#(i am dragged kicking and screaming from the room before i can devolve into a full blown meta)
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Ride the Lightning
Chapter Six: Too Fast for Love
Read on AO3!
01 ┋ 02 ┋ 03 ┋ 04 ┋ 05 ┋ 06 ┋ 07 ┋ 08 ┋ 09 ┋ 10 ┋ 11 ┋ 12 ┋ 13
Pairing: Eddie Munson x Original Female Character
Summary: Eddie can't keep his thoughts straight from his feelings, and he goes to Steve for advice. What will he say?
Word Count: 2.6K
Content Warnings: [N/A]
Author's Note: shorter chapter this time! we're getting a look into Eddie's side of things -- promise we'll get Veronica's side somewhere!!
and THANK YOU to @rollforhellfire for reading this -- i literally do now know what i would be doing without you at this point your comments are everything and i wish you every happiness this universe can give <3333
Eddie thrust himself upright, chest heaving, searing, his body all but dripping in perspiration as a wrenching scream died somewhere within the cotton-dry tightness of his throat. He’d tried to swallow, nearly choked for air, swearing his heart was moments away from tearing its way through his chest. He dragged both hands through his sleep-tangled hair, trembling as they settled at the back of his head, squeezing, pinching in their effort to settle him, ground him from whatever utter freefall he’d awoken from.
He felt as though he’d been burned, suffocated, electrified, reduced to ashes and blown away with the passing breeze. He could feel his skin crawl, a shiver raking its way up his spine, settling in the fine hairs at the nape of his neck before working its way back down his body.
His gaze darted to the door, and he fell back onto his aging mattress with a sigh of pure relief - he’d remembered to close it.
Without a moment’s hesitation, he tore the blanket away, kicking it aside as he jumped to his feet, still shaking as he gathered whatever clothes were within arm’s reach before tearing his way toward the bathroom. Was his uncle awake? Could he have heard something? God, he hoped not. The suffocating haze of Eddie’s thoughts slowly began to clear, leaving in its wake an even more agonizing slew of questions. Desperate to clear his mind - to forget, to return to the normalcy he’d had mere hours before - he pulled away his clothes, stepping into the cascading stream to take the most frigid shower of his life, welcoming the shivers over the suffocating heat steaming over his skin.
And, barely an hour afterward, Eddie had driven himself to Steve Harrington’s house with the speed and havoc-induced mayhem of a man nearing insanity, and he pounded his fist against the door, the thought of simply ringing the doorbell lost on him.
“Munson? What the Hell, man?” Steve threw open his front door with enough force to rattle the frame, his voice clipped and quiet - but, before he could continue his flurry of complaints, Eddie had pushed himself into his home, pacing around the living room, hands wild as he spoke, Steve left scrambling to make sense of his verbal vomit.
“Eddie-”
“I swear to God, Steve - I’m losing it…!” Eddie shouted; whether he was aware - or even cared - that it was 7:15 in the morning remained to be seen.
Steve felt himself getting lightheaded as he tried to follow the man’s movements through his living room, rapid and crazed - it was way too early for this. “Dude, calm down-”
Eddie froze, his steps jarring to a halt, turning himself bodily to stare at Steve, jaw slack and hanging. “Calm… down?” His voice was low, strained, nearly painful in its control before devolving into a panic. “Calm down? Harrington, I am having a crisis of Biblical proportions and you’re telling me to calm down?”
Somewhere between Eddie dragging his hands over his face and pulling at the ends of his hair for what Steve swore had to be the umpteenth time, Dustin trudged his way down the staircase, rubbing the lingering traces of sleep from his eyes as he moved to stand beside Steve, the pair still struggling to follow Eddie’s erratic behavior.
“What’s going on?” the younger boy asked, his question trailing off into a yawn. Steve shrugged his shoulders, arms crossing atop his chest.
“I don’t know, he’s freakin’ out about the Bible or something-”
At his voice, Eddie’s head snapped toward them; a raving, desperate type of smile stretching across his face, as though he’d been walking aimlessly through a desert and Dustin had led him to an oasis. “Henderson!” he shouted, nearly falling to his knees in sheer relief. “Finally, someone with experience…!”
Despite still being in the dark, Steve couldn’t help but feel offended. “Hey, what’s that supposed to-”
Eddie ignored him. “I get dizzy when she talks, and… and I can’t stop thinking about her…!” He tried to keep his breathing even, steady, his last remaining bit of rationale preventing him from hyperventilating altogether. “I can barely keep it together when she’s around, and I’m miserable when she’s not…!
Steve leaned in close to Dustin, whispering through Eddie’s prattling, “Who’re we talking about?”
And Dustin whispered in response, “I think it’s about Veronica.”, snorting back a laugh as Steve’s eyes went wide, mouth hung open, his eyes moving back to the man of the hour.
“Oh.”
Eddie continued on. “The inside of my van smells like her perfume.” he said, voice accusatory, quaking as though the thought of having the vehicle in question smell of anything other than weed and cheap cologne was an affront to God. “I’ve called her so many times, I could dial her number in my sleep. I bought new sheets for my bed because she sat there to do homework. Once. And now I’m having dreams-” He stopped, visibly shuddering at something none of them completely understood. “What the Hell’s wrong with me?”
Steve could only stare, struggling to process what he’d just heard.
With a shriek, Eddie exclaimed, “Steve…!”
“Alright, Munson! Cool it!” Steve shouted back, voice booming, somehow settling Eddie down enough to quit his infernal pacing; he bit at his fingernail, his patience worn thin, and he could barely keep himself from drowning in his fluttering anxiety as he awaited Steve’s answer. “So, you think about her all the time?”
Eddie nodded furiously, his hair swaying about his shoulders. “I can’t not think about her. It’s like she’s burrowed into my brain or something.”
Steve made a face of disgust. “I don’t need the visuals, man.” he said with a groan, shaking off the mental image of wriggling vines before continuing, “And you miss her when she’s not around?”
“Yep.” Again, Eddie nodded. “I… I get all itchy, y’know? Like, my skin starts to crawl and I just need to see her.”
“You miss her right now?”
It felt as though the very air had been torn from his lungs, his mind wiped clean of any coherent thought aside from the glaringly obvious. Once, twice, three times he’d tried to speak, but his mouth only opened and closed in silence. He cleared his throat, pushing out his voice past chapped lips. “Yeah, I… I do.”
Steve nodded his head, as though finally understanding where Eddie’s desperation was coming from. “And her voice…?”
“It makes him dizzy, dude.” Dustin chimed in, giving the older man a nudge with his elbow. “He said that part first.”
“Dizzy, how?”
Eddie swallowed. “As if I can’t focus on anything but her.” As he spoke, he pulled at the tips of his fingers, desperate to distract himself. “I-It makes my head spin and my stomach gets all weird.” His worried gaze darted between the two of them, his words heavy and lingering, and he couldn't help but assume the worst at their shared silence. “Am I gettin' sick or something?”
“Uh-huh.” tutted Steve, shifting himself onto his leg, arms crossed, his brow raised in keen understanding. “Interesting.”
The older man bristled at the goad, his eyes narrowing, jaw tensing as he clenched his fists at his sides, knuckles white, skin paling. “This is no time to be cryptic, Harrington.” Eddie hissed, his words forced through clenched teeth, hollow and blunt. “What do you mean?”
Steve turned and gave Dustin a look, and bit back his grin as the realization dawned over him, the boy’s face stretching into a smile so broad and beaming, it bordered on painful.
“You have a crush.” His voice, hushed with amazement, quickly collapsed into a shout. “Dude, you totally have a crush on Veronica…!”
Eddie halted, his whirlwind of emotions suddenly calming, doe eyes wide as his gaze fell onto nothing in particular, unfocused and distant as Dustin's words echoed through his mind. He shook his head, and his voice came out softer, weaker than any of them could have anticipated. “No, I… I don't.”
But Dustin was insistent. “You do! You're crazy about her!” he shrieked, bouncing atop the balls of his feet. “I knew you liked her - I knew it!”
Eddie kept shaking his head, hands beginning to tremble as he shoved them deep into the pockets of his jacket. “I don’t…!” he exclaimed, his words louder, tinged with panic and disbelief. “I don't like her!” He’d reached for Dustin - purely to make the kid shut up - but he’d missed, sending him into a fit of giggles as he continued on with his taunting.
“You like her, you like her! You like Veronica!”
And Steve watched on, relishing the tomato-red flush of Eddie’s face before grabbing the younger boy by the collar of his shirt, pulling him back to his side.
“Y’know what, Munson? You're right.” Clear as day, his voice broke through Dustin’s revelry; he took a step toward Eddie, eyes affixed to his face, arms still loosely crossed over his chest. “You don't like her.”
“Thank y-”
“You love her.”
Eddie felt his pulse drop, felt the color drain from his face as the room began to tilt, his legs gelatin as he locked his knees to keep himself standing. Love? Why was he talking about love? As the word - that damned word - carved itself into his mind, settled, took root and blossomed, Eddie realized he couldn’t deny it.
He could deny liking her with every fiber of his being - the word felt intrusive, the sentiment wrong. Sure, there were things he liked about her - several things, innumerable things, things he’d often catch himself daydreaming and losing himself in his thoughts about - yet none reflected the meaning Dustin insisted on.
But he couldn’t deny loving her, whatever that meant.
“I’m not… I-I don’t-” Eddie stammered, his mouth refusing to cooperate, his voice unconvincing and hollow; he took a step back, moving further into the house, his breathing labored as he tried to think, to work through the blaring sirens in his head. Eventually, he’d broken himself away from them, and before they could think to stop him, he’d retreated out the back door, his mumbled excuse of “I need a smoke” doing little to convince them that he was alright. Giving the boy a sharp look, Steve followed him out.
“Eddie?” Steve called after him, finding him leaning against the side of his home, hands shaking as he searched his pockets for a pack of cigarettes. “You good, man?”
“M’fine.” He didn’t look at him as he spoke, didn’t lift his head from where he’d tucked it into his chest, hand cupped over his mouth as he struggled to get his lighter to work against the chilling wind.
For a while, things were quiet; neither spoke - neither wanted to speak - but Steve knew better than to let things settle as they were.
“You worried she won’t like you back?”
Eddie shook his head. “‘S not that, it’s…” He kicked at his feet, cigarette hanging between his lips as he let out a heavy, tired breath. “I’m not like you, Steve. Chicks haven’t exactly been flocking under my open wings, y’know?”
“C’mon, Munson, it’s not like that-”
“It is, though.” His words were rushed, nervous, eyes wide and searching as he turned to look at Steve, shoulders hunched against the cold. “You’ve never had a problem getting dates. Hell, girls want to go out with you - the only time I can get a girl near me is if she’s lookin’ to buy.”
“Eddie…”
“Veronica’s not… She’s different. She’s nice a-and funny and she smiles when she talks to me, and…” His breathing was uneven, and he shook his head again, nearly crushing his cigarette between tight fingers as he pulled it out of his mouth. “Hard to believe, but that doesn’t happen much.” After a breath, he added in a quiet voice, “Doesn’t happen at all.”
“So, you don’t-”
“It’s not that I don’t, it’s…” He dragged a hand through his hair, rough as it snagged in a tangle, and he pressed the warmth of his palm into the back of his neck. “How’m I supposed to know I’m in love if I’ve never felt it before?”
The words hung between them, latent and strong, and it took Steve longer than he’d care to admit to gather his thoughts.
“Ever had a girlfriend?” he asked, despite already knowing the answer; Eddie gave a noncommittal look, shrugging as he turned back against the side of the house. “So you’re still…?”
“Christ, Steve, really?” Eddie exploded, face sweltering with embarrassment as he pelted what was left of his cigarette to the ground, snubbing it out with his foot. “I’m two steps away from havin’ a Goddamn panic attack and that’s what you want to know?” He shoved his hands back into his pockets, and bit at the inside of his mouth, a sour frown on his face as he mumbled, “Don’t make it sound gross, dude.”
“I’m not, it’s just…” Steve scrambled to explain himself, tripping over his words. “I’m surprised.”
“What, that I’m a freak and a virgin?”
He bristled at the insinuation. “I never said that.”
And Eddie spat back, “Didn’t have to.”
Another silence, another cold breeze, another rustling of graying trees against a gray sky. “Look, if you want my advice - and I mean real advice, not whatever crap the kids’ll tell you - take it slow.” Eddie turned back toward his friend, his curiosity besting him; Steve kept his eyes glued to the ground - it wasn’t easy, whatever he was trying to say. He rolled his shoulders, kicked at a stone, took in a breath before continuing. “When I was with Nance, I… I took things too fast. Too hard, y’know?” His eyes looked sad, gleaming at a memory long since passed. “It wasn’t good for either of us. In the end… I drove her away.”
“Pushed her to Byers?” Eddie asked, having only heard bits and pieces from the others about the breakup.
Steve turned to look at him, replying in a wistful tone of voice, “Yeah, exactly.” He shoved his hands into his pockets, distantly regretting not having grabbed his coat before chasing after Eddie. “I wasn’t thinking about her. Hell, I wasn’t thinking at all.” And, with a hand clamped to the man’s shoulder, he continued, “Take it from me, man - decide what you want before you start making moves. If you want to just be friends, cool - but if you want something more, figure it out for yourself before you drag her into it.” He nodded, hand falling back to his side, arms crossing over his chest. “Save you both the heartache.”
“Steve-”
“And if Dustin tries giving you pointers, ignore him.” he added quickly, pointing a finger at the man’s face. “I swear to God, if I have to listen to one more story about some phone call he had with Suzie, I’ll go bananas.”
“Steve!” Speaking of the Devil, Dustin shouted for him, half-draped over the open glass door, phone held out in his hand, the coiled cord stretched nearly to tearing. “Call for you!” With a nod, he turned to go back inside, but was stopped by a hand pulling at his wrist.
“Hey… uh… How will I know I’m… y’know?” Eddie asked, face still tinged pink - whether from the cold or from their conversation, he couldn’t tell. Steve bit back a smile, and shook his head.
“You just will, man.” he said smoothly - because of course he would. “It’ll all just fall into place, and… and loving her will just make sense.”
“Steve!”
“Gimme a minute, Henderson!” he shouted back, letting out a heavy sigh. “Just think about it, alright? You’ll figure it out eventually.”
Eddie didn’t know how long he’d stayed outside after Steve had left him, how many cigarettes he’d lit that burned down to nothing in his fingers, or how many times his train of thought had begun and ended with Veronica.
Tag List
@lulukings92
#ride the lightning#becca.fic#i thought dustin was annoying on the show and that absolutely will carry on into this fic#also i was going to put in a chernobyl reference in place of the Biblical bit but according to my imaginary timeline this is too early#i know where i am in this we are somewhere in december '85/january '86 by this point probably#also SOMEONE ASKED TO BE TAGGED????I HAVE A TAGLIST NOW????????#wowowowowowowowow i feel so legit now for having one :O#and yeah our boy had a dream about his girl and lost his shit over it#eddie munson#eddie munson fic#eddie munson x original female character#stranger things
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Old School X is a project interviewing X-Files fanfic authors who were posting fic during the original run of the show. New interviews are posted every Tuesday.
Interview with Syntax6
Syntax6 has 17 stories at Gossamer, but you should visit her website for the complete collection of her fics and to see the cover art that comes with many of the stories (and to find her pro writing!). She's written some of the most beloved casefiles in the fandom. I've recced literally all of them here before. Twice. Big thanks to Syntax6 for doing this interview.
Does it surprise you that people are still interested in reading your X-Files fanfics and others that were posted during the original run of the show (1993-2002)?
I’m delighted but not surprised because I’ve written and read fanfic for shows even older than XF. Also, I joined the XF fandom relatively late, at the end of 1999, so there were already hundreds of “classic” fics out there, stories that were theoretically superseded or dated by canon developments that came after them, but which nonetheless remained compelling in their own right. That is the beauty of fanfic: it is inspired by its original creators but not bound by them. It’s a world of “what if” and each story gets to run in a new direction, irrespective of the canon and all the other stories spinning off in their own universes. In this way, fanfic becomes almost timeless.
What do you think of when you think about your X-Files fandom experience? What did you take away from it? What did you take away from your experience with X-Files fic or with the fandom in general?
(I feel these are similar, at least for me, so I will combine them here.)
First and foremost, I found friends. There was a table full of XF fanfic writers at my wedding. Bugs was my maid of honor. I still talk to someone from XF fandom pretty much every day. Lysandra, Maybe Amanda, Michelle Kiefer, bugs…these are just some of the people who’ve been part of my life for half my existence now. Sometimes I get to have dinner with Audrey Roget or Anjou or MCA. Deb Wells and Sarah Ellen Parsons are part of my pro fic beta team. I have a similar list from the Hunter fandom, terrific people who have enriched my life in numerous ways and I am honored to count as friends.
Second, I learned a lot about writing during my years in XF fandom. I grew up there. Part of this growth experience was simply due to practice. I wrote about 1.2 million words of XF fanfic, which is the equivalent of 15 novels. I made mistakes and learned from them. But another essential part of learning is absorbing different kinds of well-told tales, and XF had these in spades. Some stories were funny. Others were lyrical. Some were short pieces with nary a word wasted while others were sprawling epics that took you on an adventure. The neat thing about XF is that it has space for many different kinds of stories, from hard-core sci-fi to historical romance. You can watch other authors executing these varied pieces and learn from them. You can form critique groups and ask for betas and get direct feedback on how to improve. It’s collaborative and fun, and this can’t be underestimated, generally supportive. The underlying shared love of the original product means that everyone comes into your work predisposed to enjoy it. I am grateful for all the encouragement and the critiques I received over my years in fandom.
Finally, I think a valuable lesson for writers that you can find in fandom, but not in your local author critique group, is how to handle yourself when your work goes public. Not everyone is going to like your work and they will make sure you know it. Some people will like it maybe too much, to the point where they cross boundaries. Learning to disengage yourself from public reaction to your work is a difficult but crucial aspect of being a writer. You control the story. You can’t control reaction to it. It’s frustrating at first, perhaps, but in the end, it’s freeing.
Social media didn't really exist during the show's original run. How were you most involved with the X-Files online (atxc, message board, email mailing list, etc.)?
I participated in ATXC, the Haven message boards, and the Scullyfic mailing list/news group. For a number of years, I also ran a fic discussion group with bugs called The Why Incision.
What got you involved with X-Files fanfic?
I started reading XF fanfic before I began watching the show. I had watched one season two episode (Soft Light) and then seen bits and pieces of a few others from season four. I’d seen Fight the Future. Basically, I’d seen enough to know which one was Mulder and which one was Scully, and which one believed in aliens. An acquaintance linked me to a rec site for XF fanfic (Gertie’s, maybe?) so that I could see how fic was formatted for the web. I clicked a fic, I think it was one by Lydia Bower dealing with Scully’s cancer arc, and basically did not stop reading. Soon I was printing off 300K of fic to take home with me each night. I could not believe the level of talent in the fandom, and that there were so many excellent writers just giving away their works for free. I wanted to play in this sandbox, too, so I started renting the VHS tapes to catch up on old episodes (see, I am An Old). After a few months, I began writing my own stuff.
What was it that got you hooked on the X-Files as a show?
I had to be dragged kicking and screaming to The X-Files. I’m not a sci-fi person by nature. I think my main objection is that, when done poorly, it feels lazy to me. Who did the thing? A ghost! Maybe an alien? I guess we’ll never know. You can always just shrug and play some spooky music and the “truth will always be out there…” somewhere beyond the story in front of you. You never have to commit to any kind of truth because you can invent some magical power or new kind of alien to change the story. I think, by the bitter end, the XF had devolved into this kind of storytelling. The mytharc made no kind of sense even in its own universe. But for years the XF achieved the best aspects of sci-fi storytelling—narrative flexibility and an apotheosis of our current fears dressed up as a super entertaining yarn.
What eventually sold me on the XF as a show is all of the smart storytelling and the sheer amount of ideas contained within its run. At its best, it’s a brilliant show. You have mediations on good versus evil, the role of government in a free society, is there a God, are we alone in the universe, and what are the elements that make us who we are? If Mulder and Morris Fletcher switch bodies, how do we know it’s really “them”? The tonal shifts from week to week were clever and engaging. For Vince Gilligan, truth was always found in fellow human beings. For Darin Morgan, humans were the biggest monster of all. The show was big enough to contain both these premises, and indeed, was stronger for it. The deep questions, the character quirks, the unsolved mysteries and all that went unsaid in the Mulder-Scully relationship left so much room for fanfic writers to do their own work. As such, the fandom attracted and continues to attract both dabbling writers and those who are serious craftspeople. People who like the mystery and those who like the sci-fi angle. Scientists and true believers. Like the show, it’s big enough for all.
What is your relationship like now to X-Files fandom?
I look at it like an old friend I catch up with once in a while. We’ve been close for so long that there’s no awkwardness—we just get each other! I love seeing people post screen shots and commentary, and I think it’s wonderful that so many writers are still inventing new adventures for Mulder and Scully. That is how the characters live on, and indeed how any of us lives on, through the stories that others tell about us.
Were you involved with any fandoms after the X-Files? If so, what was it like compared to X-Files?
I ran the Hunter fandom for about five years, mostly because when I poked my head back in, I found the person in change was a bully who’d shut down everything due to her own waning interest. A person would try to start a topic for discussion, and she’d say, “We’ve already covered that.” Well, yes, in a 30-year-old show, there’s not a lot of new ground…
Most other shows, Hunter included, have smaller fandoms and thus don’t attract the depth of fan talent. I don’t just mean fanfic writers. I mean those who do visual art, fan vids, critiques, etc. The XF fandom has all these in droves, which makes it a rare and special place. But all fandoms have the particular joy of geeking out over favorite scenes and reveling in the meeting of shared minds. It will always look odd to those not contained within it, which brings me to the part of modern fandom I find somewhat uncomfortable…the creators are often in fan-space.
In Hunter, the female lead joins fan groups and participates. This is more common now in the age of social media, where writers, producers, actors, etc., are on the same platforms as the rest of us. Fan and creator interaction used to be highly circumscribed: fans wrote letters and maybe received a signed headshot in return. There were cons where show runners gave panels and took questions from the audience. You could stand in line to meet your favorite star. Now, you can @ your favorite star on Twitter, message her on Facebook or follow him on Instagram. In some ways, this is so fun! In other ways, it blurs in the lines in ways that make me uncomfortable. I think it’s rude, for example, if a fan were to go on a star’s social media and post fanfic there or say, “I thought the episode you wrote was terrible.” But what if it’s fan space and the actor is sitting right there, watching you? Is it rude to post fanfic in front of her, especially if she says it makes her uncomfortable? Is it mean to tell a writer his episode sucked right to his face?
Do you ever still watch The X-Files or think about Mulder and Scully?
I own the first seven seasons on DVD and will pull them out from time to time to rewatch old faves. I’ve shown a few episodes over the spring and summer to my ten-year-old daughter, and it’s been fun to see the series through her eyes. We’ve mostly opted for the comedic episodes because there’s enough going on in the real world to give her nightmares. Her favorite so far is Je Souhaite.
Do you ever still read X-Files fic? Fic in another fandom?
I don’t have much bandwidth to read fanfic these days. My job as a mystery/thriller author means I have to keep up with the market so I do most of my reading there right now. I also beta read for some pro-fic friends and betaing a novel will keep you busy.
Do you have any favorite X-Files fanfic stories or authors?
I read so much back in the day that this answer could go on for pages. Alas, it also hasn’t changed much over the past fifteen years because I haven’t read much since then. But, as we’re talking Golden Oldies today, here are a bunch:
All the Mulders, by Alloway
I find this short story both hilarious and haunting. Scully embraces her power in the upside down post-apocalyptic world.
Strangers and the Strange Dead, by Kipler
Taut prose and an intriguing 3rd party POV make this story a winner, and that’s before the kicker of an ending, which presaged 1013’s.
Cellphone, by Marasmus
Talk about your killer twists! Also one of the cleverest titles coming or going.
Arizona Highways, by Fialka
I think this is one of the best-crafted stories to come out of the XF. It’s majestic in scope, full of complex literary structure and theme, and yet the plot moves like a runaway freight train. Both the Mulder and Scully characterizations are handled with tender care.
So, We Kissed, by Alelou
What I love about this one is how it grounds Mulder and Scully in the ordinary. Mulder’s terrible secret doesn’t involve a UFO or some CSM-conspiracy. Scully goes to therapy that actually looks like therapy. I guess what I’m saying is that I utterly believe this version of M & S in addition to just enjoying reading about them.
Sore Luck at the Luxor, by Anubis
Hot, funny, atmospheric. What’s not to love?
Black Hole Season, by Penumbra
Nobody does wordsmithing like Penumbra. I use her in arguments with professional writers when they try to tell me that adverbs and adjectives MUST GO. Just gorgeous, sly, insightful prose.
The Dreaming Sea, by Revely
This one reads like a fairytale in all the best ways. Revely creates such loving, beautiful worlds for M & S to live in, and I wish they could stay there always.
Malus Genius, by Plausible Deniability and MaybeAmanda
Funny and fun, with great original characters, a sly casefile and some clear-eyed musings on the perils of getting older. This one resonates more and more the older I get. ;)
Riding the Whirlpool, by Pufferdeux
I look this one up periodically to prove to people that it exists. Scully gets off on a washing machine while Mulder helps. Yet it’s in character? And kinda works? This one has to be read to be believed.
Bone of Contention (part 1, part 2), by Michelle Kiefer and Kel
People used to tell me all the time that casefiles are super easy to write while the poetic vignette is hard. Well, I can’t say which is harder but there much fewer well-done casefiles in the fandom than there are poetic vignettes. This is one of the great ones.
Antidote, by Rachel Howard
A fic that manages to be both hot and cold as it imagines Mulder and Scully trying to stay alive in the frosty wilderness while a deadly virus is on the loose. This is an ooooold fic that holds up impressively well given everything that followed it!
Falling Down in Four Acts, by Anubis
Anubis was actually a bunch of different writers sharing a single author name. This particular one paints an angry, vivid world for Our Heroes and their compatriots. There is no happy ending here, but I read this once and it stayed with me forever.
The Opposite of Impulse, by Maria Nicole
A sweet slice of life on a sunny day. When I imagine a gentler universe for Mulder and Scully, this is the kind of place I’d put them.
What is your favorite of your own fics, X-Files and/or otherwise?
Bait and Switch is probably the most sophisticated and tightly plotted. It was late in my fanfic “career” and so it shows the benefits to all that learning. My favorite varies a lot, but I’ll say Universal Invariants because that one was nothing but fun.
Do you think you'll ever write another X-Files story? Or dust off and post an oldie that for whatever reason never made it online?
I never say never! I don’t have any oldies sitting around, though. Everything I wrote, I posted.
Do you still write fic now? Or other creative work?
I write casefiles…er, I mean mysteries, under my own name now, Joanna Schaffhausen. My main series with Reed and Ellery consists of a male-female crime solving team, so I get a little bit of my XF kick that way. Their first book, The Vanishing Season, started its life as an XF fanfic back in the day. I had to rewrite it from the ground up to get it published, but if you know both stories, you can spot the similarities.
Where do you get ideas for stories?
The answer any writer will tell you is “everywhere.” Ideas are cheap and they’re all around us—on the news, on the subway, in conversations with friends, from Twitter memes, on a walk through the woods. My mysteries are often rooted in true crime, often more than one of them.
Each idea is like a strand of colored thread, and you have to braid them together into a coherent story. This is the tricky part, determining which threads belong in which story. If the ideas enhance one another or if they just create an ugly tangent.
Mostly, though, stories begin by asking “what if?” What if Scully’s boyfriend Ethan had never been cut from the pilot? What if Scully had moved to Utah after Fight the Future? What if the Lone Gunmen financed their toys by writing a successful comic book starring a thinly veiled Mulder and Scully?
Growing up, I had a sweet old lady for a neighbor. Her name was Doris and she gave me coffee ice cream while we watched Wheel of Fortune together. Every time there was a snow storm, the snow melted in her backyard in a such way that suggested she had numerous bodies buried out there. How’s that for a “what if?”
What's the story behind your pen name?
I’ve had a few of them and honestly can’t tell you where they came from, it’s been so long ago. The “6” part of syntax6 is because I joke that 6 is my lucky number. In eighth grade, my algebra teacher would go around the room in order, asking each student their answer to the previous night’s homework problems. I realized quickly that I didn’t have to do all the problems, just the fifteenth one because my desk was 15th on her list. This worked well until the day she decided to call on kids in random order. When she got to me and asked me the answer to the problem I had not done, I just invented something on the spot. “Uh…six?”
Her: “You mean 0.6, don’t you?”
Me, nodding vigorously: “YES, I DO.”
Her: “Very good. Moving on…”
Do your friends and family know about your fic and, if so, what have been their reactions?
My close friends and family have always known, and reactions have varied from mild befuddlement to enthusiastic support. My father voted in the Spookies one year, and you can believe he read the nominated stories before casting his vote. I think the most common reaction was: Why are you doing this for free? Why aren’t you trying to be a paid writer?
Well, having done both now, I can tell you that each kind of writing brings its own rewards. Fanfic is freeing because there is no pressure to make money from it. You can take risks and try new things and not have to worry if it fits into your business plan.
(Posted by Lilydale on September 15, 2020)
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Mint Ice Cream & Bubblegum Kisses - Chapter Three
(Bucky Barnes x Single Dad!Reader)
Series Summary: Y/N L/N works as an intel specialist at the Avenger’s Compound. He scans chatter on the international - and intergalactic - level for any information that might be helpful to the Avengers and other agents. But he’s also a single father to a beautiful eight-year-old girl: Angelica L/N. It’s tough raising a little girl on his own and working a full-time job, but he’s managing. A promotion has him launched up in rank at the Compound, leading him to work directly with the Avengers team. The only problem is it’s a 24/7 job. Life around the compound gets a little strange when his daughter is added to the mix of enhanced humans and ex-assassins.
Chapter Summary: Angelica seems to be settling in nicely and Y/N is still getting used to having his kid around in his workplace. Especially when she's known to be a little mischievous.
Word Count: 2.6
Warnings: Fluff, pranks, like four swear words, discussion of PTSD but it's very brief. Like very brief.
A/N: this is in light of me recently being able to play Black Widow for work. as I said in the last chapter, things will be moving a lot quicker
Masterlist
Taglist is open! PM me, send an ask, or @ me on a chapter to let me know you’d like to be tagged! Strikethrough means I couldn’t tag you, but I will send you a message to let you know :)
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Angelica snuck down the hall toward the common room, trying to keep her steps light or as close to silent as she could get them. She resisted the urge to look up at the ceiling, knowing Peter was just above her. This was a new system they were trying out where Angelica went first as a decoy and Peter would follow for the proper scare.
They had a shared love of harmless pranks and therefore had started a small prank war on the other inhabitants of the compound. At first, it had only been against each other, but they figured out that they could do way more if they teamed up.
Y/N had warned them not to do anything too bad, knowing how some of the people in the compound were affected by sudden surprises. He'd sat Angelica down and explained what Post Traumatic Stress Disorder was and how what she might perceive as a harmless trick might trigger something or cause a breakdown.
She had understood and in her very solemn way promised to run her more "fear factor" ideas by him first just to be safe. When he did shut down her ideas, she never argued and dropped the plan. Confuse not abuse was their motto.
Y/N, meanwhile, was working in his office, watching text scroll across his screen. There was a lot less than when he worked general intel, but that didn't mean he could focus any less. Any small detail could make or break whether the information was crucial or not. Everything that came across his screen was very important, but some things had to be taken note of.
He had mastered reading and writing at the same time, his shorthand notes making no sense to anyone but him. He'd learned that the week before when he passed the intel off to Tony and he just stared blankly at the paper. Now, he translated his notes so others could understand. Sometimes, he couldn't tell what he was meaning to say.
A transmission from The Benatar came through and he pulled his seat closer. It was just a simple message about their whereabouts and where they were headed. Gamora had signed it off, saying that it was nice to meet him and that whenever they stopped by next, they had to properly meet. He wrote down their message before typing a message in response.
Received. Glad to know you all are safe and having fun up there. Stop by anytime you want. My daughter would be overjoyed to meet all of you.
- Y/N
Y/N leaned back in his chair, taking up a pen to make notes as information on underground movements possibly related to Hydra agents flooded in. More bases had been popping up recently, despite Steve's attempts to drag them all down in the past. Instead of being against the Winter Soldier, though, he was with them. Which gave them the upper hand since he knew their inner workings.
A knock on his office door made him glance up. Bruce stood in the doorframe, his knuckles still against the wood of the door. He gave a shy smile. "Am I interrupting?"
"Not at all. Come on in, Bruce." Y/N set his pen down and rolled his chair to the end of his desk. "What can I do you for?"
"I just came by to see how you were settling in. We haven't talked much since you were offered the promotion." Bruce sat tentatively on the couch, looking very unsure of himself.
"Things have been going well. It's nice of you to stop by, though." Y/N swiveled back and forth casually. "I like having my own office."
"It's great, huh? I have a whole lab to myself most of the time. Tony invades my space once in a blue moon but he has his own lab somewhere else." Bruce relaxed a little, laughing gently.
"Angelica breaks the peace at least twice a day, but she's my kid so it's not as annoying. Except when I really have to focus. Then I kick her out for a bit." He said with a lopsided grin.
"She wanders into my lab every so often to say hello or ask for help with her science homework. She's lovely." Bruce smiled. "Very bright."
"Yeah, she is...I can't keep up with her at this point. She's going to surpass my skills soon." He chuckled, shaking his head. "Good thing she's got you guys to check her science. I barely passed it in high school."
"Really? I wouldn't have expected that from you." Bruce said.
"I was okay up through my sophomore year but once I hit physics, I lost all understanding. Algebra was never my strong suit, either." Y/N rolled his eyes. Bruce was going to respond when shouting down the hall caught their attention.
Peter sprinted by the office, yelling over his shoulder: "Every man for himself!"
Angelica was a few seconds behind him and she slid into her father's office. "Hide me! Quick!" She slipped around his desk and curled up underneath it.
"Kiddo, what are you doing?" Y/N asked, giving her an amused look.
"Shhhh!" She shushed him and pressed herself into the corner, covering her mouth to hide her giggles.
"Peter Benjamin Parker! Angelica Ellaine L/N! Get your butts back here!" Natasha seemed to be the source of the yelling as she stormed down the hall. She paused at the door to the office, leaning casually in the doorframe. "Hey, boys. You seen a tall spider or a little monster recently?"
Angelica shook her head vigorously in her father's peripheral vision. He pretended not to see her, making sure not to look anywhere close to her location. "Snitches don't get cookies." She whispered as quietly as possible.
"What'd she do now?" Y/N asked. He had to uphold the Code. Snitches don't get cookies, and he'd never betray his daughter.
"She tried to jumpscare me and then Peter swung down from the ceiling and scared the hell out of me." Nat folded her arms over her chest. "So, I'm trying to grab both of them to dump them in the pool."
Y/N laughed and shook his head. "I haven't seen her, except for a few seconds ago. She ran by on Pete's heels."
"Bruce, have you seen them?" Nat turned her gaze to the scientist, who suddenly grew visibly nervous.
"Uh," He glanced at Y/N. "They ran by just a minute ago."
"Uh-huh...Well, I guess I'll just keep looking." Nat pushed off the doorway and started to leave before poking her head back in. "You're still a terrible liar, Bruce." She winked and disappeared.
"Is it safe?" Angelica whispered.
"Yep. Come on out." Y/N rolled back a little bit to give her space to move out. "Good luck out there, kiddo. Watch your back."
"Thank you, Mr. Banner! You deserve a cookie." Angelica smiled at Bruce, the full personification of the smiley-face emoticon. She snuck to the doorway and glanced down the hall before turning the same way Peter had run.
"How long do you think it'll be?" Y/N asked, returning his chair to its proper place.
"Until what?"
His question was answered by a scream from down the hall that devolved into squealing laughter. There was some indiscernible shouting from three different people.
"Until Nat caught her at the corner." Y/N watched as Nat went running by, laughing, with Angelica thrown over her shoulder.
"Peter! Help! She got me!" Angelica yelled through giggles, hand extended out behind Nat's back.
"Angelica! No!" Peter followed, reaching for her. "Nat, give her back!"
Y/N shook his head fondly as the chaos grew quieter the farther they got. "We're settling in well, as you can see. She's making friends and creating chaos. I'd be worried if she wasn't."
"Did she always play pranks on you?" Bruce asked, smiling uncontrollably.
"On more than one occasion, I found shaving cream in my shoes." Y/N wrinkled his nose up at the memories. He had hated that feeling of shaving cream squeezing between his toes in his socks.
"Gross. She and Peter were bound to get along well, then." Bruce glanced at the clock and got to his feet. "I should let you get back to work. If Angelica has a science or math question, you can totally send her to me."
"Thanks, Bruce. You're a genius." Y/N rolled back over to his work station, shaking his mouse to wake his computer up.
"I wouldn't say that," Bruce said as he walked backward out of the room, pausing in the doorway.
"Don't sell yourself short, Bruce! You're totally a genius." Y/N pointed with his pen, smiling as he spoke.
Bruce ducked his head sheepishly and nodded before he left the office.
Y/N returned to his screen, pulling his notes back into reach, and scanned the text again. Another couple of hours before lunch.
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"Your kid." Tony suddenly popped in, holding his phone out to show Y/N what was on it. "Your kid keeps changing my phone background."
Y/N looked up and glanced at the screen before bursting into laughter. It was a photo of a sloth dressed as an astronaut. In the past year, she'd managed to change her father's phone background and laptop wallpaper to that stupid sloth photo without his knowledge at least sixteen times.
"Why?" Tony asked, defeated. "Why is she doing this?"
"She read about someone online who did the same thing to their parents and she took inspiration. I'm happy to see she's moved on to other targets." Y/N shook his head in amusement. "Shouldn't your phone be super secure or something?"
"It is! I don't understand how she keeps doing it. I've changed my password eight times and even had Friday monitor any attempts to hack in." Tony sank down onto the couch, tossing his phone beside him.
"Well, she definitely can't hack things. She's smart, but not that smart. Usually, a password change will keep her from trying again." Y/N swiveled to the side, head cocked.
"This is the second time today," Tony grumbled, brows furrowed. "I don't get it."
"Well, you're the genius here." Y/N snorted, glancing at his screen again. "If my kid's not the one hacking your phone, who is?"
"Oh, my god," Tony said, standing quickly. He rushed to leave but paused in the door. "You're the genius, Y/N."
Y/N arched a brow in mild intrigue. "Uh-huh. You're welcome?"
Tony flashed a smile before turning. "Peter Benjamin Parker, how many times have I told you not to hack into my stuff!" He shouted as he walked down the hall.
"Kid, you're sowing chaos." Y/N glanced at his daughter curled up under his desk.
"Huh?" Angelica looked up from her book, confused. "What's going on?"
"Peter hacked Tony's phone and changed his phone background to that astronaut sloth." He responded, returning to his work.
"Oh, Pete didn't do that." She said, turning her page. "Mr. Banner did after seeing us do it. Somethin' about getting back at him for leaving crumbs all over his lab."
Distant yelling floated down the hall to the office. High-pitched 'Mr. Stark, it wasn't me!'s were the only things that could be properly made out. Angelica made eye-contact with her father.
"Should I?" She asked.
"Nah." Y/N said and they both started to snicker. "He's a big boy. He can take care of himself."
Angelica giggled and returned her attention to her book.
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Y/N pulled himself out of the pool, shaking his head to fling water off his face. He hadn't gotten to use the facilities yet since they moved in. The pool was really nice - way better than any of the public pools he'd been to. He used to swim once a week but work got in the way. Now that it was Sunday, he could enjoy the free access for as long as he wanted.
He grabbed a towel, dried his hair and face, and walked to the locker room. His shirt was folded up on a bench with his shoes sitting beside it. He dried the rest of his body off and pulled his shirt on. He slipped his feet into his shoes and froze.
"Dammit, Angelica!" Y/N shouted as shaving cream seeped between his toes and spilled over the top of his feet. He grimaced and kicked his shoes off, quickly wiping the shaving cream off. He picked up his shoes and went storming off to find his daughter.
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"Hey, Y/N. Sorry to intrude after hours." Sam knocked on the doorframe to his bedroom.
"Hey, Sam. No worries." Y/N looked up from his book and set it aside. "What's up?"
"Bucky and Steve are coming back really early tomorrow morning. Like, three in the morning early." He wrinkled his nose up. "They might have sensitive intel from their raid so Tony's asked you to be in office by the time they get back."
"I won't yell at you since you're just the messenger, but really?!" Y/N groaned, running a hand over his face. If he wasn't a morning person before, he surely wouldn't be a happy camper at such an early hour. "Guess my plans to stay up reading have been shot."
"Sorry, man. It's what the boss wants. But really, blame Barnes because he wanted to get back as soon as possible." Sam crossed his arms and shrugged. "Always his fault if somethin' goes wrong. Man brings bad luck wherever he goes."
"I think that's a little harsh and biased. I haven't even met the guy, yet." Y/N leaned over to set his book on the nightstand. He snagged his phone and started to set an alarm or two for the morning.
"I'm sure you've heard all the rumors. Some of them are true - about him being grouchy and an anti-social person - but a good majority of the rumors is just scuttlebutt. Er, gossip. He's got a good heart, but man he can be annoying as hell," Sam smiled fondly, though he tried not to look it.
"Sounds about right," Y/N chuckled, sliding his charging phone underneath his pillow.
"He's really slow to trust and open up, so if he's a little closed off and rough around the edges, it's not you. It's all him, so don't worry." Sam explained. "Might want to ease him into meeting the little rascal, though. He's skittish on his bad days and after missions."
"I took the liberty of reading over all of the team's files so I get why. Thanks for letting me know. I should get some sleep so I'm not as grumpy in the morning when I greet them." Y/N yawned on accident, covering his mouth with his hand.
"No problem. I'll let you get some rest." Sam reached forward and closed the door as he left.
Y/N turned out the light and sank down in bed, drawing the covers up. He had at least four extra blankets just for the weight. He liked having the excess weight since it made him feel secure and grounded.
"Hey, Friday?"
"Yes, Mr. L/N?"
"If I don't wake up from my alarms, please wake me."
"Of course."
Y/N fell asleep shortly afterward, not fully aware of how tired he had been. Moving and getting used to the new environment had really taken it out of him and his body was begging to catch up. A shame he'd only get five hours before being dragged from bed. That was going to be one of the very few downsides of this new job.
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Taglist- @supernaturalwintersoldier @shadowolf993 @myybebe
#mint ice cream & bubblegum kisses#bucky barnes#james buchanan barnes#bucky barnes x reader#bucky barnes x male reader#bucky barnes x single dad!reader#bucky barnes fanfiction#mcu fanfiction#marvel fanfiction
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A Need So Great-Chapter 9
Summary: Eva Moore is assigned to work the last year of her contract with the DEA in Colombia. She just wants to get to the end of her tenure, but she keeps getting drawn further into a string of murders in the city. It isn’t long before she’s forced to face the ghosts of her past.
Word Count: ~3,300
Warnings: None
A/N: For the purposes of this story, Carrillo isn’t married--or, if you like, divorced. A/B/O dynamics are prevalent, and they come with their own warning. The overall rating for this story is Explicit, although not every chapter will contain adult themes.
Taglist: @dirtynerdy98 @1zashreena1 @heresathreebee @deliciouslyclassytrash @maybege @kid-from-new-zealand @clydesducktape
Chapters: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 8.5, 10, 10.5, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21
Eva sat in the conference room, trying hard not to fidget. Javier and Steve were to her left, and there was a projector sitting behind the table. None of them knew why they were sitting there. None of them knew when the meeting would start. All that they were told was that they were supposed to be sitting in that room by nine am that day. No exceptions.
The air kicked on, filling the room with a dull drone. Eva grabbed her pen and held it in her palm, using her thumb to slide the cap up and down along the length of it. She wanted to get up and take a lap around the room to excise some of the nervous energy she felt.
Javier lit a cigarette, sinking down lower into his chair, looking annoyed, “How long’ve we been sitting here?”
Steve looked at his watch, “About twenty minutes.”
“Fuck me,” Javier groaned, rubbing his eye, “I got about a thousand pages of paperwork that need to get done and we’re sitting here with our thumbs up our asses.”
She had to agree. She’d gotten a little behind with reading through case files. Although she was used to redacted information, she wasn’t used to whole sections of them being completely missing. As she moved through the most recent information, that was occurring more and more often. She thought she’d gotten the mole over two months ago, but now… there had to be more than one.
The door opened and Vanessa walked in. Eva inhaled deeply, her grip on the pen tightening until she heard the plastic crack. Jaw clenched, she sat up and prepared herself for the inevitable. Unable to help it, she glanced at the two agents she’d worked with so closely, already mourning the friendship they’d started to develop. She wondered if Connie would be calling to cancel their work out tonight.
Blinking, she turned her attention to the woman who signed her paychecks.
“Hello, thank you for waiting. I’m Vanessa Arnold.”
A tall, stately woman, dressed in a crisp suit, Vanessa looked at them with a critical gaze. She addressed each of them in turn, welcoming them to the meeting. Eva’s eyes narrowed as Vanessa sorted the stack of files in front of her. She knew those files—well worn over the years, and slowly growing.
“I am here,” she announced, her expression business placid, “Because I’ve heard some disturbing information and I would like to give you the opportunity to address it.”
Next to her, Javier stubbed out his cigarette, “What kind of information?”
Vanessa smiled, it was not a nice smile, “It has been reported to the States that you are engaging in some inappropriate behavior.”
Javier and Steve looked at each other, a whole conversation passing between them that Eva wasn’t sure she could decipher. Steve, who was sitting next to her, put his elbows on the table, resting his head on his hands. Javier stayed where he was, but she could feel the heat of the glare he leveled at Vanessa.
“Now, we deal with some very serious things, and sometimes that wears us down.” Standing, Vanessa circled the conference table, hand skimming over the chairs. “Sometimes, that leads us to forget our boundaries and the expectations of the DEA for its agents.”
Eva’s gaze followed Vanessa as she sauntered towards them, pace excruciatingly slow. She knew where this was going, had attended this meeting at least once in every location she’d been sent to, usually at about the six month mark. And yet, it still hurt. Vanessa knew how to make it hurt.
Javier cleared his throat, “With all due respect, Ms. Arnold, can you get to the point?”
There was that ugly smile again, “Absolutely. I’ve received reports that you and Agent Murphy are participating in social events with Mrs. Moore. Going out to bars, eating lunch together—Agent Murphy, your wife has been attending classes at the gym with Mrs. Moore, has she not?”
Steve’s mouth thinned, “She has. There aren’t many Americans in this country, least of all anyone who might be able to commiserate about life in close quarters with the DEA.”
Vanessa cast him a condescending look, “Still, it doesn’t exactly put you in a positive light, does it?”
Eva could feel the wheels of Steve’s mind turning as he processed what she’d said. He flicked his fingers out in a sharp motion before curling them into his palms, “I don’t understand. Eva is a contract consultant, paid by the DEA to work with us. How is associating with her outside of work a negative?”
Here we go.
Vanessa stepped back and flicked off the lights, then moved to the projector and turned it on, “Mrs. Moore is generally reticent to talk about it, but I feel its important for you to know who you are working with.”
The projector clicked and Eva’s mug shot flashed onto the wall opposite the group. She closed her eyes, working to control her breathing. She’d been released into police custody right out of the hospital. Her arm was still in a cast, her face heavily swollen and bruised. The picture was not flattering.
“Mrs. Moore was charged and convicted of the murder of her husband a few years prior to coming to work for us.”
Another click. Her husband’s picture, his professional photo, came up. Josh was impeccably groomed, smile wide and white, eyes clear and sparkling. She bit the inside of her cheek, stunned that she could still feel such hatred towards a person no longer living.
“This is Joshua Moore. A prominent doctor and businessman out of Louisiana. His practice was located just outside of New Orleans. He was most well known for donating large amounts to charities across the state.”
For the tax write off. And, to get the votes of the city councils.
Click. Their wedding picture. Eva felt bile rise in her throat. Fourteen years old, looking like a baby next to a twenty five year old who’d just started working for the local hospital. Her mother had picked out her dress—a frilly, lace encrusted thing that was a touch too long. She remembered how much her feet hurt from walking in the heels she needed to wear to keep the thing from dragging too much down the aisle. Standing at the altar had been excruciating enough that she’d stumbled over her vows.
“By all accounts, Mrs. Moore and her husband had a passionate relationship.”
Passionate is one way to put it.
In the beginning, she’d fought him when she thought he was being unfair. He’d scream, punch doors, throw things, eventually things devolved into physical beatings. It only took about a year for her to stop fighting and just do what he wanted. It was easier that way. Soon enough, he figured out how good she was at hiding things—money, product, herself—and he let her in on the family business.
Click. Their blood covered carpet with his outline marked in tape.
“One night, things got out of hand. Mr. Moore unfortunately lost his life at the hands of his wife.”
God, could she be a little less dramatic? Her voice had lowered down to a soft, sweet sound that grated on every nerve Eva had. She felt her mouth lift in a sneer before she could check the motion. Sniffing, she relaxed the muscles of her face, looking forward at the picture dispassionately.
Click. The trail of blood leading from the living room out the back door.
“When police arrived on the scene, Mr. Moore was found in the back yard, on fire. Autopsy reports state that he was set aflame post mortem. His cause of death was confirmed as blunt force trauma to the skull.”
Click. Her husband’s dead body, skin black and burned down to bone, laying atop a cart. Click. A close up of his face, half the skull missing. In bottom right corner, there was a little ‘R’ marked in what looked to be black permanent marker. This was the only new aspect of the photos. Every location. Every six months. Every photo. She’d seen them over and over and had them memorized. It didn’t seem possible that this little song and dance could still make her angry, but it did. She was tired of paying for a justifiable action she’d taken to save her own life.
Vanessa left the last photo up, moving to stand before them, one hand slipping into the pocket of her slacks. Eva kept her gaze steady, ready to take what would come next, the words that she’d heard for many years.
“Gentleman, you’re sitting next to a cold blooded murder, a person who took a life that was privileged and beat it to death with a fire extinguisher. Think about what kind of person could do that to someone they loved. This about who she would have to be to drag a dead body out of her house and set it on fire. Think about how associating with that kind of person reflects on you and your careers.”
The silence that followed was familiar and tense. Both men looking at Vanessa—Javier gently tapping his forefinger on the table, Steve with his head on his hands.
Vanessa’s eyes narrowed, but she kept smiling, “I’m going to let you keep thinking on that. Thank you for coming in. Have a nice day.”
And then she as striding out, her heels clicking on the tile. Eva watched her go, the door closing gently behind her. Eva just caught the face of that department head she’d nearly forgotten about as he approached Vanessa in the hall. She let the sneer form on her mouth, knowing that the rumor mill would start almost immediately.
The air in the room felt oppressive, the darkness only adding more pressure. Eva pushed a breath through her nose, scratching at the skin above her eyebrow as she tried to think of something to say.
Javier spoke for her, “What a load of bullshit.”
She couldn’t help it. She laughed. It was, indeed, a load of bullshit. She’d never had someone put it so succinctly so quickly following the presentation.
Steve leaned back in his seat, smashing the power button on the projector. It turned off with the groaning hiss of an air fan, leaving the room completely dark. Eva took the opportunity to swallow back the old feelings that had been drudged up in the last ten minutes. Ten minutes. That’s all it took for her to feel like shit again. She fucking hated Vanessa.
Javier stood up and flicked on the lights, returning to his seat and sitting heavily. He pulled his cigarettes from his pocket and lit one, offering the pack to Steve, who took it. Eva folded her hands over her chest and waited for someone to speak.
Steve tapped off ash into a faceted glass tray, “So that’s why you told us about it early on.”
“That’s why I told you about it early on,” Eva confirmed with a nod.
Javier blew out a lungful of smoke, “She do this often?”
“Yeah.”
“How often?”
“Every time, with every team.”
He nodded, leaning his forearms on the table, “You notice she left your files.”
“Yep,” Eva bit out.
It was a perfect strategy. If she hadn’t been up front about her husband, it would be impossible for anyone to ignore the fact that the whole story, in black and white, was sitting right there.
Steve reached out and placed his hand next to her on the tabletop, “You want us to read through it.”
She shrugged, “You can, if you want. Its a nicely worded story. Not too flattering to me, of course.”
They looked at each other for a few seconds, another private conversation passing between them. She kept her expression neutral, not wanting to sway them one way or another.
Steve threw the butt of his cigarette into the tray, “Connie and I are having a pool party next weekend. You want to come? Carrillo, too.”
Eva felt her jaw drop, didn’t bother to conceal her shock, “You want me to come to a party.”
“Yeah,” he said, his mouth curling into a smile, “Maybe you can convince Javi, here, to put on a swim suit.”
“I wear swim trunks,” Javier cut in with mock anger.
Steve rolled his eyes, “Only because Connie won’t let you come if you’re not wearing appropriate attire.” Then, to Eva, “You got a suit?”
She nodded, “I do.”
“Good, bring a bottle of booze, and you’re set.”
Eva sat there, staring at him, her mouth open. It was one thing for her to tell them what she’d done. It was another thing to come face to face with pictures of her husband’s mutilated body and react with, what? Nonchalance?
Steve leaned towards her, “Connie wouldn’t be alive if you hadn’t gotten her out of that restaurant. I don’t give a shit what you did to that guy. What you did, here? That’s what counts.”
She looked between them. Javier wasn’t talking, but he nodded as Steve spoke, offering silent support. Eva felt her chest constrict with a soft affection for them both. The relief was a physical thing, exhaling with her next breath.
“Thank you.”
Steve shrugged, “Don’t mention it. Vodka—bring a bottle. Wear your suit.”
As it turned out, Connie did not cancel their work out that night. She met Eva outside the gym at their regular time, looking at her like a friend. Eva had to cough into her hand to hide the surprised little shriek that wanted to burst out of her when the woman came into view.
They spent the hour sweating and huffing through a one challenging set after another, the sound of the instructor’s voice coaching them through the movements. Afterwards, Eva slumped on the bench, tossing back water and toweling off her face.
“That was fun,” Connie commented from her spot next to her.
Eva sent her a sidelong glance, “Fun is not the word I would use.”
Fun was sitting at a bar, drinking and hollering at the band. Fun was watching a ball game or shopping for new clothes. What they had just done was hard work—muscle burning, lung searing, skin sizzling hard work. Still, Eva enjoyed it, needed the release of endorphins.
“You know, one of the things I look forward to when I get back to the states is flaunting my newly hot body when I see those skinny bitches at my high school reunion.”
Eva laughed, “You’ll be the talk of the party—look at those biceps.”
Connie flexed, smiling wide, “Gotta get me one of those strapless, backless dresses, just to show off.”
“Oh, Steve’ll love that.”
“He would,” Connie said with a coy little tilt of her shoulders. “He tell you about the party?”
Eva nodded, “Yeah, I’ve been tasked with bringing a bottle of vodka.”
“And wearing a suit,” Connie asserted, pointing at Eva.
“I have one, don’t worry.”
“I want everyone dressed for the occasion, no office wear allowed.”
“Ah, damn, I’ll have to leave my pencil skirt at home.”
Connie rolled her eyes, “I’m so glad I get to wear scrubs. My feet still hurt at the end of the day, but at least its not from wearing heels.”
Eva took another long swig, “Yeah, but you do have to be one your feet all day. At least I get to sit down.”
“Pros and cons.”
Eva nodded, “Agreed. Pros and cons.”
“So, are you ever going to tell me what’s going on with you and Carrillo? Steve says you’ve been seeing him.”
Eva set down the water bottle. She’d been wondering, herself, when Connie was going to bring it up. Despite their weekly gym excursions, she hadn’t pushed. Eva was grateful—she didn’t really know how she’d characterize her relationship with the man. They weren’t...like, boyfriend and girlfriend. At least, not how she’d known the concept back before she’d been married. Companions, maybe. Friends, definitely. Friends who slept together. Friends with benefits? That felt too trivializing.
“We’ve gone out a few times,” Eva edged, standing and motioning for Connie to follow.
They walked towards the bathrooms, the humidity spiking from the showers as they passed through the doors.
“And?”
Eva opened her locker and pulled out her gym back, rustling around for her change of clothes, “And...I don’t know.”
“You don’t know?”
Sighing, Eva stood up and looked at Connie, “I don’t. Not really. I’m only on assignment here for another six months or so. I like him. I like spending time with him. I don’t know where I am from there.”
Connie fixed her with a level look, “You don’t want to get into anything serious because you think you’re leaving in six months.”
Eva thought about it,“Yes.”
“But, you like him enough that you’re willing to go out with him even though it might end sooner rather than later.”
Eva thought again, “Yes.”
She gave a little bob of her head, “That’s fair. Steve says he’s pretty intense.”
Eva didn’t have to think about that one, “Yes.”
“Is that all you’re going to say?”
Eva’s face scrunched, “You want me to say more?”
“Yes, for God’s sake!” Connie burst out, her hands flying in the air, “I want details.”
Eva laughed, “Let me get cleaned up and then we can talk details.”
Connie’s eyes narrowed, “Don’t think I’m going to forget. We’re going to the bar and you’re going to tell me everything.”
They did, indeed, go to the bar, although Eva didn’t really tell Connie everything. She talked about their dates, how he’d been polite and conscientious, how she felt when they kissed, and that she hadn’t yet spent the night at his place but she wanted to.
“You know, when I met him, I thought he was terrifying,” Connie commented as she sipped a gin and tonic.
Eva lifted a brow, “Why?”
Thinking for a moment, Connie settled on, “He was just so serious. Like, really, really serious.”
Eva could get that. The man could write a book on taking things seriously. Serious was in his blood. But, she’d seen him soft and sweet, too. She’d seen his dimples as he smiled. Seen his laugh. There was more to him than he showed to the world, more than a hard, scary man. It made her warm inside to think that she got to see that side of him.
“Shame that you don’t think it’ll last,” Connie said, a leading tone in her voice.
Eva brought her beer to her lips, “I have to go home sometime.”
“Where is home, exactly?”
The question caught Eva off guard. She realized that she didn’t exactly know. For a long time, Louisiana was home, and then Texas, and then a host of assignments. Now, it was Colombia. She’d been traveling for so long that she couldn’t root herself down anywhere. She didn’t even know if she wanted to. Her contract end date had been so far away for so long that Eva had never taken the time to work out what she would do afterward. Her record would be cleared, she would no longer be a felon. She would have years of work experience and a tidy little savings.
The possibilities were so numerous that Eva found herself unable to really settle on any one thing that she wanted—except, that wasn’t exactly true. Her heart, down deep, wanted what she might actually be able to have. A too serious, dimple-cheeked man who smelled like tobacco and vetiver.
Connie was looking at her, waiting for her answer. Eva just shrugged and ordered another round of drinks.
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One-on-One (ColtxMC, n*fw)
A/N: So the incomparable @omgjasminesimone has been keeping us FED rn (thank you, you are AMAZING) and then I saw there was a ColtxMC prompt she couldn’t fill (and I completely understand why) and...well....I hate to see my Colt stans go hungry. This is the AU scenario for “I’m a cheerleader, and you play basketball for the rival school. We’ve never spoken, but when you smile and wink at me like that I have a very hard time remembering not to cheer for you.” Anon, this is n*fw but, if that’s not your thing, lmk and I can easily cut that part out.
Length: ~3,500 words (why can’t I write something short, why why why?)
Rating: N*FW (Sex. Swearing. Fighting. Blood. Stupidity.)
Pairing: Colt x MC, RoD
Summary: Ellie cheers for the Langston basketball team, wholly focused on supporting them....right?
“I’ll be right back, I swear.”
“I can’t believe you-” The swinging doors cut Ingrid off as Ellie hustled out of the Langston basketball court. They had thirty minutes until the game started; the least she could do was get some studying done.
The opposing team filed past her as she rushed by, fresh off the bus and heading to their locker room. A few of the guys gave her the eye-God, she hated how short these skirts were- but she ignored them, ducking into the tiny room the Langston cheerleaders had commandeered as their own, quickly nabbing her textbook from her locker.
When she emerged, chiding herself to return the book clutched to her chest before the game began, the hallway was empty except for one lone player, slowly making his way up the hall, eyes glued to his phone. The basketball jersey revealed very toned arms, but he didn’t even see her until he almost walked into her.
“Excuse you.” He looked up and Ellie froze as intense eyes widened above sculpted cheekbones. Her heart beat faster as he sized her up, smirking. “Quantum Mechanics. Really.”
“What?” Her eyes narrowed. Well, he was cute...before he spoke. “You think cheerleaders are all dumb or something?”
“You said it, sweetheart, not me.”
“Excuse me?”
“I mean, your sport is clapping for other people while they do sports,” he scoffed. “I’m not sure that intelligence-”
“I will have you know that cheerleading is physically demanding and mentally taxing.”
He raised his arms, palms up, placating her with a nod. “I’m not saying it isn’t. Christ, I’m not blind. I know how hard it is. I just think that, with all the talent and hard work, you all would realize that you’re capable of much more than sitting courtside.”
She opened her mouth and paused. It seemed like there was a backhanded compliment somewhere in there, but she was too taken aback to parse through the sass.
“Ha,” he taunted, “especially sitting courtside while we kick Langston’s ass.”
“Excuse me?” Her eyes narrowed. “That’s not gonna-”
“Oh, it’ll happen.”
“You so sure about it?”
“I am.” His eyes lingered on her face, stopping intently on her lips before pulling back up to meet her glare. “How about this?” He stepped closer and Ellie suddenly realized how alone they were. The hallway was completely deserted; the other players were in their locker rooms, the spectators were waiting for the first jump, and it was just her and this mysterious, challenging rival. “Let’s make a bet on it, then.”
“You’re on.”
“Ok…” He smiled, a slow widening of his lips; her stomach lurched. “If we win, you give me a kiss.”
“What?” she sputtered.“You’re not gonna win.”
“Oh, we will.”
She rolled her eyes. “Ok. Fine. And when Langston wins?”
“Then I give you a kiss.”
“What?!? No way! It sounds like you always win here.”
“Oh, no.” He stepped even closer to positively purr in her ear. “You always win. Cuz I’m gonna kiss you so good you forget your own name.” Her breath caught as his teeth slid down her earlobe and she had to stop her traitorous fingers from curving in the number on his jersey.
He stepped back with a smirk, and Ellie had to consciously force breath through suddenly dry lips. With a wink, he turned down the hallway; she had to wait for her heart to stop racing until her feet followed.
~~~~~
Ellie tried to ignore him, but it was practically impossible. She was supposed to be cheering for her own school, but the mysterious boy was omnipresent, all over the court and her thoughts. Every time their eyes met, he shot her a wink, whether he was sitting on the bench, jogging up-court after a layup, or once even mid-pass, flipping the ball behind a defender while his eyes were solely trained on her.
She couldn’t focus. She could barely pay attention to her own team when it felt like her eyes were searching for his every second.
The worst was during the halftime show, when his haughty gaze found hers mid-split. The quirk of his eyebrows and the way his eyes suggestively traced down her legs made it very clear exactly what he was thinking.
And if it wasn’t, the lascivious, exaggerated wink left no doubt.
Her face burned through the rest of the routine and she was grateful to slump to her seat, her roommate sliding next to her.
“Did Colt Kaneko just wink at you?”
Ellie took a giant gulp of water, stalling, as Ingrid’s suspicious eyes poured into her. “Who?”
“Who?!? Colt Kaneko, that’s who. He’s only the best point guard in the state.”
Ellie shrugged. She wasn’t blind; he obviously had talent. He was fast, weaving between defenders as if they were standing still. His passes were on target, and he shot a decent three. But his biggest talent, as far as she could tell, was his brain. He read the court well, seemingly able to project where a Langston player would sprint and then pass the ball a split-second before they arrived, leaving them flailing in midair. It was almost surgical, the way he presciently mapped the progression of the play before it occurred, as if he could read minds.
She was almost impressed.
His talents continued through the entire game until, eight minutes into the fourth period, the Langston center lunged hard, roughly fouling Colt at the arc; Ellie winced as they both went crashing down, shrill shriek of sneakers and thud of bodies on parquet audible even over the ref’s whistle.
“What the fuck?” Colt was up like a shot, on his feet and livid, the Langston center following, jerkily, gargantuan hands tucked into weighty fists. “What the fuck was that foul?”
“You got a problem, man?”
She sucked in a breath as the indistinct jawing turned into shoving. “Colt!” she shouted but it was lost in the jeering of the crowd. Their center had almost a foot on him; what the hell was he even thinking?
The ref raced over, whistle screaming shrilly in his mouth, but he wasn’t fast enough, The shoves turned into a full-on brawl, fists flying in a crowd of muscled bodies as more and more players joined in. She leapt to her feet but, in the rush of jerseys, it was hard to see exactly what was happening, both teams crowding around, obscuring her view of the fight at the center.
Finally, when the refs got the situation under control, her heart dropped. Colt was still furious, the blood streaming down his face not stopping him from a heated conversation with the ref, while the Langston center fared no better, hand covering a cut on his forehead while his split lip looked like it would need stitches.
They were both led away, ejected, Colt gesturing sharply the entire way. But right before they showed him the door, he looked back, eyes searching the crowd until they met hers. His face fell, and he had the sense to look ashamed for a moment before he was herded out the door.
~~~~~
Ellie’s leg bounced, nervously waiting for the final whistle. She kept cheering, pom-poms high in the air, but it was half-hearted. Langston was down by five and, with no fouls to give and no timeouts, the ending was basically locked up. Once the stopwatch clanged, groans roaring from the crowd as the Langston loss was official, she sprang to her feet, relieved that the game was finally over. With a weak goodbye to Ingrid thrown over her shoulder, she pushed through the crowd, heading away from exits, down the deserted halls towards the locker rooms.
A crowd of opposing players bounced by her, jauntily celebrating their victory, but she paid them no mind, turning the corner and stopping short as she spied a familiar figure reclining on a bench, long legs sprawled on the tile floor as he held a towel to his nose.
His eyes widened, and he stood as she approached. “You came...” His voice caught with wonder until a familiar smirk split his face. “I thought I lost my shot.”
“You are an idiot.”
“Hey! An idiot who kicked Langston’s ass.”
“What?!? You got ejected from the game! It devolved into a fistfight between two absolute morons!”
“We still won though.” He stood, blood-stained towel dabbing at his nose. “So where’s my kiss?”
Her jaw dropped. “Are you- urgh. Your nose is still bleeding. I’m not- Christ, come here.” She grabbed his bicep and pulled, fingers digging into the cut of solid muscle as she dragged him through the door of the visitor’s locker room.
“I’m not so sure you’re supposed to be in here.”
“Shut it.” She sped by the lockers to the bathroom, walking past the showers to grab some toilet paper. “Let me see.”
He stood dutifully still as she swiped at his nose, hand on his chin turning his face side-to-side as she assessed the bruising. The blood had stopped flowing, thankfully, a tiny stain of red under one nostril all that remained of his stupid brawl.
“You’re lucky it’s not broken,” she huffed
He shrugged. “Would have been worth it.”
He was so close to her, again, a wall of heat and muscle in front of her, looking down with a gleam in his eyes and a smirk on his lips.”You’d break your nose for a win?"
“Or for a kiss.”
She was beginning to hate that smirk...or hate how much she liked it. Rolling her eyes, she stepped forward, meeting his lips in the briefest of pecks. When she stepped back, his jaw dropped. “You really did it…” he wondered aloud.
She quirked a shoulder, turning to go. “Why not?” A hand on her arm stopped her and, in the next instant, his lips were on hers faster than she could process. Her previous quick kiss meant nothing. But this? God. His lips captured hers as if he had been waiting all game just to swallow the needy moans from her mouth. Her hands flew to his hair, silken strands tangling in her fingers as his palms wrapped around her hip bones, pulling her flush against him as his lips never left hers, tongue teasing the seam until her lips parted, making her brain short circuit.
He pulled back and her eyes fluttered open, breath coming fast. “Wait, what’s your name?” he asked.
“Uhh...Ellie?”
“Dammit. You still remember.” And with that, sturdy hands were pushing her against the wall so his lips could meet hers again, pulling the breath from her lungs before sliding up her jaw, down her neck, teasing bites and kisses making her tangle her hands in his jersey, pulling him closer. Grinding her hips, she felt his cock twitch and her head fell back against the wall, heat flaring up her spine.
“Colt?” Oh my God, her voice was weak, barely a whine, and she would have been embarrassed had his hands not been tracing winding paths up the back of her shirt, sliding between uniform and skin in a blazing trail of heat. She pulled again on his jersey, tucking her hands underneath to trace the sculpted muscles hiding beneath. “Colt, please?”
She almost complained at the loss of his mouth on her neck when he ducked away; but when she caught sight of him pulling his shirt over his head, the words caught in her mouth. He was all lean muscle, broad shoulders, cut abs, and her fingers twitched to trace down the v-shape that led into his shorts.
“Goddamn,” she murmured.
The haughty grin was back. “Like what you see?”
She didn’t answer, only pulled him closer to trail desperate fingertips past the elastic of his shorts, teasing at soft skin, and it was like a switch had been flipped. He yanked her shirt over her head, sports bra flying away next as his lips descended to suck a nipple into his mouth. Sneakers were next, kicked off as his teeth dug possessively into her stomach before going even lower, kneeling as his lips stopped at the waist of her cheer skirt.
“Fuck, I like this skirt,” he growled, palms running up her inner thigh. “I’m gonna fuck you in it next time.”
“Next time?” She could barely speak. Fuck, she could barely breathe. “What next time?”
“They’ll be a next time,” he vowed, and the smirk was back as he pulled, shucking every stitch off her and himself before he returned to the ground, tongue tracing a meandering path up her thighs as she shivered, pulling at his hair as his mouth edged closer, until finally, finally, his lips slid over sensitive skin, then through her folds, then zeroing in on her clit, gentle suction making her eyes fly shut.
Body quivering, her vision went dark as her nails dug sharp crescents into his shoulders. She tried to pull him closer, fingers moving with a mind of their own as his tongue found her clit and the room spun. Thank God he was holding her up, strong hands spread over her thighs, pressing her against the wall; she was inches from melting into the floor, his tongue flicking against where she was most sensitive and drawing designs that made her nerves sing in response. She was so focused on her peak, hurtling towards her like a freight train, that she almost didn’t hear the slamming of the locker room door.
“Kaneko? You still in here?”
She opened her eyes, struggling to get air in her lungs. “Shit! I’m not supposed to be-”
“I know, I know,” he whispered and stood, eyes frantically searching the room before he pulled her into a shower stall, quickly shoving the dingy curtain shut behind them.
“What are you-?”
“Shhh,” he hissed and turned the shower on, boxing her against the wall.
“He’s gonna-”
His hands were on her bare waist and she swallowed as he leaned against her. “Shhh, he’s not gonna come in here.” The water was falling behind him, a steady stream turning warmer and sluicing over the back of his head.
She put her hands through his wet hair and pulled him closer. “Fine,” she murmured into his mouth before finding his lips again.
“Kaneko, you in here?”
Colt pulled back and glared at the flimsy curtain, all that separated her from definite expulsion from the cheer team. “Yeah, Coach,” he called, “I’m in the shower.”
The footsteps got closer. “Uh oh. He’s gonna see my feet,” Ellie hissed, peering through the steam starting to fill the stall. She couldn’t see anyone but there was movement, steadily getting closer, and her fingers tensed into his sides.
He stared at her, question in his eyes, hands traveling to the back of her thighs.
She stared back for a beat before nodding. “Please. God, yes, please.”
His lip quirked and, before she knew it, he lifted, picking her up so her back hit the wall, her legs circled around his waist, and his cock slowly slide through her folds. She had to bite his shoulder to muffle the whimper from her mouth as his cock stretched her walls, back arching, legs tightening, every part of her pulling him even closer as he thrust..
“Fuck…” he growled in her ear, “you feel incredible.”
“What did you say?” the Coach shouted.
“I said,” Colt coughed, and it took him a second to compose his voice. “I said...let me finish my shower.”
The footsteps stopped. Ellie heard a weary sigh just outside the room; she didn’t dare to move, to breathe, though it was hard to stifle the sounds when Colt swiveled his hips in tiny circles. “The bus leaves in five minutes.”
“Five minutes?” Colt smirked at her and another pivot had her mouth falling open. “I mean, I hope I’m not that quick.”
“What? Just….just hurry the fuck up.” Thankfully, the steps receded until the locker room door slammed.
“That was close.” Colt breathed a sigh of relief. “I thought he would never leave.”
“Colt?”
“Yeah?”
“Just fuck me.”
“Demanding…” He rolled his hips again and her back pushed against him, wordlessly begging for more. The tile behind her was cool but she was burning, fire of his hands tight on her thighs, his lips tracing scorching lines down her jaw, flame engulfing every nerve endings. Even the water couldn’t cool her as it continued falling, soaking his hair, tiny rivulets dripping off his face and onto her chest; Colt followed each one with his tongue as his hips moved, demanding, pushing her back against the wall with each targeted thrust.
“Colt...oh my God, Colt, please!”
“I love how you moan my name, fuck.” He moved faster, and she clung to him. The rhythm of his hips was making needy sounds pour out of her mouth and, now, she didn’t have to be quiet. His name echoed off the bathroom tile, in a frenzied tone she had never heard leave her throat, and she dimly hoped that everyone else was far, far from the locker room hallway.
“Fuck, Ellie.” He moved, somehow balancing her against the wall while one hand slid down her stomach, then lower, thumb finding her clit. She keened. She couldn’t think, his cock driving inside her, his thumb keeping a steady frantic beat against her, it was all too much; all she could do was cling to his shoulders as he swiveled his hips just so and the world exploded, stars raining down where water had been, her body shaking so wildly that she almost missed Colt’s groan in her ear, strained and gruff as he pulsed inside her.
The world stopped spinning and was eventually, blessedly still. The only sound was the shower, water pattering against tile, and the soft breath, low in her ear. She felt drained, weak in the best way, and she let her head fall against the wall as Colt peeled off of her. Her legs were spasming when he lowered her to the ground; she had to clutch his shoulder with a tight fist before she regained the ability to move.
When her legs were able to support her weight, he stepped back into the spray of the water, shaking his head so water streamed in wild droplets from his hair before he pulled her under as well, folding muscular arms around her waist as the warm water poured through her hair.
“So…” he mused, running his hands down her back. “Quantum Physics? Really?”
“What is your problem?” She pushed at his shoulder. “Apparently cheerleaders can be smart too, you know.”
“Hey, no problem here. I like smart girls.”
“Then yes, Quantum Physics. I’m a Biomechanical Engineering major.”
“Damn. Sexy.”
Her head shot up, and it took a second to realize that he was being genuine, warmth in his eyes making her flush. She swallowed. “What’s your deal, then? Ingrid said you’re the best point guard in the state.”
He shrugged. “Is that your blond friend?”
“How did you….oh yeah. You watched me all freaking game.”
“I noticed you before that.” The tips of his ears reddened. Ellie blinked.
“What...what do you mean?”
“We played you earlier in the season, back home.” He shrugged, fixing his gaze on the knob as he turned the shower off. “All the other cheerleaders hung outside, flirting with the players. And you were studying on the bus.”
Ellie stared at his back as he pushed through the curtain “Wait a minute…” They had traveled upstate, earlier in the season, but she barely remembered the trip. She had spent the entire time cramming, spending every spare second with her nose in formulas and problem sets. “I had a big orgo test the next day.”
He shrugged, handing her a towel as she stepped out. “I scored 30 points, and you didn’t even look at me.”
“Maybe you need to do more than that to impress me.”
“Noted.” He held her gaze so long that she had to look away, fiddling with her skirt before sliding it over her hips.
“We should…” She tried not to blush but the way he was gawking at her, watching her put her uniform back on? It was a struggle. “We should go.”
“Yeah.” He nodded and tossed his towel in the hamper. As he passed by her, he muttered, “Damn shame though.” She chuckled ruefully as she watched him open a locker and dig out a change of clothes.
Once they were both as decent as possible, they headed back out into the hall, heading towards the entrance. She was cognizant that each step towards the door was a step closer to the end of this fling.
“You gonna be at nationals?” He shoved his hands in his pockets, biting his lip.
“Yeah, definitely.” Langston only had to win one more game to make it to the playoffs; with five games left in the season, it was a lock. “We’re gonna win it all this year.”
He pushed the door open, and they stepped into the blinding sun. “Really?”
“Even if I have to get on the court myself, we’re beating you.” His bus was waiting, the coach busy scribbling on a clipboard.
“Ha. A little one-on-one?” Gentle fingers circled her wrist, and he pulled her closer, smirk back on his face. “I could take you.”
“You sure about that?”
“Guess we’ll have to see.” He tilted her head up to capture her lips again; Ellie could dimly hear shouting coming from the bus but, with his fingers stroking up the back of her shirt to tease bare skin, it didn’t matter. Nothing did except his lips on hers and the roaring in her ears. “I’m gonna get in trouble for cavorting with the enemy.” He spoke against her mouth and she had to taste the smile on his lips, one last time.
“Especially if we win at Nationals.”
He squeezed her fingers between his own before walking over to the bus. She had just turned away when he called after her, “How ‘bout this?”
“What?” She stopped to look over her shoulder, taking in the laughing smirk and gleam in his eyes.
“I’ll see you at Nationals. And if we win, you owe me a kiss.”
.
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Episode 21 - The PTSD is strong with this one & we need more braincells
Hello hello! Welcome to the commentary. How’s everyone? I’m frozen solid because it’s mid-June in Spain and yet we had 11°C yesterday. Fucking awesome!
I AM NOT WEARING MASCARA SO I CAN CRY ALL I WANT. I DONT KNOW IF THATS GOOD OR BAD THO.
Can I just take a second to appreciate how much this big strong powerful men emote? I mean, I know this isn’t western media where the tough guy can’t show emotions, and I don’t know that eastern media has the same hangups about men emoting but just... it’s so refreshing.
Huaisang bb you’re so sweet.
Oh, oh the PTSD is strong with this one.
Also, bless both JC and NHS, they absolutely noticed WWX flinch and, in their own ways, went and steamrolled over it so WWX wouldn’t feel scrutinised.
WE INTERRUPT THIS BROADCAST TO INFORM YALL THAT I GOT A KITTEN ON MY LAP. (She’s kneading my boob, which, ow, but...)
*BICHEN GRIIIIIIIP*
How do y’all think the guards go deliver bad news to WRH? Like do they paper-rock-scissor it? Draw straws?
NMJ did you have to?
And once again I wonder what would’ve happened if JFM had let sect leader Yao kick it.
Ughvhfnevus it’s this clown. Same as with Su She, if you see a bunch of screaming it’s just me not wanting to listen to Jin ZiXun.
The Nies: let’s throw a banquet to honour WWX’s return
Every asshole there: *gossips about WWX while in the room with him*
Once again I wish I could transmigrate (and speak mandarin lol) and just start delivering tongue lashings.
Listen, I have no idea how to play Guqin, but I did play the guitar for years and even from here I can see how much YiBo’s hands don’t match the melody. Nothing against him but why does this always happen? I know they got classes, so was the music not written by that time or something? Because one thing is not hitting the correct notes, another is plucking slow notes when the tempo is much faster.
JC: Since yours and LWJ’s unhappy separation...
My dumbass: do you mean breakup? *eyebrow waggle*
You will pry my “JC knows his brother is pinning after LWJ, he probably doesn’t want to know anything else” hc out of my cold dead hands thankyouverymuch.
WWX: *spouts a bunch of misdirection to avoid giving JC a straight answer*
JC: Bull-fucking-shit.
Should I count how many times WWX PTSDs all over the place or would you like me to leave your hearts intact? That’s two so far.
Ok ok, I feel that, if someone with a bit less trauma and a bit of insight (NHS maybe?) had seen the bit where ChenQing fucking hurts Shijie thing would’ve gone differently. I mean, yes, LWJ keeps warning WWX that this shit is gonna fuck him up, but as I said in my previous commentary LWJ also has the communication skills of a hermit crab so that wouldn’t work, and JC would be too wound up and WWX too busy trying to conceal his lack of golden core for that conversation to go anywhere. But if someone who WWX knows is a good egg (I’m not gonna say trusts bc paranoia) had sat him down and told him “your new instrument that you use for your new form of cultivation just hurt the person you love most please be careful when you use it.” I think it would’ve worked wonders towards his health overall.
I know Shijie says it’s like Zidian, but she’s not working with the fact that this thing is made for and by the Dark Side of the Force and I’m sorry but I can’t help but see ChenQing as a bit of a horrocrux almost. Or like, if you like me think the Burial Mounds is an Entity, something that’s a bit more sentient that it lets on.
Speaking of reputations and NHS being a good egg, I have oh-so-many ideas (I won’t say plot bunnies because I can’t write for shit) in which NHS for Reasons (time-travel? Letter from the future? His massive brain?) realises just how much damage WWX is doing to his public image. And he might be a sheltered dandy, but he saw what being the son of a sex worker did to Meng Yao despite how hard he worked (I’m assuming he doesn’t know about the whole betrayal business). This is way fucking worse, like hell is he going to let one of his best friends paint a target on his back. So he pulls back his sleeves, engages his slytherin brain and proceeds to lay down a plan to throughly destroy WWX’s reputation as a powerful genius.
I’m guessing LWJ and JC protest, and maybe WWX, and NHS just hits them with “do you want him respected or alive?” And they shut tf up. He glues himself to WWX, and brings up as many instances in which their behaviour can be compared as he can (we got drunk and punished at cloud recesses, we slept in class, we skipped to go fishing, I don’t carry my sword either). And, because assholes be assholes, people like Sect Leader Yao or Clown Cousin are quick to start spouting their own derogatory bullshit and thus WWX the untamed powerful prodigy dies a fiery death. Now he’s just a mouthy kid with a quick mind that “does tricks instead of battle” (I’ll never get bored of using that Thor quote). I also like to think that people who personally know WWX and are not pieces of shit go give NHS a tongue lashing for messing with what they thought was his friend, NHS takes that as a test of good eggness and bring them into the plan. Soon the whole Cloud Recesses class is swearing up, down, left, right and centre that all the shit WWX has ever successfully pulled is just an insane amount of luck and quick thinking.
I don’t know how would they work him into the battlefield (disguise? Mask?) to unleash his demonic cultivation but that’s Plot and I don’t do that.
Also, because I’m a terrible human being I want to say that people assume LWJ is on “pretty but useless” WWX like white on rice because *insert derogatory comment about being good in bed and sexual favours*. Because y’all know the assholes here are Like That. And WWX is horrified because holy fucking shit he’s gonna drag LWJ’s reputation down, he can’t have people thinking HGJ is ok with having him as a concubine pretty much. But before he can act LWJ politely all but confirms that yeah, he’s tapping that, y’all wish you were but he doesn’t share and none of y’all are good enough for his Wei Ying anyway. CUE FAKE/PRETEND RELATIONSHIP BECAUSE I AM INDEED TRASH FOR THAT TROPE.
Muahahahaha y’all thought I was gonna devolve into my personal hcs and not include my fave trope? Shouldn’t y’all know me better by now?
(Btw I like this bit ^ so I might polish it a little and post it separately as well, just a warning if you find yourself reading an eerily similar post by me)
WuJi is playing and LWJ is pining so much. Also, if LWJ did not just realise that, just like Yu the Great, WWX had no other option but tame resentful energy I’ll eat my blanket.
I refuse to believe Jiang Yanli didn’t become the unofficial war camp therapist/sounding board/only sane person/everyone’s mum/I just need a hug and a corner to cry in peace. There are not enough fics about Shijie being her gentle BAMF self while in the camp and it’s a pity. My crops are dying y’all!
Also, I will fight anyone who scoffs at Shijie being the epitome of the “gentle woman who cooks and waits for the men to come back from war”. Look at her mum, do you think it is easy for a kid (she was a kid in the flashback when WWX ran away) to see that day in and day out, to have that as a “role model” and decide that she was not going to be like her mum? That she didn’t like what she saw in her so she was going to be kind and gentle? And do you think it is easy for a person barely in their twenties to deal with years of verbal and psychological abuse for again, being gentle and kind, and not grow a hard shell of bitterness to protect themselves? And to keep being gentle and kind while at war, with your parents dead and your siblings unraveling before your very eyes? Shijie is so fucking strong and I love her.
Hey look, the White Walkers!
“Resentful energy is just energy” ok, valid. But my dude, you’ve got black ghost smoke coming out of you and can hear people screaming in your head. I’m not saying it is evil, like someone’s uptight set in his ways arrogant uncle; but it sure as shit ain’t healthy.
AAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHH (that’s a Clown Cousin scream btw)
Ok ok, just one little thing: IF SOMEONE ELSE CALLS WWX WEI YING AS A SHOW OF DISRESPECT IMMA SCALP THEM.
...are those crows eating that man alive? Yikes on bikes.
(Assume my comment about YiBo’s Guqin playing also goes for Xiao Zhan and his flute. I can’t play the flute but the tempo doesn’t match his fingers)
I’m just gonna say it, I think 3zun (well, 2zun as of now) suspect shit went down badly for WWX, that’s two questions by both of them in a very soft conciliatory tone. They are genuinely interested/worried about the topic, and don’t seem to come off as chiding or judgemental. I mean WWX is a weirdo irreverent kid and they’re sect leaders, they outrank him so much it’s ridiculous. I’m also counting the fact that both their baby brothers like him towards them being so kind. But I also think WWX just triggers all their big brother instincts the second he walks in.
Oh there’s a thought, Shijie, Wen Qing, NMJ and LXC take a look at everyone’s shitty parents and just decide to adopt everyone.
What happened at Yiling was a traumatised teenager (is WWX even 20?) PTSDing all over the place with the Dark Side of the Force whispering in his ear and an all powerful trinket at his disposal. Not saying I approve of all the torture and murder but he clearly isn’t revelling in them.
That is some outstanding bit of big-brothering on LXC’s side and I love it. Also, my dumbass just realised LWJ probably wasn’t quoting WWX when he was being punished (what is white what is black?) I think he was quoting his big brother. Which is magnitudes deep too, but in a different direction and I might love that scene even more.
Ok fuck it, I’m gonna tangent. So I had a terrible boyfriend when I was 15-18. He alienated me from my friends, sunk my self-esteem to the molten core of the earth, tried to convince me my parents were abusive and encouraged (aka threatened manipulated and cajoled) the slow tanking of my high school marks. I have A Problem when I see media where someone latches onto their significant other and everything they are shifts towards that person. Now, love, true genuine love, is powerful, and I believe it can be the catalyst for shifting your world-view for the better. I don’t have a problem with that. I don’t have a problem with people sticking with their romantic partner if it is clear their previous “family” is so much shit. I don’t have a problem with LWJ coming out of his shell and defying corrupt precepts because his love for WWX made them see they were wrong, or getting sassy and unrepentant during his punishment (I have a problem with the punishment bc that’s abuse but...). But I do side-eye WangXian being the only thing in their orbit. People need people, and WangXian have other good people around them. So I kind of love that yes, WWX showed him the system was corrupt, but it is the words of his brother he is sticking by to the defy said system.
Let’s go back to our scheduled slew of held pinning glances shall we?
LXC after That awkward run-in: WangJi I wasn’t gone that long, what the fuck did you two oblivious pining idiots do?
(LXC has “bitching” tea sessions with Shijie and you can’t convince me otherwise)
LWJ: *is being dramatic and not knocking on WWX’s door*
Me: oh my god you fucking idiot
Shijie: *walks in*
Me: oh thank god someone with a braincell.
Ah yes, there we go triggering WWX’s paranoia again. Why would he get a break.
OH MY GOD YOU PAIR OF FUCKING IDIOTS. THATS IT, FUCK THIS SHIT IM OUT.
@ LWJ: bitch wtf was that? I know you’re shit at talking but have you thought about writing it down? Letters anyone? It worked for mr. Darcy.
(Yes LWJ is mr darcy and now I want an au where LWJ writes WWX letters and just pours everything in them, WWX finds them, any everything is sunshine and rainbows)
While this bullshit fight/misunderstanding is all on LWJ’s shoulders, I’m also going to scream at WWX. Because yes, he is in PTSD hell, but he trusted LWJ before, and yet he can’t get past his perceived notion of LWJ’s character (and his own inadequacies) to trust him again and ask for help. Plus, you know, he thinks he doesn’t deserve he’ll bc *waves hand at WWX’s trauma conga line*
These episodes can’t be good for my BP.
Thanks for reading!
#the untamed#cql#mdzs live action#mdzs#foxglove watches cql#foxglove watches the untamed#lan wangji#wei wuxian#wangxian#jiang yanli#jiang cheng#yunmeng trio#yunmeng siblings#commentary
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Queen and Gentry - Steter
His life was empty without her, his chest always felt hollow without her. She enraged him like no other and made him feel so fucking vulnerable that he worried she was his weakness. In the same breath when she smiled at him so genuinely it made him feel like he could rock the fucking world. When she had been hurt, however, it made him feel like he was lost at sea in the middle of a typhoon or hurricane. And when he had been too lost in his thoughts it was her gentle calling of ‘Big bad?’ or ‘hey assface!’ that had him returning.
Oh. Fuck.
It started with small things; brief touches against his arm that could be mistaken for her trying to shoulder check him, or offering him meals and little desserts that she had made. Then she started to show up at his address - how she had gotten it made him proud and annoyed, it was his home dammit - and made sure he came to pack meets. Because she gravitated towards his side during pack meets so did Erica and Vernon until they, too, were scenting him as pack. It was insulting and beautiful at first until he began to feel the pack bonds with them form. Stiles had saved them, they followed her as if she were their alpha, and because she was including him - for whatever reason - he was a part of their small pack.
Because Peter rarely took anything without giving something - though that something was often in the form of scathing replies, sarcastic wit, and dramatic eye rolls - in return, he made sure to start ‘leaving’ books around on magic for the little Spark to read up on. It went from small things to a very real, very important thing the moment she, Erica, and Vernon stood up for him when Scott and Derek found out that he was teaching them how to fight and defend themselves, how to work as a unit. Scott, as expected, was pissed off that they - his pack - were doing something that would promote violence behind his back.
Derek was pissed off that his sired beta’s had not asked him to teach them, especially when he had tried before.
“You tried, sourwolf? I’m fairly certain that what you did was literally throw around three betas without giving them an idea of what they were supposed to do and or focus on, and then - when they were hurt, you broke their bones to get the healing factor to kick in faster!” Stiles raged, standing in front of the three betas with a glare that was equal to that of an Alpha. “Peter told them how to use their senses, how to get their healing to kick in faster without extra pain. He’s been at it longer, he’s been a Beta longer, he knows how to teach other Betas to control their shift and find their anchors.” then, with a fury that made her breathtaking, she rounded on Scott.
“And you! You expect everyone to just lay down and not cause a fight because you’re a fucking ‘True Alpha’?! You’re still a teenager, Scott, people will see that before they see you as the ‘True Alpha’ you’re trying to keep as a claim. What if another Gerard shows up, Scott, huh? What if he takes Erica and Vernon again, what if they decide that they want to shoot up some of our pack after they agree to a peace treaty? Huh? What then?!”
“We still have to give them that option for peace, Stiles!” he urged, confused as to hell why she was so adamant on siding with Peter when she normally was on his side with certain arguments. “Gerard was a mistake, but -”
“Allison was the one who shot them full of arrows!” Stiles was a spastic, energetic, and loud girl. Such was why her calm, curt, still fury was so worrying for those in the room. “Allison, Scott, and I love her like a sister, but it was Ali who shot them full of arrows, repeatedly, because Gerard manipulated her.”
“Gerard was evil-” Scott tried, angry for her bringing up Allison but also sad because she had.
“There are more people like Gerard than you know, Scott.” and maybe it was because his friend, his sister, was looking at him like he was a moron or a child, but it had Scott raging.
“People like Peter?! He killed people too!” and maybe that wasn’t exactly the right thing to say, because now Derek was edging towards Stiles, choking on her anger and wanting her to calm down because Erica and Vernon were tensing for a fight behind her.
“Peter killed guilty people who deserved to fucking die.” Peter had never had anyone he wasn’t openly manipulating angry for him. For Stiles to be so on his side, to agree with what he had done… “Peter didn’t take a human fucking girl from the middle of a Lacrosse win to beat her senseless so she could be made into a message to the Alpha and her werewolf best friend.” and to that the entire room stiffened.”You knew,” she spat, “You just didn’t want to believe it.”
“You-you're lying-” before he could finish the half-hearted attempt to regain control of the situation - his mind, honestly - Erica and Vernon both growled and shifted with intent to hurt him.
“No.” All it took was for Stiles to look at both of them for them to remain where they were and calm down, burning cinnamon cooling down and releasing its grip on the ‘were’s in the room. “Scott, are you ordering us as Alpha to stop these training sessions?” she was furious, but there was a calm acceptance to her that actually scared the ‘were’s. This felt like a charged moment, like whatever Scott said would change everything.
“I -” Scott wanted to say yes, he really did, but he understood the need for everyone to learn how to protect themselves. Ever since that lacrosse game, Stiles had quit and gone to some self-defense classes that a few of her dad’s colleagues were putting her through. Now she was learning how to fight werewolves from Peter and Scott - Scott only saw Peter as using this for an opportunity to turn his friends against him.
“He’s turning you against me, can’t you see that’s what he’s doing?” He tried again, needing his friend, his sister, to see reason.
“You didn’t answer my question. Is that an order, Alpha McCall?” it was in instances like this that Peter saw how truly remarkable of a wolf she would make. Her fury was calculated and directed with a level of intelligence that would make other Alpha’s blush. She knew just what to say to utterly demolish her opponent and she could say it with a ferocity that rivaled a raging Omega.
“No.” Scott bit out, shoving his hands into his hair to try and relieve the pressure that was building there.
“Good, then we’re not going to discuss what I do in my free time with pack members you neglect.” In a movement that could be taken as a challenge to any other Alpha Stiles spun around, openly rubbed her cheek against Erica’s, then Boyd’s, and finally, with a narrowed glare that dared Peter to try and deny her, rubbed the other side of her cheek against his previously scarred one. She smelled of rain when he actually moved his face into the motion, scenting her back despite how stunned he still was. “You are the Alpha, Scotty, but I am the Emissary and this is my pack.”
After that she and Scott got into arguments frequently, most of which devolved into screaming matches that had the other pack members flinching away from the table. Lydia and Allison were, surprisingly enough, on Stiles’s side, despite saying that Scott still had some good points to his arguments. Peter never needed to be dragged to another Pack meet again as he went willingly.
It was a month later that she called a pack meeting, asking for everyone to show up. When everyone - including Chris Argent - was present in the room - including one confused Alan Deaton - Stiles entered the loft smelling of Peppermint and ash.
“I’m adding one more to our pack.” and, as expected, confusion and alarm broke out.
“Who?” Chris asked her, drowning out the questions of ‘What have you done’ and ‘what do you mean?’
“Deucalion.” she stayed standing in the doorway, arms crossed, defiant and completely set in her decision despite the two shouts that were immediately aimed at her. Scott being the loudest. “You granted him mercy, but you also made him an Omega. Omega’s go fucking crazy, you really want to deal with a crazy Deucalion?”
“I agreed with her,” Derek told him when he stood by her side, surprising Scott further. “He learned how to fight while he was blind, Scott, he learned how to utilize his senses in a way I’ve never even heard of. Stiles, Erica, Boyd and I already met with him a couple times.”
“You already met him? You already decided on this without asking me, without-”
“It’s what I’m doing now, Scott. Pack meet, pack discuss, pack decide. I started checking on him to make sure he wasn’t losing his sanity, that was three months ago.” and Chris, god bless him, was the voice of reason right alongside his daughter and Lydia.
“Erica, Vernon, you’re okay with him joining the pack?” because he had been the one who had taken them captive and held them captive for months until Stiles had found them.
“He stopped Kali from torturing us,” Erica announced with a shrug from her spot on the spiral staircase beside Peter. “Honestly I think he’s the only reason I’m alive, Kali was especially pissed off that day. He’s… he’s not the same.”
“I think it’s because he got his eyesight back,” Boyd agreed, arm wrapped tight around Erica while she sat between his legs on the staircase, just a few steps below Peter. “If he tries anything, well, we’re a large pack, we can take him.”
“He’s another Alpha!” Scott distressed, “he could just kill me and take over the pack!” Stiles rolled her eyes and looked to Derek, as if asking for him to take over. Peter was too awed at the way Stiles had changed, at the way she seemed to no longer be trying to actively hide her true self from everyone and instead embraced it with conviction that had him hungry for her. When Derek put his hands up in a ‘It’s all on you’ motion she sighed heavily and turned her champagne gold eyes on Scott.
“Scott, no offense bud, but I could kill you, and take the Alpha spot. You don’t come to training, you don’t try to run with the others on the full moon, and you’re actively denying your wolf’s instincts.” of course he had, he never wanted to be a werewolf! “See, that’s exactly my point!” ah, this was the point where it would divulge into a screaming match. “You don’t want it, never wanted it, so you’re denying it while trying to keep the authority of it! You can’t be an absent leader, Scott!”
“You don’t know what it’s like!” it was funny how he became the flailing ones whereas Mieczyslawa was the calm, collected hurricane she was always meant to be.
“Scott, you don’t have Asthma anymore, you’re basically always fucking ripped, you can literally feel familial bonds, you’ve gained more attention from the female Populus in these past two years than you ever had, and you made first line as well as Captain of the Lacrosse team!” her hand slapped harshly into her chest and drew a flinch from those that cared about her. “You could still be asthmatic getting chunky with me on fast food and snacks spending every Friday night binging video games and sitting on the bench during lacrosse games while we lament about how we wish things were different. You found your anchor, your mom literally told you to fucking stick it to someone who could kill her because she believed in you. You’re only problems are because you’re denying that wolf side of you that you keep seeing as a monster!”
“Well why don’t you ask me to bite you then so you can be a wolf!” and there it was, the question Peter had been asking himself ever since she had denied him in the parking garage what felt like an eternity ago.
“Because it would hurt too fucking much to realize you don’t need me as much as I need you.” and that… well, Peter understood that. It brought the whole situation into perspective for him and brought a whole new understanding to her reaction when he had asked her. She didn’t want to be like him, that had been a truth and a lie, because if she turned into a werewolf she would’ve been like him. Bondless, alone and on the road to insanity that most likely would’ve resulted in her death. “Pack vote on Deucalion.” amidst the awkward atmosphere the majority vote was for Deucalion joining, Scott was too stunned to put his own vote in, let alone deny said vote.
Erica and Vernon flanked her when she took her leave, putting all attention on Scott as he stood, flabbergasted, in the same spot he had been in. Few people glanced to Allison, as if to gauge her reaction to hearing that - was it a confession? - declaration from her best friend toward her ex-boyfriend.
“Well, it was about time for that.” Lydia expressed with a dramatic sigh as she pushed away from the table. “It’s not a romantic confession, Scott, so don’t go thinking too highly of yourself. Honestly,” she smacked her lips and eyed the room with a hint of distaste. “I hoped she’s snap sooner or later, called me out at the Homecoming but didn’t care that she was hiding her real personality from everyone.” She sniffed derisively and flicked her hair over her shoulder, glaring at Peter with a tone of acceptance that hadn’t previously been there. “Hm.” and with that high pitched huff of approval and acceptance, she sashayed her way out of the room.
Peter wasn’t sure how he was supposed to actually react to the current scheme of things. Not only had Stiles openly declared that Peter was a part of her pack, but she would also openly fight Scott for his current placement in her scheme of things. Her pack, which consisted of Deucalion, peter, Erica, Vernon, and apparently Lydia. From the look that was shared between Chris and Allison, the two were in favor of what Stiles was saying. It was then that Peter made sense of the little touches she made sure to do to him, the way she made meals or gave him little baked goods. How she was always, always trading sneers with him and openly challenging him. The entire time she had been scenting him, considering him pack, showing him he had a place with her.
He was strangely touched and insulted that a teenage girl thought that she could force a pack bond on him just because she didn’t want to deal with him going omega crazy again. In the same breath he knew that wasn’t why she had done it, she would’ve told him outright if that had been her reasoning, instead she showed up at his house so often that her scent could always be found in some corner of his apartment, left a few of her jackets - there was even a cover she used when she showed up very suddenly declaring that she was going to use his couch to sleep and if he touched her she would wolfsbane mace him. He had been too stunned at her brashness to even react before she was curled up on his couch with a fluffy cover curled around shoulders.
When he had recovered he had wanted to bang his pots together, toss her off the couch, play the T.V at its loudest volume. Instead he found himself walking softly, barely using the oven, let alone the microwave in case the sound was too loud to wake her up, and checked on her frequently to make sure that she was fine.
Little tart took that as permission to do it frequently too. Still, through all this he only knew of Stiles being ‘Stiles’ - he didn’t want to make her presence seem permanent in his life by hiring a P.I to find out her real name (since none of her fucking friends knew it, thank you Scott) - and was utterly floored when it was Deucalion who called her true name out in the middle of a sparring practice.
“You’re doing good, Mieczyslawa, this time focus on the way the air feels against your skin. You’re not a werewolf, but you can feel the change, every human can. You just have to attune yourself to it.” she nodded and vanilla sprouted from her in her pleasure at having her true name called so perfectly. “I’ll go slow and progress the more successful you are.” another nod but neither were ignorant of the stares centered on them. Stiles was not a werewolf but she was doing better than Erica and Vernon when it came to the training Deucalion implemented. She was doing so well, in fact, that it often meant she was doing lessons with him on the side, or during breaks in between their training sessions.
She didn’t dodge the first time Deucalion shoved her though she did follow his movements when he stalked around her. After the first three shoves she managed to dodge or swipe his hand away, then after that she stumbled only twice, managing to keep up pace with him until he started using his werewolf speed.
“Okay,” she sighed heavily and settled into a stance, captivating them all with her pure ozone that leaked from her. “Deuce, try again.” to his credit he did without hesitation. Where she once fumbled she was now sure in her movements, where she was choppy she was now graceful, and the pace with which she moved had increased until both their limbs were nothing but blurs. “I’m fucking NEO!” she shouted in glee after the session, cackling madly with Erica at her side, questioning just how the fuck she had done that.
Peter, however, was trying to remember how Deucalion had pronounced her name, tried to form it without being too obvious. He would never admit, even under the threat of torture, that he was jealous that Deucalion knew what her real name was and, from the way they were talking in another language that sounded harsh and beautiful, could also speak whatever language it was she was fluent in.
“It’s Polish,” Deucalion answered his unasked question when Erica and Vernon left with Stiles hours later. Peter tried not to seem too interested when he looked at Deucalion but felt his eyebrow twitching when the man was wiping his hands on a rag, grinning slightly every time he glanced at Peter as if he were amused. “Her name and the language.” he wondered how he knew but refused to ask it, he didn’t want him to think that Peter owed him for answering simple questions. If he elected to talk without being asked anything then that was his business, Peter was just enjoying his confusing day. “We looked into the human who taught a sireless Beta how to control himself, though we thought she was a Druid at first.” with a shrug Deucalion tossed the rag on his shoulder and crossed his arms over his chest. “You can imagine our surprise and suspicion when we found she wasn’t a Druid and was purely human.”
Purely human? Yes, that’s what he had thought at first too.
“Then she trespasses onto our territory, charms Ennis, and takes our hostages before they can even be utilized.” yes, he had been shocked all to hell and back when she showed up at the old Hale House with two twitchy Betas and a ghost. The ghost being his niece whom he thought was dead, another one who had been abandoned like he had. She had recently gone back to South America - Beacon Hills was ‘too cold’ for her - but she and Peter kept in touch through Skype and phone calls.
“Erica says you stopped Kali from torturing them,” to his credit the Alpha sighed heavily and sank into the pillar of the porch. “Why?”
“Because Derek was supposed to kill them, if they perished before they got the chance then that was one less beta who’s abilities he could absorb.” He was honest, at least, so points for him. “Now… now I think it would’ve been a great loss to involve her any more than she had been.” it most definitely would have been, Stiles had the severity of loyalty that made her put her own life in front of those she cared for.
Peter didn’t expect him to be one of those people, especially since he could fucking heal.
“You stupid, idiot girl!” he panicked and clutched her tighter to his chest while Chris drove them to the hospital. “What gave you the right!? I can heal but you can’t you -” her pinched expression turned wry, even though the pain he was trying to drain from her but couldn’t because the little tart was somehow stopping him from doing it. “Let me take your pain!”
“You’re-” she groaned and shut her eyes tight, “So dramatic, it’s just a - just a bullet.” Just a bullet, yeah for him maybe! It had been intended for his heart but she had fucking jumped right in front of it and took it instead. He would kill her, he would save her first and then kill her and then bring her back just to kill her again for causing this pain in his chest. He hadn’t even wanted her fucking pack bond and now he could feel the pain she was denying him from taking through it and he couldn’t- “Peter, breathe.” and with her calm placations he raged. Her, who was currently bleeding profusely into Chris’s back seat, was going to tell him to calm down when she could be dying!?
“Fuck you.” he snapped, then - “Let me take your pain damn you!” her brows furrowed even deeper at that, as if she didn’t know why he couldn’t.
“I’m not - not stopping you from doing it.” and it was hard to tell if she were lying or telling the truth because her hummingbird heartbeat was fucking normal and that did absolutely nothing for his control. “An-anyway, hunting season, I just, rounded a mend when - someone took a shot.” she grimaced and sank into Peter’s hold. “Didn’t - didn’t-”
“My daughter and Isaac stuck around to try and find the Hunter while Peter and I rushed you to the hospital.” Chris finished when she started coughing, jaw tight every time he looked at her through the rearview mirror. “We were tracking the deer when we came around the cliff face overlooking the city when the shot rang out.” she sagged completely against him and nodded briefly, eyelids lowering slowly as the exhaustion set in. “The hunter used a 30.06 and that’s a common hunting rifle caliber. It’ll all be plausible.” Chris was impressed with her ability to come up with an alibi even through her pain, that didn’t mean he was calm. He didn’t have a werewolf’s sensory amplification but he could smell her blood as if it were covering him. The normally fair-skinned girl was now sickly pale with sweat making her hair stick to her forehead and her eyes - which were regularly black - now looked sunken.
“Peter, don’, don’ wolf out, kay?” she breathed, “‘m fine. ‘n don’ wolf out ‘n Scott, either. Chris, don’ le’ em.” she cleared her throat and hissed when Peter jumped out of the car the moment Chris pulled it up in front of the Emergency entrance. “Hi, ‘lissa!” she chirped when several nurses motioned for Peter to put her on a gurney, beaming even though her eyelids were drooping shut again. “Fancy meet’n you here.”
“I just thought I'd stop by.” Melissa offered through the tears that had started to shed at the sight of Stiles covered in blood. Chris was rushing in the exact moment they wheeled her away, leaving two panicking adults while another nurse tried to get answers from them. He took over easily enough, especially when Peter completely froze at the sight of her blood on his hands. Chris could only assume what was going through his head - he was certain that it had to do something with the darkest part of his memories - and didn’t want to push him too far less he snap and wolf out.
It was strangely easy to get Peter to one of the showers in an empty room they’d been led to so that he could wash his arms and hands. Nothing could be done for the shirt, but then again Peter would still be able to smell her blood. Erica and Vernon came later, breathing hard and immediately gravitating near Peter. Jeorek came minutes later and was immediately dragged away by Melissa and a doctor.
Peter was furious, he was sad, he was enraged and he was so fucking confused. He couldn’t take her pain but she wasn’t stopping him from doing it. She had taken a bullet meant for him and he was covered in her fucking life blood and he didn’t like it. She had placated him even though she were in pain and he didn’t fucking know what all of this meant.
He knew his bond that he had with her hurt, that it was aching and dulling the longer time went on - he wasn’t sure if that was because she was dying or because she was sedated, he hoped beyond hope that it was the latter. If it was the former he- well, he wasn’t sure what he would do, or how he would react. He knew, faintly, that his thoughts were calm and hectic, that he had underlying thought processes ranging from several ‘what ifs’ to dozens of ‘but this could happen’, none of it really went focused on for more than a second overtop the large, terrifying thought, of ‘She could die.’
She could die.
She could die.
She was probably dying.
She was - and it was because of him - maybe not directly but indirectly. She, she forced the bond on him without asking! He had asked her if she wanted the bite and now she was taking him down with her and-
“Peter,” he curled his hands into fists and dug them into his abdomen, not wanting to look at them any longer, not when he could still smell the blood that had once coated them. “She’s going to be okay,” he looked up them, glaring at Chris and his calm freaking demeanor that had him wanting to rip his fucking throat out. “The bullet nicked an artery but she’s okay.”
“It wouldn’t have nicked an artery if she hadn’t jumped in front of me.” he growled, fists pressing tighter into his abdomen so he wouldn’t run them through his hair or into someone elses throat.
“You’re pack, of course she was going to jump in front of you.” Erica growled, pacing in front of Vernon - who was standing by the wall with his arms crossed across his chest.
“I never asked to be pack!”
“You never told her no!” Erica snarled at him, flashing her eyes and challenging him in a way that had his ass slamming right back into his seat before he could flash even a hint of fang. “She claimed you as pack over and over and you ever once told her no!” Peter rose with the calm fury he’d perfected all his life, truly on the edge now that this Beta, this beautifully protective and ignorant beta had tried to challenge him. HIM.
“I don’t want to be part of her pack.” he didn’t, he really fucking didn’t, not when she could get hurt and die at any fucking point, Spark or no. She could heal, she’d heal faster than a regular human, but she couldn't heal a bullet to the heart or head or throat. She was human and he couldn’t deal - he wouldn’t be able to take it if she died. Not when it made him feel every single one of his pack bonds burning all over again as his family died. As they suffered.
“Then tell her.” Jeorek challenged, arms crossed tightly to prevent himself from reaching for his gun to shoot the bastard that would dare leave his daughter now. “You don’t want to be a part of her pack then you tell that to her face and break that bond instead of letting it be drawn out.” how dare them, how dare all of them do this to him, try to keep him in a place he didn’t want to be!
He had stormed out with full intent to come back and tell her that he didn’t want to be a part of her pack.
He never did. Never went back or went to visit her despite every nerve in his body and every urge of his wolf telling him he needed to go see her, to make sure she was okay, to confirm that she was healing. Instead, he focused on researching what he could about the hunters that would dare hunt in Argent territory and avoiding the general populous.
Mieczyslawa, of course, had to take that plan and just fucking wreck it.
“You are the most idiotic mother fucker this side of Beacon hills.” Stiles Stilinski groused, standing in his doorway, looking as emotionally wrecked as she was physically. Damn him he couldn’t actually look at the brace on her arm that kept it slung against her chest. He couldn’t look at the bandages and wound dressing that peaked out from beneath her loose top. “You want to be emotionally stunted for the rest of your life? Fine. You tell me right now you want out of the pack and I’ll leave you alone, forever.”
“Just like that?” he snarked, claws coming out to impale the wall of his door, not that she could see it anyway. “After dragging me to pack meets for months and dragging me into your little group of misfits you’ll let me go, just like that?”
“Yes.” damn him he loved that she could tell the truth and lie all with a single word. He loved and hated that her eyes were like gold, burnt and broken but so defiant that it made him hate her all the more. “I won’t force you to be somewhere you don’t want to be, but only if you really don’t want to be there. I’m not going to take half-assed excuses or reasons, Peter. You’re a grown-ass man, if you give me some bullshit excuse then I’m going to tell you to fuck off until you give me a better one.” who the hell did she think she was. He didn’t need to give her a reason or an excuse. If he said he didn’t want to be in her fucking pack then that was all he had to say!
“I don’t,” he growled out, knuckle deep in his drywall. “Want to be,” cinnamon began melting with brown sugar, gold eyes turning to a dark russet brown in her acceptance and grief. “In your pack.” he expected her to fight, was ready for it, but that cinnamon and brown sugar turned too sweet, too rich for him to take too many deep breaths. She stared at him for a moment, then two until he was finally ready to snap at her.
“Fine.” his heart dropped to his stomach when she turned around and marched away, quickened steps doing nothing to take away her scent from his doorway. He hadn’t been able to bask in her scent for a week, hadn’t been able to see her or appreciate the small things about her habits that actually made him yearn for her. Now, with her scent so potent in his doorway, he found he wanted to just stand there, breathe her in even though it was physically painful to do so. Cinnamon and brown sugar, the too-sweet warmth that made his throat close up and his eyes burn. The scent that had built and built until it was overpowering her natural scent and leaving him with it saturating the area of his apartment.
The smell of her heartbreak.
He didn’t run after her despite every molecule in his body telling him to - if he were being honest it was because his body and wolf were telling him to go after her that he fought it so hard. He got three noise complaints that night and, by the morning, had a new living room table ordered to be shipped to him.
He thought she’d message him at least once within the next week.
She didn’t.
He didn’t hear anything until he dragged his ass with the conviction that he didn’t care, he was just trying to figure out what his Nephew and true Alpha McCall were planning, to the pack meeting.
There was no pack meeting, only Derek and - surprisingly enough - Cora were chilling out in Derek’s loft. They seemed just as surprised to see him as he was to see them. Then, then there was anger. Anger from Cora.
“Now you show up.” she stalked towards him with a fury that was both impressive and confusing. Why it was directed at him he had no idea. “After a whole month, Uncle Peter, you are just now showing up?!” and then she was punching him right in his solar plexus, catching him off guard with how fast she went from confrontational to physical.
“Cora, he doesn’t know.” Derek groused, sighing heavily over the dozens of open books laid out on his table. “Stiles isn’t in Beacon Hills.” that, that had taken his breath away far quicker than Cora’s punch had. She wasn’t in beacon hills? Why the fuck wasn’t she in Beacon hills? Where was her father, what was being done, why wasn’t he - why couldn’t he -
Well, he wouldn’t really have to be informed if they weren’t pack, would he? He wouldn’t have been able to feel if she were near, not with the aching chasm that was once the bond between the two of them. Still, he had pack bonds with Erica and Vernon and nothing felt off, they knew where he lived and he hadn’t been told by them that Stiles was gone. He hadn’t seen anything in the news about missing persons and there was no way in hell that Scott wouldn’t be currently lording this over him if something had happened to her. Not when all his theories about Peter being the biggest asshole since fisting became a thing were proven true.
“Where is she?” he didn’t care, he didn’t care he didn’t care.
“France.” Cora bit out, “Chris, Allison, Erica, Vernon, and Isaac all went. You would’ve been with her, would’ve known, if you hadn’t screwed up somehow!” the rest was far too many expletives about his character, personality, and his lack of dedication to things he was attracted to in Portuguese for him to give much thought to.
“Deucalion went too, Peter.” that stung even though it shouldn’t have. He had told her he didn’t want to be a part of her pack, hadn’t visited her while she was in the hospital, hadn’t reached out to her first. Even so, even despite all that, Deucalion had gone and Peter hadn’t, not even to make sure she was safe, not to look over the betas who had become pack to him without even having meant for them to.
“When are they due back?” Cora shut her brother up with a glare when he went to answer Peter.
“Why don’t you ask her yourself, Uncle Peter? Or are you scared?” the growl he centered on her was worthy of Alpha status. Peter, of course, did not do that. Not until it was nearing the two-month mark and the silence of his apartment was overwhelming. No amount of nights out could fill the silence, running never exhausted him as much as he needed so he could just pass out when he went home. Home that was now empty, home that was no longer home. Home with jackets that weren’t his and a cover that no longer smelled like Stiles, a place that no longer had traces of her or pack, a place that suddenly seemed much too big and much too quiet.
‘You’ve reached the voicemail of ‘Name here’-” he hated that her voice alone made his every limb settle, hated that it filled the ache that had been in his chest. Especially when she was snickering and giggling while trying to remain serious, he could practically see her in front of him making faces while recording the damn voicemail. “If you’ve important business, leave a message, if it’s important call again, hang up, and call again.” so, of course, he did just that, only it wasn’t Stiles that answered.
“I am unsure who this is, as you’re listed as ‘Big Bad’,” Deucalion rumbled, sounding as if he had just been woken up. “What is it?” Peter hung up.
Deucalion had answered Stiles’s phone, Deucalion who sounded as if he had been asleep had answered Stiles’s phone. Deucalion who had to be around Stiles for him to be near her phone, asleep, in Paris, together.
His cell phone vibrated in his hand, he actually hesitated to answer it when ‘Little Spark’ flashed across the screen. “Is everything okay in Beacon Hills?” a very groggy Stiles urged, causing his stomach to hollow immediately. She had been around Deucalion, they had to be in the same room, and they were most definitely sleeping together. But were they sleeping together, or sleeping together? Why did his wolf lament and his heart ache at the possibility?
“Why are you in France?” he countered, refusing to play to her tune and instead demanding she play to his. He heard the shuffling of covers and the creak of a mattress that was obviously of poor quality, and then her heavy sigh that had his anger rising.
“Why do you care?” she sounded so tired and defeated that he almost asked if she were okay. Damn the habits he had developed when she had been present in his life, like a leech or a tumor.
“The Pack meant to be protecting Beacon hills just ups and vanishes without finding suitable replacements? Fairly certain I should be aware of that much, at least.” not the wisest thing to say, considering the fact that she was frustrated with him.
“We have suitable replacements. Derek, Cora, Scott, my Dad, and the Police are all protecting Beacon hills.” He really should just leave it at that, lest she think he cares more than he actually did. Or showed that he cared as much as he did? He clearly cared for her, even if he didn’t actually want to. “I’m not - is there anything else?” didn’t have any time for him, did she? Not when she was busy with Deucalion and her pack in France.
“When are you coming back?” it was snapped and curt and definitely dangerous in ways that let on more than he had been comfortable with.
“I don’t know.” she sighed again, “Hopefully before school starts again.” he heard her heartbeat clearer and a muffled ‘Yeah, yeah I know, we’ll be fine. We’ve got time.’ and then another person joined her on the bed, or rejoined her. “Peter, was there something else?” she was dismissing him? As if he didn’t matter?
“Of course,” he purred, “wouldn’t want to interrupt your time with Deucalion.” he heard her intake of breath and felt minute satisfaction with the fact that she seemed so affected by his barb. Then he felt guilt, and not because he was wrong or because he had so obviously hurt Stiles, but because he could feel the protective anger through the bonds he had with Erica and Vernon.
“Too late,” calm, calculated, and with the force of a fucking freight train. “Goodbye, Peter.”
He crushed his phone when he heard the dial tone.
He contemplated flying to France just so he could throttle her and promptly decided against it incase she saw it as him going out of some kind of affection for her. Still, staying in Beacon Hills was out of the question. He needed to go somewhere, needed to get away from every memory that haunted him and the ghost-like laughter that tickled the back of his head. He had a plane ticket to Ohio booked and his bags all packed and ready in under eight hours with only one stop in mind. He just wasn’t expecting Derek and Cora to be skyping Stiles in their dining area.
“-ay, that’s what the Druid’s here are saying. They’re going to give me a sapling from their Nemeton to take to ours, it should purify whatever dark energies are polluting it and give it enough power to start being able to draw on the currents once again.” she sighed and ran a hand over her face, the black sling contrasting ominously against her skin and tank top she wore. “There’s also another Spark here, they’re apparently common, but not whatever I am. If we find out whatever it is that I am I’ll end up coming back once school is over and spend a couple months learning how to do… whatever it is that I do?”
“Stiles,” Derek began, concern clear in his tone and on his features. “You look like shit. Are you sleeping any?”
“Uh, I think we all got like four hours last night?” Erica pushed her way into the screen, glaring darkly at the side of Stiles’s face for even trying to lie.
“Stiles slept an hour and has been taking her Adderall left and right like they’re fucking hard candy.” Peter stepped further into the Loft without much thinking about it, his pesky wolf clearly wanted to see Stiles. “Hello asshole.” Erica greeted with a sniff then, with a level of sass Lydia would approve of, flicked her hair over her shoulder and stalked out of the screen’s frame.
“Yes, well, my shit sleeping habits aside.” Stiles groused, frowning angrily at her arm as she readjusted her sling. “That’s everything that’s happened so far. We’ve got another week or so and then we should be on our way back. I’ll have to plant the new sprout into the current Nemeton and purge whatever is blocking the energy flow before school starts,” she fidgeted a bit with her sling, then glared once Deucalion snapped at her to stop messing with it. In Polish.
Peter did not learn Polish for Stiles, he had learned it so he would know if they were talking about him to his face. It had absolutely nothing to do with the fact that he could now perfectly pronounce her name. Hearing the two of them bicker at one another in Polish had him wanting to put his two cents in just so he could see her reaction.
“Stiles, find you a Euro boyfriend and get fucked.” Derek and Stiles, simultaneously, inhaled their drinks and fucking spat them everywhere.
“Cora!” they spluttered inbetween hacks, glancing at her in abject horror while Erica cackled like a witch in the background. “Not only is that a fucking awful idea, but I actually have to stay a virgin for the ritual I’ve got to do for the Nemeton Sapling.” not sleeping with Deucalion then, interesting - not that he cared either way. “And I’m not going to end up getting anyone in Beacon Hills after either. People aren’t interested in me.” she shuffled a bit in her seat, “None that I’m interested in, anyway.” He almost whined at how sad she sounded and caught himself from correcting her that plenty of people found her attractive. Every time he, Erica, Vernon, and Stiles went out she’d get multiple stares of lust from multiple men.
“Okay, what about Derek?”
“I don’t see him like that and he definitely doesn’t see me like that, even if my age wasn’t a factor in his decision making.” yes, she and Derek had come to a mutual fondness for one another after she rescued his Betas and, as such, were at a mutual understanding of the other. Cora huffed and crossed her arms.
“Well, then I’ll find someone from South America. You should date someone, Stiles, get you someone to temper you out or urge you on. You’re fucking amazing.” Peter wondered briefly if Mieczyslawa Stilinski was like a drug to Hale’s. Derek hadn’t liked her at first and neither had Cora, now both were friends and advocates for her. He loved it and hated it, they were his family and yet they were friendly with the one who had manipulated him into being in a packbond with her when he was fine with his solidarity.
“Am I not an option?” Peter drawled as he rose from his train of thought, having meant it as a teasing remark that came out much too curious for his liking. That had Derek and Cora both turning to look at him despite his attention resting solely in Stiles’s dulled iris’s.
“You’ve already made your choice clear and I’d rather not hear it again.” his choice? About her? Was he missing something? “Der, Cora, I’m heading off. Take care of one another and please watch out for my dad.” she hedged a moment before murmuring a quick goodbye and ended the call, leaving his niece and nephew to stare at him with a level of interest that had him defensive.
“Do you want to be an option for Stiles?” Cora, damn her, inquired with a gleam in her eyes that reminded him far too much of Stiles when she was teasing him. Of course he wanted to be an option, he always wanted to be an option when it counted for things that would give him a leg up in situations. Stiles, however, was like a laser straight through the fog of his bullshit that could cut straight to the heart of things with him. He hated that she had that effect over him, as well as the fact that she seemed to never react the way he wanted her to when he was messing with her.
Still, did he want to be a genuine option for Stiles? His life was empty without her, his chest always felt hollow without her. She enraged him like no other and made him feel so fucking vulnerable that he worried she was his weakness. In the same breath when she smiled at him so genuinely it made him feel like he could rock the fucking world. When she had been hurt, however, it made him feel like he was lost at sea in the middle of a typhoon or hurricane. And when he had been too lost in his thoughts it was her gentle calling of ‘Big bad?’ or ‘hey assface!’ that had him returning.
Oh. Fuck.
She anchored him, she anchored him and took the foundation of everything he knew and just wrecked it because she was his anchor.
“Uncle Peter?” She had become his anchor, she had somehow wormed her way into a bond with him and taken his interest in her motives to make him complacent with her plans! The devious little minx! She was his anchor, how the fuck - why was she his anchor? She was like a fucking hurricane, hardly anything about her was stable like an anchor should be! Why - what- “Uncle Peter!” he snapped his jaw and growled, brought back to reality by Cora standing right in front of him. At some point he had dropped his bags and was now breathing hard, heartbeat thundered through his ears and raising his rage.
“I’m leaving!” he snarled, grabbed his bags, and fucking ran. She was his anchor, Mieczyslawa Stilinski was his anchor and he -
Loved it. Hated it. Did she know? Had she intentionally -?!
It had taken him five minutes to get his temper in check and not put his claws through his steering wheel. No, he couldn’t deal with this, he couldn’t - he needed to get away. Time away would help, it’d give him the chance to put his thoughts in order. He needed time away from everything that reminded him of Stiles, he needed time away to try and get her out of his head and to get the festering wound that replaced where her bond once had been healed. Yeah, yeah, he would go to Ohio, he’d take that flight, now he just needed to get there.
He spent all of a month in Ohio before he could no longer take it. Every brunette he saw made him think it was Stiles, every time he heard the audio of any Marvel movies he immediately expected to hear ten facts about the movie from Stiles. Whenever he heard tinkering laughter, or smelled vanilla, he immediately thought of her and he couldn’t take it. His month away forgetting her had been spent in agony remembering every little detail about her. No one had her skin tone, no one looked as good with moles and freckles like she did, no one smelled as honest and sincere as she did.
No one reminded him completely of Stiles but everyone reminded him of the little things about her. He hated it, he saw her in everyone, almost like a ghost he couldn’t escape. It was why he was surprised all to hell that she greeted him at the airport, pale and with blackened eyes but sporting a smile that was absolutely mischievous. He should’ve been angry at seeing her waiting for him or even joy, anything but the sinking feeling that something was wrong, that this wasn’t Stiles. Not his Stiles.
“Peter,” she purred, eyeing him with a hunger that was not what he was used to associating with Stiles. “welcome back home.” he approached her slowly, suspiciously, and then out of a need to control the situation when her sandalwood and vanilla smelled burnt. “I missed you.” that sounded wrong, almost like whatever was in front of her was twisting her around in an attempt to twist him.
“Missed you too.” he drawled, willing to play the game so he could try and catch whatever this was off guard. “When did you get back?”
“Week and a half ago,” her pout was adorably wrong, whatever this thing is was trying too hard to be her. “I missed you.” she went to hug him when her whole body froze, fury and abject horror clashing like tidal waves. “Not him,” she growled, clearer now than earlier, “Not him you fucking -”
“Stiles?” her eyes shot up to look at him, one black and broken while the other was her champagne gold. It was like she was frozen in that moment, half her features contorted in fury while the others were contorted in pain and sorrow. Something was possessing her, clearly, and she was fighting it so valiantly but -
“Yes,” she drawled, black flashing to bleach white as a single tear fell from her eyes, “but none of my loved ones.” his phone rang the same moment the lights to the entire airport shut off, encasing Stiles and the way black bled into her gold as the last image of her he’d see for a while.
“What the hell,” Peter ground out as he answered his phone, lights back on and Stiles nowhere to be seen. “Is going on?”
“I assume you’ve met the Nogitsune, then.” Chris sighed through the phone, “Are you injured?”
“No,” what an insulting thought, “but I do believe that she agreed to a full possession just now.” a very sharp, angry ‘What?’ came from the backseat of whatever vehicle Chris was currently driving. “Nogitsune, then we’ll just need darling Alpha Scott McCall to bite her so we can recapture the Fox.” if only it had been that easy. Stiles, possessed or no, was still Stiles in that she took everything they knew and just flipped it right side down.
“Oh,” the Void Stiles cooed, eyeing Peter with hunger and distaste. “You’re so lucky, little wolf, you have so much anguish and pain that I’d grow fat if I fed off of you.” she sighed, wicked gleam in her eyes glittering roughly against the low light in Derek’s loft. “Not my loved ones,” she mocked, irritation mixing like ash with her scent.
“Which is why you were able to break Noshiko’s tails, but now why you can’t hurt me, Jackson, or the twins.” gold eyes flicked to him at that, surveying his features for some hint of a lie before she broke out in a wide, malicious smile.
“You don’t know. You didn’t leave the pack and Beacon Hills and her, because you didn’t know!” he hated that whatever he had said was the wrong thing, hated that it brought it such glee. “She was so sure! Beautiful, turgid little pieces to my game. Erica, tell him, tell him what little Stiles told you.” it was cooed in a faux sexy sneer with hands that were not supposed to be grabbing at her hips the way they were.
“Stiles doesn’t love with just a little of her heart, she loves with everything she is. When she heard the story of how the twins were abused it reminded her too much of when her mother got sick and she vowed to give them a better chance at life, to show them kindness.” Erica began immediately, smile like poison when Void Stiles seemed to deflate with how easy she began spilling the secret. “She sees what she could’ve ended up as in Jackson, alone and trying hard to be noticed, to do everything perfectly. She hates that she sees that in him and hates that he hates her, but she still wants to show him that he’s enough.” Void actually looked a little angry at how easily these dark secrets were being exposed, even if the reactions of those around them would have normally satisfied it. “You, she would’ve helped you originally with your plan, Peter. She’s said so multiple times to anyone whose cared to listen to her. Then she fell in love with you, and you told her to fuck off.”
Void seemed energized at his reaction to that particular bit of information. When had she told him of her feelings? When had he told her to fuck off with said feelings? Why did his chest feel like it had dropped into his gut and his heart had stopped dead?
“She chose you.” Void cheesed, “She chose you but you didn’t choose her! Oh! She would’ve went insane before I’d even gotten a hold of her if she didn’t have her pack.” disgust was in its tone even as its eyes slipped to the doorway and it began grinning awfully when Noshiko and her daughter appeared. “Now it’s a party! Tell them, Noshiko, how you summoned me and then betrayed me, tell them how this was the necessary outcome!” it threw her arms wide in indication of the scene, it was then that Derek and Scott struck, resulting in Derek being thrown into a pillar and Scott latching onto his friends arm with his teeth.
The oni appeared the moment Stiles’s skin dried up and cracked, advancing immediately on the downed girl before the Nogitsune could leave her.
“No!” Peter roared, launching himself at one of them to buy her time. He didn’t think to do so he just naturally threw himself in front of her, threw himself at the danger so he could give her time. He couldn’t think about her confession, nor his denial of it, nor why he felt so fucking hollow. Chris and Deucalion immediately took up arms to assist while the twins - startled as they were - tried to launch themselves into the foray, slivers of pack bonds shimmering in their chests that felt so sweet they ached.
Try as they might two Oni broke through just in time to place its hand into a fist by her face, catching the escaping Nogitsune Firefly. One Oni stayed behind as the rest converged into one to check Stiles, even as her skin began falling away like a clay outer layer to show a pink-skinned Stiles with frazzled hair and wide, tired gold eyes.
Unlike the rest, however, it drew its knife down the length of Stiles’s bitten arm and promptly disappeared, leaving Stiles to fall to the ground and break the rest of the clay that had been around her body - including the mark that used to be on her arm. Scott’s bite, too, was gone, with no blood as evidence that it had ever been there in the first place.
“Stiles!” Jeorek cried, clutching his daughter to his lap so he could search for a pulse and relaxing only when he found one. “C’mon baby girl, wake up.” he pleaded, tapping his fingers against her cheek a few times to bring the light back to her wide-open eyes. It didn’t sit right with Peter, seeing her looking up with dead eyes as if was a foreshadow into her future. He didn’t care that he was projecting his turbulent feelings to those around him, didn’t care that he knew this feeling as the panic and desperation he felt when his family had burned, knowing he felt no familial ties to the spark.
“H-hey pop,” she greeted, voice raw and barely above a whisper.
#Steter monthly prompts#September 2019#September 2019 prompt#steter#female stiles#always a female stiles#Stiles Stilinski#Peter Hale#Angst#lotta angst#Prompt was angst and couldn't refuse#meheh#unresolved feelings#courtship fail?#full hale pack
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Stop for Me
During the GOTG Comic Run Faithless, Rocket is dying. He's run away from the Guardians and cannot be found. It is implied/stated later by Groot that Gamora actually found the ringtail and was secretly going back and fourth to see him and drink with him. She was keeping his location and condition secret, killing any of his enemies before they could get to him so that he could die in peace. She was, according to Groot prepared to bury the ringtail and honor his desire to choose how he gets to be remembered. It's all tragic and emotional and sappy so I leapt at the chance to write this. My interpretation of that behind the scenes.
I'd recommend googling a summary of the gotg comic run Faithless before reading this fic. It will help you understand things. I jumped around quite a bit so be warned.
Heather Douglas aka Moondragon has the ability to invade someone's mind and control them.
Also I am basing this off my understanding of the comics. I don't know where Gamora actually was, her status with the rest of the team etc. This is my interpretation.
*Warnings: Themes of death/dying/mortality. Implied animal abuse, torture, scenes with hospitals/medical equipment (not explicit but mentioned).*
“Because I could not stop for Death –
He kindly stopped for me –
The Carriage held but just Ourselves –
And Immortality.”
Because I Could Not Stop for Death - Emily Dickenson
Tyressel - Deserted Forest Planet 11th Quadrant
Target locked, armed with two Kree evart guns. Gamora crouched in the branches of a large tellwart tree, squinting between the branches at the lone Estarian down below. The fool stopped, glancing around the dark trees. She lunged, landing on the Estarian’s broad shoulders and disarming her in one fell swoop.
“Where is he?” Gamora growled, pressing her blade to the assassin’s thick purple neck. She flailed, twisting, trying to reach her arm out for her evart gun, scattered across the forest floor. “I know you were after him, where is he?” The alien made to bite, cursing in some foriegn tongue. Gamora pressed the blade harder, keeping her grip tight. “Take me to him and I will make your death painless.”
“Wh….who are...y...you?” The Estarian whimpered through her beginning to weaken under Gamora’s weight. She could feel it in the way the assassin’s muscles tensed and loosened, tensed and loosened again.
“I,” Gamora seethed, watching blue blood pucker from the Estarian’s neck, “am the most dangerous woman in the galaxy. Take me to your target or I will gut you like an orloni on a spit.”
Gamora, sucked a breath, counting down before she made her move. One, two...three, she flicked her blade from the assassin’s mouth, instantly checking her in the temple with the helm of her sword. It worked. The Estarian stumbled, in time for Gamora to leap off of her and grab the tossed guns. The assassin stumbled weakly to the side, tripping on an unassuming root. Gamora sprinted after her, taking aim best she could with the cumbersome weapon and shot. The assassin screamed, buckling.
“Take me to him NOW!” Gamora shouted, voice cracking. Assuming he is still here. He’d better be.
“.....I’ll….t...tale you to him...if you promise not to k...kill me.” Gamora caught up to her, tackling the alien unceremoniously to the ground, pinning her once more. ….I’ve come too far to give up now. Risked too much, lied too much. The thought of it made her stomach churn. She shook Peter’s face from her head; turning again to the Estarian bleeding on the ground.
“Deal.”
---
“H….here,” Gamora stopped, smirking. A Tellinian cruiser, I might have known. She tightened her grip on the limping Estarian. Dragging the wounded assassin closer and trying to stifle the panic rising within her. What if she was too late? What if all the lying was for nothing? What if it’s not him? Gamora held her breath as she neared the ship. A window on the port side.
“What’re you w...waiting…” Gamora clamped her hand over the assassin’s mouth, tightening her grip.
“Shut up.”
She peered through the window, heart dropping in her chest. All the imagining, all the speculation and wandering had not prepared her. Her hand tightened over the assassin’s mouth, trying to stop her own shaking.
“Rocket!” She pounded her fist against the metal door. “It’s Gamora! Open up! Now!” She sucked her breath, waiting for any sound. “I mean it! open this door or I will….hey!” Gamora spun, realizing the Estarian had slipped from her grip and was darting away through the trees. Forget this, she gave me what I wanted. Gamora fingered the evart gun, holding steady, aimed and fired true. The assassin went down without a cry, the bullet going straight through her skull. She ran, I had no choice. She would’ve come back and finished Rocket off some other day, Gamora rationalized. She unloaded the gun and dropped it to the ground. Waiting in the heavy silence. Now it was just the two of them. Her stomached flopped again, her arms shaking. Every time she thought of the image she had seen through the ship’s window Gamora swallowed down the panic. I knew it was bad...I didn’t realize it was that bad.
“Rocket,” she tried softer this time. “It’s just me. The others are quadrants away. I’m here alone. Please, open up.” She waited, some distant bird called in the canopy above. Through the trees she three green suns cast emerald light around her. It would be a pretty planet, if it didn’t reek with rot and swamp water and muck. What a fitting place Rocket had chosen to die, she thought darkly. Something inside the ship shuffled, metal against metal scraping. She waited, standing square before the ship’s main door. Finally, the red door slid upward. Gamora took it in by degrees as Rocket slowly came into view, from the claws on his paws, the shaking legs, the thin whip of a tail, no longer bushy and ringed but dull like a piece of frayed rope. A sunken chest.
Calm yourself.
Gamora ordered, swallowing a lump in her throat. Rocket’s neck was thin, eyes red and swollen nearly shut, patchy fur dull. Bandages fixed to his arms, an intravenous line on each limb, tubes stuck out every which way. If she didn’t know better he may have robbed the nearest emergency room on Retaok. That is most likely exactly what he did. She watched him pull down the clear breathing mask that was strapped across his muzzle. He looked her up and down, cocking his head.
“Staring is rude Gamora,” he wheezed. She did her best not to flinch.
Of course he wouldn’t want to be found.
She tried to ignore the sight of his lungs under paper skin, pushing against his ribs with the effort. She strode past him.
“Got anything to drink?”
“I th….thought...thought you’d never aa..ask!”
His hollow laughter only made her want for more alcohol.
“G...gams, what’s with the ...d...dead b..broad?”
She stopped, turning.
“That dead broad wanted you dead. She was on her way here to kill you.”
Rocket shrugged.
Gamora turned on her heel, taking off down the corridor. The screech of metal halted her step. Rocket limped behind her, dragging the metal poles that hung heavy with liquid bags. Inexplicable rage mounted in her, misplaced. She stormed back over to him, forcing herself to calm down and walked in step with his lame gait. It took everything within her not to offer help but she knew what would come if she did.
“You...you said it's just you?” He sounded so uncertain. Refusing to meet her gaze. She walked consciously slowly, allowing him to lead the way with his equipment until they made it to the ship’s main bay and low and behold an makeshift bar.
“Yes, it’s just me.” She snapped, reaching for a bottle of clear quasian liquor. It’s stinging taste burnt her tongue and tingled her stomach. She set it down with a firm clink. Watching him take the bottle with trembling hands and pour it liberally.
“You don’t have to do this,” Gamora spoke through jaw clenched frustration. “We will find some way to stop whatever is happening to you. Come back to the ship. To Peter and Groot….come home Rocket.”
His ears twitched, looking away. She watched him take a drink. The veins in his neck swelling as he swallowed. When had his fur begun to fall out? He tapped his claws against the glass.
“I ain’t going soft.”
“What’s wrong with being soft?”
Rocket shook his head,
“It’s..” he devolved into coughing. Gamora took another drink. “I’m protectin’ them!” He sputtered.
“You’re being selfish.” She snapped back, the fiery alcohol adding a bite to her voice. The ringtail poured himself another drink.
“I never got no say in this,” he gestured weakly to himself. “Didn’t get much say in anything. So let me have a say in this.” He whispered, staring into his glass. “Lemme have a say in how I go.” He looked up at her, eyes glossy, unfocussed. He looked at her without seeing her. Gamora shifted uncomfortably. Pouring another drink. “I…I’m not going soft,” he repeated.
That was it. Gamora slammed her fist down on the table, sending the glasses scattering.
“Why not choose life?! We can get you help. There are places all the across the galaxy that can save you.”
“I ain’t going nowhere!”
He tried to yell but it came out a grating whisper. Too late, she’d seen it already. Fear. Terror. Horrific speculation that whatever it would take to heal him would be worse than that which was already happening. She twinged with sympathy, what an awful choice...what would I do..? If I had to go back to Thanos or...or die? What kind of a choice is that? Gamora steeled herself. Determined. There was only one way to find out.
Gamora snatched one of the tubings, a clear chord running from the raccoonoid’s mouth to the oxygen tank beside them. She pinched it, kinking the tube, the whine of the gass erupting. Rocket went rigid.
“G...Gamora!” He shook, thin chest heaving. She glared even as he collapsed. She knelt, looming over him. He gagged for air. “G….Gamora...I...I can’t.” Red eyes bulged, kicking weakly.
“What?” Her fingers tightened around the coil. She knelt over him, watching him struggle. His nostrils flailing. “You can’t what?”
“G...gmora…”
She held her own breath, whole body tense. Her sweaty hands held fast to the tube, the squeak of the building gas arched, building her anxiety. Beneath her Rocket shuddered, eyes roving. His chest puffed in and out, limbs going heavy. Gamora had seen it plenty of times. He looked at her, making his choice.
Gamora let go, the rush of the air spouted back through the tube. Rocket arched upward, tubes and contraptions shuttering. Gamora reached out, gingerly taking his fragile arms and helping him upward, her own heart sinking.
“So you’ll die alone and in pain for your pride?” She fumed. Gamora had long prided herself on measured emotions and logic, it was the only thing that had kept her alive for most of her life, it was what had allowed her to survive. But this? This she could not muster through. Confused, helpless rage coursed through her. She glared at the raccoonoid with righteous vitriol.
Rocket fiddled with the monitors attached to his chest, still panting.
“I’ll….die with...d..dignity the way I want.”
“Because drinking yourself into oblivion, stumbling around in your own piss and shit is so dignifying!” Gamora snarled, blazing. Rocket bared pointed teeth,
“Then why’d you even come Gamora? Did the tree put you up to t...this?” The ringtail heaved for breath from his outburst, lifting the oxygen mask and taking three deep breaths. Gamora looked away. He teetered for a moment on his shaking feet, but watched her carefully like a deer wary of a coming wolf. For her part Gamora wrung her hands together; as soon as the rage had flooded her, it was gone.
“I came,” she began slowly, “because I watched my parents die in front of me...and I was helpless to stop it.” She took a shaking breath, trying to suppress the memories. “But not this time. This time I can do something,” she continued with renewed determination. “I’m not standing by while someone I love....”
Rocket’s mouth fell open, his whiskers twitched.
“You….you l..love me?” He breathed.
The most dangerous woman in the galaxy rolled her eyes, then stopped realizing his genuine shock. She stopped short, stepping closer to him.
“Why do you think I’m here Rocket?” She whispered gently, “Why do you think we’ve all been searching for you since you left? Why do you think I went behind everyone’s backs to come here?”
Rocket looked away, coughing for a moment. Gamora reached out a hand impulsively but he shook it away. He’d made his choice. He has a right to his own decisions.
“If this is what you truly want, fine.” She watched him cling to the pole for support, sucking a few more breaths of air. “I’ll be back in two Xandarian turns. Medicine, bandages, supplies, whatever you need.”
“More booze?” Rocket gestured to the spilled liquor and remaining bottles.
“There will be others like that Estarian,” she thought aloud. “You’ve pissed off a lot of people and they will be coming. I’ll take care of it. If you are determined to die,” she forced the words past the lump in her throat, “you deserve to do it on your own terms.” Rocket nodded. “I’ll keep your location secret for now, but they’ll find you eventually. Either Heather will with her powers or Groot will find you by sheer force of will.”
“If Groot’s gonna find me you better grab this oxygen tube again and be done with it,” he fingered the clear tubing in his claws, managing a wheezing laugh she did not reciprocate. Instead she turned back down the hall of the ship, making for the exit.
“I appreciate you doing this for me...” Rocket called after her softly. Gamora turned, looking down at him. Something gray and heavy overwhelmed her inside, taking her reason and dashing it to pieces. Her chest synched.
“Of course. That’s what family does for each other,” she managed, tears welled the rims of her eyes. “They respect the wishes of their loved ones. No matter how much they h...hate it. No matter how much..it hurts. And you’re right. You never got a say in how or why you were made. They never gave you that right. But you have it now. And I respect that.” She sniffed, watching his own large eyes dampen. She forced a smile. “And besides, you’d do the same for me.”
Rocket punched the controls, opening the large door of the ship.
“I’m gonna miss you Gams,” he managed.
Gamora sniffed once more, wrapping her grief around resolve. She straightened, clearing her throat and smiled good naturedly.
“I’ll see you in two turns....and every two after that.”
---
Thirty Three Xandarian Turns Later
The Benatar:
“Where is he?” Groot bristled, angry thorns erupting from his broad shoulders. Gamora planted her feet on the metal floor, folding her arms.
“I’m sorry about this Groot, but I’m not going to tell you.”
Groot grimaced, before she could react he unleashed one long arm, seizing her in his vines and lifting her off the floor, slamming her into the hard wall of the ship’s bay.
“Unhand me Wood God...I don’t want to hurt you,” she leveled with him, staring into those ruthless brown eyes. Who knew Groot would go from easy going and peaceable to stalwartly angry so soon after Rocket disappeared. The flora colossus’s tight grip loosened.
“You already have.”
Gamora twisted, landing on her feet just in time. She swallowed her shame. Groot stalked past her, sitting heavily in the co-pilot's chair.
“He wants to be left alone Groot,” she tried. “I know it’s...it’s terrible but...it’s his decision. I told him I’d honor that.”
“No it’s not his decision.” Groot growled. “It’s ours. He is part of this team,….I won’t just let him...,” the flora stopped short, words choked. Heather reached out gently touching the flora’s shoulder.
Peter looked up from his hands, wary.
“Groot’s right Gamora, we have to do what’s best for Rocket. But..what’s best for him and what he wants...might be different.”
He’s right. You know he is.
Gamora grumbled.
“Gamora,” Heather reasoned, “I don’t want to do this, but...if I must…I will make you tell me where,”
“Try it,” She dared, casting a glare at the woman.
Groot stood abruptly, turning for one of the small pods.
“I’m going to find him. I don’t care what he wants.”
Gamora stood, hand going to her sword but Peter jumped between them, raising his arms, placating.
“Gamora, let him go.”
“I’m going with him,” Heather stood, following the Flora colossus. She returned Gamora’s contemptuous look before disappearing down the hall.
Gamora stepped forward, startling as Peter gripped her shoulder,
“Let them go. If they find Rocket and manage to talk to him, well….if anyone can get him to come back, it’s Groot.”
Gamora frowned,
“I doubt it Peter.”
---
The Benatar After The Battle
with The Universal Church of Truth
“What are you doing?!” Gamora shouted over the sound of gunfire as the Benatar sped away. Peter frantically punched coordinates into the ship’s navigation. She stood, looking over his shoulder, sweat beading on her forehead. She sucked a breath, heart nearly stopping.
“Halfworld?!”
“They are the only people who know Rocket’s biology and how to fix it. If anyone can save him it’ll be them.”
Gamora rounded on the Flora colossus, who held Rocket tight to him in a protective cocoon.
“We're not bringing him to Halfworld! They were the ones who tortured him!”
Gamora’s unyielding restraint and reason were crumbling, fast. She knew it but at the moment there was no time to care. Groot only stared straight ahead as the ship lurched across another jump point.
“Groot!”
Gamora beat her fist against him in a rage. The ship raced onward, she curled her fingers into his arm for stability, and in anger, pieces of bark flaking off.
“He’d rather die than go to some hospital or lab, never mind Halfworld! You bring him back there, you're no better than the people who created him! You'd hand him over to those sadists! How could you do that?!” Her voice cracked. Groot grunted, throwing her off of him with a single uncaring shrug.
“Guys….” Peter tried from his position at the wheel.
Gamora regained her stance, only to have Drax’s impenetrable arms wrap around her. Any other time, she’d easily free herself with her sword but her mind was not working, not focusing on tact or precision. Somewhere amid all those branches Rocket lay without any life-saving equipment, his own cybernetics rebelling against him. He was being unmade and he’d only sped up the process trying to save them. And this...this was how Groot was returning the favor? She’d seen the hollow terror in the raccoonoid’s eyes when she even suggested getting help. Now that fear was becoming hers.
“How can you do this to him?!” She screamed, thrashing in Drax’s hold. “He doesn’t want to hurt anymore Groot don’t you get that?! He doesn’t want to be put back together again and again!”
“Gamora we will be with him the whole time,” Heather tried to intervene. “We won’t let anything happen to him.”
“You can’t take him back there, you can’t betray him like that! Groot!” Her voice rose to a shriek, unable to contain her outrage. Groot, Groot out of all of them. That was the worst, most heartbreaking part of it all. Rocket trusted him, loved him above everyone else and Groot was going to hand him over to them.
“He’ll die! And if he doesn’t die he’ll suffer! They'll make him and unmake him again! How can you live with that?!”
When the flora finally looked at her it was with eyes as cutting as steel.
“I’d rather do something than nothing.” he rumbled. “At least I could say I tried to save him ....unlike you.”
Gamora only gnashed her teeth, trying to free herself.
“Halfworld coming up,” Peter announced.
Gamora twisted, elbowing Drax in the ribs and darted forward, blade out and aimed at the wood god, who’s attention had returned to Rocket. Gamora ran, swinging the sword upward and...fell to the ground, Heather’s presence crashing into her mind. Heather now possessed control of her body and, despite Gamora’s will, steered her to the copilot seat, strapping her in. Through the large windows, the forbidding planet loomed, half forested with pinkish trees, half bare and covered in buildings visible even at this distance. Halfworld.
I’m so, so sorry. Forgive me Rocket.
She’d failed him.
---
Halfworld BioEngineering Facility
Keystone Quadrant
Four Terran Days Later
Gamora bypassed the security on the door and entered the small, sanitary room with caution, her stomach one wrong motion away from expelling itself at any given moment. Rocket lay motionless in the too large bed, monitors beeping steadily, which if nothing else she assumed was a good sign. The scientists at Halfworld had welcomed Rocket into their care, perhaps a little too enthusiastic at the prospect. Going so far as to offer “further enhancements.” But between threats and constant vigilance however the team more or less agreed to allow the procedures that would save the raccoonoid’s life. For her part she’d reserved herself to silence. Trying to recover the embarrassment from her outburst on the ship. It had all happened so fast. Heather had not released her from her possession until they’d whisked Rocket back behind the O.R. doors and by that time she was too exhausted to fight anyone.
She crept closer, Rocket appeared to be sleeping soundly. His little chest going in and out still unnervingly skinny but breathing better. Gamora stopped short, only just realizing Groot. He sat hunkered at the bedside, a freshly grown bouquet of flowers on the nightstand, adding a pleasant smell to the otherwise chemical stench. His eyes only stared at Rocket, still as stone.
“I should not have yelled at you.” Groot murmured after a time. Gamora remained stoic but took a step closer eyes surveying the chart that hung on the other side of the bed. She plucked it up, reading the report.
“They completely upgraded his mods,” she read aloud. “Skeletal, muscular, nural.”
“I know what it says.”
She threw the chart down on the nearby table and collapsed in the chair opposite Groot, watching the subtle fur on the raccoonoid’s ears twitch with every tiny motion. She ran a hand across her face, her own exhaustion catching up with her.
They sat in tense silence. An occasional beep or innocuous announcement interpreting their brooding. She watched Groot who watched the ringtail. He picked at his own bark mostly, doing anything but looking at her.
The blankets shifted, Rocket stirred. Gamora’s heart leapt into her throat only to fall when he did not open his eyes, but fell back into a steady sleep. Groot stood, and beant down over his friend, gently touching his own brow to Rocket’s, one large hand cradling the raccoonoid’s face and closing his eyes.
“You are the most important person in Rocket’s life,” Gamora whispered, rotating the rings on each index finger, anything to avoid looking at the imposing flora. “You were right. His choice to run away and die affected all of us, you most of all. And I was going to let him die without saying goodbye.” Tears threatened to resurface.
Groot withdrew his embrace and stood, looking down at her; that rigid cracked face unreadable.
“You were honoring Rocket’s wishes without question. Protecting him. Sacrificing your own feelings to do so. You were going to bury him.”
“Yes.”
Groot nodded.
“That takes more honor and more of a different kind of love than even I could muster.”
Gamora glanced up at him, raising a brow. Groot only opened one large hand, and she watched in memorization as a small blue and white flower grew from his palm.
“Rocket will like that,” she attempted a lighter tone.
“It’s not for Rocket,” Groot held it out to her. “I was right, that he is a part of this team. This family. His life and his death do not belong solely to him. But you belong to this family too.”
With that the tears escaped her, she took the flower, gently snapping it away from his palm.
“I am sorry,” Groot professed. She watched him walk around the bed carefully to her and open his arms. Gamora fell into the hug with as much overwhelming joy as exhaustion. The strong bark steady and assuring.
“I’m sorry too Groot. I didn’t want to hide things from you.” He’d never know the insatiable guilt that had wracked her during those months. He’d never know how it took everything within her not to say anything. How it had haunted her. “But I promised him I’d honor his choice and I know he’d do the same for any of us.” Groot’s arms tightened around her. “He didn’t want to come back here, he’d rather die and...I’d make the same call if I had to go back to Thanos.”
Groot’s large head leaned on top of her own, pulling her tighter into his embrace.
“I know.”
She let herself remain in the flora colossus arms a moment longer, a safe warm place. No wonder Rocket liked to curl up with the tree creature when he went to sleep. Gamora finally reluctantly withdrew, tucking the flower behind her ear.
“I’ll give you two some privacy. He’ll want to see you when he wakes.”
“You can stay Gamora. He’ll want to see all of us.”
The rest of them filed in later, after the Halfworlders approved it. They gathered around the raccoonoid shortly before he woke up, cursing but relieved.
“I know I’m not doing any good by lying here. I’ll get better,” he breathed.
“Hey,” Peter took the ringtails hand. “Don’t worry about that, take all the time you need.” Rocket surveyed them all. Gamora stood beside Groot, her heart light for the first time in her recent memory.
“I knew we got a whole galaxy to save….”
“The galaxy can wait.”
Rocket nodded, happy tears formed around the edges of his eyes. He moved from person to person, finally landing on Gamora.
Thank you,
The raccoonoid mouthed to her. Her heart hitched in her chest but she grinned, standing there with all of them. Rocket would be okay. Groot forgave her. She’d kept her word after all. Peter was right, the galaxy could wait. For all of them.
#my writing#gotg#Guardians of the Galaxy#rocket raccoon#gamora#groot#peter quill#drax#heather douglas#moondragon#gotg faithless#gamora and rocket are friends damnnit#i love their friendship#gotg fanfiction
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Does mulching a prisoner of war into shiny little woodchips before burying them alive indefinitely count as a violation of the Geneva Conventions? Asking for a friend.
(Hi guys, I’m back, and I brought 4,400 words with me.)
First of all, my apologies for the nearly five month wait. Ever since last spring, I haven’t had much time at all to devote to writing and I’ve only been able to work on this essay in small increments. And yet, despite the fact that I don’t have the time to do so, this essay somehow turned into a bloated treatise on the failings of gem society. Truly, I am a slave to my obsessions.
I’ve refrained from reading chapter 80 because I just know that if I do, it will insinuate itself into my brain like a tumor and I won’t be able to concentrate on finishing this essay. (That said, I did happen to see someone on twitter make a joking reference to third impact in regards to said chapter, so I am certainly Afraid.) Though my takes may be ice cold by this point, I hope that there are some nuggets of insight to be found in this. With that said, here are my thoughts on chapters 78 and 79.
While the past two chapters have certainly been…hard to read, I think that their contents have been a long time coming, primarily regarding the parallels between Phos and Kongou, and the uglier undercurrents of gem society reaching their logical conclusion. (And I gotta say, this display of—for lack of a better term—inhumanity on the part of the gems jives quite well with all the Shirley Jackson I’ve been reading lately. When I get tired of one display of flagrant mob violence, I can quickly flip to another.)
And then there’s the matter of the gems on the moon… I remember that when I first got into hnk, which was right around the time when Phos and the others left for the moon, everyone was afraid that Phos would go off the deep end and the gems stuck on the moon would end up as collateral damage in Phos’s quest for vengeance. But since Ichikawa is too powerful us, she said “what if it was the other way around, and Phos is the one getting thrown under the bus while the moon gems start a death cult?”
So there’s a lot to talk about, but let’s address the earth gems first, because these characters sure do live in a society. (In order to make my prose more tolerable, I encourage my readership to take a shot every time I write the words “gem society.”)
First of all, I’ve seen a number of people interpret Kongou’s line about the gems forgetting Phos very literally, and assume that the earth gems all have Phos-specific amnesia. I highly doubt this is the case, and he probably just means that Phos is now out of sight and out of mind.
As bleak as the situation is, I think it’s been a long time coming. From the beginning, one of the major philosophical elements of the story has been how the gems’ desire to give meaning to their long lives has compelled them to create a society in which only those with a concrete purpose have value. The characters see themselves and each other as instrumentally but not inherently valuable. With so much of the story focused on how this ethos hurts those individuals who aren’t seen as useful, how much it fosters shame and self-hatred, and how much it makes the gems unable and unwilling to help each other through hardship and depression, it makes sense to me that this inhumane mindset would eventually boil over into something truly cruel, and thus the other shoe has finally dropped. In a strange way, I have more respect for Rutile’s attitude towards the situation than I do the rest of the earth gems (sans Euclase, who I’ll get to in a moment.) Rutile is treating Phos like an enemy that must be vanquished, whereas the others are treating Phos as a kid treats their dirty clothes when they don’t want to do laundry—by shoving it in the back of a closet and trying to forget about it. The former strikes me as less dishonest and dehumanizing than the latter.
Even before chapter 79 made it official, I had a gut feeling that the timetable for figuring out what to do with Phos was nonexistent. I’ll be generous and assume Cinnabar was being sincere in the moment when they implied that they’d put Phos back together eventually. But just like how everyone ignored Cinnabar’s suffering because there was no compelling incentive to do anything about it, or how they all turned a blind eye to the Kongou/Lunarian situation for millennia, I figured that Phos would end up as another problem they wouldn’t bother solving. (Regarding Cinnabar, while I hope they’re still on good terms with everyone after the time skip, I would not be the least bit surprised if the earth gems started ostracizing them again once it became apparent that there would be no new attacks from the moon and thus no further reason to tolerate their mercury.)
(Bort, please stick up for them.)
And to be clear, this is a problem that the earth gems are refusing to solve in exchange for a short-term sense of security. If Phos and Kongou had been allowed to hash things out, and this stalemate hadn’t festered for 220 years, then maybe the moon gems wouldn’t be entertaining the idea of starting that aforementioned death cult. (Tbh, this mostly applies to 84, Yellow, and Dia, since Cairn has been their own personal death cult since chapter 33.) Even leaving aside how bad things have gotten already, if this state of affairs had continued to drag on, I think the situation would have gotten very ugly the second Aechmea got tired of waiting. While playing fruit ninja or whatever with Cairngorm, he says something to the effect of losing a battle here or there isn’t important as long as you win the war in the end, which I’m pretty sure is meant to communicate to the audience that Aechmea is playing the long game. And since he hasn’t done anything in the interim other than reluctantly and incrementally humor Cairngorm’s pet project, I don’t think it’s a stretch to say that he’s biding his time specifically for Phos, and that he’s counting on them eventually being reawakened. In that case, what would have happened if Kongou had been too meek to interfere, and the gems succeeded in getting rid of Phos for good? If Aechmea eventually gave up on his current scheme, scrapped working with Phos, and came up with a new plan, I’m betting things would quickly devolve into heinous war crimes since he’s only played nice so far in order to keep Phos on his side.
In chapter 78, we get to see two instances of the most common nugget of gem wisdom: only act when you’re guaranteed to succeed, and never take risks. It been a common refrain, with Antarc, and more subtly, Dia being the only gems aside from Phos to push back against that sentiment. And to be clear, I’m not saying any one of these iterations necessarily are bad advice, but it’s become increasingly obvious that it’s the only acceptable mode of dealing with problems in gem society. More on that in a minute.
So, uh, regarding Euclase, here’s an exclusive picture of me, after I’d spent months writing: “Gee, this Euclase character seems pretty shady, but I have faith in Cinnabar, Bort, and Jade to act humanely!’
That said, I think I got at least one aspect of their characterization right in my Euclase-focused essay—that they have a greater comprehension of their mortality than most. Unlike the other gems, they’re not childishly naïve enough to believe that ignoring their problems will save them; they understand that death is always around the corner, and that the (mostly) tranquil life the gems lead requires constant maintenance. Simply sliding down the path of least resistance will come back to bite them all in the ass later down the line, and Euclase knows it. That’s probably why they at least went through the motions of asking Kongou to pray every day for two hundred twenty years.
This is a bit of a tangent, but regarding my earlier point about the gems not commiserating at all, Peridot and Sphene come across as anomalies in that they helped each other through their grief over their lost partners, but that doesn’t seem to happen all that often. As we see in the aftermath of the winter arc, it seemingly did not occur to any of the gems who had lost friends of their own to try and help Phos through their grief. And I think it’s likely that they weren’t given much comfort in their hours of need either. Yellow bottled up their grief, Alex and (presumably) Red Beryl threw themselves into their work to the point of obsession, and Ghost seemed to have largely withdrawn from everyone else. But none of them really healed or helped anyone else heal. Despite their society placing a high value on interdependence, the gems are truly alone when they have to reckon with complicated or inconvenient emotions.
It may be hard to remember, but Phos was once influenced by all these toxic mindsets as well. Recall Phos’s conversation with Benito in chapter two: it implies that Cinnabar did live with the other gems during Phos’s lifetime, recently enough that Phos expects to find them in their room. From this we can infer that our kindhearted Phos never reached out to the clearly lonely Cinnabar while they were actually around, and didn’t even notice when they left the school for good. They may have had the potential for kindness from a very young age, but it was only when they were hit with with the stark truth of Cinnabar’s suffering that they snapped out of the fog of apathy that seems to surround the gems.
In fact, it almost seems like the struggle to drag the gems kicking and screaming out of their comfort zone is a macrocosm for what Phos had to grow out of at the beginning of the series. You’ll recall that once upon a time they were lazy, wanted easy solutions to their problems, and had no faith in their ability to effect change. In fact, I’d go so far as to say that in the eyes of gem society, the problem wasn’t really that Phos was lazy, it’s that their laziness manifested in the wrong ways. They were supposed to be fastidious and reliable about things like crafting, or fighting, or writing reports, but apathetic towards anything that requires more nuance or imagination than that, kindness or cruelty be damned.
All this is cast into even sharper relief if you think back on the arc with Ventricosus. She was in far more dire straits than the earth gems are now, and had a compelling incentive to throw Phos under the bus. But in the end, that wasn’t a line she was willing to cross. Her final line: “If we’re not willing to change our ways, we’ll end up just like the Lunarians,” seems quite portentous in retrospect. I don’t think Ichikawa is positing that being immortal makes you a sociopath, otherwise characters like Kongou, Yellow, and Padpa wouldn’t be such cinnamon buns. But I think she is insinuating that someone who refuses to change is dooming themselves to a state of perpetual immaturity, and that being truly kind requires growing up a bit. It’s a harder for someone who knows they’ll die one day to remain in a state of arrested development than it is for someone who could indefinitely procrastinate on growing up, and just focus all their mental energy into making paper or whatever for all of eternity.
And this seems as good a point as any to stop harping on gem society and start talking about the gems on the moon, starting with my muse, my most problematic of faves.
I brought up in my chapter 77 essay that Aechmea may not be willing to divulge what he was about to tell Cairn, and that was exactly what happened. Since he’s only willing to share this mysterious information if he literally would not be around for the fall out, I’m guessing that whatever this secret is, it’s not benign. And while Cairn has probably put it out of their mind by chapter 79, it’s clear that it’s bugging them before the time skip. I smell a shocking revelation brewing and I dread to imagine what could possibly top mind-control eyeballs. Make no mistake, I’ve devoted an embarrassing amount of brainspace the past nine months or so to contemplating what it will look like when the other shoe finally drops for Cairn’s character arc. (Is there a German word for the ambivalence that arises from wanting to call future plot twists for bragging rights, but not wanting to look like a dipshit if your predictions are wrong?)
Their line from chapter 78 that I alluded to earlier in this essay is rather interesting to me, because although they’re referring to Phos, they might as well be talking about Aechmea. They exhausted themselves to their breaking point trying to look after someone who didn’t take care of themselves, but they’ve nonetheless latched onto someone who is also seeking self-destruction. And as I pointed out earlier in this essay, this line also serves as yet another iteration of the defeatist sentiment that the gems often espouse. But, for a while, it had seemed like Cairn was moving away from that. The decision Cairn made in chapter 67 was certainly…fraught. But, one can’t deny that it wasn’t a brave one on their part, to leave behind everything they knew and cared about for a shot at living authentically; the only problem was that they undercut that step forward by returning to their chronic doormat tendencies. And again in chapter 70, they took a risk by sneaking off to earth knowing that Aechmea would pitch a fit later. But ever since chapter 75, they’ve been backsliding. As said chapter pointed out, their wish has shifted from wanting freedom to wanting what amounts to eternal codependency. I also find it interesting that Cairngorm apparently hasn’t bothered with getting a new name, and is just copying Aechmea’s shtick of going by his title. They’ve gone from sharing a name with Ghost, to having their own name, to not having a name at all. In conclusion, my child is a god damned mess.
I know I said I was done talking about gem society, but I guess I’m not. Going back to what I said in the last paragraph, about Phos not taking care of themselves, that’s been a reoccurring element throughout the series, and in my opinion, it was a significant contributor to the breakdown of Phos’s relationships. The reason Phos never just tried to make friends with Cinnabar—which is what the latter really wanted, and only focused their efforts on following through on their promise, was because Phos’s self-loathing runs so deep that it doesn’t occur to them that anyone would actually want their company for its own sake. Chapter 14 is the most direct allusion to this in my mind. Phos clearly wants to talk to Cinnabar, but instead they hide away and mutter that they’d have nothing to say to them. And as I touched on a moment ago, Phos’s self-destructive tendencies wore down Cairngorm over the course of their partnership.
But, here’s the thing: Phos’s self-loathing isn’t some immutable part of their nature, it was instilled in them by their society from the moment it became apparent that Phos couldn’t slot neatly into a role. This is very apparent in the early chapters, in which no one ever misses an opportunity to remind Phos of their uselessness (except Dia, bless their heart.) Back then, they pretended to not care about it by way of snark and bravado, but in truth, I think it warped their self-perception in an incredibly negative way.
There’s also something that illustrates this which has been on my mind for a while, but I haven’t had the opportunity to talk about it. When Phos was trapped by their arms during Antarc’s fateful capture, the insult they yelled at their arms to get them moving is the same one that Bort lobbed at them a few times in volume one. I usually see different translations of the word between the two scenes, but to my non-Japanese-fluent ears, it sounded like the same word to me when I watched the anime. It was a striking way of implying that this moment of personal growth had been seeded with something more insidious, that their self-loathing is a taint that has followed them across their many incarnations. I’m not the first one to point this out, but there’s always been a certain tension within the text regarding Phos’s changes. On one hand, their courage to change is framed as admirable and heroic, but on the other hand, they’re also hurting themselves because of social pressure to avoid being useless, which is kind of awful. I think the narrative resolves this tension by making Phos’s quest for validation something which would eventually lead them to try and tear down the status quo that they hurt themselves for in the first place.
Okay, back to the moon gems. I’ve reread the part of chapter 79 focused on the moon several times, and it just feels more ominous with each iteration. What exactly was their idea of administering therapy for Yellow? Why is Amethyst on board with Cairn’s death bullshit? Why is Dia okay with it? Why did they stop fixing the dusted gems? And most concerning, where are the other three gems—especially Alex who would probably be extremely opposed to halting the gem restoration? It feels as if there’s something terrible just out of our field of view and chapter 79 is dancing around it. (But hey, my intuition was wrong about Euclase so maybe when I read chapter 80 Ichikawa will tell me that Alex, Goshe, and Benito were at moon-disneyland the whole time, and that Aechmea is a real swell guy, actually.)
(No, I’m not bitter in the least.)
I also find it interesting that in chapter 79, Cairn is espousing a lot of the same sentiments as poor Yellow, but since they can mask the dysfunction better, they’re treated as an expert rather than a victim. In reality, both of them are in serious need of a therapist, which is apparently non-existent in the post-post-apocalypse.
And finally, Barbata continues to be the truest audience surrogate. I find it interesting that he clearly doesn’t approve of all the bullshit going on, while at the same time being too reticent to do anything about it, aside from some side-eyes and passive-aggressive comments. Perhaps there will be some payoff to this down the line?
At this point, let’s talk about Kongou, because both his actions and his role as a sort of parallel to Phos in the narrative are fascinating. I think this is the first time in the story that he’s really done something proactive. I touched on this in a cursory character analysis I did for him, but to reiterate, the impression I got from his at times obtuse and contradictory behavior was that he had completely given up on trying to solve the Lunarian problem long before the series had begun, and that the only thing cutting through his despair and compelling him to get up in the morning and not just “meditate” forever was the prospect of spending a little more time with the people he loves, even knowing that he couldn’t protect them in any way that mattered. But watching Phos’s struggle reignited a tiny bit of hope in him, enough that he wanted them to succeed in their efforts, but not enough for him to believe that he himself could make a difference. To me, that seems like the only explanation that accounts for both his obstinacy when Phos directly confronted him along with his casual acceptance of the path Phos has been walking.
So for him to go behind everyone’s back to fix Phos is quite the departure from his usual passivity, and it tells us that he’d rather subject himself and everyone else to Phos’s brand of chaos than endure stasis that comes with their absence. And it really does seem like the world enters a stasis along with Phos whenever they end up comatose. Nothing moves forward, and the only thing to mark the passage of time are small deteriorations: Morga and Goshe are captured, and Cairn quietly becomes suicidal, and this time around, Yellow gradually loses their mind, the Admirabilis that Phos tried to spare overcrowd the tiny waterways they were released into, and the gems on the moon stop caring about whether they live or die.
For a while now, various characters both gem and Lunarian have called Phos their hope, or their savior, or some variation thereupon, and with each new iteration, the sentiment feels more and more ironic. Time and time again, Phos rises to the occasion only to buckle under pressure, their noble intentions haven’t gotten them good results since, like, chapter 10, and everyone who at one point had faith in them is completely done with them. And at the end of it all, they don’t have it in them to ask Kongou to pray on anyone’s behalf but their own, as if they’ve become so exhausted that they don’t have the energy to be kind anymore. And just to rub salt in the wound, their ambiguous phrasing makes it unclear whether Phos is asking to Kongou get rid of the Lunarians or themselves.
All of this seems to mirror what Kongou is implied to have gone through. He was created to save the souls of humanity, but was ill-equipped for the task, and he’s spent god knows how many millennia dogged by his failure to deliver. Aechmea’s line in chapter 55 about how his human creators didn’t bother to think about what would happen to him after everyone was gone, in my mind, parallels how Phos has been abandoned by the people who once supported them once they became too much of an inconvenience.
So now that these two failed saviors are finally confronting each other with no lies to hide behind, and nothing to get between them, what’s going to happen? I get the feeling that chapter 80 is going to give us some long awaited catharsis, for better or worse. (Please Ichikawa, make things a little better for once.)
On a related note, I’m hoping this possible catharsis might clarify something else for me. For all that the series is steeped in Buddhist symbolism and philosophy, I’ve never been able to tell what Ichikawa actually thinks of Buddhism. On one hand, the assumptions that life boils down to suffering and that the self is ephemeral and illusory are certainly present, but on the other hand, the characters who lean most heavily on the Buddhist aesthetic are villains, the characters most invested in reaching nirvana are portrayed as…let’s say misguided at best, and as I’ve already noted above, our two would-be Buddhas are chronically ineffectual. If I had to take a stab at it, I’d guess that the aspect of the philosophy that she takes issue with is the idea of relying on a savior figure and the idea that there exists a nirvana that could save anyone from samsara. But if the Lunarians’ wish were a complete pipe dream, then Shiro et al wouldn’t have already disappeared? Unless that was a misdirection and their souls were actually reincarnated? Idk, I don’t have enough brain cells to parse The Most Viable Interpretation at this juncture in the story.
Lastly, assuming Phos doesn’t ascend to nirvana via pure rage next chapter, I think their next replacement is going to be imminent. All of Phos’s other changes have been accompanied by death and birth imagery: they lost their legs out at sea, which is where inclusions are said to emerge, they lost their arms and their head at the site of their birth, the time they spent comatose evoked the image of a shrouded corpse in a morgue, their first trip to the moon in which they got their new eye apparently lasted the length of a Buddhist funeral, and now, they’ve literally been buried. (On a side note, it’s interesting that there’s a lot more death imagery for their later transformations, while their earlier changes alluded to birth.) I’m not the first person to point this out, but it seems likely to me that Rutile made good on their threat to throw Phos into the ocean, and discarded whatever pieces they were assigned to bury. And indeed, there seems to be a gaping hole in Phos’s torso. I still think Padparadscha is the most likely candidate for a replacement—the red stone from the lotus sutra has been alternately described as ruby, carnelian, amber, or coral, and Padparadscha is the closest we have to any of those—but who knows. Ichikawa might even decide to stop short of all seven treasures in service of some greater thematic purpose.
And with that, this belated essay is finally done. Except it isn’t. This is a complete tangent, but I recently looked up the one and only region where gem-quality phosphophyllite was briefly mined, a mountain in the Bolivian Andes called Cerro Rico. Hundreds of thousands have died there since the 16th century while mining silver, and that figure may be lowballing it, as some scholars think the death toll is actually in the millions. It is colloquially known as “the Mountain that Eats Men,” and the miners pay tribute to this fellow in hopes of avoiding cave-ins and pockets of toxic gas, but are otherwise doomed to die young from silicosis. According to a forum post I found belonging to a mineral collector, the mineshaft where all the phosphophyllite came from had to be walled off with a concrete bulkhead because the poisonous gases that accumulated in the tunnel had killed a number of miners. The idea of gem mining already conjures up images of exploited workers in abject conditions, but I must say that Maneater Mountain exceeded my expectations.
Okay, now I’m actually done. I’m going to get some sleep on account of the fact that it’s 2 AM, but afterwards I shall read the new chapter and repeat this whole grueling cycle over again, but like, in a timely manner.
#houseki no kuni#land of the lustrous#I know I’ve spent the whole essay trashing ¾ of the cast but I really do hope they eventually get over themselves#i've spent hours rereading this but i just KNOW in my heart that there are a billion typos and those typos will haunt my soul#goodnight
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Ace of Hearts
(I have at least two more parts of this AU planned! They keep getting longer for some reason.)
190/365: Ace of Hearts
For perhaps the first time in his life, Atsushi arrived on time. For despite being spared once, he didn’t want to risk being late again, especially under the King’s direct orders.
A card - still glowering at Atsushi, presumably after his unprecedented pardon - met the White Rabbit at the door.
“We’ll take your belongings to your chambers,” muttered the card, while two others came from behind him and took Atsushi’s two small suitcases. They were all he had managed to salvage from his former home.
“Good timing,” Chuuya had said, standing upside-down underneath a tree branch. “You get a new place to live right after that human girl destroyed your house.”
Atsushi smiled sadly. “Depends on how you look at it,” he said. He turned around to gaze at his house, the roof and windows of which Kyouka had sprouted through after taking too many bites of an Eat Me biscuit.
Atsushi looked up at the Cheshire Cat again, who had taken to sitting properly on the branch, watching Atsushi’s house as if that strange human girl might burst out of it again.
“Can you watch it while I’m gone?”
Chuuya glanced down at Atsushi when he spoke, feline tail swaying beneath him.
“I mean, the repair crew comes by every few days,” Atsushi explained quietly. “If you could just watch and make sure nothing goes wrong, I’d be really grateful.”
Chuuya blinked, and then he sighed, resting his cheek on his palm, a faraway look in his eyes. “You know you’re not coming back, right?”
Atsushi stared at him, trying to keep his heartbeat from speeding up. “W-what do you mean?”
With a grunt, Chuuya stood. He turned his back to Atsushi, his entire body facing the house, his tail swaying more forcefully now.
“You’re going to either stay there permanently, or be killed,” Chuuya said. When he looked back at Atsushi, his narrow eyes glowed an ominous blue. “Either way, you’re staying in that castle for the rest of your life.”
Atsushi couldn’t stop it. His heart rate sped up again, reminding him painfully how much of a cowardly rabbit he truly was. He turned on his heel, away from Chuuya, not saying another word, even as his knees shook.
So there he stood, not hours later, waiting in front of the King’s bedroom door as the cards had instructed.
Atsushi took a deep breath. And another, and another. Every time he reached his hand to the door to knock, all the oxygen left his body as if he had been kicked in the stomach, and he drew his hand back to breathe again.
Akutagawa opened the door before Atsushi did.
The White Rabbit stepped back in surprise, bowing instinctively, but the King grabbed his shoulder before he descended to the floor.
“That won’t be necessary,” he muttered, managing to sound coarse even when mentioning something kind. Taking a breath again, Atsushi stood up to face him, and Akutagawa watched him with dark eyes.
“I was about to check and make sure you had arrived,” explained Akutagawa, his hand still on Atsushi’s shoulder. “It seems you came on time.”
Atsushi nodded, throat dry, looking at Akutagawa’s hand as if it was a foreign object. “Y-yes, but,” he said slowly, only meeting Akutagawa’s eyes every now and then, “w-what exactly are my duties now?”
Akutagawa watched Atsushi’s face, emotions that he couldn’t read crossing his eyes. Finally, he saw one he recognized; the smallest flash of uncertainty, of fear even, showed in Akutagawa’s eyes for the tiniest of seconds when he pulled his hand back to his side.
“Yes,” the King said, breaking the silence as his eyes regained their steely shield. To his surprise, Atsushi found himself wanting to look a moment longer at whatever emotion the King hid behind his mask. He banished the thought quickly.
“Essentially,” Akutagawa continued, stepping into his room, motioning for Atsushi to follow, “you’ll have no other duty but to stay by my side.”
Crossing the threshold into the King’s room felt like a crime in and of itself, Atsushi thought as he walked inside, resisting the urge to gawk at the room’s silver and crimson decor.
“As a man in waiting?” he asked while his eyes wandered across the room. Everything the king owned seemed to be encrusted with rubies, from the bedposts to his vanity.
“No!” Akutagawa said sharply, jutting into Atsushi’s thoughts, whipping his attention back to him. The King scowled, but upon seeing Atsushi’s face and the immediate fear that struck him, he seemed to make an effort to soften his composure.
“No,” he repeated, gentler. Atsushi’s ears twitched perplexedly at this. “Gentle” and “King Akutagawa” were words he had never put in the same sentence before. “You won’t wait on me, White Rabbit,” Akutagawa explained, strangely enough, while not meeting Atsushi’s eyes. “You’ll merely… Stay with me. By my side. As I require.”
If Atsushi hadn’t known better, he would have said the King devolved into stammering at the end of his order.
“When I don’t require you,” Akutagawa continued, sitting down in a chair that appeared to be worth more than Atsushi had ever owned, “you’re free to roam about the castle grounds as you please.”
Atsushi opened his mouth to ask a question, but he quickly closed it. The King had said “castle grounds” in such a way that he immediately know he couldn’t go beyond them. But another question formed on his lips, and this time he couldn’t stop it from coming out.
“Why am I doing this?”
Immediately Akutagawa fixed Atsushi in a glare, one that caused him to instinctively hang his ears and appear small.
“Out,” Akutagawa growled, and Atsushi lifted one ear to hear him better.
“I-I’m sorry?” he asked.
“Out!” Shouted the King, jumping up from his chair, and Atsushi bolted, leaping out the door as quickly as he could.
He slowed in the halls, but upon hearing the King’s door slam, he surmised that he likely shouldn’t bother him.
So Atsushi explored. He walked down hallways, gazing at paintings and architecture the likes of which he had never seen. He passed by cards, who grumbled to each other behind his back, as if he couldn’t hear every word.
“Why is he here?”
“Why is he alive?”
“Must be the King’s new pet.”
“He’s resorting to that clumsy fool?”
“He must be really lonely this time.”
Atsushi’s ears swiveled in the cards’ direction as he stepped into the garden. He avoided looking at them, not wanting them to know he had been listening, but their words caught him off-guard. Lonely, he thought, mulling over the word, trying to relate it to the King and failing. Someone lonely wouldn’t behead whoever displeased him. Someone lonely wouldn’t choose to stay isolated in a castle on the edge of his kingdom. Someone lonely wouldn’t cause everyone under his rule to fear him, pushing them all away until they wanted nothing to do with him.
“See, you think that, and you’re wrong about all of it.”
Atsushi resisted the urge to scream a little, partially by covering his mouth with his hand. He turned around towards the voice, catching sight of a man with a large, bulbous tail and small horns, lounging on an oversized mushroom. He appeared to be smoking, but from the smoke’s candy-like scent, Atsushi realized that wasn’t the case.
“Ranpo?” he asked, stepping towards the strange man. “You live here now?”
With a nod, the Caterpillar took a long drag of his pipe. “I’m basically a living lawn ornament,” he said as he exhaled, “but the food’s good, and I’m given all the flavors I want, so I’d say it’s worth it. And sometimes the King comes to me for advice.”
Atsushi blinked at the new information. “The King wants advice?” he asks. Ranpo nodded, sitting up.
“Sure. All the time,” he said. Breathing out a cloud of pink vapor, he added, “He asked me whether or not he should invite you to live with him, actually. Although ‘invite’ probably isn’t the right word.”
Atsushi’s ears twitched forward towards the Caterpillar, and he leaned onto the mushroom. “And you said he should,” he said incredulously. Ranpo nodded.
“Yep, because even though you may think otherwise, he really is lonely.”
“It’s still scary how you knew I was thinking that.”
“I know everything,” Ranpo said with a smirk. “And I also know that, often, someone who’s lonely might just push everyone away for fear of being hurt. Especially,” he opened one eye, capturing Atsushi in a jade-like gaze, “if they’ve been hurt in the past.”
Atsushi gulped, slowly trying to understand the weight of the Caterpillar’s words, but Ranpo continued before he could.
“Actually, the King has wanted someone by his side for a while. He wants you there right now, in fact,” he said, pointing off towards the castle. As if on cue, a card approached them from around a hedge, coming towards Atsushi.
“There’s more to the King than you think, White Rabbit,” Ranpo said, sucking on his pipe again. “You should try to find what you’ve been missing.”
Atsushi stared at him, about to ask what he meant by his confusing words, but the card ran up to him before he could say anything.
“His Majesty requires your presence,” the card said formally. Atsushi looked to the Caterpillar again, but he already had his back to him, blowing pink vapor into the air.
So Atsushi followed the card back to Akutagawa, trying to keep his breathing steady, but keeping Ranpo’s words in mind.
Akutagawa accepted Atsushi back to his side silently, and Atsushi’s life with the King began.
#shin soukoku#sskk#atsuaku#akuatsu#wonderland au#i have no idea if this is any good or not#it's been a long day and my brain isn't functioning#so just let me know#even a like lets me know i'm going something right
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Vengeance - a Critical Role fanfic (Vox Machina campaign)
My first CR fanfic! I recently started watching the show and I love it. This is an alternative version of events from the end of episode 57 (Duskmeadow) and episode 58 (A Cycle of Vengeance). It occurred to me that if I was a rakshasa bent on vengeance against Vax, I wouldn’t target him first - so I thought I’d explore what might have happened had Hotis been a little less direct.
Warnings: violence, blood, alcohol, emetophobia tw
Pairing: None (I mean, there’s blink-and-you’ll-miss-it Perc’ahlia, I guess? Super duper minor detail.)
Length: ~4.7k
~oOo~
At first, Vex doesn’t know why she’s awake again – but then the quiet knock at her door comes a second time. ‘Yes?’, she calls out softly.
The door opens slightly, and Vax’s head appears. ‘Hey. You still awake?’ he asks, also keeping his voice low.
She groans, sitting up in bed and yawning. ‘Well, I am now. What time is it? Why are you awake?’
‘I couldn’t sleep.’ Vax shuffles into her room. Trinket, dozing in the corner, looks over sleepily – then resettles as he sees who it is. As her brain wakes up properly, Vex starts to get a little worried. Vax definitely looks perturbed – not quite meeting her eyes, hands fidgeting with a bundle of fabric he’s carrying – and as he continues to speak, there’s an unsure note to his voice. ‘I just… um, would you mind walking with me for a bit? I know it’s late, but...’
Vex interrupts his distracted pause. ‘Alright,’ she says, clambering out of bed.
Vax tosses whatever he’s holding at the foot of the bed. ‘Here, put that on. It’s cold.’ He gives her a half-hearted smile, and leaves the room to wait outside.
Curious, Vex shakes out the bundle to reveal a beaded robe. Blue silk, from the feel of it, intricately embroidered with black thread. She’s a little bemused by the gift, but it’s beautiful, and when she slips it over her pyjamas it’s soft and comfortable.
She leaves Trinket to sleep and joins her brother, the bedroom door closing with a quiet click. Vax gestures down the hallway and they walk together in silence.
When they reach the tower at the top of the stairs, Vex is grateful for the extra layer. The night air this far north is cold, just as Vax said. He closes the door behind them and makes his way to the edge of the balcony, leaning lightly on the balustrade. ‘Beautiful night, isn’t it?’
Vex hums in agreement, glancing up as she walks over to stand beside him. The sky is brilliantly clear, without even a wisp of cloud to dim the stars; the moon is almost full, and its generous light spills across the silent castle grounds. She refocuses, remembering why they’re out here in the first place. ‘What was it you wanted to talk about?’
Vax lets out a deep sigh, looking down at the courtyard below. ‘Vengeance,’ he says, his voice barely above a whisper.
She’s taken aback, but only momentarily – her mind flashes back to the destruction of Emon, the roar of the great red wyrm. The ruins of Byroden. Her anger, never far from the surface these days, begins to simmer again. ‘Well, I can understand why that would be on your mind.’
‘It’s all I’ve been able to think about for some time now,’ he continues, before turning towards her with a smile, the expression discordant against his words. His left hand comes up onto her shoulder, and he meets her eyes for the first time that night. ‘It’s all I can think about. But finally – finally – the time has come.’
Vex opens her mouth to ask what he means – they won’t be ready to face Thordak for some time, surely? – but all that comes out is a choked cry of pain. She glances down to just below her ribs, where there is now a dagger embedded, before meeting Vax’s eyes again.
His grin widens, and he chuckles darkly. ‘Oh, and believe me – I intend to kill your brother, too, for what he did to me. But this-‘ he snarls and twists the dagger, and she can’t stop a whimper escaping – ‘this is the pain he truly deserves.’
His form flickers for a moment, and Vex catches a glimpse of russet fur. Underneath the agony, in the last clear part of her mind, the pieces click into place.
This isn’t Vax.
You’re unarmed.
Run!
The spell of her shock is broken just as the creature draws back the blade, arcing overhead to come down for another strike. Vex raises her arm to knock it away, and runs like hell for the door. ‘Jenga!’ she shouts, hand flying to her earring. ‘Jenga! West tower! Jenga-‘ The door won’t open, and her shouts devolve into a wordless scream of pain as she feels the knife sink into her back.
She turns around in time to see the creature raise its weapon again, still wearing her brother’s grinning face. Out of options, she plants her feet and fights back tooth and nail.
***
‘Jenga! Jenga! West tower! Jenga-’ Scanlan nearly jumps out of his skin as the desperate cries and the scream that follows disrupt his focus, the book falling to the floor as he leaps to his feet.
There’s a moment of panic as he grabs his shawm, his hand cone, his sword; but his sharp mind latches on to the most important piece of information – west tower – and the Dimension Door spell is complete almost before he has time to think about it.
His new surroundings flash into place, and he whirls around to see Vex falling against the door, covered in blood – and a dark-haired assailant, raising a dagger for another strike.
‘Oi!’ Scanlan shouts, reaching out towards the figure. The hold person spell fizzles into nothingness, but the figure turns around, snarling. Scanlan steps back in shock as he recognises the face of Vax, twisted into feral anger – and then backs up further as Vax advances on him, swinging the blade. The first strike passes just over Scanlan’s head, and he yelps in surprise, hand flying out instinctively. ‘Stay back!’
The second strike glances off a purple energy barrier, as Otiluke’s Resilient Sphere seals up tight.
Scanlan stares at his friend, breathing heavily. ‘Vax, what the fuck is going on?’
The figure inside the sphere starts slashing at the barrier, and its appearance slips away from familiarity as Vax’s face is replaced with that of a tiger. Oh shit, Scanlan thinks. Not Vax. Well, that makes more sense.
Keeping half his attention on the sphere, Scanlan runs over to Vex, who’s now slumped against the door with her eyes closed. ‘No, come on, Vex,’ he chides, his voice a little shaky, but still resonating with power. ‘Come on, wake up.’ Magic blossoms into the air, and as it makes contact with Vex, her eyes flutter open again. He smiles down at her. ‘There you go. Hi.’
She blinks up at him, confused, and then suddenly afraid. ‘Scanlan – Vax – it’s not Vax – ‘
‘I know, I know,’ he says, raising a hand in reassurance. ‘I mean, you guys fight, but that seemed a little extreme. But he’s dealt with for the time being. Don’t worry.’
There’s a quiet bump at the door, followed by an almost imperceptible scratching at the lock. Scanlan smiles, and gently drags Vex further out onto the balcony. ‘I’m guessing that’s your real brother right now.’
***
‘-ga! West tower! Jenga-‘
Vax startles awake to Vex’s voice, shouting for help before being cut off mid-scream. By the time his conscious mind has realised what’s happening, instinct has taken over and he’s already out of the door, boots jammed onto his feet and belt haphazardly fastened around his waist.
He sprints down the corridor, half-alert to what’s going on around him – the sounds of fighting echoing through the walls, Trinket roaring, gunshots as a stranger staggers out of a screaming Percy’s room and straight into Grog’s axe. Vax ignores it all for the time being, darting around the scuffles that spill out of the bedrooms and pressing down the corridor towards the stairs. West tower. Get to the tower.
He climbs the stairs two or three at a time, channelling every ounce of the haste spell into single-minded movement. He reaches the top, grabs the handle and pushes.
The door quietly thunks against the frame.
Heart hammering, he kneels down at the lock, suddenly cursing the adrenaline that got him this far – but thanking whoever’s listening that he keeps the lockpicks on the belt with his daggers. He can hear Scanlan’s voice. Good. She’s not alone.
Seemingly endless seconds later, the lock clicks softly and releases. Daggers in hand, Vax kicks the door open.
Outside, he first notices a familiar, tiger-like figure, fruitlessly hacking at the inside of a magical sphere. Then Scanlan, who’s got a look of intense concentration on his face, but still shoots a lazy smile in Vax’s direction.
And lastly, his eyes find his sister, lying bloody on the ground.
‘Fuck! Vex’ahlia!’ he swears, rushing to her side and falling to his knees. ‘Holy shit.’ He lays both hands on her shoulders, willing whatever divine power he can muster to try and fix her broken form.
Her eyes, glassy and unfocused, widen for a moment as they find his, but then she seems to relax as the healing magic enters her system. ‘Oh,’ she says, her voice small and weak. ‘It’s you. Hey.’
He swallows hard. ‘Hey.’ His voice cracks, but he clears his throat and regains his composure. ‘Fucking hell.’
‘Yeah, fun night,’ she agrees, and starts pushing herself up to a sitting position.
‘Hey, hey, careful,’ he admonishes gently. He reaches out to help her, taking her weight as she leans against him.
‘I’m alright.’ She rolls her eyes, then sways a little and blinks rapidly. ‘Ooh, okay, that was a bad idea. But honestly, I’m alright.’ She places a hand just below her ribs, wincing slightly at the touch. It glows dimly as she attempts to further cure her wounds, and Vax watches as a couple of scrapes on the back of her hand heal over.
As she’s casting the spell, Percival’s voice comes over the earring. ‘We’re clear down here. Heading up to the tower.’
Vax’s heart slows with further relief. He raises a hand to his ear to reply. ‘We’ve still got one guy up here, but Scanlan’s got him locked down. Come join the party.’ He turns his attention back to the furious rakshasa, quelling his own anger in favour of a bitter, mocking smile. ‘What’s the matter, fuckface?’ he calls out. ‘Things not going to plan?’
The rakshasa snarls, but gradually stops attacking the sphere, apparently realising that it’s pointless. Its expression shifts into a malicious grin as he turns towards them. ‘No matter. I can be patient. Mark my words, half-elf; I’ll take you, her, and all of your friends.’
Vex seems to flinch a little at the threat – whether it’s out of anger or fear, Vax isn’t sure, but he tightens his arms around her all the same. ‘Yeah, fuck that. You’re staying right there until we figure out how to kill you for good this time.’
Scanlan umms and ahhs a little at that. ‘Well… that sphere won’t hold him forever,’ he says quietly. ‘If you’re saying that our usual brand of violence isn’t going to cut it, I suggest we figure out an alternative pretty damn quick.’
It’s at that point that the rest of them start appearing on the balcony – Grog charges out, the rage in his eyes fading as he takes in the lack of hittable enemies. Percy follows, then Pike (and Vax quickly averts his eyes as he sees her state of undress). Keyleth’s the last out, circlet slightly crooked on her head. ‘Wait, is that Hotis?’ she says incredulously, and looks towards Vax in disbelief.
He nods, then turns to Pike (very deliberately focusing on her face). ‘Pike, we don’t have a lot of time, and this fucker’s proved pretty hard to kill in the past. I don’t know if it’ll work, but I figure there’s nothing wrong with trying a little holy condemnation. Would you?’
Pike pulls her concerned gaze away from Vex’ahlia to look at Hotis with a calm sort of anger. ‘Okay. Gather round, everyone – we can take him together.’
The twins watch on as the other five members assemble around the sphere. Hotis’ attention flickers between all of them, looking slightly nervous, but still sneering. ‘Fine. Take your pointless violence – but this is not the end. I’ll come back for all of you.’
‘Shut the fuck up,’ Grog growls, and Scanlan drops the sphere.
There are a few seconds of uproar. Grog swings his axe with a furious bellow, Percy’s gun goes off, there’s a crack of thunder as Scanlan summons a lightning bolt, and a further flash of light as Pike and Keyleth rain fire and divinity down on the rakshasa. Above it all, there echoes a screaming howl – and when the smoke clears, Hotis is gone, a pile of blackened remains where he once stood.
***
Vex is the first to speak again. ‘Well, that happened. Thanks, guys.’
The silence broken, a flurry of conversation ensues. Pike comes over and casts her most powerful healing spell, while Grog runs down to fetch her a robe. Percy goes to alert the guards of the attack – not just the rakshasa, but the assassins that apparently got into a few other rooms – while Keyleth realises that they might not have been the only targets, so she and Scanlan run to check on their friends.
Vex just sits there, exhausted and leaning heavily on her brother, who’s watching her like a hawk now the rakshasa’s been disposed of. ‘What happened?’ he asks, once most of the others have cleared off. ‘Why were you even out here?’
She sighs, suddenly annoyed that she fell for its ruse. ‘It came to my room disguised as you. Gave me this,’ she says, gesturing at the robe, ‘and asked if we could talk. The fucker’s good – he even fooled Trinket, so he must have made himself smell as bad as you do, too.’ Vax gives her a half-smile, which she returns briefly. ‘So, I followed him out here, and then he stabbed me. A lot. If it weren’t for Scanlan showing up when he did, things might have gone very badly.’
‘Well, thank the gods for insomniac gnomes,’ Vax mutters, and she laughs weakly, nodding in agreement.
There’s a brief interruption as Grog returns with a robe for Pike – trailed by a very concerned bear, who was reportedly battering the bedroom door in a desperate attempt to get to Vex once things kicked off. She laughs as Trinket licks her face (‘Oh – oh, thanks, Trinket, thanks for that,’) while Vax reaches over to scruff behind the bear’s ears, and does absolutely nothing to help.
Pike, now covered up with a far-too-baggy robe and frowning thoughtfully, gets the conversation back on track. ‘Vex, you said the rakshasa gave you that robe? Can I see it?’
‘Yeah, sure,’ Vex says, sitting up a little straighter and attempting to remove it.
Her vision whites out in pain for a second. She comes round to Vax’s voice, which is just shy of frantic. ‘-ahlia! Vex!’
She opens her eyes and sees him and Pike looking down at her, their expressions fading from fear to relief as she wakes. ‘Ow,’ she complains. She doesn’t bother to sit up again, just stays slumped in her brother’s arms, even more exhausted than she felt before. ‘That hurt.’
‘Maybe it’s the movement straining the wounds?’ Pike suggests. ‘I can help take it off-‘
‘Wait!’ Vax interrupts, holding out a hand to fend off Pike’s advance. ‘Wait, wait. Let’s figure out if we’re dealing with something more serious here. No rash actions – last thing we need is for you to survive that dickhead, and then get finished off by a fucking cursed piece of outerwear.’
‘Well, if it is something magical, Allura might know,’ Pike says. ‘Or Gilmore?’
‘Or Zahra,’ Vax adds. ‘She’s in the castle, right? Let’s go find her.’
They begin to limp down the stairs – one of Vex’s arms around Vax’s shoulders, the other held in a vice-like grip by Grog – but don’t get as far as Zahra before running into Percy. ‘Is everything alright?’ he asks, scanning their expressions. ‘Besides the obvious, I mean.’
‘Robe’s cursed,’ Grog supplies helpfully.
Percy raises his eyebrows, looking to the others for confirmation.
‘Well, we don’t know that it’s cursed, per se,’ Vex says. ‘But I can’t take it off without it really fucking hurting. It’s like it’s attached to my skin.’
‘We were going to ask Zahra to take a look at it,’ Vax says.
Vex can practically see the thoughts whirring behind Percy’s eyes as he thinks it over. ‘You could ask Zahra – she’s fine, by the way, didn’t even wake up until we went and checked on her - but I think there’s a faster way to deal with this particular problem. Follow me.’
‘Where?’ Vax asks, a little warily.
‘The ziggurat,’ Percy replies, and starts leading the way.
They make their way down to the underbelly of the castle – painstakingly, with Percy asking her how she feels practically every five feet – until they get well within range of the orb’s anti-magic effect. Pike attempts a spell to double-check they’ve come far enough, and when it doesn’t work, Percy motions towards Vex with a go ahead sort of gesture. ‘Alright. Try to take it off now – slowly. If this doesn’t work, we’ll try something else.’
Trying to ignore the building anxiety, as well as Grog and Vax hovering either side in case she passes out again, Vex undoes the robe. Thank goodness I’m wearing something under this, she thinks; and then she gently tries again to remove it.
It slips off her shoulders no problem, and they all breathe a sigh of relief. ‘Alright, good,’ Vax says, kicking it away from her gingerly as it falls to the floor. ‘Good call, Percival.’
Percy smiles, but doesn’t look totally convinced. ‘Well, we’re not out of the woods yet. We don’t know if destroying it will have any negative effect, for one thing - but for now, let’s get out of here. I think we’ve spent more than enough time around that damn orb.’
The group starts the ascent back up to the castle, Vex supported between Vax and Percy this time (‘Thank you, Grog, but I think I’ve got enough bruises,’ she says). Both Vex and the robe cross the anti-magic boundary without an issue, and there’s another collective sigh of relief.
There’s a brief moment of confusion as Keyleth appears with Gilmore (‘No no no – Gilmore, this one’s the real Vax!’), before they all reach the main dining hall. Cassandra, Zahra, Kash, Kima and Allura are already there, waiting for them in various states of disarray. (Kash, in particular, is covered in blood.)
In the last few hours before dawn, Vex listens as plans are made to deal with the aftermath of the attack, people coming and going to run various errands. She doesn’t take much in, too tired to pay proper attention - she gleans that everyone is safe, and that they have a short grace period before Hotis shows up again. That’s enough for her right now.
Eventually, Vax nudges her, and she looks up at him groggily from where she’s practically collapsed on the table. ‘Come on, Stubby,’ he says, getting her to her feet. ‘Time for bed.’
She doesn’t protest, and lets him half-carry her back up to her room, Trinket in tow. When he puts her to bed, she doesn’t let go immediately. ‘Wait, wait,’ she says, putting her other arm around his neck and pulling him close. ‘Love you,’ she says, her words slightly muffled in the crook of his neck.
Vax exhales heavily. ‘Yeah, love you too.’ His voice is a little shaky and thick, but when he pulls back there’s a smile on his face. ‘Get some sleep. You’ve been enough trouble for one night.’
She laughs, and he leaves, the door shutting behind him and the sound of Trinket’s snoring already filling the room again.
***
Hotis laughs with her brother’s voice as the world goes dark around her. It turns into sobbing, the real Vax begging her to wake up. She knows she can’t.
She turns over, feeling the bedsheets brush against her living skin, trying to dispel the vision.
The rakshasa turns away from her, advancing on Scanlan, who doesn’t duck out of the way in time, his head cleaved from his shoulders.
‘No,’ she whispers, squeezing her eyes shut. ‘Stop it, he’s fine.’
Trinket bellows and rushes her attacker, then howls in pain as he’s stabbed in the heart.
‘Everything’s fine now.’
The magical sphere is dropped and Hotis cackles, striking out at Keyleth, who falls down dead.
Pike screams and falls.
Grog falls.
Percy.
Vax-
Vex sits bolt upright, groaning quietly and rubbing her eyes. The curtains block out a fair amount of light, but she knows that it’s been hours, and sleep still won’t come despite how tired she feels. She doesn’t even feel like she’s rested – it’s like she’s been running for her life for the last eight hours or so, not lying in bed. And I thought this night couldn’t get any worse, she thinks bitterly.
She’s proved wrong again not even ten minutes later, when a familiar swirling sensation starts up in her stomach. ‘Oh, fuck,’ she gasps, leaping out of bed and grabbing the empty chamber pot just in time. She throws up into it, hard, retching loudly. Trinket wakes up and stretches, looking at her curiously.
There’s also a knock at the door. ‘Vex?’ She’s still gagging too much to reply, but the door cracks open and Vax sticks his head in, concerned frown on his face. ‘You alright?’
‘Did you sleep in my doorway again?’ she asks suspiciously, but has to turn back to the pot before she gets a response.
She feels a hand on her back as Vax crouches beside her, not answering her question, waiting for her to resurface. Trinket pads over and sits beside her too, grunting in quiet distress.
She eventually finishes retching and looks up. ‘Ugh. This is the worst. I hate being sick.’
Vax pulls her up and then pushes her to sit on the edge of the bed, before handing her a waterskin. ‘Here, drink this. Slowly.’ She does as he says while he looks her over, hand under her chin, tilting her face side to side. ‘You look awful,’ he says matter-of-factly. ‘Did you sleep?’
‘No,’ she says, suspecting that shaking her head would be a bad idea.
‘At all?’
‘No. I tried, okay?’ she says irritably.
He ignores her tone. ‘How do you feel?’
‘Sick. And dizzy. And cold, and sweaty... fucking terrible, basically.’ She laughs mirthlessly and sips at the water, willing her stomach to calm down.
‘Hmm.’ Vax cups her face in his hands, lifting her gaze to meet his again. ‘Let me just…’ His eyes flash with a dull grey light, and Vex feels a small surge of warmth pass through her. ‘Any better?’ he asks.
She considers it for a moment, shakes her head, and immediately has to take some more water. I was right. That was a bad idea.
Vax turns back towards the door. ‘Excuse me!’ he calls. ‘Need some help in here!’
A guard quickly appears in the doorway – one of the ones patrolling the hallway after the attack, Vex is guessing. ‘Yessir. What do you need?’
‘Would you send for Lady Allura? Tell her that my sister’s unwell after last night’s attack, and that it’s an emergency.’
‘Yessir. I’ll have her brought here.’ The guard disappears again.
‘We don’t know that it’s an emergency,’ Vex points out. ‘We don’t even know it’s because of last night. I could just be getting sick.’
‘Yeah, well, we’re not taking any chances, so just shut up and drink your water,’ Vax says tersely – but he sits down beside her, hand returning to her back.
It doesn’t take long for Allura to arrive, along with Kima; apparently they stayed in the castle after the attack, their previous lodgings something of a mess due to Kima ‘beating the shit out of’ the assassin that came after them.
Allura leans down towards Vex, worry written in her eyes. ‘How are you feeling?’
‘Awful,’ Vex says, more miserably than she means to. ‘I couldn’t sleep – I kept reliving what happened, and what might have happened, and then I just…’ She gestures, embarrassed, to the still-full chamber pot. (Kima wrinkles her nose in distaste.)
Allura gives a sympathetic smile, before her expression turns serious again. ‘It might be a lingering enchantment from the robe. Let me try something…’ She casts a spell that Vex doesn’t recognise, muttering under her breath, and Vex feels the impact of it washing over her – but there’s no change in how she feels.
Allura seems to read from her expression that nothing’s changed, and her frown deepens. ‘Perhaps this is a problem that can be better solved by divine means, rather than the arcane. Kima, would you take a look?’
Kima steps forward, reaching up to take Vex’s face in her hands. ‘Sure, I can do that.’ She hesitates for a moment - ‘Don’t you throw up on me,’ she warns – before she grasps both sides of Vex’s head, turning it this way and that, looking intently into her eyes and at the back of her throat. It isn’t long before she sighs in apparent frustration. ‘I don’t know. Honestly, you just look tired to me. I mean, I can try something, but I don’t have much more than what I’m sure he’s already done,’ she says, gesturing towards Vax. ‘What about your cleric? Have you asked her?’
Vax raises a hand to his earring. ‘Hey, Pike, you awake yet? Could you come to my sister’s room? We might have something of a problem.’
Pike walks in the door a few moments later – followed by Keyleth, Percy, and Grog, who all heard the message over the earring and came to see what was going on.
Pike pushes her way through the sudden crowd and looks up at Vex, studying her intently (if a little more gently than Kima) for a good minute before she speaks. ‘Well, I don’t think you’re just getting sick,’ she says finally. ‘There isn’t anything physically wrong with you, other than the exhaustion. So if you’re throwing up and feeling this rubbish, there certainly might be a more sinister cause.’
‘I could take a look at the vomit, for any evidence of poison and the like,’ Percy offers. Before Vex can get a word in to stop him, Grog and Vax enthusiastically agree, then silently bump fists as Percy heads to the corner of the room to inspect the chamber pot. Vex hides her face in her hands with a quiet groan. Wonderful. I’m going to survive all of this bullshit just to die of embarrassment instead.
Keyleth pipes up at that point. ‘Hey, Kima – did you try a restoration?’
Kima shakes her head. ‘Not exactly my specialty. Could be worth a go, though.’
‘I can help with that,’ Pike says, and Keyleth nods. They each take one of Vex’s hands in both of theirs, and close their eyes.
The rest of the room looks on intently as a breeze seems to come from nowhere, the magic thrumming through the air around them – and Vex gasps as she feels a dark tension lift from her chest, like something’s unhooked from inside her.
The spell finishes, the energy fading. Keyleth and Pike open their eyes, smile, and turn to each other for a high-five.
‘Did it work?’ Vax asks. ‘How do you feel?’
Vex nods. ‘Yes, I think that did the trick. Thank you, Keyleth. Pike.’
Keyleth grins. ‘No problem. Take that, curse!’
Vex sighs, and gets up from the bed. ‘Alright. Thank you all- oh, Percy, darling, you can stop looking through that now. I’m alright.’ She ignores Grog’s chuckle as Percy looks up, his task focus broken, slowly realising that the problem is already solved. ‘Now, please – everyone out.’
Pike nods. ‘Yeah, we should go. You should probably get some sleep.’
Vex snorts. ‘Oh, never mind that. It’s what, three in the afternoon? No. I’m going to get dressed, and then I think we should all go get a drink.’
If anyone disagrees with her plan, they don’t do it anywhere near loudly enough to compete with the cheer from the rest of them.
~oOo~
#critical role#critical role fanfic#vox machina#hotis#vex'ahlia#vax'ildan#scanlan#mine#alcohol mention#emetophobia tw
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The Antithesis of Nobility Part 3
Cullen X Kelandris X Annabel OT3 fic co written by me and @inner-muse
Part 3 of 4 - A VERY dark au centring on the two lady Trevelyan’s being held prisoner. Love is tested to its limit as the torture of Kelandris and Annabel intensifies but can the Inquisition find them before they break?
Links to Part 1, Part 2 and AO3.
Warning: This fic contains violence, explicit torture and extreme angst - this is series is for mature readers only.
--------------
Part 3
Annabel wakes groggily from a dead sleep thanks to the churning rumble in her stomach. Her tongue is stuck to the roof of her mouth and she smacks it in disgust before fully remembering where she is. "Kelandris?" Her first thought is for her love, needing to know she’s alive and also there.
Slumped in her bonds, head lolling, Kelandris twitches at her voice. "'M’ here… How're you doing?" she slurs. "Too much t' hope that you're better than me?"
Annabel snorts in relief to hear her. "Been better..." she mumbles, trying to move but quickly giving up. She can just about make out Kelandris’s silhouette cast by the faint glow of the anchor. "Would be better still... if you didn't take your time to reply like that...you trying to give me a heart attack?" she muffles a laugh in place of tears. A basic defense mechanism she had learnt long ago to help hide wayward emotions.
"Don't see what's so funny... At least you get to lie down."
Distant footsteps mark the return of their tormentors.
On the floor Annabel can practically feel them approach. The door scrapes, unbearably loud, making her winch, squinting she hopes against hope to see the guards boots, maybe with more water? But no, the sight of Sid's distinct heavy leather soles drains all the life from her. Light floods the room as the Lord enters behind with several guards.
Tristan smiles down at them both, bouncing on the balls of his feet. "Hello, ladies. I do hope you've enjoyed your rest. You'll need your strength today..." he chuckles at his own joke as the guards file in. They cut the rope on Annabel's ankles and drag her to her feet, and carefully untie Kelandris to do the same. Kelandris is too stiff and cramped to put up much of a fight, but they keep a tight hold on her anyway. She's vaguely gratified that Tristan seems wary of getting too close.
Annabel hisses with raw pain as her feet touch the ground. Trying to balance on parts that aren't torn is near impossible. When she sees Kelandris hardly fighting back the embers inside her flare, and she elbows the guard holding her. Thrashing, she flings herself forwards as more guards press in. Kicking out her feet leave useless blood smears on their uniforms, while she screams in rage and pain. "Get your hands off her!"
At her shout, Kelandris tosses her hair out of her face and bares her teeth. She struggles harder, sore muscles protesting violently, but to no avail.
The guards haul the pair of them out into the hallway and over to the next room, with occasional punches to knock them off-balance when they get too feisty. This dungeon is much bigger and much better stocked, crammed full of all manner of nefarious equipment. Torchlight flickers over dark wood and jagged metal; the chains dangling from the ceiling cast ominous shadows on walls littered with blood stains.
Annabel's thrashing stops on sight of the cell. It seemed that things could get worse and her natural cheerful disposition was crushed under the weight of sheer dread. "You can't..." she mumbles. The looming pressure is too much and she roars, lashing out. "I am Lady Annabel of House Trevelyan, the Herald of Andraste and I demand you release us at once!"
The guards wrestle her onto one of the tables and strap her down. Arms, legs, chest – when they're done, she can barely squirm. Tristan gives a deranged little giggle. "I can do whatever I want. Who's going to stop me? Your inquisition isn't here. Is Andraste going to smite me down, ‘Herald’? I don't think so." He finishes securing her himself, tightening a strap across her forehead, and stroking her cheek gently, she replies with a snap of her teeth. An empty gesture but all she can manage.
She pulls the new restraints until she’s physically trembling with the effort. The anchor flares, if ever a human had crossed the line into demon surely this was it, yet it crackles but does no good. "The Inquisition will come and they’ll bring the might of the Maker with them! You will curse the whore who gave birth to you once they're through!"
Undeterred Tristan ignores her to watch Kelandris, fighting frantically, straining to get to Annabel – or maybe just to throttle him. One guard staggers away, clutching at a broken nose; another yelps as a flailing knee connects with his groin. Finally, though, they manage to slam her to her knees against a metal crossbar, locking her wrists in place. She twists to look over her shoulder, snarling, but her eyes widen when she meets Annabel's terrified gaze. "Stay strong, love," she croaks, "We will endure this. We will."
Now Annabel is fully immobilised fear rushes up, clenching her chest and every muscle, her eyes dart to Kelandris. "No matter what just know that we win - because he can't break us!"
Sneering, Tristan digs his nails into the burn on her throat. "Weren't you listening, little tramp? I can do whatever I want. Sid!" The other man is standing by another brazier at the side of the room, a lot grander than the last one and housing a small bubbling cauldron.
Sid equips thick gloves while Annabel watches from the corner of her eye. That can't be a good sign. Whatever is in the pot hisses and spits as he lowers a ladle. Carefully, he walks around Kelandris. Her eyes widen in horror when she sees what's coming, and then the torturer dribbles molten oil onto her shoulders to run in patterns down her back.
At the first touch of scalding liquid, Kelandris keens, spine arching. The pain is like a living thing, pulsing as it burrows deep under her flesh. No matter how she writhes, she can't stop it from trickling slowly down, sprouting blisters in its wake… A single drop rolls down her front, between her breasts, leaving a tiny trail of stinging burns; most, though, cascades over the vulnerable expanse of her back. A thin sheen of oil lingers on her skin, holding in the heat. The agony is ceaseless, inescapable, unrelenting; like claws down her spine. And when his ladle is empty, Sid returns to the terrible cauldron, dipping up another boiling spoonful. Maker, no!
She can hear Annabel snarling like a wild beast behind her. The anger and fear in her lover's voice shake her more than the dreadful anticipation. Were they doing something terrible to her, as well? Or was she, herself, the cause of her distress? “Annabel?” she says, hoping both to reassure and be reassured. I can endure this, I can, she wants to add, but when she tries to glance over her shoulder it pulls at her burns, twisting and stretching the abused skin. Another tidal wave of pain crashes over her, and instead all that comes out is a cracked whimper. She sounds desperate, weak, and Maker, she hates it— No. No, I am strong, I must be strong! I will not break!
Annabel is barely holding herself together, rage and terror combining into an entirely new emotion which she cannot name. Bile stings in her throat as her heart hammers loud in her ears, demanding she act. Commanding her to fight. She thrashes, bounds pulled so tight they cut flesh wherever they hold her. "Kelandris! - I...it..." Her quick tongue has deserted her while her breath comes sharp and shallow. "It's going to be fine." She lies. To Kelandris and herself. She lies, because her mind can’t cope with the alternative. "Though all before us is shadow, the Maker will be our guide..." Another bitter lie.
“We shall not— fuck!— not be left to wander th-the drifting roads of the— of the beyond…” The words help steady Kelandris through blinding pain. A second cascade of oil leaves its marks on her back; it was near impossible to get the words out without devolving into wordless yells – but somehow, she completes the verse. It's a triumph, a tiny victory amidst all the horror, achieved only through Annabel's support. Together, they could get through this.
Annabel recites the prayer along with her love, calming her own heart and lungs as she did before battle, loosening muscle groups in turn until she could hear over her pulse once more. She only hoped the familiarity helped Kelandris.
Focusing on the rhythmic cadences of the Chant Kelandris squeezes her eyes shut. Her rekindled thread of defiance flares a little brighter as they speak, despite the ever-increasing agony. They'd be alright. Just as long as she could stay strong, for herself and Annabel. Pain is nothing; pain would pass. Love is everything.
For all her resolve, though, there's only so much her body can endure. She's braced for another dribbling pour, for seemingly endless torment in slow motion. This time, though, the torturer simply flings the contents of the ladle at her. Boiling oil splashes across her chest and shoulders in a sudden, nigh-unbearable onslaught. For a moment, everything else is overwhelmed by pure, unadulterated agony.
Kelandris screams.
That's it. The scream shatters the calm Annabel had been desperately trying to build. Her mind has returned and she shrieks at the Lord. "You have us, and this? this?! is what you choose to do!? No..." she growls, defiant, refusing to believe it. "What do you really want. Our love? Our devotion? I would treat you as a god if you just stop! Please!" She was not above begging, not when it came to those she loved. Nothing came above those she loved. Not being the Herald, not the Inquisition, not the greater good, not even the Maker himself could trump her loved ones.
Hearing her desperate pleas Kelandris squeezed her eyes shut, tears seeping from beneath her eyelids. The frantic edge to Annabel's voice is terrifying. She should never have to debase herself like that, especially not for her.
Tristan scoffs. "And you expect me to believe your sudden change of heart? When you've done nothing but spit and curse and pine over her?" He gestures angrily at Kelandris and begins to pace. "I want you to regret every second you ever spent mooning over each other when you could have had me instead!" He whirls on Annabel. "Tell her you never loved her. Tell her you love me. Tell her you've always loved me, you will always love me, you'll never love anyone else except me!"
“Annabel...” Kelandris slurs, heart aching, “D-don't give in. S'just pain. Doesn't matter how much I scream... still love you, and C-Cullen— just need t' wait for him…”
“I'm sorry,” states Annabel. She lets it hang for a moment, hoping Kelandris knows it’s for her, and that Tristan's delusions let him believe it’s for him. She buries her feelings as deep as she can to keep her voice steady. “Kelandris was just a little fun. An experiment. I never knew you had true feelings for me. If I had known…” she sighs. “Things would’ve been different. I always did like you Lord Tristan, hence the teasing – I guess… I guess I just never knew you felt the same?” She does her best to look at him.
Below her, Kelandris's heart turned to ice. No, she thought. It's pack of lies. She knows that. She knows it. But hearing the words from Annabel's lips… After all these years together. After so much.
A lump rises in Annabel’s throat as her insides squirm, trying to prevent what she knows she must say. “I never loved her, not truly, or Cullen. If you let her go, me and you could start fresh, somewhere new,” she forces her lips into something resembling a light smile.“I'd like that, Tristan. I love you.”
“Annabel!” Kelandris chokes, feeling like her frozen heart has been ripped from her chest. Her lover had caved, had broken, and it was all her fault. Never blame yourself for what that little shit does, she'd said, but how could she not? Annabel was giving in for her sake. She'd failed her. If she hadn't screamed— if she'd just been strong enough—
Tears have formed in Annabel's eyes and begin seeping down her face. "Just, please, let her go," she begs. Nothing else mattered. He had given her a chance to save her love and she would take it. She would bleed it for all it was worth, for the smidge of hope it presented. Pride was long gone, erased by the overwhelming need to have Kelandris free, happy, safe.
Tristan smiles slowly, coming back over to brush a thumb tenderly across Annabel’s cheek, wiping away a tear. "There, there, my dear," he croons. "I knew you'd see sense eventually." He glances at Kelandris. "Does that make you jealous, Lady Kelandris? Not so enamored of your little slut, now, are you?"
Silence.
Kelandris doesn't trust herself to speak – if she opens her mouth, she'll start begging for Annabel's forgiveness. Take it back, she'd say, We'll be alright, I'll be alright, let me bear this for you, please, I'll do better this time… She's quiet for long enough to raise Tristan’s suspicions. His eyes narrow, nails digging unconsciously into Annabel's face. "I asked you a question, Kelandris."
She wrestles with herself for a few heartbeats, until despair hardens into fury. And then, “I love her,” she says, quiet as death. “I love her more than anything or anyone in this world except for Cullen, and I love him more than anything or anyone else except Annabel. So you can go BURN IN THE MAKER'S FIRE, YOU FUCKING SHIT!” The sudden roar tears at her throat and reverberates around the room.
"Kelandris!" Annabel snaps aggressively, before the echo even fades. It might have been the first time she’s ever raised her voice to her. “Give it up! He wants me…” The next words lodge in her throat, stuck behind a sob. She forces them pass her lips with tears streaming down her face. “...And I want him.” Once she's said those ugly words, though, her eyes dart to Kelandris, burning with love she couldn't fake before returning to him. “Please… now just let her go, let us start again.”
He has no chance to respond, Kelandris is already yelling again. “Tristan, you despicable mewling quim!” Annabel's rebuke had struck her like a lash, but she would rather die than see her lover forced to submit to such a worm. “You can't have her! I don't care what you do to me, if you want to rip my fucking flesh from my bones, I will shove my broken fingers down your throat and suffocate you with your own blighted liver before I let you take her from me!!”
Tristan had observed Annabel carefully as she spoke, his expression flickering from suspicion, through anger and smugness, before finally settling on an ugly sneer as he rounds on Kelandris. “Ripping your flesh from your bones?” He repeats icily. “That can be arranged. And as for you, you sniveling bitch—” he pins Annabel with a furious glare. “You will pay for your lies. If you think I will let the two of you play me again, you’re sorely mistaken.”
Eyes widen as Annabel realises all too late her efforts have failed. She’d degraded herself, she’d spoken the most horrific lies she could imagine and it hadn’t been enough. All her words had done was made things worse. Bitterly she curses herself. How many times had she be warned her mouth would land her in trouble someday? How many times had she scoffed in reply? Would she never learn? It didn’t matter, she realises heavily, she had let Kelandris down, nothing else mattered.
“You’ll never understand,” she mutters, feeling foolish for daring to hope he might. “Our love is unbreakable and you’ll never experience that, because you're not worthy of it,” she says, her voice snide and bitter. Whatever hope residing in her faltered in the wake of despair which now swept through.
Sid moves around the back of Kelandris, in his usual grim silence, uncoiling a leather whip. He cracks in the air by her head, testing it and tormenting her; both women flinch. Blessed Andraste, that was going to hurt. Without ceremony, he snaps it across the blisters of her back.
Broken skin tears away in a brutal stripe; to say it's painful would be like provoking a High Dragon and calling it an inconvenience. For a moment, Kelandris can hardly breathe – and yet, she does not scream. She bites straight through her lower lip, choking on an unvoiced cry and a mouthful of blood… but she will not scream again.
The sound of the whip is enough to make Annabel jolt and curl her toes. She would sell her soul to a demon if it would end this… but there never seemed to be one around when you needed it. “Kelandris—” she cuts herself off. What could she possibly say? What if she just made things worse?
Between strikes, Kelandris whimpers, shaking her head violently at Annabel – if she opens her mouth to speak, she knows her tenuous control will shatter.
Annabel could not bare it. Unable to escape she shuts her eyes tight and turns inward, to happier times, and slowly an idea forms. “We’ll wake, either side of Cullen, panting from this nightmare. He’ll stroke our hair, the way he does, even though his own curls have fallen loose. Eyes full of concern, he’ll tell us it's ok, it was just a bad dream. We—”
Her words are cut off by the whip lashing down again, followed by a desperate sob. Annabel flinches, but continues her litany undaunted. “We will snuggle closer, arms wrapped over each other, warm and peaceful. I’ll tenderly kiss your lips and tell you I’m sorry, I don't know what I was thinking. Cullen will chuckle that I'm apologising for a dream and kiss us on the forehead…”
Another terrible crack. Annabel's voice wavers, tears streaming from behind closed eyes, far beyond caring about showing weakness. “...Warm and soft, I will pepper you with kisses, ignoring the roll of his eyes as he lays back with a sigh. I will whisper my devotion to you, to him, to no one else. You will wipe away my tears and I will squeeze your hand. I will joke we should’ve known it was a dream when I shouted at you – as if I ever could!” She chokes back a stifled laugh that's more like a sob. “And the three of us will pray: though all before me is darkness, I will not be left to wonder—”
Tristan interrupts her stream of comforting words with a snarled “Enough!” He’s staring at Annabel, fists curling and uncurling, practically green with envy. "Leave her," he barks at Sid. "I want to shut this whore up." Kelandris twitches at that, letting out a strangled noise of protest. Better the torment be hers than Annabel's...
A jolt of fear opens Annabel's eyes and sets her heart racing, but, stubborn as a druffalo, she sneers. “Fuck you!”
Tristan smiles nastily. "I wouldn't waste your breath if I were you. It will be in rather short supply soon." Behind him, Sid has coiled up his whip and stalked across to the counter again, busing himself with something unseen that makes a sloshing sound.
The noise is new and unwelcome. "What—" Annabel's words are cut off abruptly, as a dripping cloth lands on her face with a wet smack. Spluttering, she tries to shake her head, but her restraints make it impossible, suddenly panic begins clawing up her throat.
Kelandris has sunk deep into a haze of agony, but her lover falling silent mid-sentence is alarming enough to rouse her. Unclenching her jaw with a whine, she rasps, "Annabel?" There's no answer from behind her, just the splatter of falling water. Heart pounding, she wrenches her head around to look, despite the pain. Sid is standing over her love, slowly emptying a jug of water over her face... "Annabel!" Kelandris cries out again in anguish.
Water floods down Annabel’s throat, filling her empty stomach. Within moments she begins to gag, spluttering on bile and water. She writhes against the bonds, panic consuming her. There’s no air! Her lungs demand she breathe, but she can't. Every nerve inside her screams. Overwhelming primal instinct sends her body into frantic spasms. Her heart runs wild, pounding blood resounding in her head – she has to to hold on! Her chest heaves as she coughs, throwing liquid out only for it to be forced back in. Her lungs burn as she chokes, retching; the world darkens, fading to black around the edges, until she finally goes still, unconscious.
When Kelandris hears Tristan snap, "Don't kill her, you fool!" she slams hard enough against her manacles that something goes snap in her wrist. The horrible sounds she'd been making— Blessed Andraste, please let her be alright!
Sid lifts the cloth from Annabel and punches her in the stomach, winding her hard enough to force the water from her saturated lungs. Coming to she throws up water in a violent gush. Nothing has ever felt sweeter than her first drag of air. Coughing she spits out even more, her lungs jagged but grateful.
She’s only given a few seconds of respite before Sid covers her airways again. Annabel slams her mouth shut this time and tears at the bindings. Squirming her face she wishes she could close her nostrils, but she can't and water stings as it trickles in.
Terror grips her core once more. Gagging, coughing, struggling, she thrashes, pulling muscles and breaking skin. She can't breathe and nothing else exists. A voice in her head is screaming - she must breathe! The demand resounds in her skull, until finally she can't resist any longer – but her desperate gasp brings water instead of air. The way her lungs burn, it may as well have been fire.
When Annabel starts to choke in earnest, they remove the cloth. Tristan strokes her arm soothingly while Kelandris flinches as she sputters, whispering her name once again. "Maker, though darkness comes upon me, I shall embrace the light..." she grasps at another verse of the Chant, hoping desperately that her love will hear and be comforted, the way she herself had been.
Tristan casts her an annoyed look before easily talking over the weary mumble: "Nothing to say, Annabel? Now you see the price of your lies..."
Annabel's throat is raw, pain radiating from deep in her clenched chest, still retching, eyes watering as consciousness struggles to return. She can faintly hear Kelandris and the familiarity brings a degree of comfort. She can barely speak but knows her love must be worried, she must say something. Tristan is looking at her, almost adoringly; she manages two croaky syllables. "Fuck...you..."
He huffs, sickeningly soft expression instantly turning hard. "I think we've heard enough from you, slut." He grabs the wet rag and stuffs it roughly in her mouth. She protests as much as her restraints allow, not that it does any good. She stares Tristan down with seething look so cold it could kill, though her streaming eyes diminish the effect.
He glances at Kelandris, smirking at the bloody welts and blisters coating her back. "I'll let you enjoy the quiet. Leave the lying harlot with some entertainment, won't you, Sid?" said Tristan before he sweeps out of the room.
Sid looks between them, considering, then grabs a pot and hangs it from one of the dangling chains above Annabel which she carefully watches with dread. He empties another jug of water into it, where it promptly starts beading from a crack in the bottom. He adjusts it until drops land squarely on her face and then follows his master out.
The first drip of water jars her with panic, her lungs greedily sucking air in response. Maker not again. Her mind whirls, threatening to spiral into panic, but it's merely an annoying drip. Frowning, she sets about trying to loosen the gag. After considerable effort she manages to shove the rag out of her mouth. Immediately, she sucks in a ragged breath, deeper than she ever knew possible. Every drip on her face makes her flinch, still, but at least she can breathe properly, now. Once her chest is calm enough, she hoarsely calls out, "Kelandris?"
Her lover jerks in surprise, then hisses in pain. "Love?"
Relief floods Annabel. "Praise the Maker—" her body cuts her off with a wracking cough. "I… I'm so sorry..." she whimpers. She tugs against the restraints, only bringing fresh pain – she needs to hold her, to look her in the eyes and make sure she knows the truth. "I saw a chance…" she murmurs. "I tried… I'm so sorry— I love you. I had to try..."
Kelandris swallows, struggling with tears of her own. She's so exhausted, and she hurts so much... Never do that again, she wants to say, to beg: Please, I love you so much, I would bear anything to never hear you renounce me again... It would be so easy to just let go, to let Annabel comfort her. The thought fills her with self-loathing – her lover was in far too much distress already; she would never forgive herself for adding to her burdens like that. So instead she shoves aside her pain, locking it away with all the rest. She couldn't afford to be weak anymore.
"I know," she mumbles instead, "I love you too."
The words ease Annabel’s guilt a little. The dripping is becoming increasingly aggravating but at least it washes the tears away. She is exhausted to her very core, she has torn muscles she didn’t know she had and has ripped open the bloodied ribbons of her feet. After an extended silence there is only one question on her weary mind. "You will forgive me, won't you? I had to try..."
The only acceptable answer to that question is 'Yes, of course,’ but Kelandris can’t force it past her lips. Not without some sort of reassurance. Not with ‘I never loved her, not truly’ still bouncing around inside her head.
"I... I want to, I will, but I need a promise— I can't stand to hear that again. I know you were just protecting me, but I c-can't— I'd rather take the torture—" She bites her tongue to stop the flow of words. It seemed she wasn't strong enough to reassure Annabel properly, after all.
"You know I would never...could never... mean those things I said. I love you and Cullen more than anything. I would do anything...that’s the point. You have to understand - I had to! What choice did I have?!" Annabel demands.
"I know! And I know it hurts to watch me suffer... But you have to trust me when I say I can bear the pain! What I can't bear— even knowing it's lies, is to hear you talk like that. Promise me you won't do it again. Please." She closes her eyes, tears leaving tracks down her face.
Annabel's eyes sting with the effort of new tears. "He might have let you go..." even as she mumbles it she knows it’s stupid and wrong. As if he ever would. "... I lied for you Kelandris! I'd tell a thousand lies to save you...I'd...."
She’d heard the strain in Kelandris tone and bitterly realises she is trying just as hard to convince herself as her love. Two parts of her lunge and lash out, ripping chunks from each other and almost tearing her clean through. Truthfully she would say the worst things imaginable and degrade herself further still if it might save Kelandris. Equally she couldn’t bare to be the one to hurt her.
"I'm sorry. I shouldn't ask; if I wasn't so s-selfish..." Kelandris whimpers.
“No, don't be sorry! It’s my fault for being fucking stupid, grasping at anything that looks like hope...I promise. I won't fall for it again. I won't hurt you like that again - I won't say those things ever again."
"Not stupid! Never stupid..." Kelandris can feel herself losing consciousness as her injuries catch up with her. "Thank you... S'alright. Love you. Will always... forgive you..."
"I love you too. I'll make it up to you, when we get outta here," Annabel murmurs. "I always do." Kelandris is silent. She can just barely make her out, slumped in her chains with blood running down her back – passed out from pain and exhaustion. Annabel's eyes flutter closed as well, only to snap back open as another wretched drop plops down onto her nose. It takes far too long for oblivion to finally claim her.
Skyhold
“We found them,” Leliana said without preamble, stalking into the war room. There was no need to ask who she meant. “They're alive.”
Cullen relaxed for the first time in days. “Thank the Maker!” he exclaimed. At the sight of the spymistress’s bleak expression, though, he sobered, his burgeoning smile fading before it began. Trepidation replaced his relief, settling cold and heavy in the pit of his stomach. “...But?”
“There's no way to say this kindly,” she began, shadowed eyes hard beneath her hood. Bracing himself, Cullen nodded, and she gave voice to his worst nightmare. “They're being tortured.”
He heard Josephine gasp, but it was distant, barely audible over the pounding of his heart and the echo of phantom screams in his ears. No. No! Someone said his name. There was a bang; he realized he'd punched the table when his hand started throbbing.
“Where?” He grated. His voice was harsh in his throat. He didn't like that voice – it was the way he spoke on the bad nights, when he woke up from dreams of blood, tasting bile and demon ichor, shouting Kill them! at the top of his lungs— He shook his head, violently, as if he could dislodge the memories from inside his skull, and forced himself to take a breath. Falling apart wouldn't help. He tried again, a little steadier. “Where are they?”
“A hunting lodge in the foothills of eastern Orlais. My agent got close enough to eavesdrop on a patrol, but it was too well-guarded to infiltrate alone. With a few more scouts, though—”
“I'm going.” He would hear no alternative. He glared from Leliana to Josephine and back in open challenge, daring them to question him. The spymistress hesitated, drawing a breath as if to speak, but Josephine stepped in before she could do so, dark eyes flinty.
“If there were ever a time for excessive force, Leliana, I believe this is it.”
She acquiesced without complaint. Ambassador and Commander exchanged a tense nod of understanding, and the three advisors bent over the map to plan their assault.
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Thank you for reading - Is it dark enough yet? Likes/comments and reblogs welcome although we know its not for everyone!
#The Antithesis of Nobility#part 3#cullen x annabel x kelandris#dark au#co writing#me and inner muse#torture#violence#angst#swearing
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Umbra - Chapter One
(cross posted on Ao3, under contrequirose)
“When a child is born unto a union and comes into this world, that child’s soul forms itself out of the fabric of our plane and creates for itself a vessel, a solid form of the dust that we all come from. This vessel, of course, is a daemon, a daemon like every sentient creature on this plane has alongside them in their life..." - Seanor Wiles, Daemons & Dust.
They don't have a good grasp on what's happening, here. The beacons, the portals, the gates and politics and lies. They don't know what they're doing, they don't know what the portals mean, and they sure as hell don't know what's happening. Not at all.
What they do know, is that they and their daemons are going to get out of this alive, even if they have to drag themselves and each other kicking and screaming out of the darkness and into the light.
The Lavish Chateau - while, lavish, as the name implied, was not exactly his first choice for a studying location.
To be fair, he hadn’t been able to study and transcribe spells in a calm environment since those precious hours he and Frumpkin had managed to gather in the Cobalt Soul’s libraries in Zadash, as hard-won as that opportunity had ended up being.
But here - it would be fine, because this room is quiet (relatively, because he can still hear the bustle of carts on the streets outside and the movement of cutlery and dishes downstairs, but nowhere is ever truly silent when a person is as hyper-attuned to noise as he is), and the floor that he’s spread his books and papers on is convenient, and the cushion he’s stolen from the couch is comfortable enough.
Would be is the important operator, here, because the presence of Jester’s dog, larger now than he was before they had departed on their impromptu pirate journey, is more of a hindrance than the boon Jester would take it for.
It’s not that he hates dogs.
(Maybe - maybe that, but only a little bit.)
He doesn’t hate Nugget, at least, but the dog is loud and annoying, because he wants to be played with, and there is only so much attention he can ask his daemon to indulge the fey dog in before he grows annoyed with him as well.
Frumpkin - he looks up, to check, and is greeted with the sight of his daemon, claws bared, balancing precariously on top of the dogs back, a frantic stream of sylvan pouring out of his mouth.
“If you drop me, I swear - Nugget, do not blink, this is important -” his daemon says, and he muffles a chuckle behind his palm at - whatever is happening, over there. He’s not sure he understands what, not yet, but Frumpkin doesn’t seem too put out.
With Frumpkin keeping Nugget at bay, it makes it easier to concentrate and lose himself in the repetition of copying spells into his books, ink forming sigils and glyphs with a steady hand, neat in contrast to his scrawled handwriting detailing the somatic and material components to the side.
The others had left two hours ago, and he hasn’t gotten as much work done as he would have liked.
His own fault, not the dog’s, but even Frumpkin’s attempt to entertain him failed to keep Nugget from continually creeping up behind him and drooling on top of his head.
He’s sure that his hair looks a right mess, to match the general disarray and scruffiness of the rest of him.
The pages continue to blur into each other as he writes, pausing only to wring out the cramps in his hand before re-dipping his pen and continuing, transmutation and evocation spells stumbling out of his memory and onto the pages of his spellbook.
Caduceus pops in at some point with Clohria perched precariously on his head, mentioning a tower and dinner and “You should eat, Caleb, really -” but he just shoos him away, too busy focusing to spare the concentration or energy required to interact with the others.
He has those sustenance pearls he took from the happy fun ball, and that’s more than enough to keep him going.
It’s later, then, after the others have gone to sleep in the rooms that Jester’s mother has granted them and he is in bed with Nott and Cobal, both curled up and purring almost around his knees, that Frumpkin curls in close to his neck and whispers to him.
“The others are planning on going to the tower, tomorrow. They managed to get an appointment, or - a lead up to an appointment? I wasn’t sure. And I’m not honestly sure why we’re going to the tower to begin with, but it should be okay, I think.”
He peeks one eye open to glance down at the tips of his daemon’s ears that he can see, by his collarbone, and narrows it. “Did you catch all that from in the room with me? I did not think dinner conversation was that loud.”
There’s the faint pressure of a paw at his neck. “No, I just went to dinner. The snapper was really good.”
“Mm. Did Jester’s mother notice you there by yourself? We shouldn’t have her be worried about what kinds of people her daughter is making friends with -”
“She didn’t seem bothered. It was fine.” Frumpkin starts up a low purr in his chest, and moves closer. “Besides, it wasn’t that far. Only like thirty, forty feet since I stayed by the door. Nothing extravagant, range wise.”
“Mhm.” He closes his eye again, and sinks into the comfort of the Chateau’s bed linens.
Sleep takes them both.
In the morning, the lot of them are gathered around the table, sharing what fruits and breakfast meats Jester’s mom arranged to be brought up. He ignores most of the conversation, thinking still of the spells that he has left to copy into his books and musing idly about what could have been in the books he left behind in the ball while his friends were facing a dragon, while he had hesitated out of selfishness and a foolishness that had almost led to the demise of his friends, if he had stayed they could have died but if he had stayed he would know more -
“Caleb?” He startles, inwardly, and glances up from his unfocused gaze on the plate of food before them to the rest of the group.
“What - what can we talk about that’s going to get us in that door? Uk’otoa, the dodecahedron - we need a story to get past that fucking goblin man that’s keeping us from getting in, something that his master Yussah Errenis would find valuable -”
He blinks, confused.
“What - is this about the tower?”
Nott flapped a hand at him in a throwaway motion and Cobal bobbed up and down next to her plate. “We talked about this at dinner, you’re up to date. We need a motive!” She gestures with the butter knife to the side of her plate, and Fjord next to her scoots out of range, Tirley hissing slightly from her position around his shoulders.
“I wasn’t - mm. Was - what is the purpose of our going’s there, the one that we aren’t telling him?” He glances around the table, and Beau just shrugs while Jester and Fjord share the same look of excitement.
“I wanna see the inside -” “I’m pretty sure we just think it’s cool,” they both start at the same time, and cut each other off.
Nott scoffs, and leans across the table, standing on the chair a bit so that she’s eye level with him. “I have an actual reason - a powerful mage? With access to magical spells, and books -”
“Are we - are we planning on robbing him blind?” Frumpkin asks, lazily drawing a paw over his ears.
“Maybe he’s really nice and wants to be our best friend.” Jester scritches Sprinkle under his chin.
The conversation sort of - devolves from there, with Beau and Caduceus going back and forth about whether the Blooming Grove’s corruption is more of an emergency that the issue of the attack on the Tri Spires in Zadash.
“There is a war brewing in the Empire, and it is going to spill south, that is not a lie, that is an inevitability, so I feel that we can talk to him, and - trust me, no one in this room is more curious about this tower than I am, but why are we doing this? Are we planning on going there, and slaying this mage, and stealing a book, or make nice conversation, and steal a book - what is our purpose?”
He listens to Fjord’s argument for mentioning Uk’otoa, which is a fair idea.
“I am curious, and Beauregard is correct, that is something that we could legitimately talk about without entirely spilling the beans about ourselves, but I am just curious, and I want to make sure - I’ve talked about calculated risks before, and I don’t want to run willy-nilly towards folly like we’ve done with the boat, I mean - we’re all standing here, but that was foolish.”
Beau nods, chin resting on her propped up arm. “Look, at the end of the day, this guy has access, right? Making him our ally in some way could come in use, even in ways we might not be aware of yet.”
Jester reaches behind Beau, and prods Yasha gently on the arm. Yasha starts, Vrokin’s fur puffing out slightly, and then relaxes, coming back to the conversation.
“What do you think, Yasha?” Sprinkle sits back on her hind paws on Jester’s shoulder and wavers in the air for a moment before falling back down.
Yasha looks tired, he notes, but she answers, “Well, I mean - do what you’re going to do, just - try not to get us killed by a wizard, please?”
Vrokin leans into her leg, and she relaxes into the contact.
He nods in agreement. “We just don’t need to be too pushy.”
Everyone around the table chimes in their respective agreements, and Nott, still practically standing on her chair, sits back down.
“We all have questions, and there’s a lot of unknowns out here,” her daemon starts out slowly, and Cobal ruffles his feathers before jerking his head back towards his person.
“If this person could check off just one of the boxes, then that would be worth it. Maybe we make an ally and he can check off more than one box - tell us about the dodecahedron, maybe -” Nott picks up where her daemon left off.
“Check off a bunch of boxes,” Fjord agrees, and Nott gives him a nod.
Caleb picks at the sleeve of his coat with one hand and makes a fist with the other, thinking probably too deeply about - mages, and trust.
“Ja,” he starts, and the rest of his party turns to look at him, “Well, potentially he could turn us over to people that we are - that we are not interested in being turned over to. But I’m not -” and he ignores the knowing look Beauregard and Joeria are sending his direction, because he had meant the empire as a whole, not just his own scheisse, “-I’m not saying no, let’s just be careful, that’s all.”
Fjord nods, again, and picks at the remnants of the eggs and bacon on his plate.
“Well, this guy is anti-Clovis Concord, so, I don’t know. I don’t think he’s -” and she’s looking at him, again, and he can feel Frumpkin’s fur start to bristle from his position around his shoulders.
Jester, at the moment, has a rare look of worry and seriousness on her face that descends over her good mood.
“I worry that he’s going to do something to you, Caleb, personally -”
“I don’t think so,” he reassures her, and the worry on her face dissipates somewhat.
It’s edging past dawn, now, but the conversation continues as they clear their plates and make the walk to the district that the tower pokes it’s length out of.
The district that this mage has made his home is interesting, in some aspects, in how it seems to be primarily a gathering place for merchants and sell swords avoiding the attentions of the Clovis Concord. Not a place that he would imagine a mage to make their home in, but the aspect of the Open Quay, that it is somewhere the Clovis Concord does not hold sway over, is probably part of its desirability. Although, he guesses, the Clovis Concord may be blocked from the Open Quay because of the presence of the mage.
It’s unclear to him.
The tower itself stretches to encompass his vision as they approach until it’s a massive structure looming right in front of him, taller by far than any of the more ramshackle tents and buildings that start a distance away from the base. No windows, no doors that he can note, but a handful of balconies remain towards the top, with twisted wrought metal standing out from the darker emerald stone that this tower seems to be made of.
It’s a beautiful stone. He should ask Caduceus what it may be later.
Once they reach the base of the tower, Jester finishes whatever she was joking about with Fjord, and knocks briskly on the exposed stones, Fjord taking mock notes as she does so.
They stand there for a second, and Jester nearly deflates before his very eyes with disappointment, before perking back up as they turn to the voice that resonates from above them.
“Can I help you?”
He looks up, and there’s a figure, adorned in dull gold robes, holding a cup of tea in one hand and a saucer in the other.
He loses whatever Fjord and the figure talk about as he studies them. They’re just out of his range to see real details, but he can make out the faint outlines of a longer set of ears and a rather judgmental gaze cutting into the menagerie of their group.
Darker skin, so more likely to be from Gwardan than the elven cities in the north of the Empire. It isn’t enough to make him relax - not here, standing in front of a mage of unknown power, as they about to step into his domain, but it helps settle some of the panic prickling at his spine.
Caduceus is talking about his Grove again, pulling tea out from the pouches that hide in the looser folds of his pants, and he tunes back into the conversation.
The figure - and he’s going to go ahead and assume that this is Yussah Errenis, the mage of this tower - inclines his head towards Caduceus, and that same whispering voice presents itself once again to his ears.
“Choose one, and enter,” he says.
In front of them, a door pushes its way through the stone and lingers there, dark wood and intricately carved vines along the sides.
His friends are muttering amongst themselves again, turned away from Yussah, but he keeps his gaze and attention locked on the mage.
There’s some arguing, some harsher words in Nott’s scratchy voice that he cringes at, internally, that are echoed in Cobal’s harsher tone and countered with Joeria’s disgusted scoff.
He glances down, for a second - the mage is still paying them his full attention - and notices his friends, cluttered in their little clump, talking about the dodecahedron like they are not in full view and observation of this unknown quantity.
Caduceus brushes off his pant legs and heads towards the door, looking back towards Beauregard with his intentions clear. She nods, serious, but looks to Caleb first, and he gazes back, one eyebrow quirked.
“Give me - give me Frumpkin,” she whispers, and he’s already shaking his head before she finishes her sentence.
Frumpkin shakes his head from his perch on his shoulders and Beauregard just scowls at them.
“C’mon, dude -” he keeps shaking his head no, and Joeria bares her teeth just slightly before padding towards the door, Beauregard following after shooting him a glare.
The door closes behind them, and then sinks back into the stone.
Yussah, above them, gives a nod and then he, too, disappears, and they are left standing in front of the tower.
Whatever is happening in there, it’s nothing he can influence from out here.
Fjord and Jester and Nott are all arguing about something, Cobal screeching angrily and Tirley hissing and Sprinkle speaking nearly as loud as Jester herself, but he ignores it in favor of taking out the romance novel he had purchased some time ago and starting to read through it.
Frumpkin reads over his shoulder in their usual position, and he just faintly notices Yasha settling in and sitting on the ground nearer to him then the argument happening, Vrokin curled in a black furred lump in her lap.
He’s halfway through the novel - it’s nothing special, but the descriptions are especially good in this one, the clothing in particular - when the conversation/argument/improvisational theater session Fjord, Jester, and Nott were conducting cuts off, and he closes his book with a sigh.
When he looks up, Nott is glaring at the door that has just reappeared, teeth bared and crossbow cocked, and Fjord has his falchion summoned and is dripping sea water onto the cobblestones.
Caduceus’s head pops out of the door as it peeks open, Clohria perched once again on his head, and gestures for them to come through.
“Our host is aware of our positions and otherwise. I would ask that everyone -” and the glance that he directs towards Nott is not judgmental, per se, but it is a warning, “- try and be respectful of the space. Try not the break anything, steal anything, or otherwise.”
They follow him inside, and he trails at the edge of the group, anxiety once again pushing at the edges of his mind. Frumpkin clings a little tighter to his shoulders.
Inside is - cozy, in a way that he wasn’t necessarily expecting. There’s a set of couches with a small table in the middle, covered in burgundy upholstery, where Yussah and Beauregard are already sitting.
The mage glances over at them, gaze lingering on the others in turn, before he meets Caleb’s eyes.
He breaks the contact, shifting his focus to a spot just to the left of the other man’s face, and pulls his arms behind his back, fingernails biting into the palm of his hand.
Yussah’s daemon is draped over the couch that he is sitting on, and is a massive grey furred wolf that’s nearly black in coloration save for the lighter patches around the muzzle and ears. They stare at the group, and stay motionless on the couch.
Yussah gestures them in, closer, and as they move towards the couches the door shuts on its own behind them.
“Welcome to my chambers.” His head tilts, and he glances once again across the group, eyes sweeping in a wide arc. “Now that we’ve gotten some conversation underway, I would like to know who I am speaking with. You are all - what? Who?”
Beauregard sits up, slightly, Joeria’s ears perking up alongside her, and she nods. “The Mighty Nein.”
Yussah nods. “Very well.”
Caduceus makes a slightly startled noise, to himself, and starts to gesture towards the rest of them, but Yussah cuts him off.
“Don’t - don’t even attempt. You are?”
Fjord stands up straighter and meets the mage’s gaze. “I’m Fjord, and this is Tirley.” His daemon waves her tail a bit from her coiled position around his neck, scales gleaming in the light from the chandelier.
“Beauregard.” “And Jo.” Joeria’s longer legs settle in against the couch at Beauregard’s feet.
“Nott -” “-and Cobal.”
Yussah’s gaze turns to him, and he nods, barely.
“Caleb Widogast. And - Frumpkin.”
“Jester Lavorre, and this is Sprictis, but her name is actually Sprinkle.”
Yasha leans against the wall by the spot that the door would be, arms folded and looking discomfited, Vrokin sitting at her feet.
“Yasha,” she says quietly, “And Vrokin.”
Yussah’s gaze alights back on Caduceus, and the firbolg gives him a slow smile.
“And I’m Caduceus, and this is Clohria. Again, it’s a pleasure.”
Yussah nods. “I am Yussah Errenis, and this is Shione. I am the owner of the Open Quay, and I have been a practitioner of the arcane arts, in seclusion, for over two hundred years. Now, you -” and his gaze once again rakes over their group, and Caleb barely restrains the urge to flinch back, nails sinking deeper into his palm, “- carry with you something that is very dangerous, and I would very much like it to stay here, because the longer it is on your persons, the larger chance there is of you misusing it and destroying yourselves, or it falling into the hands of someone who should not have it.”
Jester leans over the back of the couch, cape brushing the top of Beauregard’s head, and frowns exaggeratedly at the elven man. “We almost died in there.”
“Exactly.”
Caduceus locks his hands together around his tea cup and sighs, still focused exclusively on Yussah. “I would ask, just so that it doesn’t get me into trouble with my compatriots that I convinced that honestly and forthrightness was the best policy -”
Yussah cuts him off, mouth set in a firm line. “Should you wish to come and discuss, or see it, or compare notes on our experiences, you know where it is.”
Caleb misses what Caduceus says after that, because the mage’s daemon is staring directly at him, and the anxiety that he has been pushing down throughout this meeting is starting to bubble at the back of his throat, caution writing itself in the lines of tension that he can feel forming in his body.
Yussah seems to ignore whatever Caduceus is saying as well, because his eyes are firmly set on his face.
“You,” the mage says, and he wraps long slender fingers around the teacup in his lap.
The fingers that were already biting into his palm dig in a little further, the pain anchoring him to this moment and keeping the worst of the panic at bay.
“It looks like within your coat you are holding tomes. Are you a practitioner of the arcane arts, yourself?”
He nods, slowly, and Yussah continues, “Have you the capabilities to transport your compatriots via circles of arcane nature?”
He sinks back on his heels a little bit, considering, and when he speaks his voice masks the panic pressing at his mind.
“Via circles of arcane - teleportation circles, you mean?”
“Yes,” Yussah says, and the mage leans back against the cushions of the couch he is on, one hand reaching out to pet his daemon.
“Not as of yet.”
Nott, across the room from him, glances between him and Yussah and her eyes gleam with - something.
“But he learns very fast!” She throws a hand towards him, and he bites back the grimace that threatens to cross his features.
“I may, perhaps, have something like that, but at the very least I do keep such a circle, reserved for the select friends I keep.”
Curiosity burns in front of the panic, for a moment, and he grabs it with both hands. “Here in your home?”
“Yes. So - as part of our trust, of me keeping this sphere, you would be granted the capabilities, once you are able, to return here with your friends. You would have an anchor on the coast, and you would be under my.”
Yussah stops to consider something, his head tilted, before continuing on, “My protection when you arrive. Does that seem like a fair trade, those who seek friends and allies?” His voice is faintly amused.
His friends voice their agreements, around him, and he tunes back out of the conversation, mind still locked on the teleportation circle. If they had that - it is a while yet before he can cast that spell, pages upon pages of papers and inks that he needs to prepare, but it would be a ticket out of the hairy situations that they seem to bumble their way into, a way to visit Jester’s mother and continue to avoid involving themselves with this war.
When he focuses back in, a question on the tip of his tongue, Yussah has the happy fun ball in his hands, and he watches as it disappears into the folds of his robe.
“You have some knowledge of where that leads?”
The elf nods. “And the mage it once belonged to.”
“You know him personally?”
Yussah’s eyes narrow, just slightly, but his face remains impassive.
“No, not personally, but there are few in my circles that have not heard of his exploits in the past.”
Sprinkle, on Jester’s shoulder, chimes in, “Was he a bad guy or a good guy?”
Yussah spares him a glance, and says, “At a certain level of arcane practitioning, morality becomes a bit ambiguous, but to the common man, I would say probably not a very team player.”
He would agree with that, based on prior experience.
Power tends to corrupt people, as unavoidable as the tide creeping in, and magic is no outlier to that truth.
Yussah calls him, “Sad One,” and he barely blinks, because it is truth that he doesn’t have it in him to deny.
They discuss they dodecahedron, around him, and he puts in his two coppers from time to time, as his friends angle for power that they don’t understand and tread closer to danger then they realize.
Nothing that Yussah tells them confirms anything, only reinforcing what they already knew, which is that it is something they do not and will not understand at this venture.
Eventually, Yussah sets down his tea cup on the table and stands, his daemon slinking off the couch and standing at his feet, reaching his waist at the shoulder.
When he gestures for him to follow, he does so, and pushes down again the panic that flared like banked coals at being alone with this mage.
The stairs are darker, dimly lit, and continue up for a flight and then two and then three, curling up in a spiral around whatever other rooms form the middle of the tower.
Yussah leads him into a door, back into the center chamber, and when the door closes he is left in darkness.
The room is cold and silent and pitch black, no windows, no light from the crack under the door, and no sound except for the slightly ragged edges of his own breathing and Yussah’s paced breath somewhere in front of him.
A moment later, a bright blue rune erupts into light above his head, and the chamber glows, illuminating the runic circle that forks its way across the floor.
Teleportation circles require a year of continuous casting to be made permanent, and it speaks to Yussah’s strength as a mage of his arcane status to have one within his own home that he has inscribed himself.
He takes in the sigils and rune script within the center with a careful eye, storing them in his memory as he makes a slow circle around the runes. If he memorizes those, the key to this circle, he can teleport here once he manages the transcription of the spell into his book and has the power for it.
It is - a great gift, an expression of trust that he finds suspicious, coming from this mage who owes them nothing and to whom they have barely told anything that he did not already know.
When he finishes memorizing the runes - a minute and six seconds later, exactly, Yussah is staring at him and Frumpkin, a considering expression across his brow.
“A quick learner. Where did you train?” His voice is calm, steady, but in his mind it’s accusative and harsh, a question that he is duty bound to respond to.
Frumpkin’s claws prick the skin of his shoulder as his daemon shudders, and he struggles to keep his mind present in this moment, in this tower with blue bright light and a mage that he neither knows nor understands.
“Mostly on my own, to be honest. For years,” he lies, and his fingers rub against the rougher material of his coat cuffs within his sleeve.
Yussah gives him an approving glance.
He swallows down bile in the back of his throat, and continues, “It was not - It was not my intention to bother you here. My friends are very curious.”
“That they are.”
“It was fairly obvious, to me, that this building - this building was owned by someone of great skill.”
Yussah tilts his head, and the daemon at his side mirrors the motion, ears pressed back along their skull.
“It is designed to keep people like you out, but sometimes, tenacity makes for - interesting breakfast conversations.”
Yussah’s daemon blinks their eyes at him, the blue light catching the glints of gold in their eyes.
“If I may ask - Beauregard asked you to send your daemon in, alongside her and Caduceus. Would that not have stretched the boundaries of your range?”
His voice stays light, but his eyes narrow, pressing into him.
Frumpkin’s claws dig in a little deeper to his shoulder. He welcomes the pain.
He keeps his gaze in turn focused on the circle on the floor. “We have - a long range, proportionally, than the others do, and I am capable of four-eye. It is a useful skill, and one that my friends have come to rely much too heavily on.”
Yussah hums in the back of his throat.
“You had no way of knowing if this tower was just the outward appearance, and the rooms within were a demi-plane. If she had taken your daemon in, you may very well have died from the separation.”
“That would be - that would be why I refused. I actually thought it was a - a very bad idea to come here.”
Yussah looks amused, almost. “It was. But - you came anyway, and look where you are.”
“I sometimes follow my friends places that I shouldn't.”
“That might one day get you killed. Or may one day get you what you seek.”
“Well, my apologies on my group’s presumptuousness. I hope - that we haven’t made a grave error, here today, and if we haven’t, I hope to earn that trust that you have mentioned.”
Yussah inclines his head. “I’ve lived quite a long while, in comparison to you, and the only reason that I have lived this long is I have made allies. I followed them into sometimes stupid, unnecessary circumstances. Many of them died helping me. Many of them I outlived. But I would not be where I am today if I didn’t at least trust in the power of others.”
His hands are shaking, just slightly, the faint echoes of pain from his arms pulling and feeding on his anxiety before fading into the background pain of his stretched daemon bond, constant and thrumming and hurting. He blinks, and manages to get out, “That’s good advice.”
He misses what the elven mage says next, too busy pressing his nails into the skin of his palm while his daemon’s claws continue to prick into his shoulder, points of pain that wash away the half-remembered past in favor of the present.
“I’m sure you have much to do today.” He manages, and blinks, turning his gaze back towards Yussah.
The mage nods, and with nary a gesture or a word the light in the room goes dark, and he feels for the wall with shaking hands before making a cautious descent down the staircase.
His group is still downstairs, sitting once again on the couches and enjoying whatever biscuits Yussah had summoned before taking him upstairs. He takes one, on his way out, and his friends follow behind him.
It tastes like streusel, buttery crumb and spices that he hasn’t tasted in over a decade.
The others, once outside, press him for answers that he does not have.
Outside of that tower, away from the darkness and runes and knowing gaze of that mage, is anxiety fades to its usual background thrum and Frumpkin’s claws stop pressing so fiercely into the skin of his shoulder and neck.
It’s hard to even get the words out, amidst their prodding and poking, but he manages to convey how lucky they are not to be dead and that is enough for him.
They walk back towards Jester’s home, making plans to travel towards Felderwin - he is glad that they are heading there because he knows Nott is worried about it, even if she claims not to be - and they agree on another day in Nicodranas, to give Jester more time with her mother and the rest of them time to gather themselves before setting once again on the road back to the empire.
In the back of the group, he pulls Beauregard closer, and snaps his fingers so that Frumpkin appears of the ground in front of him, ignoring the stretching pain of his daemon bond as he does so.
“Just for - for the future, Beauregard. He said two, not three, and while Frumpkin is not - not typical, for a daemon, he is still a daemon and still easily noticed as such. That was not a good idea - but I didn’t mean to hurt your feelings.”
Beauregard looks down, and kicks at a rock in the road. She doesn’t meet his gaze when she looks up again, and he’s thankful for it. He’s had enough of eye contact for the day.
“Caleb - I didn’t lie to him. Not - not really, anyway, so believe what you want.” She and Joeria walk faster, to the front of the group near Jester and Sprinkle, and he stares at them as they walk away.
That night is filled mostly with him spending as much time as possible transcribing spells and his companions around him preparing for the longer journey.
When they leave in the morning, Jester’s mother steps out of the Chateau to say goodbye, long furred and enormous black leopard daemon staying cautiously by her side and flinching back from anyone who comes to close. She threatens them to keep Jester safe, and they all promise.
The road back to the empire in uneventful, beyond the scrutiny at the gates, and they ride in the cart, taking turns between sitting and walking alongside it, daemons clinging to shoulders and backs or taking the moment to feel the dirt beneath their paws and feet and scales. It’s eight days to reach Trostenwald, eight days of clear weather and cooler skies, of giving the romance novel that he finished to Jester and watching Nott refine oil in the back of the cart.
One of the nights, two days after Jester had sent a message to Beauregard’s mentor and received on in turn, he borrows Beauregard and leads her away from camp a bit, Frumpkin padding at his heels.
He grabs her shoulder, the movement familiar and comforting, and continues to look past her at the woods around them.
“I was - very brusque, in Nicodranas, with you. I - we are sorry. I felt very exposed with that man.”
Beauregard huffed, deep in her chest, and Joeria comes and settles around her feet, touching noses with Frumpkin for a moment.
“With a man like Yussah - if he wanted to find us - not me, but the rest of you and your daemons, he will, and I do not know nearly enough about him to trust his allegiances or his motives or his words. Neither did you - none of us did.”
Beauregard's face twists, and he plows on, words dropping like flies out of his throat.
“Beauregard - there are people who would flay me like a cat if they could get their hands on me, so -”
“Did he say something to you, something about your past, when you were alone with him?”
“I - no.” His brow furrows. “But he was hard to read.”
Her gaze is calculating. “You think he saw you?”
“I do not know, Beauregard, and I don’t - I don’t like not knowing. I like traveling with you people, and I don’t want to take unnecessary risks, so. I’m not telling you what to do - I would never do that, believe me, Beauregard, but for me to stay here, to stay with you people I can’t keep poking my head above obscurity because someone will see me and find me and cave in my skull, or my daemons skull, or your skulls because you were simply with me and there -”
His voice grows fainter as he rambles, a slightly rocking starting as he fingers his coat cuffs and the anxiety that he’s been suppressing since that meeting comes rocketing into the front of him mind.
“That - that man in Rexxentrum, he would spread my entrails on the floor if he could get his hands on me, and I have factored that fact into how I live and hide and present myself for five years. I look over my shoulder because I fear that, and I fear now - I fear how close you all are, how close you are to him through me. And I want you to understand, Beauregard - I don’t people very well, It’s been a long time since I had a lot of practice, but I need to be careful and if we can’t do that then I need to leave.”
Joeria places a paw on Frumpkin’s back and glances between the both of them, long muzzle frowning in her canine manner. “Do you have to go, or do you want to go. Because that’s what I’m hearing here, that you don’t understand that we are your friends! We are here, we are trying to help you, willing to help you -”
He glares at the coyote and Beauregard both. “That is beside the point - if I care for any of you at all, and that man in the north knows where you are, he knows he can get me. If he finds us, if he finds me, you will burn alongside me.”
Beauregard places her hand against where he’s braced himself on her shoulder and shrugs off his hands, placing her own on his shoulders. “Caleb - unfortunately, you don’t get to choose who cares for you. That’s not a choice you get to make.”
He groans, because that isn’t - “That isn’t - Beauregard, we are talking around each other. That is not the point that I am arguing - I am saying that if we are going to be here, if we are staying together and close and friends, we need to be careful.”
“Caleb, we can’t do anything without talking to people, without putting ourselves out there. We can be careful, but Caleb - I don’t like not knowing just as much as you do, but in order to know things we have to break away from being just careful.”
He swipes a hand over his face. “Just - persons like that one in that tower.”
“I thought you would be excited. I thought - Caduceus and I, we did a good job. I thought you would be so fucking stoked about this gods damn tower -”
His mind is running circles around his words, because she doesn’t understand and he doesn’t understand how to make her understand how dangerous that was, how things could have gone so poorly in that tower, how they could have all died if he had done the wrong thing or blinked the wrong way, how Ikithon would burn them all to get to him and his daemon -
“You know - in the, in the abstract, I was, Beauregard. But the problem with friends is that you have to care about them.”
He breaks from Beauregard’s hands on his shoulders and wanders away, turning from her and her daemon, Frumpkin padding silently at his side.
He ignores Beauregard’s shouting behind him, and just keeps walking.
Once he’s enough of a distance away to not entirely wake his friends, the entire campsite of sleeping peoples and daemons alike, he screams to a tree, anxiety and panic and terror seeping out of his mouth and into the world, and then walks back to camp, sets his dome and his wire, and falls asleep.
Trostenwald is the same as it was last time, minus the undead problem, and they don’t even stay for a full day before making another two day’s journey to Alfield.
In Alfield, Bryce is there, harried but still welcoming, his daemon directing the soldiers around them with flaps of their brightly colored wings. The news of the attack on Felderwin is concerning and makes Nott draw in on herself, worry clouding her features, her daemon’s feathers clasped tight to his body.
Felderwin is another three days travel from Alfield, and the closer they get the more Righteous Brand soldiers they see. Even closer, they start coming up on farms, fields burned and raked the ground, families whose livelihoods were torn asunder by the attack. The town itself is chock full of military patrols, wandering with purpose amongst buildings charred and blackened, rubble and ruin. Nott leads them towards somewhere in town - he assumes where her alchemist friend lived, when she knew him, although he doesn’t understand really how she knows where he had lived so closely.
He’s worried about Nott. She’s been quiet this ride from Alfield to here, drinking more and more, and in the cart now is veering towards being drunk, regardless of the time of day -
The flash of blue that he catches out of the corner of his eye has his breath stuttering in his chest, and he sinks lower in the cart as he watches an older elven man blur into existence near another elven woman, both adorned in terrifyingly familiar robes and faces.
Lady Vess DeRogna walks arm in arm with Martinet De’leth, her swan daemon making his way in the air above them next to De’leth’s snowy owl.
His friends are staring at him, concern crossing their faces, but he gestures for them to keep going, and slowly, ever so slowly, they pull away from the two elves and head around a corner.
He lies down in the cart, and clutches Frumpkin to his chest, and tries not to have a panic attack in front of his friends.
It doesn’t make sense for either of those two to be here. If this had been an attack on - Zadash, maybe, or Rexxentrum, certainly, but not Felderwin, not this farming town. It’s unlikely that De’leth is even here in person, given his duties to the king, but Lady DeRogna - why?
Why are two members of the assembly here, why are they investigating, are they looking for someone - looking for more Krynn operatives, looking for trouble, looking for him, maybe -
He calms his breathing and stares up at the gray sky as the cart rattles its way through the streets of Felderwin, Beauregard staring at him with an unreadable expression.
(Though, to be fair, most of her expressions are unreadable to him. It’s not something he’s great at, even at the best of times, and Joeria shows more emotion than Beauregard does on a regular basis, and Joeria is a coyote. So - partially his fault, partially Beauregard’s tendency to under-emote, partially the fact that’s both of them are skilled in hiding their own emotions and do it maybe a little too well.)
Felderwin is larger by far than Alfield, larger than Trostenwald, even, but it’s still not the largest town. Within half an hour of entering the edges of the town, half an hour of passing by intact homes and broken homes alike, they’ve come to a stop in front of a building that Nott had pointed out, a pair of crownsguard a short distance away.
The building itself is wrecked. Burnt nearly to the ground, only the skeleton of a few walls and furniture remaining, and for a long moment Nott just stares at it, motionless.
She takes a swig of her flask and strides forwards, digging through the rubble with clawed hands, and they follow behind.
#critical role fanfiction#astrological arcanum#hey folks im excited can you tell#can you see#oh BOY#this is a long one#probably going to be at least a 100k this one and a lot as well for the sequel#but its cool#all good#im doing this im making this happen#umbra
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