other guy. He wanted to help, but he wasn’t sure he had enough gas to throw him when he and Alex were fighting on the floor. So, instead, he threw himself at the guy whenever he got on top of Alex, tackling him even though he knew he shouldn’t have.

“Fuck,” Alex cursed, but he didn’t seem to be angry at Michael for it and that’s all that mattered.

He wrestled with the guy, trying his best to try to free him of at least one piece of of the gear so he had a weak point. Alex was on it too, both of them using their body weight and Michael’s power to pin him to the floor. He looked panicked as they became successful and Alex took the headgear off before slamming his head into the ground, knocking him out for at least a second.

Michael and Alex locked eyes over him. His first thought was to kiss him, but that would be a little senseless so he didn’t. He wanted to though.

“Let’s get out of here,” Alex said and Michael agreed.

They used each other as leverage to get to their feet, both of them weak and needing to get the hell out of there. They won, but there was no telling if this was just round one or not. They looked around for an exit as quickly as they could, spotting a piece of the wall that looked a little different than the rest of it. Michael held out his hand, having to focus a little more than he’d like to admit to break it open and reveal the outside world. He needed acetone.

“You’re fucking brilliant,” Alex gushed, grabbing his hand and starting to pull him that way so that they could leave.

But then a shot rang through the air and Alex fell to the ground almost instantly.

Secondhand pain and straight devastation coursed through Michael as he tried to break his fall. He felt like his mind had completely short-circuited as he fell to his knees with Alex.

“No, no, Alex. Hey, no, stay with me,” Michael scrambled. His pretty face was morphed into shook, quick gasps falling from his lips as his body fought to breathe. Michael noticed the bullet had gone straight through him, straight through his lung. Wasn’t that just horrifying?

He looked up to spot the culprit, the second guy he’d thrown looking at him with sick joy and a gun in his hand despite the fact that he was still weak. Michael’s pain and hate brought tears to his eyes and, without so much as a second thought, he held his hand out and screamed, draining himself a little too much just so he could see his neck snap. He shot Alex. He shot Alex.

Michael pulled Alex closer into his lap, his hand pressing to his chest that just seemed to bleed so much faster than any person should and breathing slowing into something nonexistent. His hand was shaking and his mind wasn’t processing anything, everything in him just saying that Alex wasn’t allowed to die. He’d just fucking understood shit for once. He couldn’t. He needed him. Fuck, he needed him.

“I got you,” Michael said, sniffling harshly as he rocked Alex back and forth, “I got you. It’s okay, I got you.”

Alex’s eyes were wide, staring up at him still. He wasn’t gasping anymore for air, but Michael could still feel him and that was enough. If he could feel him, he could heal him. He’d healed him before, he could do it now when he knew that Alex loved him and trusted him. He could do it.

He closed his eyes, drawing on whatever was left to try and heal him. But, that was the problem. He felt like he was sucking on the straw in an empty juice box. There was nothing fucking there. He whined low and horrified, feeling so fucking useless as he tried over and over to find power that hadn’t been replenished yet.

“No, no, no,” Michael cried, choking on his sobs as blood started coming from his nose and his ears the more he tried. He didn’t even care. Not when Alex wasn’t breathing and hadn’t blinked. “Alex. Please, stay with me. Please. I just need a second.”

“Well, that was unexpected,” that stupid fucking man said again, coming out of nowhere. Michael glared up at him, still holding Alex and waiting for things to just work. This wasn’t real. This was fake. Fake, fake, fake. Alex was alive and well and this was a bad dream. “Usually the creature will jump in front of the master, sacrifice themselves. I’ve never seen a master die and the creature end up unharmed. You must be very manipulative.”

Michael cried harder, unable to even find words to bite back. He’d never felt a pain quite like this. He bowed his head to look at Alex, rocking him a little as he pressed on his chest. Heal, god damn it. He believes in you. Don’t let him down.

“No, seriously, I’m impressed. You’ll make a good soldier. You have very fine-tuned skills for a telekinetic.”

“Fuck you,” Michael managed, bending over even more to press his head against Alex’s. His eyes were still open, staring lifelessly right back. It was easily the worst thing Michael had ever seen. “Come back. I miss you.”

“Cute,” the man said.

“I miss you,” Michael told Alex again, his tears mixing with his blood that mixed with Alex’s blood. He pressed harder on Alex’s chest, trying to just get him to wake up. He could still feel that low hum of Alex in his veins, but it seemed to be stuck on his last set of emotions. Pride and then pain and then fear and then nothing. “Come back, please. I’ll do better, I promise. Please, Alex.”

“Police!”

Michael didn’t budge, not having it in him to care about anything that wasn’t bringing Alex back. He couldn’t even bring himself to stop staring at his eyes, just waiting for a sign of life. It had to come. It had to.

Things happened around him and he didn’t notice, trying so hard to find his strength to get him back. He had to come back.

“I miss you,�� he repeated, “I don’t wanna miss you anymore.”

“Michael, buddy,” Max’s voice sounded as he touched his shoulder. Michael didn’t move. “You gotta let him go, okay?”

“No,” Michael argued, “No, I can fix this. He’s okay.”

“Michael,” Max said again.

“No.”

Faintly behind him, Michael could hear crying. He ignored it completely.

“Isobel, come here for a second,” Max urged softly. Michael felt another hand on his other shoulder.

“I’m not leaving, not until he wakes him, you can’t make me,” Michael snapped.

“We know,” Isobel assured.

Slowly, Michael felt her other hand layer on top of his that was covering Alex’s wound. Then Max’s layered both of theirs. Michael quickly realized what they were offering and he found himself crying even harder.

“You ready?” Isobel said. He took a deep breath and sniffled. “One...”

“Two...” Max added.

“Three.”

Michael woke up, his body aching from head to toe and an IV stuck in his arm.

The moment he did though, he scrambled to a seating position. Was that a dream? What the fuck happened? Where was Alex?

Sure enough, Alex was curled up in bed beside him, his own IV in his arm. He had bags under his eyes and he looked stressed despite the fact he was sleeping. Michael sighed in relief, scooting a little bit closer to him. That was when he realized that there was room to scoot closer and a quick look around told him he was in Max’s bedroom. The door was open and everything, giving them a way out of he wanted to. But, honestly, if Alex was alive, he didn’t want to.

He slowly laid down and ignored the way his back protested, facing Alex with unbridled guilt in his system. Whenever Alex woke up, he would hate him. He couldn’t even save him by himself. How pathetic was that? So much for a bond or whatever.

Still, he couldn’t help himself as he reached out to smooth his eyebrows out so he looked less distressed. Alex groaned at the touch and Michael snatched it away.

“Why did you touch my face?” Alex grumbled.

“Your eyebrows were all scrunched up.”

“What?” Alex asked, opening his eyes. They were tired, but alive and Michael couldn’t help but feel like that was the only thing that mattered.

“You know, they were like this,” Michael told him, mimicking the way his eyebrows were. Alex gave the smallest smile and huffed a laugh, letting his eyes close again.

“Okay, valid reason to touch my face.”

Michael hummed in response, hesitant to reach for him again despite how badly he wanted to. He almost lost him. Hell, he did lose him. He didn’t want to leave.

“Alex,” he whispered, “Are you okay?”

“Define okay,” he said, “‘Cause I’m alive so that’s something. But we were also kidnapped and put in a fucking test arena because of some stupid fucking theory and that’s fucked.”

Michael continued to stare and let himself wonder why the universe hated them so much. Why couldn’t they have good memories? Why did everything have to do bad for them?

“I’m sorry,” Michael said, “This wouldn’t have happened if I just–“

“Stop it,” Alex sighed, “This is literally in no way your fault. In fact, you saved me.”

“I didn’t though,” Michael whispered, tears pricking his eyes, “I tried and I failed. You died in my arms because I didn’t protect you and I couldn’t even bring you back. I lost you. That was the worst moment of my life.”

“Hey,” Alex said, moving as close as he could with the short IV line, “You helped me. That’s all I could’ve asked from you.”

“Stop trying to make me feel better, you’re the one who died,” Michael pointed out. Alex gave a grim look and reached out, grabbing Michael’s hand in his own. He pressed that dull hand print against his palm, effectively showing Michael just how much he still loved him and didn’t blame him. In fact, he loved him more than before. “I-I don’t understand.”

“Love doesn’t make sense, moron,” Alex sighed, pulling his hand up to his lips and pressing a kiss to his palm.

Michael understood a lot more in that moment. In fact, he understood worship. Was this how Alex felt after every other traumatic fucking event they shared? Unbridled love and devotion? And, if he had, how the hell had Michael not felt it? More importantly, how had Alex survived being turned away?

“I love you,” Michael gushed, wishing that he was stronger so he could do something about it, “Holy fuck, I love you.”

Alex let out a soft little laugh, smiling as he kissed his hand again.

“That’s the first time you don’t feel scared of what that means,” Alex said.

“Because I’m not scared anymore,” Michael said, too many feelings rushing through him as things just made sense for once. Everything made sense. Everything had an answer. The answer was Alex. “Because I’ve already lived my biggest fear and you’re still here, you still love me.”

“And there’s no sign of stopping,” Alex hummed. Michael let out a heavy breath and pushed himself forward on a shaky arm, desperate for closeness more than ever before. Which was saying something.

“Hey, you’re up,” Maria’s voice said from the doorway, stopping them from getting any closer. They both looked to see basically everyone in the doorway, peering at them with matching concerned-mother looks. “Both of you.”

“Yeah,” they said. A hesitant silence filled the room, no one knowing what boundaries they could press.

“If you want to ask about why we got taken, can that wait? It’s confusing and long,” Alex said. Max was the first to respond, shaking his head.

“No, we found the files when we arrested that guy on drug and homicide charges,” he said, noticing their confusion and adding an explanation, “We couldn’t exactly charge him for kidnapping or anything without explaining the alien thing. Had to stage it as a drug deal gone wrong.”

“Oh,” Michael breathed, licking his lips as he remembered that guy he killed. He always thought he’d feel guilty about it, but it didn’t seem to effect him that way. He’d killed Alex, it seemed fair.

“But the files are interesting and, when you guys are feeling better, we’d like to go over them,” Kyle said. They both nodded. Michael wondered when they’d leave them alone.

“Okay,” Michael said, “So, uh, I don’t wanna be mean, but I’m tired.”

“Yeah, of course,” Liz said instantly, “But we wanted to say something real quick.” She and Maria shared a quick look before turning back to them, taking deep breaths.

“I saw you die before it happened, Alex,” Maria said softly, “And I told Liz instead of telling anyone else because I was scared and didn’t know where or when it was happening and I just got scared. I’m so sorry.”

Michael furrowed his eyebrows, feeling genuinely confused and hurt by that admission. Obviously, she couldn’t have predicted the context, but, fuck, a little more of a warning other than a phone call about practicing healing would’ve helped.

“You could’ve warned us,” Michael said, “Why the fuck wouldn’t you say something?”

“It’s okay,” Alex said. Michael immediately scoffed.

“No, it’s not okay,” he insisted.

“Okay, but I’m tired,” Alex sighed. Michael felt a little torn as he looked to him and then to Maria and Liz who looked extremely guilty. “Can I just yell at you when I feel better?”

“Yes,” Maria said, Liz nodding along, “You can yell at me or cut me off or whatever you want, I’m so sorry, Alex.”

“Can I steal my boyfriend back?” he asked instead of anything else. Michael huffed a shocked laugh, looking over at him.

“Yes,” Maria said again, though a little more sad about that one. Michael, as much as he liked her, wasn’t. Alex took a heavy breath, his eyes closing.

“Yay,” he breathed. Michael–and everyone else, honestly–watched him as he seemed to drift right back to sleep. He eventually looked back at the group.

“Is he gonna be okay?” he asked, his eyes directed to Kyle who nodded.

“Yes, he’s just going to need a bit more time than you. Turns out traumatic experiences can do one hell of a number on your physical health regardless of alien healing,” Kyle filled in, taking a step further into the room and going to check on their IV bags, “Yours is basically an acetone drip, that’s why.”

“Oh,” Micahel said, nodding slightly as he slid his attention back to the group in the doorway, “We’ll talk about this later?”

“Absolutely,” Liz said and Maria agreed.

“Okay, can I take a nap now?”

Soon enough, they all cleared the room, even Kyle who left him with a ‘you hurt Alex, I hurt you’ look that Michael wasn’t even mad about. Still, he used what little power he could muster to close the door and he scooted closer to Alex despite the IV in his arm.

“I love you,” he told him, “And I’m gonna do right by you, even if it’s because I accidentally imprinted on you.”

Alex smiled just a little bit or maybe Michael imagined it, but it didn’t matter either way. He meant it. He grabbed Alex’s hand again, weaving their fingers together.

“I’m gonna kiss you when you wake up,” he promised, “And it’s gonna be cosmic.”

Alex smiled obviously that time, peaking one eye open. Michael grinned at him.

“Well, what are you waiting for? Another pheromone dose?”

“Shut up,” Michael laughed and he moved forward, finally kissing him again having it mean something.

He was going to make this work this time, they had to. Not when they knew what they could and should be. They were bonded together in a way they’d never been before and it was obvious.

No more denying.

#malex #malex fic #michael guerin #alex manes #roswell new mexico #my fic #how many ways can i say 'michael wants validation and alex is the only one giving it to him so he's super nice to him in return' in one fic #also did i REALLY write it if there's no praise kink?

118 notes · View notes

a-student-out-of-time · 3 years

Text

Connections Review Part 2

This isn’t your average Love Hotel Event, this is an ADVANCED Love Hotel Event

Here we go people, we have returned and now it’s time for the next part of the review of Connections! Last time was quickly reviewing stuff that didn’t warrant its own part and all the time travelling discoveries into the Ultimate Seer Mikako, she is the Ultimate Seer now, not the Ultimate Exorcist, and some interesting visions. And in this part, we cover the stuff that everyone likes to talk about which is Harems! Whether it be Cuddle Puddle, Hotel Akane or Makoto’s currently unnamed Harem. Point is this Blog is a goldmine for Poly relationships and let the looovvveee spread! So, time for some fluffy reviews~

I’ll start with the only established harem at this point in time which is the Cuddle Puddle! Hotel Akane is planned for but still in development and we don’t even know if Makoto will be willing to go for a harem. So, the big major event which happens here is Hajime fixing the issues with Hiyoko’s family. She has serious issues with her grandmother as she forbids her from seeing her parents, and while Hiyoko can’t give a rat’s arse about her mother, she very much cares about her father, and as heir of her clan, Hiyoko has to marry a man of suitable status which Hajime doesn’t fulfil. So, with Izumi summoning Hiyoko back home to have a talk, Hajime joins her in order to try and get the racist boomer to approve of their relationship, and allow Hiyoko to see her parents, or her father to be more precise. This was a welcome relief mission because having fought two serial killers, busted a human trafficking ring and about to fight a cult, just talking to a racist problematic member of one of his girlfriend’s family is a very light mission for Hajime. Plus, because we all don’t like boomers having a boomer being called out for their racist and out of touch ways is catharsis at best. It helps that not all of the Sannoji family is completely terrible as Monoko and Teru, relatives of Hiyoko were more open minded, and agreed with Hiyoko and Hajime’s sentiments and if they weren’t there, I don’t think the meeting with Izumi would have gone well.

Thankfully, Hajime & Hiyoko, with the help of Momoko and Teru, were able to get Izumi to bless their relationship and since Sannoijis marry young, as soon as Hiyoko graduates, or ‘graduates’ because remember Hopes Peak Academy will only remain open for as long as Junko lurks and as soon as she’s defeated, Nikei’s article on why Hope’s Peak Academy is twisted and corrupted will be put up and the school won’t last long, she wants to marry Hajime. This brings up a legal problem with the Cuddle Puddle as Poly relationships are illegal in Japan, in fact I think they’re illegal in a lot of countries. Novoselic which is Sonia’s kingdom its legal, but Sonia can’t ask for everyone to uproot their lives and move there. The temporary solution is for everyone not named Sonia and Gundham to legally change their last name to Hinata, Hajime marries Hiyoko and when Kiyotaka becomes Prime Minister and he legalizes Poly Marriage, marry the other girls then. That’s a long-term solution though.

As for the rest of the Cuddle Puddle, they are bonding well. Gundham got a bit of focus on this Arc and I’m glad for it. The biggest issues with the Cuddle Puddle as it is very Hajime-centric but we don’t see how the girls interact with each other or even Gundham as he’s the other male in the harem as well. Gundham himself doesn’t get many interactions aside from Hajime and Sonia, so seeing him open up to Hibiki about his past and she comforting his worries about Storm is heart-warming. I always knew that Hibiki had a strong liking for Gundham as even back during the Concert Arc when Sonia and Gundham met the Otonokoji twins on their independent mission to find the ‘stalker’ of them, Hibiki took a liking to Gundham’s Chuunibyou nature almost immediately, and given all the growth that Hibiki has gone through since then, she is now in a position to comfort others much like how she was comforted by them. Gundham’s backstory is the usual brand of familial outcast and a devoted mother who gave her life into Gundham that too many people in the Quantum Crew have. Kodaka did say one of the pillars of being a Danganronpa character is having a broken family and it shows.

While the Cuddle Puddle got some development, it won’t be the only harem this blog has so let’s look at the founding of a new one, which is Hotel Akane. It’s an unofficial rule that the protagonists of the Killing Games get their own harems, but Sora doesn’t want a harem as she is content with having a relationship with just Yoruko so she transferred her ‘harem rights’ to Akane, who being one of the horniest members of the cast, is more then happy for that. Akane is seeing Ayame at the moment but they haven’t officially started dating yet, its still in the friendship phase at the moment. This will develop into romance at some point though, but Akane is considerate enough to go things at a gradual pace. Yuki makes his first appearance in this arc as well as he shops at the new supermarket that Akane is working for, and we get to see Sora’s conflict over Yuki. Due to Sora’s purpose in the Killing Game, being created to protect Yuki until Mikado could break him, she is worried as she doesn’t know how much of her affection for Yuki is of her free will or due to the protocols that Mikado programmed into her. Akane reassures her that her love for Yuki is of free will as when Sora broke free from Mikado’s programming shackles, her first act was to protect Yuki from Mikado, and the two did genuinely bond over the course of the Killing Game. As such Akane meeting and potentially getting romantically involved with Yuki is A-OK in Sora’s books. But of course, that’s not the relationship you guys care about. You care about Servant’s Column AKA the relationship between Akane and Nikei. And quite a lot of progress was made there as we get to see how conflicted our poor reporter is. Due to Nikei’s highly disturbing backstory, he is unsure on what his sexual ordination is. The other Voids know where they swing but Nikei despite his best efforts doesn’t know what his type is. This isn’t a situation that is going to be resolved quickly as victims of sexual abuse do struggle with sexual identity and I could see a situation when Nikei winds up being asexual as a result of the whole thing. We know that Nikei has a habit on crushing on anyone who is remotely kind to him, something I relate to on a personal level, and that he’s okay with PDAs, but anything sexual is completely off limits to him as it would give Nikei traumatic flashbacks to his past. Given the strong likelihood of Miaya getting involved next arc, he really needs to speak to her as she could help him with getting to gripes with his past and sexual identity and allow himself to heal. And Nikei does need to learn how to be comfortable with himself before he can be okay with entering a relationship with Akane.

And now for the last harem and the only one without a name and that is Makoto’s harem. Thing is though, this is the harem I’m the most on the fence about. Because…is it going to exist? Cuddle Puddle are a thing, Hotel Akane is going to be a thing, but Makoto hasn’t made any noises about wanting to get into relationships with other girls, he’s may just be content having a relationship with Iroha. Granted he hasn’t even met the other girls who would be part of his harem and he won’t for a while so maybe attitudes change once the other girls become aware of him and he starts talking to them. The big event regarding this is that Makoto Naegi’s Worst Day ever happens during this Arc, which is the highly elaborate chain of events which leads to Makoto entering Hope’s Peak. I won’t talk much about this; it goes like it does in canon and just read it up online if you want details. Iroha wants to help Makoto during this but due to the enormous butterfly effects resulting from it, no interference can be done and it’s probably the only time we allow the Ankle Effect to make its noises. The results shows that the Ankle Effect isn’t an inherently evil force, it just wants history to stay the same. Unfortunately, history is tainted and the world would end if it is prevented so the Quantum Crew do have to meddle. The one thing Iroha CAN do with Makoto on his worst day ever is to comfort him and make his night memorable for all the right reasons. He is going to be a character though who would become more centric to the plot as soon as Junko enters the scene…unless things happen and he gets in sooner. I could see Makoto getting tangled up with dealing with Mikado as he has some association with the Voids now, and I think Makoto will NOT sit ideally if Mikado tries to mess with the Voids. As for Storm…I dunno.

And that’s all the harem developments, Hajime resolves Hiyoko’s family issues, Gundham exists in the Cuddle Puddle, Sora has Yuki identity problems, Nikei really needs as much hugs as possible and Makoto has an awful day, but he gets to be in line to being the hero of civilization and makes out with Iroha so all is good! At this point I would normally make my rankings but then a certain Motherfucker decided to get more screen time and thus he needs his own part. When we come back, I will discuss the most problematic part of the Arc, which is Maverick Storm. Until then byeeeee! - Review Anon

#danganronpa #a student out of time #submission

9 notes · View notes

goldenhydreigon47 · 3 years

Text

Y'know, I'm bored. May as well talk about the OCs I have for Rebel Hearts.

Aight so context: Rebel Hearts is based on the Terraria Calamity mod and is set after the Supreme Calamitas fight (Henceforth, I shall refer to Calamitas as Cal, Catastrophe as Cat, and Devourer of Gods as Dev. Why? Because that's what they prefer to be called in the story) but before the Yharim fight. Why? Well, simple: The Yharim and Draedon fights aren't in the game yet.

Please note, the only characters original to Calamity mod involved in this story are Cal, Cat, Cataclysm (the youngest of the siblings of themself, Cal, and Cat. I'll make another post about these three and Dev since I like all four of them so much), Dev, Xeroc, Noxus, Ignalius, Providence, Yharim, Yharon, and Draedon. Everyone else is a fully original character. So, uh, yeah. Here we go!

First up is the main character: Mariko Yamamoto (he/him or they/them pronouns). He's half human and half demon and boyfriends with Cataclysm in the story. Mariko's in the Mage class but specializes particularly in ice magic. His father, who was a thief and murderer who also did quite atrocious things I don't feel comfortable mentioning on here, was killed in front of Mariko when he was only 5 years old. His mother, depressed at the loss of her husband, tragically took her own life a few weeks later. Mariko was trained in combat, education, and life skills by his brother, Kronus, until Mariko was 16. A few weeks later, Yharim came along, bringing a then brainwashed Dev and Cal with him, and demolished Mariko's entire hometown, his brother sacrificing himself to save his life. Mariko, determined to save people, guided everyone to the exits while warding off Cal, who was less aggressive seeing how noble and polite Mariko was. Afterwards, Mariko literally dies from exhaustion, but is revived by Xeroc, who mentioned that his brother's dying wish was to, "Keep Mariko safe," or something along those lines and gives Mariko temporary immortality. Three years and three hundred and sixty deaths later, he defeats Cal and her brothers, but spares their lives, knowing that they don't want to live under Yharim. Months later (and additional fifty deaths, one of which caused by a backstab from Mariko's ex-ally Necro. Also, Mariko is 20 by now), Mariko is kidnapped by Yharim and tortured, causing him to die ten more times. However, as he was chained up, Mariko saw remorse in Cal's eyes, and decided to free her himself since her brothers had escaped already. Three months later, he encounters an escaping Cal and Dev and togther, with Cal's brothers, they form an alliance to defeat Yharim, with others joining later on. Speaking of which...

Akira Tadashi (they/them) is the next major OC to join Mariko's alliance. They were a vigilante Rogue class after Yharim burned down their hometown with Yharon when Akira was 15. This, along with constant abuse from his father because of Akira's feminine looks, caused immense trauma and PTSD for Akira. As a vigilante, they sometimes encountered and helped Mariko, with Akira never saying their actual name to Mariko. Upon encountering Mariko, Cal, Cat, Cataclysm, and Dev, Mariko and Akira have a friendly duel to test each other's strength and, after Mariko wins, Akira quickly joins them in their quest to eliminate Yharim (they are 19 during the story).

Next is Josephine Joachim (she/her), or Jojo as she prefers. Raised in the village of Erupis, she is from a long line of Summoners and gained her Stardust Guardian, which she dubbed 「Guns and Roses」 (yes, this is the character most of the Jojo's Bizarre Adventure references are going to) after an encounter with Yharim when she was 14 (she's 18 in the story). Upon meeting Mariko and Cal, she offers to take the team to her hometown but tragedy strikes as her mother is killed in front of her by Draedon and his new assistant, Sunork (keep that name in mind when I give the villains analysis later this week 😉). As she watched her mother die in her arms, she realized her true purpose: Defeat Yharim and free those trembling in fear from his tyranny.

Also, Yhagrim (he/him). Labelled as the "Hermit of the Mountains," most details about him are unknown minus his age (he's 27). After being discovered by Mariko, Yhagrim explains that, in fact, he is the youngest of the sibling trio of himself, Ignalius, and Yharim (Yharim is also related to Mariko but we'll get to that in the villain info). Upon their village trying to kill Yharim for trying to obtain power with dirty deeds, Yharim goes mental and destroys the village, including killing Ignalius. When he saw his brother, Yhagrim noticed Yharim stole the dragon egg that he was given by his parents at age 13 (this egg hatches to become Yharon). Yharim then quickly takes over a majority of the world and banished Yhagrim, erasing his name from all records as well as any info about him. When asked if he wanted to join Mariko's squad, Yhagrim initially declines, but joins after hearing about some of what Yharim did to his subjects (trust me it isn't pretty. Btw, Yhagrim's Joining arc isn't complete yet but it goes DEEPLY in depth into Yharim's childhood and family life. This is just a summary). Being an expert at Melee class attacks, Yhagrim can dual wield two of the Melee's best weapons: Nanoblack Reaper and Triactis' True Paladinian Mage Hammer of Might, so don't cross him.

And finally for the main cast out of the OCs I made, Drakonis Tremaine (she/her or they/them). While this Ranger class hasn't joined Mariko's group yet, her arc is after Yhagrim's so its very soon (she even forms a love relationship with Jojo). However, I wanted to mention her here because, what the hell, I mentioned everyone else, may as well talk about her. She is notably the edgiest and angriest of the group (only getting slightly less edgy during the story might I add) and is very reckless. How this came to be? Well, as a child, she grew up around a very conservative community she didn't really care for, despite how rich her parents were. This hatred only grew as she slowly started to become more comfortable with saying she was trans feminine and lesbian. However, upon coming out to her parents, they screamed at her and abused her for several months because bastards. If that wasn't enough, because her parents were high standing citizens in her city, many of the other bigots living there harassed, bullied, and even attacked her with intent to kill. All she wanted was to be accepted and validated, which she would later gain upon meeting Mariko's group, but her idiotic community wouldn't give her the acceptance or validity she needed (this entire bigoted community thing is based on my experience as a bisexual in the highly conservative state of Kentucky. I am not okay. Send help). So, eventually, her bottled up sadness, pain, and rage erupted and she genocided everyone in her town. This temper and dark side of her was sought out by mega bastard Yharim. However, Drakonis now lived by the ideal of, "Trust nobody, not even yourself, unless your desperate," so she outright refused to join Yharim, shooting him in the arm and nearly killing him, but he escaped because of Draedon's teleportation device. Many years later (she's 18 by now), she encounters Mariko and Cal, who offer her a spot on the team. With an annoyed and sarcastic tone, she again refuses, but some midnight talks with Jojo while the group is in Erupis and another major event that takes place during Drakonis' arc force her hand causing her to join.

Main Character OC Infodump completed. Infodump on Cal, her brothers, and Dev is next, then an infodump on the villains.

Hope you enjoyed this and I'll post excerpts from the story (currently in Yhagrim's arc) soon to show what happens during each arc (which range from two to twenty five sections). : )

#terraria calamity #writing #original character

4 notes · View notes

scoutception · 4 years

Text

Never7 -the end of infinity- review

Kotaro Uchikoshi holds the title of being one of the most magnificently insane writers in Japan, which is saying something. He’s most famous for the Zero Escape trilogy, an innovative mix of escape-the-room puzzles and normal visual novel story sequences, and the much more recent AI: The Somnium Files, a more standard, yet equally memorable detective drama, which I actually wrote a full review on right here. Though, all things considered, “famous” would be a bit of an overstatement, as these games are very much cult games, being all but completely ignored in Japan, and not doing fantastic overseas either, with the upside of those who have played them often loving them, including me, with Nine Hours, Nine Persons, Nine Doors and AI: The Somnium Files being some of my favorite games out there. However, before the days of Zero Escape, Uchikoshi got his start working at KID, a now defunct developer most famous for its two visual novel series, those being Memories Off, a series of romance VNs that have unfortunately never seen the light of day outside of Japan, not even through fan translations, and the Infinity series, the brainchild of Uchikoshi and the equally insane Takumi Nakazawa, consisting of Never7, Ever17, Remember11, 12Riven, and Code_18, though, reasonably speaking, only those first three, as the latter two were pretty badly received. Science fiction VNs that are mostly connected by their shared themes, these games laid the groundwork for Zero Escape, and are ironically the exact opposite in terms of popularity, being well received and popular in Japan when released, but almost completely unknown in America even today, for understandable reasons, as only Ever17 was officially released in English, with Never7 and Remember11 only being playable with fan translations, along with just being old. Never7 originally was released in 2000, with Ever17 and Remember11 coming out in 2002 and 2004 respectively. Needless to say, these games have long lost their chance at the spotlight, but my curiosity has driven me to them, and thus, we arrive at today’s topic: the first game in the series, Never7. Note that I played the PSP version, as while the translation was originally made for the PC version, that version is really not recommended, for reasons I’ll detail later in the review. Either way, here it be.

20 year old Makoto Ishihara is an unremarkable college student theoretically majoring in psychology, but in practice has majored in skipping the majority of his classes due to his lack of personal direction. This slacker attitude comes back to bite Makoto when he finds himself forcibly signed up for the strange “Seminar Camp”, set on a faraway island and lasting from April 1st to April 7th, with no apparent purpose other than to strengthen the bonds between the members of the group. The other members of Makoto’s group are Yuka Kawashima, a friendly, outgoing girl who serves as the group’s leader, Haruka Higuchi, a quiet, mysterious honor student, and Okuhiko Iida, an infamous playboy who also happens to be heir to the Iida Financial Group. During their week on the island, the group also befriends three others unrelated to the camp: Saki Asakura, an old friend of Yuka’s who comes from a rich family, Kurumi Morino, an energetic and cheerful girl, and her older sister Izumi Morino, the temporary manager of the cafe Lunabeach, whose motherly nature quickly gives her a place as the mediator of the group.

Unfortunately, this otherwise relaxing stay proves to have its own share of problems, mostly within the group. Yuka, despite being the leader, is rather reckless, with a tendency to get unreasonably drunk every chance she gets. Haruka avoids interaction to the point of seeming cold, and insists, among other things, that she “has no heart”. Okuhiko is a shallow jerk who instantly takes a disliking to Makoto, and has a fixation on Haruka that he takes to controlling levels, despite her clear disinterest. Saki, though perfectly affable in group settings, is unnecessarily difficult, stubborn, and harsh in one on one conversation, with a tendency to lash out at others when upset. Kurumi is extremely childish, despite being 17 years old, and even the otherwise dependable Izumi is more than a bit scatterbrained and secretive. As both bonds and tensions form within the group over the week, Makoto is faced with something far more concerning: mysterious premonitions of near future events that always turn out to be correct, coupled with a strange dream which seems to predict the death of someone on the 6th while holding a strange bell, with him soon finding said bell washed up on the beach one night.

It’s pretty much impossible to talk about this game without giving away that it is much more than a simple romance VN, despite it being the big twist of the game when it was first released. Unfortunately, the twists of the game mostly rely on being a surprise, and aren’t very developed otherwise, for the most part, and the story is mostly focused on romance. Considering how elaborate Uchikoshi’s later games are, this is absolutely the biggest reason why Never7 remains so obscure even by Infinity’s standards, considering that Uchikoshi fans are pretty much the only ones who’d be interested in this game nowadays, and knowing that this game isn’t even close to the same level of complexity as his more famous games is the biggest thing that has to be kept in mind when considering anything about it.

The game consists of a beginning common route, 5 routes for Yuka, Haruka, Saki, Kurumi, and Izumi, and the two Curé routes: Izumi Curé, the final route, which takes the plot in a vastly different direction, and serves to completely supplant Izumi’s original route as well, as it’s rather infamously disappointing, and Yuka Curé, a retelling of Yuka’s route from her own perspective. While Yuka Curé is an extra accessed outside of the main game, the rest are accessed in pretty typical VN fashion: the game starts with a common route that serves to introduce the characters, setting, and a few plot elements, before eventually diverging into one of several character specific routes depending on your choices within the common route, namely building up affection points with the characters, and seeing specific, important scenes concerning them. Having enough points and having all requisite plot flags will lock you into that character’s route, with the game otherwise defaulting to Yuka’s route. Not anything atypical of the genre here.

For the most part, this system is fairly forgiving, and works fine. It’s usually pretty easy to figure out what choices actually affect affection, whether from the options themselves, or the reactions of the characters, and the amount of points needed is fairly lenient for each. There’s also a scene near the end common route that has several variations based on which character you have the most affection with, once again defaulting to Yuka if you don’t have sufficient points with any of the others, allowing you an easy way to figure out if you’re on the right path. That said, there’s still definitely frustrations it can cause. While you technically have plenty of freedom to choose what route to pursue on your first playthrough, only Yuka and Haruka’s routes are on the easier side, with Saki’s route being difficult to navigate to and through due to her contrarian nature, with most of the options that involve angering her being the ones to raise affection, and Kurumi’s route forcing you to branch off to a scene involving Izumi instead of her when given the option. Izumi’s routes are also very glaringly not available at first, with options related to her in the common route slowly being unlocked with each route completed instead. While it is actually pretty neat to witness and does make sense, as Izumi’s normal route is not at all serious, and the Curé route is absolutely meant to be saved for last, as far as the serious routes go, it’s still kinda awkward once you notice it, and accessing them carries its own frustration, namely pulling the reverse of the Kurumi route situation and needing to go with Kurumi instead of Izumi at the same point.

Each route also contains multiple endings, with Yuka’s, Haruka’s, Saki’s, and Kurumi’s routes having one bad and one good ending, Izumi’s routes having two bad endings and one good ending each, and Yuka Curé having one bad and two good endings, all of which depend on certain important decisions within the routes, typically at the climax, with specific steps needing to be taken to achieve the good endings, with everything else leading to the bad endings. It’s actually pretty easy to figure out what’s needed for the good endings most of the time, and even if you screw up, it doesn’t take long to fix your mistake, as the game autosaves at the start of every scene and everytime a decision is available. That said, even this has a few frustrating parts. Kurumi’s ending is a lot easier to screw up than the others, and the Haruka, Saki, and Izumi Curé routes keep the affection mechanic, whereas the others forego it once locked into, forcing you to continue gaining points to reach a certain minimum by the climax, or you’re automatically locked into the bad endings. While it’s still pretty easy to do with Haruka and Izumi, to the point you may gain enough points just from the common route, Saki’s route once again causes the most issue with this mechanic, with the choices tending to be just as confusing as in the common route, which is especially bad if you only barely scraped into her route in the first place. As one last note on the affection mechanic, Yuka and Saki’s routes have scenes and CGs that can only be viewed with certain amounts of affection, with Yuka’s needing a rather high amount that forces you to get as many as possible, and Saki’s rather confusing needing less than a certain high amount, based on my testing. The game barely gives any indication of this, outside of showing scenes in their routes missing in the playing log.

As far as length goes, this isn’t exactly Clannad or Grisaia; while not short, it’s only about average length for a VN. Both the common route and the character routes go by pretty quickly, with only Izumi Curé being noticeably lengthy. The bigger plot elements don’t have much focus at all before the character routes kick in, and only the Izumi Curé and Yuka routes place any great focus on them, which can leave it feeling pretty half baked overall. Additionally, the two Curé routes weren’t even in the original version of the game, which released for the PS1 as Infinity, and thus the elements within Izumi Curé can feel a bit jarring compared to the rest of the game. Altogether, this gives the impression of a game that’s, at best, just average, and only notable as a prototype for the later games in the series. However, while I’m not going to argue against how unappealing Never7′s basic nature can be in comparison to Ever17 or Zero Escape, I actually ended up liking it quite a bit, probably a good deal more than average, and feel it does overall do more things right than wrong.

The cast of characters is by far the best part of Never7. While Makoto is a very basic and forgettable protagonist, and Okuhiko only really exists to be the butt of jokes, though even he gets a couple of moments of depth, everyone else is likeable and complex in their own ways. Yuka, though having a lot of traits that could just easily make her irritating, instead manages to be surprisingly charming. Saki is genuinely sympathetic despite the many low points she has, and the parts of the story that focus on her are generally some of the best parts of the game. My favorite character by far is Haruka, who has, in my opinion, the best route in the game, with many memorable and tender moments as early as the common route, and very well done character development which makes it flow better than a good deal of the other routes, and has a tragic element that stands out even when most of the rest of the cast does as well, which leads to many of the more emotional moments of the game. Haruka’s scenes are another consistent highlight of the writing, and she is overall a surprisingly memorable character among the cast, in my opinion.

Speaking of routes, they’re definitely the other main highlight of the writing. While the structure of the plot means that they can feel a bit samey at times, they do do a good job of developing their respective characters, and do have their own little twists along the way to make them stand out. Additionally, unlike some romance VNs, the rest doesn’t simply vanish outside of their own routes. As the relationships between the cast are important parts of their characters, each character plays a role of some importance in at least one route each, which helps keep focus on each character. It’s not quite perfectly balanced, though; Saki is very noticeably screwed for screentime, only playing a noticeable role in Yuka’s route, and having no presence in any other route besides her own. This also rather bizarrely applies to Yuka herself to a lesser degree, despite being the most blatantly advertised of the characters, while Haruka and Izumi tend to have more of the focus between routes.

Aside from the aforementioned Haruka route, some of my other favorite routes would be Saki’s route, for its surprisingly tense atmosphere and focus on the tensions within the group giving it a very different feel from most of the other routes, Yuka Curé, as Yuka’s perspective is refreshingly different from Makoto’s and gives her quite a bit more depth, while having a fair few potential divergences from the normal Yuka route, along with giving Saki a very prominent supporting role, and Izumi Curé, for giving the biggest taste of the kind of direction future games would go. The plot elements revealed within are quite interesting, and force you to take a whole different perspective when considering the rest of the game up to this point, and ends with a tasteful amount of ambiguity that, among other things, reasonably lets you decide just which of the routes you think is “real”, despite the seemingly decisive focus and finality it has. Overall, I actually ended up quite a bit more attached to this cast than I was expecting, and while it wasn’t even close to getting to me like, say, Steins;Gate or AI: The Somnium Files, there’s a few decently emotional moments throughout, particularly on the Yuka, Haruka, and Izumi Curé routes.

But despite the dark or depressing moments Never7 can get into, in the end, it’s a lighthearted and optimistic game, and all things considered, that’s for the best for it. It’s not trying to be a dark dramatic story, just a relaxing and pleasant experience with a few twists to it, and after going through gruesome experiences like Zero Escape and Chaos;Child, I honestly kinda appreciate that.

As far as the game’s more technical aspects go, the characters and art were done by Yuna Kagesaki, best known for the manga Chibi Vampire/Karin. While the artstyle isn’t anything special, visually, the game is actually quite good looking overall. The character designs all look quite good, and the sprites and CGs are also well made, with the sprites notably giving all the characters many different poses, which make them quite distinct, even if a few tend to make the characters in question look a bit odd. While the PSP’s lower resolution and smaller screen means the sprites and backgrounds don’t look as good as the PC version, and that entire CGs and sprites can’t fit on the screen, it actually looks better than the PC version in places, from visual effects like rain, to the filters placed over the character sprites during sunset and night, to even just the UI. The PC version is extremely bare bones, but the PSP version has plenty of neat little menus and features such as a backlog, a detailed CG gallery that includes promotional artwork along with the art within the game itself, a playing log that includes detailed statistics and allows you to view how many scenes you’ve seen within the game, and how much dialogue you’ve seen within each, a music gallery, and a glossary that helps define terms and concepts within the game. While these aren’t quite special, they are very appreciated all the same, and make the PSP version of Never7 the definitive version. Still, here’s a comparison of the two versions, with the rainbow textbox being exclusive to the PC version.

Never7 also features a soundtrack composed by the great Takeshi Abo, who, along with the rest of the Infinity series, is the composer for the Science Adventure series, i.e. Steins;Gate and Chaos;Child. The original soundtrack, used in the PC version, was, to be honest, a bit rough in places, but the PSP version uses a remixed soundtrack first made for the PS2 port, which is nothing short of fantastic. The soundtrack fits the mood of the game perfectly, being very relaxing or upbeat. Each character’s theme fits them perfectly, and the music always manages to fit the context of each scene, particularly the song Languor, which fits both definitions of the word: pleasantly tired, or oppressively stiff. My favorite tracks have to be Izumi’s warm theme, the rather emotional main theme of the game, Once More, and especially Haruka’s downright beautiful theme. Exclusive to the PSP is a rather neat OP played at the start of the game, and an ED used for the original five routes, performed by the band Asriel, with the Curé routes having different EDs that were composed well before this port. Never7 also features a voice cast of voice actors both new and popular at the time, mostly notably the late Tomoko Kawakami as Yuka, Yuki Matsuoka as both Haruka and Kurumi, and Kikuko Inoue as Izumi. Everyone does a pretty decent job, with Yuki Matsuoka particularly managing to make both her characters sound very different. Most of the voice acting is rather compressed, even if it still sounds okay, but the voice acting in the Izumi Curé route is uncompressed, which, while a bit jarring when compared to the original voice acting, certainly sounds much better.

Overall, whether or not I would recommend Never7 heavily depends. If you want a crazier, much more visibly Uchikoshi experience, a much deeper kind of romance game like Clannad, or even just an especially emotional experience, you’re not likely to be impressed, and it’s not recommended in that case. However, the lighthearted nature of the game, average length, and likeable cast make for an experience that is actually quite enjoyable in its own right. If you can keep your expectations reasonable and lowered and just take it as it is, you’ll likely find a fun, easily accessible kind of experience, with some great art, beautiful music, and more than a few distinctive moments in its own right that I would genuinely recommend giving a fair try if you care for visual novels at all.

With that, more words than likely anyone has spoken in defense of this game, I’m off to take another dive into visual novel hell, soon including this game’s far more famous sequel, Ever17. Till next time. -Scout

#visual novel #kotaro uchikoshi #game review #playstation portable #long post

13 notes · View notes

capnjay21 · 4 years

Text

A House is Never Still Epilogue

Five years ago, Emma Swan disappeared under mysterious circumstances. Killian Jones’ disappearance, well, not so mysterious – given the denizens of Storybrooke all but blamed him for her murder. Drawn back to town by a series of strange events, he soon realises the story of what really happened the night she vanished is beginning to unravel, and what’s more: it isn’t over.

A/N: and there it ends! thank you all so much for jumping on this crazy train with me. I hope I might see some of you on some other fics in future, but for now peace & love, thank you to every SINGLE one of you that decided to click on this little piece of weirdness, I have had so so so much fun bringing @hollyethecurious art to life <3 over and out!

Rating: T

Warnings: mentions of suicide, canonical character death, and some Spooky Business™.

Last go of the teeny tiny taglist, thank you squad! <3

@snowbellewells @carpedzem @kmomof4 @optomisticgirl @lfh1226-linda

AO3 | one | two | three | four | five | six

-/-

epilogue

“A house is never still in darkness to those who listen intently; there is a whispering in distant chambers, an unearthly hand presses the snib of the window, the latch rises. Ghosts were created when the first man awoke in the night.”

– J.M. Barrie

Present Day

Emma had expected it to be more difficult to return to the place Brooke House had once stood.

The last few days had passed in a rapid flurry of everyone telling her how much Brooke House had taken from her – the last five years of her life, for one. Her high school graduation. Her own funeral, apparently, her bus ticket to Augusta. Her last chance to thank Archie Hopper for everything he had done for her before he moved away. Five Super Bowls, David had added, rattling off Patriots, Broncos, Patriots, Eagles, Patriots – seriously, Pats again? – before she had a chance to let him know a five year stint as a permanent haunted house resident hadn’t made her any less indifferent to football.

Tom Brady is the GOAT, was all Killian had offered when she looked to him for backup, much to her exasperation.

But it was more than that. Those first few hours out of Brooke House had made her feel like a child, she hadn’t been able to stop herself from clinging to Killian, to David, to Ruth; she had to be touching something, holding something, just to remind herself it was all real and not another cruel trick. The darkness had dangled the tantalizing notion of a rescue before her so many times that she was sure her imagination was strong enough to conjure up one so tangible all on its own.

But this was it. This was real. She was home.

“What else did you see?” Killian had asked her once, quietly, while they sat on the steps leading out into Regina’s backyard.

It had overgrown into something wild and crooked, another marker for the passage of time, with large tufts of grass and weeds growing in all directions, some even reaching as far as her hip. The apple tree at the centre was the only tended for and trimmed element amongst the unruly greenery, but the untamed nature of the rest of it comforted Emma. It made her feel like she was in the forest again.

When Emma had not immediately replied, Killian had elaborated. “In the – storm. Other than your parents, I mean. What else did you see?”

The storm, they had taken to calling it, as if it were just a passing, temporary weather event. Emma knew what it really was. Sometimes it was like she could still feel it breathing within her, sinking into the marrow of her bones, and in a way, she supposed it was.

Demons you could vanquish, but darkness stayed with you. It was born with you and it died with you and sometimes in the middle it reminded you from time to time that it was there.

She had smiled at Killian tightly and shaken her head. He looked troubled, but like he understood. She couldn’t think about it anymore; she wanted to move forwards, not backwards.

Which was why she had insisted they return to where the house had been.

“I don’t want to always be thinking about it,” she said, looking around at their reluctant faces. “I want to see it and know that it’s over.”

She had thought it would be more difficult to head back there – but with Killian’s hand in hers and the others following close behind, she had felt herself grow in confidence with every step along the White Pine trail, and further still once they stepped off of it. Her pulse raced, but it wasn’t for the same reckless, debilitating fear that it had thumped with that first night, when everything looked too vivid to be anything but a dream and she was waiting for the ground to crumble underneath her, to send her shattering back into the walls of Brooke House.

Killian had come for her. Even after five years, he refused to give up.

He had spent so much time apologising for not coming sooner, but she didn’t care about all that. It had taken her that amount of time to master herself enough to start to slip through the cracks, to try and show him something of her after she felt him cross the town line, and not just the demon.

As expected, the clearing was empty when they got there.

She felt the barest tingle, the skim of something other brush across her arms and down her neck, but it wasn’t strong enough to be anything but a whisper against her skin.

“Look,” David said, pointing into the centre.

There, where they had left it buried into the earth, stood the dagger.

Emma felt a shot of rage and a thrill of something greedy which frightened her; it wasn’t whispering to her like it used to, but it felt like it was trying to. Clearing its throat over and over and searching for sound.

“Are you alright?” Killian asked, and she realised he was peering closely at her.

She offered him a quick smile, willing it to be anything but as brittle as she felt. “I – yeah.”

Five years. Five years of her life.

Storybrooke had been amazed to see her return. She was due to go back down to the Sheriff station for yet another interview with Graham Humbert, where she was sure he would try and grill her again for details about what she remembered – and she was speaking truthfully when she told him she remembered very little. Like a strange, distant dream, the more she tried to clutch at her experiences in Brooke House, the more they seemed to vanish like smoke.

The only clear picture left was the image of her mother, lifting a baby Emma out of the car, and placing her on the side of the freeway.

She had no idea if it was even real. It still made her want to cry.

The only positive about the process of closing the missing persons case was that it lifted Killian off the hook – in the eyes of the law, at least. Not in the eyes of the town. She was surprised by the vitriol with which he was still met with, and while he could no longer be punished with a murder charge, no doubt most of Storybrooke still believed he had kidnapped her and only recently released her. No matter how angry it made her, he begged her to let it go. After everything that had happened he told her he couldn’t care less, that everybody who mattered knew the truth and he bore no ill will to any of the residents who still looked at him like he was still a stain on their otherwise perfect town. None of that mattered to him.

Sometimes, he had said, with the sort of smile that made him look like he was letting her in on a secret, the best books have the dustiest jackets.

Killian was her favourite chapter of every novel she had ever read. He was the feeling of curling your toes under a warm rug in front of a fire, he was the splash of cool water in the heat of summer. He was her favourite song, her best fitting jacket, that moment you could finally take off your boots at the end of a long day. To her, he would always be twelve and kind and sad, and seventeen and strong and yearning, but now he was something else too – he was twenty-two and scarred but still hoping, loving, and knowing there was something better out there for them. He was so confident that now they had fought so hard for their happiness, their freedom, that the universe would naturally bend, compensate, and let them have it for as long as they wanted it.

Only sky for miles, and miles, and miles.

She had to match that confidence. She had to.

So, because he wanted her to, she didn’t try to take on the town and their ill feeling. She did, however, make sure Ruth Nolan, at the very least, understood the situation perfectly, and insisted she apologise for any wrongful blame she might have cast on Killian in the wake of her disappearance. And at Emma’s request she had done so, emphatically. In fact, she had cried when she thought of any additional pain she might have caused him, but Killian had dismissed her worry and forgiven her immediately. This, at least, was a victory that they could have.

In the clearing, Killian’s hand tightened on hers. Maybe he sensed her thoughts had wandered elsewhere.

The others were also stood, staring pensively at the dagger. Only two inches or so were buried into the soil, so the flat edge of the curved blade could still be seen, and so could the fact that there wasn’t a single name on it. No more names of those stolen in the middle of the night or sent crashing over clifftops; no more victims for the demon to want to keep score of.

But Emma did not want to be a victim.

She squeezed Killian’s hand, once, and then let go.

Feeling the others’ eyes on her, Emma stepped forward and crouched in front of the dagger, feeling that hiss of something other reaching out for her. It cajoled, it pleaded, it invited her to take another look, to give it one last chance, but it was easy to brush the tendrils of its hunger away now. There was no heat behind it. It was just metal in the earth; it held no power over her now.

Emma reached forward, clasping a hand around its hilt, and tugging it out of the soil. Dirt crumbled from the edge of the blade and dribbled onto the ground underneath.

Five years. Five years of her life.

“This will not define me,” she vowed.

In the end, they had taken it to the ravine. She could feel the dagger heating up against her palm the nearer they got, it knew, she could tell, but she hadn’t let that stop her from hurling it out into the air. It had arced neatly across the gorge before disappearing down below, the distant ripple of its landing in the river just barely visible from where they stood.

It was gone. It was over.

And she was home.

They all watched as the current continued to flow, the harsh purl of the river against the banks of the ravine a distant roar. This was near to where Liam had driven over, that much she knew. They all had ghosts they wanted buried down below.

“There’s still one thing I don’t understand,” Killian said, finally.

Mary Margaret let out an amused sound. “Only one?”

Her hand was curled around David’s arm, and she was leaning in close to him. They had spent the entire night talking when they had come back from Brooke House, and much of the following day. What they discussed David had kept close to his chest, even from Emma, but something about looking at them now made her heart want to burst. This was something they had all earnt.

Killian hummed in reply, but he was smiling. He quickly mastered it and tried to school his features into something a little more serious.

The hard line of his jaw, the beard she most definitely approved of, the barely visible scar on his right cheek. She loved him. She loved all of it.

“It’s just… it’s Liam. How did he know all that stuff about how to banish a demon? Or better yet, why didn’t he just hightail it out of town immediately after being threatened by a malevolent spirit?” Killian shook his head, a flicker of sadness crossing his features and Emma stepped a little closer to him. “He stayed, he made all those notes on the ritual, he went to talk to Belle, on his own… I was always only ever following in his footsteps. So how did he know to do all this by himself?”

They were all silent for a moment, eyes fixed on where the dagger had disappeared beneath the surface down below.

“Magic is… it’s real,” David said, almost disbelievingly, but Emma knew he didn’t doubt anymore.

Her fingertips tingled with possibility. Oh, how it changed the world.

“I guess it isn’t so farfetched to assume he was somebody that knew that.”

Killian looked distressed at the notion. “But why wouldn’t he tell me?”

“You were just a kid,” Regina offered, with almost uncharacteristic gentleness. “Maybe he would have, later.”

There was so much they still didn’t know, and perhaps they never would – Killian had told her that Liam had never really wanted to talk about their parents. Maybe there was something in that. Maybe there wasn’t. Maybe, in the end, Liam Jones had been just as scared as they all were, and had improvised as best he could.

Liam Jones. Five whole years – lost not just to her, but to all of them.

Brooke House would not, could not, take anything else from them now.

Regina turned to go, with Mary Margaret and David following close behind.

Killian and Emma hung back just a little, staring out into the gorge and down into the frothy waters below. It had been there for a couple of days now, that heaviness that hung around Killian’s shoulders like reluctance or trepidation, so finite you could miss it if you didn’t know the curve of his smile as intimately as Emma knew it.

And she knew what it had to mean, too.

She let out a long breath through her mouth. “You’re not staying, are you?”

Killian closed his eyes. After a few thinly stretched moments, he spoke.

“I always thought that once we got you back, everything would just… right itself. Storybrooke would feel like home again. Everything would be as it was before.”

Before, when they were teenagers and invincible and they could do anything just because anything was what they had always been told they could do. When the town could look at them all with fondness because that was how you looked at the promising next generation of likeminded neighbours; when there had been a bus waiting to take them to Augusta still fresh-faced, wide eyed, and about to get their lives started.

“But it can’t be like before,” Emma said, slipping her hand into his. “You know that.”

Oh, how it changed the world.

Killian sighed, like he knew this but did not want to be told it. He squeezed her hand.

“You know I’m coming too, right?” she informed him.

He instantly tried to pull away, shaking his head. “Emma, I couldn’t ask you to –”

“Then it’s a good thing you’re not asking,” she said firmly. “I’m telling you. You go, I go.”

Killian swallowed. “But… Ruth, David –”

“Going away doesn’t mean never coming back,” she pointed out. “You should know that better than anyone.”

This, he conceded.

“I love you,” he said.

Emma was surprised to see something like apprehension lingering in his expression as he said it, and when she thought on it she was startled to realise that might be the first time he had said it out loud. No conditions, no threats to life or limb or worse. It astonished her, but only because she felt like she had been hearing him say he loved her since she was twelve, in every deed or action that he had shaped tenderly and perfectly just for her.

Saying words, she decided, did not make them magic. It was everything else that made them so spellbinding.

She lifted a hand to his cheek and kissed him slowly, on the spot where it all began.

“I love you too.”

Hand in hand, they began their slow walk back to the treeline.

“So, where are we going?”

Killian rubbed a hand on the back of his neck. “I hate to admit it, but Augusta really blew. Too damp. I was there for three months and it rained basically the entire time.”

“No way, it sucked? After all that build up?” she laughed. Killian nodded regretfully, but he was smiling.

“I was actually thinking – well. I went back to the group home a little while ago, and they said Archie moved to Portland. I have no idea if he’d still be there, but,” he lifted his shoulder in a half shrug, “I have some stuff I’d like to say to him. If – if there’s an opportunity to do so.”

Emma hummed a little in agreement. “That’s something else we have in common.”

Portland, then. She remembered that summer they spent the day traipsing around looking for a particular lobster restaurant that had turned up nothing besides one perfect, happy day with Killian. Maybe this time they’d have better luck. It filled her with immeasurable warmth to think on their lives together extending out in front of them, the red carpet to the show of her life, just now beginning again but ready to soar.

Killian was speaking, but Emma’s attention was suddenly drawn elsewhere; something had almost imperceptibly changed in the air, like a sound she had been hearing in her subconscious had dropped out without warning. She tensed. It was somehow a lot colder than it had been a moment ago, and gooseflesh erupted up her arms and down the back of her neck.

Subtly, so Killian wouldn’t notice, she turned her head to look over her shoulder.

There, at the edge of the ravine, stood the scaled man, his mouth wide to reveal a set of crooked, sharp teeth. His basket of spun gold twine stood proudly at his feet. He raised a hand to her in greeting, nails pointy and black –

She blinked and he was gone.

Her heart hammered one terrible thump against her ribcage.

Nothing could ever be like it was before.

Not now she carried the truth so tacitly; the truth that everyone knew but refused to speak aloud, keeping it hidden in the most desperate, sacred corner of their hearts.

Darkness never left you.

It was born with you, it died with you, and sometimes, in the middle, it liked to remind you that it was there.

-/-

Coda – Date Unknown

Mom had always told him not to play out by the creek, but he couldn’t help it. It was by far the most interesting part about visiting Grandma, since they had to spend the whole weekend there and the town always seemed to him like it would rather be fast asleep. There was nothing to do; no arcade, no park, and only one diner that served the same six meals over and over without fail. Mom hated it when he complained, but he was eleven, not four, and Grandma was snoring half the time anyway. He needed to find entertainment somewhere.

But the creek was different. It was vivid where everything else was lazy, a sapphire current of fast but shallow water, with a tide that rose and fell so unpredictably that he had returned home with soaking wet sneakers more times than he could count. His favourite game was leaping from stone to stone as far out as he dared, until the water got deeper, so deep he couldn’t see to the bottom anymore, and tried to keep his balance and stop himself toppling in.

Today he was determined to make it a few stones farther than yesterday. There was a particularly sturdy looking one shaped like a tooth that stuck out in the centre, and he was sure if he could make it as far as the large, flat rock next to it, then he’d be able to balance on Tooth for a few moments and really feel like the King of the river.

He heard someone call his name and his heart leapt into his mouth – Dad. Shoot. Mom always sent Dad out looking for him when she thought he was by the creek. He still sounded a long way off, though. If he started now, there was a chance he could make it all the way out to Tooth and back before he was seen, and pretend he was just skimming the woods looking for rabbits.

He shirked his jacket and rolled it up into a ball, leaving it on the bank like a marker of where he needed to return to, and began hopping across his usual route. For a fleeting moment he almost lost his balance on the fourth rock, and paused to steady himself before starting out again. After a minute or so he made it to the stone he’d gotten to yesterday, something blocky but wide enough to hold him without concern.

Yesterday, Tooth had looked so far away, like something far beyond his reach. He was sure it was closer today.

Or, he decided eagerly, he was just bigger than he was yesterday.

Gathering his courage, he aimed for the large rock beside tooth and pushed off with a fierce leap – before landing in an unsteady huff exactly where he meant to. Elated, he couldn’t help it – he let out a crow of success, a loud and wild thing that echoed out into the walls of the cliff faces around him.

When Dad’s shouts started to grow louder and nearer, he realised that was probably not the best idea.

He hurriedly turned his attention to Tooth, jutting out from the fast current like the ancient fang of a mountain lion, or – or the end of the tusk of a woolly mammoth. Its tip was sharp and narrow, and he realised now, up close, that he would probably only be able to get one foot up onto it, which meant he wouldn’t be able to balance there for very long.

Before he could take the final step and make it there, something caught his eye under the surface of the water. Out here the river was deep and quick, and he wasn’t stupid enough to just stick his arm in and reach blindly, but something was definitely – there. It had to be something shiny, it kept reflecting the light of the sun back at him.

It was probably buried treasure! Gold or real sapphires, emeralds, something that would make Mom and Dad so pleased they wouldn’t even care that he’d been out by the creek.

Kneeling down, he examined it a little closer. It must be wedged into the side of Tooth, which was why it hadn’t been carried away by the current or sunk down to the waterbed. He reached into the water and wrapped his hand around it – it was surprisingly narrow, heavy and wedged tight.

He had to wiggle it about for a minute or two, slowly edging out from where it had gotten stuck, and after a final heave it suddenly came loose and his momentum almost sent him stumbling back into the water.

After regaining his balance, he paused to examine his prize.

With a surge of disappointment, he realised it wasn’t gold or jewels, but it was beautifully made – it made him think of the knights in his storybook or soldiers ready to fight a forever war. It was some kind of knife, but the blade was beautifully curved in a way he’d never seen in any picture book, like the long tail of a snake curling into a sharp, deadly point.

It looked like it could really do some damage. It filled him with a special kind of thrill when he considered it. It made him feel – powerful.

And it… it whispered, almost.

The sound of someone calling his name, from incredibly nearby, jerked him from his reverie.

There stood Dad, arms folded sternly beside his discarded jacket on the riverbank, looking cross.

Crap.

He wasn’t sure why, but something made him want to conceal his new discovery from his father, so he tucked it behind him while he yelled an apology. Dad looked annoyed, but in that relaxed, almost-fun sort of way that told him if he played his cards right, he might just call him rascal, ruffle his hair a little and not tell Mom about it all.

When Dad bent to pick up the rolled up jacket left on the riverbank, the boy used that half a second to spare another glance at the knife, resting temptingly in his palm.

“Come on, kid,” Dad called.

Yes, he heard someone say. Come. Listen.

The boy tightened his hand around the knife – no, dagger, the word suddenly came to him, fascinated by its curve.

“Henry!”

Henry stood quickly, stuffing the dagger hurriedly underneath his shirt to keep it from view.

“Yeah, yeah!” he called back, readying himself to hop back onto the next rock.

His heart quivered with the hum of a new adventure.

#jay writes #a house is never still #cs role reversal #cs fic #cs ff #captain swan #cs au #cs halloweek #killian jones #emma swan #here it ends!

31 notes · View notes

littlemisssquiggles · 4 years

Note

Hey so this is my opinion but love to hear your take but I feel Watts might be Salem's more dangerous follower (for where the heroes are now) given he is been able to fly under the rader of the heroes unditected, able to make artifical tail of Tyrieon giving his deadly venom back and is able to hack into all of ATLAS Tech. He might not have any proper fighting skill but when he can have access to anything in a city in love with it's tech, he's the ideal sabatour.

Hello again Crystal. Complements of the season to you, fam! To answer your question, you are indeed correct in that regard. While Tyrian and Hazel are both worthy threats based on their strength, Watts being the mastermind in Salem’s army is why I find him the most interestingof her accomplices.

You’re right. While Watts doesn’t have the muscle power to hold his own in a fight, he does have the wits and the charisma to worm himself out of any tricky scenario. I have a great deal of admiration for that type of villain. I mean having power is great and all but a villain who is still able to succeed through clever tactics and the strength of their own mind by manipulating others into doing their bidding makes for a more compelling adversary in my book.

A part of me is looking forward to learning more about Watts’ backstory. Particularly his background with Ironwood and Pietro. After CH7 dropped and we got the reveal that Watts used to be one of Pietro’s colleagues, I made a tweet over on Twitter asking the following questions:

Since Pietro’s introduction, we’ve seen him walking around in his mobile wheelchair. A part of me has been curious about Pietro’s inability to walk.

Has he always been physically disabled and worked past his impairment with his mind or…was it a result of a horrible accident meant to destroy him?

The impression I got from Pietro’s story was since his Penny project was chosen by Ironwood above the others, a jealous-minded Arthur Watts became infuriated by this and sought out to sabotage Pietro’s project while taking his revenge out on Ironwood and all of Atlas in the process.

A part of me wondered if Watts’ alleged “death” was caused by him attempting to ruin Pietro in a move that claimed the lives of Pietro’s other colleagues as well as costed him his legs or…were Pietro’s former colleagues actually accomplices of Watts who he manipulated into helping him thwart Pietro’s project which resulted in everyone else dying except Watts?

I’m very curious about that. Watts has been shown to have a way with words. So I’m wondering if part of the reason why Salem sought after him was, not just for his mind, but also his ability to charm others into doing whatever he wants like her.

I really, really hope we get like some kind of flashback episode or explanation revealing Penny’s ‘birth’, Watts’ descent and supposed death and more importantly, how Watts met Salem. I’m wondering if it was actually Tyrian who scouted Watts on Salem’s behalf. I remember reading through the enhanced report on Tyrian with details on his backstory and how he met Salem. I find it incredibly fascinating how Salem and chooses her allies.

It shows just how much Salem has eyes everywhere. Like how did she know about Tyrian? How did she know about Watts to pick him of all people? Seriously I hope we get some background information on Watts’ story. I think I need that to be its own little episode by itself that jumps between the present and the past (in a similar fashion to the Kunoyuri episode from V4). But that’s just what I’m hoping for.

For now, yeah, Watts is Salem’s most intimidating accomplice and pairing him together with Tyrian to work together in Atlas was an even deadlier combination.

Colour me intrigued for what’s next to come in V7CH9. Are we going to receive a continuation of the events of CH8? Or will be similar to the start of CH7 where all we see is the aftermath?

Weiss once commented back in V7CH3 that without aura or proper heating, the cold of Solitas can kill the average individual in a matter of minutes. So is that what’s going to happen for the remaining five episodes?

Is it going to be a race against the clock to restore heat to Mantle before it’s too late while evacuating as much citizens up to Atlas as possible or…is Ironwood just going to return from his meeting with the Council at the Schnee Dinner to reports of multiple Mantlese citizens found frozen to death in the streets of Mantle—children as well as adults—as a result of the heatinggrid (or whatever it’s called) shutting down on Ironwood’s watch.

What’s stopping Jacques from pinning the blame for that incident on Ironwood yet again?

I bet Jacques is just waiting right now to blame James allocating resources to the Amity Tower project that could’ve been used to better Mantle and prevent this unexpected issue.

Overall, CH9 will be a very interesting episode to watch. Moreover, I’m curious to know what else does Watts have planned to further ruin Ironwood’s integrity with the People of Mantle and Atlas in preparation for Salem’s inevitable arrival.

I still feel as if Watts’ plan is strip Ironwood of all his power so that Jacques can take his place; controlling both the kingdom and its military since I think Jacques will personally see to it that James loses all of his power including his authority within the military with Winter possibility being appointed as his temporary replacement or perhaps it’ll be Clover.

This also makes me wonder if this will be the part where Clover ends up ‘betraying’ Ironwood.

While I like Clover as a character, the impression that I’ve mostly heard with him from the FNDM is that he could potentially be a traitor working with Watts.

While I’m not sure about the traitor part, I do stand by the concept of Clover switching sides and not really catering for loyalty anymore once James is taken out of power. After all, Clover (and by extension all of the Ace Ops) is nothing more than an attack dog trained to serve whoever is in charge without any real personal attachments, correct?

Despite voicing that he trusts Ironwood with his life, I can’t help but shake the icky feeling in my gut that Clover only trusts Ironwood due to his authority and status within the Atlas community. So the instant that’s stripped away from James, so goes Clover’s respect for him.

Like I’m just picturing Jacques usurping James, relinquishing him of his status as Headmaster of Atlas Academy and General of the Atlas Military and demanding his immediate arrest and Clover just goes along with it.

And not as a ruse either. He just arrests James without hesitation, even going so far as to say that his duty is to serve his kingdom and since James was a current threat to his kingdom, he had no choice but to follow orders. Even if they were coming from someone like Jacques. Or who knows? Perhaps this could be a moment of character development for Clover? Something he and Qrow can have conflict with.

What matters more in the end? Loyalty out of duty or loyalty out of friendship?

Perhaps this could be something for Qrow to teach/advise Clover about for a change and it could FINALLY be what reminds him of his relationship with Oz.

Because what I just realized is Qrow and Clover’s similarities in terms of their relationships with the men they respect and serve.

While Clover seems to follow Ironwood and trust him out of a sense of duty and respect, Qrow followed Oz out of...possibly admiration and friendship?

Because at the end of the day, I think that’s what hurt Qrow the most. He didn’t just lose his faith in someone he just blindly served. He lost the trust of someone he obviously cared alot about. A man he was proud to call his friend once upon a time.

I actually would really like for this subplot to happen now just for the sake of having it lead into Qrow being reminded of his relationship with Oz and what it meant to him more than just having someone who gave him a good purpose in the world despite being dealt such a heavy hand.

So there’s that concept. Anyways, that’s enough theorizing and jibberjabbering from me for now. I guess we’ll see how things will go when V7 resumes for the new year. Unless Forest of #FRWBY got anything cool to drop for us before that.

~LittleMissSquiggles (2019)

#crystalandbrass #squiggles answers: rwby #arthur watts #qrow branwen #clover ebi #professor ozpin #oscar pine #ozpin and qrow #qrow and clover #rwby theories #rwby volume 7 theories #rwby volume 7 spoilers

41 notes · View notes

thenexusofsouls · 4 years

Note

Were Natasha and Steve ever a thing? The other day I re-watched Captain America the Winter Soldier and there was a lot of lip staring from Nat... maybe she simply thinks he's handsome (I mean DUHHH) but I don't know, she looked at his lips a lot.

{i am the caretaker of souls} Wow................ I never thought anybody would ever ask this, haha. I honestly never thought I would have to whip out this big, messy ball of headcanons, and I almost don’t want to, heh. Because it’s just so far in left field and I feel like hardcore Natasha fans are gonna be like what are you even doing with her? I have an admittedly weird interpretation of Nat (or at least I feel like it’s weird), and really all of my MCU muses I feel are very canon divergent from the originals. The short answer to your question is no, Natasha and Steve were never a thing... if “a thing” means anything romantic or sexual. There has never been anything, there will never be anything. And if I was smart, I would stop there. But I’m not, haha, and I’m gonna tip over the whole can of headcanon beans right now. LONG.... ahead. And crazy, heh.

My version of Natasha is MCU only, because I have not read her comics in any detail, nor have I read the surrounding comics for people who are integral in her life in the comics (e.g. Bucky). Because really any upstanding and thorough version of Natasha in my opinion should include Bucky as a major ship, if not the only major ship. So therefore my version of her is admittedly truncated and lacking in the ship department (she’s not shipped with anyone in any great detail or meaningful way in my opinion), and is MCU only. That doesn’t mean she doesn’t have feelings for people, it just means she doesn’t act on them, or if she did, it didn’t go anywhere.

My Natasha feels so much more than is immediately noticeable or perceivable to most people. What I mean is, she feels a whole lot about a lot of things, events, and people, that she then recognizes needs to be left unsaid. That doesn’t mean she doesn’t still feel those things with intensity, she just understands that they need to be left alone and not acted on. An example of this was her early feelings for Clint. Yes, she loved him. Yes, she loves him still. But that love has changed forms over the years from something she might have wanted to be more romantic in nature to a friendship. Despite how she felt for him, Natasha recognized that they were better suited to remain friends. Thus, she never acted on her feelings, and certainly after Clint began seeing Laura, she never mentioned them. She never will. Because it needs to be left unsaid. By the time of Endgame, she still loves Clint, but it’s changed into platonic love, a change she actively worked to accomplish within herself over the years, because that’s what it needed to be.

Her second would-be ship in the MCU was Bruce Banner. This ship was doomed from the start because Bruce and Natasha place vastly different things as their priorities. Bruce focuses on himself. I’m not saying that’s a bad thing or that he’s selfish, that’s just how his world works. He focuses on the moral, legal, and collateral damage aspects of him turning green, on the way turning green makes him feel, on the way he feels afterwards, and on what that means for him and his life going forward. Those were all major issues he wrestled with at the time of Ultron, when Natasha tried to confess her feelings for him. Natasha, on the other hand, has always and will always place other people, the world, and the collective good ahead of her own wants, needs, desires, etc. No matter what she wants and how important it is to her, she will always prioritize what needs to be done for a mission at hand, for the fate of the world, or for the safety of her comrades or innocent lives. Even if it goes against what she wants more than anything. Because, deep down, there is nothing she wants more than to be a good person and to be part of good forces in the world.

This is not a selfish thing, like oh I want fame or accolades or to be a big cool superhero, but rather it’s a nature deep down inside her that she cannot ignore and that cannot be overwritten by all the Red Room brainwashing in the world. That drive to bring about good, positive, life-preserving change in the world will always be Natasha’s compass, even if her methods and her own alignment are tilted more towards neutral than lawful. My Natasha is of Neutral Good alignment with True Neutral tendencies, meaning that on the Lawful/Chaotic scale, she is Neutral, and on the Good/Evil scale, she is Good with Neutral tendencies. So she will oscillate between adhering to laws or rules, disregarding them entirely, or skirting them somewhere in the middle, depending upon what she’s trying to do and why. That’s the Lawful/Evil scale. Then on the Good/Evil scale, she is Good the vast majority of the time, Neutral sometimes, and never Evil. A caveat to be added here is that she is never Evil as long as she is in full control of her true nature, so anything directed by the Red Room while she was still being influenced by their attempts at brainwashing might have been under a different temporary alignment.

Okay, back to Bruce now (I promise I am getting to Steve, heh, I’m just taking this opportunity to spill everything about my Nat’s ships XD, and setting all of this up makes explaining her complex relationship with Steve a bit easier). I don’t pretend to understand him very well as a character at all and I honest don’t like him very much, but in my mind, he seems to have a Lawful Neutral with Good tendencies alignment. So that means that he is far more inclined to do things lawfully or by-the-book than Natasha is, and he is skewed more Neutral than Good. He does care about casualties when he turns green, and that’s where the Good tendencies come from, but largely he’s neutral. He cares most about avoiding that terrible feeling he gets after turning green. He wants to reduce his discomfort and embarrassment and shame. That’s what most important to him. So the reason why Bruce x Natasha would never ever have worked is that he is more inwardly focused on himself than he is on the impact he could make on the world if he let go of some of that myopic focus on his own feelings. Natasha, on the other hand, is more focused on her responsibility to the world, her impact on it, how she can change it for the better, and on removing that red in her ledger by working to make herself a better person.

Take their final encounter together before Bruce makes the decision to cut ties with her and the Avengers in Ultron, at least for the immediate future... He wants her to run away with him, in the middle of a job, one that might determine the literal fate of the entire planet. He could do that, conscience-free, because to him leaving behind the battlefield and turning green in favor of having some semblance of a normal life is what matters most. Natasha respond with, “I adore you, but I need the other guy.” In other words, I have feeling for you too but right now, we have a job to do. She can put off her own wants and needs until later in favor of what she views in more important. Bruce... can’t do that for her. He realizes that if he stays with Natasha, he stays with the Avengers, and as long as he stays with them, he will never be able to leave behind the shame, pain, and guilt of turning green. So he breaks it off. And that hurt Nat... a lot.

So Clint and Bruce are past loves of Nat’s in my MCU canon of her. Since they didn’t work out she has painstakingly morphed her feelings for them into friendship, and there they will stay. Steve........ is a similar and yet different story. My version of Natasha has feelings for Steve, but she will never tell him that. Fortunately for her, he has no clue and doesn’t seem to be able to get one, haha. She thinks he’s fairly good looking but that’s not the reason why she’s attracted to him. Natasha doesn’t need looks to love someone at all. The reason she’s attracted to him is the same reason why she knows it would never work... he’s too good for her. Now I don’t mean in the self-worth, sense. Natasha has some self-esteem issues regarding what she’s done in her past, but other than that, she’s very confident in who she is. No, I mean in the very literal alignment sense. He’s literally too Good for her, heh. Even though Natasha is Good, she has Neutral tendencies, and even just that much is enough to make her incompatible with Steve.

Steve may be Neutral with regard to the Lawful/Chaotic scale (as seen in Civil War), but he has always been Good. Paladin level Good. Natasha... is not that. She can’t ever be that. But she admires it greatly. She’s attracted to it. She would love to be that herself. And let me say, Natasha doesn’t have a type, heh. If you look at the people she’s loved, Clint and Bruce and Steve... and it never happened in the MCU but I can see her still loving Bucky too... those are all really different people, personality and alignment-wise. Natasha loves the person, not the type. With Steve, she loves that he has been able to maintain the same moral compass through everything he’s been through and seen, she loves his stubbornness and determination, and she loves the lengths he goes to in order to protect others, whether they’re his best friend or some little kid he doesn’t even know. And it’s not like Steve doesn’t have his arrogant, defiant, misguided, or pigheaded moments, haha, because he does, but Natasha loves the person he is... very much.

So why hasn’t she said anything to him? Why didn’t she give it a shot with him like she did with Bruce? A couple reasons. First, yeah he’s too Good for her. She knows that he would have a lot of problems with any number of ways she handles and views any number of things, heh. They would clash too much on methods, issues, and reasons why they do things, and that kind of constant clashing would lead to an eventual animosity Natasha would never want to develop between her and Steve. Second, Steve isn’t looking, heh. Why? Because he wants Peggy. Nat isn’t Peggy. Not even close. They couldn’t be more different in a multitude of ways, and the ways in which they’re similar aren’t enough, and frankly, Nat wouldn’t want to be a Peggy-substitute. Steve is in love with someone else, and whether he can be with the one he loves or not doesn’t even enter into things for Nat. His heart lies elsewhere, and that makes him off limits. Nat respects that, regardless of how she feels. *shrugs* And that’s that, basically. It shouldn’t be a thing, so Nat makes sure it’s not. Like I said up there, my Nat has a very solid ability to wall off how she feels about a thing, situation, or person and never let it see the light of day if she thinks it ought never to be said. Does it hurt? Yes. Does she cry about this and other things sometimes when she’s alone? Yes. And then she pulls herself together and does what she needs to do. Walling off her emotions isn’t just a coping mechanism for Nat, it’s a well-honed and necessary skill she employs.

Okay if any Natasha fans are still reading at this point and haven’t torn out their hair yet, I’ll really set fire to this dumpster of headcanons by sharing... that... a strange reaction I had after watching Endgame was to write little fanfics about things that bothered me in the MCU thus far and just... not put any restraint or constraints on them, haha. What do I mean by that? Okay well usually when I write a fanfic, I put constraints on them as far as what I’m allowed to write. For example... nothing so out of canon as to be stupidly whacky. Hulk cannot suddenly read minds, Tony can’t fly without his suit, you know, nothing downright dumb. Also nothing so out of character emotionally or personality-wise as to just be ludicrous. Because the point is to write a good quality fic that, while it may deviate from canon, should still seem like it fits within the fictional world and the characters’ core personalities. Well... there’s another reason I write fanfics... or heavily inspired original works, for that matter... and that’s to get out emotion. I call them “garbage stories.” My first published book was a “garbage story,” and quite honestly, that’s why it sucked so much haha. But I digress. Garbage stories are fics or original stories that I write because I’m hurting and I need creative cathartic release. Like... I read a book or saw a movie that hurt me, haha, and I need to squeeze out the hurt through writing. After Endgame, I wrote a number of garbage stories, some as little oneshots, some as starters on here, some with friends off Tumblr, but all were to just fix or smooth over things that bothered me.

For example, I wrote something that saved Tony, heh. Basically, Wanda was able to keep him alive with her magic long enough for emergency help to get to him and stabilize him. I’m not saying he was in great shape, but if I can save Pietro from ten gunshot wounds, some of which hit major arteries and organs, I can save Tony from getting fried by cosmic energy, haha. I also wrote a thing in which Wanda basically prevents Endgame and the snap from even happening, because she chose to focus 100% of her power on Thanos instead of dividing it between him and Vision, allowing her to get the better of him long enough for her teammates to get the gauntlet off of him. It left her exhausted and actually injured (she was bleeding from her nose and ears after the effort and was unconscious), but I think she would have lived. I wrote it as a starter that could be taken up as either a Wanda or a Vision, but I think it was so outlandish that there were no takers, heh. That’s perfectly okay. The point is that it’s “garbage” writing, meant to heal the soul but not necessarily make any sense, lol. But ANYWAY... this was the mindset I was in after Endgame, just... fix my pain!

So... I wrote a garbage story about Nat and Steve. Basically... Nat does her whole sacrifice herself for the soul stone thing... and because she was actually clinically dead for several minutes, it works, but Clint recovers her body and brings her back. (Don’t think too much about it, it’s not gonna make sense, just let it go, haha.) Nat is understandably fucked up. Broken bones, spinal injury, internal bleeding, a skull fracture, the works. But she has moments where she’s conscious. During a moment in which Steve (who didn’t go back in time because I was also fixing that with this fic as well haha) was at her beside telling her that he didn’t want her to be alone, a throwback to what she said to him in Civil War when Peggy passed away, Natasha... who thinks 100% that she’s going to die... confesses to Steve that she loves him. It just one of those moments of weakness where she needed to get it off her chest. All indications were that she was not going to survive, so she felt safe in telling him. But then... she lives. And it’s awkward. It’s out of the bag now and she can’t take it back and everything between them now is going to change, likely for the worse. Everything hits her, from the pain of her injuries to the emotion of the past five years and certainly the past several days, and she just breaks down when she sees him again. In the middle of a cringeworthingly tearful and awkward apology to him, Nat stops when Steve takes her hand and gives it a little squeeze, whispering. “It’s okay, Nat.” And that’s how it ends. There’s no clear answer on how he’s going to handle it because there doesn’t need to be. He’s just... not bothered by it at all.

At the time I wrote it, it did a lot for me emotionally. I thought it was really nice. But as time went on and outrage grew over the canon MCU handling of Steve’s and Natasha’s endings, I started to think that what I wrote was just a mess, heh. It didn’t fix or help anything, it just made it worse. So... I deleted it. I regret that I did, because I’ve kept worse things I’ve written before and even if I never had any intention of showing it to anyone, I should have just kept it for myself. *shrugs* Oh well.

And. That. Was probably. More. Than you EVER wanted to hear on this topic. XD I’m so sorry. This turned into a ranting meta about nothing. Um... but hopefully I at least answered your original question? I tried! XD

1 note · View note