prompt: spider takes the bullet, not neteyam. quaritch will do anything to get his son back, anything. he'll even work with augustine's recom.
(warnings for discussions of past torture and character death, although really an astonishingly gen ending to this magnificent journey)
ao3
"They won't help you," he says. "You know that, right?"
Augustine stares at him, face studiously blank the way it used to get during long board meetings. He can see her tail twitching, though, ears flickering like she's trying to ward off a nonexistent fly.
Behind her, farther down the bloodstained rock, Mo'at'ite hisses, knuckles white around her bow (that bow, that fuckingbow, but Quaritch won't look at it, anymore than he'll look at the body at Augustine's feet). She and Sully both have their weapons drawn, but Quaritch isn't the slow target he was in the AMP anymore and Augustine's standing tall, fucking up their sightlines.
"Kiri," Sully says, voice taut. "You gotta get out of the way, babygirl--"
Quaritch barks a laugh, the ragged kind that comes when you're teetering on the edge of hysteria. "Babygirl? You shitting me?" He shakes his head. "Come the fuck on, doc. The Augustine I know would've put out her cigarette on any man who tried that shit with her."
"She isn't Grace," Sully says hoarsely. "Kiri, stand down now. That's an order."
Quaritch doesn't even dignify that shit with a response, just rolls his eyes (easier to avoid looking at the ground, at the body). Augustine doesn't seem particularly moved either, her fingers flexing as she adjusts her stance.
She could kill him, Quaritch knows, without any help from her so-called mommy and daddy. He can feel the power crackling in the air around her, buzzing around her fists, blood-metallic on his tongue. It makes his kuru ache, same way it had in the woods--back then, he'd been too focused on Spider Spider Spider to really pay attention.
He knows better, now. He'd seen what she'd done to Lyle after Sully's voice has crackled over the line, sharp and cold and still shaking ever so slightly: your boy's dead, one of your dumb fucking grunts shot him. Let my daughters go, or you're next. Sully's always been a shit liar, but it was the panicked look at Lyle's face that made it impossible to deny.
Fucking Lyle. He's lucky the way Augustine turned his brain to slurry when she did, before Quaritch could get his hands on him. Lucky he doesn't have to fucking stand here and not look at the thing on the ground, the thing, the body--
"You think they'll even let you bury him?" he asks. "The locals won't stand to have this shit in their holy grounds--they'll probably give him back to Spellman so he can get dumped in a fucking crematorium. You'll never see your Monkey Boy again."
The pipsqueak with the eyebrows, tail lashing. "Don't you talk to her--" he growls, but Augustine cuts him off.
"I'll never see him either way." Her voice is hoarse--Quaritch remembers the way she screamed on the ship, like something had been torn loose in her and would never be put right. He knows that feeling.
"Kiri," the older boy says, the one Lyle had screamed something about trying to shoot instead as his blood ran out of his eyes. "Kir, please, come on--"
"We've got his memories," Quaritch cuts him off fast, can't let her get swayed by her fake family now. "At Bridgehead, we--we scanned them. Got a copy." If they're still there; they better be still there. The kid had thrown a shitfit in the scanner like every time before, but he'd still gone into the revamped Soul Drive with the rest of them.
"You hurt him." There's blood dripping from the tips of her fingers; he wonders if Sully and the rest have realized it's not hers.
"I did," Quaritch admits, because he doesn't have any time to fuck around. "Whatever you want to call me, whatever I've done, you're right. But I want him back, you understand? I mean it, you know I do."
She does. He can feel this fucking eyes of hers burn into him, bright with whatever wacky upgrades she got from her own trip through the other side, flaying him deeply enough she can see Spider Socorro's name written on her heart, same way it's written on hers. Kid's always had that fucking way about him.
"I want him back and none of these assholes will help, none of them could if they fucking wanted to, but I can." Quaritch takes a step forward and the Sullys tense, knuckles white on their weapons. "And you--you've got the know-how, you're the egghead I need in my corner. You brought yourself back, didn't you?"
"She didn't--" Sully whines.
"Didn't she?" Quaritch doesn't bother looking at him, keeps his eyes firmly on Augustine as he holds out a hand. She looks at it, then at him, those little flashy lights twinkling across her skin like she's rebooting. Remembering.
"I offered you a chance to make amends and work on this moon together, once." She knows what he's talking about, he can see it. "You told me to go stick my dick in a woodchipper, and you were right. But I don't care about that anymore, I don't give a fuck about this stupid mudball we're on or the stupid mud ball we're from, I just want my son."
His gaze flicks to her family, just for a second, then back to her. "They don't see anything about you except the meatsuit, same way those RDA pukes did with me. And they don't see anything about--" His breath catches, twists, "him, except that he's a big fucking mistake, and they'll do everything they can to forget he ever existed."
Silence. Her jaw works and he wonders if she wishes she had a cigarette right now--seeing her without one feels more jarring than the baby face or the blue skin.
"Kiri," the little girl whines, reaching out before the Metkayina girl carefully tugs her back. "Kiri, please."
Augustine's hair rustles with a wind that doesn't exist and her fists curls tight at her side, fingers trembling. Quaritch wonders if she's going to burn him like she burned Lyle, or maybe just call up something big and toothy to rip him apart.
And she might have, if Sully hadn't decided to lunge across the island in a few big, stupid strides, clapping his hand down her shoulder. "Kiri," he gasps, tugging her back. "Come on--"
Her eyes flare (panic anger fear, quick and smashed-up the way it always came with her) and she whirls, queue crackling, palms raised high. Sully goes staggering backward with a yelp, clutching his bleeding nose, and Mo'at'ite lunges to catch him before his head hits the rock. Augustine watches him topple, stunned still, gaping in horror.
Then she moves. Turns and scoops the...body up from the ground, cradling it (him) carefully to her chest even as she hustles down the rock. No vocalization, but her banshee swoops down from the sky, landing with a whomp of wings next to Cupcake, and she's hauling the body (Spider) onto the saddle before Quaritch's got his first leg up Cupcake's side.
"Kir!" Pipsqueak yells, rushing to their side, frantic. "Kir, wait, don't--"
She holds out a hand and he jerks to a half, from his own volition or hers it's hard to say. "Look after them," she says, and then Quaritch is fitting his own queue home, not that Cupcake needs more encouragement to go go go as they soar into the sky.
They go swoop out over the smoldering sea, Augustine's hair--Spider's hair--whipped gently by the wind. Quaritch glances over his shoulder to see the Sullys vanishing, a scatter of blue dots rapidly fading from view.
"They won't follow us," Augustine calls flatly. "Their ikran won't listen until we're out of range." She shoots him a cold look, hand resting on his son's spine--Quaritch doubts he's getting near that body any time soon, but that doesn't matter, he'll make it not matter. "Lead the way, Ranger Rick."
"Yes, ma'am," he says, just to be an asshole, tossing off a snide salute before leaning into the next turn. She bares her teeth the way the kid used and follows, banshees swerving together to meet the rising sun.
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🐝💕 I wish you would write … a drarry yoi crossover AU 😭😭😭⛸⛸💍💍
omg MOSE so if i did this, i think it would a muggle au and even though i know nothing about skating i think itd go a little bit like this:
-draco, russian ice skater extraordinaire, has been skating since he could walk. he has more medals than friends and consistently breaks his own records, and he’s a media darling because of how young and talented and pretty he is. sure, he’s also a little cold to fans and doesnt seem to know how to actually do human interaction, but what does matter when he’s the best? right?
-harry is an upstart skater from england who started competing later than he should have (due to intense anxiety), but despite this he skates so beautifully that he’s turning heads. his deepest secret is that seeing draco on tv at junior worlds is what made him actually start to compete in the first place– he admires draco. he wants to be better than draco. harry is surrounded by friends and family who support him, but when he wipes out at the grand prix final he decides he’s giving up for good
-enter draco, who watches harry skate the most beuatiful routine he’s ever seen and then fall on national television, and it sparks something in him that he never thought he’d feel. he wants someone else to succeed, because he can see it on harry’s face, how determined harry is. and when draco finally gives himself time to think about himself, he realizes how exhausted he is, how much he longs for something different. and he cannot deny that harry’s dimples and unruly curls make him feel something a bit too close to attraction 👀
-so he shows up to harry’s flat! where harry is wallowing and is like “hello ive given up next season to coach you we start tomorrow. also do you have a bed i can sleep in. or we can share, you know, coach/skater bonding!” meanwhile harry is just staring at him in abject horror and tries to figure out wtf is happening
-a lot of times theyre contentious and harry is so stubborn and draco is too flippant but somehow being around draco works, it makes harry remember his drive to be the best in the first place, and in between hard training sessions and an impossible amount of workouts he finds himself sharing bits of his life with draco, taking him to his favorite greek restaurant in london and over to ron and hermiones for dinner and to the aquarium on their rare day off. and he realizes what draco’s life has been like before, underneath all the glamour and medals– impossibly lonely
-and since harry is stubborn, with draco by his side he wins and wins and keeps winning and draco kisses him, right on the ice like he couldnt help it, when harry is trying to catch his breath from a nearly perfectly executed routine, and everything clicks into place
-and then idk they’re like the best power couple in professional skating and get a big dog ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
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Fully support your desire to cut down on the extras as they're already so long, but as someone who was also looking forward to the sickfic section and is sad to hear it's been taken out, I will simply have to ask you about it instead! First off the discussion of home in the snippet you shared was delicious - when do you think Mav started thinking of the house as 'their' home? And Ice taking Mav to the hospital has a lot of crunch there around how they're seen and how they act in public, especially if Ice was worried and Mav was kind of out of it. Do you think Ice would have taken Mav in to the hospital if he'd really been spiking a fever and decided he needed it? How would he explain themselves? And I suppose a separate, related question: who are their official next of kin/emergency contacts?
the reason i got rid of the sickfic is cause all those questions were answered better elsewhere in the extras ❤️
i was kind of annoyed that the house inconsistently appears to be the property of whomever the plot calls for at the moment -> another reason to cut the sickfic
Yes Ice would take mav to the hospital. it happens elsewhere LOL, maverick is extremely incident-prone
obviously a fun surfing injury with friends != the sickfic’s ice taking “a friend” to the hospital in the middle of the night for dangerous levels of illness-related dehydration… implies familiarity, intimacy above everyone else… the hospital staff would probably assume they’re together, yes, & i don’t think ice would challenge that at all, especially if he had to make sure all the paperwork was filled out right. just not worth the effort. “is there anyone else we should call for mr mitchell?” / “Um no. Just me.” Yeah i took him to the hospital at 4am bc i love him and im worried about him what r u gonna do about it 🤨 violate his hipaa rights? It’s 2009 gay people exist grow up🙄 hospital staff isn’t gonna tell anyone, so who cares
(Luckily for ice in the sickfic he didn’t have to take mav to the hospital)
the point of the sickfic was to establish a precedent for one of them voluntarily taking care of the other who is unable to take care of himself, to set up the parallel of maverick taking care of Ice when he Really gets capital-s Sick. but then i still can’t bring myself to write ice actually being capital-s Sick because i have some weird neurosis where i simply dislike thinking about ice (powerful guy) being helpless or incapacitated or, um, dead. so the mav-sickfic isn’t really relevant anymore because i haven’t written (and never plan on writing, besides that one half-assed one-shot) the corollary ice-sickfic. so the sickfic became the Nixed-fic ❌
And according to this wip wednesday snippet, they are each other’s emergency contacts. don’t ask me how that works or how they figured that out, idk. some stuff you do have to talk about for logistics purposes i guess. which is kind of the point of all the house-related/money-related discussions I’ve written throughout my fics—they Have to talk about the logistics because that’s real life. But they don’t INTERPRET those logistics or assign them a normative value.
for instance debriefing presents (maverick’s) death & taxes as the only two things that ever get them to actually talk to each other lol. logistics become a vessel through which they can talk about their situation without actually talking about it. The state of being each others emergency contacts might be a death-and-taxes discussion—acknowledging permanence without acknowledging permanence
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I wish you would write a fic where the Akatsuki are a host club and [character of your choice] is a passing Haruhi…..
for the "I wish you would write..." ask meme
We have
Pein as a metal-studded prince with an indifferent temper (and a very sad backstory).
Konan is the stiff, correct club secretary who knows everything about everyone.
Kisame is our tall, grim-looking swords guy who is honestly more chill than 70% of the cast.
I know it seems natural that Kisame's smaller "much less intimidating," companion with the sweet tooth should be Itachi, but you should hear me out and let it be Sasori instead. I think the contrast between Kisame and Sasori is actually thematically pretty good. Big guy with massive natural chakra deeply invested in physical arts next to a tiny guy who has interfered with every single "natural" process he can conceptualise to turn his own body into the ship of theseus, you know. Good shit. Moving on.
The twins are not twins and, in fact, aren't even brothers, although a lot of the Host Club's clientele certainly think they are. Itachi and Deidara are both very rich orphans who appear (?) to hate each other (??) and who have also moved in together. (They live with Sasuke! But Madara is Itachi's only remaining adult relative. Oof.) Reasons unclear. Only the maids understand this relationship, and they're not telling. God forbid you pick on Itachi or Deidara where the other one can tell, though: Itachi will rip you a new one about picking on people who are already that pathetic, and Deidara once set a man on fire for provoking Itachi to an asthma attack. If anyone's going to kill Itachi, it's going to be Deidara.
Tobi is the hooded weirdo who shows up in the middle of a scene through a door he just made up and curses people. If you take his mask off and expose his face to the sun he cries. Zetsu follows him holding onto curse accoutrements and mumbling to himself.
Kakuzu is their club manager. Clients typically won't see him unless the plot demands he rise from the ground on a giant steel platform, lifted by a mass of writing tentacles and throbbing chakra monsters. Unlike Host Club's Renge, he does not show up to squeal about his faves and offer a genre-savvy comedy segment. Instead, he appears when he senses someone is making a fiscally unwise choice with club funds. We don't know where he sleeps, or, worse, what he eats.
Hidan is the scion of a late crime lord (lotta orphans in this cast, I see) who died under such grim and mysterious circumstances that a dark cloud hangs over his reputation. He shows up because he's heard Kakuzu is also an eldritch abomination and wants to learn about him. Kakuzu is in the business of managing hosts, though, so if Hidan wants his time he's going to have to work for it. Smile, Hidan.
I'm not sure who the funniest character to bring into this setting would be. Sakura seems like an obvious choice, and who doesn't like insane Sakura centric AUs? But Kakashi could also be fun, I think. He would just not want to be there at all, ever... but if he escapes one of the hosts he's definitely not escaping the rest. (Especially if Kakuzu thinks he owes them money.)
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