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starpirateee · 3 hours

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Hi!! Could you write one of the Curtwen prompts I made, yet didn’t cut it? I love your writing style!!

Honestly there was a bit of deliberation here because you put some really good ideas out there on the form, but I did say I'd write em myself, and by all means, I'll still do it! So, I decided to go for this prompt:

Would you take a modern au from me? Can I do that?

I mean, I'm going to anyway, because I have a dire need to call Curt and Owen husbands (and also for wider Starkid lore), but i just thought I'd warn you beforehand!

"Agent Carvour, have you found anything yet?"

Owen leaned back away from his research. He'd been looking at the same page now for a while, trying to make some sense of it. Redacted government files were hard to get hold of, but even harder to make ends of. His system had been trying to translate it, but not even he had the software for that.

"Quite possibly, sir. I have a few sources, at least."

"What have you got?"

With an air of something that was almost excitement and almost elation, Owen pulled up a series of documents and started the walk through them. "Well, sir, the easiest source was from a few years ago. There's a company in Michigan that's been trying to conduct various temporal experiments under their parent company— some kind of analyst company, I think. They're surprisingly ordinary. Anyway, apparently the experiments just… Stopped. They never drew a conclusion on whether or not their research was connected to what was on the other side."

This had all started when Chimera had dug up a series of centuries old reports about people claiming to have looked into the eyes of old gods. None of the people had known each other, but all of the reports showed some form of consistency, and all told of great, unknowable power.

So, they had decided to look into it, to see if there had been anyone else who'd dared to brave the process of trying to find an answer. Owen was one of those lucky enough to find himself with the resources to start a thorough investigation.

"They didn't finish?"

"No, I don't know what happened, but the reports just stopped one day."

"Is there anything else?"

"An american government report, but it's as hard as you can imagine to decipher. Most of it is redacted…"

"Anything worth noting?"

Owen nodded, carefully turning back and switching the tabs. This felt a little like he was giving a presentation that he hadn't prepared for, and he hadn't felt like this in quite some time. He took a breath, trying to slow down the rampage that was going on in his head. "They started in the early noughts. 2005, to be precide. That's the earliest I'd gotten without looking at those old reports from the pioneers. A branch of the military tried to build a gateway to the other side, to investigate what existed outside of our plane. I don't know names, only one. The name of the man who performed the experiment."

"They got this gateway open?"

"Yes, sir. And they sent someone through. I think there's a good reason why his is the only name they disclosed."

"Why?"

"Because he was declared dead, sir."

His screen still displayed the document, and the man's name sat among the black markouts, clear enough to see. Cross, W.D. Apparently, he'd ventured into the portal, and nobody heard from him or saw him after the date of the experiment. They gave up the search after a month, and after that, Colonel Cross was indeed declared dead.

"So, another dead end?"

"Maybe not. I'll do what I can to uncover this with what I've got available, but it was scanned, so…. It might take some time." Owen was normally confident in his abilities, and uncovering government documents was a difficult yet necessary part of the job. There was something almost genuinely enthralling about scraping off the parts that the world's governments wanted to keep secret. It felt like giving people a small yet surprisingly effective slice of justice every time.

"Keep looking, Carvour. We need to know if this is viable, or even worth our time…"

If Owen had any kind of normal life— if he and his husband didn't both do the dirty work for secret operation services— he would have a blast trying to decide how to describe the intricacies of what he'd been researching lately. The throws of domestic life confounded him to no end, which was why it was so funny when he and Curt tried to imitate that.

The otherwise simple question of "how was your day" turned into a battle of who could craft the most believable lie that better concealed what they'd actually done. Neither wanted to jeopardise their jobs, and Curt had always been brilliant at crafting stories, so it was never dull.

He started to think about what today's excuse would be. Something about pioneers, or the Oregon trail, or perhaps he could bring up that old, dead colonel somehow, that would be interesting to add to the pile.

"You know what I'm gonna ask already…"

By the time he got home, Curt was already waiting for him, and the mid-spring sun was starting to set. For anyone else, it was a day at the office, but the trails he had begun to uncover had really put all other days at the office to shame.

He laughed softly, having prepared this answer a number of hours before, and took up a position on the couch. "No, love, you first. I insist."

"Fine, okay," Curt answered with a chuckle. "It was nothing really, just your standard… But, the bear returned, and in about a month, I'm gonna get really rich and run off to central Europe, with a really pretty lady and a dollar store box of magic tricks."

"The same bear from last month?"

"Yeah. Bastard won't leave me alone."

"Sounds wild. Are you coming back after your plans to run off with this really pretty lady?"

"Plan is to cut myself off after three weeks, but at this rate, I might not make it two."

"Not good enough?"

"Owen, I'm a bit too gay for that." To sell his point, he flashed his wedding band, and Owen laughed harder. "Besides," he added, covering his own bout of laughter. "Who needs a fake wife when I've got my own right here?"

Owen shot him a faux-offended glance. "How dare you!"

"You might fool the guys at work, O, but you couldn't pretend you don't think about it…"

Or that he hadn't been experimenting in that part of himself in little segments since he was seventeen. Turns out he suited long hair better, and he wouldn't hesitate to admit that he both looked and felt rather good with the occasional flourish.

"You know me well..."

"I should hope so! Anyway, what're you keeping from me? How was your day?"

"Office, just like you. I've had a conversation with a pioneer, and tried to erase marker pen over the body of a dead soldier. Oh, and I tried to teach myself statistical analysis."

"Jeez, that was— that was a whole rollercoaster there, huh?"

"Mhm, I've been busy."

"You can say that again, god… So, a pioneer? Like those guys that travelled to Oregon?"

"Yeah. Quite interesting people, if a little paranoid." Something other than their oxen might be watching them would've been a perfect addition to the statement, but Owen felt that was a little too close to the line to pass, so he decided not to add it.

The important part was, apart from the knowledge that Curt was on an assignment in a month's time, both of them were none the wiser. Curt didn't need to know that he had started the deep dive into a pack of eldritch gods and was even slightly nervous about the outcome.

He didn't sleep well that night. He knew that he had right to believe that this was all one great hoax, that there was something in the water that made the pioneers mass hallucinate this supposed watcher. They all travelled on the same trail, it was entirely plausible that all of them found the same hallucinogenic and envisioned a thousand eyes watching them and their familes. It was less of a coincidence when two subsidaries of larger companies started describing details of experiments that led them to discovering other beings beyond just the watcher, of course, but he still wasn't sure whether he was privy to believing any of it.

There was something about redacted government files, though, that were meant to be believed. There was a reason they hid information from the public, and that was often because they had found something worth disclosing in the first place. That meant huge news, large press cover ups… The whole works… And that was the last thing any self-respecting government with something to hide would want. Owen imagined the size of the initial press conferences for dealings like Roswell, how many people must've shown up to that conference, under the impression that they were going to get answers, only for the press to redact the next day and claim that it was no more than a weather balloon.

He felt like he was dealing with a weather balloon of his own right now. This was something that this branch of the military clearly didn't want people knowing. The only reason they'd had to disclose any information at all was because one of their own had died looking for this information, and they had to provide the closure for whatever family he had left. Part of him wondered what they'd said, how they'd tried to cover up this man's imminent demise at the hands of another dimension. What did his family know? Was he ever given a sendoff?

When Owen tried to sleep that night, plagued with the thoughts of how much his research was worth, and what really happened on the other side, he couldn't get his head in the right place to take a suitable rest for long enough. Flashes of colour— brighter than anything he'd ever seen— danced behind his eyelids, chasing each other in sequence. Blue. Purple. Yellow. Pink. Green. White. Blue…. He didn't have much of the capacity to think, not when those colours started consuming his subconscious thought, but he spared a moment to the hope that he may get answers of his own if he stuck around long enough.

"He thinks he's brave… He thinks we don't know about him…"

Whatever dream he had been having was taken over by blurred edges and violent pangs of pain that he was sure he could feel outside of this existence. Everything faded out, leving only ruin in it's wake. Broken pieces, scrambled signals… Owen didn't even try and make sense of it, he already understood the futility of trying. There was nothing left in his mind but those colours and those voices— for he was sure there was more than one. A sickening chorus, holding perfect time with each other.

"He's foolish, if he thinks he can go further without us finding out."

"Owennnn…"

"We know what you're doing, Owen…. It's not going to last."

He'd thought about meeting his maker before. He'd thought about the possibility of death, the idea that he may not live to see another day eventually. It was hard to deliberate something so serious in his early thirties, but his line of work called for it. He knew that he had a dangerous job, and that there were few who would be able to save him if something happened.

But, he'd never considered the possibility of his own demise to this extent before. In the formless remains of his dream, where he was forced into hearing these voices talk about his death and how soon it would be to coming, he had pause for deliberation. And it wasn't good.

He had to strain to take control of his own voice, in this space that was once his own. Once so sacred, now scarce and left entirely to the whim of whatever was taking residence in his mind. This was a bad idea. All of this research was a bad idea, and he was suddenly more aware of that than he was anything else. Never before had he had such a violent urge to overturn everything he'd worked on for the sake of something this seemingly trivial.

"There's nothing you can do. It's already started. This is bigger than me…"

"We know that. You're not the only one we have heard trying to work your way into what is ours… Choose your next step carefully, Owen. I'm sure we would delight in taking you in the same direction as the others…"

Before he could really ask what that meant, he was left entirely alone. The ruin of his dream still stood strong, which was strange enough given that the voices had left him alone, but he had the strangest feeling that there was more to this landscape than just what he was being shown. He started to wander, to look around in an attempt to find the real end to all of this. His mind was a wasteland, taken over by the lack of colour and the apparently deafening absence of those voices that had only appeared a moment before. He felt empty without them, although he knew nothing more than the sequence of colours that paraded through his vision.

Blue… Purple…. Yellow…

The pattern was familiar, like he'd seen it before somewhere. And while he wasn't resting easy, he couldn't force himself to wake up, either. No matter how hard he tried, he was just left stuck, wandering the expanse until he found what he was apparently looking for.

Pink…. Green…. White… Blue…

The expanses of his mind stretched out into a road, occupied by nothing but empty space. He supposed that was mostly his own fault; he had known for years that his imagination was never one to be put on par with anything else. He couldn't so vividly picture that which others could, and he'd never really had much of a capacity to dream, either.

So, this warning was strange. Seeing such vivid, bright colours in the back of his mind, knowing that he couldn't have conjured them himself…

He started to walk the road, curious enough to want to know where it went.

"Owen?"

That voice wasn't like the ones who had left moments before. That voice had a personality, and a person to go with. It was warm, though scared. Human all the same. And Owen knew the shape of it.

"Owen?"

Owen let his instinct lead him down the road, through it's many curves and winds. Eventually, the road gave way to what could only possibly be a stage. There was a set of stairs to one side, that he let himself climb before he could think to wonder where they led, and then the familiar voice gave way to a man in the wings, staring at him with desperate, fear-lined eyes. Of course he knew the voice, and of course he had never tried to doubt himself on the matter.

He tried to advance towards Curt, but he took a hasty step back, shaking his head.

"Curt?"

"Prove you're Owen."

"I'm sorry?"

Curt hesitated, and then slowly emerged from the wings. Even though he stood on the light of the stage, it still looked like he was carefully enveloped in shadow, like the darkness was a comfort to him. Owen looked around, wondering what had made him so cautious, and whether it was still around. Had Curt seen what he'd seen? What had those things whispered to him?

"I'm not falling for it again. Tell me you're actually Owen…"

Owen frowned, not wanting to dwell too much on why Curt was so afraid to reach out to him and realise that all of this was as real as they could get it. "Curt, love, I don't know what you want me to say…" There was a certain desperation about him too. Improvisation had never been his strong suit, but he wass confident that, given the right prompt, he would be able to convince his husband that he was who he said he was, to quell any discrepancy that it may have been otherwise.

"Don't. Show me… What happened on your 25th birthday."

The pieces fit into place, and Owen nodded dutifully. He had been out in the field that day, a strikingly hot day in the middle of June. The two of them had barely ended up with three hours together by the end of it, and they'd gone out drinking to celebrate what little time was left of his birthday. He'd never been particularly big on celebrating, but Curt had insisted. They were newly married then, and getting used to the idea of sharing a life with someone else. That was one of the first nights following their wedding when Owen truly came to realise that he'd made entirely the right decision, and that there was nobody he'd rather share his life with than Curt Mega.

"My 25th… That was a home ground mission. I was in the state."

"What happened to you?"

Owen smiled, somewhere between fondness and a need to hide the melancholic air that hung about that question. He pushed up the sleeve of his jacket, and huffed a weary breath of laughter. "I was trying to make my exit, but the suit jacket caught on a fence. Here…" With his sleeve rolled to just the right length, Owen held out his arm and pointed out a pale flash just below his elbow— a jagged scratch that had never quite healed right. "That's what happened after the fabric tore. Is that enough?"

Curt had known about the scar. He'd also known about the story. He was pretty sure that nobody else knew, though, so in his head, that had always been his fallback option in the event that he was ever sure Owen needed to prove himself. Those stories lined up perfectly, and while Owen had missed out on some of the details, in the grander scheme of things, he'd gotten it exactly right. He shifted, letting a knowing smile cross his face through the fear that still gripped him.

"It's really you…"

"Of course. Why wouldn't it be?"

Curt's approach was still careful, premeditated. Even though he knew the truth now, there was still something about him that screamed a lack of trust directly into his ear, and it made actually reaching out for Owen so much harder. "You… You were trying to kill me."

"What now?"

"I know what I saw…"

"I don't doubt you, but I would never… I swear it on my life."

"I know, that's why it was strange… I— What the hell's happening?" This stage was the only thing connecting the two of them to reality. There was nothing beyond it but the end of the road that Owen had travelled down, and nothing behind it but black, empty space.

Owen let his instinct take over. If the two of them were going to face the unknown, whatever and wherever this was, then they were going to do it together. They always had, and they always would. That was the way things worked, especially for the two of them, because their lives were built so heavily on the idea of distrust that any semblance of the opposite they could get, they would cling to. Normally that was exclusively each other, and so the world wasn't usually much larger than the two of them.

Their hands connected in the middle of the emptiness. Owen pulled Curt Closer to him, and the two of them stood side, performers to an unknown audience, marionettes for something larger than themselves. They exchanged a glance, and Owen registered the warm, homely spark residing in Curt's eyes.

"I think we're trapped in a nightmare, crazy as it sounds," he tried to respond, but he wasn't entirely sure where this was going to go. "I can't wake up, but I remember falling asleep last night."

"Me too. I fell asleep before you did, you were still reading."

"Right, and now there's this. Whatever this is. did you, by chance, see those colours too?"

Curt nodded. "They came before you did, before the- other you. Blue, and purple, and yellow…"

"…Pink, and green, and white..?"

"And then blue again."

Owen heaved a sigh. "Curt, there's something I have to confess. It's safe to do so now, there's little that could get in the way of what I have to admit, but this is one of those things I wouldn't be able to tell you awake, you understand?"

There was a moment's pause, in which Curt tried to work around Owen's phrasing. Both of them felt the incredibly revealing sense that they were being watched, so Curt understood that Owen had gone into the professional mindset— switching off his senses for the sake of making as much sense of something as possible. It was always how he rationalised his way through situations, and it hadn't failed him yet.

Eventually, Curt nodded again, as the words started to sink in and he started to get a sense of what was being said. "This about what you told me this evening?"

"Yeah, I'm afraid there's a little more to it than what I told you, but I suppose that was rather obvious."

A nervous breath of laughter left Curt, only partially voluntary. "I thought there'd be a bit more to it than erasing marker pen over the body of a dead soldier…. What the hell kinda explanation was that, anyway?"

"One I spent a good hour crafting, thank you very much. I thought it was clever."

"Better than a pretty lady and a box of tricks?"

"And a bear, yes."

"… And the bear. Right. Well, what's that mean? erasing marker pen over the body of a dead soldier, what're you saying there?"

"I've…" This is not going to get you done for. Those documents were already top secret before you saw them. And if it gets you out of this nightmare prison, then surely it has to be worth it. "I've been uncovering sealed military case files that might explain what's happening to us right now."

Curt's eyes went wide. "Fucking what?!"

"It's all part of the job. I can't… I can't elaborate. Know only what everyone else knows: that the only reason any part of this is disclosed at all is because someone died during one of the experiments."

"What's that got to do with what's happening here?"

"That's what they were researching."

That seemed to click to some degree. At least, Curt seemed to understand a few of the larger pieces, perhaps the more obvious ones. "The colours?" In his head, there was an experiment, someone tried to make sense of whatever that was in their shared mindscape. Someone— a soldier, presumably, had died in the middle of these experiments, and now Owen had gotten tangled in this mess through his agency, and the two of them had been dropped into the same nightmare.

Owen nodded. "The colours."

At the moment he said that, a loud rumble disrupted their moment and forced their attention out into the expanse of nothing. Laughter— multiple sources with varying shrieks and gasps that couldn't be placed to a single source— burst from behind the wings, and from in front of them, and from the endless expanse of black that surrounded them. A loud crack followed, and Curt swore as the stage splintered beneath his feet. For a split second, his grip loosensed, and the next time the ground rumbled, they were torn apart by the growing crack in the stage. He staggered back, and the two of them ended on opposite sides of the stage, the crack between them growing and delving deeper into the unknown.

"Owen!" He called, trying to regain his footing but falling back.

"Curt! Hold on!" Owen yelled through the growing laughter, scrambling back to reach out for the pulley system backstage. He needed a foothold on something, a way to sturdy himself so he could regroup and think. It was too loud, he couldn't think in this kind of heat, with this kind of mess, and Curt, and-

Another crack. The stage was starting to fall away from itself, split not quite perfectly in two. Owen's breath ran short. In the swirls of colour and mayhem and possibilities, he saw a way out. One chance to get this right, and to make sure that they both survived the fall while they were still stuck here. He gripped the rope tight, levering himself further towards the crack, and looked to Curt. "You're gonna have to jump it!" He called, desperation winning over any attempts to stay sane. "Don't worry! You know I'll never let you down!"

"Are you crazy?!" Curt managed, staring into the gap. "I can't jump that, it's too far!"

"Curt, before the whole place splits in half, you have to get over here!"

"What if I don't make it?"

"Trust me! Please!"

Curt backed off a few paces. Owen stood ready, one hand gripping the rope wrapped around his wrist, and the other reaching out as far as he could, waiting for a move to be made. After a singular preparatory breath, he sprinted for the gap, and pushed off from the splintered wood at the edge.

He reached out.

Owen reached out.

Their fingertips connected briefly in the space, and then Curt slipped away beneath his grasp.

Owen threw himself forward, feeling the rope worming itself free and burning his wrist in the process. He'd promised. He wasn't going to let Curt fall. And he was nothing if not a man of his word.

Curt's eyes squeezed shut, preparing for an endless fall through the ineviatble. Something laced around his wrist and he felt himself stop moving. Exerting all the caution he knew to exert, he looked up, and caught a familiar whiskey brown staring back at him.

"I've got you!" Owen breathed, and Curt fought to angle himself so that he could get a better chance to grab the broken stage floor. When Owen started hauling backwards, Curt managed to get a hold of the edge of the stage, and made it a joint effort to haul him to his feet. "You're alright… You're okay…"

Curt essentially fell into Owen's arms. Owen held on tight, like he could lose his partner at any second to the swirls and the crevice. He stared out into the emptiness, ignoring the very real pain that he could feel at his wrist but cherishing the very reel feeling of Curt's shirt underneath his hands. The very air seemed to shift. Owen wasn't previously aware that colours could get angry, but this green that flooded the space behind his eyes was pissed. He could feel it.

So was he. Pissed, and way more desperate than a man ought to be.

"Alright," he muttered once, and Curt drew back ever so slightly. He noticed Owen was staring off into the greater expanse, and hoped for all it was worth that he couldn't see something out there.

"Alright!" His voice got louder, and he tried to mask his utter despair in an authorative tone. "I get it. You hear me? I get it!"

Everything fell eerily silent. The only sound that remained was the pounding of Owen's heart in his ears. He took a breath, strangely certain of himself. Glanced at Curt. Spared his attention on the void again.

"That soldier… Wilbur Cross? That was your fault, wasn't it? There's a good reason nobody can get very far into digs like these, and it's because you strive to kill them before they do. Nobody ought to know what's on the other side, and that's why nobody does…"

"Owen, what're you doing?" Curt whispered, but to no response and little avail. Owen was lost in whatever he was about to say.

"… But, I've heard talk of bargains being made here, so how about it?"

"Your desperation speaks for itself."

Owen had to pretend that that— the voice from the middle of nowhere or what it had said to him— didn't bother him in the slightest. He steeled himself, not sure where to direct his attention but knowing he'd probably have it right no matter what he chose. "What do you say, am I allowed to make a deal?"

The air shifted. Owen didn't receive a direct answer, but he knew that he'd been allowed to continue. "If I don't continue— if I go back, and tell my people that it's an impossibility, that it can't be done— would you let him go?" Another quick glance at Curt, as if the green something needed clarification, or as if he knew what he was signing himself up for.

Curt was frozen in place, his eyes wide. He'd heard every word as it echoed in the void, and he hated what it was implying. His gaze was fixed on Owen, fear blazing through his face. "No, Owen—" his voice came out weak. As far as literal interpretations go, that was not a good one. He didn't understand what was happening, but it terrified him to know that Owen was being so calm about this, while he could be selling his life away with nothing more than a few choice words.

Owen frowned, and muttered an apology he was sure only Curt would catch. The green grew angrier, setting a violent fire behind his eyes and forcing him onto his knees as the pain flooded his body.

"You better not be fucking with me."

"No! I— I wouldn't! I'm serious! I'll call it off, I swear on my life, just… He has nothing to do with any of this. It's not his fault."

The thing considered, holding Owen firmly in place while he deliberated. Curt couldn't move— he didn't dare, lest something happen to Owen that put him in more danger than he was already in. All he could do was force himself into keeping his breath steady, and not thinking about what a single wrong move could do to either of them. His eyes landed on the friction burn winding neatly around Owen's wrist, and he decided to focus on that for a while; the only other colour in a void of blackness and green.

"Very well."

That was the last thing Owen heard. Some part of his mind just shut down, and he collapsed to the floor of the stage. He didn't hear the way Curt screamed his name, or the return of the chorus of laughter. His eyes closed, and the next thing he knew, he was waking up with a start, underneath the sheets of his own bed, gasping for breath. He sturdied himself out, and once he was sure that he was real, and definitely in a familiar space, he looked over to Curt, and found him still asleep.

"Curt?" His voice was soft, but his mind was a knife point of tension. If that had gone wrong, then why was he the one to live through it ant not Curt? He tried again, biting his lip. "Curt..?"

Curt groaned. His eyes opened slowly. The relief that Owen felt hit him like a tidal wave.

For some reason, Curt was entirely surprised to see that Owen had made it through to the other side. He managed a weary smile, and tried to get his vision into focus. That was one of those decisions that he immediately came to regret. As soon as he brought himself a little more into the real worls, he noticed that the brown in Owen's eyes was stained with something else, and it made him feel sick to his stomach. Dripping down his irises was a flash of toxic, unsettlingly bright green.

#spies are forever #saf #starkid #agent curt mega #owen carvour #star mail #void offering #nova's tags →#wiggly would have an absolute field day with owen and curt huh #bc desires run deep. they want each other. they want to be free...#but curt wants to not be haunted by the ghosts of his past #and owen wants to move on. to get a better future where he doesn't have to devote his life to an agency #might be fun to play around with

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starpirateee · 7 hours

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Thinking about the possibility that Owen had aphasia (difficulty speaking/with the language center of the brain) due to head trauma from the fall, so when he teaches himself to speak again he can't really do the posh accent he once put on as an agent, and defaults to his actual (DMA) accent. By the time Curt appears it has been four years, and he has recovered enough to do his Agent Owen Carvour accent, but it's exhausting and takes a lot out of him to pretend he's still the same guy, to not show any sort of physical or mental weakness in front of Curt

#headcanons like this are sooo fucking good fr #this is going in the belief system #saf

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starpirateee · 8 hours

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Please give me your explanations in the tags, I'm curious. Also is it Mc or Mac in John's surname? I'm still not sure.

#honestly to me its always been crossnamara???#but i think that's purely because i spell johns surname mcnamara #so the first one doesnt look right #pretty sure though that the wiki lists both surname spelling as valid so ¯⁠\⁠_⁠(⁠ツ⁠)⁠_⁠/⁠¯

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starpirateee · 1 day

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I'm not the asker who sent in the question but can I slip in a prompt anyway? more Macnacross angst stuff if so please they're fun

You have the most impeccable timing; I had just started another angsty fic with these two! I hope it fits your request + that you like it!

Twelve-and-a-half years after the Portal Incident, John's peaceful (miserable) session of filling out paperwork is disturbed by a bloody figure tumbling into the room. Somehow, things only get worse from here.

Thank you much for the ask!!

#I swear to god right #this is absolutely crushing #actively feral over this and I do plan on making it everyone else's problem #crossnamara #starkid

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starpirateee · 1 day

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Joey as Steve ( a workin' boy )

#ugh I'm so glad this exists on yt for everyone now we're gonna get good shit from so many more people #workin boys spoilers #starkid

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starpirateee · 1 day

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"holy cow, they're doin' it!"

#its a legal requirement to watch this scene over and over to cath both of their expressions #👀👀 fr #npmd #starkid

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starpirateee · 1 day

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the langs said charles worked for the government so i totally believe that he was part of peip. he saw the nonsense that went down after wilbur cross came back through the portal to the black and white and just dipped put

#yes!!! 100%#integrated that into my belief system and i will not be going back #starkid

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starpirateee · 1 day

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Crossnamara shipper who hasn’t seen SAF, I don’t want Curtwen in Hatchetfield I want Fidauthor in Hatchetfield/j

~~~

#you! you get it!!!#can you IMAGINE that fr #literally yesterday i was making a bunch of parallels between ford and wilbur #fiddauthor in hatchetfield is EXACTLY what is going on!!

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starpirateee · 2 days

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We did this for a crazy fic exchange that took up the last three hours of the Hatchetfield stream! This fic covered a potential for Charles in peip (the things we talk about are positively maddening, I swear), and on my end, I tried to tackle a little something about all peip agents having a touch of the gift...

The year is 2005. A shady section of R&D is bustling over the discovery of an anomaly --- a portal --- that defies logic, reason, and the allegedly limitless reach of the various probes and sensors they've sent through to the other side. The solution? Find some poor sap willing to go through the portal and serve as guinea pig for whatever might lurk on the other side. Where better to look than Special Unit P.E.I.P. (Paranormal, Extraterrestrial, Interdimensional Phenomena) and the new recruits training under one Colonel Wilbur Cross? He'll probably be okay with that.

For @starpirateee!

#starkid #crossnamara #i've gotta say absolutely barrelling through a fic in three hours is so fun #go read this fic the way she writes charles is absolutely peak #it's consuming my very tired waking thoughts #but its so good

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starpirateee · 2 days

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Spies are forever fans kind of sleep on characters who aren’t Curt or Owen. Like I know that they are the main couple and I love them more than life itself but there’s other people in that show guys.

~~~

#unironically a huge fan of vanger borschtit #he's just a silly little lad ✌️#let the guy live his bond girl fantasy #and the informant too oh my god #iamnotcarelessMONSIEUR #iconic #saf

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starpirateee · 2 days

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i have perpetually ruined myself with this silly headcanon:

and obviously i had to go annoy my friend @scripted-downfall about it, in bullet point form, to a response that looked a little bit like this:

i don't take much tempting, y'all should know that... so now, here i am, writing this in something that isn't bullet points :)

Owen promised himself that he could take the pain, that surviving a fall like that meant that he could survive anything. But every day was exactly the same, and every day, he forced himself to deal with the blinding headache, and the tremors, and the fact that nothing felt right, but there was nothing he could do about it.

His head pounded in time with his heart, only this was deeper and louder and more poignant. A fair and well justified concussion was what they'd said, and it was going to take some shaking. It had left him with a patchy memory that he could barely trust to support him, and— perhaps the worst of all— the worst pattern of speech in his known history. Where he was once confident and eloquent, there remained something broken, laced in uncertainty and all the pain he felt elsewhere.

It had been a good week and a half since the first time he'd woken up, convinced he should be long dead but breathing all the same, and it had been relatively normal, all things considered. Quiet on the outside of his mind, with enough space to get himself in gear...

And the shadow.

When everything else was blurry and wildly out of focus, so was the shadow. Owen didn't know what to make of it at first, though he'd established that he was looking at and sharing a space with a man. Ghosts weren't among the things he'd been inclined to believe in, but now he had to wonder whether this was worth changing his entire belief system.

It was entirely possible that someone had died here, of that he had no doubt. Was that the problem? Was this the vision of the last man to have died in this room?

Nine days in, and he was forcing himself to admit that, in his current state, he couldn't help but to fear the presence seemingly haunting him whenever it saw fit. It was never consistent, and he couldn't blame it on something like the movement of the sun, since most of the time, it was in the darkness when it decided to show face.

Formless and unknowable, he could take. He had grown to at least acquaint himself with the idea that he may be haunted by some poor soul that had long since departed from the world. For some reason, that was okay by him. The ghost didn't seem capable of harming him, and scarcely so much as made his presence known.

He could live with that.

It was significantly harder to live with it when his vision cleared and he started to be able to make out features. Dark hair, styled and straightened. A strong jaw. Eyes that caught the light and sparkled.

At first, it had been a coincidence. A lot of men had that style and those eyes... But whatever coincidence this was stopped being so the first time the shadow moved.

Owen watched it approach, slow and seemingly methodical. He was pacing, but the direction wasn't planned. There was something about the slacks paired with that bomber jacket that just screamed recognisable. And Owen knew exactly why.

The shadow has a familiar frame, and a familiar height, and a familiar smirk that was seconds away from giving into a familiar smirk. Owen knew his name. He also knew that it wasn't a ghost at all.

He breathed. He didn't want to believe what he was seeing, but how could he deny it? That shadow had been in his presence for days now, he had basically invited him to stay by being so unfazed. It was different now he knew what he was dealing with.

"... Curt?"

That was the first coherent thing he'd forced out of himself in days, and he knew it well. Of course it was. It was almost poetic that his mind knew the shape of Curt's name so well that he was able to break his own stammer through it's familiarity.

There was no way.

Curt wasn't dead.

He blinked, but nothing changed. Curt was still there, illuminating the space ever so slightly. Owen didn't even stop to think about the fact that his headache had been momentarily relieved, ever so slightly, upon seeing him.

Desperate to know, or to understand what was going on, he scrubbed at his eyes, trying for all it was worth to clear his vision, or to clear the longing that resided in the back of his mind. If Curt was still there, then there was a good chance he was just losing his mind. Already? At this early stage?

It was worse when he opened his eyes and Curt was no longer there. His breath caught in his throat, and he absently checked the entire perimeter of the space, just to really sell the fact that he was gone. Surely it wasn't that easy... Surely the hallucinations hadn't already set in...

Whichever vision he'd been periodically having of a man who turned out to be Curt had vanished. He was alone.

His hand fell just in time to catch the first sob before the sound could escape him. Alone was so much more terrifying when he realised that even his mind couldn't be trusted to keep him in line

#spies are forever #saf #owen carvour #agent curt mega #void offering #nova's tags →#:) sad headcanons only around here /hj #i think i mentioned it in the post fall catetaking #and yeah it's been in the back of my mind ever since #what if he saw curt huh #like. what if...#he already can't trust his concussive mind but god only knows curt makes the headache a little better #oh yeah and this is the first thing that has actually ventured into drabble territory in...#a long time #i am known to get carried away but this is more inpactful shorter

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starpirateee · 3 days

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Can I request some just pure curtwen angst lol. Like one of them is injured on a mission and the other is UNBELIEVABLY worried or they have a conversation abt self-hatred or something

You know what I don't do enough? Owen being in the line of fire... So y'know what? I'm gonna experiment a little here, I'm gonna get this man bloody, beat him up a little, and see where it goes

Owen knew the way, he was confident of that much. The place that Curt had told him to rendezvous was familiar enough, all that was left was to get there. And that was where it got difficult, because it was currently a chore just to keep himself upright, let alone keep himself on track. Presently, the only thing stopping him from highlighting his every step with a trail of blood was the spare cloth he'd found in his kit bag, that was doing numbers in alleviating the flow of blood spilling from a gash at his hip.

Every other step he took burned with a kind of intensity that he wished he wasn't familiar with. Knowing himself as well as he did, this wouldn't be the last time he found himself in a bar fight for the sake of the job— it certainly wasn't the first occurence, in any case— but next time, he promised himself that he wouldn't be so sloppy.

He felt his weight start to shift, grit his teeth, and kept on pushing. He always would, as long as physically possible. If he focused on something else— the sound of his footsteps against the pavement, or the way his leather jacket felt in this position, or every breath that thundered through his ears— the pain wasn't… That bad.

He regretted thinking that within the moment.

In fact, it was that bad. He'd lost a fight, hilariously outnumbered, and now he was paying the price for it. God, where was Curt? Surely this rendezvous point couldn't be this far away…

"Owen, Jesus Christ!"

Time had passed. Owen wasn't sure of how much, but he did know that he hadn't made it. At some point, he had hit the pavement, and no matter how much he forced himself to try, he couldn't pull himself up without succumbing to the violent tremor that overtook his system.

He hadn't found Curt, but Curt had found him. Enough time had passed for him to have gotten concerned. Owen had a habit of mentioning that he would return by a certain time. Normally, he stuck to it. His timekeeping was impeccable, and Curt knew to trust that, so when he missed that margin, there was normally a cause for concern.

Owen looked up at him, registering the way his brow was drawn. "Curt…"

Immediately, Curt had noticed the blood staining Owen's shirt, and the cloth that he was trying to press against his side. He helped him to his feet without a word, and made sure he was well supported. "The hell happened to you?"

Owen readjusted, making sure that the cloth was still firmly planted against the gash. "It… didn't go as planned…"

"Are you kidding me? That's what you're going with?"

"Don't worry about it, Curt," Owen tried to insist.

"Don't worry? Don't worry?! O, I don't know if you you've noticed, but you're bleeding out on the street right now, and you're more than an hour later than you said you'd be."

"Yeah, I got held up. It's fine…"

"What, held up against a wall while someone beat the shit outta you?"

Owen faltered as they turned the corner, and tried to pretend like that wasn't entirely accurate. "It doesn't look that bad, does it?"

"That's what happened, isn't it?" Curt sighed when Owen nodded silently, and tried to focus on getting them both to the rendezvous point. "Where?"

"Bar. Some bellend packed a knife—" He staggered, and Curt's supporting arm gained a reflexive, brighter grip as he fought to keep Owen upright. He sighed, despising the way his chest seemed to shake upon his every breath. "And I got caught up in the crossfire, that's all."

Curt didn't say anything further until the two of them were inside. It was painful enough watching Owen try to shrug off what was quite a serious wound in his side, but it was even more painful when they got to the rendezvous point and he started grabbing the supplies to fix himself up like Curt wasn't there at all. The more he tried to ask about it, the more he knew Owen was going to shrug it off, so he almost let him get on with it.

Almost.

"Owen, why d'you insist on doing that yourself? I am right here…"

Owen pulled from his pocket the flask and stared down at the equipment for a while, half lost in the offer and half waiting on his mind to catch up and come up with something viable. Nothing happened, though. He didn't try to contradict Curt's offer, nor claim once again that he was fine, nor try to think of any reason why he was so reliant upon his insistence to claim independence out of this job.

Because, as a rule, he didn't have to.

And he knew he wasn't entirely okay, as far as that word would be stretched. The way his hands were shaking was enough of a tell, for starters, and he knew he wouldn't be able to do a good job of himself like this.

"Because if I do a bad job, then it's fine, because it's me. But I don't want my blood on someone else's hands, so to speak…" that answer seemed well thought out enough to qualify as something that had come from him, at any rate.

"Y'know, that's half the reason I'm here. There's always a good chance that you're gonna come back in a state like this, and what happens when you can't take care of yourself, huh?"

"Curt, I—"

"No, what happens then? You just expect me to leave you to bleed out or what?"

"That's— quite dramatic." This was not a good call. The longer they spent fighting about this, the more blood he was going to lose, and he really couldn't afford that. He took a drink from the flask— strong and fiery, though not very much to his taste. At least it took the edge off…

Once he was suitably deterred from feeling the full effects of pain, he finally removed the cloth from it's position, and grimaced at the sight of the blood still pouring from the wound.

"No, it's not," Curt answered defensively, and then he got a good look at the wound too. "I mean, look at that thing!"

Owen raised an eyebrow at that. "Never been in a bar fight before? If you don't have at least one poor lad on the ground, spillin' blood on the carpet, then you haven't done it right."

Curt's mouth opened, looking for something he could possibly say to that, but all that came out was a blank stammer that meant no more to him than it did to Owen. "Jesus, I— how many times have you been the guy on the ground?"

"Enough…" Owen muttered as he started to do what he could to clean that parts that he could see. That's what did it for Curt, and he'd risen, knelt by Owen's side, and had taken the alcohol soaked cloth that he'd been using before either of them could think twice.

"I worry about you, y'know that? Sure, you might not be impulsive like I am, but god, you really know how to get yourself hurt… And don't try and tell me you're fine, because I'm sitting eye level to the reason that you're very much not."

"You and I are—" Owen inhaled sharply. Curt apologised. "We're the same. Don't tell me you aren't also in the habit of pretending you're fine…"

"So you admit you're pretending?"

A single breath of laughter. "I won't admit that either way."

Curt knew what he was doing when it was someone else. He was surprisingly thorough, on top of the distraction of this assuring conversation, that was helping, for all it was worth, to keep Owen's mind off the current happenings.

"Why? Why say you're fine when I hadta come and look for you?"

"Because you know fine well that this isn't the worst I've ever been…"

"Yeah, I know," Curt reached for the bandages. Owen nudged them towards him with the hand that wasn't holding the flask, then took another swig. Curt had to fight a laugh at the way he winced. "Maybe you're not a man after my own heart, after all," he teased, to which Owen shook his head.

"I don't know how you drink that shit."

"I don't know how you can't."

"It's fucking awful."

Curt laughed, partly because Owen was halfway to letting his accent drop— and hearing him swear when he was trying his hardest to remain proper was always amusing— and partly because of his reaction to the whiskey, which never failed to delight. "Nobody said you had to drink it, if it's that bad."

"You can't exactly equip yourself for a mission and pack a flask of wine…"

"Wine, huh?"

"What? If you're going to go in for day drinking, there is a way to do it, and that is certainly the best."

"Imagine tryna give yourself pain relief with a glass of red, though."

"Maybe you have a point there."

Curt shifted back a little, prompting Owen to move from his board stiff position to see how the bandages felt. He seemed to think tey were fine, until Curt brought him back into place and seemed to inspect them for a moment. He muttered something Owen didn't catchm and then picked up another roll.

"What's the matter?"

"You're bleeding through."

"Great…"

"Hold on a moment, I've got this."

#spies are forever #saf #curtwen #agent curt mega #owen carvour #tw blood #tw injury #void offering #star mail #nova's tags →#yep! fuck it tonight we get owen mortally wounded!#i can just picture him trying to hold himself up down the street and failing so badly #curt is not gonna be okay with the fact he escaped and is now barely conscious on his doorstep #its okay. he was just in the country that's all #just.... visiting

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starpirateee · 4 days

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i would love to see your chimera curtwen au updated! it's very tasty.

I'm gonna be so honest with you I would also like to see it updated, but I haven't even had the time to plan it yet! All I have so far is the event that was mentioned in the second chapter 😅 so sorry to literally everyone who's waiting for this but I've had nothing for it....

#star mail #fic tag: hands of the enemy #i'm so sorry anon!#i have been trying to think about it but uni has been a shit storm and i've had plenty of little drabbles on the mind too #i will try and get something out soon

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starpirateee · 4 days

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#sybilus my love!!!!#omg sybilus on the dash sybilus silver ON THE DASH #this is great :D #wayward guide

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starpirateee · 4 days

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hey, nova, how would you feel about writing some of Anna Hanover and John Herschel being The Besties Ever?

Which one of you found out I'd listened to Pulp, c'mon who was it? 🤣 I can't believe I got found out immediately.... But yes I will absolutely write Anna and John being besties because I love them and they deserve it very much

"Thank you!" Anna called over her shoulder, waving in the direction of the builder that had just spent the last half an hour convincing her to take a break. She grabbed herself some lunch, and then wandered a little into the jungle, towards their spot.

She and John Herschel had one thing in common that stood out among everything else they had in common. They were both notoriously bad at taking breaks when they were absorbed in work. John had built his telescope himself, and spent hours looking through it on a night, trying to work out a map of the stars.

They had their own spot in the jungle, for when one of them needed to take a break. Sometimes, they'd sit there on their own, catching their breath or taking in the flywheels that had just been erected. That wasn't very often, though… More times than not, the two of them had been scolded into taking a break at the same time, and that was where they always ended up going. Sure enough, as Anna pushed through the bracken that made their spot so personal, she found John muttering to himself under the tree, and it took her getting close enough to realise that he was reading something— an article of a newspaper, by the looks of things…

"Heya, Hershey!" She liked to announce her presence as obviously as possible, so she didn't end up sneaking up on him and startling the life out of him. "What're you reading?"

Even still, he started a little, and his breath did manage to hitch. Every time…

He knew that only one other person knew about their spot in the jungle, but still, his eyes drifted from the newspaper, and he managed to catch Anna as she sat down beside him. He looked distracted, but he still managed something of a smile in her direction.

"Oh! Nova… I didn't hear you come in…"

"Really? That article really that interesting?" She tried to peer over his shoulder, but couldn't really get a good enough angle to see the words so neatly organised on that sheet in front of him. Though, the way his brow was drawn, and the fact that she'd heard him muttering to himself in what sounded like discontent made her think it wasn't good.

"Well," he scoffed, shooting what almost looked like a glare at the words. "Interesting is certainly one word for it…"

"Why? What is it?" Curiosity had taken over at this point, especially given John's very evident disdain, so she slid the sheet over the grass, closer to her line of sight, and started to skim the words. The title printed at the top— clear as day and all the more appealing for it— read, Great Astronomical Discoveries, and if that wasn't enough to draw her in, then the fact that John's name was mentioned within the first three lines certainly was.

"Oh."

"Tell me about it." John really did look like he'd seen a ghost, and then was trying to cover that up with very obvious discontent. Anna could see why, of course. It wasn't very often he was name dropped in the middle of a mainstream newspaper. A scientific journal, sure, but never normally a mass produced New York based newspaper.

"Where'd you get this?"

"Someone dropped it off earlier this morning. Great Astronomical Discoveries… Frankly, I don't know whether to be offended or appraised. For all it's worth… No, no I won't."

"It's… What, Hershey?"

John sighed deeply. "It's brilliant." And he really hadn't wanted to admit that, not even to himself. He heard Anna try to hold in a laugh of surprise by his side, and pulled the paper back. It was in his best interests to neverr say anything about this absolute travesty that was this work of very obvious fiction using his name for benefit and to attract the attention of the public. And of course, he was a public figure, in a way. People knew his name, at the very least. They knew what he did, why he received the knighthood… But for them to believe this work as something legitimate… It was beyond his comprehension. "It's accurate, and clearly well researched… Whoever wrote this— whoever… Samuel and Rose Stratford are— they know how to make a lie very believable."

Anna started to read it over his shoulder while he talked. He didn't try to stop her. She understood the sciences, and she had every right to his curiosity now that he had professed that it was actually something of a work of art.

"Would it be a different story if they didn't use your name?" She asked absently, skimming over this story about the moon and seeing that, actually, it did make sense, and it did seem like the authors knew what they were talking about. There were enough mentions of actual happenings in space— things that people like John had catalogued and discovered— that it was almost believable, but then— "Hold on, bat people?"

"And buffalo…"

"On the moon?"

"Apparently so."

"So, John, when were you gonna tell me about the bat people? That's something they don't put in your editorials…" she stared at him for long enough that he started laughing, partly out of her insistence and partly through how ridiculous it sounded when she put it like that. "You leave all the most interesting stuff out for these two people in New York…"

"Would you rather I told you about the buffalo and the river on the moon?"

"Yes! Are you kidding? That'd make an incredible story!"

John laughed again, shaking his head. "God, Nova, I didn't think they'd get you too… This newspaper circulated who knows how far around New York, and now there are probably numbers of people who genuinely believe that I saw any of this on the lunar surface." One more glance, then he folded the front page over the words and sighed, leaning back further against the tree.

"Don't you think it'd be interesting if that was the case, though?"

"Undoubtedly. But, unfortunately, it's not. That's not possible, for a start. The moon doesn't have an atmosphere! It's a rock! Nothing could live up there!"

"Hey… This planet was just a rock once, too…" Anna reminded.

John tilted his head. "Who's side are you on here?"

This time, it was her who laughed. "Rose and Samuel Stratford… That's what they were called, right? Stratford?"

"Stratford, yes. I should like to meet them, I think. To see what's going on in their heads."

That sparked a bit of an idea in Anna's mind, and a curious expression crossed her face. she studied the newspaper's front cover for a while, and then thought about her satellite, some seventeen thousand bricks into it's development of a twelve million strong plan. Then she looked to John, and thought about all he'd done to help her build her little dream, from helping with the plans to helping the team develop just the right mix to make the bricks. "Well… Why don't you?"

"I beg your pardon?"

"Why don't you go to New York and find out for yourself! Talk to Rose and Samuel, see what the big deal is!"

He genuinely considered this, if for a moment. The chance to meet the two names behind this sudden spike driven through his nerves. On one hand, he would love to find these two and give them a piece of whatever was on his mind about their fantasy… But that was the other hand. What was currently on his mind was how well done it was, and how much imagination the two of them had to have to produce something of that caliber… There was a part of him that wanted to try and think of something to say to them that translated into the annoyance that he felt over knowing that they were using his name for their gain, but really, he couldn't think about it for long enough to outweigh the good with the bad.

"Go on, John! You know you want to—"

"It is tempting…"

"Then what's stopping you? Go on! The township's gonna miss you, but hell, if you're going for New York and back you shouldn't be longer than a couple weeks, right?"

"You do know how to tempt a man, Nova."

She grinned at him. "That's what I'm here for! Now, are you gonna go or not?"

"I suppose I will."

#pulp musicals #john herschel #anna hanover #void offering #star mail #nova's tags →#pulp took over my brain matter. i don't know what happened but something did #nobody warned me about the ghost pirate plotline jesus CHRIST that was something #nova falls for another probably irredeemable villain: not one person is surprised #anyway. john and anna #absolutely iconic frfr #i love them both dearly #it is a very weird experience to write your own name into fic

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